(SECOND LETTER.)
(To the Editor of the F. P. Magazine.)
DEAR SIR,—In a former letter I dealt with some aspects of Union Negotiations past and present, in this I intend to touch on some subjects connected more or less directly with the same matter. But perhaps it might be advisable to treat first of all of an idea that is very current but very open to criticism. The U.P.’s are spoken of as the descendants of the Erskines, the original seceders. Now, the brothers Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, were men held in the highest esteem by the pious people of Scotland in their own time, and ever since their reputation has been green and flourishing. It may serve a useful turn at times for a society to attach themselves to the memory of such men as these, and to derive as much influence as possible from the free unstinted use of their names. To people who do not know better, or who do not look beneath the surface of things, this claim may seem one that is fully warranted. Yet warranted it is not. A general impression prevails that the Erskines were great men in their day, and famous men in their way, and the weight of their names is thus foolishly allowed by many to count in an estimate of the value of U.P. principles as they now are.
Were the Erskines to rise again in Scotland they would not recognise in the U.P.’s their representatives. There is a body in Scotland that does represent them, and that body is the original Secession Synod. Now, the U.P. Synod has for the last fifty years been known as a voluntary church, opposed alike to the principle and the practice of State religious establishments. Such were not the Erskines. Such are not their successors. So far indeed were these worthies from being opposed to a State Church that they pleaded even for a covenanted State, and as far as related to their own grievances their appeal was to the first free, faithful, and reforming Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Again, with regard to the cardinal doctrine of a truly substitutionary atonement as understood by the Original Seceders, the U.P.’s cannot now be said to represent either them or their views. The late minister of Kilmun pleaded that his views on various matters of faith were within the line of legitimate development from the Confession of Faith of the Church of Scotland. When yes and no come to mean the same thing this will be so. So too is the case with the U.P.’s representing the views of the Erskines on the atonement. The Amyraldian view of a double reference in the atonement found its way into Scotland in the seventeenth century, and was countenanced in a way by a man of such unquestioned credit as Fraser of Brea. It was not, however, held by the Marrowmen nor by the Fathers of the Secession Church. In the answers of the Marrowmen to questions put to them this doctrine is expressly repudiated, and such also was the conduct of the early Seceders. At an early period in their history a case of discipline for doctrine came before them. This double reference was the point at issue. They made short work of the case. Mr. Mair, who held this view, was condemned.
Now, a controversy with regard to this very doctrine took place about fifty years ago, or somewhat more, within the borders of the United Secession Synod. Drs. Brown and Balmer, the professors of the Synod, were accused of holding the Amyraldian view that Christ by dying, while He secured salvation for the elect, also really expiated the sins of the reprobates. Discipline in this case was not exercised, yet the matter seemed clearly to be one that called for discipline. So unsatisfied was Dr. Andrew Marshall of Kirkintilloch with the decision in this case that he withdrew from the Synod, and sought for admission into the Free Church with his congregation.
Dr. Marshall had formerly been a prominent opponent of church establishments, yet he did not sympathise with the advancing party in doctrine within the Synod. The treatment he then received from the Free Church showed how the matter of voluntarism was then viewed in the Free Church. The correspondence between Dr. Marshall and Dr. Smyth, clerk of the Free Presbytery of Glasgow, on this matter was published in the Watchword during the union controversy before 1873. Unless Dr. Marshall was prepared to recant his voluntary views he could not be received by the Free Church then. This he was not prepared to do, as he was conscientiously a voluntary, and so he was not admitted.
This however, Mr. Editor, is by the way. What I am now trying to prove is that the modern U.P.’s have neither part nor lot in the testimony of the Erskines, and the boldest defender of U.P. principles would not care to claim the Erskines as either anti-establishment men or holders of the double reference view of Christ’s atonement. Since this is so, and clearly undeniably so, no one need attach any importance to the loudest claim of modern U.P.’s to be the legitimate successors of the first seceders. Let us now pass to consider projects of union.
Does it not seem a strange thing to you in the opposition offered to union with the U.P.’s by a minority in the Free Church that there is nothing now said about the doctrine of the atonement? This was not how the subject was regarded twenty-five years ago. The doctrine of Christ’s Headship over the nations for His Church, and the doctrine of His perfect atonement by dying for the sins of His people, and securing life by His death for those for whom He died were alike strenuously defended by Begg, Martin, Miller, Kennedy, and the rest of the F.C. worthies of that time. These doctrines were in danger in the event of a union. Open questions with regard to them were the point from which danger was to be expected. But open questions seem harmless enough to the professed successors of these worthies. The Declaratory Act of 1892 secured that open questions should be tolerated in the Free Church on all such matters as do not enter into what each successive General Assembly may consider to be the substance of the Reformed Faith set forth in the standards. This, we are persuaded, is the cause of the ominous silence that prevails with regard to the essential doctrine of the atonement. Consistent opposition to union with a body in which lax views on this doctrine are recognised is impossible, as now the Free Church position itself throws the door open to such open questions.
But if this explains the silence of the minority on such a point as the atonement, why should it not also secure silence on their part on the whole matter? This question permits me to remark, what may seem uncharitable, but is not untrue, that nowadays political prepossessions weigh more in determining the action of some of our churchmen than consideration of the spiritual interests at stake. The fact that the régime of open questions holds in the Free Church might silence any murmurings of opposition to union with the U.P.’s on the ground of principle, but men who are in politics conservatively inclined are naturally opposed to anything that plays into the hands of the opposite party. This would account for the appearance of some names in the anti-union ranks that have not distinguished themselves, though they may occupy Moses’ seat, for their faithful resistance to past declensions within their own borders.
The opponents of union cannot be so bold as to affirm that the position of the U.P. Church with regard to the atonement is more satisfactory now than it was thirty years ago. Their silence, however, tells either that they have satisfied themselves as to the justness of the lax views or that their own position is so palpably one with that of the U.P. Church that opposition on such a matter would seem but captious on their part. The doctrine of the atonement in its purity has not lost, as it cannot lose, its central position and its supreme importance.
A remark was made by one of the anti-union speakers at last assembly—a quotation it was from Dr. Begg—to the effect that he would prefer to be in the smallest church with a testimony than in the largest without one. The speaker, however honest he was in recalling such a remark, seems to have been quite unaware of how it cuts at the position he and his friends have occupied for years back now. That remark, however, shows what view the anti-union leaders of former days took of the importance of having a clear and unmistakeable testimony to the fulness of Christ’s truth, and in connection with it let us for a moment look at Mr. Macaskill’s use of Dr. Begg’s name.
Mr. Macaskill quoted statements of Dr. Begg’s in the year 1863, when the negotiations were first entered into by the Free Church. Parties were then but feeling their way, and in such circumstances an open mind is necessary. Negotiations, however, proceeded for some time, and Dr. Begg discovered what he probably knew or at least suspected from the first, that the U.P. testimony was defective and unsatisfactory, and not only so, but also that the U.P.’s were not prepared to remedy its defects and render it satisfactory. Had Mr. Macaskill thought fit to quote Dr. Begg’s late utterances he would have been more straightforward, and the attempt to cover his own retreat from his old position would not have been protected by the use, unwarranted though it was, of Dr. Begg’s name.
The articles of union were not by Dr. Begg regarded as satisfactory. Have the U.P.’s advanced since these articles were drawn up? No, rather by their Declaratory Act of 1879 they have retrenched themselves in the position taken up in these articles, if they have not even gone further away from the form of sound words. If then Dr. Begg was dissatisfied, and justly so, with the articles of agreement, would he be satisfied with the later position? Assuredly not. The use then of his name to justify Mr. Macaskill’s present move is a mere throwing of dust in the eyes of the public. Dr. Begg would certainly never have moved Mr. Macaskill’s rider to Dr. Rainy’s motion in last assembly. For Mr. Macaskill, alike by his motion and his speech in support of it, expressed himself satisfied if his former views are permitted or tolerated in the Union Church. No testimony is to be found here, and so we may fairly conclude that no such motion would have been proposed by Dr. Begg. He was too clear-sighted a man to come on to the quaking morass on to which Mr. Macaskill has ventured. The passing of the Declaratory Act of 1892 would have severed his connection with Dr. Rainy and his followers. In connection with the one matter of the disestablishment resolutions of the F.C. Assembly, Dr. Begg remarked that the majority did not venture to send them down to Presbyteries, “else we would show them what the Barrier Act means.” If he was prepared to show this on the single question of establishments, how much more when under the Barrier Act such a host of open questions were legalised by the Declaratory Act of 1892?
I have now, Mr. Editor, touched on a number of the matters I proposed to deal with, it remains, however, for me to say a word as to the Macaskill-Rainy manœuvre. Some correspondence has appeared in the newspapers on this matter, and an outsider may be allowed to say a word as to its meaning. It seems that the remnant of the constitutional party held a consultation as to what motion they should place before the assembly when the question of union came up to be discussed. A small committee drew up a motion, and this was to be moved by Mr. Macaskill, to be seconded by Mr. Archibald Macneilage. Before the day came Mr. Macaskill submitted his motion to Dr. Rainy for his inspection. Dr. Rainy, naturally wishing to have a unanimous vote of assembly at his back, suggested some slight alterations. With these he was able to accept Mr. Macaskill’s motion as a rider or addition to his own. Thus the shadow of attachment to old positions might be preserved even where the reality was gone. Dr. Rainy’s suggestion was accepted, and thus Mr. Macaskill, while appearing still as a constitutional leader, carried over his forces to the opposite side.
The change made in the motion as originally drafted became known in time to allow Mr. Robertson of Rayne to arrange for a direct counter motion to Dr. Rainy’s, and thus to break the unanimity of the assembly. Mr. Macneilage too discovered the change in time to send word to his leader to find another seconder. Though he did this, however, during the discussion, he supported Mr. Macaskill’s motion as against Mr. Robertson’s. A seconder was found by Mr. Macaskill in one of his more pliable henchmen, Mr. Dingwall of Aultbea, and, we believe, for the first time, Mr. Macaskill carried a majority of assembly with him. That he should do this does not tell of any improvement in the assembly. It tells of marked degeneration in Mr. Macaskill. He is now carrying out his logical position of one that submits to the Declaratory Act and the rule of open questions. Whether he himself is aware of the change that six years have brought about in his policy or not, onlookers see it clearly, and many regret that the position he once took up was ever abandoned by him. His abandonment of it accounts more than any other single thing for the present divided state of the Highlands, and by his temporising policy he has done more harm than he is ever likely to repair. Indeed, if he follows consistently the course he now pursues he will do nothing towards repairing what he has injured, and, at the same time, will effectually throw away any modicum of influence he ever had.
These remarks, Mr. Editor, are neither so clear nor so forcible as I should like to make them. They call attention, however, to some features of present movements worthy of our best attention, and if they succeed in attracting or directing the attention of your readers to the subjects they refer to the writer will feel himself amply repaid.—Yours, &c., J. M.