ANTI-UNION TESTIMONY BY FREE PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA.
THE following reply has been sent by the Free Presbyterian Synod of Eastern Australia to a communication from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, inviting them to enter the large United Church that has been recently formed :—
THE SESSION HOUSE,
FREE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
EAST MAITLAND.
THE REVERENDS
JOHN C. McDONALD, M.A., Ex-Moderator.
JAMES. S. LAING, D.D., Clerk.
Presbyterian Church of N.S. Wales.
DEAR BRETHREN,
By appointment of the re-constituted Synod of Eastern Australia, the duty has been laid upon us of conveying the Synod’s reply to the Assembly’s communication of December, 1900, re a proposed union between our respective Churches.
At the outset, we very cordially acknowledge the fraternal tone and spirit of the Assembly’s letter. It is our desire that the reply we have been instructed to make shall be equally Christian and courteous in spirit and matter.
It is with deep regret we have to point out your very inadequate statement and view of the differences between our respective Churches, in so far as may be learned from your communication, and from the remarks of members of Assembly on two occasions when the proposal to approach our Synod was before your Supreme Court. We are willing to believe that, on your part, there was no intention to convey wrong impressions regarding these differences to any who might peruse your letter, or who were present at the diets of Assembly when the matter was considered. It is well within our knowledge that the erroneous views referred to find very wide acceptance, not only in the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, but also among the general community. It is not material to our purpose to enquire how these mistaken ideas have obtained so wide-spread and general acceptance. But we regard the receipt of the Assembly’s letter, and the necessity of replying thereto, as a call in Providence to utilise our reply in the way of re-stating and emphasizing our distinctive principles and position, thereby hoping, in some measure, to correct and remove the wrong impressions that widely obtain.
The circumstances leading up to the formation of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia (of which the re-constituted Synod of Eastern Australia claims to be, now, the only constitutionally-existent Supreme or Governing Court) are doubtless familiar to the senior members of Assembly, and of the Church. But for the sake of the generations that have been born since then, it is needful briefly to recall them. The “Ten Years’ Conflict” between the Civil Courts and the Established Church in Scotland, and which culminated in the “Disruption of 1843,” necessarily and legitimately engaged the attention and interest of Presbyterian Churches in all the dependencies of the empire.
In New South Wales the Governing Court of the Presbyterian Church, known as “the Synod of Australia in connection with the Established Church of Scotland,” after careful deliberation, resolved to approach the General Assemblies of the Established and of the Free Churches in Scotland with a proposal that the Church in New South Wales should occupy a position of neutrality and yet of friendship and communion with both Churches. When the proposal reached the Colonial Committees, and was submitted by them to the General Assemblies of their respective Churches, the proposal was more than scouted and rejected. The evidence is conclusive that in both Assemblies the universal feeling was, that the proposal could not for one moment be entertained. D’Aubigne, the historian of the Reformation, was present in the Free Assembly when the matter came up in the Report of the Colonial Committee, and he describes the proposal as “having been received with shouts of derisive laughter.”
In the final result, both Assemblies instructed their respective officials to convey to the Church in New South Wales the resolution to have no fellowship with it on the terms proposed, and that the Synod of Australia and its members must forthwith determine with which of the Scottish Churches it should resolve to be connected. Apart from these official communications, private letters are in existence from leading ministers in both the Scottish Churches, in which the decision of their respective Supreme Courts is upheld as the only one possible in the circumstances. In one letter from a leading member of the F. C. Colonial Committee to a minister, long deceased, it is very explicitly stated that, in the opinion of the writer, for his correspondent in New South Wales to remain a member of the Synod of Australia, in connection with the Established Church of Scotland, “would be nothing less than a sin against the Church’s “Great Head.”
In 1846, at the first meeting of the Synod of Australia after the receipt of these communications, several ministers and office-bearers—after formally protesting that they were constrained in conscience to withdraw from a Church Court continuing to hold official connection with the Established Church of Scotland and its Erastian position—seceded, and immediately met in another place and constituted themselves a separate denomination under the designation “Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia,” and the Supreme Court thereof as “The Synod of Eastern Australia.” At that time, and on subsequent dates, the said Synod, in a series of deliverances, adopted the “Protest, Declaration, and Claim,” and various other documents and formulæ that had been prepared and accepted by the Free Church of Scotland—as containing and setting forth, as these were then interpreted and understood, the position, principles, and testimony it (the Free Church of Scotland) had taken up in seceding from the Established Church of Scotland—as being, mutatis mutandis, the documents relied on in taking up a separate position in New South Wales. A reference to these documents will clearly establish that, in 1846, the position, both of the Free Church of Scotland and of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, was at once anti-Erastian and anti-Voluntary. The Synod of Australia continued its connection with the Established Church of Scotland, while the Synod of Eastern Australia was immediately recognised and regarded as the Church in Australia holding the principles and testimony of the Free Church of Scotland. It is a matter of history that from 1846 to 1864-5 the Australian Churches, for the most part, drew their ministerial supplies from, and were in many ways assisted by, the respective Scottish Churches with whose positions they were identified. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that, at that time, in the view of both the Home Churches aforementioned, the disruption in New South Wales was an absolute necessity, in view of the divided state of opinion in the Australian Church regarding Erastianism and Voluntaryism.*
* Erastianism is that view of the connection between Church and State which admits that, in return for pecuniary assistance and State recognition, the Civil Power may lawfully claim and exercise jurisdiction in matters Spiritual. Anti-Erastianism, while asserting the duty of the State to support and otherwise recognise the Church of Christ, denies the right of the State to interfere in things Spiritual, which appertain alone to the Church through and in its various judicatories. Voluntaryism denies that the Civil Magistrate has any authority in Spiritual things; and that it is not within his province to legislate as to what is true in religion, or to prescribe any particular Church as a National Church to be recognised or endowed from public funds. Anti-Voluntaryism, while asserting perfect freedom from Civil jurisdiction or interference in matters Spiritual, at the same time declares that the Civil Magistrate may lawfully own, as being in harmony with Scripture, the Doctrinal Creed and Government of the Church; and that it is according to Scripture, and, therefore, his duty, when needful or advisable, to devote of the national resources in assisting the Church. The Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia occupies the anti-Erastian and anti-Voluntary position on the question of Church and State connection, and publicly asserts the same in her formulæ and pulpit teaching, refusing to admit that it is “an open question.”
In the adjoining colony of Victoria, a similar secession took place the following year, although of smaller dimensions. In both colonies, owing to the large influx of population through the discovery of gold, the Free Churches, under the fostering care and assistance of the Home Free Church rapidly increased in numbers and influence. In 1859, a Union movement in Victoria resulted in the setting up of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, made up of all sections of Presbyterians in that colony. In 1856, a majority of the ministers, office-bearers, and congregations in the Victorian Free Church, having adopted a resolution to enter a United Church so soon as the necessary arrangements were completed, a respectable minority protested and reclaimed, and retained the name and testimony of the Victorian Free Church. Among these was the Rev. Arthur Paul, the venerable and respected minister at St. Kilda, who is still in active service. This minority endeavoured to secure the recognition of the Free Church of Scotland as being the Church in Victoria still loyal to Disruption principles and testimony. After long and heated discussions in presbyteries, synods, and assemblies, the General Assembly of 1861 adopted a deliverance, recognising the United Church in Victoria as the body with which it desired to have fellowship. The speeches on that occasion were fully reported, and copies are still accessible. A reference to the speeches of the mover, seconder, and supporters of the motion adopted, very clearly proves that the determining factor in that division was expediency and not principle. The Rev. R. Sutherland, who was a minister in the Victorian (Union) Church, in his “History of Colonial Presbyterianism,” very frankly makes this admission. This decision accentuated the difference between the two Victorian Churches, and also the relation of these to the Home Churches. These bodies still exist side by side, maintaining, practically—the one, the position taken up in 1847; the other, the neutral attitude to Voluntaryism and Erastianism formulated in the “Basis of Union” in 1859.
This decision of the Scottish Free Assembly in 1861 practically determined the attitude of that Church to Colonial Union movements. In no long time thereafter negotiations were entered upon by the several Presbyterian Churches in New South Wales, which led to an incorporating union between them that was finally consummated in 1865. But, in 1864, a minority of the Synod of Eastern Australia protested against the resolution in favour of Union; and reclaimed, retaining the designations “Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia” and “Synod of Eastern Australia.” It may here be noted that the leading protestor in 1864 had been the leading seceder in 1846. A reference to the protest adopted and to the published utterances of leaders on both sides will conclusively establish that the reasons assigned for refusing to enter the Union in 1864-5 were exactly those formulated by the secessionists in 1846. The position of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia remained unaltered.
In a sentence, therefore, it may be said that, in 1846, and again in 1864, the one question distinguishing the respective Churches was their relation to the all-important “Crown Rights of the Lord Jesus Christ over Churches and Nations,” and the place that doctrine occupied in the symbols and formulæ in use among them; and we now desire to declare most explicitly that, so far as this Synod is concerned, it still regards the substantial reasons then advanced for occupying a separate ecclesiastical position as continuing unimpaired and unchanged by any subsequent historical or other developments.
We now proceed to deal with the statement in your letter, that, in the judgment of the Assembly, our refusal to use hymns and instrumental music in public worship is the only substantial difference between the respective churches. It is true that our Church regards the use of hymns and instruments in public worship as being unscriptural and contrary to the Presbyterian standards. Yet, in the light of the foregoing historical narrative, it appears to us inexplicable that a question which, practically, had not arisen, either at the Disruption in 1846 or the Union of 1864-5, and which is not so much as named in any of the contentious literature, or important Church documents of these periods, and which, therefore, could not, and did not, operate as a reason for separation then, should, at this time of day, be urged as the only substantial ground for our occupying a separate position. It has been already said that we do not impute to the writers of the Assembly’s letter any intentional misrepresentation of our position, yet we think your letter suggests the inference that the reasons for Disruption in 1846, and refusal to enter the Union in 1864-5 have either been removed by subsequent legislation in the United Church, or have been abandoned by us; and this inference, which is suggested by the statement in your letter re hymns and instrumental music, is scarcely fair to this synod. The only bearing which the Scripturalness or otherwise, of the use of hymns and instrumental music, has on the question of union, is, that in our judgment, the general use of these in your Church has added to the reasons for our remaining apart.
We crave your forbearance, while we briefly set forth the position occupied by this Church, in relation to various questions affecting doctrine, Church polity, life and work, in which, we believe, that we occupy a somewhat different standing to yours:—
(1) As a Church we are still content to adhere to the “System of Doctrine,”
set forth in the “Confession of Faith” and other “Subordinate Standards,” as being, and as containing, without qualification or evacuation of their contents by Declaratory Acts, the accepted personal confession of faith of all our ministers and office-bearers. The so-called “Higher Criticism,” in its bearing on the Word of God, has no place among us, nor have we seen any substantial reasons for tolerating within our borders teachings and tendencies that, in their effects, are evil, and only evil.
(2) We believe that the Mediatorial Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth is “under law to Christ,”
and to be guided and ordered solely by the teachings of His Holy Word; and, further, that there is an antagonistic Kingdom, the weapons of which are carnal. The Church which we represent has ever carefully sought to ascertain and to follow the mind of the King in all matters connected with the advancement of His Kingdom. This explains the position occupied by our Church toward all carnal methods for raising moneys, or with the view of attracting men and women into the Visible Church. Hitherto, this Church has built its places of worship, manses, etc., and carried on the various departments of Church work solely by the free-will offerings of our people, and has entirely avoided all carnal and sensuous attractions, such as concerts, bazaars, socials, church fairs, et hoc omne genus.
(3) It has ever been strongly held by this Church that the obligations of the Fourth Commandment are binding,
not only on the individual conscience of all professors of religion, but also that it is the duty of all her ministers and office-bearers, by precept and by example, to discountenance the use of Sabbath trains, trams, and other forms of Sabbath desecration, whereby the sanctity of the Lord’s Day is either directly, or indirectly, assailed. Sorrowfully, we have to acknowledge that prevailing loose views at these points have affected the opinions and practice of some within our borders. But hitherto, this Synod and Subordinate Courts, with the members thereof, have, in the pulpit and press, and by personal example, lifted up a testimony against the prevailing lax observance of the Fourth Commandment.
(4) There are other social and public questions,
such as the Law of Divorce, the Marriage of a Deceased Wife’s Sister, and the Coronation Oath, regarding which the views entertained by our Synod are opposed to those held by many within and tolerated within the courts of your Church.
(5) In the judgment of this Synod, all proposals for uniting in common Church fellowship,
Churches holding opposite views in doctrine, discipline, government, or worship, are premature, and out of harmony with the principles and testimony of this Church, as those are founded on the Rule laid down in the Word of God.
On all these considerations we are shut up to the conclusion that we cannot conscientiously unite with the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales, or with the larger Church recently formed.
It yet remains to notice the considerations in favour of union urged in your letter, as arising out of union movements in Scotland and England, and, more recently, in Australia. We frankly admit that “union is in the air,” and that the prevailing sentiment is that doctrinal and other differences between various sections of the Christian Church should be regarded as of insufficient importance to arrest the progress of union. But, at that point in your letter, there are some inferences suggested to which we desire to take exception.
(1) That the views entertained by this Church regarding the lawfulness of national establishments of religion are only believed to be of sufficient importance to keep Churches apart by a mere handful of Presbyterians.
Now, as a matter of fact, the denomination which, prior to October last, was the largest Church in Scotland, and which even now is almost numerically equal to the recently formed United Free Church, holds the establishment principle as the raison d’être of its separate position. Moreover, there are at least three distinct Churches in Scotland: “The Original Secession,” “The Free Presbyterian,” and the (remanent) “Free Church of Scotland,” numbering between them about 150 congregations, that still hold, on the questions of National Establishments of Religion and Voluntaryism, the views asserted by this Church in 1846, and still held by her.
(2) Your letter suggests that, ecclesiastically, after the 31st October, 1900, the Presbyterianism of Scotland,
(with the exception, of course, of “The Established Church”) would be found in one grand United Church. As has been pointed out, “The Original Secession” and “Free Presbyterian” Churches took no part in the Union. But even between the Churches uniting the Union was by no means a complete one. A respectable body of ministers and office-bearers, and a large following among the laity, embracing many men of faith and knowledge, refused to enter the Union, and they are now under the original designation “Free Church of Scotland,” asserting Disruption principles and testimony, and carrying on the work of the Church in a most encouraging manner. It may be added that with regard to the use of hymns and instrumental music, the Confession of Faith, the Higher Criticism, etc., etc., the three last-named Scottish Churches hold similar views to those obtaining in this Church.
We acknowledge that we are “one of the least of the tribes of Israel,” and that the separate position we occupy does not commend itself to the large majority of professing Christians. Nor do we venture to predict what may be in store for our Church and testimony in these lands, nor what may be the relative effects on the coming of Christ’s Spiritual Kingdom in Australia flowing from the positions occupied by our respective Churches; but it is our prayer that in our day and measure grace may be given us, and also to our successors, to be loyal to those doctrines, principles, and testimonies which were the glory of Scottish Presbyterianism for well-nigh three centuries.
In name and by authority of Synod,
(Signed) JOHN S. MACPHERSON, Minister.
” W. N. WILSON, Minister.
” SAMUEL PORTER, Elder.