DR. MACCRIE’S “STATEMENT.”
IN recent times, when so much has been heard of the Establishment Principle, it is interesting to recall that nearly a hundred years ago Dr. MacCrie’s Statement, the ablest exposition in the English language of the principle of national religion, first saw the light. To us, living in these times of ecclesiastical upheavals, it comes as one of the ironies of history to learn that in 1806 the powers that be decided against the advocates of the Established Principle, and handed over the property to their voluntary opponents. The events leading up to the publication of the Statement are soon told. In 1795, the General Associate (Antiburgher) Synod took steps for preparing a new historical and doctrinal testimony. There can be no doubt that the chief reason for this was the change that had taken place in the minds of many as to the legitimacy of the magistrate’s power in religious matters. What was afterwards to develop into the great voluntary controversy was beginning to show itself in the views of the New Light parties of the Secession Churches; and in the light of the later developments it can be safely asserted that it was this incipient voluntaryism that sought the change in the Testimony of the General Associate Synod. This much can be said for the progressive party, that they went about the matter in a leisurely manner, and it took them about nine years to prepare the new Testimony. But when it did appear it was found to contain statements which plainly enough indicated its voluntary drift, and which some of the members of the Synod regarded as at variance with the principles hitherto recognised by the Secession Church as to the lawfulness of the connection between Church and State. The New Light brethren denied that they had broken away from the historical position of the Secession fathers. The new Testimony was approved of by the Synod in 1804, and it was further enacted that it should be a term of ministerial and Christian communion. Six ministers refused to fall in with the new Testimony, viz.:—Messrs. Whytock, Dalkeith; Hog, Kelso; Bruce, Whitburn; Aitken, Kirriemuir; Chalmers, Haddington; and MacCrie, Edinburgh. The former two were soon removed by death, but the others offered a determined opposition. What that opposition cost MacCrie is related at length in his Life. To us, no longer in the heat of the controversy, the sentence passed upon MacCrie, for it is more particularly with him that we are presently concerned, cannot appear anything but cruel. The protesting brethren formed themselves into a Presbytery known as the Constitutional Presbytery, through which the present Original Secession Church traces its ecclesiastical pedigree back to the Secession of 1733; and rightly claims to be the legitimate heir of
the principles for which the Erskines contended. The step of the protesting brethren in forming themselves into a Presbytery might have justified the Synod in passing sentence of suspension upon them, but they went further. The question had been put to the Synod whether it was to be suspension or deposition, and the verdict of the majority was deposition. So “the Synod did, and hereby do in the name and by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, the above King and Head of His Church, depose the said Thomas MacCrie from the office of the holy ministry henceforth in the Church; and in the same name and by the same authority, they did, and hereby do suspend him from all communion with the Church in sealing ordinances, aye, and until he shall give satisfying evidences of his repentance.” MacCrie felt the sentence keenly. “I certainly looked for being suspended,” he said; “I hardly expected they would proceed this length. But what am I that I should be counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.” Then the strong arm of Cæsar was invoked. The case dragged on wearily for years. At last, in March, 1809, the case was decided against MacCrie, but was appealed to the House of Lords. Ultimately, however, an agreement was made whereby MacCrie’s people on receiving a sum of money gave up their rights to the property. One wonders, in the light of recent events, would the House of Lords of nearly a century ago have revoked the Court of Session decision as their successors did a few years ago had opportunity been given to them. In view of all the circumstances, Hugh Miller’s words are by no means too severe when he says:—”He saw his brethren involved in the same general calamity, interdicts, sheriff-officers, legal prosecutions, and even military force called into action against them, and employed, strange to say, in carrying into effect sentences grounded expressly on ecclesiastical censures, and at the instances of enemies to all magisterial interference in things sacred. But error is ever inconsistent, nor is the sum of his sufferings on this occasion yet complete. He heard the jibes of his brethren in the Church re-echoed by the wits at the bar and the judges on the bench; he found himself isolated in the midst of society, shunned even by all the evangelical ministers of Edinburgh as a narrow-minded and obstinate bigot, a man who could bring his wife and family to poverty and contempt rather than abate one jot of his antiquated and metaphysical scruples.” Yet this was the man who a few years later was to be hailed by the literary lights of Edinburgh and especially by Jeffrey as a writer in the very first rank of historians, and who by the publication of his Life of Knox was to raise alike for himself and his great countryman a monument more enduring than brass or marble.
The controversy between the Protesters and the New Light Party produced the usual plethora of polemical literature. Much of it was of an ephemeral kind, but honourable mention may be made of two works that still should be consulted by the student of
ecclesiastical history; viz., Rev. John Turnbull’s Old Light better than the pretended New, and Rev. Prof. Bruce’s Review of the Proceedings of the General Associate Synod. But the work of outstanding merit called forth by the controversy was MacCrie’s “Statement of the Difference between the Profession of the Reformed Church of Scotland, as adopted by Seceders and the Profession contained in the New Testimony and other Acts lately adopted by the General Associate Synod; particularly on the Power of the Civil Magistrates respecting Religion, National Reformation, National Churches, and National Covenants, to which are added Reasons by the Ministers who protested against the above Acts of Synod, for constituting themselves into a separate Presbytery with the Deed of Constitution, etc.” It was first published in April, 1807, and in 1832 an abridged edition was brought out during the heat of the Voluntary Controversy. In 1871 a new edition appeared with preface by the late Dr. Smeaton of the New College, Edinburgh. Dr. Smeaton describes the Statement “as a masterly defence of the principle of establishments as a Scripture truth; and the most complete vindication ever given to the world of the position occupied by the Reformed Church of Scotland on the whole subject of national religion, and of the magistrates’ legitimate power in promoting it.”
MacCrie’s son and biographer informs us that as early as 1800 he devoted himself to a special course of reading, carefully studying the writings of the most famous divines of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His library was stored with the writings of the Dutch and German divines of the seventeenth century. Voetius, Bernard de Moor, Apollonius, Rivet, Vitrina, Gerhard, Walleus and Turretine were his chief favourites, and from these great masters he gathered the materials which were afterwards so carefully made use of in his Statement. The same thoroughness which gave such abiding value to his great biography on Knox, is shown in this, his less known work. The arguments may not convince the reader, taking them separately; but their cumulative evidence is strong, and whatever may be one’s opinion about the principle for which MacCrie is arguing, no one is left in doubt of the fact that he is in the hands of a master.
The work was undertaken at the request of his brethren of the Constitutional Presbyterian. It was at first intended to be the joint production of the Presbytery, but his brethren had so much confidence in him that it was left to himself. The whole work is the composition of MacCrie, with the exception of the chapter on Liberty of Conscience, in the composition of which he had the jottings of Mr. Bruce, of Whitburn. The work fell almost dead from the press, but during the Voluntary Controversy, the younger Dr. MacCrie informs us that “it came into such request that a ransom was offered for a single copy, till a new edition could be procured, containing that part which referred to the connection between Church and State.”
The Statement is divided into nine sections. The questions in dispute between the Protesters and the New Light party are discussed, but in such a way that it is the great principles underlying the points at issue that are referred to, so the Statement, in the words of the younger MacCrie, may be described as “not only a satisfactory exposition of the cause of the Constitutional Presbytery, but a full and scriptural defence of the great principle of the duty of nations, as intimately affecting all their interests, civil and religious.” MacCrie first of all points out the great importance of the subject under discussion, and then proceeds to discuss the question of the change of Church standards. The defections of the New Light party from Reformation and Secession principles are then pointed out, and the legitimate relationship between Church and State is affirmed and supported by arguments. These arguments are drawn from natural principles, the moral law, and the Scriptures (both Old and New Testaments). Finally, objections are dealt with and confuted. The ninth section, which deals with the common objection of liberty of conscience to the principle of national religion, has a certain obscurity, arising from the attempt to discuss such a wide subject in so narrow a compass. This is a very bald outline of one of the classics of our Scottish Presbyterian literature—a work, it may be safely said, read by few, but still deserving of the student’s careful perusal. D. B.