WE suppose that many of our readers have already seen references in the press to the closing address delivered by Professor Cooper, D.D., as Moderator of the Church of Scotland Assembly, on the subject of Church Union. Its title was “Our Sacred Heritage.” Owing to special pressure on our space last month, we omitted all reference to this address, but we feel that we cannot allow it to pass without some comment and criticism. Professor Cooper has been known for many years as one of the prominent figures among the “High Church” party in the Established Church with partialities for the Church of Rome, and he does not hide his views in this respect in his address from the Moderator’s chair. We do not say that Professor Cooper himself will ever join the Roman Catholic Church—he is probably too old and too well circumstanced where he is, to contemplate such a hazardous step—but by his commendation of her, and his scheme of union, he is doing his best to make it easy for his successors to do so.
At the beginning of his address, he speaks of “the Church of Scotland as part of the Catholic Church.” He appears to delight in the name Catholic, but as far as we can see, he does not entertain the right conception of the true Catholic Church, as embracing the universal body of Christ’s redeemed and spiritual people, found in many communities—he identifies the Catholic Church with an outward organisation, as if membership in a particular communion was equivalent to membership in Christ’s mystical body. This is a Roman Catholic idea. Further, we observe that he gives scant thanks to the Reformation for the “sacred heritage” that has been handed down to us from past generations. He boldly ascribes it all to “the piety and wisdom of the middle ages,” as if, forsooth, because the Reformers were in the darkness of “the middle ages,” when they were first enlightened in the knowledge of the truth, we are, therefore, indebted to “the middle ages,”
for many of the valuable things that have been transmitted. Or perhaps we are too charitable in our construction. His statement may be construed as brushing aside the Reformation altogether, as of little or no value in comparison with the ages before it. We have no doubt that if he would speak wholly his mind, he would call it largely a Deformation. Following up this line of idea, Professor Cooper expresses his desire for the restoration of what is known as “the Christian year,” the various seasons such as Easter, Lent, etc., that are observed in the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches. He also advocates the introduction of “the weekly Eucharist,” the weekly dispensation of the Lord’s Supper, as well as some other rites, by all which things he wishes to bring the Established Church into line with the Episcopal and Roman systems.
Professor Cooper next goes on to assert that there should be no divisions in the Church, and he commends the progress of the union movement between his own body and the United Free Church. But he does not consider it at all proper that union should stop at this; he strongly urges effort to unite with the Scottish Episcopal Church, and after this, with Episcopal and other professedly Reformed Churches outside Scotland. Here again his vision gets larger and more comprehensive still as he proceeds, and he concludes his address with words to the effect that they could not think of omitting from the hope of this extensive union, “the Orthodox Church of the East, or the great Roman Catholic communion of the West.” He praises the latter for its “great educational and charitable work in Scotland,” and while admitting that both the Greek and the Roman Communions have errors, he thanks God that “neither had ever swerved from the great fundamental truths of Christianity.” Such panegyric and white-washing of corrupt bodies by a Presbyterian minister we have seldom met with.
In our concluding remarks, we desire to warn our readers against apparently orthodox expressions that are found in the midst of Professor Cooper’s utterances. In speaking of the healing of divisions, he says:—”Peace must come through the truth—the truth as it was in Jesus—stated, apprehended, grasped with intense realisation of the duties it imposed.” But what is truth in his esteem? That is the question. Romish doctrines and ideas are to him, in our humble judgment, “the truth as it is in Jesus.” He professes to hold strongly by “the great fundamental truths of Christianity.” We believe he means by these principally, if not exclusively, the doctrine of the Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead and the doctrine of the Incarnation of the Eternal Son. These are no doubt great fundamental truths, and it would be well if all professors of Christianity held them, but it is possible to hold all these truths in conjunction with other false opinions which completely nullify their belief. And how is it possible for Dr. Cooper to assert that the Greek and Roman Communions
have “never swerved” from these fundamental truths? Is not there such a thing as a dead creed, and is there not such a thing as making the truth of God of none effect by the traditions of men? The Holy Scripture warns us most solemnly against these evils. Professor Cooper is entirely on the wrong tack. He may be sincere and zealous in his own way—conservative in some things as against “Broad Churchmen” and Rationalists; but he needs, in our opinion, to get his eyes opened to see the vanity of external ritual, human performances, and ornate ecclesiastical buildings, and to see the glory of Christ as the one Saviour of that which was lost. “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in God’s sight.” The Church of Rome is in the strict sense not a Church at all. There “the Man of Sin” reigns, the son of perdition, who is not to be reformed, but to be destroyed by the brightness of Christ’s coming. (See 1 Thess. 2nd chapter). The call is not, “Return to her fellowship,” but “Come out of her, my people that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” (Rev. xviii. 4, 5).