BY THE REV. WILLIAM MATHESON, ONTARIO, CANADA.
SIR,—As one whose circumstances are peculiar, may you allow me to make a few remarks in your pages in connection with the recent movements of those ministers who have forsaken us? When the Free Church Commission first publicly started the recent union agitation, we were loathe to believe that any ministers of our body had given them the encouragement they claimed. We thought that there was something darksome and even traitorous in the movement, if that were so. To-day we are undeceived. Why, however, do we stand where we do?
Notwithstanding the clear and powerful reply addressed by “Lovers of the truth,” I suppose that the views set forth in Rev. J. R. Mackay’s pamphlet, entitled, “The Free Church and the Free Presbyterian Church,” are held to be the public defence of his recent secession. I would like to touch upon a few matters in it. At the very outset there is an attempted defence of the action of the F.C. Commission of Assembly in originating the union movement. He says, “Some of the most serious matters which the Church of Scotland ever took up had their commencement in the Commission.” He appears to try to prove this startling statement by an example. The example is ridiculous. The question of the Union of England and Scotland surely originated publicly in the Houses of Parliament. The Commission of Assembly did not raise it. When it was raised outside, it then became their bounden duty, according to Constitution, to deal with it. The legality of the action of the F.C. Commission still awaits vindication.
But next I observe that under “B” he writes of the Free Church that there was in 1893 and the Free Church that now is in 1918, declaring, “there is a vast difference between the Churches.” He is referring to the position of the Declaratory Act of 1892. Of course, his purpose is quite clear. When we go on to what he writes under “C,” we find that he says, “The highest law tribunal in the land declared the present Free Church to be the true and lawful Free Church of Scotland.” Again, his purpose is quite clear. But are these statements honest? With one breath he declares the present Free Church to be vastly different from the Free Church that appeared before the highest law tribunal in the land and with the next breath he declares that the Free Church that appeared before the highest law tribunal in the land was the present Free Church. What are we to make of this? But, further, I challenge the statement that the highest law tribunal in the land declared the present Free Church to be the true and lawful Free Church of Scotland in Mr. Mackay’s sense. The question of the constitutional integrity of the Free Church of Scotland, as affected by the passing of the Declaratory Act of 1892, was deliberately evaded by the F.C. counsel. The whole question before the Court was argued as on the ground occupied by the Free Church and by the U.F. Church as at 1900. The Free Church counsel made this very plain.
He then proceeds to commend the Free Church for inviting us to join them in a sort of attempt to blot out the unpleasant history of the Free Church from 1892 onward to 1906. Those are memorable years in the history of the Free Presbyterian Church. If after 1892 anyone came to Scotland desirous of enlisting under the glorious banner of truth, as unfurled in Scotland in 1843, where alone could he find it? Verily, not in the Free Church, but in the F.P. Church of Scotland, and the F.P. Church is not prepared to go back, as invited, to a position that invites a re-enactment of the whole Declaratory Act tragedy. And what did the F.C. stand for in 1900? There was no call for the banner of 1843. That stood unfurled in the F.P. Church. The very agitators for union in both the Free Church and the F.P. Church declare that. They say that the present Free Church is identical with the F.P. Church in doctrine, worship, discipline and government. And what then did the Free Church stand for in 1900? Was not her stand schismatic, for she professed to raise a standard which she admits was already in the field, but which she contemptuously ignored, while she used that standard in the Law Courts to gain the patrimony over which it had a right to wave? The F.C. admittedly had dropped that standard by the passing of the Declaratory Act in 1892, and whatever shelter individual members might have under the dissents entered and recorded, there could be no such thing as any Court of the Church so protected. As an organisation the Free Church was a Declaratory Act Church.
Again, we find under “D,” “The judgment of both Churches as to the right claimed by the majority of the Free Church of 1892 to pass the Declaratory Act into law is one and the same.” This sounds plausible, but is it so? Actions speak louder than words. The F.P. Church plainly allowed the majority the power of changing their creed, but they held that once they changed their creed, whether under any assumed powers in the Barrier Act or supposed to be found elsewhere, they ceased to be the true and lawful F.C. of Scotland. The creed identifies the Church according to the F.P. view of the Constitution. But what is the F.C. view? They surely hold that the majority could change the creed, under whatever assumed powers, but that the Church still remained the true and lawful F.C. of Scotland. Whatever their words may be, this is the language of their actions. They admitted the change of creed in the Declaratory Act of 1892, and yet claimed the property of the true and lawful F.C. of Scotland deliberately, as the Declaratory Act Free Church, point blank refusing to discard this change of creed in the presence of the highest law tribunal in the land.
But what call was there for the F.P. Church in 1893? She had to come into existence to uphold in Scotland the banner dropped by the Free Church, and particularly the foundation doctrine of Scripture as the supreme and infallible standard of the Church of Christ on earth. She was not schismatic. Noble was her birth, and high her calling. Needful was her witness, and strenuous has been her struggle. Not long had the schismatic banner been raised after 1900, when a characteristic professorial appointment was made under it. The evil spirit of rationalistic unbelief revealed itself in the bosom of that Church. At the very fountain of that Church’s life, the poisoned waters flowed. Surely with greater readiness might a teacher, who fell into actual adultery, be confirmed in office after due discipline, than might one who fell into such spiritual uncleanness. Yet we know the Church’s historic severity in the former case. Spurgeon declares it doubtful that any such should ever be restored to office, and to this effect he quotes approvingly Rev. J. Angell James, that great advocate of Christian unity. Certainly he agrees that there should be no thought of restoration until the sincerity of repentance is made as plain and widely known as the fall had been notorious. If Rev. J. R. Mackay would consider the difference between receiving a communicant who fell but brought forth fruit meet for repentance afterwards back into communion and fellowship, and the confirmation of one who fell sadly, in the highest charge in the gift of the Church, and that upon most doubtful and unsatisfactory evidence of repentance, he would be less ready to mention the ugly charge he does—Novatianism.
How under all the circumstances could the F.P. Church hold out her hand to the Free Church for union? The F.P. Church has a good and sufficient reason for her existence. All the elaborate pleading lest the F.P. Church fall into the sin of schism goes for nothing in the light of the facts of the present Free Church’s organisation as a distinct body, of which I have already taken notice.
It is a very noticeable feature of this long essay upon the unity of the visible Church that nowhere are we told just what this unity means. “Unity of the visible Church” has more than one meaning. One time we are given to understand that our Standards hold the unity of the visible Church to be a fact. This is a heartily accepted statement. At another time we have the duty urged upon us of seeking to attain this unity as if, after all, it were not a fact. But one is shocked to read such an awful charge, “If we ourselves do not with (our) doctrine of the nature of the visible Church hold also the complementary doctrine of the unity of the visible Church, we render our baptismal service nonsensical.” What is “the complementary doctrine” which we are to hold under pain of such awful consequences—rendering our baptismal service nonsensical? It is not “our” doctrine but “the” doctrine. Clearly the writer means that it is such a doctrine as binds us to an organic union with the Free Church of Scotland. Now, if our baptismal service be valid, it cannot surely be termed nonsensical. Where is this deliberate statement, then, going to land us? If we hold “the complementary doctrine of the unity of the visible Church,” we are bound to unite with the Free Church. If we don’t unite with the Free Church we don’t hold the required doctrine of the unity of the visible Church, and forthwith our baptismal service is rendered nonsensical, and surely that is invalid. I would call this nonsensical, but that it is too serious and too solemn a matter. What has come over the author of such a statement? He surely did not know or think what he was writing, for the evident force of his words is to unchurch the F.P. Church unless it follow his lead. Surely to pronounce the Free Presbyterian Church baptismal service nonsensical is to unchurch the F.P. Church, and have we not here the party who could so readily threaten the F.P. Church with the charge of the Novatian heresy, falling, so far as his statements go, into the Donatist heresy? Of course, we really think better things of him; but, at all events, we fear not for the validity of our baptismal service.
The need of the F.P. Church is a closer, firmer, more prayerful and more whole-hearted cleaving to and understanding of the Word of God. It is the sword of the Spirit. This is not to be gained by union with the Free Church and consequent condonation of her unfaithfulness to Christ and His Word, during critical days in Scotland, and in the world at large. Let us hold forth the Word, and the power from on high shall descend, and the Word of God will grow and multiply.—Yours, etc., W. M.
ON the tombstone of most who die, it might be written, “Here lies one against his will.” Holy Paul was of another mind. “I have a desire to depart,” says he, “and to be with Christ; which is far better.”—Wm. Gurnall (1680).