WE had intended in our last issue to call attention to the meeting held in Row parish church to commemorate the centenary of the induction of the Rev. Dr John Macleod Campbell, who in 1831 had been deposed for heresy by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, but our space was required for other matter. But as this is a subject of some importance, we think it right that it should not be passed over without comment. A large congregation, including many ministers of all the Presbyterian denominations in the district, were present, says the newspaper report. The occasion was honoured by the presence of the Moderators of the General Assemblies of the Established and United Free Churches—Dr White and Dr Harvey. In the short report of Dr White’s speech which we saw he was careful not to commit himself to the views for which Dr Macleod Campbell had been deposed, nor to condemn the General Assembly for deposing him, but he
described him as “a master in Israel who knew the truth heartwise, and who used the language of the positive conviction.” He was followed by the Rev. Alexander Mackinnon, D.D., who read a paper on Dr Macleod Campbell’s “Theological Teaching and its Permanent Influence.” In reference to Dr White’s characterisation of Campbell as a master in Israel, we would only remark that it depends altogether what Israel he means, and as for Dr Mackinnon’s paper, which we have not seen, and of which we can only judge by the title, we would remark that though Macleod Campbell’s teaching has exercised a great influence over certain theologians, it has nothing of permanency in it.
It has become customary when men have no definite creed themselves to be very charitable to men holding false views, and very bitter and uncharitable towards those who hold definite views. Had Dr Macleod Campbell been a strong defender of a definite atonement, and an advocate of the Reformed doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction, it is questionable if he would be so fondly remembered by our modern theologians. Campbell was deposed for holding a universal doctrine of the atonement. “I hold,” he said, “and teach that Christ died for all men—that the propitiation which He made for sin was for all the sins of all mankind—that those for whom He gave Himself an offering unto God for a sweet-smelling saviour were the children of men without exception and without distinction.” Though he spoke thus he repudiated being termed an Arminian, as in his view Arminianism is pure self-righteousness. The vote in the Assembly was 119 to 6, out of a membership of 300. Much has been written about his fine disposition and the saintliness of his character, and the fine Christian spirit he showed at his trial before his Presbytery and Synod, and finally before the Assembly. But while we have no wish to detract from the praise so unstintedly bestowed upon him for these characteristics, we feel he would have stood much higher in our estimation than he does if, when he broke away from the creedal position of his Church, he had the Christian honesty to renounce his charge, and save the fathers and brethren the trouble of a heresy trial. It is all very well to speak about a fine Christian spirit and shut our eyes to a glaring defect, which, if it does not more than counterbalance, certainly very seriously detracts from it.
But Dr Campbell was not only seriously astray on the extent of the atonement, he was also very seriously
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astray on its nature, as evidenced in his work published in 1856, entitled “The Nature of the Atonement.” He set aside the orthodox doctrine of vicarious satisfaction, and propounded in its place what has been well termed “an eccentric theory of the atonement.” Christ bore our sins on His heart before the Father, so he held, and made a perfect confession of human sin, a confession involving “all the elements of a perfect contrition and repentance, excepting the personal consciousness of sin.” The idea, says one by way of criticism, of a confession made by a perfectly holy being, involving all the elements of a perfect repentance, except the personal consciousness of sin, is certainly absurd enough.
Dr Macleod Campbell continued preaching in Glasgow, and itinerated in Argyllshire, Skye, and Raasay in the Highlands. In 1871 he was met and thanked for his services to the Christian Church by such men as Drs Norman Macleod, John Caird, Story, Walter C. Smith, and Profs. Edward Caird and John Veitch, of Glasgow University. His teaching on the atonement influenced Erskine of Linlathen, and may be traced in the writings of F. D. Maurice and also in the more recent writings of Drs Forsyth and Denney. His influence, though widespread, was not beneficial, and we have no hesitation in saying it will not be permanent.