BY the time this issue is in the hands of many of our readers the Union of the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church will be an accomplished thing. At the beginning of this month, as our readers know, the two largest Presbyterian bodies in Scotland are to be united for better or worse. It is an important event in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland, and has made its appeal, even to the secular press of the country. The man in the street, who has been very indifferent to the long drawn out negotiations, is taking an interest, though it may be but temporary, in one of the most significant movements of our time. For long years negotiations have been proceeding between the representatives of the State Church and the representatives of a strongly Voluntary body. Difficulties have been surmounted, compromises have been made on both sides, and the great day of espousals has come. The Union proceedings are being staged with great impressiveness, and at the time of writing the press indicate that the presence of Royalty will give pomp to the great event. In such a time of ecclesiastical rejoicing we may be asked why we do not join in wishing the United Church every happiness and blessing in her new state? Our answer is that this Union is a compromise, and most compromises are dangerous. Furthermore, the Churches entering into Union were more concerned to effect the Union than conserve the truth. The Established Church has so far cut itself loose from its relation to the Confession of Faith by recent legislation, so that one cannot very well say what a few years will witness. The gradual lessening of the strong tie which bound the Church of Scotland to the Westminster Confession began in 1889 when certain important changes were made in the Formula and Questions. We have already dealt with this subject at considerable length in a series of articles which appeared in the Magazine for 1926 (vol. xxxi). In the new Questions (i.e., 1889) the minister or probationer is asked: “Do you declare the Confession of Faith of this Church to be the Confession of your Faith?” The old Question was: “Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith . . . to be the truths of God contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments? And do you own the whole doctrine therein contained as the confession of your faith?” There is a world of difference between these two questions. In the Formula of 1889 “whole doctrine” is omitted. In 1905 an unexpected opportunity occurred in the ecclesiastical upheaval caused by the House of Lords’ decision in the Free Church Case. The wide-awake ecclesiastical leaders of the Established Church got an Act passed through Parliament, though what business they had with this upheaval is a mystery. The Act of 1889 had given relief to some tender (?) consciences, but for those with supersensitive consciences it was not sufficient. After much Committee work a draft Formula was presented to the Assembly in which the subscriber declared that he accepted the Confession as “the Confession of the Church.” It will be noted that it is no longer as the Confession of his own faith but that of the Church. The next step seriously affecting the Church’s relation to the Confession was the “Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland in matters Spiritual” which were embodied in an Act of Parliament in 1921, and which are now in operation. In these Articles the Church claims the right to declare the sense in which it understands the Confession, to modify forms of expression, to formulate doctrinal statements, and to define the relation of its office-bearers to these standards but in agreement with the Word of God and the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith contained in the Confession of which agreement the Church shall be sole judge. It will thus be seen that the Church of Scotland since 1889 has gradually been loosening the bands that bound her to the Confession, until by the Act of 1921 she is now in a position to make any changes she pleases in the Confession within, it is true, certain limits—but these limits are very, very wide indeed. The door has thus been opened for creed revision, and we may rest assured, without claiming any prophetic gifts, that this work will be proceeded with whenever the new Church gets into working order, for the other partner in the Union has only delayed this work owing to the Union negotiations. It may be argued that the two Churches should be one as they are so like in doctrine and practice. That is an argument we do not purpose to deal with meantime. But, if we may be allowed to express an opinion, we hold that of the two the Church of Scotland has not so extensively welcomed the unbelieving criticism of modern scholarship. There is a manifest lack of spiritual life, taking her all in all, and in some quarters a tendency to Anglicanism, or, if one might designate it, Scoto-Catholicism, but she has not gone in so whole-heartedly for the Higher Criticism as the U.F. Church.
The other partner in the Union is the United Free Church, which is made up of the old Free Church and the United Presbyterian. These two Churches united in 1900, and in 1904 financial disaster befell the former in the loss of their whole property through the famous House of Lords’ Decision. When that crushing blow fell on Principal Rainy and his followers they were stunned, and those who were opposed to their ecclesiastical policy saw in it retributive justice overtaking the men who did their utmost to disestablish and disendow the Church of Scotland, but who were now very thoroughly disendowed themselves. The United Presbyterians were thorough-going Voluntaries almost to a man. The same was true of the overwhelming majority of the Free Church which joined the Union. Their Voluntaryism was a real live thing under the leadership of Principal Rainy, but the Voluntary lamb is to lie down inside the Establishment lion. Time will tell whether the new situation will be quite comfortable for the lion. We have no sympathy with the Minority in the U.F. Church in their ecclesiastical position, but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that they have the best of the argument notwithstanding all that Principal Martin and others may say. The departure from the truth began in the old Free Church days by the too prominent place given to human learning which in its development ended in a virtual deification of scholarship. As a hand maiden in the defence of the truth it is useful, but when it usurps the place of divine truth and arrogantly forgets its limitations and interferes with the work of the Holy Ghost, it is a dangerous thing and, we believe, the ruin of the pre-Union Free Church is in a large measure traceable to this. Our serious quarrel, however, with the United Free Church is the place she has given to the unbelieving scholarship of the day. She is now saturated with that teaching. Her young ministers drink it in in her colleges, and the withering effects of this teaching are already yielding their harvest in Scotland. Her leading ecclesiastics have adopted the higher critical views, and her professoriate are notoriously supporters of it. As believers in God’s Word we cannot wish well to a Union which will only be stronger to propagate what is contrary to God’s Word. Doctrinally the United Free Church, notwithstanding its Declaratory Acts (1876 and 1892), is in a state of flux. Many of its ministers with so-called tender consciences are not satisfied with the liberty they have already attained. They are out to have a new creed, and as already indicated, this work would be already in progress were it not for the Union negotiations. All these are sufficient reasons why we cannot rejoice in the Union of the two great Presbyterian Churches. Again, some of the reasons brought forward by the leading ecclesiastics of the Uniting Churches are not of a kind to appeal to us. It is true that from a worldly standpoint Union is strength, but in the spiritual sphere elements that are antagonistic to the truth, though united, do not make for strength. It has again been said that Christ prayed that His people might be one. That is true, but He never prayed that His people and the unconverted would be one, and to apply Christ’s words to an outward denominational organisation of a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers is not only invalid reasoning but poor exegesis. Christ’s prayer is being fulfilled, not by the union of outward organisations, but in a higher and more spiritual sense. It has been further said that the Union will husband financial resources and will do away with wastage in men and buildings. We heard the same prophecy during the negotiations of the 1900 Union, but the benefits so confidently expected have not materialised, and what guarantee have we that it will be otherwise with this Union? Further, we miss in this Union the spiritual quickening, the inspiring enthusiasm, and that singleness of eye for the glory of God which would consecrate a great movement to the advancement of His kingdom.
When we have said all this we do not mean any of our readers to infer that we hold the view that there is none of the Lord’s people in these Churches. We believe and know there are, but they are where they ought not to be. It has always been a mystery to us how some who went from purer Churches, and made strong professions of orthodoxy, can enter into this Union. But before we say anything more about them we shall await their decision as to whether they will go into the Union or remain without. The ancient oracle still stands, and the wise will give heed to it—”Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid” (Is. viii. 12.)