By the Rev. J. P. MACQUEEN.
IN view of the recent revived interest, in certain Evangelical circles, in Hyper-Calvinism versus the free offer of the Gospel, it seems appropriate to consider the attitude to this subject of the evangelical and spiritually-minded ministers of the Scottish Highlands before, during, and immediately after the Disruption of 1843. As was naturally to be expected from men who had subscribed the “Westminster Confession of Faith” as the subordinate standard of their faith, and who were in hearty agreement with the Puritans of England, the Covenants of Scotland, and the Evangelical American divines, they were all believers in the free offer of the Gospel as they deemed it warranted by the Word of God. In confirmation of the above statement, it will serve our purpose if we select three outstanding eminently godly Scottish Highland divines as representative of Highland Evangelical theology generally, relative to the period referred to. In this connection, one feels that the names of Rev. Dr. Angus Mackintosh of Tain; his saintly son, Rev. Dr. C. C. Mackintosh of Tain and Dunoon; and the Rev. Dr. MacDonald of Ferintosh, will be sufficient. Though justly distinguished, they are nevertheless representative.
While it has been said of three worthy Ross-shire ministers of pre-Disruption times that they had each his own characteristic excellency, Rev. Hector MacPhail of Resolis being experimental, Rev. Mr. Fraser of Alness being the systematic divine (the author of the admirable work on Sanctification), and Rev. Mr. Porteous of Kilmuir Easter, the great expounder of Scripture, yet Rev. Dr. Angus Mackintosh combined the excellencies of all the three. This is praise indeed, especially in view of the the eminence in godliness and theological attainments of these three. His son, Rev. Dr. Charles C. Mackintosh, speaks of his father in a letter to his mother as “my revered, and saintly, and beloved father.”
Of the Rev. Dr. C. C. Mackintosh himself, Rev. Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall said that of all the Christians he had ever met on life’s journey Dr. Mackintosh was the most practically godly and saintly. Praise from such a source, and in such a measure, is remarkable when it is recalled that Rev. John Kennedy of Redcastle, Dr. Kennedy’s father, was outstandingly eminent for saintliness. “There is not a worthier man than Rev. Dr. C. C. Mackintosh in all Scotland,” said Dr. Chalmers, of Disruption fame, emphatically, on the casual mention of his name at a dinner-table, while Rev. Alexander Stuart of Cromarty, of lofty intellect and godliness, said, “Rev. Dr. C. C. Mackintosh is beyond criticism.” As for Dr. Macdonald of Ferintosh, “the Apostle of the North,” his name and memory are still so revered as to need no commendation here. When it is, therefore, recalled that these great Evangelical theologians and divines were as eminent for piety as they were distinguished for massive intellectual brilliance, academic attainments, and profound theological scholarship, their views on Hyper-Calvinism and the free offer of the Gospel are surely worthy of solemn and serious consideration. When further it is realized that they were representative Scottish Highland Evangelical theologians, as conscientious Bible expositors, whose sole aim and motive were the glory of God in ascertaining the real exact meaning of the Holy Ghost in His Word, it seems bordering on irresponsibility on the part of any present-day Evangelicals to characterise their views on the free offer of the Gospel as un-scriptural.
In view of disparaging references to “duty faith” and “duty repentance” in certain present-day Evangelical circles, here is an extract from a letter by the Rev. Dr. Angus Mackintosh to his son, when the latter was under conviction of sin:—”Now, my dear Charles, your first duty, your great duty, is to receive Christ as your Saviour, as He is offered to you in the Gospel. Do not suppose that you ought to keep aloof from Him till you are better prepared to receive Him. You will never be better than you are till you believe with your heart unto righteousness. It is no presumption to appropriate Him, without a moment’s delay, on the warrant of the free offer and invitation of the Gospel. This is a time in which you ought to be often on your knees, and offering up ejaculatory prayers wherever you are.” The foregoing remarks emphasise the Scriptural freeness of the Gospel offer, without conceding one iota to the false doctrine of free will.
Regarding his son’s feeling of inability to believe, at this stage, leading him to the conclusion, “I can do nothing,” and so bringing him near to despair, he was greatly helped by the perusal of Andrew Fuller’s noble treatise, “The Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation.” Rev. William Taylor, M.A., Stirling, Rev. Dr. C. C. Mackintosh’s biographer, says of Andrew Fuller’s treatise:—”That treatise, written by Fuller when yet a young man, as the fruit of his struggle out of the Hyper-Calvinism amid which he had been bred in the little Baptist Church at Soham, has as its object to refute the perverse inferences which a narrow logic is apt to draw from the doctrines of grace, that God, who creates faith in the sinner’s heart, cannot command him to believe, so as to make it his duty, nor invite him so as to make it his available privilege.” “The reading of that book,” adds Mr. Taylor, “drove Charles Mackintosh out of his self-excusing despair. It convinced him that unbelief was no mere misfortune, but his greatest sin, and this conviction proved, as his father had predicted, the ‘highway of faith and salvation,’ through a joyful appropriation of Christ freely offered in the Gospel.”
Dr. MacDonald of Ferintosh, when assisting Rev. Dr. C. C. Mackintosh during a Communion at Tain, took as his text on the Monday evening, Luke xiii. 24. After he had made one the freest offers of salvation to sinners, and had uttered the words, “Will you not close with Christ?” a heart-rending cry arose from every part of the densely crowded church. While neither Dr. MacDonald nor Dr. Mackintosh encouraged such external manifestations, they nevertheless did not think it warrantable authoritatively to suppress them. These manifestations continued during the whole summer and autumn, and in a report to the General Assembly, at the request of the Presbytery of Aberdeen, Dr. MacDonald described it as a genuine revival of vital godliness. “The preaching of the Word,” he said, “is the grand means which has been employed and blessed.” The external manifestations gradually diminished, but real fruit remained. “The experience which I have had of the revival of vital religion,” said Dr. MacDonald, “though limited and partial, is such as would lead me to long for its continuance, and to pant for its return, as bringing with it the blessed results for which a minister of Christ would desire to live and to die—the conversion of sinners and the increasing consolation and edification of saints.” Sixteen years after, when addressing his congregation at Dunoon on the subject of the Irish revivals, which he had gone to witness, and which he described with much joy and hopefulness, Rev. Dr. C. C. Mackintosh referred to this revival in Ross-shire, declaring it emphatically to have been “a real work of God.”
The foregoing remarks show clearly what Scottish Highland divines, in the best period of the church’s history there, thought of Hyper-Calvinism, with its cold, rigid resemblance to impersonal fatalism, and the warm Scriptural free offer of the Gospel, and it manifests unmistakably that they were in line with the majority of the Puritan divines of England, the Scottish Covenanter, and the American Evangelical divines at their best, while they were as far removed from carnal free-will Arminianism as day is from night, and that also reverential awe and enlightened spiritual conscientiousness characterised their solemn expository approach to the authority of God in His Word. Thus dogmatism, without a Scriptural warrant, is nothing short of intolerant arrogant presumption.