By Rev. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
RECENTLY a writer in one of the northern papers made the statement with reference to the beginning of the Free Presbyterian movement that the Millhouse congregation did not belong to the Free Presbyterian Church, “for there were no Free Presbyterian Courts until August of that year, when the Presbytery was formed and the Deed of Separation drawn up.” As the Millhouse congregation had publicly renounced the courts of the Declaratory Act Church, this statement would mean that they had unchurched themselves and remained in that position until the Free Presbytery was formed in August and, not only so, but that Mr. Macfarlane himself by renouncing the jurisdiction of the Declaratory Act Church had unchurched himself, and that the Free Presbyterian Church was a new creation called into existence by the Presbytery which was formed in August, thus breaking the continuity of the Free Church of the Disruption, or alternatively, that Mr. Macfarlane was under the Declaratory Act until that Presbytery was formed. Mr. Macfarlane himself was of a different opinion, and often publicly stated and left on record that he was not for even one day under that Act. Personally, we much prefer to take Mr. Macfarlane as our guide than the writer of the letter in question.
The statement quoted above clearly reveals that the writer has but a very hazy idea of the meaning of the term “Church.” In the commission which Christ gave to His disciples after His resurrection He says: “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20). In this commission, He has not said a word about Church courts being so absolutely essential that they would require first to be formed before He would recognise the disciples as a church. Calvin rightly says on this point that “wherever we find the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there, it is not to be doubted, is a Church of God, for this promise can never deceive, ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.'” Institutes (Allen’s Translation), Book IV., i., Section 9. Mr. Macfarlane preached the Gospel and administered the sacraments in his own congregation in Raasay in the interval between the Assembly of 1893 and the forming of the Presbytery in August, showing to the whole world that he and those who associated with him had the marks by which Calvin says the true Church is known. It was quite in order for the members of the Millhouse congregation, and the members of other congregations similarly situated to associate with Mr. Macfarlane’s congregation, as many of them actually did, in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper at that time.
Mr. Macfarlane could have gone on as long as he lived without forming a Presbytery and it would not materially affect his status as a minister, nor that of his associates as members of the Church, but there were other things to be considered. One of the reasons why he renounced the jurisdiction of the Declaratory Act Church was to preserve the continuity of the Free Church and to hand down its distinctive witness to coming generations. In order to do so it was necessary to form Church Courts so as to constitutionally transact any business that required to be attended to. As the pastoral tie between Mr. Macfarlane and Mr. MacDonald, Shieldaig, and their respective congregations was not broken and they both had Sessions who had every right to appoint representative elders to any presbytery that might be formed, the ecclesiastical machinery was set in motion for attending to every kind of church business that fell to their lot. Part of that business was to appoint interim Moderators for such congregations as were deserted by their minister by his remaining under the Declaratory Act, and the licensing of such students as were ready in order to ordain them over vacant congregations. We thus see that all along Mr. Macfarlane and Mr. MacDonald and those who associated with them had the Scriptural marks of the true Church as pointed out by Calvin. They had more for they had Church Courts which though not capable at the beginning of performing all the acts of a Presbyterian Church, were capable of contributing all that was necessary for the setting up of the whole fabric of Presbyterian Church government.
That those who formed the Free Presbyterian Church were perfectly justified in taking up a separate position in 1893 is clear to every unbiased mind, for they did it in order to preserve the preaching of the pure gospel to generations which are yet to come, and who would be deprived of that privilege if no witness had been raised against the Declaratory Act. Be it noted, however, that, while that Church keeps to the pure gospel and to the sacraments as instituted by Christ, it is a solemn and serious matter to break away from it. On this point we may again quote Calvin. “Where the Word is heard with reverence, and the sacraments are not neglected, there we discover, while that is the case, an appearance of the Church, which is liable to no suspicion or uncertainty, of which no one can safely despise the authority or reject the admonitions, or resist the counsels, or slight the censures, much less separate from it and break up its unity. For so highly does the Lord esteem the communion of His Church, that He considers every one as a traitor and apostate from religion, who perversely withdraws himself from any Christian society which preserves the true ministry of the Word and Sacraments. He commands the authority of the Church, in such a manner as to account every violation of it an infringement of his own. For it is not a trivial circumstance, that the Church is called ‘the house of God, the pillar and ground of truth,’ for in these words Paul signifies that in order to keep the truth of God from being lost in the world, the Church is its faithful guardian; because it has been the will of God, by the ministry of the Church, to preserve the pure preaching of His Word, and to manifest Himself as our affectionate Father, while He nourishes us with spiritual food, and provides all things conducive to our salvation. Nor is it small praise, that the Church is chosen and separated by Christ to be His spouse, ‘not having spot or wrinkle,’ to be ‘His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.’ Hence it follows, that a departure from the Church is a renunciation of God and Christ. And such a criminal dissension is so much the more to be avoided; because while we endeavour, as far as lies in our power, to destroy the truth of God, we deserve to be crushed with the most powerful thunders of His wrath. Nor is it possible to imagine a more atrocious crime, than that sacrilegious perfidy, which violates the conjugal relation which the only-begotten Son of God has condescended to form with us.” Calvin’s Institutes, Book IV. i. Section 10.