By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
IN an Appendix to a recently published Life of Principal John Macleod, D.D., of the Free Church College, there is a sketch, from the late Principal’s pen, of Mr. Archibald Crawford, Tighnabruaich, under the title of An Argyllshire Worthy. Dr. Macleod, as a former minister of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, at Kames, of which Mr. Crawford was a worthy member, had much intercourse with Mr. Crawford during the last few years of the life of the latter, and has given us many incidents in his life which, otherwise, would have been forgotten, but one part of it is decidedly coloured by the Principal’s own predilections. The book itself, being published by the Free Church Publications Committee, involves them in responsibility for all its statements, including what was written by Principal Macleod during his lifetime, but which he did not see fit to publish.
When referring to the state of matters which followed the passing of the Declaratory Act in the Free Church of Scotland, Dr. Macleod says, “Mr. Crawford knew the Constitution of the Church too well to imagine for a moment that it made provision for such a revolutionary change,” as that men “who had given their pledged word to maintain, assert, and defend the whole doctrine of their Church’s Confession of Faith” could “release themselves to an indefinite extent from the obligations that they had voluntarily undertaken to honour,” and he held that the Free Church in adopting the new legislation embraced in the Declaratory Act “had ceased to be one with the historical Free Church of Scotland.” The late Principal says that this was “on the assumption that all Church legislation passed under the Barrier Act of 1697 affected ipso facto the Constitution of the Church” and that “it did not face the alternative that if such legislation was out of keeping with the Constitution itself, no amount of attempted alteration was anything else than null and void unless the undertaking given at admission to office, which continued to pledge to the whole doctrine of the Confession, was also altered.” He gives Mr. Crawford’s conviction as “that the Subordinate Standards were adopted for the very end of attaining an abiding and unchanging witness,” and that it was “the reproach of Zion that a man should claim the right to abuse the position secured to him to go back on the word that he had given.”
The alternative which Principal Macleod supplies seems to be a ready refuge for all Free Churchmen in order to cover the action of the minority in 1893, when they remained under the Declaratory Act. It is perfectly true that the Constitution of the Free Church, as such, could not be altered by the passing of the Declaratory Act, but the Church’s relation to her own Constitution could, and indeed was, altered by that event. The late Rev. James S. Sinclair, commenting on the view expressed by the Law Lords that there was no provision in the Constitution of the Free Church for the alteration of any of its doctrines or principles, says, “The Church in which this alteration was adopted immediately ceased to be the Free Church as settled in 1843; the Free Presbyterians were, therefore, fully justified in renouncing it; and the terms of this judgment by the House of Lords, instead of condemning the course they took, supply strong confirmation of its logical consistency, and uphold our well-grounded claim to be the Free Church of Scotland in direct historical continuity” (Free Presbyterian Magazine, Vol. IX. 204).
The main purpose of the Declaratory Act, as we read from its preamble, was “to remove difficulties and scruples which have been felt by some in reference to the declaration of belief required from persons who receive licence, or are admitted to office in this Church.” This meant that it was drawn up in order to afford legal scope within the Church to those who were not prepared to accept the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith at their ordination to office, and to protect those who were already within the Church and who held heretical views. The last paragraph of the Act leaves it to the Church to determine what does, or does not, enter into the substance of the Reformed Faith, and thus the Church which accepted the Declaratory Act set up her own authority, instead of the Scriptures, as the Supreme Standard, as to what man is to believe concerning God and the duty which God requires of man. Though the
Questions and Formula were not changed, anyone who wished could answer these questions and sign the formula in the light of what was in the Declaratory Act, and he had the protection of every Court in the Church from the Kirk-session to the General Assembly, and no dissentient against the Act, among the minority, could keep such a one out of office. Not only so, but by the law of the Church, as it now stood, these dissentients could be forced to take their share in the ordination or induction to office of such a person. The only straightforward course for such dissentients would have been to act as Mr. Crawford himself, as quoted by Principal Macleod, states should be done: “The Declaratory Act of 1892 altered the terms on which office was hereafter to be held, and so those who meant to preserve intact the witness of the Church and to adhere to the original terms of office were bound to separate themselves from the party who no longer adhered to the brotherly covenant which had formerly bound the whole body together, and from which they had now departed.”
It was by such a separation that the witness of the Free Church of 1843 was continued in Scotland after the passing of the Declaratory Act of 1892 when those who showed themselves as anti-unionists in 1900 had no separate existence, and when there was no ecclesiastical distinction between them and those to whose “difficulties and scruples” the Declaratory Act afforded the relief which they sought. In other words, after 1893, the witness of the Church of the Disruption was extinguished in Scotland except in the body known as the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The minority which appeared in 1900, in spite of the Relieving Act of 1894, were bound to obey the Courts of the Church in whose communion they were, in anything which required relief to the tender consciences of those who had difficulties and scruples about accepting the terms of the Confession of Faith in the sense in which their forefathers had accepted them.
According to Principal Macleod, Mr. Crawford held that the “wording of the authoritative Deed of Separation failed to safeguard the fixity of doctrinal testimony,” and that no subsequent amendments could now deal effectively with a flaw in the foundation document. It may be remarked that the Deed of Separation was never intended as a document to safeguard the fixity of doctrinal testimony. There was no need for it for that purpose, as the Constitution of the Free Church was as fixed as it possibly could be, and as was proved clearly by the House of Lord’s decision, there was no provision in the Constitution itself by which any of its terms could be altered. It was a document, giving reasons for separating from men who had misunderstood the Constitution of the Free Church and endeavoured to foist upon the Church a fluid Constitution instead of a fixed one; and, in the second place, declaring an unqualified adherence to a Constitution which no man, or body of men, had either the right or the power to alter. The second Presbytery of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, following the first Presbytery which had been constituted in strict accordance with the laws of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, adopted this document and gave it to the world as setting forth, unreservedly, their adherence to the Constitution of the Free Church of Scotland, and why they separated from a body which had adopted another Constitution.
The document on Creed Subscription, adopted by the Synod in 1904, to which Principal Macleod refers, was not drawn up with the view of correcting any fault supposed to be in the Deed of Separation, but was framed with an eye to a matter of which the Free Presbyterian Church afterwards had some very painful experiences, that is, men changing their attitude to the stand made by the Church, and, in order to draw others into their own way of thinking, use all their influence to propagate their newly adopted views, and thus spoil the peace and harmony of congregations. No one knew better than Principal Macleod that this was the end in view in adopting this document, for he was Moderator of Synod when the document was before that Court, and a member of Synod questioned him “as to whether the Resolution on Creed Subscription altered to any extent the Church’s Constitution.” That member was assured, presumably by the Moderator, to whom the question was addressed, “that it added nothing to the constitutional obligations already undertaken by office-bearers, and being simply a re-affirmation of the Church’s present relation to its standards, was in no sense different from other resolutions of Synod” (Free Presbyterian Magazine, Vol. IX. p. 284).
In conclusion, one may say that, whatever was true of Principal Macleod or others who left our Church after making a profession of loyalty to the Cause of Christ, Archibald Crawford had no doubt as to his duty in separating from the Declaratory Act Free Church, for he is quoted in the Free Presbyterian Magazine, Vol. XV. p. 389, as saying, “I have been fighting in the Church for the last thirty years and gained nothing; so I think it is high time to come out of her. There is nothing to be gained now by staying within her pale. Judgment has indeed befallen her, when she was left to pass such a God-dishonouring Act (Declaratory Act of 1892) into a law of the Church.” As he was under no cloud in connection with separating from the Declaratory Act Church, he was under no illusion as to his duty in remaining separate from the present Free Church, for he is mentioned by the late Rev. Neil Cameron in the Reply to Rev. J. R. Mackay’s Pamphlet on Union with the Free Church, of which Mr. Cameron was joint-author, as having said to him that the truth came to his mind as to our duty towards the present Free Church, “Let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them.” These two statements were given to the world, the one forty years ago and the other over thirty years ago, and no one has dared to question them, and we believe that no genuine Free Presbyterian will be carried away with anything said at this time of day that would reflect on the attitude of Mr. Archibald Crawford, or any of the worthies of his generation, to the raising of Christ’s banner in connection with the Free Presbyterian Church.
Let the present generation follow in their footsteps, for there is as much need of it to-day as then, and in following them let grace be sought to carry them through to the end. If, as Principal Macleod assures us, that his judgment was entire, and we have no reason to question it, it is rather strange that, after several years of intimate acquaintance with the contentions of the Free Presbyterian Church, Mr. Crawford should make the mistake of supposing that the Deed of Separation was a document drawn up for the purpose of safeguarding the fixity of doctrinal testimony. No other person who took an active share in the Free Presbyterian movement ever indicated that he held this view attributed to Mr. Crawford,
and we have never seen or heard of the view being attributed to Mr. Crawford himself, except in the sketch under review, which would infer that he never communicated his mind to any of those who were eminent witnesses in the Free Presbyterian Church, and who shared his confidence, at least, equally as much as Principal Macleod. Principal Macleod did not make this matter public during his lifetime, and it has been left to the Publications Committee of a Church which has made repeated attempts to quench the witness of the Free Presbyterian Church, to do so. Because of these matters we are warranted in drawing our own conclusions.
George Wishart.
By the late REV. WILLIAM HANNA, LL.D., Edinburgh.
(November, 1854.)
IN 1543, in one of the Colleges of Cambridge, there was to be seen a tall, dark, bald, long-bearded, comely man, not much if anything above thirty years of age. His dress was always the same. He wore a black fustian doublet, a frieze gown that hung down to his feet, coarse black stockings, and a coarse canvass shirt; while on his head, and somewhat out of keeping with the rest, there was a round French cap, of newest shape and richest materials. It was obviously not poverty that made him dress so; for, the cap excepted, there was no part of his apparel that he did not part with weekly or monthly and give to the poor; and it was noticed too that the coarse new canvass sheets in which he slept, whenever needing to be changed, were in like manner given away. Among the poor the ministrations of his charity were unremitting. Among the students, his aptness to teach, and the varied stores of scholarship that he took such pleasure in communicating, made him one of the most favourite of their tutors; while among all with whom he became familiar, his loving and loveable disposition, coupled with the easy manners of one well born, well read, well travelled, made him one of the most agreeable of companions, and won towards him the tenderest attachment. And yet there was a deep shade of sadness over those comely features, and in his manner a gravity beyond his years; for in his early boyhood he had been brought under the power of the world that is to come, and for the love he bare to his Redeemer he was now an exile in a foreign land. Very little is known of George Wishart’s earlier years. He was a cadet of the family of Pittarow in Kincardineshire, and must have studied at St. Andrews. Five years before the time when we get our first distinct view of him during his residence at the University of Cambridge, and when his own education must barely have been completed, he had begun to teach the New Testament in the Greek tongue at Montrose. He was immediately suspected of heresy, and summoned before the Bishop of Brechin. Rather than appear, he fled from Scotland, visiting the schools of Germany, returning then to Cambridge, and giving such a finish to his scholarship that in all branches of polite as well as theological learning, he stood almost without a rival among his countrymen. In 1544, resolved to brave all danger and to devote himself exclusively to the religious enlightenment of his native land, he returned to Scotland. His great instrument was the pulpit, and, no lover by nature of controversy, he used that instrument purely as an
evangelist. Had he lived, he would have been the Whitefield of the Reformation. As it was, the few months that he was permitted to give to his itinerant ministry exhibit the most extraordinary results. He began in Montrose, and his pathetic eloquence at once drew crowds to hear him. At Dundee, to which he next removed, he gave a course of lectures on the Epistle to the Romans; and so clear were his expositions, and so stirring and affectionate his appeals, that multitudes heard the Word gladly, and many were brought to the knowledge of the truth. From the moment, however, that he had crossed the border, the eye of the Cardinal had been on him. One day, as he had ended one of these lectures, a chief magistrate of the city stood up, and, in the Regent’s name, prohibited him from again preaching, and troubling, as he called it, the city by his presence. Wishart heard the interdict, and musing on it for a little, turned sorrowfully to the people, and said,—“God is my witness that I never intended your trouble but your comfort; but sure I am that to refuse God’s Word, and chase from you his messenger, shall not preserve you from trouble, but bring you to it. I have, at hazard of my life, remained among you, offering unto you the word of salvation; and now, since ye yourselves refuse me, I must leave my innocence to be declared by God; but when I am gone, God shall send you a messenger who will not be afraid either of burning or banishment.”
Leaving Dundee, Wishart went to Ayrshire. There, vast concourses of people gathered round him as he preached, and many notable conversions took place. The Cardinal urged the Archbishop of Glasgow, the weak and fickle Dunbar, to interfere. Hearing that Wishart was to preach on a certain day in Ayr, the Archbishop thought that it would be a good way to keep him out of the pulpit to occupy it himself. The day came, the crowd assembled, but, to their surprise, the Archbishop was there,—had got possession of the church, and declared it was his intention to preach himself. Some hot spirits would have used violence. “Let him alone,” said the gentle Wishart, “his sermon will not do much hurt. Let us go to the market-cross.” The sermon at the market-cross was delivered to gathered hundreds of thirsty hearers, and blessed to the spiritual benefit of many. The sermon in the church was brief and sufficiently harmless. Mounting the pulpit, and looking round on the almost empty benches, the Archbishop said,—“They say that we should preach; why not? Better late thrive than never thrive; but hold us still for your bishop, and we shall provide better the next time.” Such was the discourse, and next day it was discovered that the preacher was gone, nor was it ever known that he returned to fulfil his promise. One Lord’s day afterwards, Wishart was to preach in the church at Mauchline. The sheriff of the county came the night before, and, when the parishioners assembled, they found the church in possession of a band of armed men, who denied them entrance. The spirit of the people rose, and one of the chief proprietors, putting himself at their head, would have dislodged the intruders by force. “Brother,” said Wishart, laying his hand upon him, and drawing him aside, “Christ Jesus is as mighty upon the fields as in the church, and I find that he himself preached oftener in the desert, at the sea-side, and other places judged profane, than in the temple at Jerusalem. It is the word of peace that God sendeth by me; the blood of no man shall be shed this day for the preaching of it.” And so saying, he led the
people off to the edge of a wide moor, and there, standing on a dyke, discoursed to them for three hours, the multitude hanging all the while upon his lips. He had only been a few weeks in Ayrshire, when word was brought to him that the plague had broken out in Dundee. At once, and despite of all the remonstrances of his friends, he hastened to the spot. He found the fearful malady at its height, hurrying its daily tale of victims to the grave. Those ears that had been closed before to the gospel message, they will be open now. But how can he address them without bringing together the healthy and the diseased, and so spreading the fatal contagion? The day after his arrival, he took his station at the east gate of the town, inviting the infected, or those who had been in contact with the disease, to stand or sit all without the gate, and the others to stand or sit within. He never had such audiences as those that assembled daily there, and he never preached with such effect. His first well-chosen text was,—‘He sent his word and healed them.’ And as the power and preciousness of God’s word was unfolded, and the free offer of the gospel thrown liberally abroad and pressed home on every sinner, and the supreme happiness of those of Christ’s people described ‘‘whom, by his own gentle visitation, God removeth from this vale of tears,’’ he so raised up, we are told, ‘‘the hearts of those that heard him, that they regarded not death, but judged them happier that should depart than such as should remain.’’ By night and day, from house to house, wherever there was a needy one to be ministered to, or a dying one to be comforted, there was Wishart, not only putting his own hand to every needful service, but so stirring up others that it was not known that a single person was left neglected. And this was the time that the Cardinal attempted his assassination. One day, as Wishart was preaching in the gate, a priest with a loose gown, beneath which his right hand was always closely kept, made his way through the crowd, and took up his position at the foot of the pulpit. The preacher’s quick eye noticed him,—perhaps had caught a glimpse of the naked weapon. Descending the steps and approaching to where he stood, before the man had time to strike, Wishart grasped the hand that held the dagger, wrenched from him the weapon, and, fixing his dark eye on him, said, ‘‘My friend, what would you have?’’ Caught thus, the poor wretch fell upon his knees and confessed that he had been suborned to kill him. The people now had gathered in, and, hearing of the meditated deed, demanded with the utmost vehemence that the priest should be given up instantly to their vengeance. But Wishart took him in his arms, and, crying out, ‘‘He that hurts him hurts me,’’ he bore him away in safety.
(To be continued.)