The following letter was written by the late Rev. James S. Sinclair, prior to 1893, when a student, at New College, Edinburgh. A copy, in his own hand writing, was found among his papers after his death in 1921.
Rev. Prof. A. B. D.
No date.
Dear Sir,
As a student of the 2nd year at the New College, I feel it to be my most painful duty to protest against the general drift of your lectures on the Old Testament. With all due respect to you I must say that I believe the views advanced in the lectures are quite at variance with the doctrines of infallible inspiration and divine revelation as embodied in the Standards of the Free Church. I may only say that our soul has been deeply wounded on more than one occasion by the way you discuss the oracles of the living God. Assuring you that it is only a deep sense of personal responsibility before God that has compelled me to write you on this subject.
I am,
Yours truly,
James S. Sinclair.
(Editorial Note: The late Rev. J. S. Sinclair, was one of those divinity students who left the Free Church in 1893, and supported the Protest of Rev. D. Macfarlane then. A great noise has been made recently in Free Church quarters, about the ministers of the Declaratory Act, Free Church, who refused, in 1900, to enter the Union with the United Presbyterian Church then; and who formed the present Free Church from 1900. It may well be asked—was it not high time for godfearing men to clear out of the Free Church in 1893, where among others, the late Rev. J. S. Sinclair as a student, was wounded in his soul by Free Church Theological Teaching before 1893.)