By REV. WILLIAM MACLEAN, M.A., Ness.
*Rev. W. MacLean sent this article from New Zealand. He is the Church’s deputy to Australia and New Zealand at present—The Editor.
It is reckoned that the history of the Presbyterian Church in Australia dates from the arrival of Dr. John Lang in New South Wales in the year 1823. In 1831 five other ministers arrived, and on the 5th October a Synod was established designated—”The Synod of Australia in connection with the Established Church of Scotland.” About twelve years after this, the Disruption of the Church of Scotland took place on the 18th May 1843, resulting in the formation of the Free Church of Scotland.
At a meeting of the Synod of Australia on the 9th October, 1846, the discussion of the Disruption came to a climax, when the majority elected to remain an integral part of the Established Church of Scotland. The members of the Synod in favour of the Disruption Free Church of 1843 were:—Rev. William McIntyre, M.A., Maitland; Rev. Colin Stewart of Vale of Clyde; the Rev. John Tait of Paramatta; Dr. Hill and Mr. Samuel Martin elders. Next day the 10th October, having read and tabled their protest they withdrew, and in the drawing room of Mr. William Buyers, Hunter Street, Sydney, constituted themselves in the name of the Head of the Church, as “The Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia.” The Rev. William McIntyre was chosen Moderator and Rev. John Tait, Clerk of Synod. They then declared anew their adherence to the Confession of Faith, the Directory for Public Worship and The Second Book of Discipline as the subordinate standards of the Church.
At a meeting of the Synod of the “Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia” held in Sydney on the 6th May, 1884, an act, which has been described as an act of gross ecclesiastical despotism, declared three ministers to be no longer members of Synod. This Expulsion Act, as it was called, carried with it expulsion from the Presbyteries. The three expelled ministers set up the “Reconstituted Synod of Eastern Australia.” In 1891 the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation united with the Reconstituted Synod. In 1895 the Rev. Walter Scott became minister of this congregation where he laboured for fourteen years.
“In course of time the Expulsion Act of 1884 was deleted without any acknowledgment being made of its character or any expression of regret for the wrong that had been done. This act paved the way for the union of the Synod of Eastern Australia with the Free Presbyterian Church of Victoria and the Free Presbyterian Church of Southern Australia forming the present Free Presbyterian Church of Australia. The Free Presbyterian Church of Australia is connected with the Free Church of Scotland and is to be distinguished from the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.” (History of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. P. 221).
After the repeal of the Expulsion Act the testimony of the Reconstituted Synod was in a large measure abandoned. Mr. Scott and the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation alone stood their ground.
“I recognise that the Expulsion Act has been cancelled by the prevailing party,” wrote Mr. Scott in a “Pastoral Letter to his congregation.” But what we have to do with, in connection with it, is the fact that still the moral wrong committed remains. The public scandal occasioned is unpurged. And the violence done to Scripture precept, as well as to recognised constitutional order (Acts xxv. 16) unredressed, the door is left open for its repetition. . . . The world may say, “Let bygones be bygones,” but “God requireth that which is past.” (Eccl. iii. 15.) “Only acknowledge thine iniquity that thou hast transgressed against the Lord thy God” (Jer. iii. 13.).
In connection with the falling away from the Reconstituted position to that of the Expulsionists, Mr. Scott writes: “But what has the Cause of God not suffered at the hands of men who in practice have proved soft, accommodating and compromising?” How it all reminds us painfully of the pathetic language of the weeping prophet . . . “Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of way-faring men etc.” (Jer. ix. 2-4). Surely the prophet wrote for this time!
Mr. Scott wrote four Pastoral Letters to the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation. They are precious letters, breathing the spirit of Him who is the Faithful and True Witness. And in the hope that the testimony which Mr. Scott and the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation sought to uphold, and which the Lord has maintained to the present time be better appreciated, I have made a selection of extracts from his Letters and classified them under different headings.
(I) PURITY OF WORSHIP UPHELD.
“The position which I was inducted to was distinct from, and in a way of protest against the Expulsion Synod. That position I have sought consistently to maintain with all the difficulties it involved. The prevailing tendency is against a distinctive position. Against this, Scripture has warned us: ‘A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.’ ‘Therefore be ye steadfast unmoveable.’ The Expulsion Synod have cancelled the Expulsion Act: but they have done so as a matter of policy—not of principle; They have never expressed any regret, or sorrow, for what they did, so unconstitutionally in ruin to the Cause.”
“Our separate position is obviously one in behalf of the Truth, so generally departed from, and of a faithful adherence to Free Church principles. This includes both doctrine and practice. Purity of worship has been a main part of our Church’s testimony. To maintain the ordinances pure and entire, means a stern refusal to countenance any human addition to what God has appointed—such as human hymns, or paraphrases, or instrumental music. People think little of these things now; just as they do of Sabbath desecration and other evils. It was the same in Eden. Hath God said, Thou shalt not do these things? Whilst knowing that God had forbidden them. Any deviation from pure spiritual worship as appointed by Christ is a breach of the Second Commandment which forbids the worshipping of God ‘in any other way not appointed in His Word.’ That Word declares New Testament worship to consist of ‘the fruit of the lips;’ it also limits us in such praise to the Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, which being ‘spiritual’ have been inspired by the Holy Spirit. To substitute for these what is human, is to invade Christ’s kingly authority.”
THE SANCTITY OF THE SABBATH DEFENDED.
“It has become notorious that on this vital subject they, (the Free Presbyterian Church of Australia) have declined from the position of a faithful witness for God. How low their testimony for the Divine Authority and Scriptural observance of the Sabbath has fallen, will be seen when it is considered that the Law of God has practically been set aside to allow their people, even communicants, to use railway trains and tram-cars on the Lord’s Day. One would think that, like the Pope they claimed a dispensing power in favour of setting aside the divine laws when these stood in their way! In the State of New South Wales, the public desecration of the Sabbath under Government authority, by railway and other traffic, for purposes of revenue, has grown to alarming proportions; the number of labouring men, moreover, who are thereby deprived of their day of rest increaseth continually; the effect on the community has become demoralising in the extreme. Now who can contemplate this situation from the Christian standpoint without dismay? Who can think for a moment, of the awful guilt being incurred, without trembling for the land? ‘Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake Thy law . . . I beheld the transgressors and was grieved.’ exclaimed the Psalmist (Ps. cxix, 53, 158). Yet is it possible, that in the presence of such crying evils at their doors, the Expulsion party remain silent? Yea, in themselves countenancing such Sabbath-breaking, do they not openly encourage the Government in such daring defiance of the Divine Authority? Instead of coming out from amongst the multitudes of evil-doers, are they not actually joining with them in trampling upon the Fourth Commandment? Be warned my brethren, in the presence of such drifting. ‘Thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?’ ” (Rom. ii. 3) Have the denunciations against such Sabbath-breaking by a former pastor of St. George’s, Sydney—The Rev. William McIntyre been forgotten? Verily this is a charge.
“Some have pleaded that they could not attend church on the Sabbath if they did not use trains—and so they would do evil that good might come, as the heathen said in Paul’s time, and as the Jesuits say now—of whom, however, the apostle declares ‘Their damnation is just’; that is for saying or doing such a thing. Yet the Expulsion party allows what the inspired apostle has condemned; and by permitting the use of Sabbath trains to attend Church, they serve themselves heirs to the Pharisees of whom Christ complained that they made void God’s law by their tradition or teaching. From all such, Scripture says ‘Turn away.'”
THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST’S HEADSHIP OVER THE NATIONS MAINTAINED.
“We cannot speak of Free Church principles without also remembering her testimony in behalf of the doctrine of National Religion, or Christ’s Headship over the nations. The Church is Christ’s witness on earth and is to testify for His Sovereign prerogative whether men will hear or whether they will forbear; always having inscribed on her banner that He is set King on God’s holy hill of Zion, and also that He is Head over all things to the Church, by which the nation or community as such, is required to acknowledge and be in subjection to Him and to His laws; so that as the prophet Isaiah says, the nation and the kingdom that will not serve Him shall perish. The Church is to warn the nation as the prophet did, in this matter: she is to declare for God in connection with His judgments or providences which are the Lord’s voice crying to sinning cities and nations.” (Pastoral letter dated 25th March, 1909.)
The Declaratory Act among the other evils it legalised, trampled in the mire of Voluntaryism the sacred doctrine of the Establishment Principle—The Headship of Christ over the nations, and the obligation of the state to uphold and maintain His cause. The enemy had come in like a flood, but the Lord according to His promise raised a standard. The Rev. Donald MacFarlane by his historic Protest in the Free Church Assembly of May, 1893, preserved Christ’s testimony pure and entire for generations yet unborn. Little wonder is it that Satan has been levelling the shafts of his malice against a Protest that, under God, shielded the crown rights of the Redeemer in our covenanted land. “If you would know,” wrote Ebenezer Erskine, “where the camp of the King of Zion is, and where His standard is raised, you may observe where the weapons of hell are levelled, malice, reproach, persecution of hand and tongue, for there is the camp of Christ, for Satan fights neither against small nor great, but against the King of Israel and His seed and interest.”
PERSECUTION FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ SAKE.
“We were opposed,” wrote Mr. Scott in his Pastoral Letter of May 14, 1909, written on board the “Carpentaria,” “because we would not be forced to join those whose unscriptural and unconstitutional act had rent the church into fragments, to the scandal of the cause and of religion”—”Had their policy only affected themselves, one might well have kept silent. They have set themselves, however, to compass sea and land in order to weaken our separate position, and to scatter our people. We had ourselves no endowments; still as you are aware they envied us that solitary bequest to the congregation—about £100—of one of our communicants, Mr. Josiah Carter. For some years they pressed their claim to it in strong language, until, at length, sworn evidence from without was given against them.” The same spirit of persecution showed itself clearly in depriving Mr. Scott’s followers of the Brushgrove property and of the Church at Woodford Dale. They were in effect saying, “Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.” (Ps. lxxxiii. 12.)
A CALL TO STEADFASTNESS.
“My dear brethren,” Mr. Scott continues, “we are living in perilous times. Iniquity aboundeth, and the love of many waxeth cold. Shall not God visit for these things? In the low condition of our congregation, may we not see tokens of His displeasure? He has said, “Judgment must begin at the house of God.” Wherever special privileges have been slighted; or a faithful testimony despised—these judgments may be expected. “To whom much is given, of them shall much be required.” Contend earnestly for the faith with which you have been identified. Have the courage of your position. Be not ashamed of the testimony or of me His prisoner as the apostle put it. Remember, that when Christ sent forth His disciples it was as two and two not as three and four. And this was for our learning. Now we are told that to them “He gave power”—not to each individually, but to the two together. That is Christ gave power to the few rather than to the many. He stains the pride of men—even pride of members.
Finally Brethren, many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But be ye steadfast, unmoveable. Hold fast, the profession of your faith as ye have been taught, without wavering, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain. And that God in His sovereign mercy, may prepare you, and each of us for the dread occasion when the judgment shall be set, and the books opened, and every man shall be judged according to their works. (Rev. xx. 11-15.) Let me refer you over again to the touchstone of truth and duty—the more sure word of prophecy—”Let them return unto thee, but return not thou unto them.” (Jer. xv. 19.) “Whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.” (Pastoral Letter).
The Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in November 1911 received a petition from the Brushgrove-Grafton congregation, and decided unanimously to receive them into the Church. The Lord has maintained hitherto this testimony in Australia, on the side of His Truth amidst the judgment of abounding apostacy—a testimony which embraces purity of doctrine and purity of worship as laid down in the volume of the book. It stands for the sanctity of the Lord’s Day—a witness from the Lord against all who would turn His day into a day of merchandise under pretext of going to worship in His house. Who hath required this at your hand? Know ye not that it is written “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, than the fat of rams?” The Lord who has given the warning against despising the day of small things shall yet arise to have mercy on His Zion. There are still those in Australia who take pleasure in her stones and favour her dust. The Lord grant them pastors after His own heart—McIntyres and Scotts who were valiant for the truth in their day and generation, and who shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God.—W. M.