by the Rev. Alexander Murray, M.A., Applecross
- This is the first of a series of articles marking the 75th Anniversary of our Church. — Editor.
“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh . . .” (Eccl. 1; 4), and the words of the Preacher point to a factor of much importance in recalling events three-quarters of a century ago. Two and one half generations have passed by so that none of the parties immediately concerned in these events at the end of last century are now in the land of the living; and, for the writer and easily the great majority of readers, the Declaratory Act of 1892 is pure history. Although this fact should be borne fully in mind the situation is not one of unqualified loss for a mere historical assessment, free from the emotions which involvement in events evoke, must have its own distinctive value.
Also, as the situation is historical knowledge in the average reader of what was commonplace even one generation ago may not be assumed; and, thus, I might desire for my short survey some capability to teach.
My allotted task concerns the theology or doctrine of this Act; an Act whose terms were prepared as declarative or explanatory of the Westminster Confession of Faith. This Confession or creed was, in the situation which is of immediate interest to us, the chief subordinate Standard of the Free Church of Scotland, the ecclesiastical body which had “disrupted” from the Church of Scotland in 1843. We might describe a Creed or Confessional as primarily an instrument of Church Government, as it defines the “faith” of office-bearers and regulates their activities within the bounds which the Church thus prescribes. There is, however, that interdependence present in the different parts of the Church’s life: that, while the worship, the government and the practice of the visible church are derived from its doctrine, their function is, in turn, the furthering and defending of that doctrine. This fact may serve presently as the barest hint of our interest in the theology of an Act which claimed to be explanatory of the Church’s Creed.
One further word of comment is necessary before I endeavour to come directly to grips with the Act itself. This concerns its form as dictated by the expediency of the situation then obtaining in the Free Church where (a) a majority in the General Assembly were desirous of union with the United Presbyterian Church; (b) latitudinarian views of doctrine were now tolerated (cf. Dods and Bruce Case, 1890 Assembly), and (c) a strong Disestablishment crusade, notwithstanding a serious setback in 1885, was still actively prosecuted. This is reflected in the preamble to the Act, viz. “it is expedient to remove difficulties and scruples which have been felt by some in reference to the declaration of belief . . .” and, while the adoption of an Act, declaratory, as a means to modify the Church’s constitution was one part of the stratagem resolved upon, the equivocal terms of the Act itself was another. As the late Rev. N. Cameron, when still a Divinity Student, speaking during a public meeting held at Oban in April 1892, puts it — “As for the Declaratory Act; its indefiniteness and ambiguity are its stronghold, for every clause from beginning to end could bear two, three, maybe four interpretations. The Confession of Faith is famous for the perspicuity of its statements.”
In the opening paragraph of its first Section the Act gives prominence to the Divine love with regard to which we may compare these statements:—
The Confession says:—
“Those of mankind that are pre-destinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, . . . (iii; 5).
The Declaratory Act says:—
” . . . this Church most earnestly proclaims, as standing in the forefront of the revelation of grace, the love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to sinners of mankind, manifested especially in the Father’s gift of His Son to be the Saviour of the world, . . . “
There should be little difficulty in seeing that the theological position of the Act in the right-hand column is very different from that of the Confession on the left. The Westminster divines treat of sovereign love going out to an elect people while the framers of the Act speak of a universal or indiscriminate love of which the objects are, palpably, “sinners of mankind”.
Again, the Confession states:—
” . . . they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, . . . (iii; 6) “The Lord Jesus . . . hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father . . . for all those whom the Father hath given unto Him.” (viii; 5).
The Act says:—
” . . . the love of God . . . manifested especially in the Father’s gift of His Son to be the Saviour of the world, in the coming of the Son to offer Himself a propitiation for sin.”
Consistent with its doctrine of the divine decree of election the Confession here speaks of a particular atonement having been effected by Christ whereas the Act, also consistently with its theory of universal love, here propagates what has been termed the “Double Reference” theory of the Atonement which asserts illogically (as error is) that, while Christ died for all, yet this reconciliation is only effectual for those who believe.
Confession:—
“To all those for whom Christ hath purchased redemption, He doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same . . . effectually persuading them by His Spirit to believe and obey . . . ” (viii; 8).
Act:—
” . . . the love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to sinners of mankind, manifested especially . . . and in the striving of the Holy Spirit with men to bring them to repentance.”
Here the Westminster divines, in line with their Scriptural view of predestination unto salvation of the elect, speak of the Holy Spirit’s work in irresistibly applying redemption to all such; while the makers of the Act, consistent with theories of universal love and an unlimited atonement, go no further than to make mention of the “common” operations of the Spirit which man may, and does commonly, resist.
So much for the first paragraph of Section I of the Declaratory Act, and now in its second paragraph we may compare as follows,
Confession:—
“Those whom God effectually calleth, He also freely justifieth . . . by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.” (xi; 1).
“They (our first parents) being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation.” (vi; 3).
“Every sin, both original and actual, . . . doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is . . . made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.” (vi; 6).
“The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleaseth, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.” (iii; 7).
Act:—
“That this Church also holds that all who hear the gospel are warranted and required to believe to the saving of their souls;”
“and that in the case of such as do not believe, but perish in their sins, the issue is due to their own rejection of the gospel call.”
“That this Church does not teach, and does not regard the Confession as teaching, the foreordination of men to death irrespective of their own sin.”
If we take the teaching of this paragraph as a whole its tendency is, obviously, in the direction of the Arminian viewpoint to make the human will sovereign as to whether or not man believes the Gospel; in contrast with the clear Confessional statement of the doctrine of human impotence and inability, (as well as responsibility), and of “Covenant” theology in terms of which human guilt and righteousness are present, in their basic meaning, by way of imputation from Adam and Christ respectively. (cf. Rom. ch. 5). The last sentence in the paragraph is an unabashed attempt to side-step from the solemn issue of the divine reprobation of the wicked.
In the third and last paragraph of Section I specific matters are dealt with, and comparison of the statement of Confession and Act makes evident that the professed “explanation” is, in fact, contradiction.
Confession:—
” . . . neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of the Word lawfully ordained.” (xxvii; 4).
“Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit, . . . (x; 3).
” . . . so also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.” (x; 3).
Act:—
“That it is the duty of those who believe, and one end of their calling by God, to make known the gospel to all men everywhere for the obedience of faith.”
” . . . nor is the Confession of Faith to be held as teaching, that any who die in infancy are lost, . . .
” . . . or that God may not extend His mercy, . . . to those who are beyond the reach of these means (the Gospel).”
Palpably, the contradiction is between the duty of proclaiming the Gospel belonging to all believers and ministers of the Word; between all infants and elect infants being saved; and, between those who are beyond the reach of the Gospel and the elect who are incapable in themselves of being outwardly called by this means.
If my assessments of the former paragraphs are correct, the praise of being consistent must be accorded to the makers of the Declaratory Act; for, a Plymouth Brethren view of the ministry, the utmost charity in respect of infants, and the hope of salvation for Mohammedans, Buddhists, etc., if not the Larger Hope for another world, are beliefs which find a ready place in the theological system where election, a limited atonement, efficacious grace, imputation and reprobation are excluded.
Section II of the Act deals with the subject of man’s condition as fallen in Adam, and here again it may not be without advantage if we place alongside each other the terms of the Church’s Creed and those of that Act which purported to cast a clearer light upon it.
Confession:—
“By this sin (eating the forbidden fruit) they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body.” (vi; 2).
” . . . we are utterly indisposed disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, . . . ” (vi; 4).
Act:—
“That in holding and teaching, according to the Confession of Faith, the corruption of man’s whole nature as fallen, this Church also maintains that there remain tokens of his greatness as created in the image of God; that he possesses a knowledge of God and of duty; that he is responsible to comply with the moral law and with the gospel; . . .”
The language of the Act here, notwithstanding its studied ambiguity, cannot well fail to leave the impression that fallen man possesses some ability to do good. This we must, in line with the plain teaching of the Confession, be careful to deny; and, further, out of jealousy for the truth of Scripture, discriminate with due care in respect of the truths to which the words of the Act patently refer, i.e. Conscience in man, and what the Apostle calls, “the work of the law written in their hearts”, (Rom. 2; 15). It may be observed that, neither the fact of being responsible to God nor a certain measure of appreciation as between right and wrong do, singly or together, provide fallen man with any actual ability, of himself, to perform good.
The concluding part of this Section of the 1892 Act vindicates the need of insisting upon the entire lack of ability in fallen man to do, of himself, that which is good; for, in speaking of the “aid” of the Holy Spirit, the framers of the Act adopted the language of Arminianism and imply a residual of life being present in the human soul. Thus, they go on to assert that, as something apart from the influence of the Holy Spirit, natural man, “is yet capable of affections and actions which in themselves are virtuous and praiseworthy”. The true facts of the case are of a very different order; for, while natural man may, under the common, restraining grace of the Divine Spirit, perform works which, as to the matter of them, are good, yet, because they are not done from a right motive of doing glory to God, they entirely lack merit and are, in fact, sinful. This teaching, secured by the Confession in its sixteenth Chapter, conserves fully the doctrine of man’s total inability, the position which the makers of the Act were at such pains to demolish.
In the remaining two Sections of the Declaratory Act matters are treated of which are not so directly questions of doctrine so that a case might be made out for their exclusion from this article. On the other hand, however, they bear so powerfully upon the interests of maintaining the orthodox position in theology that some brief mention must be made of them.
So to continue my method of direct comparison; Section III in its first part, may be considered in the light of an Act of the Free Church Assembly passed in 1846.
1846 Act:—
“The General Assembly think it right to declare that, while the Church firmly maintains the same Scriptural principles of the duties of nations and their rulers to true religion and the Church of Christ for which she has hitherto contended, she disclaims intolerant or persecuting principles . . .”
1892 Act:—
“That this Church disclaims intolerant or persecuting principles, . . .”
It will be seen that the words of the latter Declaratory Act were taken directly from the earlier legislation but, in being deprived of their limiting explanation, have been given a general meaning of a dangerous tendency so as to effectively open the door for union with the “voluntary” United Presbyterian Church. In a spirit very different from this, the 1846 Act had fully conserved the Establishment principle in religion and its aim was simply to justify the action of the Free Church fathers when they severed a state connection which had become vitiated through the intolerance of the civil power of the day.
Confession:—
“God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in any thing, contrary to His Word; or beside it, in matters of faith, or worship.” (xx; 2).
Act:—
” . . . and does not consider her office-bearers in signing the Confession, committed to any principles inconsistent with liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.”
The words of the Westminster fathers allow to man, in relation to his conscience, liberty from all merely human requirements in order that he may be found a total captive to the commandments of his Maker and Law-giver as set forth in the Scriptures. It would, however, be entirely gratuitous to assume that this was the position of an Act professedly designed to provide for the alleged scruples of such as had difficulty in accepting the whole doctrine of the Confession. Rather, it seems certain that in their insistence upon, “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment”, the framers of the Act were successful to the end, “to betray true liberty of conscience”. (xx; 2).
With regard to the final Section we may compare,
Confession:—
“The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils . . . are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.” (i; 10).
Act:—
“That, while diversity of opinion is recognised in this Church on such points in the Confession as do not enter into the substance of the Reformed Faith therein set forth, the Church retains full authority to determine, in any case which may arise, what points fall within this description, and thus to guard against any abuse of this liberty to the detriment of sound doctrine, or to the injury of her unity and peace.”
The practice of the Free Church, as instanced by the action of her General Assembly, had already shown that there was more than one fundamental matter on which diversity of opinion was allowed; and the sad irony of the situation was such; that, while this Section of the Act was, ostensibly, a bulwark of sound doctrine, its now infamous formula, — “the substance of the Reformed Faith” — has failed to conserve, not merely the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of Scripture, but likewise that of the Divine Sonship and the physical resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Again, it was a situation precarious in the extreme that the defence of the Christian Faith should be left in the irresolute hands of the Assembly’s majority. In a word, the difference in this, — the Confessional statement places the Church in the position of subjection to Scripture whereas the Act subordinated Scripture teaching to the Church’s arbitrary will, a position at one with the arrogant claims of Popery.
In concluding my survey one is conscious of difficulty in finding language adequately to condemn the Declaratory Act of 1892. It was, of course, the greatest impertinence to place the historic, accurate and comprehensive Westminster Confession in a position of subjection to an Act of four brief sections, each of which was in the vaguest of terms; but, at the same time, the device proved sufficient to entirely subvert and nullify the Scriptural teaching of the Confession. The 1647 Confession is faithful to God in the revelation that He has given in the Bible concerning Himself and man’s need and duty relative thereto; but I trust that sufficient has been said in the foregoing pages to show that the 1892 Act contends for something very different from that. It savours of the “flesh” throughout and, in common with every theory at variance with the teaching of Scripture, seeks to exalt unregenerate man and belittle the grace of God with the two-fold, inevitable result that the Divine glory is compromised and man left in the misery of an unsaved state. A complementary article will make very evident that to sow the wind is to reap the whirlwind (cf. Hosea 8: 7) and we need the prayer,
“Arise, Lord, let not man prevail;
judge heathen in thy sight:
That they may know themselves but men.
the nations, Lord, affright.”
(Ps. 9; 19, 20).