by Rev John Colquhoun, Glendale, Skye
These words, recorded in Joshua iv. 6, 21, are in anticipation of a question that would be asked by children yet unborn as to the reason why stones taken up out of Jordan were set up in Gilgal, and the answer was to be that it was a memorial of a great deliverance equal to the deliverance given to the children of Israel at the Red Sea. Now, this memorial was set up at the express command of God, and it was necessary because the children of Israel were prone to forget God’s mighty works. They were, however, to remember them themselves and to tell to the generations to come what God had done for them. The memorial heap was not to be renewed year by year or generation after generation. It was the identical stones that were to be taken out of the midst of Jordan that were to be “for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever”. To have acted otherwise than they did would have been gross rebellion against God’s commandment and a serious omission of their duty to God and to their own offspring in the generations to come. This memorial was set up to the glory of God, and as a record of what God had done for them. “For the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan from before you, until ye were passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up from before us, until we were gone over: that all the people of the earth might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty: that ye might fear the Lord your God for ever.” (Joshua iv. 23, 24). We fully believe that it was in this spirit that the suggestion was made that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland should observe the seventy-fifth anniversary of the renunciation of the Declaratory Act by that body and continue its testimony on behalf of the Constitution of the Disruption Church of 1843, and of the establishment of the Protestant religion in 1560.
A writer in the Free Church Monthly Record for September 1968 thinks differently. According to him the chief purpose of “her writers on this occasion is to make good her claim that she, and not the denomination which bears that name, is the true Free Church of Scotland. To many, outside the pale of both denominations, with a modicum of knowledge of the divisions and unions in the Church in Scotland and a tolerable acquaintance of church history, this question is not difficult to answer. While retaining the name Free Church in 1893, those who accepted the Declaratory Act maintained that what they did was in the interests of progress and succeeded in deceiving others that there was no change. This seems to have been a very easy matter with the former Constitutionalists for they swallowed the Declaratory Act, and at the same time loudly proclaimed that they would preach the doctrines which they formerly preached. As far as the most of them were concerned this was probably true, but the question may well be asked, Is preaching the only function of a minister? Has he not in conjunction with his brethren in the Presbytery to take part in the licensing of students and the ordination and induction of ministers? How could he do so and safeguard his conscience when the student or minister before the Presbytery publicly declares that he is accepting the relief afforded by the Declaratory Act? Has any of these Constitutionalists recorded their dissent when it was agreed that legal action be taken to deprive of the property those men who refused to accept the Declaratory Act? We may search in vain for such dissents in the Records either of the Supreme Court or the Subordinate Courts of the Declaratory Act Free Church during the seven years in which the anti-Unionists remained in the company of the Unionists, but, on the other hand, much of a hostile spirit towards former brethren which makes one think.
The writer in question says that the list of inconsistencies mentioned by the various writers in the Free Presbyterian Magazine has been answered again and again from the Free Church side, but such is not the case, unless evasions are looked upon as answers. In 1917 the Free Presbyterian Synod sent a Statement of Differences to the Free Church after the latter Church had sent a request for a Committee to be appointed to take steps to consider closer co-operation or an incorporating union. The answers to this Statement of differences were so evasive that the Synod took no further steps in the matter, while those in the Synod who wanted the Conference went where their desire was. Needless to say, the Free Church did not take any steps to remove the differences as can be proved by the “list of inconsistencies” given in recent articles in the Free Presbyterian Magazine. That list, by the way, does not exhaust the inconsistencies. Others, of a more grievous nature, could be added which prove that the discipline of the Free Church of 1843 is conspicuous by its absence in the present Free Church. It is no pleasure for Free Presbyterian writers to be pointing out these inconsistencies, and we would much rather that they were not there to point out, but when we are often spoken of to strangers as a “schismatic Church” we have an inalienable right to make our position clear. When we do so some of these strangers have no hesitation in assessing our position and that of the Free Church, and, in our hearing, and in the presence of witnesses, they have expressed their conviction as to which is the schismatic church. Such conduct on the part of Free Church protagonists does not enhance the prestige of our traducers in the estimation of those whom they intend to impress.
To take but one instance, among many, of the inconsistencies of the present Free Church there are the cases where discipline is necessary. Scores, if not hundreds, who began their lives in the Free Presbyterian Church are in Free Church congregations today because, on account of how inconsistent their lives were to the profession which they were prepared to make in receiving baptism for their children, and how easy it was for them to get that privilege in the Free Church. This laxity in giving baptism is but one instance of where the present Free Church is not identical with the Church of the Disruption, but it makes one wonder if the men of the Disruption were made of such pliable material as the men of the Free Church of today whether or not the notorious Cardross case would ever have been heard of and the Rev. John MacMillan would have continued a minister of the Free Church till the day of his death.
As the stones of Gilgal were a testimony to the goodness and mighty works of God so the presence of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland is a testimony to the same in this land and in foreign lands. The goodness of the Lord is to be seen in leaving a witness in this once-favoured but back-sliding land. His mighty works are seen in prospering with the movement which began in 1893. There were many of a kindred spirit with Tobiah and Sanballat who characterised it as “a storm in a teapot” and prophesied that it would come to an end in two years for lack of funds, and we have survived to commemorate our seventy-fifth anniversary, the Lord showing all these years that the silver and the gold are His, and proving to the world that it is “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.” As it would be a grave dereliction of duty on the part of parents in Israel not to tell their children why the stones in Gilgal were there, would it not be so on the part of Free Presbyterian parents and office-bearers not to tell the children why we are separate from other churches in the land, and especially in answer to the question, “What mean ye by these stones?” Has God not charged us in common with others to do this? “For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born: who should arise and declare them to their children: that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments: and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.” (Psalm lxxviii, 5-8).
The Free Church writer in wishing us God’s blessing, refers to what he calls “the more excellent way” of “closer association with denominations like-minded with themselves” as preferable to what he terms “their chosen isolation.” Such language is getting somewhat stale on account of its age, and experience has taught some of us not to lay much weight on it. It would be an extraordinary matter if a deputation from the inhabitants of Jericho would come to the children of Israel and say, “Think no more of the stones at Gilgal, and forget about the crossing of the Jordan, make a league with us and we will be one people.” Could the Israelites entertain such a proposal for one moment? The path of duty lay rather in answering the question of their children, “What mean ye by these stones?”