In the April issue of the Free Church Monthly Record there is a comment entitled “An Extravagant Claim” which deals with a statement made by a writer over the initials J.C. in the Free Presbyterian Magazine for January, in which the writer says of the Free Presbyterian Church that it is “the only representative in Scotland of the Church of the Reformation as settled in 1560 and of the Disruption Church of 1843, in doctrine, worship, and practice.” Though the writer of the Comment looks upon the assertion as “preposterous”, nevertheless it is a fact that cannot be altered by all the sophistries which have been used since the Free Presbyterian Church took up its separate existence in 1893. It may well be asked, Where was the present Free Church from 1893 till 1900 or, for that matter, till they rescinded the Declaratory Act after the House of Lords made over the property to them in 1905? In the Free Church Case the contestants were the United Free Church and the minority who refrained from going into the Union. The Free Presbyterian Church was not in the field in that struggle, and why should it be? Both the majority and the minority had joined hands in depriving the Free Presbyterian Church of every stick of property, though these churches and manses were built for the express purpose of proclaiming the doctrines which were the very opposite of those doctrines protected by the Declaratory Act. It is very evident that the Free Presbyterian Church was more interested in maintaining a witness for Christ in Scotland than in stone and lime, for how else would that Church go out with no resources to depend on but what was not of this world? That Church had a far better claim to the property than those who remained under the Declaratory Act; and, in fact, the minority contested the case, not on their own position, but on what was the position of the Free Presbyterian Church, and even sat silently listening to the falsehood of the United Free Church Counsel when, after consulting his clients, he stated that those who were put out of their churches and manses were put out, not because of the Declaratory Act, but for heresy. I may say that I am the writer of the paragraph over the initials J.C. in the Free Presbyterian Magazine, and I have no intentions of donning a sheet of repentance, either white or black, for writing it, or for making the claim contained in it.
The Free Church writer of the Comment in question takes refuge in the fact that the Authorised Standards and ordination vows imposed upon their office-bearers prove their identity with the Free Church of 1843. It does nothing of the kind. I grant that the Authorised Standards and ordination vows of the Free Church today are identical with the standards and vows of the Church of 1843, but their practice is vastly different. It is a fact that cannot be forgotten that it was the same Authorised Standards, modified by the Declaratory Act, that were in use from the time of the passing of the Declaratory Act till the Union of 1900, and yet any who wished could take refuge under the Declaratory Act; and even office-bearers who were against it would have to take part in the ordination and induction of men who had “difficulties and scruples” with regard to the contents of the Westminster Confession of Faith. The fact that the Questions and Formula were not changed did not afford any relief to those who were opposed to the Declaratory Act. Where, for example, can the present Free Church find any authority in these Standards for prayers at the grave, Boys’ Brigades, the sitting posture at prayer, which are to be found in some Free Church congregations, as is the singing of paraphrases as a part of public worship. It is a notable fact that an eminent minister of the present Free Church, now deceased, publicly deplored the Arminianism which was to be found in Free Church pulpits; this was not sanctioned by the Calvinistic Standards of the Free Church of 1843. We have no doubt but that the minister in question was writing about what he was painfully conscious of, but we have not heard of cases of discipline on that score in the present Free Church since he published his statement. In fact, despite the orthodoxy of the Authorised Standards, his voice was seldom, if ever, heard again in the Free Church Assembly. One may ask the question: Did he find encouragement or hostility in the Supreme Court of the Free Church?
These matters and many other instances which could be culled from the public press show that the House of Lords decision, allocating the property to the Free Church, comes far short of making the Free Church the sole heir of the Church of the Disruption, as has been so frequently claimed over the years. On the issue of the Establishment principle and the holding of the doctrine of Predestination the House of Lords came to their memorable decision, but there are other matters, such as above referred to, which make the Free Church come far short of the Disruption position. A friend was telling the present writer that he remembered hearing the late Dr Kennedy, Dingwall, preaching in the Gaelic Free Church, Greenock. After he had given out his text, the first words that came from the Doctor’s lips were, “Men, do not look at what a man says. Look at where his feet are going.” The reference was to a previous discourse by one who made a great profession of his fidelity to the truth and the standards of the Church. That remark of Dr Kennedy can be applied to individuals and to churches, and, as the Free Church does not seem ever to tire of laying the charge of schism at the door of the Free Presbyterian Church, the foregoing matters may not be out of place as evidence of the difference between the two Churches; for while these excrescences of the flesh are to be found in the Free Church, none of them are to be found in the Free Presbyterian Church.
The Free Presbyterian claim that she alone is the representative of the Disruption Church is spoken of in the Comment in question as “absurd” and “preposterous”. These are epithets that are very often used without any foundation, and in this particular case are used in connection with a Church which took up its separate position in order to be consistent with the Constitution of the Free Church of the Disruption, while those who make free use of them remained under the Declaratory Act which vitiated that Constitution. The claim of the early disciples of our Lord was expressed in the words of Philip to Nathaniel: “We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” This was an “absurd” and “preposterous” claim in the eyes of the chief priests and Pharisees as seen in their reprimand to their own officers: “Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.” The claim of the Apostle Paul would, no doubt, be “absurd” and “preposterous” in the estimation of the leaders of the Jews when he said, “We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh”; yet the Holy Spirit has put the seal of His inspiration on these same words. At the Disruption there were many who remained in the Erastian section of the Church of Scotland, who would maintain the claim of the Disruption Church to be the Church of Scotland Free to be “absurd” and “preposterous”, but that did not invalidate that claim, although the House of Lords would not allow it should an appeal have been made to it. The House of Lords is not an infallible court, and is liable to make mistakes, or to act in a manner inconsistent with previous decisions. In the Free Church Case its decision was come to without the Free Presbyterian position being presented to it, for that position was never before it. If it had, no one can guess how it might have materially affected the decision, and thus have left the present Free Church no room for proclaiming that the highest tribunal in the land had declared them to be the Free Church of Scotland.
In fact that Court was most careful not to make any decision as to the doctrinal position of either Church concerned in the litigation before them. They merely decided that as there was no provision for a change in the Constitution of the Free Church no change could be made. The minority maintained that it was ultra vires on the part of the Assembly to make the change, and so did the Free Presbyterian Church, but that a change had been made no one with a modicum of knowledge of the whole question will deny. It was this change, of which the House of Lords took notice, that caused the Free Presbyterian Church to take up a separate position, though it never contested the property. It was only when Union took place in 1900 that the minority took up a separate position, and in 1906, when they rescinded the Declaratory Act that, in the preamble of the Rescinding Act, they gave vent to the most “absurd” and “preposterous” claim of which any set of persons, acting as a Church Court with the eye of the Lord upon them, was capable of, that is, the statement with reference to the Free Church: “as she has always adhered”. This ignores the part some of her ministers took in Church Courts in matters which were ruled purely by the Declaratory Act, as well as the share members of the minority took in depriving the Free Presbyterians of churches and manses. These are matters which the rising generation of Free Presbyterians should be well versed in; and the present writer feels obliged to the writer of the Comment to which exception has been taken for writing in a way which gives an opportunity to the young of our Church to see that there is a way of seeing the position of the Free Presbyterian Church other than through Free Church spectacles.