(Given May 1949 in seconding adoption of Financial Statement)
There are perhaps three things to which I may briefly refer. the first is from time to time brought before you in the pages of the Magazine and by the brethren in the pulpit, that we as a Church seek in the holy fear of the Lord and the gracious help of the Holy Spirit to keep constantly before our people that we assert, maintain and defend the whole counsel of the infallible Word of God. And while I would not give undue prominence to one passage of Scripture or fundamental doctrine more than another, I would say that the Free Presbyterian Church seeks in an outstanding way to lay special emphasis upon the solemn and sanctifying doctrines, which are being emphasised among us and are so greatly required in this age — the properly based doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, the properly based doctrine of the Eternal Person of Christ together with His Mediatorial Glory in His Humiliation and Death and physical Resurrection and His Ascension to be the Head of His Church and Head over all things for His body the Church until the last member of the Holy flock is gathered in. We also emphasise the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit and the distinction between the common work of the Holy Spirit and His Saving Work. I have mentioned these three outstanding doctrines which embrace generally the others.
This again implies — and may we do so with no self-righteous spirit but in the fear of the Lord and as we must give account at a higher bar than that of any mere human tribunal for these doctrines and our position regarding them — that we must bear witness against other bodies in Scotland, especially the Church of Scotland. We witness by all means against the Papacy and this is often brought to your notice, but what I mean now — and it is regrettable that I must do so when it would be so beautiful if we were one flock in Scotland — is to refer to Modernism. There is a strong and deplorable current running today in the direction of Rationalism. Rationalism in short compass is the wisdom of man . . .
Form Criticism is a word you need not be greatly troubled with, but it has made a great noise of late in the so-called world of learning. There is far more attention paid to what has been called of late this Form Criticism, expounded by men like Duncan and Baillie of St. Andrews and by Oesterley and Robinson, two of the ringleaders in this rationalistic school, than to brokenness, penitence, wonder and lowliness and to be allowed to kiss the hem of the Redeemer’s garment in the Gospel and to get a transforming and sanctifying view of the Redeemer through the glass of God’s Word as the apostle said: ‘We see through a glass darkly.’ If we got some glimpse of the glory of the Redeemer’s Person, then such a view would change our souls ‘from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.’
It is for these things and purposes that our people are being asked to give as in the love of God they are able.
There is a third idea connected with this and there I must stop. It comes up, I think, with other matters bearing on Boston’s ‘Four-fold State,’ that is, we are witnessing not only against what we may call a left-hand Liberalism,’ the extraordinary Rationalism of the present day and all this false religiosity under the name of the Fatherhood of God and such like. We have carefully, tenderly and — this is a far more delicate matter — with discrimination to witness on the side of the ‘Free Offer of the Gospel.’ We have dear and worthy friends down in England from whom you often hear references to this matter particularly in letters, etc., how these ministers in Scotland and the Puritans give what they call ‘a Free Offer of the Gospel.’ I would sometimes really like to ascertain from some of themselves what they really mean by the word ‘Offer.’ I think they are reading into the term ‘Offer’ as it used by us the meaning ‘If I am offered a thing therefore I have the power to take or leave it.’ We do not mean this at all by the Offer of the Gospel. I think this has occasioned regrettable confusion.
I may conclude by saying that from our point of view, and I qualify it by adding that as far as we or I personally understand the matter, I regard their point of view as objective to the whole offer of the Gospel, of the call, of the command indeed, to believe on the divine name of the Son of God, because His commandment is life everlasting. ‘We know that His commandment is life everlasting’ — ‘and this is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.’ If we do not believe it is because we are evil and unholy and depraved in our poor precious souls.
As far as I understand their point of view, I conclude that it is in its own way a form of Rationalism. I do not say that it is discerned or deliberate, but if a man leans to his own understanding and reads into the Gospel what is not there, it is quite clear that it is a form of undiscerned, perhaps undetected, Rationalism. Peter pressed upon his hearers on certain occasions who gathered in thousands to hear him, ‘Repent ye, therefore, and be converted.’ They were unconverted at the time, yet he told them to repent and be converted. There was their duty. Yet it was through the blessed overshadowing and divine dealings of the Holy Spirit that as with Lydia their hearts were to be opened to espouse the Lord Jesus Christ and be brought into the land of liberty. We must guard against Rationalism on whatever side it be, whether it be what I may call the glaring, unabashed, noonday Rationalism so common in the Training Colleges and pulpits today, or these more refined and delicate forms; it is, after all, a leaning to one’s own understanding.”