by Rev. Dr. Donald M. Boyd.
On the 28th October, 1887, exactly one hundred years ago, Charles Haddon Spurgeon left the Baptist Union with great publicity on account of the Down-Grade controversy. This was a controversy about the liberalism that he was noticing within the Baptist Union and to which he had drawn attention in the pages of his paper called The Sword and Trowel. In spite of his attempts to correct the matter by establishing a better doctrinal basis to the Baptist Union, he became convinced that he would not succeed and that his duty was to withdraw from fellowship with the Baptist Union as a Union, although he maintained fellowship with individuals within the Union. (See The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain Murray for history of this controversy).
This conscientious stand can only be applauded by all lovers of the truth. It is interesting that at the very time that the Free Church in Scotland was trying to modify its Confession of Faith, Spurgeon was trying to introduce a more discriminating creedal subscription to the Baptist Union, with the intention of smoking out the liberals from their ranks. It teaches us of the need of a solid constitution based upon a scriptural confession or, as surely “as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies” (II Peter 2: 1), history will be seen to be repeating itself, Spurgeon puts it like this:
“So long as an Association without a creed has no aliens in it, nobody can wish for a creed formally, for a spirit is there; but at a time when “strange children” have entered, what is to be done? Whatever may theoretically be in your power, you practically have no power whatever. You will go on as you are; and, unless God’s grace calls back the wanderers, their numbers will increase, and their courage will cause them to speak out more plainly, to the sorrow of
* Spurgeon goes too far when he says that nobody can wish for a creed when there are no aliens. It is their wisdom to do it sooner rather than wait till later, which is the lesson he himself draws from the Down-Grade controversy.
the faithful ones who shielded them in patient hope of better things.”
It is probably impossible to trace any direct influence between Spurgeon’s stand and the historic stand made by Rev. Donald Macfarlane in 1893, but there are two points worth pondering. One is that The Sword and Trowel was being read extensively throughout the land and copies were finding their way throughout the Highlands. Spurgeon was personally known in the north ever since Dr. John Kennedy brought him north to open his new church in Dingwall in 1870. The second point is the influence of Spurgeon’s stand upon Rev. Neil Cameron. Mr Cameron kept a notebook of newspaper cuttings from the era of the origin of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Apart from the addition of dates, the names of the newspapers from which the extracts are taken, and the correction of one name, Mr Cameron has added nothing of his own to these newspaper cuttings. However, there is one solitary exception in the 22 pages of cuttings and this respects some underlining in an article on Spurgeon’s views of the Free Church of Scotland. The following is an extract from what Spurgeon wrote in The Sword and Trowel with Mr Cameron’s underlining.
“The Free Church of Scotland must unhappily be for the moment regarded as rushing to the front with its new theology, which is no theology, but an opposition to the Word of the Lord. That Church, in which we all gloried as sound in the faith and full of the martyr’s spirit, has entrusted the training of its future ministers to two professors, who hold other doctrines than those of its Confession. This is the most suicidal act that a Church could commit. It is strange that two gentlemen who are seeking for something newer and better than the old faith should condescend to accept a position which implies their agreement with the ancient doctrines of the Church; but delicacy of feeling is not a common article now-a-days, and the action of creeds is not automatic, as it would be if consciences were tender. In the Free Church there is a Confession, and there are means for carrying out discipline, but these will be worth nothing without the personal action of all the faithful in that community. Every man who keeps aloof from the struggle for the sake of peace, will have the blood of souls upon his head. The question in debate at the Disruption was secondary compared with that now at issue. It is Bible or no Bible, Atonement or no Atonement, which we have now to settle. Stripped of beclouding terms and phrases, this lies at the bottom of the discussion, and every lover of the Lord Jesus should feel himself called upon to take his part in an earnest contention for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. From the exceeding boldness of Messrs Bruce and Dods, we gather that they feel perfectly safe in ventilating their opinions. They evidently reckon upon a majority which will secure them immunity, and our fear is that they will actually gain that which they expect. We are not sanguine enough to believe that they are mistaken. Unless the whole Church will awaken to its duty, the evangelicals in the Free Church are doomed to see another reign of Moderatism. Have they suffered so many things in vain? Will they not now make a stand?”
It is evident from the sentence that Mr Cameron underlined that the sentiment stuck a chord with himself. From all that is known of Mr Cameron’s life, there can be little doubt that it was the good of souls that actuated him in his personal and ecclesiastical stand. It is a moot point how much influence Spurgeon’s stand had upon Mr Cameron, and how much influence Mr Cameron had upon Mr Macfarlane at the crucial stages leading up to 1893, but it is worth recording the connection on this hundredth anniversary of Spurgeon’s historic stand. It could be that Spurgeon’s words and action steered Mr Cameron for the ensuing break with the Free Church. Mr Cameron evidently considered the quotation opposite and germane to the contentions of our own church for it appears in Volume 2 of the Free Presbyterian Magazine, p. 196, possibly inserted by Mr Cameron. It is interesting to notice that in Spurgeon’s biography, his wife mentions that the passage in Jeremiah 15: 19,20 “was so peculiarly appropriate to the circumstances of the case, that many friends afterwards sent it to my beloved, who was greatly comforted by the reassuring message which was thus conveyed to him.” The same was true of Mr Cameron — the text reads, “Therefore thus saith the Lord, if thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them. And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord.”
Mrs Spurgeon refers to the results of her husband’s witness on the side of the truth in the following words, “So far as the Baptist Union was concerned, little was accomplished by Mr Spurgeon’s witness-bearing and withdrawal. But, in other respects, I have had abundant proofs that the protest was not in vain. . . . The ultimate results of the whole matter must be left in the hands of Him who never makes a mistake, and who will, in His own right way, vindicate His obedient and faithful servant from the ‘censure’ so unjustly passed upon Him.” Among the “ultimate results”, it is unlikely that Mrs Spurgeon thought about the effects that his heroic stand was to have north of the border, in Scotland, of which Spurgeon said, “. . . as to gospel preaching, we have always regarded it as the choicest part of the three kingdoms, and so it is, and so it shall be by the grace of God.” May the God of all grace, Who has preserved to us His heritage, continue it among us by that same grace.