by Rev. A. MacPherson
(The first part of a paper read at the Centenary Commemoration Meeting)
The purpose of this paper is to present an account of the happenings in the Free Church of Scotland during its first 50 years, which led to the formation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1893. Much happened between the Disruption in 1843 and the passing of the Declaratory Act 49 years later, and it would take a long time in the telling. This paper, therefore, has to be just a sketch of the course of deterioration which eventually made it necessary for the Rev. Donald MacFarlane to depart from the Free Church. He did this knowing that he was acting for others also, and with the purpose that he and they would, God enabling them, set up the Free Church anew in accordance with its original constitution.
That constitution was thoroughly scriptural, and, generally speaking, the men who formed the Church were sound in doctrine and godly. Among them also were Christian scholars of a high calibre, well qualified to train the men who would enter the ministry. So that it was one of Satan’s most wicked works to spoil a Church so well suited to set God’s claims before the people of Scotland, and by God’s blessing win souls. As one surveys the history of that half-century, the progressive departure from important elements of the original position comes to light when these movements surfaced in the church courts. Therefore, within the confines of this paper, I shall try to say enough about the issues that came into the public view, to show that they were clear indications of the direction in which the Free Church was moving.
There is no question about the enthusiasm for the spiritual independence of Christ’s Church in Scotland that brought about the Disruption. I am assuming that something is known of how a minority within the Church of Scotland had enlisted the aid of the law in order to impose ministers on congregations which did not want them. And how, in view of the House of Lords approving these interferences, there seemed to those who believed in the absolute Headship of Christ over his Church, to be no end to this hindering the decisions of the church courts. It appeared at last that the only remedy was to leave the National Church. On the 18th May, 1843, at the beginning of the General Assembly in Edinburgh, the Protest and separation were formally carried out, and 451 ministers along with representative elders left, and in another building constituted the Church of Scotland free; free, that is, from state interference with its proper activities as a Church. It could be asked, Were all these men who formed the Free Church, as united in other matters are they were on the need to leave a Church dominated by the civil courts? We are thinking back 150 years, so the question cannot be precisely answered. A pointer to the answer may, however, be seen from the fact that ere many years had passed, many of these men showed their carelessness about God’s revealed will by wanting hymns to be used along with the Psalms in public worship.
Here also I would suggest that the events of the half-century under review could well be thought about in the light of words in the first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith. The section gives ten reasons why the Bible should be regarded as the Word of God, then says, “yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.” The truth stated there is that the only person who is sure that the Scriptures in all their wording is the very Word of God, is one who has been born again. In certain circumstances, a person could be unfaithful to this Spirit-wrought conviction, but it could also be true that approval of what was unscriptural was proof of a mind that had never been savingly enlightened. The Confession statement is worth keeping in mind.
The 1859 – 1861 Revival
An event which encouraged the demand for hymns in the Free Church was the American-type revival which went on in parts of Britain between 1859 and 1861. The initial revivalists were American, but they were then augmented by English and Scottish lay preachers. Denominational differences were ignored, and lay-preaching was the rule. The doctrine was a mix of Calvinism and Arminianism; there was hymn-singing, sometimes uproarious; there was a bench at the front for those wishing to be saved; women and children prayed, and sometimes the services were long-protracted. These activities created great enthusiasm in parts of the land. They were completely novel in Scotland, and a charitable view was taken of them in some parts of the Free and United Presbyterian Churches. It was claimed that the revival had resulted in many conversions.
Sensationalism undoubtedly played a good part in the movement, and it is certain that the good effects claimed did nothing to stem in Scotland the beginning of departures from the Confession of Faith. Nor did it hinder the entrance of rationalistic biblical criticism, nor the ecumenism that was making light of serious doctrinal differences between churches becoming interested in union. Strengthened desires for hymns were also fruits of revival, and, very importantly as far as the Free Church was concerned, was the influx of students for the ministry who professed to have been either converted during the revival or affected by it. These later were among the strongest advocates of the liberalising of the Church’s doctrine.
Introduction of Hymns and Instrumental Music
From the Reformation, the churches in Scotland had adhered to what became known as the Regulative Principle, which was that the public worship should consist only of what God in his Word required. Praise, therefore, was to be made by the unaccompanied singing of the Psalms. One of the changes that the Victorian Era effected in Scotland was to create a wish for hymn-singing, just as was common in England. It would give a greater subject range to the praise, it was claimed. Other Scottish churches had adopted hymns, and in 1865 the subject was raised in the General Assembly of the Free Church. A committee decided in favour, and in the face of the Regulative Principle, and in spite of strong opposition, mainly from Highland congregations, the 1872 Assembly by a large majority accepted a collection of 25 hymns, and nine years later a book with 300. Instrumental music seemed a greater innovation, so its supporters waited until 1882 to bring it forward. By that time, as we shall see, there were many in the church courts who had ceased to regard the Bible as entirely the Word of God, so that the Regulative Principle carried no weight with them. Principal Rainy and others pressed on to win by a three-fifths majority the freedom of congregations to have musical instruments if they wished. Organs were soon installed in many churches outside the Highlands.
Movement for Union With the United Presbyterian Church
Turning back again to the eighteen-sixties, what appears to have been the next evident step in the decline of the Free Church, and more or less coinciding with the wish for hymns, was the beginning of a movement for union with the United Presbyterian Church, the third largest of the Scottish Churches. The U.P. Church had come into being three years after the Disruption. In it there united many of those who had sprung from two 18th Century secessions from the Church of Scotland over the vexing matter of Patronage.
In 1863 the Free Church General Assembly appointed a committee to examine the possibility of union with the United Presbyterians. Since the Disruption, there had been a hope that at some time there might be a gathering together of the various religious bodies who had felt forced to leave the Established Church. Many felt that this might be the time.
There was, however, another less worthy motive for desiring a union with other Scottish Churches, and that was the ambition to become a bigger, stronger body. In many ways the Free Church had prospered. The self-sacrificing spirit shown at the Disruption had been acknowledged by the Church’s divine Head. But, as so often happens, prosperity had occasioned pride and self-satisfaction in some quarters, and from this sprang a wish to be larger still. There was also the fact that the Established Church had by no means lost its hold on the Scottish people, but had rather strengthened it, and there were those who thought that this annoyance might be lessened if a union could be achieved with the U.P. Church who, it was claimed, amounted to a fifth of the churchgoing population.
The large committee appointed in 1863 were united both as to the desirableness of such a union and the necessity for it being achieved without the sacrifice of any Free Church principles. It soon became clear though, that the United Presbyterians would not easily give up the Voluntary Principle which, put briefly, was that there should be no legal connection between the State and the Church, nor such a thing as an Established and state-endowed Church. This was contrary to the view of the Scottish Church since 1560, when the Scottish Parliament had established Protestantism as the religion of the country.
By 1867 it was becoming clear that many members of the Assembly had shifted away from an absolute hold of the Establishment Principle; and from now on the Church itself divided into two parties with opposite views of the possibility of union.
It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that the Voluntary Principle was the only obstacle to union. Reports by the committee and remarks in Assembly debates contained the plural words, “difficulties” and “principles.” The reason was that for years, the United Secession Church which was now part of the U.P. Church, had been loosening its attachment to the Westminster Confession. Within that Church there had been cases in which the Calvinistic doctrine of the Atonement had been challenged. The scriptural and Calvinistic doctrine is of a limited Atonement. God elected a certain number of the fallen race to be saved; Christ atoned for the sins of these; and they only are saved. This being thought to be too harsh a doctrine, dissatisfied parties preferred to think that Christ’s death had potential advantage for all men, although it specially referred to the elect. This was known as the Double Reference Theory of the Atonement.
As the years passed and the subject came up in successive Assemblies, the majority view that a union based on a measure of compromise would be acceptable, roused men like Doctors Begg, Wood and Nixon to strongly oppose the drift that was taking place. They warned that a union which breached what had formerly been accepted by all as essential principles would bring about another disruption.
Not surprisingly, those who were for union read the signs correctly, and at the 1871 Assembly, a motion of Dr Candlish’s was passed which retreated for the time being from the compromising sort of union suggested by the committee. In this way the ten years conflict over union came to an end, and the threat of a disruption which had become very serious receded.
Effects of the Higher Criticism
The Union Committee’s readiness to compromise not only on the Establishment Principle, but on other matters of doctrine, was an indication that under the surface of the Free Church’s adherence to all it had represented at the Disruption, there was a current of opinion running against some of the Westminster Confession doctrines. It later became apparent that a main part of this current was sympathy towards rationalistic biblical criticism. Hostile criticism of the Old Testament had been gathering force in Germany, and from the eighteen-forties onwards had been steering the minds of some Scottish ministers and students away from the fundamental doctrine of verbal inspiration. Describing it briefly, Old Testament Higher Criticism concerned itself with the date, author, place, and circumstances of the composition of the books, as well as their purpose and nature. It was an approach which denied the absolute trustworthiness of the books, and felt free to question their statements. Once men had lost the belief that the Scriptures were entirely and in every detail the Word of God, it became easy to challenge any doctrine of the Bible that gave offence to what was now known as enlightened opinion. In this connection it has to be remembered that few, if any, of the Disruption ministers had been affected by the Higher Criticism; but by the late eighteen-sixties, a number of notably faithful men had been taken away to their reward.
Another sign of deterioration both in doctrine and in discipline was the case concerning the Rev. Walter C. Smith which came by appeal to the 1867 General Assembly. In the previous year the Glasgow Presbytery had unanimously found Mr Smith guilty of heresy by preaching against the binding obligation of the Moral Law, and the place of the Old Testament in the Christian era. The Assembly voted heavily for a motion by Dr Rainy which accepted the correctness of the Presbytery’s findings, yet contrived to prevent Smith from being disciplined. This decision was the fore-runner of others in very serious cases which showed that more and more members of the courts of the Free Church were of what was euphemistically called a “liberal mind”, but what was really an anti-confession attitude.
Dr Robert Rainy
Since Dr Robert Rainy has been mentioned, and as he was to be so closely connected with the 1892 Declaratory Act which so much concerned ourselves, it is, I think, necessary to say something about him. He was born to God-fearing parents in Glasgow in 1826, and became a communicant at the age of sixteen. P. Carnegie Simpson, Rainy’s biographer, describes his conversion as, not a reaction from a state of sin, but a realisation consisting in “the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ becoming, and that perhaps not at any special time, but with the natural development of mind, and heart, and will, something personal and something vital.” When considering whether it is possible to square this description with the normal definition of effectual calling, it has to be remembered that the youth whose entry into spiritual life is thus described, went on to a life in which doctrines he once professed to believe were quietly exchanged for others of an unscriptural sort. Not only so; he led the Free Church away from its original position into a union which led to the general adoption of doctrines very different from those of the Westminster Confession of Faith. The inevitable result of those modern doctrines can be seen throughout Scotland today. In the enthusiasm of the Disruption year, Robert Rainy decided to become a minister. He proved a diligent student, and after a short ministry at Huntly was removed by an Assembly decision to the Free High Church in Edinburgh in 1862. In 1874, the year after Dr Candlish’s death, the Assembly elected Dr Rainy to succeed Candlish as Principal of the New College. Again and again, Carnegie Simpson calls Rainy the “leader” of the Free Church after this point. He had a large following who accepted his views as correct, and went where he led. Thus it was Rainy and his party who shaped the Church’s course for the next 20 years, with what we can only regard as disastrous consequences for the majority of Scotland’s nominally Christian people. (To be continued)