2. Background – Nineteenth-Century Declension
Calvin MacKenzie
Reverberations from the Scottish Disruption in 1843 were soon to be felt in NSW. The Synod of Australia endeavoured to retain relations and communion with both the Established Church and the Free Church of Scotland – an attempt that Robert Candlish labelled as a “milk and water” policy.2 J D Lang also poured scorn on this policy, noting that the Synod of Australia was “offering the right hand of fellowship to the Free Church and the left hand to the State Church, that they might have all the credit of being identified with the one and all the pecuniary profit of belonging to the other”.3 Many of the ministers sympathised with the stand taken by the Free Church of Scotland; however, as tensions increased, it was only a minority that acted on their convictions.
On 10 October 1846, Rev William McIntyre, Maitland, with Revs John Tait of Parramatta, Colin Stewart, Vale of Clyde, and Dr Hill and Mr Samuel Martin, elders adhering to him, tabled a protest severing ties with the Synod of Australia. They thereafter withdrew to the home of William Buyers in Hunter Street, Sydney, where they constituted themselves, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, a court of His Church, to be known as “The Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia” (PCEA) with William McIntyre as Moderator and John Tait as Clerk of Synod.4 This new body was to be seen, as Rowland Ward puts it, “clearly independent and Australian, rather than . . . dependent and colonial”.5
During this period, NSW Presbyterian history was being shaken to its ecclesiastical core by biblical criticism and the so-called “higher learning” that arrived about the same time as Darwinism, to the point that the “Westminster vitality”, as Peter Barnes puts it, was all but gone.6 As the nineteenth century progressed, society generally was becoming more secular, while Evangelical orthodoxy was gradually being replaced with religious liberalism.
The disease that had been insinuating itself into the Scottish Churches was making its way to the opposite side of the world and fomenting a distaste for hitherto-fundamental doctrines as, for example, the verbal inspiration and authority of Scripture, limited atonement, everlasting punishment for the impenitent, and predestination. Amyraldianism – the doctrine that asserts Christ died for all mankind, but His work is only applied to the elect – and Arminianism were both making their presence felt by 1865. The impetus of decline quickened in the period after 1870, as some of the remarks by John Kinross, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in his moderatorial address on 28 October 1873, illustrate: “The theological system known as Calvinism, infant baptism and the Presbyterian form of Church government could only be regarded as at best highly probable truths”.7
In 1876, Alexander Auld of Ashfield wanted to release elders from having to profess their belief in, and solid attachment to, the Westminster Confession of Faith. He was reported in the Australian Witness as saying concerning the Confession: “I may think that some of its alleged facts will not bear investigation, I may think that its forms of thought are too antiquated, and too little in harmony with our modern forms of thought to entitle it to a place amongst our ordinary reading books, I may think also that it gives undue prominence to the severer aspects of the theology of the Scriptures, and too little prominence to its gentler aspects”.8 We see in these comments just two examples of many that could be quoted to illustrate the fact that the doctrines of the “old paths” were by degrees becoming unpalatable amongst an influential core of Presbyterian leaders in NSW.
Some NSW churchmen were apparently quite open to the notion of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, while not embracing it entirely; however, it had started to influence the way in which they expressed their religious ideas.9 Little wonder the doctrine of hell was pushed aside during this period by some, when it was undermined by those who believed that it was an “inappropriate remnant of a more barbarous age”.10 By 1887, this had escalated to full denial by ministers like Alexander Miller, from St Andrew’s United Presbyterian Church, who was reported as saying: “We cannot think that the Almighty should arbitrarily invent these means of physical torture, and submit the sinner to them through the endless ages as the punishment of his sins”.11 Darwin, whose atheism filtered through to his theory of evolution, explained in a passage, actually deleted from his autobiography, why he could not, and did not wish to, believe in Christianity; it was, he said, because of the “damnable doctrine” of everlasting punishment!12
Theologians have made many attempts over the years to harmonise the Genesis account of creation with the geology that has become generally accepted. Sadly, one such was the eminent Thomas Chalmers, who helped lead the Disruption of 1843 that formed the Free Church and who was its first Moderator. Chalmers was the most public proponent of the ‘Gap Theory’, which sought to place an indeterminate gap of time between Genesis 1:1 and the formlessness of Genesis 1:2, thus adding – one hopes, unintentionally – a degree of credibility to the doubt being cast on the veracity of the Scriptures by those who were proclaiming advances in scientific and higher learning.13 This insidious theory can be traced back to the Dutchman Episcopius (1583-1643), and was popularised from one of Chalmers’ lectures in 1814. We are informed by Ian Taylor that “Rev Dr William Buckland, a geologist, did much to popularise’ this theory.14
The traditional Presbyterian form of worship supported by the Regulative Principle was also under threat during this quarter of the nineteenth century. Since Reformation times, Presbyterian congregations generally sang only the metrical version of the Psalms, unaccompanied by musical instruments, while seated, and prayer was always offered while standing. By 1866, some uninspired hymns and paraphrases had been sanctioned for use by the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland and others were added subsequent to a motion from John Adam in the General Assembly of 1869 that was supported by the majority who, along with Robert Rainy, desired union at any price with the United Presbyterian Church.15 By the mid 1870s, several congregations were additionally using harmoniums and organs to aid the singing, and choirs (although not so described) were common. This liberalising influence soon made itself manifest in the colonial Presbyterian churches too.
During this era, the battle for the Christian Sabbath had all but been lost, as society embraced what was known as the “Continental Sunday”. It would appear however, that all NSW Presbyterian ministers at this time were united in their support of this one doctrine at least. In 1888, John MacNeil, the Convenor of the Religion and Morals Committee of the colonial General Assembly said: “It is a matter of profound regret that Sabbath desecration is growing to an alarming extent in our midst”. Peter Barnes provides a quotation which reveals concern that Sabbath desecration had been embraced by some Presbyterian parishioners: “In opposing a Sunday train to Riverstone in 1889, Rev John Ayling declared to a gathering at a tea meeting that ‘if they wanted Riverstone to go ahead they must have a God-fearing and Sabbath-keeping population’”.16 The Sydney congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has worshipped in Riverstone since 1987, and it would appear from the spiritual state of the inhabitants of this suburb that, sad to say, Ayling’s admonitions fell on deaf ears!
But, to return to our timeline, by 1865 more unions had taken place – to the point that all but five ministers of the PCEA had rejoined the Synod of Australia (which was allegedly no longer Erastian!) together with four ministers from the Synod of NSW and the Pyrmont and Phillip Street congregations of the United Presbyterian Church, to form the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of NSW. This body comprised 53 active ministers.17 (There was one further addition in the person of Rev S F MacKenzie, along with his West Maitland congregation of the PCEA, straight after the establishment of the General Assembly.)18
The period between 1865 and 1884, that concluded with the passing of “The Expulsion Act of 1884”, saw several overtures for union pressed on the PCEA by the Presbyterian Church of NSW. George Sutherland of St George’s PCEA congregation in Castlereagh Street was apparently heavily involved behind the scenes in correspondence and conversations with General Assembly ministers to promote the union of Presbyterian churches. These tensions came to a head at the 1884 Synod, when Sutherland’s nomination for the Moderator’s chair was opposed by the minority who had been calling for Free Church consistency for at least two years.
Rev William MacLean informs us: “Amid much tumult, and riding roughshod over Synod procedure, a motion was raised, seconded and sustained on the vote of eight of 13 members present with two abstentions. The Moderator then expelled from the Synod the Revs Peter and John S MacPherson and stated that the absent Rev Hugh Livingstone would be similarly expelled on the next occasion he appeared at court.” Rev H S Buntine together with Mr Samuel Porter, a ruling elder, then apparently left in support.19 These men, after losing two appeals to the secular courts “reconstituted” the Synod on 21 April 1886, which became known as The Reconstituted Synod of Eastern Australia.20
On 27 October 1891, John S MacPherson, East Maitland – a deputy from the Reconstituted Synod – addressed a meeting in the Oddfellows Hall in Grafton on the Northern Rivers. Afterwards a resolution was passed to the effect that the friends forming the Grafton-Brushgrove congregation should unite with the Reconstituted Synod. Later the Richmond River congregation also united with the Reconstituted Synod.21
In process of time, the Expulsion Act of 1884 was rescinded without any acknowledgement of the moral wrong that was done during that time, and this paved the way, on 10 April 1913, for the remnant calling themselves (unconstitutionally, it would appear) the Synod of Eastern Australia to unite with the Free Presbyterian Church of Victoria and the Free Presbyterian Church of South Australia under the name: The Free Presbyterian Church of Australia. Concerning this development, Rev Walter Scott of Brushgrove-Grafton was to say in a pastoral letter to his congregation: “The Sutherland, or Expulsion, Synod have cancelled the Expulsion Act: but they have done so as a matter of policy – not of principle. They never expressed any regret, or sorrow, for what they did so unconstitutionally in ruin to the cause.”22
1The full title of this paper was: “The establishment of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland in Australia against a background of Presbyterian decline in the mid to late 1800s”. The paper was given to the Australia and New Zealand Youth Conference in 2012. The first article dealt with Presbyterianism in NSW before the Disruption in Scotland.
2R G Balfour, Presbyterianism in the Colonies, Edinburgh, 1900, p 42. Cited in P Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 41.
3B J Bridges, The Presbyterian Churches in NSW 1823-1865 with Particular Reference to their Scottish Relations, University of St Andrews PhD thesis, 1985. Cited in P Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 39.
4C A White, The Challenge of the Years, p 17.
5R S Ward, The Bush Still Burns, Wantirna, 1989, p 110.
6Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 7.
7Australian Witness, 1 November 1873, p 1. Cited in P Barnes, Theological Controversies.
8Australian Witness, 9 December 1876, p 4. Cited in P Barnes, Theological Controversies.
9W Phillips, “Religious Response to Darwin in Australia in the Nineteenth Century”, in Journal of Religious History, vol 26, May 1990, pp 37-51. Cited by P Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 99.
10P Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 171.
11Presbyterian, 14 May, 1887, p 2. Cited in P Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 171.
12G Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, New York, 1968, p 12. Cited in P Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 92.
13W W Fields, Unformed and Unfilled, Collinsville, IL, Burgeners Enterprises, 1976, p 40.
14T Taylor, In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order, Toronto, TFE Publishing, 1984, p 363. Buckland was an English theologian and Dean of Westminster (1845-1856).
15A McPherson (ed), History of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland 1893-1970, Inverness, 1973, pp 15-16.
16G Grimm, The Sabbath: Patriarchal, Jewish and Christian, Sydney, nd. Cited in P Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 188.
17C A White, The Challenge of the Years, p 24.
18Peter Barnes, Theological Controversies, p 53.
19W MacLean, In the Footsteps of the Flock – A Memorial to the Rev Walter Scott, Gisborne, 1968, p 31.
20J Campbell Robinson, The Free Presbyterian Church of Australia, Melbourne, 1947, pp 170-172. Appealing to secular courts to overturn decisions of Church courts is, however, in violation of 1 Corinthians 6:1,7.
21I am unsure of the date the Richmond River congregation joined the Reconstituted Synod, but it was between October 1891 and January 1903.
22W MacLean, In the Footsteps of the Flock, p 40.