1. The Marrow Controversy
Rev Keith M Watkins
“Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon Him alone for salvation, as He is offered to us in the gospel.” This definition of saving faith from The Shorter Catechism2 seems plain enough, but the Marrow Controversy in the Church of Scotland 300 years ago showed that there can be real disputes about faith as well as other things. What exactly is it to receive and rest on Christ for salvation? Does faith necessarily include some form of assurance or not? Exactly how is Christ offered in the gospel? What gives sinners the right to exercise faith in Christ?
The Marrow of Modern Divinity was a book written in 1645 by an Englishman called Edward Fisher. By “modern divinity” was meant the system of true, evangelical doctrine recovered since the Reformation in the previous century, and much of the book’s wording was drawn intentionally from the writings of Reformers and Puritans. Its format was an imaginary discussion between four men: a faithful gospel minister called Evangelista, a legalist called Nomista, an antinomian called Antinomista, and a young Christian called Neophytus. For the benefit of eager Neophytus, Evangelista exposes
1The first part of a paper given at the 2019 Theological Conference.
2Answer to question 86.
and corrects the errors of both legalism and antinomianism. In doing so, he brings out the very essence of Scripture’s gospel of God’s free grace.
Half a century later, Thomas Boston, then minister of Simprin, in the Scottish Borders, came across the book in the home of one of his parishioners, and found in it the truth of the gospel. The book spread to like-minded ministers, including James Hog, and Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, who warmed to its emphases. Marrow distinctives were being preached very clearly by these “Marrowmen”, as they came to be called. The majority in the Church did not like it. With a warm zeal, the Marrowmen were offering Christ to sinners without exception, and that was diametrically opposed to the barren chill of Moderatism that had entered many a Church of Scotland pulpit. Conflict was inevitable, and the Assembly moved to outlaw the book and its distinctive doctrines, and to discipline some who adhered to it. In little more than a decade, a number of Marrowmen seceded from the established Church.
It is true that some statements in The Marrow could have been phrased more clearly. Ebenezer Erskine himself admitted that “there were several unguarded expressions in it”.3 When Boston republished it in 1726, he added many pages of explanatory footnotes, partly to clarify the way some words and phrases were being used. But The Marrow set forth the gospel of the Bible, so the Marrowmen could not cease to defend the doctrine of the book, and to write and preach in accordance with its distinctives. They were of the same spirit as the Apostles before them: “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
A number of points were in dispute during the controversy, but the focus of this paper is on saving faith. The words of our title reflect a statement in a 1926 article by Rev Donald Beaton, in which he described two books as “excellent treatises dealing with the subject of saving faith from the Marrow standpoint”.4 One of those books forms the basis for this paper: John Colquhoun’s A View of Saving Faith from the Sacred Records, originally published in 1824.5 Mr Beaton described it as “the most lucid summary of the Marrow doctrine of faith we have come across”.6 Colquhoun was Church of Scotland minister in South Leith, Edinburgh, throughout his 46-year ministry, from 1781 until 1827. He traced his conversion to The Shorter
3Letter to Mr Gillespie, minister at Strathmiglo, dated 18 September 1721, in John Brown (of Whitburn), Gospel Truth Accurately Stated and Illustrated, Glasgow, 1831, p 125.
4Donald Beaton, “The ‘Marrow of Modern Divinity’ and the Marrow Controversy”, Records of the Scottish Church History Society, 1926, pp 112-134. The words are found on page 133.
5All unreferenced page numbers refer to the edition of this book published by Free Presbyterian Publications in 2010.
6Beaton, “The Marrow”, p 126.
Catechism’s answer on effectual calling. He subsequently walked a 50-mile round trip to obtain a copy of Boston’s Fourfold State, and ever afterwards his theological outlook was that of “a thoroughgoing Marrowman”.7
Colquhoun begins his book by stating: “Saving faith is of inexpressible importance, and of indispensable necessity” (p v). After an introductory chapter on “faith in general”, he proceeds to a comprehensive treatment of the subject. He deals with faith’s grounds, its objects, its warrant, its acts, its assurance, its adjuncts and fruits, and how it is different from counterfeit faith; (this paper looks at the first four of these). Then he answers objections. Each chapter is concluded with helpful “reflections” to apply the truth.
1. The grounds of saving faith. Saving faith trusts Christ as He is revealed in Scripture. But on what grounds does faith place its confidence in the Bible? There are six things it is not grounded on. Saving faith is supernatural and needs a divine testimony, so it cannot be grounded on (1) the external arguments that the Bible is the Word of God, for they are based on human reasoning; nor (2) upon the testimony of any man or Church; nor (3) on the miracles done by Scripture’s penmen, as we can know of them only because of Scripture; nor (4) on any apparent suitability of Scripture’s teaching to the thinking of the natural man; nor (5) on any particular text of Scripture testifying to the truth of the whole; nor (6) on the Holy Spirit’s enabling us to receive the Scriptures as true. Rather, “the ground . . . on which a man thus assents to the Scriptures and to every truth in them, is the truth and authority of God speaking in them, evidencing themselves to his faith . . . by their own light and power” (p 59).
2. The objects of saving faith. If someone has saving faith, what exactly is it that they believe in? Colquhoun lists four objects of saving faith.
The first object, which Colquhoun calls the general object of saving faith, “is the whole Word of God contained in the Scriptures” (p 81). Saving faith believes the whole Bible, but its main focus is on law and gospel. It believes “the whole doctrine of the law as a covenant of works” (p 82), in its precepts and threatenings. It especially believes “the doctrines, promises, offers and invitations of the glorious gospel” (p 84).
The second object, the “immediate, personal object of saving faith, is the Lord Jesus Christ, as God-man and Mediator” (p 86). Faith embraces Him as the eternal Son of God, the Saviour of the world and the “anointed One, solemnly invested with His priestly, prophetic and kingly offices” (p 89). His priestly office takes priority: “Saving faith, in the order of nature, first looks to Him as a Priest, for justification and reconciliation with God, and
7John Macleod, Scottish Theology in relation to Church History since the Reformation, Edinburgh, 1943, p 219.
then to Him as a Prophet and a King, for illuminating and sanctifying grace” (p 89). John 14:6 shows this: it was “as if He had said, I am the way as a Priest . . . the truth as a Prophet . . . and the life as a King” (pp 92,93). The order in which Christ executes the offices is different. That follows 1 Corinthians 1:30, which is “as if . . . Christ is made of God to us wisdom as a Prophet, righteousness as a Priest, sanctification as a King, and redemption as vested with all these offices” (p 93).
The terms justifying and saving faith are distinguished: “Faith, as it is saving, is a sinner’s reception of the Saviour in all His saving offices; but as it is justifying, it is his trusting in Him only as a Priest, who hath put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (p 90). Justifying faith is “not faith of a different kind from saving faith; but it is saving faith itself, under a particular consideration of it. In so far as saving faith . . . is a cordial reliance on [the righteousness of Christ] only, for all my title to justification before God and to eternal life, it is justifying faith” (p 101).
The third object, the “ultimate, personal object of saving faith”, is “God in Christ, as a God of mercy, grace and love, and as reconciling sinners to Himself” (p 93). Although Christ is the “immediate personal object of saving faith” (p 86), the “ultimate personal object of saving faith” is “God in Christ, as a God of mercy, grace and love, and as reconciling sinners to Himself” (p 93). Saving faith does not “terminate” on Christ, “but extends to God in Him” (p 94), for “the very same act of faith which has Him as God for its object, has at the same time for its object the other Persons of the adorable Trinity, seeing they are all one God” (p 94). However, saving faith does not look to God “as an absolute God, a God out of Christ; for, as such, He is a consuming fire to sinners” (p 94). It is to God reconciled in Christ that it looks.
The fourth object, “the ultimate, real object”, is “the Surety-righteousness of Jesus Christ” (p 95). “The believer accepts and trusts in Christ for salvation, in order to rely on His righteousness for a title to salvation” (p 95). “Consisting of His perfect holiness of human nature, perfect obedience of life and complete satisfaction for sin” (p 96), this righteousness has infinite meritorious value, being fulfilled by God in human nature. A precious distinction is made: “If the first Adam had continued upright, his title to eternal life would have arisen, not from the value of his obedience, but from the promise of the covenant made with him; whereas the righteousness of the second Adam is strictly speaking meritorious. Its intrinsic value being infinite, it entitles to eternal life according to the strictest rules of remunerative justice” (pp 96,97).
Faith is the instrument, not the condition, of justification. A person “is justified by faith, though not for his faith. He is justified by the instrumentality of faith; but not by the act of faith as an act of obedience to the law”
(p 101). Therefore “faith cannot strictly speaking be the condition of justification; because a condition may be pleaded as a valuable consideration in law” (p 102). The Lord Jesus Christ, and He alone, has fulfilled all the conditions of the covenant of grace.