George Smeaton, Learned Theologian and Biblical Scholar, by John W Keddie, published by Ettrick Press, 210 pages: hardback, £17.50; paperback, £9.95, obtainable from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
It is fair to say that Smeaton is not much remembered today for his activities in church affairs, but he is deservedly remembered for his doctrinal writings, particularly his two books on the atonement and also his work on the Holy Spirit. This second edition of this biography should help to keep his memory alive. It is not very different from the first edition, which was published by Evangelical Press.
Smeaton was born in 1814 in Berwickshire. He attended Edinburgh University and finished his divinity course in 1838. Principal John Macleod described Smeaton as “the most eminent scholar of the set of young men who with M’Cheyne and the Bonars sat at the feet of [Thomas] Chalmers”. His eminence in later life is clear from the three volumes mentioned above.
He began his ministry in 1839 in Edinburgh, from where he moved to Falkland in Fife. During his time there, the Disruption of 1843 took place. Smeaton believed that the whole Disruption movement “sprang from a revival of religion” and that also “a revival accompanied” it. “Thousands were impressed and awakened to divine things who were indifferent before”, Smeaton wrote. Soon after the Disruption, he was called to Auchterarder, in Perthshire, but in 1853 he was appointed a tutor in the Aberdeen Free Church College. During the session that began in 1853, Smeaton continued as minister in Auchterarder while he lectured on Systematic Theology in Aberdeen. He was appointed professor in 1854 before being transferred in 1857 to New College in Edinburgh as Professor of New Testament.
Though Smeaton took little part in the activities of church courts, he did oppose proposals to unite the Free Church with the United Presbyterian Church. The main objections within the Free Church to the proposed union were the weakness within the United Presbyterian Church on the extent of the atonement and their support of voluntarism rather than the Establishment Principle. Smeaton’s writings on the atonement follow a thoroughly scriptural line; he also wrote scripturally on the Establishment Principle.
He died in 1889, having lived through the greater part of the declension that took place in the Free Church on the vital subjects of the inspiration and authority of Scripture. When his lectures touched on these subjects, Smeaton remained faithful to the confessional teaching, but most of his students, during these last years, did not appreciate such teaching. As Mr Keddie notes, “In the late nineteenth century, generally speaking, the rising generation of divinity students became impatient with the older orthodoxy”.
The author points out that there is no longer any great amount of material on Smeaton available to help a biographer. Still Mr Keddie has made good use of what is available and has written it up in an interesting way. Besides what is strictly biographical, he analyses Smeaton’s surviving sermons as well as his writings. We are glad to see this book preserving the memory of a worthy minister and teacher in a sympathetic way.