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CT
THE WAB
AGAINST THE
WESTMINSTER STANDARDS.
REV. DAVID MACRAE’S
SPEECHES,
INCLUDING THE
SPEECH SUPPRESSED BY THE PRESBYTERY.
PCBLISHED WITH MR. MACRAE'S CONSENT,
AND EDITED
WITH NOTES AND CRITICISMS.
GLASGOW :
JOHN S. MARR & SONS, 194 BUCHANAN STREET.
1877.
�7
CONTENTS.
I’AG
Editorial Preface,....................................................................... 3
The Alarm Gun,................................................................................7
The Presbyterian Pope,.............................................................. S
The First .Speech Attacking the Standards,
.
.
.
9
Second Speech
.
.
.
21
before the
Presbytery,
.
How ■ Ecclesiastical Toryism will Deal with the
Reform,............................................................................. 33
Public Lecture
at
Gourock,................................................... 34
.
.
50
.
.
63
Appendix—Is Mr. Macrae's Picture of the Theology
the Confession a “Caricature?” .
.
.
of
Last Speech
Overture
before the
from
Presbytery (Suppressed),
Mr. Macrae's Kirk-Session,
.
.
65
�EDITORIAL PREFACE.
Mr. Macrae’s Speeches have been collected and published in this
form in deference to a widespread desire on the part of the general
public.
His first onslaught on the Confession was condemned by
many as fitted to produce alarm and disturbance in the Churches,
and even to postpone the reform which Mr. Macrae was seeking.
The result has shown, in our opinion, that his attack, sudden and
fierce though it was, was just what the situation required.
It
aroused the attention of the country; it elicited an unexpected
amount of sympathy and support from the Christian laity; and it
soon brought other champions into the field, whose swords have
flashed before now in the sacred cause of reform.
It has led to the
question being agitated in other Presbyteries ; it has seen the cause
espoused, and a battle won, by the party of reform in Glasgow ; and
it has been the means of bringing the question in a practical form
before the Supreme Court of the Church.
What awaits it now, and what awaits the men who have headed
the movement, remains to be seen.
a hopeful view of the situation.
We are amongst those who take
The Church does not stand where
she did when she cut off Dr. James Morison and Dr. John Guthrie—
two of the most devout men, and two of the most scholarly minds
she has ever had within her pale.
There is, in our opinion, plenty of
bigotry in the Church still; but it has less sway.
The times are
�4
changed ; a new spirit is arising; and tlie present movement has,
within four months of its initiation, developed with such rapidity
and is already operating so powerfully within the Church and
beyond it, that it seems not unlikely that Dr. Carpenter’s prediction,
may be verified, that Mr. Macrae’s attack on the Confession will
prove the beginning of a new era in the religious life of Scotland.
Meantime the reactionary party in the Church have been doing
their best at every stage to burke the movement.
Nothing could
be more amusing, if it were less humiliating, than to observe
how readily the divines who are against reform admit that
reform is desirable, if it is only not attempted!
They concede
its necessity in the abstract, but deny it in the concrete.
They
are agreed that it should be done, if only it is not done just now.
In the discussion of Mr. Macrae’s overture in the Paisley and
Greenock Presbytery, the Rev. J. B. Smith of Greenock thought
“the Confession might be improved, but from the present relation
to each other of the churches holding it, he did not think this was
the time for it.”
Rev. Mr. Inglis had thought the matter should
be moved in, but that it had better wait, at least for another year.
He
“ disliked excessively some things in the Confession of Faith regard
ing predestination.”
Some of the language “ could not be justified.”
It “would have been greatly to our credit had we got rid of it
a hundred years ago.”
Dr. Hutton said,
“ But ”—of course there was a “ but.”
they might all with perfect safety say of
the Confession it “ was susceptible of improvement.”
“ There
were many grounds on which the revision of the Confession might
be argued for with safety and advantage ; but—” &c.
Rev. James
Brown of Paisley admitted the revisability of the standards, “ but
there was no certain period fixed for their revision,” and “ no time
was more unfit than the present.” He admitted the right of the Church
to revise the Standards, but “ he could not support the revision just
now.”
It was the same in Glasgow.
In the endeavour to strangle
�5
as kindly as possible tlie important overture introduced by the Rev.
Fergus Ferguson of Queen’s Park, Dr. Young “recognized the right
and duty of the Church to revise from time to time its subordinate
.standards, but did not see cause to open up the question meanwhile.”
Rev. Mr. Ramage thought the Confession “ too long, too elaborate, too
polemical, too metaphysical, too technical.” He thought that something
“ more in accordance with the simplicity that is in Christ would be
greatly preferable.”
But “ a step like this had never been taken
except under the force of circumstances that rendered it inevitable.
Such circumstances did not at this moment exist, so he thought
the matter should be let alone.
In other words, he thought it would
be a good thing to do, but it should never be done—at least till it
could not be helped '.
It was the same in Edinburgh.
In the
discussion of Mr. Mill’s overture, Dr. Peddie “approved of a
revision of the Standards theoretically,”
for it.
So it is everywhere.
but
this was not the time
As Mr. Macrae himself has said, “ it
has been the same thing every time an attempt at reform has
been made. Desirable, but not now.
Our Standards fail to present
the truth of the Gospel; but this is not the time to make them
do it.
They state things that are false ; but this is not the time to
bring them into harmony with the truth ?
Was ever mockery
like this I ”
It is made an excuse by some that the Church must wait till the
right men appear.
But the policy of shirking duty and doing noth
ing is not the way to produce the right men.
that the men who have headed this
men.
are
young
Who could be expected to head a reform movement
but young men I
all
It is also objected
movement
been
The greatest reforms of the past ages have
accomplished by young men. . Christ Himself, the
supreme example, finished His work on earth when He was thirtythree. It is strange to hear Calviuistic ministers condemning younger
men for attempting reform, when Calvin himself had written
�6
his Institutes of the Christian lieligion while lie was still ten years
younger than any of the men who are heading this movement
—had, indeed, before he was twenty-eight, built up that gloomy and
gigantic system which has dominated the Church for centuries, and
before -which these Calvinistic divines are still bowing down as before
the brazen image of Nebuchadnezzar.
If men don’t do their duty
when they are young, they are not likely to begin when they are
old.
The leaders of the United Presbyterian Church to-day were
young when earlier voices proclaimed the need of revision and
reform; but they shrank from their duty, and now (with a few
notable exceptions), grown old in indolence, and hardened into Con
servatism, they seem to find no use for their experience but in
depreciating and retarding the reform which they themselves should
have accomplished long ago.
That reform, and others, are evidently
coming; and we trust these Speeches of Mr. Macrae’s will help tohasten them.
�THE WAR
AGAINST THE
WESTMINSTER STANDARDS.
I.—THE ALARM GUN.
On Tuesday, December 5th, 1876, in the Paisley and Greenock
Presbytery of the United Presbyterian Church, the Rev. David
Macrae of Gourock gave notice that at the next meeting he
would make a motion anent the Standards of the Church. He
was aware of its issues, and was ready to -meet any perils it
might involve. It was designed as an overture to the Supreme
Court of the Church, and would be in the following terms :—
“ That the time has come when the Standards of our Church
ought to be reconstructed or revised. That they are too long
and too intricate, and defeat the very object of their length and
minuteness by preventing the members of the Church from be
coming acquainted with them. Further, that, with all their
voluminousness, they probably omit more than one thing which
they ought to contain, and certainly contain a great many things
which they ought to omit—mixing up matters of opinion with
matters of faith, separating Christian Churches from one another,
multiplying difficulties in the way of a Catholic union, and hinder
ing, in a variety of ways, the progress of Christ’s Kingdom.
That even as regards the Church’s own relation to its creed, two
hundred years of research and experience have developed differ
ences between the professed and the actual faith of the Church;
�8
ancl that the spectacle of a Church professing to hold all these
articles as articles of faith, while holding many of them only as
matters of opinion, and not holding some of them at all, is a
had example to the world, and demoralising to the Church her
self. That the continued timidity of the Church in dealing
with her Standards in view of these facts is becoming discredit
able to her faith in the abiding presence of God’s Spirit; is a
policy of unfaithfulness to the truth; and a policy that would
be by no party more condemned than by the men who framed
these Standards according to the light they had, and by the
Reformers, whose creed has been preserved, but whose fearless
loyalty to truth has been to a large extent lost. That our own
Church, from her history and also from her present position (as
free on the one hand from entanglement with the State, and on
the other hand from union negotiations) stands now in a pecu
liarly favourable position for undertaking the work of revision,
which important work the Synod is respectfully overtimed to
commence, with the view of preparing, if possible, a brief and
simple formula, containing only the articles of faith which we
think every man, in order to belong to the Church of Christ,
must hold, and relegating to a separate category all points which
are merely distinctive, or may be regarded by the Church as a
desirable safeguard or protest against the errors of the time.”'
II—THE PRESBYTERIAN POPE.
Shortly after the foregoing notice was given in the Presby
tery, Mr. Macrae preached a sermon in his own church in
Gourock, on “ Popish and Protestant Superstitions,” in which,
according to the Scotsman’s report on January 12tli, he referred
to the Confession of Faith in the following terms :—He said the awe with which some of our churches regarded
that document, and the terror with which they regarded any
proposal to touch it, were essentially superstitious. The West
minster Confession deserved more study, but less idolatry.
Instead of being taken for what it was—a system of doctrine
�9
prepared by fallible men, and therefore requiring to be tested
and revised in the light of subsequent research and experience—
it had been erected into an oracle, a sort of Petrified Pope,
blind to new light, deaf to new argument, settling everything,
old or new, by the Westminster decision of two hundred and
thirty years ago. Results of thought and science, if they con
firmed the Confession, were always welcome ; if against it, they
were tabooed. Orthodoxy had come to mean acceptance of the
Confession. Heresy had come to mean, not a denial of God's
Word, but a denial of what the Westminster divines said was
God’s Word. The very Bible must be read in the light of the
Confession, if not even tried at its bar. The truth of God
could only get into the creed if stamped with the Westminster
stamp. This might be regarded as a way of guarding against
error, and especially as a safeguard against Popery. But it was
only putting aside one Pope to make way for another—happily
for a better and more Scriptural one, but not the less a Pope—
a human authority credited with infallibility, and endowed
with practical supremacy over the conscience.
Ill—THE FIRST SPEECH ATTACKING THE
STANDARDS*
Delivered
Presbytery,
January, 1877.
before the
ox the
IGth of
At the meeting of the Paisley and Greenock Presbytery in
January, Mr. Macrae brought forward the subject of the
Dr. Carpenter of London, writing about this speech to the Glasgow
Herald, in the midst of the excitement and widespread discussion
which it caused, says:— ‘ ‘ The interest which I have continued to feel
in all that relates to the national welfare of Scotland, ever since I studied
in her metropolis forty years ago, is my apology for addressing you on
�10
Westminster Standards. He read the motion of which he had
given notice at the previous meeting, and made this speech in
its support:—
When I gave notice of this motion, six weeks ago, I made
it so long and so explicit for two reasons. First, I thought
it due to the fathers and brethren of this Presbytery to make
them acquainted beforehand with the ground I meant to take, that
they might come prepared with a mature judgment upon it to
day. In the second place, I was anxious not so much to frame
a motion that would win support, as a motion (whatever its fate)
that would fully and explicitly speak the truth. For years I
waited for others to take this step, till I felt ashamed. I read
their reasons for not taking it till I felt more ashamed. At last
I felt that I had no right to look to others for a decisive step
which I was not prepared to take myself. That led to the
framing of this motion, and I am here to-day determined to
strike a blow, even if it should be my last, to liberate the Church
I love from the tyranny of a narrow and unscriptural creed, and
the hypocrisy of professed adherence to it. I am well aware of
the difficulty of dealing with our Standards. I am aware that
every proposition in that enormous compendium of Calvinistic
theology has been, and can be, with more or less shoAV of reason,
defended. I thought myself, at one time, that I could see a way
through casuistry to a plausible reconciliation of its doctrines
with my position as a minister of the Gospel of salvation. But
the subject of the ‘Revision of the Standards.’ Having had con
siderable opportunity of observing the direction of that under current
of intelligent thought which sooner or later manifests itself in surface
movement, I entertain a strong conviction that the speech of the Rev.
David Macrae, in moving for that revision, will prove the begin
ning of a new era in the religious life of Scotland. For I have longnoticed a gradual but unmistakable preparation for the downfall of that
narrow Calvinistic system which is embodied in the Standards of your
three Presbyterian Churches. The educated common sense of your
people has been coming to perceive that what is so wnmoraZ cannot be
religiously true.’’
�11
more and more I feel that for every honest mind wishing tokeep his profession square with his principles and practice, the
entanglements of casuistry are every day getting more intoler
able—worse for ourselves, worse for the Church, worse for the
cause of truth •—that we cannot a moment too soon burst these
entanglements asunder and step out into an honest and clear
profession of our faith.* My conviction is, that if our people
knew what these Standards of our Church contain—if these
documents were not so long, so intricate, so full of theological
subtleties as to repel inquirers and leave them in ignorance of
their contents—-our people would, from a sense of common
honesty, have long since demanded, what our ministers should
long since have secured, a revision, if not a new statement, of
what is believed and preached in our Church, f I maintain that
In the Edinburgh Presbytery it was stated by one of the speakers
that, eight years ago, in the Divinity Hall, Mr. Macrae headed a move
ment amongst the students, for opposition to the Westminister standards.
The result, he said, was a memorial to the Senatus, followed by a Con
ference ; and this, as far as we can learn, satisfied the students that the
standards were not held binding in the same sense as a commercial bond;
that subscription did not at all imply any such adherence to the letter of
the Confession; and that this was quite understood by the Church. It is
not at all improbable that this was part of the system of “talking objec
tors over,” which Dr. Joseph Brown referred to in his able speech in
the Glasgow Presbytery, as too common, and in the present state of
things too necessary, and part of the very system to which Mr. Macrae
takes such strong exception here.
+ Ministers themselves are not always acquainted with the standards
they profess. We know a case of one U.P. elder from the country, who,
when he removed to Edinburgh, was elected to the eldership of the
church he had joined there, but declined to accept on account of hisobjections to the Confession. The minister had an interview with him,
and asked what points he objected to. The elder specified the teaching
of infant damnation. The minister said surely that was not in the
Confession, and fetched a copy, remarking that it was a document he
had not looked at for many years. When the passages were found, the
minister said he did not believe that doctrine himself. But, he said, let
us look at the texts referred to. They sat down and examined these-
�12
•our relationship to these so-called Standards is not an honest
one; that the professed is not the actual creed of the Church ;
that our Church is professing one creed, while holding, and to
.a large extent preaching, another. What is our profession ?
Wliat is the theology of the Confession which is declared to be
.an exhibition of what is believed and taught in our Scottish
Churches ?
The Theology of the Confession.
The Confession teaches that God, for His own glory, has pre
destinated some men to be saved, but that all the rest of mankind
He has predestinated to damnation and everlasting torment in
hell. It teaches that while there is no fear of the elect, there
is no hope for the non-elect. It teaches that God has absolutely
and unchangeably fixed the very number, so that not one of
them can be brought over to the ranks of the saved, preach to
them and pray for them as you will. It teaches that none are
redeemed by Christ but the elect only. .It teaches that the rest
of mankind are not only unable to believe in Christ, and beyond
His power to redeem, but are brought into the world by God
utterly unable to help themselves. It teaches, indeed, that God
hardens them, withholding the grace by which they might have
been enlightened in their understanding and wrought upon in
carefully one by one; the result being that the minister declared that
not one of them gave the slightest support to the teaching referred to,
and that it was a shame that such doctrines should have been allowed so
long t<? remain in the professed standards of the Church. After talking
over other difficulties, the minister, perfectly satisfied with the elder’s
Scriptural orthodoxy, though Westminster heterodoxy, said, “We will just
receive you on your own Confession.” Which was done. The elder,
however, told Mr. Macrae himself that he was never easy in conscience
about it, feeling that, if he was right, the form of accepting the Confes
sion was wrong. We have this on Mr. Macrae’s own authority ; but
many others could be added, some of them from the very Presbytery
which has so strongly condemned Mr. Macrae for his crusade in the
interests of reform.
�their hearts. It teaches that by reason of the sin of Aclam,
apart from any fault of their own, they come into the world
wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body,
utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and
wholly inclined to all evil. It teaches that because of this sin,
which they could not and cannot help, they are bound helplessly
over to the wrath of God and the curse of the law, and. so made
subject to spiritual, temporal, and eternal death. It teaches
that even in heathen lands, where they have never heard, and
therefore have had no opportunity of accepting the Gospel, they
cannot be saved, no matter how earnestly they may frame their
lives according to the light of nature, or the laws of that religion
which they profess. It teaches that if they do wrong it is sin,
and they are damned for it; and if they do right it is still sin,
and they are damned all the same. If they turn to the one
hand it is bad ; if they turn to the other it is worse. If they
obey the law of God it is sin ; if they disobey it, it is worse sin.
This is the doctrine of the Confession. Repent and turn to God
it is declared they cannot. They cannot even make an effort
that way; they are unchangeably predestinated to be damned.
And after death, according to our Standard, they are all cast
into hell, there to endure for ever and ever unspeakable torments,
both of soul and body, as long as God Himself shall exist. It
teaches that of the countless myriads of babes who have died
and are dying in infancy, only the elect are saved. For the
non-elect, young or old, it has no fate but the unending and un
speakable torments of hell.
Is this the Creed Preached or Believed?
I ask the fathers and brethren of this Presbytery to say
honestly if this is the theology they preach ? I ask members of
the U.P. Church to say honestly if that is the theology they
hear preached ? If not, then the Church is professing one creed
and preaching another. The moral of this is plain. If the
�14
'Church holds the theology of the Confession to be true, she
should abide by it and preach it. If she holds it not to be true,
-she should not profess it. No doubt there is a great deal in the
Confession that we all accept. The Confession contains some
•of the most admirable and concise statements of Scriptural
•truth that have ever been put into human language. But they
are nuggets in the Westminster quartz; they are pebbles im
bedded in the theology I have described. And in the form of
accepting the Confession, no distinction is made between what
is scriptural and what is unscriptural. Its truth and its error
are equally professed as part of our faith.
The
other
Churches Fettered
still more.
No doubt our Church (from a motive and with a courage that
■did her honour) not only put a brand on sections of the Con
fession that gave the civil magistrate authority in the domain of
•conscience, but relaxed for the whole Confession the terms of
-subscription. The Established and Free Churches require thenoffice-bearers to declare that they believe the whole doctrine
which the Confession contains, that they acknowledge the same
■as the confession of their faith, and that they will firmly and
■constantly adhere thereto.
In our Church, office-bearers are
only required to accept the Confession generally, as an exhibi
tion of the sense in which they understand the Scriptures. But
the courage of this modification was greater than its practical
value, for, if we consider it, the general sense is’worse than any
■of the individual propositions.
The “ General Sense ” Assailed.
The whole general sense of the Confession is deformed by the
omission from its theological system of the true character of
God as revealed in the Scriptures. The God of the Confession
is not the God of the Bible; and God’s character is the basis of
�15
all theology and of all Gospel preaching. Read the Confession,
and then read the Bible. Look on this picture, and on that.
In the one, God bringing countless millions of human beings
into the world utterly helpless, predestinated to everlasting
torment by God’s own free will. In the other, God having “ no
pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn
from his way and live;”—“not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.” The Confession giving
by its general sense the picture of men pleading with an inexor
able God, struggling with an inexorable fate; the other giving
us the picture of God pleading with man, sending forth His
ministers as messengers of mercy, as though God did beseech
men by us, we, in Christ’s stead, praying men to be reconciled
to God. The Confession teaching that Christ redeemed the
elect only, that God effectually calls the elect only, that He
loves only the elect. The Bible telling us that “ God so loved
the world (not the elect, but ‘the world’) that He gave His
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life.” The Confession formally
admitting, but practically, by the inexorable logic of its system,
denying man’s free will, representing him as utterly unable to
turn to God or even make the effort. The Bible giving us the
picture of the prodigal son saying, “ I will arise and go unto my
father;” elsewhere saying, “Whosoever will, let him take of the
water of life freely;” and again, “ Ye will not come unto me that
ye might have life.” The general sense of the Confession is there
fore the worst of it. It gives us a different God from the God
of the Bible. No doubt it says in one place that God is most
loving and merciful, but epithets mean nothing when they are
belied by the thing described. It is vain to say that the
Deluge was harmless if you proceed to state that it destroyed
the whole human race except those who were in the ark. Much
even of the truth that the Confession gives about the character
of God it turns into misrepresentation, by separating it from
the totality of God’s being. It constructs almost its whole
�16
theology upon God’s sovereignty.
But, by severing His sove
reignty from the other attributes of His being, it converts the
heavenly Father, the holy and merciful God, into an arbitrary
and capricious despot..
Abuse
of
“ Texts.”
It is not enough that the Confession, in constructing the
dogmas on which such a character is founded, should be able to
appeal for authority to some isolated verse of Scripture. Unitarianism can do that, so can Romanism, so can Mormonism.
So can, and so does, every “ Ism ” in Christendom. We must
have the general sense, not of the Confession, but the general
sense of the Bible. If we are to have everything the Bible
supplies on the side of Calvinism, let us have along with it
what the Bible supplies against Calvinism. The Confession,
for some of its purposes, is too long already; but let us have it
double the length if it will give us the whole truth, rather than
have it leaving out half the truth, and in this way converting*
the other half into a lie. This would throw us back upon the
Bible ; and this is just what in the meantime is needed. We
shall there find the truths of the Confession, but find them, at
least, in their natural connection. We shall there, at least,
escape the misrepresentation caused by divorcing expressions
from the element of personality, and tearing texts away from
the profound relativity of Scripture.
How Casuistry is Used.
In saying all this, I am well aware that every doctrine in
the Confession, even as it stands, has been, or can be, defended
or explained away. But some of the casuistry employed for
this purpose is as discreditable as the doctrine it is used to
defend. For instance, the Confession says that “elect infants”
are saved.
The other side of the doctrine obviously is that non
�17
elect infants are cast into hell. This is not only a consistent
part of the Calvinistic system; it was not only in former days
admitted and preached; but within the memory of fathers and
brethren in this Presbytery, one of the most eminent ministers
of our Church was like to have been brought before the Church
Courts for denying it. When the Christian conscience of the
Church, educated and enlightened by fuller acquaintance with
the spirit of the Gospel, could no longer brook this doctrine, it
was first let alone and then practically repudiated.
There,
however, it remains in the Confession as a part of what we
profess to believe, only it is considered legitimate to explain it
away by saying that “elect infants” may mean “all infants.”
And so, by means of a quibble, all who die in infancy are
smuggled into security. Is that a shift worthy of a Christian
Church ? If we hold the doctrine of infant salvation, let us
avow it. If we think such a dogma would go beyond Scripture,
let us have no dogma on the subject at all. In any case, let us
be straightforward, and keep our creed in honest harmony with
our convictions. Let us not allow the character of our Church
for honesty to depend on the popular ignorance of our Standards.
Let us have a formula containing what we really believe; not
a formula containing what we don’t believe, and don’t need to
believe, in order to belong to the Church of Christ.
The Kind
of
Reform Required.
This brings me to the practical part of the motion I am
offering to the Presbytery. I am not advocating the revision of
the Confession for the purpose merely of altering or re-stating
certain points. I would let the Confession alone; but I would
have it put amongst historical documents, not retained as a
Standard. What we need is a brief formula, containing what
we regard as essential; the doctrines which every man, if he is
to be a member of a Christian Church, must believe. The
Confession is full of dogmas which a Christian man may hold
M.
B
�18
or not hold without its affecting his character as a Christian.
It contains articles which separate from us whole denominations
which we yet recognize as Christian denominations, and frater
nise with, preaching in their pulpits, and opening our pulpits to
them. Let us have a formula as liberal at least as our practice,
a formula from which everything is excluded that separates
from us those whom we recognize as Christian brethren—a
ground on which all Christian people could join us—a ground
on which all Christian Churches could unite or confederate.
And non-essential but distinctive principles let us put into a
separate category, which might serve as a denominational testi
mony.
This is Already Accomplished for Ordinary Members.
This would simply be carrying out on a large scale the prin
ciple which we already act upon in congregations. There we
have a common ground on which we unite, while (on other points
not essential to Christian fellowship) we retain our individual and
often conflicting opinions. How possible it would be to accom
plish the proposed reform were we thinking less of the theology
that sunders, and more of the religion that unites, is seen in the
fact that we have already in use in our Church, as a kind of
test creed for applicants to our communion, a brief formula that
might still stand revision, but one already about two hundred
times shorter than our present Standards, and as a doctrinal basis
two hundred times better. On that basis I have admitted into
my church at Gourock not only United Presbyterians but Free
Church people, Established Church people, Reformed Presby
terians, Baptists, Independents, Methodists, Evangelical Union
ists, and Episcopalians. Most of these would have been excluded
by the Confession of Faith; and yet we have found them true and
worthy members of our Christian brotherhood ; and the Church,
instead of suffering, has gained in every way by their admission.
If this be found a formula sufficient for Christian individuals, why
�19
-should we despair of framing a formula as short that shall be
sufficient for Christian denominations.
What, therefore, this
motion pleads, is not a mere revision of the Westminster Con
fession, but the preparation of a brief formula, excluding as far
as possible all mere matters of opinion, and points on which
Christian people can be allowed to differ—containing only those
points on which they may all be said to have agreed.
Advantageous Position of the United Presbyterian
Church for Action.
To the initiation of this important work, the United Presby
terian Church seems by her history and present position to be
specially called. We, as a Church, can look back upon a series
of courageous advances towards a wider and more Catholic union.
We have already modified our relation to the Confession by the
exclusion of certain sections, and by the terms in which we accept
the rest. We are free now from those negotiations with another
Church which so long embarrassed our discussions and impeded
the freedom of our action. We are not entangled, as the Free
Church is, with questions of Church property, and conservative
traditions. We are also free from any such compact with the
State as fetters the actions of the Established Church. We
have a right to alter our Standards when we please—a right
prescriptive as well as real. But the advantage this freedom
gives us over a Church established by law depends very much
on the use we make of it. Between a Church that will not
abolish a dishonest profession for want of courage, and a Church
that cannot do it for want of power, many will not see much to
choose. Let us show that we have, and that we value, our
liberty, by its exercise when duty calls for it. Let us show our
faith in the truth by practising it. Let us seek no favour, let
us value no alliance that depends on a false conception of what
we are—a conception produced by our pointing to Standards
that misrepresent our actual creed.
�20
“ Historical Identity.”
It is said that though our present Standards no longer repre
sent accurately the faith of the Church, yet, if we put them
aside, we shall destroy our historical identity. If our historical
identity depends upon a disingenuous profession, the sooner it
is destroyed the better. The apostle Paul was a child once, but
he did not consider it necessary for bis historical identity to
remain a child always ; when he became a man he put away
childish things. A growing boy does not lose his identity by
putting aside the garments that have grown too small for him ;
the boy’s identity is not in his habiliments, but in himself.
The Church is a living thing, not a formula. Its identity is in
itself, not in its confessions. And the true violation of historical
identity is for a Church that has grown to pretend that she has
not. Let us have a creed that fits us. Let us have a formula
that expresses our actual faith. Let us not delude ourselves by
supposing that we can serve the cause of truth by means of an
untruthful profession.
Conclusion.
I have spoken thus, fathers and brethren, out of a deep con
viction that the time has come when this question, difficult
though it be, must be courageously faced.
I believe this,
motion speaks the truth, and points out the best line for action •
and I believe that this reform is coming, whether with us or
over us, whether we are found on the chariot or under its
wheels. At the same time, I make this motion now ■with little
hope of its adoption, without the assurance that any one will so
much as give it his support. I know the peril to which any one
exposes himself here who, even to vindicate the word of God
dares to impugn the Confession; and though I have made up
my own mind to abide by the issue of this step, I have not felt
�21
at liberty to ask any brother to share the peril with me. But
Reform is coming, of that I feel assured; and, in the meantime,
trusting to the power and ultimate triumph of the truth, I offer
this motion to the Presbytery.
IV.—MR. MACRAE’S SECOND SPEECH BEFORE THE
PRESBYTERY.
Made on March 16th, in reply to the attack made upon his
First Speech, apparently with the object, certainly with the
effect, of evading the question raised by Mr. Macrae?s Over
ture.
After speeches by Mr. Inglis (Presbytery Clerk) and other
members of Presbytery, and a motion of censure moved and
supported by Dr. Hutton, Mr. Macrae said,—
Moderator,—It seems to me an ominous sign for our Church
that the important question raised at last meeting, and affecting
so much the interests of truth, and the character and prospects
of the Church, has not been more dealt with upon its own
merits; and that the motion urged upon the Presbytery at
last meeting has led to an attack upon the mover, instead
of leading (as many had hoped) to an attack upon the errors
and the abuses to which it called attention. I trust, how
ever, that even this discussion (personal to some extent
though it must in this instance be) will by and bye be
delivered from this element, and issue in a movement for the
liberation of our Church from an unscriptural yoke, and the
vindication of God’s character from the misrepresentations to
which our subordinate standards have subjected it. Much of
what has been said I hope to have a future opportunity of
answering. Much else that has been said of a personal charac
ter does not in a grave question like this deserve to be answered;
�22
and much more that has been said answers itself. There are,
however, two points which need reply, and which this is the
proper time for replying to. These relate (1.) To my own rela
tion to the Standards; and (2.) To my alleged charge against
the brethren.
“Why
not leave the
Church'?”
Neither Dr. Hutton nor the Presbytery Clerk (Mr. Inglis)
seem able to understand how I can hold the views I expressed
at last meeting and yet remain in this Church. Perhaps I will
be forgiven if I try to remove the difficulty by a reference to
Mr. Inglis’ own case. About twenty-seven years ago Mr. Inglis,
in the usual way, publicly accepted the Confession of Faith as
an exhibition of the sense in which he understood the Scriptures.
Six weeks since he told us that he had intended next year
moving to have the Confession altered. It appears, then, that
between 1850 and 1877 Mr. Inglis has found that the Confes
sion is not so true an exhibition of Scripture as at first he
thought it.
He should therefore be in a good position for
understanding how, during one’s ministry, increasing acquain
tance with the Confession on the one hand, and the Bible on
the other, reveal the fact that they are at variance, and should
therefore awaken a desire to have the human standard set aside
or altered. The principal difference is that Mr. Inglis seems to
have taken twenty-five years to learn what others learn sooner:
and that Mr. Inglis thought next year the best time for reform,,
while I thought the best time (and the only time we are sure
of) is now. Another difference seems to be that Mr. Inglis,
because I have found fault with the Confession, thinks I should
leave the Church; but that he, although he has also found fault
with the Confession, should stay where he is. The more ex
cellent way, to my mind, would be for both of us to remain, if
we may, and if we honestly can; and instead of abandoning
the Church, as many have done, try to make it better.
�Degree of Divergence.
Mr. Inglis may, no doubt, say that there is a great difference
in the degree of our divergence from the standards; that while
he only takes exception to special points in the Confession, I
have taken exception to its general sense. But how far this
distinction indicates a difference depends on what special points
Mr. Inglis takes exception to. If, for instance, the doctrine of
the eternal reprobation and everlasting future torment of all but
the elect is one of these points, it is one that affects to a vital
extent the whole sense of the Confession, and is conspicuously
the doctrine that distorts the character of God, and makes the
God of the Confession different from the God of the Bible. The
distinction in this case between Mr. Inglis’ objection to special
points, and my objection to tliej general sense, might prove
more imaginary than real. For me to propose to kill a man,
and Mr. Inglis to propose merely to remove his head and one
or two other points, would, to the man at least, mean very much
the same thing.
The Bible the Supreme Standard.
Apart, however, from any justification of my position from
the conduct of Mr. Inglis, or any other member of Presbytery,
the ground on which I vindicate myself, and all in the Church
who are seeking the same reform, is this—The supreme stan
dard in our Church is not the Confession, but the word of God.
The very first question in our formula declares that the Bible is
the “ only rule of faith and practice.” The Confession itself
appeals in its first chapter to the same standard (chap, i, sec.
9, 10). It teaches in section 9th that Scripture is to be inter
preted, not by Confessions or Catechisms, but by Scripture
itself. It teaches in section 10th that all religious controversies
are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, and doctrines
of men, judged, not by Confessions or Catechisms, but by
�24
the Bible. We, therefore, in this Church are not only entitled
to place the Bible above the Confession, but required by the
Confession itself, required by our own formula, so to do. If
therefore, like Mr. Inglis himself, we find in our study of the
Bible that the Confession is at variance with it, what are we to
do1? Some people say, “ Leave the Church.” By all means
leave the Church if it be a church of the Confession. But, if it
is a church of the Bible, as it declares itself to be, our duty is,
whenever we find the subordinate standards wrong, to get them
as soon as possible brought into harmony with the supreme
standard. This is precisely what I have tried to do. This is
what Mr. Inglis told us he also intended to do next year. And
if I and those who think with me have come to believe that
these subordinate standards belie the Scriptures and the scrip
tural character of God more seriously than Mr. Inglis thinks,
the more are we justified, the more are we bound to urge their
revision or their repudiation.
Rectify the Subordinate Standards.
Had John Knox been alive to-day he would not, with his
heroic loyalty to truth, have been afraid, like some of the
brethren, to face this question and put these standards to the
test.
His words in reference to his own Confession might
wisely be printed in the front of ours:—■“ If,” he said, “ any
man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence
repugnant to God’s Holy Word, that it would please him of
his gentleness and for Christian charity’s sake, to admonish us
of the same in writing; and we, of our honour and fidelity, do
promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth of God (that is,
from His Holy Scriptures), or else reformation of that which
he shall prove to be amiss.” Although this invitation, which
has in it the ring of loyalty to, and confidence in, the truth,
does not preface our Confession, it is implied in the dis
tinction between supreme and subordinate standards, and is
�25
practically given (as we have seen), in the words of our formula
and the declaration of the Confession itself. I have therefore
felt that duty did not require me, or those thinking with me,
to leave the Church while holding its supreme standard, but
rather imposed the duty upon us of endeavouring to get the
subordinate standards revised.
But (as a reason why views
hostile to the Confession should not be tolerated in the Church)
it is said, “ Though the Bible is the supreme standard, yet, the
Confession is accepted as an exhibition of the sense in which
we understand the Bible.” That is true; and but for that part
of the formula of acceptance I should have had no motion of
this kind to make, and no charge to bring against the Church
of professing one thing and preaching another. But what I
maintain is that the Confession no longer exhibits the sense in
which this Church understands the Scriptures.
This is so
manifest that, to my knowledge, some of our ministers and
office-bearers reconciled themselves to the acceptance of .the
Confession by saying that everybody knew that it was accepted
with great latitude. One said it was like subscribing a letter,
“Your obedient servant.” That, he said, was no deception,
because the person who got the letter understood that it was
only a form. If the understanding had really got that length,
nobody would object to this being explicitly stated, and I hope
no one would even wish so empty a form to be retained.
The Church’s Relationship to her Subordinate
Standards not an Honest one.
But the understanding, though extending in that direction,
has not got that length, and this painful dubiety as to what
subscription really means or carries with it, is of itself impera
tive reason why the Church should deal with the question. It
makes the Confession a stumbling-block, and keeps back from
the ministry many of our best and most conscientious students.
And it is well known that in all the Presbyterian churches it
�is becoming more and more a difficulty to get Christian laymen to
accept office as elders (1st), because they cannot honestly accept
the Confession; and (2nd), because not being able to accept it
honestly, they will not accept it at all. I have one case of an
Established Church in Glasgow which has fourteen elders, and
yet only one who can go to the Assembly, as the other thirteen
refused to sign the Confession of Faith. All honour to the
men who have consciences so true that they will not regard
acceptance as a mere form so long as it is not declared authorita
tively to be so. But what are we to think of the Church that
excludes such men by insisting on an unscriptural test?* I
know of elders in our own churches who (unable to take office
because they had no faith in certain doctrines of the Confession),
were “ talked over ” by their ministers, who assured them that
such faith was not necessary, and in some instances that they
did not believe the doctrines specified themselves. Is this a
state of things that ought for a single day to be winked at by a
Christian Church?
Does it not justify only too fully the
charge I have made, that our Church’s relationship to her
standards is not an honest one ? There are some defenders of
the Confession (specially, I think, amongst the ministers) who
seek to get over the sense of inconsistency by casuistical explana
tions and subtleties, which it is surely not creditable of the
Church to tempt or force them to. I was speaking to one of
our ministers lately about the doctrine of the Confession which
implies the damnation of non-elect infants.
“Oh, but,” he
said, “ I am not shut up to accept that view of it. The doctrine
* At a recent meeting in Glasgow, in connection with the Free Tron
Church, Dr. Walter C. Smith, the former pastor, came through from
Edinburgh to do honour to one of the ablest and most useful members of
that congregation (Mr. Morison), to whom a presentation was being
made that night. Dr. Smith said that no man in the Church was more
suited for the eldership by Christian character, experience, and ability,
and more calculated to be of service in the Church Courts, but he had
been kept out by the Confession of Faith. Mr. Morison is only one of
thousands of whom the same thing could be said.
�27
is so stated that I can. take out of it the sense that all infants
are elect, and, therefore, that all infants are saved.” He ad
mitted, however, that this was not the natural sense, nor the
common one until recent years. Now, if that clause makes it
legitimate for one man to understand by it that all infants are
saved, and equally legitimate for another man to understand
by it that most of them are damned, I say it is a mockery of
language to call that “ an exhibition ” of the sense in which we
understand the Bible. It is an exhibition of nothing but the
hypocrisy or imbecility of the Church that calls it so.
Is the Confession “ An Exhibition of the Sense ”
in which we
Understand the Bible1?
What I understand by an exhibition of the sense of anything
is a bringing of it out into clearness and certainty. What sort
of “exhibition” is it of the sense of Scripture to tabulate pro
positions out of which it is equally legitimate to extract the
affirmative and the negative—the assertion of a doctrine and
the denial of it. And when the Church begins to repudiate a
doctrine that by her Confession she still professes to hold, what
sort of “ exhibition” of candour and honesty does she give for
the imitation of the world when (charged with this inconsistency)
she tries to get over it by showing that the Confession may not
mean what it says, or that the proposition which is said to
“ exhibit” the sense in which we understand the Scriptures can
be made to mean one thing just as well as another? If this be
the way in which the Confession is to “exhibit” the sense in
which we understand the Bible, we shall want something else
next to give us the sense in which we are to understand the
Confession.
The Alleged “ Charge
against the
Brethren.”
I now come to the second charge made against me by Mr.
Inglis—viz., that I have brought an accusation against the.
�28
brethren, by alleging that the relationship of our Church to hei
subordinate standards is not an honest one. Properly speaking
this is not a charge against brethren individually, though it is a
grave charge against the Church as a corporate body.* Who in
the Church or Presbytery accept, and who reject, the charac
teristic doctrines of the Confession, I cannot tell. But this I
know, and this I think, is pretty generally known from books
and articles 'written by our ministers and elders, from sermons
preached, from addresses given at meetings, from admissions
freely made in conversation, in newspaper correspondence, in
articles in the U. P. Magazine, and speeches in the IT. P.
Church Courts, that the actual creed of the Church has out
grown and to some extent discarded its professed creed. One
Gospel is preached, while another Gospel (if Gospel it can be
called) embodied in the Confession, is professed. But as to the
amount of individual responsibility for the continuance of this
state of things it is not for me to judge. God alone knows who
in this Church adhere still to the theology of the Confession;
who (though now beyond it) have seen no way of bringing up
the standards to the new position : who again have done their
best; and who, on the other hand, with the power to mend
matters, have been content to let things alone. It is not for
me or any one else to fix individual responsibility. But a pro
fession belied by practice is called dishonesty, disingenuousness,
or hypocrisy. And when a Church as a corporate body is found
to be preaching one Gospel, while voluntarily continuing to pro
fess a different Gospel, the same terms are applicable to it. This
The dominant party in the Paisley and Greenock Presbytery seemed
unable (or unwilling) to understand this very plain distinction. Mr.
Macrae, about the same time, said at a public meeting, that we would be
disgraced as a nation if we were drawn into war to perpetuate the
infamous misrule of Turkey. If we were, this would be corporate not
personal disgrace; but personal disgrace would attach to those who might
have prevented it, but did not. The nervousness of the Presbytery
under Mr. Macrae’s charge of corporate dishonesty suggests the suspicion
that they feel themselves not individually blameless.
�29is not accusing the brethren individually. It is accusing the
Church as we would accuse a nation or an army—speaking of it
as a collective whole. But while I say this in my own defence,
and in defence of brethren here and elsewhere, it must be re
membered that every such effort as the one now being made
adds to personal responsibility. It brings the individuals who
resist reform into more of personal identification with the cor
porate or collective dishonesty which it is sought to remove.
Such is the position in which I stand with reference to the
charge of accusing the brethren.
The
real
Question to be Answered if the Charge
Dishonesty is to be Disproved.
of
And this brings us back to the real question at issue, which
I am sorry has not been kept more steadily in view, and
answered more satisfactorily, namely, Whether this accusation
against the Church is just or unjust. Is the actual creed of the
Church identical with the professed creed, or is it not ? Let us
courageously and frankly face this question. It is with sorrow
that I feel compelled to press it. And I submit, with all defer
ence, that the question is not whether the dogmas assailed have
not in them some elements of truth; or whether texts (some of
them unrighteously divorced from the context) may not be
quoted in support of them, as texts (so gathered) can be quoted
in support of every religious system (true and false) in the
country. The question is not what led to this or that dogma
being put into the shape we find it in, or whether as it stands it
cannot be understood in a sense different from its original and
plain sense; or how many other holes there are in the West
minster warren by which an ingenious reasoner, with sufficient
flexibility of conscience, can escape the consciousness of culpable
inconsistency. What needs to be known is this, whether the
dogmas of the Confession, specified in my former speech, are or
are not believed and preached in our Churches ? The Confes
�30
sion teaches as a fundamental doctrine the doctrine of Reproba
tion. Is that doctrine believed and preached by this Church,
or is it not ? The Confession requires us to hold that God has
of His own free will predestinated some men to everlasting death
—-that this indeed is the unchangeable destiny of the whole
human race outside of the elect—and the Confession requires us
by everlasting death to understand eternal and unspeakable
torments in hell. That is the doctrine which, according to your
standards, you profess. I want to know if it is the doctrine you
preach ? This is not a dogma aside from the main propositions
of our Confession. If Election is the warp, Reprobation is the
woof of the Westminster theology. The doctrine of Reproba
tion is fundamental. It could not possibly be otherwise, affect
ing as it does the whole system of theology. It determines the
character of God. It limits the work of Christ: it limits the
operations of the Spirit; it limits the sense and the sincerity of
the offers of the Gospel. It would consign countless millions
of the human race in every age to everlasting torment. Yet
this is the doctrine professed by our Church. I ask, is it the
doctrine preached? I have been a member of the United
Presbyterian Church for twenty years, and have attended its
churches in all parts of the country; but I have never (as far
as I can remember) heard any of our ministers preach this vital
part of their professed creed, while I have often, and especially in
recent years, heard them preach a Gospel which, as far as my
power of perception goes is utterly (thank God) at variance
with it. In the diviner truth which is preached, we all, I hope,
rejoice. But if we no longer hold this doctrine of Reprobation,
let us no longer profess to hold it. Let our profession be
brought into harmony with our practice. This is what I mean
by an honest relationship between a Church audits creed. We
all know, of course, that the Bible has its difficulties and ap
parent discrepancies. For these, however, as far as they belong
to God, we are not responsible. But when a formula is pre
pared to show the sense in which we understand the Scrip
�31
tures, for that we are responsible : and as often as our views of
Scripture change, so often should our standards be changed
to correspond. Why should we permit in theology a misrepre
sentation to which men in other departments of human know
ledge would not consent1? Scientific men, for instance, are
divided in opinion as to whether certain geological changes were
sudden or slow. They recognize the difficulty of settling the
question, and they accept facts even though unexplained. But
none of them on either side would accept as an “exhibition”
of his views a set of propositions on the subject which science
had outgrown, or propositions which could stand either for his
own view or its opposite—either for what he believed or what
he disbelieved. Yet that is the humiliating position into which
superstitious reverence for the Westminster Standards has
brought the Church to-day. It is surely time that this state of
things should be brought to an end.
The difficulties attending a re-adjustment of our relationship
to these so-called standards are admitted by all. But if they
were ten times greater than they are, better to face them in a
spirit of loyalty to truth and reliance on the promised aid of
God’s Spirit than remain longer in our present position, lying
open to the imputation of either not knowing what we believe,
or not having the courage to declare it.
A Fair Challenge.
I was warned, after what I said at last meeting, that a com
mittee might be appointed to deal with me. Would it not be
better to have a committee to examine first into the truth of
my charge ? There is the more call for this order of action that
the charge against me is of small account compared with the
charge which I have brought against the Church.
The
charge against me is that of denying the infallibility of
the Westminster divines.
The charge I have brought
against the Church is that of denying, by professed ad-
�32
lierence to these sulx>rdinate standards, the true and scriptural
character of Almighty God.
ought to be met.
the brethren.
This is surely a charge
that
I have been spoken of as an accuser of
Whether in being so I am rhrht or wrong
depends on whether I have accused them justly or unjustly.
At
last meeting I stated the fundamental dogmas of the West
minster Confession and Catechisms.
These dogmas are declared
by our formula of acceptance to exhibit the sense in which we
understand the Scriptures.
If. therefore, the members of this
Presbytery hold an honest relation to our standards, they
believe these doctrines and preach them.
ascertain if they do.
Let the committee
If they do not, then they are bound
either to get these documents altered or our relationship to
them re-adjusted, to remove the scandal of seeming to profess
one faith while preaching another.
open to this Presbytery now.
An even simpler course is
The dogmas in the Confession,
which I believe to be no longer held and taught by our Church,
are here before us.
It is open to the Presbytery to declare
that they do hold and do teach them.
If this be done, the
charge against these standards of Traducing the character of God
and misinterpreting His Word will yet remain, but the charge
of disingenuous profession will fall to the ground.
The Presbytery showing no disposition to accept the challenge,
Air. Macrae said—Then I beg respectfully to move: “ That a
committee be appointed to ascertain whether the charge brought
against the subordinate standards and against the Church’s
relationship to them be or be not well founded.77
The motion was seconded, but received no further support,
and Dr. Huttons motion of censure was carried.
�OO
V.—HOW ECCLESIASTICAL TORYISM WILL DEAL
WITH THE REFORM.
Immediately after tlie Presbytery meeting in March, Mr.
Macrae was lecturing in Perth. The chair was occupied by the
Kev. Robert Lyon, who introduced Mr. Macrae as having just
come “ from the seat of war.” Mr. Lyon said the Confession
had done good work in the past, and we should respect it.
But it should be altered to suit the truths of science. While
holding to the old landmarks, let us ask for light. Give us
light, as the old Greeks said, although it should slay us. He
then referred to the personal abuse with which, in the Paisley
and Greenock Presbytery, it had been attempted to stop the
movement, while he believed the members really felt that the
Confession ought to be amended.
Mr. Macrae, before beginning his lecture, said he had not
expected to hear the Confession of Faith referred to, but he was
glad Mr. Lyon had given him an opportunity of saying that,
notwithstanding the adverse vote in the Greenock Presbytery,
the Reformation now sought for would assuredly come. But
like every reform, it must encounter opposition. The Church
was full of tories and temporisers, who would try, first of all,
to mock the men and the movement down. When they found it
advancing in spite of mockery, they would assail it with all the
strength they had. When they found it still advancing, they
would search for a new standpoint to look at it from. Having-
found this new standpoint, and looked again at the reform pro
posed, they would welcome it with enthusiasm, and say it was
just the thing they wanted all along. One victory had already
been gained. It had been decided, even by that adverse vote
in the Paisley and Greenock Presbytery, that men could believe
in the Bible, even where it differed from the Confession, and
yet remain in the Church. But mere tolerance was not enough.
The whole doctrinal position of the Church required to be
M.
c
�31
rectified. The conflict for reform was only beginning. They
had heard the blast of the trumpet; they would by and bye sec
the battle ; and out of that battle he believed God's truth would
emerge triumphant.
VI—PUBLIC LECTURE AT GOUROCK.
In the end of March the following inquisition was presented
to Mr. Macrae, largely signed by members of his congregation
and others:—
Dear Sir,—Being interested in the important question which
you have raised in the Church, and throughout the country, with
regard to the Confession of Faith, we, the undersigned, believ
ing that the interests of truth would be served by your givinoa lecture on the subject, addressed more to the general Christian
public, do hereby solicit that, if willing to undertake this task,
you will please name a date when you could give such an address
in Gourock, and arrangements will be made accordingly.
In response to this requisition, Mr. Macrae gave the following
lecture on the subject, on Monday, April 2nd, to a large audi
ence, in his own Church.
The chair was occupied by Commissioner Wallace; and Mr.
Macrae was accompanied to the platform by Provost Miller and
the other members of his Session. After a cordial introduction
from the Chairman, who, amidst applause, expressed warm
sympathy with the movement,—
Mr. Macrae said:—
It gave me great pleasure to receive the requisition that
has led to the holding of this meeting, especially as the hope
of this Reform lies mainly with the Christian laity. The
grand old Reformation in Scotland was carried by the people.
To-day we stand upon the verge of another conflict, which
with the help of the Christian laity, should become another
Reformation.
�35
The Question that Underlies.
The question that in our Church stands in the front—-the
question of reforming the Standards—though a difficult, is not
in itself a very large one. But the question that lies behind it,
and with which it has a vital connection, is one of immense im
portance. It is the question whether the Church is a living or
a dead thing—whether it is a Church of the living God, or only a
Society for conserving Calvinism. It is the question of whether
Christianity is a formula or a force; a dogma or a life; the shib
boleth of a sect or a power for the regeneration of the World.
Let us not forget this in dealing with the present question of
our Standards.
The Value oe
the
Confession.
I am glad that one effect of this movement has been to create
a demand for copies of the Confession of Faith. Wo can all
rejoice in that. People will now read the Confession for them
selves, and will see with their own eyes how far the Christianity
of to-day has extended beyond those narrow lines. They will be
able to judge for themselves whether or not the assertion is true
that the professed is not the actual creed of the Church, that
the theology of the Confession is neither the theology of the
pulpit nor the pew, that these so-called Standards are deceptive
as indications of our position, and therefore should be set aside.
In saying that they ought to be set aside, I am speaking of
them only as standards—that is, as professed indications to other
churches and to the world of what we believe and preach. I
am not one of those who cry down the Confession as no longer
worthy of study. Because a man has proved unfit to conduct a
-campaign, it does not follow that he is not fit to occupy some
other post, or that his knowledge of military affairs may not be
of great service to the army. The Confession of Faith is one
of the most remarkable, and, in its proper place, one of the
�most valuable documents which the Church Las ever possessed.
It was prepared by an Assembly, called together in 1613 bv the
famous Long Parliament, and indnding some of the most
eminent divines of the time.
Although that dark and stormful
time (when men's ideas of justice, and merer, and sovereigntv
were very different from what they are now i. Las left its impress
upon the theology of the Confession and Catechisms, yet the
time in many respects was singularly favourable for the for
mulating of such views as were held by these men at that time
It was an age of keen discussion and controversy; and we find
the result of it in many of those delicate but important dis
tinctions which controversy alone can bring out.
The theologv
is. of course, Calvin's; but looked at in that light, simply as a
statement of Calvinistic doctrine, the Confession and Catechisms
of the Westminster divines remain unequalled.
Moreover,
their contents, for the most part. are clear and indisputable
statements of Bible truth, though they are often taken awav to
glorify false positions, like the golden vessels oi the Temple in
the p«alace of Belshazzar.
Even doctrines that exaggerate the
truth, and become to that extent false, were built up> in that
form as bulwarks against the errors of rhe rime, and can in this
way be explained even when they cannot be justified.
Altogether,
the Confession and Catechisms, though they deserve less idolatry,
deserve more study : and are likely for many generations to fur
nish help in Bible study, and in many departments of theo
logical inquiry.
UNPEOGRESSIVE STANDARDS NOT
FOR A PROGRESSING
Chlrch.
But all this is very diilerent from saying that they are fitted
to remain as the Standards of our faith, fitted to indicate either
what we believe or what we ought to believe.
It would be a
very strange thing (it would be for rhe Church a most dis
creditable thing) IF SHE HAD LEARNED NOTHING OF GOD FOB
�37
the last
two
centuries
; if Christian people have been
praying ancl preaching and working and searching the Scrip
tures, and living amidst the brightening light of science and
Providence and Christian experience, and yet in two hundred
and thirty years had learned nothing, had no acquisitions to
point to, had not advanced a step since the days of Prolocutor
Twisse and the Long Parliament. The supposition is as false
in fact as it is preposterous in conception. God’s Spirit has not
been working in the world for these two centuries in vain.
God’s providence has not been unfolding itself before the
Christian Church for two hundred years without teaching it
something of His character and of His ways that it did not
know before. The discoveries of science, the exploration of
Bible lands, the critical study of the language and literature of
the Bible, carried on with all the facilities that have been ac
cumulating in recent years, all this has not left the Church just
where she was.
On the contrary, in churches open to its
influence, it has been working a silent revolution.
It has
changed the aspect of theology. It has antiquated and to some
extent discredited the Calvinism of our Standards. It has
brought us to this, that the Westminster Confession is no
longer a true picture of our actual faith, can no more be taken
to represent our views of the Gospel than the government of
Charles the First could be taken to represent the government
of Queen Victoria,—can no more furnish a creed for the Chris
tian Church of to-day than the cycles and epi-cycles of the
Ptolemaic system furnish a creed for modern astronomy.
The Position of the U.P. Church.
It is a high honour to the Unite! Presbyterian Church that
alone, amongst the great denominations in Scotland, she has dis
tinctly although imperfectly recognized this change. She has
formally indicated that the Confession is unscriptural on the
subject of the Civil Magistrate. She has recognized that the
�38
estminster divines did not understand as well as we do now
the rights of Conscience. Accordingly, she has put the brand of
repudiation on all the sections of the Confession that would
give the Magistrate authority in sacred things, and by the very
terms of her formula allows her ministers and office-bearers to
throw overboard everything in the Confession that teaches, or
may be supposed to teach, persecuting and intolerant principles
in religion. Our Church, therefore, has already repudiated the
dogma of M estminster Infallibility. She has not only admitted
that we have a light to revise these standards; she has actually
to an important extent revised them. She therefore stands in
a peculiarly favourable position for going on with this work ;
and I wish to show you to-night that there is need for under
taking further and larger reform. Other churches are looking
on with interest; and success with us would clear the way for
them. Reform should, indeed, if possible, be carried on with
their co-operation. If it were, it would soon convert the Pan
Presbyterian Council from a benevolent farce into a majestic
machinery of reform and confederation. But if other churches
will not act with us, we should act alone. We have done so
already in the matter of the Civil Magistrate. We have scored
out of the Confession its heresies on that point. We have done
it independently of the other Presbyterian Churches in Scotland,
and we have gained by it. Let us go on with the reform—with them if they are willing, without them if they are not.
Some church must take the initiative; our Church, as we have
seen, is specially fitted for the task both by her past history
and her present position. To-night I am anxious to show reason
why it should be done.
Reasons of Reform—The Standards Too Long.
First of all, unnecessary length in the test-creed of a Church
is always a grave objection; and our Standards are not only too
long, but absurdly long, for the purpose we wish them to serve.
�39
It is not the mere number of pages and sections. Look into it
and see how closely compacted the doctrines are, and remember
that every doctrine limits the comprehensiveness of the Church.
Almost every section is like one of those ivory balls that the
Chinese carve with such marvellous ingenuity and skill. It
looks like one ball, but when you examine it you find inside of
it another, and inside of that another still, and so on till you
find that instead of one ball it is a dozen. So is jt with almost
every proposition in the Confession of Faith-. It is packed with
doctrines, each one of which involves to some one a new difficulty
to subscription. Now, what do we want with these standards at
all ? We do not want them to rehearse the Bible; for with all
deference to the Westminster divines, the Bible can tell its
own story much better than they. The purpose our standards
now are expected to serve is that of a bond of union—a some
thing to set forth the fundamental points on which we think it
necessary that we should be at one. Manifestly, therefore, we
should have in this bond of union as few points as possible—carefully excluding everything about which it is legitimate for
Christian men and Christian ministers to differ—everything
that might exclude those who, differing from us (or from
o'ne another) on this point or that, are yet loyal to Christ,
and agreed with us on the points essential to Church organ
ization. What then is to be thought of our retaining as a test
creed, such an enormous catalogue of seventeenth century dogmas
as we have in the Confession of Faith- ?■ Let me try to illustrate
the absurdity and mischief of it. Suppose Britain invaded by
a powerful enemy, and volunteers needed to fight for Queen
and country, as the Church needs volunteers to-day to fight for
Christ and LIis kingdom. What would we think if a long creed
wore drawn up, containing five hundred disputed points, which
every man must settle in the same way before he could be en
rolled? Questions about which loyal and competent men differ,
but which they must have one opinion about, or else be turned
back? What would we think if loyal and competent men
�40
were to be turned back, unless they were ready to declare upon
oath that the British uniform is better than any other—that
the kilt should never be worn except by real Highlanders—that
Wellington was a better general than Soult—that every enemy
killed in battle went to perdition? What would you say if men
had to accept a hundred things like that, or be rejected I
You would say—“ This is preposterous. What we want is
men loyal and fit for the work before them. These tests
keep out many of the very men we need. Men may differ on
these points and yet be equally fit for the service of the coun
try.” Precisely the same thing holds against the Confession
as a test for office in the Church. Amongst its hundreds of
dogmas, there are scores that may be true or false, that men
may believe or not believe, and yet be none the less loyal to
Christ, none the less competent for the Church’s work. Every
such proposition tends to repel from the Church those who
cannot accept it. Why then have it needlessly there?
Some
of the
Things that are Out of Place in
Confession.
a
Why have it down as an article of faith that it is a sin to
refuse an oath imposed by lawful authority ? A man may be a
Christian man and yet object to an oath under any circum
stances, on the ground that Christ said, “ Swear not at all; let
your communication be yea, yea, and nay, nay; for whatsoever
is more than these cometli of evil.” Why should it be laid down
as an article of faith that war is lawful? It is a matter of
opinion, not a matter of faith. If we believe it to be lawful,
so be it. But why keep everybody else out of the Church, as
our formula attempts to do, unless he holds the same opinion ?
Especially when Christianity is more against war than in favour
of it. Or why require a man to believe as a necessary article
of faith, that the Pope is the veritable anti-Christ and man of
sin? People may believe that, and yet see the absurdity of
�41
excluding from tlie Church a man who may be as much opposed
to Popery as himself, but who thinks ^tliat some other form of
anti-Christ is the one referred to in Scripture. Or why lay it
down as an article of faith that the world was created out of
nothing in six days ? The Scriptures do not teach this : and
science has shown it to be contrary to fact. Everybody can
understand how the Westminister divines blundered at this
point. Geology had raised no questions then to put them on
their guard and prevent them confounding Creation with the
work of the first “ day.” Yet there the absurd proposition
stands, exactly as it did then, just as if it had never been shown
to be unscriptural and false. There it stands undisturbed; and
every Established and Free Church probationer is required by
the formula, before he can enter the ministry, to declare this
notorious untruth to be the truth of God; and every United
Presbyterian to declare it (by his formula) to be an exhibition
of the sense in which he understands the Scriptures. Why
should men be asked, and asked by a Christian Church, to do a
thing like this? Why should they be asked to enter the
Ministry of Truth with a lie in their right hand, or compelled
to save their conscience by supposing, when such things are in
the creed, that subscription can mean nothing? When taught
in this way, that subscription does not bind them to one
doctrine, need we wonder that many see no reason why it
should bind them to any doctrine. Apart, however, from this
graver aspect of the question, why should points likelthese be
kept in our standards ? They are at the best mere matters of
interpretation and opinion, about which Christians may differ,
and which are therefore entirely out of place amongst articles of
faith, and terms of admission to the Church. Instances might
be multiplied, and while the Confession contains a single need
less proposition (not to speak of a hundred), it is to that extent
too long, and does mischief by increasing the number of Christian
men who cannot honestly accept it. No doubt Dr. Hutton
said he could read the Confession in fifty-two minutes. But a
�42
groat deal of objectionable matter, and a great deal of super
fluous matter can be compassed in much less than fifty-two
minutes. Dr. Hutton himself admitted that the Confession
contained more than it should. So did Dr. Andrew Thompson,
Dr. Peddie, and others, who spoke on the subject when the
matter was before the Edinburgh Presbytery as far back as
1866. So has every minister I have spoken to on the subject.
This, then, we may take to be a settled point—that the Confes
sion is too long—in other words, that much of what it contains
ought to be struck out.
Too Long, yet Omitting the Main Point.
But if these Standards err by excess, they err still more by
defect. They leave out the very thing that should have the
foremost place—the Gospel. Many of you may not realise
how true this is, because you have wisely been accustomed to
read the Bible, not the Confession; and even when reading the
Confession or the Catechism, to supplement it in your own mind,
with the Gospel. But no one left to these Standards would
ever have come to know the central truth of the Bible; and
yet it is the truth of the Bible which they are supposed to
exhibit. Everywhere in these Standards we see the King;
but we look in vain for the Heavenly Father. They give us a
telescope with which to survey the power and majesty, the
justice and severity of God, and also His love for the elect.
But when we want to see His love for the world, we find the
wrong end of the telescope turned to the eye, and the fore
ground of the Scriptures receding into infinite space and
invisibility. We are shown a terrific machinery for the rescue
of the elect; but where is the revelation of the Father’s love ?
Where are the precious offers of mercy to all 1 Where is the
Father’s heart yearning over His prodigal boy ? Where is the
love that melts the sinner’s heart 1 the love that has drawn ten
thousand to the Saviour, for every one who has been driven to
�43
Him by tlie fear of hell ? Where in these standards (volum
inous though they be) are the free offers of the Gospel ?—“ Ho,
every oxe that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” “ The Spirit
and the Bride say, Come ; and let him that heareth sav, Come ;
and let him that is athirst come ; and whosoever will let him
take of the water of life freely.” “ God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “ Come
unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.” Where, in the theology of the Confession, are
these free and glorious promises, these glad tidings of great
joy ?
Where is the revelation of a Father’s love and a
Saviour’s pity that has touched the heart of nations, that liasturned millions to God, that has kindled in the Church, within
the present century, the flame of missionary enterprise, and sent
the messengers of mercy into the slums of the city and away
to every heathen land ? Where is it in the Confession of our
Faith'? Echo answers where ? Of other things we liaveenough and to spare, and yet the best of all is wanting. It is
the Bible, with the heart cut out of it. It is the family, with
out its father. It is Christ dishonoured. It is God robbed of
His highest glory. Yet this is called the Confession of our
Faith, our exhibition of the sense in which we understand the
Scriptures. Is it not astounding that our Churches have
contented themselves with such a Confession so long ?—that
superstitious veneration for this Calvinistic idol should make
them shrink from the idea of removing even its acknowledged
defects 1
The Staxdards Distort God’s Character.
This brings me to the gravest charge against these Stan
dards, . namely, that they deform tlie character of God, and
instead of vindicating His ways to men, make them appearinconsistent, incredible, and, in some instances, revolting. I
�44
have already spoken of this in public, and will therefore say
little on this point now. But I would have you read Chaps.
VI, X, and XVI, of the Confession, and ask yourselves if
such doctrine can be reconciled with the character of God as
revealed by Christ. The meaning is unmistakable. It teaches
that God brings men into the world utterly disabled and made
opposite to all good, and then, having made them so, punishes
them as guilty for not being different.
This is a doctrine
utterly at variance with the divine character, revolting to the
moral sense which God Himself has implanted in the human
breast. It is established in morals that no man can justly be
blamed for what he could not help. If a man puts out his eyes,
he is to blame for not seeing; but if he is born blind, he is an
object of pity, not of blame. The man who would take a blind
child and beat her to death because she could not see, would
be regarded as a monster unfit to live. And yet we are
required by the 6th chapter of the Confession to believe that
this is God’s way with men,—bringing them into the world
incapable of doing right, and then sending them to hell for not
doing it! It maybe said, “The man by nature is disabled,
but God can give him strength.” But the Confession teaches
us, in Chapter V, that if the man be not one of the elect, God,
instead of helping, or being 'willing to help, blinds and hardens
him to make sure that he shall not be moved to come.
To
■speak of God as just and merciful, and yet charge Him with
this, is an insult to the human understanding. It is much the
same, in view of such dogmas, to speak of a man having free
will. For the elect have no choice but to be saved; and no
act of theirs is allowed to have anything to do with their
salvation. As for the rest of mankind, they are declared to
be sent into torment for them sins; but as it appears from
Chapter VI that they could not possibly do anything but sin,
it is evident that (according to the Confession) the only
freedom they have is freedom to go to perdition. To speak
■of free will in either case, is a mockery of language.
Pres
�45
ident Finney, in his grotesque lines, put the case only too
accurately:—
“You shall and you shan’t,
You will and you won’t;
You can but you can’t,
And you’re damned if you don't.”
Infant Damnation.
Again, the Confession teaches that elect infants dying in
infancy are saved. The other part of the doctrine necessarily
is that non-elect infants are damned.
There is no escapefrom this. If the meaning were that all infants are elect, why
was it not so put? No men were ever abler than the West
minster divines to state precisely and clearly what they meant.
But if we have any doubt about their holding the damnation
of non-elect infants, it is dispelled by their own statements.
Samuel Rutherford spoke of infants coming into the world
as “ fuel for hell,” and of children “ sinking and swimming
in the black lake.” * And Dr. Twisse, the Moderator of the
Assembly, held that “ thousands of infants are damned only
for sin original.” + But, indeed, the same doctrine was held
till recent years. To-day, I suppose, most ministers and Chris
tian people would recoil not only from teaching it, but from
being supposed to hold it. Yet there the clause stands un
touched in the Confession which our ministers are required
to accept as an exhibition of the sense in which we understand
the Scriptures, and which Established and Free Church min
isters have to subscribe to as the truth of God, and pledge
themselves to assert and maintain ! |
Again, in Chapter X,
*
an(i Triumph of Faith. Sermon 10th.
■ I Fessefe of Mercy and Vessels of Wrath, p. 135.
I The damnation of non-elect infants, though felt now to be unpresen
table to Christian congregations, is at the same time an essential part of
the Calvinistic system. It and the other doctrines stand or fall to
gether. Though some of our divines try now not to see this, Calvin saw
�4G
after speaking of the elect, the Confession teaches that for
the rest of mankind there is no salvation—no ray of hope even
for the heathen who have never heard of Christ, and therefore
have had no chance of accepting Him—that there is no mercy
even for those of them who did their very best to live up to
such light as they have. And where is it that they and all the
rest of mankind, non-elect, are going? According to the Con
fession, God is casting countless millions as fast as they die
into hell, there to be tormented with unspeakable torments
for ever and ever. And all this in accordance with His own
free will and predestined plan! Can we wonder that many
find it impossible to believe in God without first disbelieving
this? I know it is repulsive to you to listen to these details.
I know it is repulsive to me to utter them. But the fault is
not mine. I am giving simply the doctrines of what is called
the Confession of our Faith. If these docrines are revolting
it, and Calvin had the honesty to declare it. Hear what he says in these
same Institutes of his (Book 4, c. 15, sec. 10)—“Infants (he says) are,
as it were, a seed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abom
inable to God.” Again (in Book 3, c. 23, sec. 7), he says, “How is it
that the fall of Adam involves so many nations, with their infant children,
in eternal elect,th without remedy, unless that so seemed meet to God.”
This is the doctrine implied in what is said in the Confession about
“Elect infants,” and the Westminster divines themselves have some of
them removed all doubt about it. Dr. William Twisse, the moderator of
that Assembly, in his work on the Vessels of Mercy and Vessels of
Wrath, speaks of it (in p. 135) as consistent with the character of God
that “thousands or even all the Infants of Turks and Saracens dying in
original sin, should be tormented by God in hell.” These are his own
words ; and again (in p. 195) he speaks of the fall of infants in Adam
as “ tending to the manifestation of God’s justice in their damnation.”
And yet to keep up faith in an incredible system, the logic_of Calvinism
as applicable to infants, is covered up or denied. The Westminster
divines knew their own system, and they saw that it involved necessarily
the damnation of infants—of infants who never sin. Nor indeed can
one see more injustice in inflicting the torments of hell upon infants who
have never sinned, than upon adults who, though they have sinned, did
so out of necessity, and could not have done otherwise.
�47
to the moral sense that God Himself has given ns, Why should
we have them retained in our standards as what we are sup
posed to believe, and teach, and speak of as the Gospel? The
retention of standards setting forth such doctrines as I have
referred to, is not only unjustifiable when the Church has
come to hold a higher and more Scriptural faith, but is doing
great injury to the Church itself, and to the progress of true
Christianity. It has, I believe, turned many away into infi
delity. It proves increasingly a great stumbling-block in the
way of the young. It prevents many of the best men in the
Church from entering either the ministry or the eldership.
It has retarded in a most serious degree the progress of Christian
theology.
Progress of Theology Retarded, or
Tampered with.
else
Conscience
Look at the progress made in the arts and sciences. Men
there are free. They do not need to bind themselves to the
ideas or rules that prevailed a hundred years ago. Where
would medical and surgical science have been to-day, had our
graduates, before entering the profession, been compelled to
pledge themselves to conform to the practice of last century?
What would the effect be if astronomers were compelled to sign
their adherence to the system of Ptolemy to-day ? Either they
would have to sacrifice honesty to truth,—professing Ptolemy,
and preaching and practising Copernicus; or they would have to
sacrifice truth to honesty, and try to explain the phenomena
of the planets and stars in accordance with an exploded system.
This is very much the dilemma in which the Church, by main
taining her present standards,’jkeeps her ministers. And when
her ministers, by way of being faithful to the human standards,
refuse to see anything outside of Calvinism, people say, “ There
is no progress—they are behind the age—they are allowing the
power of the pulpit to decline.” If by way of being faithful
�48
to the Divine standard they go out into the larger truth, they
are then charged with dishonesty, and told that they should
leave the Church! Need we wonder that our churches have
been so infertile in theology, and that we have to depend
so much for fresh thought and new light upon men outside
of our own pale ?
Put
the
Confession Aside.
The practical question now arises:—If our Standards are so
ill suited either to the creed or to the wants of the Church
to-day—what is to be done? I am not in favour of mere
revision of the Confession. I think we owe it to the West
minster divines to let it alone. It is valuable as a historical
document. It represents their views; it cannot be made to
represent ours. It has a unity of its own as it stands. To
put the Gospel into it would be putting new wine into an old
bottle. It would burst it. Revision would be the most difficult tiling to do, and the most disappointing thing when done.
It would spoil Calvinism without giving us Christianity. It
would spoil the Confession for what it is, without making of it
what the Church requires. No mere revision will convert a bow
and arrow into a Henry-Martini; or an old donjon keep into a
good church. These Westminster documents should be kept as
they are, but simply as works of reference—not as standards.
What we need is a brief and simple formula, containing essentials
and points which might be made a basis of confederation or
union with other churches. Dr. Guthrie used to declare, that
everything indispensable for a Christian Church to hold could
be written on a sheet of note-paper. If distinctive principles
need to be exhibited, let them be put in the form of a separate
testimony approved by the Synod, and] presented to, but not
necessarily subscribed by, our office-bearers. Par too much
importance is attached to outward tests, and far too little to
inward life. The living spirit of a denomination is a better
�49
guarantee for unity than any mere outward creed. We see a
proof in our own Church.
Our Church has reprobation in her
formula, but that has not kept it in her faith. Voluntaryism
is not in her formula, but she has it in her life. As to the best
substitute for our present standards, opinions will differ; but
let us at least get the existing evil removed.
Ecclesiastical Toryism
and
Timidity.
People who cannot deny that reform is needed, but who
shrink from attempting it, will say that the question should be
let alone in the meantime—that opinion is not ripe for change.
Then let us ripen opinion.
“Not yet,” is the old cry of
those who want nothing done at all. Eleven years ago, in the
Edinburgh Presbytery, one of the leaders of our Church declared
that the time had arrived when something should be done.
But these eleven years have gone by and nothing has been
done. Forty years ago, an elder spoke to the late Dr. Young
of Perth about the Confession, complaining of the unscriptural
character of some of its dogmas. The Doctor said it certainly
ought to be revised, but the time had scarcely come. The same
thing is said to-day : the same thing -will continue to be said
till the Church, awaking to her duty and her danger, takes
reform into her own hand. Too long has our Church preached
the Gospel under a kind of protest in the presence of her own
standards. Too long has she permitted the Calvinism of the
Confession to distort her views of God, and criminate instead
of vindicate His ways with men. Too long has she allowed
these Standards to present to other Churches and to the world
a false view of her own faith and character. Too long has she
allowed them to stand where they do; excluding some of her
best and most devoted sons from the work for which they
are needed, driving many from her pale altogether, hindering
fellowship and union with other sections of Christ’s people, and
retarding her own development and the progress of hei’ missionM.
D
�50
ary work at home and abroad. Our formula seeks to protect
us from the intolerance of the civil magistrate. But there is
no intolerance so enslaving as false and degrading views of
Almighty God. We must know the truth, for the truth alone
can make us free. But how can we hope for higher light if we
will not receive and openly acknowledge the light that has
already been vouchsafed to us. It is time that Christian
congregations should speak out and agitate for reform. We
cannot have it without an earnest effort, perhaps a protracted
struggle. Everywhere, those who take the first step must be
prepared to face insult and abuse, antagonism and perhaps
persecution. But the liberation even of our own Church for
the great work to which God is calling her is worth the suffering and all the possible sacrifice. And though baffled this time,
and perhaps again and yet again, success will be achieved if we
are loyal to the truth.
“For freedom’s battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Tho’ baffled oft is ever won.”
VII.—LAST SPEECH BEFORE THE PRESBYTERY.
At a special meeting of Presbytery, held in the beginning of
April, a letter from Mr. Macrae was read, giving notice that he
would ask the Presbytery to transmit, in the form of a personal
overture, the one anent the Standards, which the Presbytery
had declined to accept as its own.
Notice was also given of an overture from his Kirk-Session,
which Mr. Macrae was appointed, in the event of its being sent
on, to support at the bai' of the Synod.
When the Presbytery met, on April 17th, the Kirk-Session’s
overture was considered first; and, notwithstanding an effort on
the part of the Clerk to stop it, the Presbytery, after con
siderable discussion, agreed to its transmission.
�51
Thereafter the personal overture came on, ancl Mr. Macrae
began his argument in support of his application to have it
transmitted. But he had not gone far when some members of
Presbytery, perceiving that he was opening out for another
attack, protested against his being allowed to proceed. The
Presbytery sustained the objection, and Mr. Macrae’s speech
was accordingly suppressed. His notes, however, were ob
tained, along with his consent to their publication. We are
.accordingly enabled to append entire his Reasons for dissenting
from the judgment of the Presbytery, and for wishing the
matter carried to the Synod. They are reasons which not only
vindicate his original position, but constitute a new argument
for agitation and reform.
The Speech.
Moderator,—I should like (if permission be given me) to state
in detail my reasons for soliciting that this Overture, though
not adopted by the Presbytery, should be transmitted now as a
personal one. First of all, it seeks a reform for which there is
an imperative call, and for which I believe our Church at large
is prepared—namely, the Reconstruction or Revision of our
Doctrinal Standards. In the second place, it gives adequate
reason for this reform—namely, that our present Standards err
notoriously, both by excess and by defect, failing to present the
Gospel in its fulness, and, on the other hand, containing number
less propositions which are entirely out of place in a confession
of faith—propositions which need not be believed by Christian
people; and are, in point of fact, rejected (many of them) by
multitudes of Christian people, and by whole Christian denominations.
These articles are therefore schismatic, tending to
perpetuate and to multiply sectarian differences. Even within
our own denomination these articles are so many additional and
gratuitous difficulties in the way of honest and thoughtful men
accepting the Standards. And, in point of fact, they are
keeping out of the eldership men who ought to be in it, and
�52
whose services are urgently required.
They are turning good
men away from the ministry. They are repelling many from
Christianity itself, by presenting it in a repulsive and unscriptural form. Moreover, as the overture indicates, these
Standards do injustice to the Church’s faith.
The Church
believes in man s responsibility. The Standards represent his
condition as such, both by nature and predestination, that
responsibility becomes a fiction, and the imputation of guilt an
aspersion on the justice of God, and an outrage on the common
sense of men. The Church believes that Christ came to be the
Saviour of the world. The Standards teach that He cam e only
to save a certain number called the elect. The Church believes
that a bona fide offer of salvation can be made to all; while the
Standards lay down dogmas of election and reprobation which,
carried out to their logical issue, make the offer of salvation
either a superfluity or a mockery—needless to the elect, who
cannot possibly' be lost; a mockery to the non-elect, who cannot
possibly be saved. For, to suppose one of the elect lost, no
matter how indifferent the Church might be; or to suppose a
single one of the non-elect saved by any effort the Church
might make, would be to suppose the decree of God with
reference to that man overturned; whereas, the Confession
declares that decree to be immutable, and the number of elect
and non-elect so certain and definite that it cannot be either
increased or diminished (chap, iii, 4). It seems to me sufficient
reason for asking this overture to be transmitted, that it urges,
the Synod to put an end as soon as possible to these and other
flagrant inconsistencies between the Creed we are required to
profess, and the Creed we are permitted and expected to
preach.
Another reason is, that the overture was never discussed upon
its merits. The overture contains very damaging assertions,
which the Presbytery did not attempt to disprove' and suggests
and pleads for a reform which the Presbytery has not shown to
be either needless or impracticable. If, therefore, there was
�53
reason for bringing the overture to the Presbytery at all, there
is the same reason now for asking j\its transmission to the
Synod.
The reason has, to my mind, been strengthened instead of
weakened by the way in which the whole matter was dealt
with by most of those who spoke in the Presbytery. The
great object seemed to be to get the movement suppressed.
Those who thought abuse would do, tried abuse. Those who
knew better, advanced as reasons for letting things alone, what
should rather be reasons for action and reform—-betraying, as
they did, anxiety to evade the point at issue, a feai- to look
facts in the face, a desire to extenuate and conceal the evil
rathei’ than have it removed.
Is the Question one of mere Words?
Dr. Hutton, for instance, in dealing with the glaring incon
sistencies shown to exist between the Church’s professed creed
on the one hand, and the Bible and her actual creed on the
other, sneered at them as “metaphysical and microscopical.”
He spoke as if the whole thing amounted to this, that the
Westminster divines had “failed sometimes in the choice of
their expressions !” But the difference between a Saviour for
the world and a Saviour for a few elect persons is not a micro
scopical difference. The difference between ability and inability
is more than merely metaphysical.
The difference between
punishing men for wilful wrong-doing, and damning them to
everlasting torment for doing what they could not help, is not a
microscopical difference. The difference between a God who
wants men to come to Him, and a God who, while entreating
them to come, has all the time determined that they shall not
come; between a God who willeth not that any should perish,
and a God who decrees that all shall perish except a favoured
few—this is not a difference that .can be accounted for by
mere “failure in the choice of expressions.”
�54
It is a difference between sincerity and hypocrisy; between
justice and injustice; between the sovereignty of a capricious
despot and the sovereignty of a Heavenly Father. And this.,
as far as it goes, is just the difference that distinguishes Chris
tianity from Calvinism; that differentiates the God of the Bible
from the God of the Westminster Confession. Dr. Hutton’s
way of explaining the difference is insulting to the framers of
the Confession as well as contrary to the facts of the case.
Failure in the choice of expressions is one of the last charges
that can be brought against the Westminster divines. What
ever their other faults were, and they were not few, these divines
were masters of expression, and expressed their meaning as
clearly and accurately as the nature of the subject and their
own knowledge and agreement about it permitted. The fault
is not in the expression, but in the thing expressed.
The Distinction between Predestination and
Fore-ordination a Mere Fiction.
But if these differences are neither metaphysical nor micro
scopical, Dr. Hutton brought forward something himself that
may very accurately be so described. This is the distinction
between fore-ordaining and predestinating—a distinction by
means of which he hopes to deliver Calvinism from the dogma
of reprobation.
But Dr. Hutton cannot produce an effect
without a cause, or accomplish much with a distinction where
there is no difference. If God fore-ordains that a man shall be
lost, nothing by any possibility can save him. The means of
his perdition are equally fore-ordained and as unavoidable and
irresistible as the end. Speaking of the man’s fate as “ pre
destinated” could not make it a whit more certain—could
not involve it more deeply in divine causation—could not make
it more impossible for the man (or for anything that can be
done for him) to avert. It is moreover a distinction utterly
repugnant to the Calvinistic conception of God’s purpose. Let
�55
us hear what Calvin himself says—and Calvin knew his system
better than Dr. Hutton. In his Institutes of the Christian
Religion (book iii, c. 21, sec. 5) he says, “ By predestination
we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined
with Himself whatever He wished to happen.” [Observe here
that, with reference to the sinner’s death, which is about
to be spoken of, God is made to “wish” it.]
Calvin
proceeds:—“ With regard to men, all are not created on equal
terms; but some are fore-ordained to eternal life, others to
eternal destruction. And, accordingly, as each man has been
created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has
been predestinated to life or death.” What then are we to
think of Dr. Hutton declaring that Calvinistic predestination
does not apply to the lost?
The Synod of Dort declared, in its deliverance on predestina
tion, that God, by an absolute decree, has elected to salvation a
very small number of men, and appointed all the rest of man
kind, by the same decree, to eternal damnation, without any
regard to their infidelity or impenitence.
And the first
Moderator of the very Assembly that framed our Confession of
Faith said, that—“ As for the reprobates, we should, if we
knew them, no more pray for them than for the devils them
selves.” And, in his Commentary on Romans 9th, that
eminent expounder of Calvinism, John Piscator, speaks of the
predestination of God as that “ by which He elects some men to
everlasting life, and reprobates others to eternal death.” And
yet Dr. Hutton would have us believe that Calvinistic pre
destination has no reference to the lost!
If Reprobation Disbelieved, Why Professed?
One thing about Reprobation, I was glad to hear Dr. Hutton
say. He said there was no such doctrine in Scripture. That
admission it is important to have.
But if reprobation is not
in Scripture, why have it in our Creed ? If Dr. Hutton says
�56
it is not there, he knows at least, that the mass of people
believe it to be there. Why, then, not make our position
clear? If our Church rejects that dogma, let her at once
declare it. Why wait before doing our duty till other Churches
are willing to do theirs? Joshua said, whatever others do,
“ As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Our
Church has done this in regard to one important point already.
She has freed us from the suspicion of holding, as a Church,
that the civil magistrate has authority in sacred things. There
are plenty of people who say (just as Dr. Hutton said about
reprobation) that the Confession, fairly interpreted, does not
really grant the civil magistrate that authority. But our
Church has not contented herself with the shelter of a doubtful
interpretation.
She has come out explicitly.
Nor has she
waited till other Churches were willing to act with her. She
has acted independently; and by her honesty and independence
has gained in influence, gained in self-respect, and gained in the
esteem of other Churches. Why has she not dealt in the same
way with reprobation ? Are false views of God less mischiev
ous—-are they to be tolerated longer—than false views of the
civil magistrate ?
The Confession logically Makes God the Author of Sin.
Mr. Inglis, however, seems to think that on at least one vital
point there is escape sufficient in the contradictions of the Con
fession itself.
He was astonished that I quoted the West
minster dogma that God has “ freely and unchangeably ordained
whatsoever comes to pass,” without quoting the clause “ yet so
as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence done
to the will of the creature.” This clause might be quoted to
show that the Westminster divines recoiled from the conclusion
of their own argument—that, like some divines amongst our
selves, they were better than their own creed. But a conclusion
that follows logically from the premises cannot be invalidated by
�a verbal protest.* If we say that God has established through
out the material universe the law of gravitation, it is vain to
add “ yet so as not to be responsible fox- the moon gravitating
towards the earth, or the earth gravitating towards the sun.”
And if it be laid down as a dogma that God has fore-ordained
whatsoever comes to pass, and has therefore fore-ordained every
sin, and everything that leads to sin, it needs more than a
caveat to keep us from the conclusion that God is responsible
for sin. This becomes more manifest when we turn from the
dogma of God’s fore-ordination to the correlative dogma of man’s
inability. It is vain to say that no violence is done to the will
of the creature when a dogma is laid down which practically
denies to the creature any will at all. The Confession teaches
that man “ in consequence of the fall, has wholly lost all
ability of will to any good accompanying salvation.” If that
be the case, why do we urge men to accept salvation, and
warn them of the consequences if they don’t 1 How can they
accept salvation if they have lost all ability of will in that
direction ?
There is no use crying to a drowned man to
catch a rope.
If man has no ability, he has no respon
sibility—no ability to respond to.
The Confession declares
that we are born in this state, “ disabled and made opposite to all
good and wholly inclined to all evil” (ch. vi, sec. 4). If so, man
is guiltless. He is depraved, but not to blame for it; he was
“ made ” so. He does wrong, but he cannot help it. If he
does not repent—if he does not accept the offer of salvation,
who can blame him, if he has “ lost all ability of will to any
good accompanying salvation 1 ” Like the man lame from his
* Mr. Macrae had, in the very speech to which Mr. Inglis referred,
anticipated and answered Mr. Inglis’ criticism, though Mr. Inglis seems
not to have noticed it. He said in that speech that epithets meant
nothing when contradicted by the character of the thing described. “It
is vain to say that the deluge was harmless, if you proceed to state that
it destroyed the whole human race, except those who were in the ark ”
(p. 15.) The same argument is now applied to the special clause quoted
by Mr. Inglis.
�58
mother’s womb' he is an. object of pity, not of blame. On this
theory, Aclam’s sin was the only sin. There has been no actual
sin since.
Adam was “ made ” able to do right but did
wrong.
All others do wrong, being utterly unable to do
right. But even as regards Adam, if God has decreed whatso
ever comes to pass—if He “ determined with Himself,” as Calvin
says, “ whatever He wished to happen with regard to every
man,” then He determined that Adam should eat the forbidden
fruit, and it was impossible for Adam to do anything else.
Dr. Hutton thought my objections to the Confession im
plied defective views of man’s sinfulness.
Misconception
there would be perilous indeed.
But if the view that
man, though fallen, has not so fallen as to have lost all
ability, and therefore all responsibility,—-if this implies a defec
tive conception of man’s sinfulness, what are we to think of
Dr. Hutton’s view—the view of every consistent Calvinist—in
logical accordance with which man, being utterly disabled and
helpless, cannot be said to sin at all, and the whole responsi
bility of human conduct is thrown back upon the good pleasure
and irresistible determination of God. This accords with the
system of the Confession,* but is at variance with the Bible.
The Confession and the Marrow Controversy.
Another point urged in the Presbytery, in defence of the
present anomalous state of things supplies, on the contrary,
another argument against it. It was urged that ever since the
* Piscator says, “Man sins necessarily” (Resp. ad Vorstii, i, 220).
Hodge says, “Sin is fore-ordained.” “The reason why any event occurs
is that God has so decreed” {Syst. Tlieol., i, 544, 537). The President of
the Westminster Divines, who framed the Confession, declares that
“Everything done by men, be it good or bad,” comes to pass “by the
efficacious decree of God who doeth all in all” {Doctr. of Synod, <L-c., p.
73). Calvin says that “God determined with Himself whatever He
wished to happen in regard to every man.”
�59
Marrow Controversy no minister of our Church need hesitate to
preach Christ as the Saviour of the world. But our formula
makes no exception in favour of this great truth of the Gospel,
and the Confession of Faith excludes it. In chapter viii, sec. 8,
it is said that, “ to all those for whom Christ hath purchased
redemption, He doth certainly and effectually communicate
the same.”* If, therefore, Christ died for all, all must be
saved. This doctrine of the Confession, if yoked with the
Gospel, carries us to Universalism, to which the whole
theology of the Confession is opposed. So hopeless does it
seem to preach the Gospel without destroying Calvinism—to
accept the Bible without discrediting the Confession of Faith.
The very admission that we preach a salvation which the Con
fession denies, and which our formula makes no exception in
favour of (and if no exception is needed, why have we the one
about the civil magistrate?) is another proof that the relation
of our Church to her creed is not an honest one, and demands
immediate reform.
Disavow
what is
Disbelieved.
The Presbytery will thus see that the reasons for urging this
reform on the attention of the Church remain in undiminished
force. We have a creed of which nobody knows how much we
believe and how much we disbelieve. We have a creed which
is declared to exhibit the sense in which we understand the
Scriptures, while everybody knows, and most of us confess, that
to a greater or less extent we understand the Scriptures in
a different sense. This state of things is surely not a reputable
* Dr. Cunningham, in his Historical Theology (ii, 329, &c.), says,
“ This statement contains, and was intended to contain, the true status
quaestionis in the controversy about the extent of the atonement.” It
was intended to teach “that all for whom these blessings were ever
designed or procured, do certainly receive them ; or, conversely, that
they were not designed or procured for any except those who ultimatey
partake of them. ”
�60
one for a Christian Church? To be satisfied with it is dis
honour; to desire a change, and yet be afraid to make it, is
cowardice; and to say that the Church is not competent for the
task is to confess incredible imbecility as well as disbelief in
the presence of the Divine Spirit.
If the Church cannot on some points set down what she
believes, it would surely not be difficult to set aside what
she disbelieves.
If she disbelieves what the Confession
teaches, or is “ supposed to teach,” about infant damnation,
and the doom of the heathen, she is surely not incompetent
to say so. If she does not believe what the Confession teaches
about man in his natural state, being not only fallen but made
incapable of a single act that God can approve, made opposed
not only to much but to everything that is good, and inclined
not only to much but to everything that is evil: if she does not
believe what the Confession teaches about Christ having died
only foi’ the elect; about the non-elect being all doomed irrevoc
ably to eternal death; and about eternal death signifying
unspeakable and everlasting torment in hell—she can surely
put them aside; she is surely not so helpless and incompetent
that she cannot even discard what she has come to discredit as
inconsistent with the true teaching of Scripture, with common
sense, and with her experience of the ways of God. Even if
she has not come to disbelieve such dogmas, yet if she does not
regard their belief as indispensable to Christian faith—if she
recognizes as Christians many who reject them (which she does)
she is surely called upon to remove them and is surely competent
to remove them, from the category of essentials. Nor would
it be a task transcending the ability of the Church to gather out
from the Confession, and set aside along with these, all other
articles which, whether true or false, believed or disbelieved, are
out of place in a creed for the whole Church—a creed which
is not meant to contain the truths about which Christians may
differ, but only those upon which it is considered indispen
sable that Christians should be agreed. By the time this
�61
process was complete, we should probably find the Westmin
ster Confession no longer recognizable; and would see it better,
if a Confession of this kind were necessary at all, to have a new
one altogether.
What in Place of the Confession?
This brings me now to the final reason for desiring that the
overture, though not adopted by the Presbytery, should be
transmitted to the Synod. It makes a practical suggestion to
meet a practical difficulty. It does not propose a mere revision
of the Confession, and an attempt to bring it article by article
into harmony with the actual faith of the Church. This would
raise countless, perhaps insuperable, certainly uncalled for,
difficulties. The overture suggests a way in which this could
be avoided, and a result attained that might meet the different
views that are held with regard to the amount of doctrine
that a church should officially endorse. Some are of opinion
that what we want is the briefest and simplest creed possible,
consistently with a presentation of the essentials of our faith
—such a creed as would remove the needless difficulties which
our present creed puts in the way—such a creed as might
at the same time form a basis of union or confederation with
all Christian Churches throughout the world. Others, again,
feel that it is important for us to have our distinctive
principles kept prominently in view, not only to educate
and unite our own people, but to show others our denom
inational position, and let these principles have their proper
influence upon the world. The overture suggests a way
in which both ends might be gained. It suggests that the
binding creed should contain only what are and may continue
to be deemed the essentials. It suggests that, apart from this,
there should be drawn up a list of subordinate and dis
tinctive principles, in the form of a testimony, which might
be periodically revised and approved by the Synod, and which
�62
would show forth the general attitude of the denomination
towards the various questions to which it might be thought
desirable to refer. This would be doing with some degree of
completeness what is actually done for isolated questions like
Disestablishment by every Synodical vote.
In this way the essentials of Christian faith would be
separated from what is merely denominational; and matters of
private interpretation and individual opinion would be kept out
of the Church’s creed altogether.
By any Method let the Evil be removed.
It is of secondary importance, however, the mere method
which the Synod might deem best for the rectification of her
doctrinal position. The great point is to get the Church to
look earnestly at this whole question, to ascertain if it be not
the case that the antiquated creed which she continues to
profess, mistakes in many important points the true teaching of
Scripture, distorts the character of God, and misrepresents the
actual faith of our Church. If so, the duty of the Church is
plain and imperative.
I would be glad, under these circumstances, if the Presbytery
could see its way to transmit my overture in the following
form :—
“ That the time has come when the Standards of our Church
ought to be revised. That they are too long and too intricate,
and defeat the very object of their length and minuteness by pre
venting the members of the Church from becoming acquainted
with them. Further, that, with all their voluminousness, they
probably omit more than one thing which they ought to contain,
and certainly contain a great many tilings which they ought to
omit—mixing up matters of opinion with matters of faith,
separating Christian Churches from one another, multiplying
difficulties in the way of a Catholic union, and hindering in a
variety of ways the progress of Christ’s kingdom. That even
as regards the Church’s own relation to its creed, two hundred
years of research and experience have developed differences be
�63
tween the professed and the actual faith of the Church, and
that the spectacle of a Church professing to hold all these articles
as articles of faith, while holding many of them only as matters
of opinion, and not holding some of them at all, is a bad example
to the world and demoralising to the Church herself. That her
continued timidity in dealing with these Standards in view of
such facts is discreditable to her faith in the abiding presence
of God’s Spirit; is a policy of unfaithfulness to the truth;
and a policy that would be by no party more condemned than
by the men who framed these Standards according to
the light they had, and by the Reformers whose creed has
been preserved, but whose prompt and fearless loyalty to truth
has been to a large extent lost. That our own Church, from her
history and also from her present position (as free on the one
hand from entanglement with the State, and on the other hand
from union negotiations) stands now in a peculiarly favourable
position for undertaking the work of revision, which important
work the Synod is respectfully overtimed to commence, with the
view of either substituting for the present subordinate stan
dards, a brief and simple formula, containing only those articles
of faith which we think every man, in order to belong to the
visible Church of Christ, must hold, and relegating to a
separate category merely distinctive principles; or in such
other way as the Synod may in its wisdom deem best, extricating
the Church from her present unworthy position, and removing
the mischievous arrest which her present Standards would
place (and to some extent have placed) upon her inalienable
right freely to advance in the knowledge of God, freely to
speak the whole truth of the Bible, and freely to adapt herself
to the wants of every nation and of every age, in order more
effectually to accomplish the great work for which she exists.”
VIII.—OVERTURE FROM MR. MACRAE'S KIRK
SESSION.
After considerable discussion in the Presbytery, Mr. Macrae
withdrew his personal overture on account of the Presby
tery consenting to transmit the overture from his session, which
he had been appointed to support before the Synod. He said he
�64
would have preferred supporting his own; but his Kirk-Session’s,
though less explicit, covered the ground sufficiently, and would
allow him to say all he meant to say before the Supreme
Court.
The following are the terms of the Kirk-Session’s overture:—
“ Whereas the main object of our subordinate standards is to
show forth as accurately as possible the views of God’s character
and will as believed and preachedin our Church; and, whereas
our present subordinate standards fail in this object, and tend
very much to misrepresent our views of the truth, the Synod is
respectfully overtured either to set these standards aside, or
to take such steps as in its wisdom it may deem best, in order
to bring the Church’s formula into harmony with the Church’s
faith, and to remove what has proved a stumbling-block to
many in the way of accepting office in the Church, as well
as a barrier in the way of union among Christian people.
David Macrae, Moderator of Session.
Wm. Cochran, Session-Clerk.
�65
APPENDIX.
IS MR. MACRAE’S PICTURE OF THE THEOLOGY
OF THE CONFESSION A “ CARICATURE ? ”
As Mr. Macrae’s summary of the Calvinistic system embodied
in the standards was called again and again, “ a caricature,”
and “ a distorted picture of the Confession,” by persons both in
the Presbytery and out of it, who either did not know their
own Confession, or did not wish its actual character to be
known,—we append here the very words of the Confession,
side by side with Mr. Macrae’s.
Rev. David Macrae.
Confession of Faith.
The Confession teaches that God, for
His own glory, has predestinated some
men to be saved, but that all the rest of
mankind He has predestinated to damna
tion and everlasting torment in hell.
By the decree of God, for the manifesta
tion of His glory, some men and angels are
predestinated unto everlasting life, and
some foreordained to everlasting death.—
Chap, iii, 3.
It teaches that while there is no fear f, li
the elect, there is no hope for the nonelect.
They whom God hath accepted in His
Beloved, effectually called and sanctified
by His Spirit, can neither totally nor
finally fall away from the state of grace,
but shall certainly persevere therein to the
end, and be eternally saved.—Chap, xvii, 1.
Others not elected, although they may
be called by the ministry of the Word,
and may have some common operations of
the Spirit, yet they never truly come to
Christ, and therefore cannot be saved.—
Chap, x, 4.
It teaches that God has absolutely and
unchangeably fixed the very number, so
that not one of them (the non-elect) can
These men and angels, thus predesti
nated and foreordained, are particularly
and unchangeably designed, and their
M.
E
�63
be brought over to the ranks of the saved,
preach to them and pray for them as you
will.
number is so certain and definite that it
cannot either be increased or diminished.
—Chap, iii, 4.
It teaches that none are redeemed by
Christ but the elect only.
Neither are any other redeemed by
Christ, effectually called, justified, adop
ted, sanctified, and saved but the elect
only.—Chap, iii, 6.
It teaches that the rest of mankind are
not only unable to believe in Christ, and
beyond His power to redeem, but are
brought into the world by God utterly
unable to help themselves.
The rest of mankind God was pleased,
according to the unsearchable counsel of
His own will, whereby He extendeth or
withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the
glory of His sovereign power over His
creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them
to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to
the praise of His glorious justice.—Chap,
iii, 7.
Man by his fall into a state of sin hath
wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual
good accompanying salvation; so as a na
tural man, being altogether averse to that
good, and dead in sin, is not able by his
own strength to convert himself or to pre
pare himself thereunto.—Chap, ix, 3.
It teaches that God hardens them, with
holding the grace by which they might
have been enlightened in their under
standings and wrought upon in their
hearts.
As for those wicked and ungodly men
whom God as a righteous judge for former
sins doth blind and harden, from them He
not only withholdeth His grace whereby
they might have been enlightened in their
understandings and wrought upon in their
hearts ; but sometimes, &c.—Chap, v, (i.
It teaches that by reason of the sin of
Adam, apart from any fault of their own,
thej’ come into the world wholly defiled in
all the faculties and parts of soul and body,
utterly indisposed, disabled, and made op
posite to all good, and wholly inclined to
all evil.
By this sin they (our first parents) fell
from their original righteousness and com
munion with God, and so became dead in
sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties
and parts of soul and body.
They being the root of all mankind, the
guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same
death in sin and corrupted nature c<mveyed
to all their posterity, descending from them
by ordinary generation.
From this original corruption, whereby
we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and
made opposite to all good, and wholly in
clined to all evil, do proceed our actual
transgressions.—Chap, vi, 2, 3, 4.
�It teaches that because of this sin, which
they could not and cannot help, they arc
bound helplessly over to the wrath of God
and the curse of the law, and so made
subject to spiritual, temporal, and eternal
■death.
Every sin, both original and actual,
being a transgression of the righteous law
of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in
its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner,
whereby he is bound over to the wrath of
God and curse of the law, and so made
subject to death, with all miseries—spiri
tual, temporal, and eternal.—Chap, vi, (i.
It teaches that even in heathen lauds,
where they have never heard, and there
fore never had an opportunity of accepting
the Gospel, they cannot be saved, no mat
ter how earnestly they may frame their
lives according- to the light of nature, or
the laws of that religion which they profess.
Much less can men not professing the
Christian religion be saved in any other
way whatsoever, be they ever so diligent
to frame their lives according to the light
of nature, and to the law of that religion
they do profess; and to assert and main
tain that they may is very pernicious and
to be detested.—Chap, x, 4.
It teaches that if they do wrong it is a
sin and they are damned for it, and if they
do right it is still sin and they are damned
all the same. If they turn to one hand it
is bad, if they turn to the other it is worse.
If they obey the law of God it is sin, if
they disobey it is worse sin.
Works done by unregenerate men, al
though for the matter of them they may
be things which God commands and of
good use both to themselves and others,
yet because thej’ proceed not from a heart
purified by faith, nor are done in a right
manner according to the Word, nor to a
right end, the glory of God.; they are,
therefore, sinful and cannot please God, or
make a man meet to receive grace from
God. And yet their neglect of them is
more sinful and displeasing unto God.—
Chap, xvi, 7.
Repent and return to God, it is declared
they cannot. They cannot even make an
effort that way; they are unchangeably
predestinated to be damned.
Chap, iii, 3, 4, 7; chap, ix, 3, quoted
above.
Chap, vi, 4; ix, 3; and iii, 3, also quoted
above.
And after death, according to our stan
dard, they are all east into hell, there to
endure for ever and ever unspeakable tor
ments of soul and body as long as God
Himself shall exist.
But the wicked who know not God, and
obey not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, shall
be cast into eternal fire, and be punished
with everlasting destruction from the pre
sence of the Lord, and from the glory of
His power (Chap, xxxiii, 2); or, as the
Larger Catechism (another of the Stan
dards) puts it—“Cast into hell and be
punished with unspeakable torments,
both of body and soul, with the devil and
his angels, for ever.
It teaches that of the countless myriads
of babes who have died and are dying in
infancy, only the elect are saved.
Elect infants, dying in infancy, are re
generated in Christ through the Spirit,
who worketh when, and how, and where
He pleaseth.
�For the non-elect, young and old, it has
no fate but the unending'and unspeakable
torments of hell.
Others not elected .... cannot be
saved.—Chap, x, 4, quoted above, also
chap, xxxiii, 2.
Whether Mr. Macrae’s picture is or is not a caricature, the
reader can judge for himself; and whether this is the theology
believed and preached in our churches, Presbyterian readers
will also be able to judge without much hesitation.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The war against the Westminster standards
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Macrae, David
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Glasgow
Collation: 68 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July 1908. Includes bibliographical references. Including a speech suppressed by the presbytery.
Publisher
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John S. Marr & Sons
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1877
Identifier
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CT75
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The war against the Westminster standards), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Presbyterian Church
Conway Tracts
United Presbyterian Church