RELIGION IN LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES 
 OF SCOTLAND 
 
RELIGION IN LITERATURE AND LIFE 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS 
 CONTROVERSIES 
 OF SCOTLAND 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. HENRY F. HENDERSON, M.A. 
 
 n 
 
 AUTHOR OF ERSKINE OF LINLATHEN 
 
 EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET 
 
 1905 
 
Hf 
 
 Printed by 
 MORRISON & GIBB LIMITED, 
 
 FOR 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 
 LONDON I SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED. 
 NEW YORK : CHARLES SCKIBNER'S SONS. 
 

 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ... i 
 
 I. PROFESSOR SIMSON'S " AFFAIR" . 4 
 
 II. THE MARROW MEN ... 20 
 
 III. HUME'S ESSA Y ON MIRACLES. . 44 
 
 IV. THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE .... 65 
 V. AN AYRSHIRE "NEW LIGHT" ... 86 
 
 VI. THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY . . 95 
 
 VII. EDWARD IRVING . . . . .in 
 
 VIII. THE Row HERESY . . .147 
 
 IX. THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM . . .182 
 
 X. THE SCOTCH SERMONS . . 194 
 
 XI. ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM . 207 
 
 XII. THE DODS-BRUCE CASE . . . .231 
 
 INDEX ,,..... 271 
 
 255908 
 
THE 
 
 RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES 
 OF SCOTLAND 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 THEOLOGICAL controversy in Scotland, since the 
 Reformation, dates only from the eighteenth 
 century. Prior to that time there had been contro- 
 versy, fierce and incessant controversy, but it had been 
 ecclesiastical rather than theological, and had to do 
 with the question of Church Government, whether by 
 prelates or presbyters, and not with the fundamentals 
 of the faith or any of the doctrines of Christianity. 
 Speculation on these high themes, even a free ex- 
 pression of opinion regarding them, was hardly known 
 before the date mentioned, and could not be said to 
 have been much encouraged in a land where unbelief 
 was counted a crime, and blasphemy was visited with 
 the punishment of death. Besides, the times were far 
 too stormy and sanguinary to be favourable to the 
 culture of theological studies. The despotism of the 
 Stuarts had first to cease, a period of tranquillity to 
 
2 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 interpose, and a halt to be called to the hostilities of 
 civil and ecclesiastical strife. We have to remember, 
 also, the stimulus given to every form of energy by 
 the union of the two kingdoms. Every kind of enter- 
 prise social, commercial, intellectual went forward 
 at a bound. Both countries, but especially Scotland, 
 reaped the benefit of friendly intercourse and inter- 
 change of sentiment. And it is a significant fact that 
 the first theological controversies in Scotland entered 
 from across the border, and had their cradle on English 
 soil. 
 
 But although a late comer, theological activity in 
 Scotland has more than compensated for this by the 
 vigour and resourcefulness of its career. The ordinary 
 Church historian has, indeed, hardly ever taken notice 
 of this fact. He has seldom condescended to note 
 the progress of religious opinions among us. He has 
 never given a chapter to the history of heresy in 
 Scotland. All his attention has been applied to the 
 Church's contendings and sufferings in the defence of 
 her rights, to the story of her struggles and collisions 
 with rulers and civil magistrates, to the battle against 
 patronage and the intrusion of presentees, while the 
 work done in the theological cloister and the con- 
 tributions of the Church towards the preservation and 
 enrichment of her treasures of wisdom and knowledge 
 a Church's true riches have been, as a rule, passed 
 by as of little consequence. 
 
 Yet a thrilling story can be told under this heading, 
 since to Scotland has fallen the honour of leading the 
 way among English-speaking nations in the dispersion 
 of religious ideas and the discussion of theological pro- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 blems. She has had a democratic Church, and that, 
 along with a rigid adherence to the Confession of Faith, 
 has carried her into this proud position. As she has 
 been accustomed to bring all her affairs before a 
 popular tribunal of clerics and laymen, every apostle 
 of progress that has appeared in her midst has had to 
 fight his way through a phalanx of resistance and pre- 
 judice, with the result that he has always had a large 
 and influential constituency to address ; and the more 
 his views have been challenged, the more widely they 
 have spread. 
 
 For two centuries, then, Scotland has been a home 
 and battlefield of theology ; and while, during that 
 long period, no theologian of the first rank has ap- 
 peared, none of the calibre of Aquinas or St. Augustine, 
 there has never been lacking men remarkable for their 
 spiritual genius, interpreters of the mind of God, de- 
 fenders and expounders of the Word, and masters in 
 the understanding and unfolding of the method of 
 Divine revelation. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 PROFESSOR SIMSON'S " AFFAIR" 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 An Enquiry into Mr. Simson's Sentiments. By Principal 
 Hadow. Edin. 1730. 
 
 The proper, true, and supreme Deity of our Lord. By a Minister 
 of the Church of Scotland. Edin. 1730. 
 
 Willison's Fair and Impartial Testimony. Edin. 1797. 
 
 M'Laren's New Scheme of Doctrine. Edin. 1717. 
 
 Wodrow's Correspondence, iii. (Maitland Club) 1843. 
 
 Wodrow's Analecta, iii., iv. (Maitland Club) 1843. 
 
 Scotland and Scotsmen in the i8th Century. By Ramsay of 
 Ochtertyre. Edin. 1888. 
 
 Autobiography of Carlyle of Inveresk. Edin. 1860. 
 
 Memoirs of Thomas Boston (Morrison's edition). Edin. 1899. 
 
 The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity. By Dr. Samuel Clarke. 
 Lond. 1712. 
 
 A System of Moral Philosophy. By Francis Hutcheson. Glasg. 
 
 1755- 
 
 Original Notices of Lady Grange. By Macleay. Edin. 1881. 
 
 JOHN SIMSON, Professor of Divinity at Glasgow, 
 was the first notable heretic within the Scottish 
 Church, the first to strike a blow that roused her 
 from the slumber in which she had long lain. There 
 were two stages in his career. The one dated from 
 1714 to 1717, the period of his Arminian heresies ; the 
 other, from 1726 to 1729, during which he kept the 
 country in ferment with his views on the subject of the 
 Deity of Christ. Whether Simson was Arminian out 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON'S "AFFAIR" 5 
 
 and out may now be doubted, but there is no question 
 that his views brought him into violent collision with 
 the high and dry Calvinism of the time, and that was 
 sufficient to constitute him an offender in the opinion 
 of all competent judges. His fault seems to have been, 
 that he regarded Christianity in a light that borrowed 
 little from dogma and mystery, and owed much to 
 reason and common sense. In full accord with the 
 new-fangled notions of morals then beginning to be 
 taught, he declared that happiness here and hereafter 
 was the chief aim and design of the gospel, the glory 
 of God being a secondary and subordinate matter. 
 The same benevolent philosophy inclined him to take 
 a hopeful view of the salvation of the heathen. If 
 they but honestly followed the light they had, and 
 sincerely desired salvation, the heathen could be saved 
 even without the knowledge of Christ. 
 
 Those were regarded at the time as monstrous 
 propositions, as were also these, that more of man- 
 kind would be saved than lost, and that all bap- 
 tized infants dying in infancy went immediately to 
 glory. Simson was arraigned before the Courts of 
 the Church, and made to answer for his objectionable 
 views. His judges, to do them justice, went to work 
 in a remarkably rational manner. In proceeding to an 
 examination of his errors, they distinguished between 
 three different classes of proposition : those clearly 
 opposed to Scripture and the Creed ; those supported 
 by tradition, although not determined by Scripture or 
 Creed ; and those not fixed or formulated at all by 
 Scripture, Creed, or Tradition. This was a fair and 
 intelligent method of inquiry. 
 
6 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 The leading spirit in the prosecution of Simson was 
 Webster of Edinburgh, " a man exceedingly popular on 
 account of his zeal for orthodoxy and the fervour of 
 his sermons and prayers . . . but withal somewhat 
 coarse and unpolished in his language in the pulpit 
 and out of it." 1 Another formidable antagonist was 
 John M'Laren, whose obituary in an old copy of the 
 Caledonian Mercury (July 12, 1734), is in these words: 
 "Died here the Rev. John M'Laren, one of the ministers 
 of the city, esteemed a well-meaning man and -void of 
 hypocrisy" M'Laren published in 1717 The new scheme 
 of Doctrine contained in the answers of Mr. John Simson 
 to Mr. Webster's libel, and in a preface -to the reader 
 he makes the humble acknowledgment : " I freely own 
 that the Professor is a man of learning and parts 
 above anything I can pretend to (for they commonly 
 say virtus in hoste laudanda est), as also that he seems 
 to be of an agreeable conversation. But I am sorry 
 he should have employed his parts to teach and defend 
 such dangerous errors as tend to worm out the vitals 
 of our received doctrine. It brings to my mind what 
 I have read of an honest and plain Christian who, when 
 at some of the old Councils a man of acuteness and 
 parts was defending error, said to him, Diabolus cupitse 
 ornare, that is, ' Satan covets to dress or set off himself 
 or his ill cause with your learning.' " 
 
 M'Laren was a fair and manly controversialist, with- 
 out much trace of arrogance ; and his book furnishes 
 us with a worthy and grave presentation of the matters 
 in dispute. Speaking of the necessity for an objective 
 revelation, he says, " Reconcileableness belonging to 
 1 Ramsay, Scotland and Scotsmen, i. 236. 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON'S 
 
 a supernatural or Gospel order of things must needs 
 be a pure object of faith, and our faith of it must needs 
 be some way bottomed upon the means that discover 
 reconcileableness. And therefore if the light of Nature, 
 works of Creation and Providence, reveal God to be 
 reconcileable, they are a partial foundation of faith, and 
 the means of begetting it. But I ever thought that 
 faith had been only bottomed upon the revealed Word, 
 and that it was only by the Word faith was wrought, 
 as is plain from the Scripture." 1 
 
 Again, in regard to Simson's theories of benevolence, 
 M'Laren is most acute : " As to what he says, that it is 
 more agreeable to the gracious nature of God that all 
 baptized infants dying in infancy should be saved, it's 
 a fallacious reason. For, ist. Do not Arminians found 
 universal redemption on this argument ? 2nd. Will 
 not this argument prove that there must be more adult 
 elect than reprobate, for this seems more agreeable 
 to the gracious nature of God? 3rd. Will it not prove 
 that poor heathens living according to the light they 
 have are saved though they never heard of a Redeemer ? 
 Yea, 4thly. Will it not prove it probable that all the 
 reprobate after some time suffering will either be 
 delivered or annihilated, for both these seem more 
 agreeable to God's gracious nature? As for the tenor 
 of the Covenant, it suits not with it at all unless he 
 make the covenant of grace universal as extending to 
 all mankind, which we find he does afterwards." 
 
 An unpolished polemic M'Laren may have been, he 
 may even in the pulpit have resorted to the tricks of the 
 buffoon, stones pointing that way are still preserved, 
 1 P. 1- 
 
8 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 he was at all events a powerful champion of the 
 orthodox position, and, as the sentences just quoted 
 show, a reasoner who saw clearly, and whose sight 
 reached far into the drift and tendency of views. 
 
 The Church was in no mood to deal harshly with 
 her erring Professor. He was discharged with a 
 caution against wandering again into divergent courses, 
 or employing expressions not found in Scripture that 
 tended to attribute more than was meet to man's 
 natural reason and the power of corrupt human nature. 
 The decision dissatisfied some, who grumbled at the 
 Church's leniency, and attributed it to the large number 
 of relatives, acquaintances, and old pupils who were 
 among Simson's judges. One of the dissatisfied was 
 Willison of Dundee, who tells us that he regarded it 
 as a just rebuke upon the Church for her mildness 
 with Simson, that he persisted in his heretical courses, 
 despised the discipline that was exercised upon him, and 
 was in consequence brought before the Church Courts a 
 few years afterwards charged with still graver errors. 1 
 
 Delinquents brought before the ecclesiastical tribunal 
 to answer for their opinions have usually been young 
 men, unversed in the ways of the world and aglow with 
 the ardour of inexperience. Simson, however, was an 
 exception to the rule, having attained the mature age 
 of sixty when the charge of " still graver errors " was 
 preferred against him. Perhaps it was to his credit 
 that at a time of life when the mind grows stationary, 
 Simson was keeping himself abreast of learning, and 
 bringing his mind under the influence of the most 
 eminent philosophic thinker of his time. 
 1 Willison's Testimony, p. 402. 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON'S "AFFAIR" 9 
 
 Dr. Samuel Clarke had in 1712 published his famous 
 work on the Trinity, wherein he propounded views 
 regarding the Deity of Christ that aroused a long- 
 continued storm of controversy. A clergyman of the 
 Church of England and a chaplain of Queen Anne, he 
 thereby brought himself into collision with the House 
 of Convocation. That venerable body, however, was 
 content with silencing Clarke, not answering him or 
 attempting to do so. Had not Arianism been an- 
 swered fourteen hundred years before at the famous 
 Council of Nicasa? Why repeat the task? According 
 to Arius, Christ was not begotten, but made. So far 
 as God was concerned, he drew no distinction between 
 creation and generation. Christ had come out of the 
 non-existent state, not indeed in time, but before it ; yet 
 not through any inherent necessity of the Divine Nature, 
 but by an act of the Father's choice. There was a 
 moment when He began to be. He might never have 
 been, had the Father willed otherwise. He cannot there- 
 fore be God as the Father is God. He is certainly the 
 first of created beings, immeasurably the first of them, 
 and indeed by Him all other creatures have their being. 
 Therefore is He named " Logos," "the Son," "the 
 Only-begotten." He deserves these titles because of 
 the glory to which He has risen. We may even 
 without impropriety call Him God, although, strictly 
 speaking, He is only a demi-god. 
 
 Such was Arianism which Athanasius answered in the 
 fourth century, under the eye of the great Constantine, 
 and in the interests of a Christian view of Redemption. 
 According to Athanasius, if Christ were not truly God, 
 God of very God, He was only a creature after 
 
10 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 all, and therefore not able to act as Mediator betwixt 
 God and man. Redemption means union with God, 
 through union with the Son of God. No mere crea- 
 ture, by taking us into fellowship with himself, can 
 ever bring us into fellowship with God. If Christ be 
 only one Son among many, then for man there can 
 be no salvation. " Athanasius," says Harnack, " ex- 
 posed the inner difficulties and contradictions, and in 
 almost every case we may allow that he has right on 
 his side. A Son who is no Son, a Logos who is no 
 Logos, a monotheism which nevertheless does not 
 exclude polytheism, two or three ousias which are to 
 be revered while yet only one of them is really distinct 
 from the creatures, an indefinable being who first 
 becomes God by becoming man, and who is yet neither 
 God nor man, and so on. In every single point we 
 have apparent clearness, while all is hollow and formal, 
 a boyish enthusiasm for playing with husks and shells, 
 and a childish self-satisfaction in the working out of 
 empty syllogisms." 1 
 
 Clarke attempted to revive these views of the Deity 
 of Christ, but not in the full Arian form. According 
 to his view, the Personality of God was not threefold, 
 but one. The Son and the Spirit are indeed Divine 
 persons, but not Divine in the same sense as the 
 Father, inasmuch as He derives His being from 
 none, while They derive Theirs from Him ; and 
 They do this not in virtue of an inherent necessity of 
 His nature, but from an act of free choice on His part. 
 As They have come into existence before time, They 
 are not to be looked upon as belonging to creaturely 
 1 History of Dogma , iv. 42. 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON'S "AFFAIR" 11 
 
 rank ; but, on the other hand, neither in any strict 
 sense are They to be regarded as the coequals of God, 
 as They have not been, like Him, eternally begotten. 
 
 Such was Clarke's modified Arianism. Orthodoxy 
 opposed it in the person of Dr. Waterland and other 
 champions of Creeds and Councils ; but the seed 
 spread, and some seeds were carried far north to the 
 Divinity class-rooms of covenanting Scotland. Simson 
 was reported to be repeating Clarke's views to his 
 students, denying the independence and necessary 
 existence of the Son and the numerical oneness of 
 the Trinity. So it was rumoured. His ecclesiastical 
 superiors at once took him to task ; and in order to 
 make a conviction against him the more sure, not 
 only charged him with teaching deadly heresy, for 
 which he was liable to severe ecclesiastical punish- 
 ment, but with disobeying the former orders of the 
 Court against employing terms and hypotheses out of 
 harmony with the form of sound words. 
 
 The weapon held at the Professor's head was thus 
 double-barrelled. The process instituted against him 
 dragged itself on for four weary years, and kept the 
 Church in a caldron of excitement. Nothing else was 
 discussed in social circles but Professor Simson's 
 "affair." " These three years now, the Church's time 
 hath been taken up with this affair of Mr. Simson. 
 Nothing else almost hath been done of any weight. 
 We can get no advances made in forming regula- 
 tions, acts, and constitutions, the proper work of an 
 Assembly." 1 Such is Wodrow's complaint. The 
 minister of Eastwood and other Assembly worthies 
 1 Analecta, iv. 54. 
 
12 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 held many a protracted conclave over the case in the 
 parlour of the Eagle Inn, a favourite ecclesiastical 
 resort of the day. At last, with a grateful sense of 
 relief, he was able to write home: "Now we are 
 within some view of land, if some wave toss us not 
 back." 
 
 Often had the Church of Scotland faced worse diffi- 
 culties ; but then the evil confronted her from with- 
 out, from professed enemies and persecutors. Now 
 her troubles were from within, from a quarter from 
 whence she had been wont to expect not an assault 
 on, but a defence of the faith. Public feeling was 
 more excited than at any previous time within 
 memory. The Simson "affair," as it was called, 
 engrossed all minds and influenced every question. 
 The Moderator of Assembly was chosen because of 
 his views on the case ; and the sermons preached 
 by him before the Assembly discussed nothing else. 
 Even school children took sides according to their 
 humour, and the hawkers on the streets bawled out 
 the names of Church leaders as they plied their wares. 
 "I hear a farce is writt on the Ministers of the toun 
 and what has hapned of late about the Professor." 
 So Wodrow writes, shocked that anyone should 
 " mock and ridicul Gospell Ministers." The Assembly 
 debates lasted at times eight days on end. Pious 
 Boston tells us how they were nearly being the death 
 of him. "I came home from Edinburgh on Wednes- 
 day, 2ist May, and found my family, by the mercy 
 of God, no worse than when I left them. I found a 
 cough and a pain in my back, which had fallen to me 
 in the spring, both of them worse ; and I was under 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON'S "AFFAIR" 13 
 
 great indisposition for about ten days after. By that 
 pain in my back it was with great difficulty that I 
 could change my sitting posture into an erect one. 
 It had been carried to that height by means of the 
 extreme long seats we had got at the Assembly in Pro- 
 fessor Simsoris affair"**- Simson's students, past and 
 present, were expected to be important actors in the 
 drama, as their note-books and memories contained 
 all that was of the nature of proof against the 
 Professor. But the young men were provokingly 
 reticent, which was not greatly to be wondered at, 
 considering the fact that College lectures were then 
 given in Latin, and besides this, as the fatherly 
 Wodrow adds, "most of them were young raw lads, 
 who I believe did not really understand what Mr. 
 Simson had taught." 
 
 It was easily proved against him that he had gone 
 astray in his exposition of that difficult dogma, the 
 Subordination of the Son, and the offence was con- 
 sidered far from trifling on the part of one in his 
 position. But before the final sentence was passed 
 upon him, the culprit publicly retracted all his errors, 
 and expressed his grief for whatever he had said or 
 done that had offended. If by this deathbed repent- 
 ance he expected to be restored to his place in the 
 Church, he greatly mistook the temper of the men he had 
 now to deal with. They were not in the genial humour 
 they were in at the previous trial. They likened him 
 to Charles I., who made a good many concessions, but 
 made them too late. In an ecclesiastical sense his day 
 of grace was past. Recantations notwithstanding, he 
 1 Analecta, iii. 183, 
 
14 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 was removed from his professorial dignity, and declared 
 unfit to be entrusted with the preparation of candidates 
 for the ministry. The sentence of deposition, however, 
 was not passed, although many thought it should have 
 been. But, as Willison shrewdly observed, it was 
 "safer for the truth to bind up his pen by a suspen- 
 sion and to keep him under it, than by a deposition to 
 provoke a man of his learning to make open attacks 
 upon the most important truths of our holy religion." 
 
 The story of Simson's trial would be dull reading, 
 were it not for the interesting figures that move upon 
 the stage. The heads of the four Universities were 
 prominent in the case, Hadow, Principal of St. 
 Andrews; Hamilton, Principal of Edinburgh ; Campbell, 
 of Glasgow ; and Chalmers, of Aberdeen. The first- 
 named, a consistent zealot for orthodoxy, was against 
 Sirhson ; the others took his part. John M'Laurin of 
 Glasgow, still remembered for his sermon, "Glorying 
 in the Cross of Christ," a sermon long spoken of as 
 the finest product of the Scottish pulpit, took the 
 orthodox side, and as the popular preacher of the day 
 won the public ear. 
 
 Another champion of the faith was Lord Grange, who 
 played many parts in his day. One of the straitest of 
 the sect of the Pharisees, and fearing innovations more 
 than sin, he wanted to suppress circulating libraries 
 as immoral institutions, he was at the same time a 
 Jacobite intriguer, who banished his wife to St. Kilda 
 so as to prevent her divulging secrets about himself, 
 meanwhile pretending to his friends that the lady had 
 died, and actually going through the farce of a mock 
 funeral. Nor was this all. By turns devotee and 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON'S "AFFAIR" 15 
 
 debauchee, he is said by those who knew him to have 
 spent his time in alternate scenes of prayer and 
 wantonness. Among- Simson's most active prose- 
 cutors was this bundle of inconsistencies. Before the 
 case opened he addressed Wodrow in these unctuous 
 phrases, " I heartily wish it may be a misreport ; and 
 if not, surely every one who loves our blessed Lord 
 Jesus has cause to mourn for it. ..." " Since that 
 time (when he first heard about Simson's teaching) I 
 have been particularly afraid of a stroke to this Church 
 from that great error." 1 The same bland Pecksniff 
 described Simson as a man who practised " the art 
 of teaching heresy orthodoxly." As a lawyer he 
 helped to frame the libel, and being- much in the 
 eompany of the clergy had abundant opportunity of 
 practising his arts on the guileless men. The un- 
 suspicious Wodrow tells how, "one day when they 
 were waiting for Mr. Simson, and had sent for him 
 to a Sub-Commity in my Lord's chamber, to fill the 
 feild (i.e. occupy the interval), my Lord proposed a 
 question for conversation, wherein the Spirit's proper 
 work upon the soul did lye : or whither thir was 
 anything further necessary to be done by the Spirit 
 for spirituall actions but the irradiations of spirituall 
 light on the mind, and the strengthening of the mind 
 to receive it." 2 
 
 At the opposite pole to this compound of mind and 
 mire stood the spiritually-minded Boston, another of 
 Simson's opponents. Boston has long- lain under the 
 reproach of being a sour bigot ; but probably this is 
 
 1 Wodrow's Correspondence, iii. 235. 
 
 2 Analecta, iii. 207. 
 
1 6 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 doing him great injustice. Readers of his Memoirs 
 will remember one reference to Simson which does 
 him much credit. He had prepared an essay on 
 Hebrew accentuation, and looking about for a person 
 of scholarly attainments to whom to submit it before 
 publication, he decided that none was more to his 
 liking for this purpose than the heretical Professor. 
 This was in 1724, before the breaking out of Simson's 
 Arianism, but after he had been dealt with for his 
 Arminian errors. 1 Boston travelled to the Assembly 
 from a bed of illness, under a sense of duty, in "Mr. 
 Simson's weighty affair." He joined in the cabal that 
 gathered in the evenings at the Spread Eagle, among 
 the others being Colonel Erskine (" the Black Colonel "), 
 ancestor of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen. At this 
 much-frequented tavern on one of these occasions, 
 Boston, while waiting for an ecclesiastic, occupied 
 himself penning his famous dissent. Unable to agree 
 to a mere suspension, he rose in the Assembly and 
 read his dissent, which he prefaced in these Luther- 
 like terms : " I dissent in my own name and in name 
 of all that shall adhere to me, and for myself alone, 
 if nobody shall adhere." "Will you tear out the 
 bowels of your mother ? " asked the Moderator. 
 " Whereunto," adds Boston, " I being sensibly touched, 
 replied, ' That if I had the conviction of that's being 
 the tendency thereof, I would rather take it (the paper 
 I read) and tear it in a thousand pieces.'" 2 Boston's 
 manly stand made a great impression at the time, and 
 he ever regarded it one of the greatest honours put 
 on him by Providence. He lost nothing by his inde- 
 1 Memoirs, p. 378. - Ibid. p. 416. 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON S "AFFAIR 17 
 
 pendent outspokenness, not even in a worldly sense. 
 "Though it was an invidious appearance in which I 
 was left alone ; yet being made out of conscience 
 towards God, it was so ordered by Providence that 
 it visibly tended to my reputation both with the one 
 party and the other ; whereof several expressions were 
 made to me. . . . This invidious appearance, which 
 seemed to have an ill aspect on the affair of the essay 
 on the accentuation, had a quite contrary effect ; so 
 that before I came from Edinburgh, the printing of it 
 there, and publishing proposals for that effect, were 
 moved to me by Mr. James Davidson, bookseller, and 
 Robert Fleming, printer." 1 
 
 Simson, although he had considerable scholarship 
 and learning, was not a man of lofty character. His 
 judges were probably his intellectual inferiors, as those 
 of Arius, according to the best authorities, seem to 
 have been his ; and if Wodrow is to be trusted, Simson 
 had the vulgarity to say so. His words were, that 
 "there were not ten ministers in Scotland that under- 
 stood anything of the debates on the Trinity " ; which 
 made Wodrow retort, " If thir things be true, as I am 
 pretty well informed of them from the second-hand, he 
 must either be perfectly craized in his brain, or intol- 
 lerably proud and foolish." 2 In one quality his judges 
 were at least his equals, in hard-headed shrewdness. 
 This comes out in their treatment of his retractions. 
 No amount of these had the slightest weight with 
 them ; they either disbelieved or despised them all. 
 As Wodrow says to one of his correspondents: 3 "I 
 
 1 Memoirs, p. 419. 2 Analecta, iii. 243. 
 
 s Correspondence ', iii. 406. 
 2 
 
1 8 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 should soon know what I had to do if a young student 
 had the charge of my children and had taught them 
 to lie, to equivocate, to commit wickedness, and when 
 he had stiffly denied all, questioned my power to inquire 
 into his manner of teaching, refused to answer my 
 inquiries touching his teaching my boys till I had 
 proven all against him, and was just going to give 
 my opinion upon the whole, and retracted all, and 
 professed sorrow for what was past, and his resolu- 
 tions to guard against these things in time to come. 
 I'll assure you I would not trust my children to him, 
 if another were to be had in the world ; and even 
 though I could not have another, I would let them 
 read alone rather than continue under such a person." 
 
 Another virtuous quality belonged to Simson's judges. 
 They realised to the full the seriousness of his doc- 
 trines and teaching, and it surprised them not a little 
 to find that tenets which they could call by no other 
 name than gross errors and heresies contrary to the 
 Divine Word, the Professor somewhat callously desig- 
 nated hypotheses. To them that seemed an altogether 
 inadequate description of doctrines which, like those 
 of Arius, strike at the life of Theism itself. Arianism 
 was relentlessly condemned by the Council of Nicaea, 
 because by reducing the Second Person of the Trinity 
 to the level of a demi-god, as we have seen it 
 did, it played into the hands of heathen pantheism 
 and polytheism. The questions at issue between 
 Arius and Athanasius were no mere war of words 
 or metaphysical wrangle, as may be seen by the 
 fate that befell Christianity in those places where it 
 entered in Arian form. It entered among the Goths 
 
PROFESSOR SIMSON'S "AFFAIR" 19 
 
 in that imperfect form, and, as a recent writer tells us, 
 "they accepted Christ as a hero-God, like those to 
 which they were accustomed. Provided thus with a 
 platform which lay between heathenism and Chris- 
 tianity, they came to a premature halt." He adds, 
 " The Christianity of the later Goths in Spain appears 
 to have admitted of a certain impartial veneration for 
 the Christian God and heathen idols. * We do not, 
 says Agila, the envoy from the Arian Leovigild to 
 Chilperic at Tours, * we do not reckon it a crime 
 to worship this and that ; for we say in our common 
 speech, It is no harm if a man passing between heathen 
 altars and a church of God makes his reverence in 
 both directions. ' " J 
 
 That the enemies of Simson's teaching did not 
 overestimate the seriousness of his errors, receives 
 corroboration from another quarter, as modern as that 
 just cited is ancient. Froude tells us how contemptu- 
 ously Carlyle in his earlier years treated the Athanasian 
 Controversy, as though it were a mere quarrel over a 
 diphthong, whether Christ were homoousios or homoi- 
 ousios of the Father. " He now told me," said Froude, 
 "that he perceived Christianity to have been at stake. 
 If the Arians had won, it would have dwindled away 
 to a legend."- With this opinion a still more modern 
 critic already quoted agrees. Harnack holds that 
 Christianity would in all probability have been com- 
 pletely ruined had the Arian doctrines won the day. 
 
 1 Gore's Incarnation^ p. 91. 
 
 2 Life in London^ ii. 462. 
 
, CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MARROW MEN 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 The Marrow of Modern Divinity. C. G. M'Crie's edition. 
 Glasg-. 1902. 
 
 Boston's Memoirs. Edin. 1899. 
 
 Memoirs of Fraser of Brea. Edin. 1738. 
 
 The Antinomianism of the Marrow, Detected. By Principal 
 Hadow. Edin. 1721. 
 
 Acts of the General Assembly, 1638-1842. Edited by the Church 
 Law Society. 
 
 The Edinburgh Christian Instructor, for 1831-32. Articles by 
 T. M'Crie. 
 
 The Controversie concerning the Marrow. Edin. 1721. 
 
 M'Kerrow's History of the Secession Church, Edin. 1839. 
 
 Witherspoon's Ecclesiastical Characteristics. Edin. 1815. 
 
 Walker's Theology and Theologians of the Seventeenth and 
 Eighteenth Centuries. Edin. 1872. 
 
 The Erskines. By MacEwan. (" Famous Scots " Series.) 
 
 WHEN it happens, in the course of religious 
 thought, that certain truths receive undue 
 emphasis, with the result that others of equal im- 
 portance are neglected, it inevitably follows that the 
 tables are turned, and these others, pushing aside 
 their rivals, themselves become ascendant and even 
 dominant. Such a swing of the pendulum is to be 
 met with, as we pass from the theological atmo- 
 sphere of the seventeenth century into the early part of 
 the eighteenth. In the former period the thought of 
 
THE MARROW MEN 21 
 
 God as an almost implacable sovereign seems to be the 
 ruling idea in religion. An imperial autocrat who does 
 whatsoever He pleaseth, His creatures are not re- 
 garded as entitled to pity and consideration at His 
 hands. They have no claim on His love, no right to 
 His mercy. He may favour some by granting them 
 eternal life, and secure it to them by the seal of a 
 covenant bond ; but by the same prerogative He passes 
 by others, leaving them to perish in their sins, without 
 working deliverance in their behalf. We wonder at 
 human nature being able to suffer such harsh divinity ; 
 and how men, the reverse of cruel themselves, could 
 defend so fatalistic a form of faith. But probably 
 acquiescence in it was easier than we imagine in a 
 time of bloody tyranny and strife. Churchmen who 
 had the fickle Stuart dynasty to endure, and the tortures 
 of the boot, the scaffold, and a life of exile to face, 
 probably drew to a fierce theology more naturally than 
 to a mild one, and understood a martial better than a 
 paternal administration of divine law. But with the 
 dawn of better times and the rise of more settled 
 government, came the desire for a more humane creed 
 and the relaxation of dogmatic severity ; and as peace 
 and the arts of peace came more and more within 
 men's reach, a brighter and more benevolent type of 
 theology began to supplant the old. 
 
 So far as Scotland was concerned, the bridge that 
 afforded them transit from the old order to the new 
 was a book brought from Puritan England, where its 
 author had spent a quiet life as far back as 1645. By 
 the time it became known in Scotland, The Marrow of 
 Modern Divinity had been published nearly fourscore 
 
22 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 years, and had gone through many editions. On its 
 first appearance in England it came with the impri- 
 matur of Joseph Caryl upon it, one of the Westminster 
 Divines, and a noted preacher in his day ; according 
 to Neal, " a man of great learning, piety, and modesty," 
 and one of Cromwell's triers. This is what he said 
 in its favour: "I have perused this ensuing dialogue, 
 and find it tending to peace and holiness : the author 
 endeavouring to reconcile and heal those unhappy 
 differences which have lately broken out afresh amongst 
 us, about the points therein handled and cleared ; for 
 which cause I allow it to be printed, and recommend 
 it to the reader as a discourse stored with many 
 necessary and seasonable truths confirmed by scripture 
 and avowed by many approved writers, all composed 
 in a familiar, plain, and moderate style, without bitter- 
 ness against or uncomely reflections upon others ; 
 which flies have lately corrupted many boxes of 
 (otherwise precious) ointment." 
 
 The title of the book sufficiently describes its scope 
 and character, provided we remember what was 
 " modern Divinity" in the days of the Commonwealth, 
 namely, the religion and doctrine of the Reformation. 
 The book professes to give the pith and marrow of that 
 doctrine, and consists largely of extracts from the Re- 
 formers' writings. Indeed, many of the sentences con- 
 demned by Principal Hadow and his friends turned out 
 to be the words of Luther and English Church prelates 
 conspicuous for their learning and piety. The book is 
 in Dialogue form, and is divided into two parts. In the 
 first, which deals with the covenant of works and the 
 covenant of grace, the dialogue is conducted by Evan- 
 
THE MARROW MEN 23 
 
 gelista, a Minister of the Gospel ; Nomista, a Legalist ; 
 Antinomista, an Antinomian ; and Neophytus, a 
 young Christian. The second part, " touching the 
 most plain, pithy, and spiritual exposition of the Ten 
 Commandments," is carried on by Evangelista and 
 Neophytus together with Nomologista, a prattler 
 about the Law. 
 
 The writer, who gives his own views through 
 Evangelista, was said to be an Oxford graduate ot 
 good social position but no ecclesiastical standing, who 
 lived the life of a recluse among his books, and had 
 won a reputation for Patristic lore and skill in Hebrew 
 and New Testament Greek. Those who disliked the 
 book and its teaching, and desired to suppress it, 
 attempted to raise a feeling of prejudice against it 
 by representing the author as a tool in the hands 
 of the Independents against Presbyterianism, and a 
 person of mean origin and occupation to wit, a barber, 
 who, dissatisfied with the position in which Providence 
 had placed him, aspired to that of an Independent 
 minister. Even Principal Hadow, the chief opponent 
 of the book, circulated this report, and added : 
 "Such an intruder into the sacred office would not 
 readily at that time have obtained recommendation of 
 any true Presbyterian who had a zeal for the Covenant, 
 and sworn Reformation of the Church of Scotland." 
 These observations were hardly worthy of Principal 
 Hadow. After all, if it turned out, as it might do, that 
 Fisher were neither the eldest son of a knight nor a 
 gentleman commoner of Brasenose, as he was re- 
 puted to have been, but only a common London barber, 
 about whom this much only was known, that he had 
 
24 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 composed a book and appended to it the obscure 
 initials " E. F.," what of that? Had not honest Allan 
 Ramsay been a barber in the High Street of Edin- 
 burgh, and was not Burns to say of him : 
 
 "Thou paints auld nature to the nines 
 In thy sweet Caledonian lines"? 
 
 We turn from these personalities as beneath the 
 notice of serious men, and proceed to the examination 
 of a controversy that stirred the religious life of Scot- 
 land to its depths for generations. But, first, let us 
 hearken to an estimate of the book which led to the 
 controversy, from Hervey, the writer of Theron and 
 Aspasio, once a household name in Scotland when 
 religious books were more scarce and perhaps more 
 valued than they are now. It reveals the kind of 
 welcome the Marrow theology was likely to receive 
 from the devouter minds in the land. Hervey calls it 
 " a book designed to guard equally against Antinomian 
 licentiousness and legal bondage. The thoughts are 
 just and striking ; the arguments solid and convincing ; 
 the diction is familiar yet perspicuous ; and the doctrine 
 exceedingly comfortable because truly evangelical. . . . 
 Perhaps I may venture to say that this little treatise 
 pours as much light upon the gospel and grace of 
 Christ and . . . affords as many important distinctions 
 in divinity as any book of its size whatever." 
 
 The book was first published in Scotland in 1718 
 under the care of James Hog, minister at Carnock, who 
 wrote a preface to it. It caused an immediate commo- 
 tion in religious circles, and the following year Hog 
 published "an explication of passages excepted against 
 
THE MARROW MEN 25 
 
 in the Marrow." The attention of Hog and others like- 
 minded with him had been at the first drawn to the 
 book by Thomas Boston, who accidentally stumbled 
 upon it in the house of one of his parishioners at 
 Simprin, where he was settled before he became minister 
 at Ettrick. Boston was therefore before Hog in his 
 discovery of the treasure. A genuine treasure it 
 proved to him in the course of his much-tried life. 
 " The doctrine of the Marrow," he confessed, " was the 
 sweet and comfortable prop of my soul." Before this, 
 Fraser of Brea, a shining light of the Scottish Church, 
 had left it on record that he was much helped in his 
 religious difficulties by Luther, Calvin, and others, but 
 more than all else " by that book called The Marrow of 
 Modem Divinity." 
 
 At the time that it was first published in Scotland 
 there were circumstances that made its appearance 
 opportune. What was called "the Auchterarder Creed " 
 was causing a ferment in the ecclesiastical mind. That 
 satirical phrase referred to a statement put forward in 
 connection with a student's examination, to the effect 
 that "it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we 
 must forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ and 
 instating us in covenant with God." The words cer- 
 tainly have an Antinomian flavour about them, and by a 
 majority of the Assembly the statement was condemned. 
 Some there were, however, now regarded as the 
 soundest of the sound, who refused to acquiesce in this 
 decision. The Marrow had brought them a knowledge 
 of grace and of the relations between law and grace, 
 that bore the imprint of God Himself; it had opened 
 up to them views of the gospel that were revolutionary, 
 
26 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 and they soon found themselves widely sundered from 
 the conventional orthodoxy of the time. Among them 
 were Hamilton of Airth, Gabriel Wilson of Maxton, 
 Thomas Boston and Hog of Carnock. 
 
 The more gracious statements of the gospel identified 
 with the Marrow men, as they were called, spread rapidly 
 through the peasant cottages of Scotland by means of 
 sermons, pamphlets, discussions in Church Courts, and 
 impromptu debates at village forge and loom, and at 
 length the ecclesiastical dignities, not comprehending 
 aright the drift of the movement, but always ready to 
 suppress enthusiasm and popular zeal, commenced to 
 take steps to deal with the heresy. The first declara- 
 tion of war came from Principal Hadow, who attacked 
 the new evangel in a sermon entitled "The record of 
 God, and duty of faith therein required." The same 
 year (1719) a complaint was brought up to the 
 Assembly against the book, and resulted in the Com- 
 mission being empowered to call before them "any 
 authors or recommenders of books or pamphlets con- 
 taining any doctrine not agreeable to the Confession ot 
 Faith." When the Commission met, they appointed a 
 Committee which, according to Boston, showed great 
 zeal, but all on one side, namely, ' f to preserve the doctrine 
 from mixture of Antinomianism, which the hue and cry 
 was now raised about." The Committee divided itself 
 into two parts, "whereof the one sat at St. Andrews 
 and prepared excerpts out of the challenged books and 
 prints and sent their remarks to the other, who met at 
 Edinburgh." Hog and others were summoned before 
 the Committee, "all of them," Boston tells us, "noted 
 preachers of the doctrine of free grace, and withal Non- 
 
THE MARROW MEN 2/ 
 
 jurors too. Hog," he adds, "told the Committee that 
 he knew an eminent divine, then in glory (whom I 
 judge to have been Mr. Fraser of Brea, minister at 
 Culross), v/ho left it in record that the reading an old 
 edition thereof (that is, The Marrow of Modern Divinity) 
 was the first notable means blessed of the Lord for 
 giving him some clearness of impression concerning the 
 gospel." 1 The result of the Committee's inquiries was 
 to increase rather than allay suspicion, and a formal trial 
 of Marrow theology commenced before the Assembly of 
 1 720. The Marrow of Modern Divinity was charged with 
 teaching five errors (i) that Assurance of Salvation is 
 essential to a Christian ; (2) that the Atonement of 
 Christ and the Divine Pardon are of universal extent ; 
 (3) that in order to be saved it is not necessary to live 
 a holy life ; (4) that the fear of future punishment and 
 the hope of eternal reward are not right motives for the 
 regulation of a believer's life and conduct ; (5) that the 
 believer is not under the Divine law as a rule of life. 
 The Assembly found the charges proved, and passed an 
 Act declaring the teaching of the book unsound and 
 unscriptural, prohibiting the ministers of the Church 
 from recommending it to their hearers or saying any- 
 thing in its favour, and commanding them to warn and 
 exhort their people in whose hand the said book is or 
 may come, not to read or use the same. This is the 
 Act of 1720, which we will have frequent occasion to 
 refer to again, especially in connection with the trial of 
 John Macleod Campbell. 
 
 Whatever we may think of the simple-mindedness of 
 men who supposed it possible to suppress a pernicious 
 1 Memoirs, p. 348. 
 
28 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 book by forbidding people to read it, we are bound to 
 admire their Christian spirit and temper, and the 
 absence of all personal rancour from their discussions. 
 It is creditable to the Church of Scotland that nobody 
 was at this time deposed, no one censured, no one 
 even dealt with. She may have been ill-advised to 
 condemn the teaching of the Marrow men, but it is to 
 her honour that she did not touch their persons or 
 position with one of her ringers. On both sides at this 
 time a moderation and self-control were observed that 
 was truly admirable. Nor were the leaders on either 
 side the dull, unimaginative persons one might suppose 
 them to have been. One of them, Hamilton of Airth, 
 has given us an account of his appearance before the 
 Committee, from which we can see that they were very 
 human and humane men. "The communing was 
 begun, carried on, and ended," he says, "with a good 
 measure of calmness and I hope of brotherly respect 
 and affection, so as that scarce one irritating expression 
 was uttered upon either side. Only when I was craving- 
 dispatch that I might return home, Mr. Logan said it 
 would take a month to dispatch all the queries. I 
 told them that if once I were gone, though an ecu- 
 menick council should call me, I would not answer : to 
 which Principal Hadow answered, 'That might be spared 
 when the clearing of truth lay at the stake ' ; or some 
 such words : to which I replied, little did he know my 
 circumstances (illness), and with how much difficulty I 
 came in and staid in town ; or some words to that 
 purpose. I was much obliged to the ministers of 
 Edinburgh, particularly the Professor and Mrs. Mitchell. 
 I confess when they were putting some queries to me 
 
THE MARROW MEN 29 
 
 which insinuated great suspicion of gross errors, and 
 others that I thought grated much upon special gospel 
 truths, my heart grew so great that I could scarce utter 
 a word without a flood of tears, for which I craved their 
 pardon, and told them it was my infirmity, which I 
 could not help ; and some of themselves were so affected 
 that they teared also." l 
 
 The next stage in the development of events was 
 notable. Twelve of the Marrow men prepared a Re- 
 presentation of their position, clearing up the misunder- 
 standings on which the Assembly's Act was founded, 
 and begging that it be repealed. The principal 
 Representers were Boston, Kid of Queensferry, a man 
 of singular boldness, Ebenezer Erskine and his brother 
 Ralph, the one minister at Portmoak, the other at 
 Dunfermline. Hog took little part in the preparation 
 of the documentt, the brethren judging it inex- 
 pedient "to mix up his name with their present pro- 
 ceedings in regard of his prefacing the Marrow." 
 The Representation was tabled at the Assembly 
 of 1721 and received rather curt treatment, being 
 remitted to the Commission, which was to meet at 
 the rising of the Assembly, without being read. The 
 Commission found the matter troublesome, and it was 
 not till their third diet in November that they had 
 the courage to act with decision. They issued a 
 number of queries addressed to the Marrow divines. 
 How these were received Boston informs us: " I was 
 clear that whatever should be the consequences we 
 should receive and answer them. What determined 
 
 1 Christian Instructor, 1831-32, p. 694 (from T. M'Crie's account 
 there). 
 
30 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 me to this was that I thought we were to lay our 
 account with parting with our brethren as being cast 
 out by them ; and in that event it would be safest both 
 for the cause of truth and our own reputation. This 
 was agreed to, and the queries were received with a 
 protestation. And thus they turned the cannon directly 
 against us." 1 
 
 The answers were prepared and forwarded to the 
 Commission that met in March 1722 : " Their answers," 
 Boston tells us, " were, as I remember, begun by Mr. 
 Ebenezer Erskine ; but much extended and perfected 
 by my friend Mr. Wilson : where his vast com- 
 pass of reading, with his great collection of books, 
 were of singular use, and successfully employed. " : 
 They are still worth reading. Perhaps the best of 
 them is the account given of faith and assurance. 
 "With respect to the nature of faith, they represent 
 that the Assembly had in effect excluded from faith that 
 act by which a person appropriates to himself w y hat 
 before lay in common in the gospel offer, and thereby 
 turned it into that ' general and doubtsome faith ' 
 abjured in our national covenant ; that it is notorious 
 that our first reformers and the body of reformed 
 divines after their time had spoken of faith in the same 
 strain as the author of the Marrow : that though a 
 different mode of speaking had in later times come into 
 use, and the subscribers were well satisfied with the 
 manner in which saving faith was described in our Con- 
 fession of Faith and Catechisms, yet they never doubted 
 that it was substantially the same with the doctrine 
 formerly taught : that ( receiving and resting on Christ 
 
 1 Memoirs, p. 364. ' 2 Ibid. p. 365. 
 
THE MARROW MEN 31 
 
 for salvation ' implies that assurance by which it had 
 been customary for divines to describe the fiducial act 
 or appropriating 1 persuasion of faith . . . that the 
 Assembly would have done more acceptable service to 
 God had they showed the agreement between the 
 ancient and modern way of describing faith, instead of 
 condemning the former as erroneous, and thus inflicting 
 a stigma on the reformed Churches." 
 
 Ebenezer Erskine had a large share in the pre- 
 paration of the answers ; and he and the rest bore 
 themselves with a dignity and moderation which were 
 a surprise to the other side. Boston unfortunately was 
 liable to seizures of timidity and bashfulness due to 
 bodily infirmity, and these must have weakened his 
 case ; yet he greatly impressed the brethren by his ap- 
 pearance in the debate, especially when he declared that 
 while he feared the Act of 1720 would yet prove pro- 
 ductive of much evil to the Church and the country, in 
 which, as we shall see, he uttered a true prophecy, 
 he would not impute any blame to his opponents, or 
 insinuate any desire on their part to injure the truth. 
 Ebenezer Erskine manifested a like spirit of charity 
 and conciliation, avowing himself ready to retract 
 whatever might be contrary to Scripture and the Con- 
 fession. Up to this time good feeling 1 and temper sub- 
 sisted between both parties. Both sides showed every 
 desire to be fair and honourable in their interchange of 
 views, and the questions in dispute were probed to 
 the bottom. Queries and answers alike were a credit 
 to their authors, and reveal a masterly knowledge of 
 the points in dispute. The following question is 
 worthy of Hooker himself: " Is not the believing man 
 
32 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 bound by the authority of the Creator to personal 
 obedience to the moral law though not in order to 
 justification?" and the answer of the Marrow men 
 is as good if not better than the question: " Man 
 ceases not to be a creature by being made a new 
 creature : he is and ever must be bound to personal 
 obedience to the law of the Ten Commandments by 
 the authority of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, his 
 Creator." 
 
 Interrogated regarding the hope of heaven and the 
 fear of hell as motives to conduct, they rendered this 
 weighty reply : " Taking heaven for a state of endless 
 felicity in the enjoyment of God in Christ, we are so far 
 from thinking that this is to be excluded from being a 
 motive of the believer's obedience, that we think it the 
 chief end of man next to the glory of God ; but to form 
 conceptions of heaven as a place of pleasure and hap- 
 piness, without the former views of it, and to fancy that 
 this heaven is to be obtained by our own works and 
 doings, is unworthy of a believer and a child of God, 
 in regard it is slavish, legal, mercenary, and carnal." 
 
 As we have said, although the controversy was warm, 
 and hard blows were given and taken, nothing like 
 bitterness or rancour emerged on either side. Even 
 when the Assembly of 1722 addressed some words more 
 plain than pleasant to Boston and his friends, they did 
 not take it ill. Boston says : " I received the rebuke 
 and admonition as an ornament put upon me, being for 
 the cause of truth." 1 But an act of injustice was done 
 at this Assembly to the Marrow men that changed the 
 whole aspect of the controversy. Kid in their name 
 1 Memoirs, p. 365. 
 
THE MARROW MEN 33 
 
 had tabled a protest against the obnoxious 1720 Act, 
 giving gold with it, as Wodrow in his quaint way tells 
 us. How did the Assembly treat this honourable 
 document ? Instead of engrossing it in their minutes 
 and appointing answers to be furnished to it, they 
 covered the Marrow men with contempt by refusing to 
 hear it read ! Nothing could have been more unwise. 
 The humiliated party returned from the House in a 
 spirit the reverse of gentle, and at the earliest moment 
 published broadcast their rejected document, consisting 
 of a claim to believe, preach, and bear testimony to the 
 condemned doctrines in face of the Assembly's interdict. 
 Boston tells us how, on the day when this claim was 
 flung back in their faces, the elements themselves wept 
 for the injustice that was being done : " This affair was 
 brought to the issue foresaid in the afternoon Session of 
 that day ; and their meeting for that black work being 
 appointed to be at three o'clock that day, there came 
 on a little before the hour a most dreadful storm of 
 thunder and hail, by means whereof their meeting was 
 for a considerable time hindered. In the time thereof 
 I came down with some others of our number from the 
 Westbow-head to the chamber where we attended 
 till called ; and that almost running, the street being 
 in a manner desolate. I well remember with what 
 serenity of mind and comfort of heart I heard the 
 thunder of that day, the most terrible thunder-clap 
 being just about three o'clock. It made impression on 
 many, as Heaven's testimony against their deed they 
 were then about to do ; though in this it is not for me 
 to determine." l 
 
 1 Memoirs, p. 365. 
 3 
 
34 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 The temper of parties being now roused, secession 
 seemed inevitable, probably even deposition. The 
 liberty claimed by the Marrow men, and claimed con- 
 stitutionally enough, as we shall see, the Assembly was 
 in no humour to allow. A bitter feud had set in which 
 it was clear must have disastrous issues. The party 
 of high-flying enthusiasm, as it was recklessly named, 
 and that of Moderation, as it came afterwards to be 
 rather unkindly called, must now go their separate 
 ways. Measures to bring about separation would have 
 been at once initiated by the latter, but they agreed to 
 a temporary truce out of deference to the Crown, the 
 King having in his annual letter to the Assembly found 
 fault with ecclesiastics for their wrangling, and urged 
 them to live in peace. "Since you cannot but foresee 
 the many unhappy consequences with which divisions 
 among you may be attended," he had written, the 
 country at the time being threatened with invasion. 
 The princely scolding had the effect of giving the 
 Marrow men a temporary respite. Rather than offend 
 Cassar, the followers of Principal Hadow tolerated the 
 affronts done to Church authority by the high-flyers, but 
 they kept a close watch on them all the same. Wherever 
 gatherings of Marrow men took place, as at Com- 
 munion seasons, spies attended with the object of report- 
 ing their irregularities at headquarters. " Have you 
 obeyed the Act of Assembly condemning the Marrow ? " 
 became a question demanded from those who were 
 candidates for preferment. " So eager were the Church 
 Courts at this time in guarding against the infection 
 of the Marrow, that cases of licence, ordination, and 
 translation were decided according to the sentiments 
 
THE MARROW MEN 35 
 
 which the candidates were understood to hold respect- 
 ing that proscribed publication." So says M'Crie. 1 
 
 Two of the most uncompromising supporters of the 
 Marrow revolt were Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, 
 against whom, in 1721, a formal complaint had been 
 brought. Ralph pleaded guilty to having taught 
 that the believer is not under the law as a Covenant 
 of Works. In the course of the ensuing discussion 
 an anti-Marrow man denied that there was any gift of 
 Christ as a Saviour to sinners of mankind, whereupon 
 Ebenezer arose, and, in a tone of authority and 
 gravity that commanded immediate attention, said, 
 " Moderator, our Lord Jesus Christ said of Himself, 
 ' My Father giveth you the true Bread from heaven ' ; 
 this He uttered to a promiscuous multitude, and let me 
 see the man 'who dare say He said 'wrong." Another 
 valiant Marrow man was Gabriel Wilson of Maxton. 
 He, according to Boston, was the best qualified among 
 them all to write the history of the movement. His 
 defence of a sermon which had met with disapproba- 
 tion is a noble piece of eloquence. It is almost an 
 anticipation of Edward Irving's elevated and fervent 
 style of oratory. " This day I take to be a day of the 
 Lord's jealousy and indignation on all ranks and 
 conditions of men, and on all societies and assemblies. 
 The anger of the Lord has set us on fire round about, 
 yet we know it not : and though it consumes us we 
 lay it not to heart. Of all which this present occasion, 
 being such an one as I know not if the like, in all its 
 circumstances, has happened in any Reformed Church 
 since Calvin's days, is an instance none of the least 
 1 Christian Instructor, 1832, p. 85. 
 
36 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 notable and discernible. ... It is known all the world 
 over, and will be while the world lasts, that where a 
 man's discourse is in general solid, sound, and to the 
 purpose, little notice is taken, or severity used, as to 
 some words or phrases though not so well chosen or 
 fitly set : because men for most part remember them- 
 selves to be but men, who cannot promise on every 
 occasion to write or speak infallibly ; else processes of 
 this sort had not unto this day been such a rarity in 
 the Churches of Christ, and particularly in the Church 
 of Scotland. ... I can say it in truth, though my 
 brethren and mother's children have been very angry 
 with me and have dealt roughly with me, my Lord and 
 Master has not yet, to my discerning, discovered 
 Himself displeased with me on the account of that 
 sermon or of any one thing in it. No doubt He saw 
 many more faults and other sort of ones than you can 
 find : yea, the whole performance I know was full of 
 blemishes and would not at all abide a trial at the bar 
 of His holy law ; yet I believe He has graciously 
 pardoned all and will never article me on that head ; 
 which though it may be of no consideration with others, 
 nor do I desire it should be of any, yet it is of great 
 importance to me." 1 
 
 The Marrow men suffered for their testimony in 
 many irritating ways. In some cases they received 
 their punishment from the hands of Church patrons. 
 Neither Boston nor Ebenezer Erskine ever obtained 
 their due place of honour in the Church. The one 
 was " staked down in Ettrick" and the other passed 
 over by presentees, because they were Marrow men. 
 1 Boston's Memoirs, Appendix IV. 
 
THE MARROW MEN 37 
 
 Another form of petty persecution was in connection 
 with commissions to the Assembly. At that time it 
 was usual for Presbyteries to embody on the commission 
 of their representatives the matters they wished brought 
 before the Assembly. We can understand the use 
 anti-high-flyers would make of this custom. One 
 Presbytery calls upon the Assembly to issue a second 
 edition of the odious and illegal Act of 1720 so as to 
 suppress the Marrow. Another calls upon the Assembly 
 to take to task the authors of all books containing 
 heresy and error, particularly with respect to those 
 Antinomian errors contained in the Marrow. Another 
 demands an immediate suppression of the mischief- 
 making book, and the libelling of all who take upon 
 them to defend it. These believers in a religion of 
 11 common sense " did not, however, press their points. 
 They were for the most part content to enjoy the re- 
 putation of dignified country gentlemen who could be 
 trusted to keep religion within bounds, and the Church 
 from losing its head. 
 
 Dislike to the gospel preached by Boston and the 
 Erskines centred in the Marrow doctrine of Assurance. 
 To the party of " common sense " it savoured of irrever- 
 ence when ordinary people were encouraged to talk 
 glibly of Christ as theirs and themselves as His. Such 
 talk they felt produced a shallow type of Christian 
 character that easily went off into Antinomianism and 
 hysterics. This was the honest opinion and not alto- 
 gether groundless fear of those who condemned the 
 Marrow men. Yet the insistence on Assurance, 
 however objectionable it might be, arose as a recoil 
 from the morbid religion prevalent in the previous 
 
38 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 century. Seventeenth century Calvinism had laid an 
 arrest on Christian joy. It had been fatalistic, and had 
 robbed life of love, liberty, and gladness ; and although 
 there were some who deplored the withering blight 
 their religion was inflicting upon them, they clung to 
 it still in spite of everything. They were evidently so 
 well inoculated with Calvinistic formulae that they had 
 neither the will nor the capacity to break from it. 
 
 At length the time came when earnest souls began to 
 interrogate it. If a believer is chosen in Christ from all 
 eternity, must there not be some way whereby plain men 
 may know whether they belong to the happy number : 
 whereby they may be sure of their salvation ; and if so, 
 should it not be a believer's duty to aspire to this 
 assurance ? How can one be indifferent to a matter 
 so momentous, unless he be either given over to levity 
 or a reprobate mind ? If one is taking his religion 
 seriously, should he not regard Assurance as equivalent 
 to reality and sincerity, and therefore a plain and 
 obvious requirement of the religious mind ? 
 
 The Marrow men in their insistence on Assurance were 
 much misunderstood and maligned. They were accused 
 of undermining virtue and destroying the foundations 
 of reverence, at least among the common people. But 
 the fact was, that when they insisted on Assurance, it 
 was from a desire to see religion less of a form and 
 more of a reality than was customary. For them 
 Christ alone could save. The question then came to 
 be, would He, and on what terms? Their answer was 
 as the Bread and Water of life to those who sought 
 reality in religion. To such it was welcome because 
 it brought liberty and life, light, peace, and joy. It 
 
THE MARROW MEN 39 
 
 represented God as a King, who had issued a proclama- 
 tion, and commanded it to be made known universally 
 throughout the length and breadth of His kingdom, 
 offering amnesty to all rebels and banished men, pro- 
 vided only they agree to lay down their arms and re- 
 turn peaceably to their homes ; and if, in spite of this, 
 the question of election and foreordination obtrude 
 itself, darkening all our life, the reply of the Marrow 
 was that so long as names are concealed and pardon is 
 offered to all, "it is great folly in any man to say , it 
 may be I am not elected . . . therefore I will not accept 
 of it nor come in. ... Do not you say it may be I am 
 not elected and therefore I will not believe in Christ ; 
 but rather say I do believe in Christ, and therefore I am 
 sure I am elected ; and check your heart for meddling 
 with God's secrets and prying into His hidden counsel, 
 and go no more beyond your bounds as you have done 
 in this point. . . . Say then, I beseech you, with a firm 
 faith, the righteousness of Jesus Christ belongs to all 
 that believe ; but I believe ; and therefore it belongs to 
 me. Yea, say with Paul, * I live by the faith of the 
 Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for 
 me.' 'He saw in me' (saith Luther on the text) 
 ' nothing but wickedness going astray and fleeing from 
 Him. Yet this good Lord had mercy on me, and of 
 His mere mercy He loved me, yea, so loved me that 
 He gave Himself for me. Who is this me? Even 
 I, a wretched and damnable sinner, was so dearly 
 beloved of the Son of God that He gave Himself 
 forme.'" 1 
 
 Another offence imputed to the Marrow theology 
 1 The Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. 114. 
 
40 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 was the inferior place given to ethics. The Marrow 
 men were accused of indifference on the subject of 
 virtue, as they in turn accused their opponents of in- 
 difference to grace. They pressed the duty of receiving 
 the gospel and believing on Christ, and left it to their 
 legalist friends to expatiate on the beauty of holiness 
 and the duty of repentance. Both parties were really 
 working towards the same results, but along different 
 lines ; and each was too enamoured of its own method 
 to do justice to the other's work. The one drew an 
 attractive picture of morals which could not be 
 altogether barren of fruit ; but the Marrow preachers 
 knew better what they were doing, and from a per- 
 ception of the sinner's true needs held up before him 
 the power of a personal Saviour. The common people 
 returned a verdict in favour of the Marrow statement 
 of the case, because it brought them the help and 
 health they needed. Nor was it lacking ethically. 
 Faith was declared to be all in all, not as a substitute 
 for, but a means to obedience. Faith was exhibited as 
 the power in a man to draw from Christ a supernatural 
 force which converted the life and supplied living 
 principles of conduct. "To pray, to meditate, to keep 
 a Sabbath cheerfully, to have your conversation in 
 heaven, is as possible for yourself to do as for iron 
 to swim or for stones to ascend upwards ; but 
 yet nothing is impossible to faith : it can naturalize 
 these things unto you ; it can make a mole of the 
 earth a soul of heaven. Wherefore, though you have 
 tried all moral conclusions of purposing, promising, 
 resolving, bowing, fasting, watching, and self-revenge, 
 yet get you to Christ, and with the finger of faith touch 
 
THE MARROW MEN 41 
 
 but the hem of His garment, and you shall feel virtue 
 come from Him for the healing of all your diseases." x 
 
 The Marrow logic spoke irresistibly to hard-headed 
 Scotsmen. "I remember a man who was much en- 
 lightened in the knowledge of the gospel, who saith, 
 ' There may be many that think that as a man 
 chooseth to serve a prince, so men choose to serve God. 
 So likewise they think that as those who do best 
 service do obtain most favour of their lord : and as 
 those that have lost it, the more they humble them- 
 selves the sooner they recover it : even so they think 
 the case stands between God and them : whereas ' 
 (saith he) ' it is not so, but clean contrary ; for He 
 Himself saith, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have 
 chosen you " ; and not for that we repent and humble 
 ourselves and do good works, He giveth us His 
 grace ; but we repent and humble ourselves, do good 
 works and become holy, because He giveth us His 
 grace. The good thief on the Cross was not illumin- 
 ated because he did confess Christ, but he did confess 
 Christ because he was illuminated. For, saith Luther 
 on Galatians, "The tree must first be, and then the 
 fruit : for the apples make not the tree, but the tree 
 maketh the apples. So faith first maketh the person 
 which afterwards bringeth forth works. Therefore to 
 do the law without faith is to make the apples of wood 
 and earth without the tree, which is not to make 
 apples, but mere phantasms." : 
 
 The Marrow men survived the fire of calumny and 
 petty persecution to which they were subjected, but 
 while it lasted the burden was heavy. The taunt of 
 
 1 The Marrow of Modern Divinity, p. 176. 2 Ibid. p. 173. 
 
42 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Antinomianism was peculiarly hard to bear. They 
 were held up as teaching that Christians are under no 
 obligation to the Divine law, that they do not commit 
 sin, that God sees no sin in them ; that, therefore, they 
 need not confess or crave pardon for sin. In a sense 
 they did teach every one of these doctrines, but not 
 in the sense imputed to them. They distinguished 
 between the law of works and the law of Christ. 
 They were opposed out and out to the idea of federal 
 holiness, holiness, that is, in order to secure heaven. 
 To them holiness was heaven, and heaven holiness. 
 "To ask them," as has been said, 1 "whether they 
 thought holiness requisite in the saved, seemed to be 
 equivalent to asking them if a man could be saved 
 without being saved, if a man could have enjoyment 
 of heaven without entering the Golden City." One of 
 the main points in the Secession reasons of disruption 
 from the Established Church and they spoke the 
 mind of the Scottish evangelicals was the introduc- 
 tion by the semi-rationalists of a utilitarian theory of 
 morality and religion. " God knows," said good John 
 Livingstone, "that I would rather serve God on earth 
 and then endure the torments of the lost, than live a 
 life of sin on earth and then have for ever the bliss 
 of the ransomed." 
 
 Marrow theology found a congenial home in the 
 pulpits of the Secession Church, which came into cor- 
 porate existence in 1740 as the result of the deposition 
 of the eight seceding ministers that year by the General 
 Assembly. Of the four Secession Fathers who com- 
 
 1 Walker, Theologians of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Cen- 
 turies, p. 174. 
 
THE MARROW MEN 43 
 
 posed the historic group at Gairney Bridge seven years 
 earlier, one was the redoubtable Ebenezer Erskine. 
 Their main contention with the Church of their fathers 
 was over the question of patronage and the settlement 
 of ministers. The party of the Secession claimed for the 
 people a voice in the selection of their pastors. Doc- 
 trinal differences also contributed to bring about the 
 Secession ; and while the General Assembly for several 
 years tried now to humour and now to coerce them 
 into subjection, the time came when Erskine and his 
 followers formulated such demands as the Church 
 would not for a moment entertain. One was that the 
 Assembly should take new measures to enforce evan- 
 gelical preaching. Another, that the Assembly should 
 assert the supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ, and pro- 
 ceed against all who denied that doctrine. Only by 
 such demands being met were the party of Secession 
 willing to lay down arms. But it was not to be. The 
 National Zion could not accommodate the apostles of 
 the new faith. If it were to be preserved and fulfil 
 its task of building up and nourishing the spiritual 
 life of the nation, the new wine must be put into new 
 bottles. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 The Life of David Hume, written by himself (prefixed to the 
 Essays). 
 
 Life and Correspondence. By John Hill Burton. Edin. 1846. 
 
 Hume's Essays, i. ii., ed. Green. Lond. 1875. 
 
 Hume's Treatise on Human Nature, and Dialogues concerning 
 Natural Religion, i. ii., ed. Green. Lond. 1874. 
 
 Hume's History of Great Britain, during James I. and Charles I. 
 Edin. 1754. 
 
 Sir Leslie Stephen's History of English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 Century, i. Lond. 1876. 
 
 Graham's Social Life in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century, ii. 
 Lond. 1899. 
 
 Scots Magazine for 1 756. 
 
 Carlyle's Autobiography. Lond. 1860. 
 
 Paley's Evidences : Preparatory Considerations. Edin. 1833. 
 
 Calderwood's Hume. The " Famous Scots " Series. 
 
 Wace's Christianity and Agnosticism. Edin. 1895. 
 
 Latham's Pastor Pastorum. Camb. 1894. 
 
 Dug-. Stewart's Account of the Life and Writings of Principal 
 Robertson. Edin. 1834. 
 
 IT is the pleasant fashion of the hour to speak of 
 David Hume in highly eulogistic terms. A bio- 
 grapher in the twentieth century is disposed to make 
 much of his amiableness, and even to excuse his 
 scepticism. Probably this is fair enough. Certainly 
 it is what we might have expected. In religious circles 
 
 44 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIXACLES 45 
 
 Hume's name used to be held in horror. Now, the world 
 is hastening to make what reparation it can, to one 
 who has made even the Church his debtor. 
 
 His immediate circle of friends always admired him. 
 His heterodoxies might send a cold shudder through 
 them, still they loved him immeasurably. Bos well's 
 attitude was probably that of many " I always lived 
 on good terms with Mr. Hume, though I have frankly 
 told him I was not clear that it was right of me to 
 keep company with him ; but, said I, how much better 
 are you than your books. He was charitable to the 
 poor, and many an agreeable hour have I passed with 
 him." Some expected he would change his opinions 
 before he died, or die amid agony and horror ; but his 
 views were never altered, and he passed out of the 
 world as peacefully as a saint. Life on the whole had 
 brought him a full cup of happiness ; better still, he 
 possessed the power of extracting joy from the simplest 
 pleasures. "I dine," he tells us, "I play a game of 
 backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my 
 friends ; and when after three or four hours' amuse- 
 ment I wou'd return to these speculations, they appear 
 so cold and strained and ridiculous, that I cannot find 
 in my heart to enter into them any farther." 1 What 
 a lovable man ! How delightful his preference for 
 simple fireside pleasures to the ambitious problems of 
 metaphysical inquiry ! It reminds us of what Carlyle 
 of Inveresk tells about his " infidelity" that it was 
 skin-deep, and did not come from the heart or from 
 fixed principles of the mind, but from the pride of 
 intellect and love of vainglory. 
 
 1 Treatise on Human Nature^ i. 548. 
 
46 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 That was Carlyle's opinion, and he supports it with 
 a story about Hume's manner of receiving the news of 
 his mother's death. He and a friend were together in 
 London when the intelligence reached him. On hearing 
 it Hume gave way to a flood of tears. " My friend," 
 said his comrade, "you owe this uncommon grief to 
 your having thrown off the principles of religion ; for if 
 you had not, you would have been consoled by the firm 
 belief that the good lady, who was not only the best 
 of mothers but the most pious of Christians, was now 
 completely happy in the realms of the just." To which 
 Hume replied, "Though I threw out my speculations 
 to entertain and employ the learned and metaphysical 
 world, yet in other things I do not think so differently 
 from the rest of mankind as you may imagine." 1 We 
 have a touching object-lesson on the duty of Christian 
 kindness from Hume's services to the homeless 
 Rousseau. That ill-starred son of genius had no 
 better friend than David Hume when all the virtuous 
 world conspired against him and closed its doors. 
 His good qualities were well known to the better class 
 of people in his own generation ; and they extolled 
 him so highly that, as he jocularly said, he was 
 become clean and white as the driven snow; "Were 
 I to be proposed for the See of Lambeth, no objec- 
 tion could be henceforth taken to me ! " 
 
 Hume spent a considerable period of his life in 
 Paris, as the English Ambassador's secretary, at a 
 time when France was taking the lead in philosophy 
 and ruling the world of letters. He was in his element 
 in the society of the savants, who in their turn lionised 
 1 Carlyle's Autobiography, p. 273. 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 47 
 
 him and introduced his books to the French reading- 
 public. Principal Robertson received from him an 
 amusing sketch of his life in Paris: "Do you ask 
 me about my course of life ? I can only say that I eat 
 nothing but ambrosia, drink nothing but nectar, breathe 
 nothing but incense, and tread on nothing but flowers." 
 
 Possessed of a sunny temperament, he found it 
 possible to live on friendly terms with his worst op- 
 ponents. More wonderful, he drew from them a 
 reciprocation of the friendship. The correspond- 
 ence that passed with Dr. Campbell of Aberdeen sets 
 this forth in a manner highly creditable to both. 
 Campbell had come forward in defence of miracles, 
 and Hume writes that he considered himself highly 
 honoured in being thought worthy the notice of so 
 eminent a divine; and Campbell replies, "I could 
 scarce have thought that, in spite of differences of 
 a more interesting- nature, even such as regards morals 
 and relig-ion, you could ever force me to love and 
 honour you as a man. Yet no religious prejudices 
 (as you would probably term them) can hinder me 
 from doing 1 justice to that goodness and candour 
 which appear in every line of your letter." 1 Reid 
 acknowledged that he had learned more from the 
 sceptic's writings than from all other philosophers 
 together ; and an Aberdeen philosophic society, in 
 expressing its obligation for his writings, paid him 
 the compliment of saying: "Your company would, 
 although we are all good Christians, be more accept 
 able than that of St. Athanasius." 
 
 All this was in the manner of eighteenth-century 
 1 Life, by Hill Burton, ii. p. 118. 
 
48 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 geniality, a geniality, however, that was seldom 
 extended to the Deists of that period. Yet Hume 
 was generally supposed to be a far more danger- 
 ous person than the ordinary Deist, which made the 
 compliments showered on him all the more remark- 
 able. It is true he was subjected to a particularly 
 mean form of persecution from certain quarters of 
 society, and his manner of writing did not conciliate, 
 but needlessly annoyed his opponents. Hume lacked 
 sympathy and imagination ; and on the intellectual 
 side was over-developed, which made people say that 
 though he had seen the best art collections in the 
 world, he was never known to praise a picture, or 
 go into raptures over a piece of antique sculpture. 
 It was this want of enthusiasm for the poetry of life 
 that made him insensible to the glamours of war and 
 the claims of hero - worship, things in which his 
 countrymen have revelled. But although he had no 
 interest in the life of warriors or the work of artists, 
 he had a consummate appreciation of authorship and 
 intellectual composition. " No Scotsman," says his 
 principal biographer, "could write a book of respect- 
 able talent without calling forth his loud and warm 
 eulogiums. On those who were even his rivals, in his 
 own particular walk, Adam Smith, Robertson, Ferguson, 
 and Henry, he heaped honest, hearty commendation. 
 He urged them to write : he raised the spirit of literary 
 ambition in their breasts : he found publishers for their 
 works ; and when these were completed, he trumpeted 
 the praises of the author through society." 1 
 
 Hume's perpetual attitude of revolt from authority, 
 1 Hill Burton's Life of Hume, ii. 32. 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 49 
 
 even from the authority of reason itself, was sufficient to 
 repel his countrymen, for whom the support given by 
 authority is indispensable, whether of reason, religion, or 
 tradition. One who would essay the task Hume took 
 upon him, the emancipation of his fellow-men from error 
 and delusion, must beware of treading roughly on old 
 habits of thought and deeply -rooted prejudice. As 
 Bunyan said of the religious guides of his day, " It is not 
 every one who should handle the snuffers ; lest instead 
 of mending the light they put out the candle." Hume 
 disregarded this caution. The last person in the world 
 to persecute a man for his opinions, he failed in the 
 respect and consideration for the views of others which 
 is happily common now. Owing to this defect in his 
 character, he succeeded both in alarming the religious 
 public of his time unnecessarily, and in bringing upon 
 himself no small measure of violent dislike. 
 
 Hume published his first and most important work, 
 The Treatise of Human Nature, when he was twenty- 
 eight years of age. It fell still-born from the press, or 
 so he mistakenly thought, from the fact that it did 
 not arouse a murmur of disapproval from the zealots. 
 The full title of the work plainly set forth its aim. 
 "A Treatise of Human Nature, being an attempt to 
 introduce the experimental method of reasoning into 
 moral subjects." As a thoroughgoing acquaintance 
 with Nature only comes from close observation and 
 experiment, and never from attention to the whims and 
 presuppositions of the mind, so in the higher spheres 
 of ethics and thought man's only guide, philosopher, 
 and friend is human nature itself, his experience and 
 interrogation of it. That the proper study of mankind 
 4 
 
SO THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 is man, every one will allow ; but few know what 
 Herculean labours that study involves. Hume guessed 
 what it meant, and accordingly repaired to France, 
 where for three years he shut himself up in solitude 
 to think out the subject. At the end of that time he 
 emerged from his studies a philosophic sceptic. Start- 
 ing where Locke and Berkeley ended, he advanced 
 into regions which previous thinkers left unexplored, 
 and arrived at the conclusion that the impressions of 
 the senses and the ideas which we derive from them 
 constitute the sum-total of all our knowledge. When 
 we employ the familiar terms cause and effect, we 
 usually talk as though some necessary and invariable 
 nexus bound them together ; but of such nexus we 
 have not the smallest vestige of proof. " Our memory 
 presents us only with a multitude of instances, but 
 from the mere repetition of any past impression even 
 to infinity there never will arrive any new original idea 
 such as that of a necessary connection." "Suppose 
 two objects to be presented to us of which the one is 
 the cause and the other is the effect, 'tis plain that 
 from the simple consideration of one or both these 
 objects we shall never perceive the tie by which they 
 are united, or be able certainly to pronounce that there 
 is a connexion between them. " 1 ' ' The several instances 
 of resembling conjunctions lead us into the notions 
 of power and necessity. These instances are in them- 
 selves totally distinct from each other, and have no union 
 but in the mind, which observes them and collects 
 their ideas." 2 "What we call a mind is nothing but 
 a heap or collection of different perceptions united 
 1 Treatise on Human Nature, i. 457. 2 Ibid. i. 459. 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 51 
 
 together by certain relations, and supposed, though 
 falsely, to be endowed with a perfect simplicity and 
 identity." 1 "The mind is a kind of theatre, where 
 several perceptions successively make their appear- 
 ance, pass, repass, glide away and mingle in an 
 infinite variety of postures and situations." 2 These 
 extracts clearly define and describe Hume's violent 
 departure in philosophy. Locke had argued in favour 
 of some unknown thing called stibstance behind the 
 qualities of matter. Berkeley followed with the denial 
 that any evidence existed that there was such a thing. 
 And next came Hume, carrying the destructive process 
 a step farther. He denied, as we see, that we have 
 any evidence of the substance called mind distinct 
 from particular perceptions. When asked whence 
 come the constancy and coherence of certain impres- 
 sions like those of cause and effect, for reply he 
 pointed to the law of association. Reid met Hume 
 by showing that an intuitive perception of an ex- 
 ternal world accompanied our sensations. Surely, if 
 we have impressions, they imply something impressed 
 as well as something impressing, without which no 
 impression could be experienced. 
 
 The result of Hume's investigations into human 
 nature was certainly dismal and disappointing enough : 
 
 ' ' sails rent 
 
 And rudder broken reason impotent 
 Affections all unfixed." 
 
 But it has to be borne in mind that progress here has 
 
 never been like a river, an onward flowing movement, 
 
 continuous and unceasing. More happily has it been 
 
 1 Treatise on Hitman Nature, i. 495. 2 Ibid. i. 534. 
 
52 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 compared to the ascent of a spiral staircase, a move- 
 ment ever upwards indeed, but slowly, tortuously, and 
 round about. The philosophic scepticism of Hume 
 was an eventful stage in a long- journey ; succeeding 
 systems of thought profited by it, received from it 
 fresh inspiration and a new starting-point. 
 
 A glance at Hume's work as a historian will enable 
 us to see how he revelled in scepticism and at the 
 same time found refuge from it, history opening before 
 him fields of objectivity and experience into which he 
 escaped from philosophic doubt. The early parts of 
 his History of England have small merits as compared 
 with the later, the material for the earlier periods not 
 then being to hand. But in the volume which he wrote 
 first, which covers the Stuart period, he summarises 
 the social and political results of the various reigns in 
 a comprehensive, masterly fashion. Certain passages 
 which he afterwards suppressed gave mortal offence as 
 they appeared in their original form, as when he calls 
 the Reformation "the Protestant Fanaticism"; the 
 Catholic Church "the Romish Superstition"; Oliver 
 Cromwell "a fanatical hypocrite." Of the popular 
 theology of the day he said : " As far as any coherence 
 can be traced among the systems of modern theology, 
 we may observe that the doctrine of absolute decrees 
 has ever been intimately connected with the enthusiastic 
 spirit ; as it affords the highest subject of joy, triumph, 
 and security to the supposed elect, and exalts them by 
 infinite degrees above the rest of mankind." Of the 
 famous Covenant of 1638 he declared that it " consisted 
 first of a renunciation of popery formerly signed by 
 James in his youth, and composed of the most furious 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 53 
 
 and most virulent invectives with which any human 
 being-s had ever inflamed their breast to an unrelenting 
 animosity against their fellow-creatures." Piety, pro- 
 vokingly indifferent to his Treatise, made up for its 
 neglect by waxing furiously indignant at these gibing 
 outbursts. Nor did it atone for the wantonness of the 
 offending passages that in others he patronised Puri- 
 tanism, and even flattered it ; as when he says, 
 "Though the religious schemes of the Puritans when 
 explained appear many of them pretty frivolous, we 
 are not thence to imagine that they were pursued by 
 none but fools " ; or, " 'Tis remarkable that that party 
 made the privileges of the nation as much a part of 
 their religion as the Church party did the prerogatives 
 of the Crown." The reader will now be prepared to 
 hear that Hume set the heather on fire at last, and 
 roused the Scottish Kirk, usually so sedate and self- 
 controlled, to a state of excitement, if not alarm. 
 
 The Essay on Miracles > usually regarded as a formid- 
 able piece of assault on the foundations of Christianity, 
 came to be written in a quite unpremeditated manner. 
 Writing to his foeman Dr. Campbell, he gives the 
 following account of its composition. " It may perhaps 
 amuse you to learn the first hint which suggested to me 
 that argument which you have so strenuously attacked. 
 I was walking in the cloisters of the Jesuits' College 
 of La Fleche, a town in which I passed two years of 
 my youth, and engaged in a conversation with a 
 Jesuit of some parts and learning, who was relating to 
 me and urging some nonsensical miracle performed 
 lately in their convent, when I was tempted to dispute 
 against him ; and as my head was full of the topics of 
 
54 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 my Treatise of Human Nature which I was at that time 
 composing", this argument immediately occurred to me, 
 and I thought it very much gravelled my companion ; 
 but at last he observed to me that it was impossible 
 for that argument to have any solidity, because it 
 operated equally against the Gospel as the Catholic 
 miracles, which observation I thought proper to admit 
 as a sufficient answer. I believe you will allow that the 
 freedom at least of this reasoning makes it somewhat 
 extraordinary to have been the produce of a Convent 
 of Jesuits, though perhaps you may think the sophistry 
 of it savours plainly of the place of its birth." l 
 
 Here, then, be it noticed, Hume discarded the miracles 
 of the Gospel tradition without ever having applied any 
 severe and conscientious research to the subject. On his 
 own confession, he slumped Christian and ecclesiastical 
 miracles together in one indistinguishable heap, and 
 rejected them in a body on the general ground of the 
 insufficiency and unreliableness of human testimony. 
 Remembering this, one is amazed at the confidence 
 with which he says, " I flatter myself that I have dis- 
 covered an argument of a like nature (to Tillotson's 
 argument against transubstantiation), which, if just, will 
 with the wise and learned be an everlasting check to 
 all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently will 
 be useful as long as the world endures ; for so long, I 
 presume, will the accounts of miracles and prodigies be 
 found in all history, sacred and profane." 1 
 
 What was the discovery of which he so grandilo- 
 quently boasts ? A series of extracts from the famous 
 Essay will answer the question. " Our evidence, then, 
 1 Life, by Hill Burton, i. 57. 2 Essays, ii. 89. 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 55 
 
 for the truth of the Christian religion is less than the 
 evidence for the truth of our senses : because even in the 
 first authors of our religion it was no greater : and it is 
 evident it must diminish in passing from them to their 
 disciples : nor can any one rest such confidence in their 
 testimony as in the immediate object of his senses." 1 
 "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless 
 the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would 
 be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours to 
 establish." 2 " I beg the limitations here made may be 
 remarked, when I say that a miracle can never be proved 
 so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For 
 I own that otherwise there may possibly be miracles." 3 
 " There is not to be found in all history any miracle 
 attested by a sufficient number of men of such un- 
 questioned good sense, education, and learning as to 
 secure us against all delusions in themselves : of such 
 undoubted integrity as to place them beyond all suspicion 
 of any design to deceive others ; of such credit and 
 reputation in the eyes of mankind as to have a great 
 deal to lose in case of their being detected in any false- 
 hood ; and at the same time attesting facts, performed 
 in such a public manner and in so celebrated a part of 
 the world as to render the detection unavoidable : all 
 which circumstances are requisite to give us a full 
 assurance in the testimony of men." 4 
 
 In his reply Campbell cited the case of a comet. 
 The chances against a comet appearing in a given part 
 of the sky at a given moment are practically infinite. 
 All the presumptions are against its appearance. Yet 
 
 1 Essays, ii. 88. 2 Ibid. ii. 94. 
 
 3 Ibid. ii. 105. 4 Ibid. ii. 94. 
 
56 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 when an astronomer of accepted authority announces 
 that it may be looked for at the given place and time, 
 almost the whole intelligent world will believe him. 
 Why? Why is his ipse dixit accredited? And why 
 because the comet appeared once ages ago does he 
 anticipate its reappearance as an occurrence that may 
 be infallibly foretold? To say in answer, that a fact 
 uncommon in our experience need not be in contra- 
 diction to it, is in reality no answer. The point in 
 dispute is whether a miracle is contrary to all experience. 
 Paley put this point well. Hume had said it was not 
 contrary to experience that testimony should be false, 
 but it was contrary to experience that a miracle should 
 be true. Whose experience, asks Paley, do you refer 
 to? Your own, or universal experience? If the former 
 be meant, of course it is true enough. If the latter, 
 that is the whole question in dispute. 
 
 Paley scored also when he pointed out the absurdity 
 of expecting 1 the miraculous events that occurred in 
 Palestine to be repeated now. Assuming 1 a miracle to 
 be a particular volition of Deity for other ends than can 
 be secured in the ordinary course of Nature, to expect it 
 to be repeated would be to make it cease to be a miracle. 
 In Paley's view, Hume's argument came to this, either 
 the course of Nature is fixed and invariable, or, if there 
 are variations to it, they must be of frequent occur- 
 rence ; either proposition being a glaring 1 petitio prin- 
 cipii. Might it not suit the Almighty's purposes better 
 that the variations should be few and infrequent ? 
 
 Paley again objected that Hume is content with 
 denying the miracles ; but he should have gone a step 
 farther, and accounted for their being believed in at the 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 57 
 
 first. Later anti-supernaturalists like Strauss ventured 
 thus far arid propounded the mythical theory. We need 
 not wonder that Hume made no similar attempt. As 
 we have seen, he wrote his essay against the miracles of 
 the Gospels without having looked at the subject at all. 
 Paley brought the controversy between Hume and him- 
 self to an end by a series of trenchant strokes. "If 
 twelve men whose probity and good sense I had long 
 known should seriously and circumstantially relate to me 
 an account of a miracle wrought before their eyes and in 
 which it was impossible that they should be deceived ; 
 if the governor of the country, hearing a rumour of 
 this account, should call these men into his presence and 
 offer them a short proposal, either to confess the im- 
 posture or submit to be tied up to a gibbet ; if they 
 should refuse with one voice to acknowledge that there 
 existed any falsehood or imposture in the case ; if this 
 threat were communicated to them separately, yet with 
 no different effect ; if it was at last executed ; if I myself 
 saw them one after another consenting to be racked, 
 burnt, or strangled rather than give up the truth of 
 their account still, if Mr. Hume's rule be my guide, I 
 am not to believe them. Now I undertake to say that 
 there exists not a sceptic in the world who would not 
 believe them, or who would defend such incredulity." 1 
 Paley's argument, admirable though it be, produced 
 little or no effect on the disciples of Hume. The differ- 
 ence between the two men went deeper than the mere 
 question of miracles. To those who accepted the 
 Christian conception of God, miracle presented no 
 difficulty. A Being whose purpose was to reveal to 
 1 Works, p. 299. 
 
58 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 mankind a knowledge of Himself such as we could not 
 otherwise obtain, would be most likely, one would think, 
 to work along 1 the supernatural lines described in the 
 Bible. On the other hand, a revelation of the kind 
 there said to be given was incredible and unintelligible 
 to thinkers of the school of Hume. Their God was 
 not the Christian's God. His methods of operation 
 differed from the Christian's idea of the Divine working 
 as His nature and being differed, and no amount of 
 faultless logic could ever heal the breach between con- 
 troversialists who disagreed so widely on the funda- 
 mental points at issue. 
 
 Had Hume been a prudent man, he would have given 
 his essay a different title. He might easily and quite 
 accurately have named it An Examination of Human 
 Testimony. That would have offended no one, and the 
 Church Courts would have hesitated to interpose. But 
 the title Essay on Miracles had the sound of defiance in 
 it, and was taken as a challenge. Hints accordingly 
 began to circulate that he was to be prosecuted before 
 the Courts of the Church on a charge of heresy. One 
 of the first calls to arms was the publication in 1755 f 
 a pamphlet, entitled "An Analysis of the moral and 
 religious sentiments contained in the writings of Sopho 
 (that is, Lord Kames) and David Hume, Esq., addressed 
 to the consideration of the reverend and honourable 
 members of General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
 land." The writer declared it to be his design " to 
 analyse the works of these celebrated authors, giving 
 their own expressions under the different heads to 
 which they seem to belong." He gives the quotations 
 correctly enough, but there is mischief in the headlines 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 59 
 
 under which he groups them ; "All distinction between 
 virtue and vice is merely imaginary " ; " Adultery is very 
 lawful, but sometimes not expedient." More pamphlets 
 appeared at this time, many of them fitted to inflame 
 the public mind against Hume. One of them bore the 
 title, " The Deist stretched on a Deathbed ; or a lively 
 portraiture of a dying infidel." 
 
 When the General Assembly met that year, a re- 
 solution was passed expressing the Church's " utmost 
 abhorrence" of "impious and infidel principles," and 
 "of the deepest concern on account of the prevalence 
 of infidelity and immorality, the principles whereof have 
 been to the disgrace of our age and nation so openly 
 avowed in several books published of late in this 
 country, and which are but too well known amongst us." 
 Many, not content with a general blast against infidelity, 
 pressed the instituting of a formal process against the 
 authors. Their views found expression in a pamphlet 
 which appeared after the rising of the Assembly, and 
 was widely circulated through the country, bearing the 
 title, " Infidelity a proper object of censure." At the 
 next Assembly an attempt was made to bring Hume 
 to account, but it completely failed. The overture 
 proposed ran in these terms : " The General Assembly, 
 judging it their duty to do all in their power to check 
 the growth and progress of infidelity, and considering 
 that, as infidel writings have begun of late years to 
 be published in this nation, against which they have 
 hitherto only testified in general, so there is one person, 
 styling himself David Hume, Esq., who hath arrived 
 at such a degree of boldness as publicly to avow 
 himself the author of books containing the most 
 
60 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 rude and open attacks upon the glorious Gospel of 
 Christ, and principles evidently subversive even of 
 natural religion and the foundations of morality, if not 
 establishing direct atheism, therefore the Assembly 
 appoint the following persons .... as a Committee 
 to inquire into the writings of this author, to call him 
 before them and prepare the matter for the next 
 General Assembly." 
 
 The overture failed to gain the favour of the 
 Assembly for many reasons. It was objected to it 
 that many members had not read the writings in 
 question, and therefore could not be proper judges 
 of them ; that nothing that the Assembly could do 
 being likely to convince Mr. Hume, no good purpose 
 would be served by instituting a process against him ; 
 that the process would necessitate a prolonged and 
 arduous inquiry ; that the opinions in question being 
 universally detested could not injure any one's faith ; 
 that metaphysical errors should not be punished as 
 severely as moral delinquencies ; that the prosecution 
 of Mr. Hume could have but one result, namely, the 
 increased sale of his books ; that Mr. Hume did not 
 profess to be a member of the Church, and was there- 
 fore beyond her jurisdiction. The discussion turned 
 on the last of these propositions. Those demanding a 
 trial denied that Hume was outside the pale of the 
 Church and no subject for Church censure. They 
 reminded the Assembly that he had been baptized by 
 the Church and had never renounced his baptism ; 
 that he frequently spoke in his books of "our holy 
 religion " ; that professing Christians were known to 
 hold voluntary communication with him, and even 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 61 
 
 clergymen were in the habit of conversing freely with 
 him, which it was presumed they would not be likely 
 to do if he were no Christian. Speaking of this quaint 
 debate, the Scots' Magazine of 1756, after giving a 
 report of the proceedings, informs us that it was carried 
 on "with abundance of decency without any violent 
 altercation or personal reflections." It was certainly 
 well that the Assembly declined to prosecute Hume. 
 Not that they regarded his errors lightly. Mid- 
 eighteenth century society might be Laodicean, but 
 it was orthodox. However the spirit of religious 
 indifference might prevail, there was a great deal of 
 deference paid to the Church. Hume himself on one 
 occasion recommended a young disciple of his own, who 
 had a hankering after the pulpit, to enter the Church's 
 ministry. The Church was a power, therefore, and no 
 one could touch her with impunity. 
 
 Hume, as we have already said, was made to 
 suffer for his scepticisms. For many a day one 
 appointment after another passed him by. The old 
 Edinburgh Review of 1755 came to grief on its second 
 issue because he was suspected of having a connection 
 with it, the fact being that the promoters of the new 
 venture purposely kept him out of their arrange- 
 ments for fear of public opinion. 1 Yet the Church 
 allowed him to go his way without any formal censure. 
 This, as we have said, was well. It would have been 
 irregular for a Court of the Church to bring a charge 
 against one who was not a responsible member of 
 her communion. 
 
 At this distance of time, Hume's scepticism is 
 1 Calderwood's Hume, p. 137. 
 
62 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 seen to have conferred considerable benefit on both 
 philosophy and religion. Strictly regarded, it was not 
 religious scepticism at all, but philosophic, that Hume 
 championed with such remarkable power and genius. 
 He never seemed to doubt that religion rested on solid 
 ground, only it was on a foundation of faith and not 
 reason. ''Look out for a people," he said, "entirely 
 destitute of religion, and if you find them at all, be 
 assured that they are but a few degrees removed from 
 the brutes." 1 "The whole frame of nature bespeaks 
 an intelligent author, and no rational enquirer can, after 
 serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with 
 regard to the primary principles of a genuine Theism 
 and Religion." 2 "I never asserted so absurd a pro- 
 position as that anything might arise without a cause : 
 only I maintained that our certainty of the falsehood of 
 that proposition proceeded neither from intuition nor 
 demonstration, but from another source. That Caesar 
 existed, that there is such an island as Sicily, for 
 these propositions I affirm we have no demonstration 
 nor intuitive proof. Would you infer that I deny 
 their truth or even their certainty ? There are many 
 different kinds of certainty, and some of them as 
 satisfactory to the mind though perhaps not so regular 
 as the demonstrative kind." 3 Hume the thinker might 
 be a confirmed sceptic ; Hume the man was probably 
 a sincere believer. 
 
 Nor is this enough in estimating his character and 
 work. It is saying the least that can be said, that by 
 
 1 Natural History of Religion, Section XL 
 
 2 Essays, ii. 309. 
 
 s Hill Burton's Life, i. 97. 
 
HUME'S ESSAY ON MIRACLES 63 
 
 his criticisms of religion, which is what mainly concerns 
 us here, the Church of God has been led into deeper 
 and more spiritual views of its message to the world. 
 If Hume shook our confidence in the authority of 
 human reason, if he brought down its pride, so to 
 speak, and exposed its unreliableness as an instrument 
 of knowledge, he wrought, albeit unconsciously, a 
 grateful service to the Christian religion. He made 
 the claims of revelation thereby receive greater atten- 
 tion than before, and room was cleared for faith to 
 breathe in. Even his attack on miracles was no dis- 
 service to Christianity. It compelled the Church to 
 re-examine her lines of defence and to adopt truer 
 methods of apologetic. Hitherto she had relied on 
 her external credentials ; and Hume, the supposed 
 enemy of the Church, did the Church the service of 
 bringing this blunder to light. Nineteenth century 
 apologetic turned its attention with many beneficent 
 results to the internal evidences, to what by Dr. 
 Chalmers' time was called "the self-evidencing power 
 of the Bible"; "the manifestation of truth to the 
 conscience"; "the experimental evidence for the 
 faith " ; and in this direction she discovered her 
 strength to lie. Historical criticism of the Bible 
 unknown in Hume's day has shown us Old Testament 
 prophecy pursuing the same wise course, leaning more 
 on the intrinsic value of its divine message to the 
 world than on such outward support as ecstasy and 
 prediction provided. In like manner the Christian 
 teacher of the present time derives his authority not 
 from the possession of inerrant and infallible books, 
 nor from the tradition of a miraculous origin to the 
 
64 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 faith. His appeal on behalf of the claims of Christianity 
 consists rather in pointing to what it has done and is 
 doing for human souls, to its contributions to the moral 
 and material improvement of the world, and to its 
 work in regenerating the spiritual and social life of 
 mankind. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 Life and Works of Home. By Henry Mackenzie. Lond. 1822. 
 
 The Morality of Stage Plays seriously considered. By Adam 
 Ferguson. Edin. 1757. 
 
 Carlyle of Inveresk's Argument to prove that the Tragedy of 
 Douglas ought to be Publickly burnt by the hands of the Hang- 
 man. Edin. 1757. 
 
 Witherspoon's Serious Enquiry into the nature and effects of 
 the Stage. Edin. 1815. 
 
 Admonition and Exhortation. By the Presbytery of Edin- 
 burgh. Edin. 1757. 
 
 The Scots' Magazine of the time. 
 
 Poems of Allan Ramsay. Edin. (Oliver's ed.). 
 
 Life of Allan Ramsay. (" Famous Scots " Series.) 
 
 Pamphlets, Ballads, and Pasquinades of the time. 
 
 Carlyle's Autobiography. Edin. 1860. 
 
 Dugald Stewart's Life of Principal Robertson. Edin. 1834. 
 
 IN 1756 there appeared on the boards of the Edin- 
 burgh playhouse the tragedy of Douglas^ written 
 by John Home, minister of Athelstaneford. The event 
 aroused tremendous excitement, and almost created an 
 epoch in the social and literary development of the 
 country. Seldom before had the poetic muse visited 
 a Scottish manse, although, by the way, Home's 
 predecessor at Athelstaneford had been Blair, author 
 of The Grave; but from about this time we can 
 5 
 
66 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 discern an advance in intellectual refinement, an ap- 
 preciation of the elegancies of oral and written speech, 
 and an ambition for literary attainment and fame, 
 especially on the part of the occupants of the pulpit. 
 The sensation created by the acting of Home's play 
 may be guessed from Henry Mackenzie's graphic 
 description: "I was then a boy," he says, "but of 
 an age to be sometimes admitted as a sort of page 
 to the tea-drinking parties of Edinburgh. I have a 
 perfect recollection of the strong sensation which 
 Douglas excited among its inhabitants. The men 
 talked of the rehearsals ; the ladies repeated what 
 they had heard of the story ; some had procured as 
 a great favour copies of the most striking passages, 
 which they recited at the earnest request of the 
 company. I was present at the representation ; the 
 applause was enthusiastic ; but a better criterion of 
 its merits was the tears of the audience, which the 
 tender part of the drama drew forth unsparingly. 
 'The town,' says Dr. Carlyle (and I can vouch how 
 truly), ' was in an uproar of exultation that a Scots- 
 man should write a tragedy of the first rate, and that 
 its merits were first submitted to them.'" 1 
 
 Home had sounded David Garrick about bringing out 
 the tragedy in London, but without success. The famous 
 actor would have none of it. It was in his opinion 
 too dull and spiritless for a metropolitan audience. 
 Garrick, however, learned to admire Home's dramatic 
 genius, and acknowledged that Agis another of his 
 plays was nearer Shakespeare than anything attained 
 by other playwrights. This was high praise indeed. 
 1 Life and Works of John Home, by H. Mackenzie, i. 38. 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 6? 
 
 To the first efforts of the clerical dramatist the elder 
 Sheridan was more friendly, sending him a gold 
 medal to mark his appreciation of Douglas. From 
 David Hume a tribute came to the author's genius 
 which must have greatly encouraged him, although 
 it sounds overdone. In dedicating a volume of essays 
 to him, he said : "It is less my admiration of your fine 
 genius which has engaged me to make this address 
 to you, than my esteem of your character and my 
 affection to your person. That generosity of mind 
 which ever accompanies you, that cordiality of friend- 
 ship, that spirited honour and integrity, have long 
 interested me strongly in your behalf, and have 
 made me desirous that a monument of our mutual 
 amity should be publicly erected, and, if possible, be 
 preserved to posterity. I own, too, that I have the 
 ambition to be the first who shall in public express 
 his admiration of your noble tragedy of Douglas; 
 one of the most interesting and pathetic pieces that 
 was ever exhibited on any theatre. Should I give it 
 the preference to the Merope of Massei, and to that 
 of Voltaire, which it resembles in its subject ; should 
 I affirm that it contained more fire and spirit than 
 the former, more tenderness and simplicity than the 
 latter, I might be accused of partiality ; and how 
 could I entirely acquit myself after the professions of 
 friendship which I have made you ? But the unfeigned 
 tears which flowed from every eye in the numerous 
 representations which were made of it on this theatre ; 
 the unparalleled command which you appear to have 
 over every affection of the human breast, these are 
 incontestable proofs that you possess the true theat- 
 
68 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 rical genius of Shakespeare and Otway, refined from 
 the unhappy barbarism of the one and licentiousness 
 of the other." l This exaggerated encomium afforded 
 good sport to the dealers in doggerel. One of the 
 " ballads " of the time was irresistibly amusing : 
 
 " Your namesake does prefer you to 
 Shakespear and Otway baith, Johny ; 
 And glad am I he has made this 
 Confession of his faith, Johny. 
 
 For now he seems in a fair way 
 The Scriptur to receive, Johny ; 
 No more will he scoff and deride, 
 But miracles believe, Johny. 
 
 When he's converted, mony ane 
 Of this new saint will say, Johny : 
 He's the first sinner who owns his 
 Salvation to a play, Johny." 
 
 The verdict of posterity has been, on the whole, 
 favourable to Douglas. As regards the plan of the 
 play, critics have not a few faults to find ; but for 
 well-sustained monologue, for elevated diction and 
 animated characterisation, above all, for the com- 
 mingling of passion and pathos, the tragedy holds a 
 high and deserving place. The story was based on 
 the old Scots poem "Gil Morrice " ; and as our sober 
 ancestors were moved to tears by the successive 
 woes of Matilda and her long-lost son, it is evident 
 that of the elements of misfortune and disaster the 
 tragedy of Douglas was all compact. Two young men, 
 sons of the alien houses of Douglas and Malcolm, 
 and sworn friends of one another, succeed in arrang- 
 1 Hume's Works. 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 69 
 
 ing a secret marriage between the former and Matilda, 
 the sister of the latter. The two fall in battle, and 
 Matilda is at once left a widow, and on the eve of 
 motherhood. The newborn infant is stealthily sent 
 away from his mother under the care of a nurse, and 
 is believed to have perished in the crossing of a 
 flood-swollen river. He returns, however, a grown 
 man, under the name of Norval, but as yet ignorant 
 of his noble parentage. Instead of his happy return 
 bringing good fortune to his overjoyed mother and 
 him, disaster after disaster overwhelm them both. 
 In one day he slays his enemy the hateful Glenalvon, 
 and dies from a wound received from the villain ; and 
 the mother, losing her reason, commits suicide by 
 casting herself over a lofty precipice. By the time 
 the play closes, our feelings of sympathy for the 
 noble mother and son are wound up to an almost 
 unbearable pitch of grief, for we have learned to love 
 them both, the one for her pure and powerful feel- 
 ings of motherhood, the other for his lofty sense of 
 honour and for his courage. The story of his romantic 
 upbringing is told in lines still familiar : 
 
 " My name is Norval: on the Grampian hills 
 My father feeds his flocks ; a frugal swain, 
 Whose constant cares were to increase his store, 
 And keep his only son, myself, at home." 
 
 Immediately on the appearance of Douglas in the 
 playhouse, many of the clergy, those in Edinburgh 
 especially, were roused to a state of wrath that one 
 of their number should think so lightly of his sacred 
 office as to cater for the entertainment of theatre-goers 
 
70 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 by producing a play full of profane oaths, and coun- 
 tenancing- the awful sin of suicide. They were the 
 more inflamed with what they regarded as an un- 
 precedented prostitution of the clerical calling, by 
 reports of a rehearsal having taken place, in which 
 clergy as well as laity, in association with actors and 
 actresses, strutted on the boards of a theatre taking 
 the parts assigned to them. Nor was their anger 
 confined to the reckless men who brought the scandal 
 upon the Church. It burst forth furiously on certain 
 brethren in the ministry who countenanced the pro- 
 fanity by attending the performance of the play in the 
 theatre. Among those singled out as guilty of both 
 offences was Dr. Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk. 
 
 The irate Presbytery of Edinburgh gave expression 
 to its wounded feelings in an Admonition and Exhor- 
 tation addressed to all whom it concerned, with an 
 accompanying letter to the Presbyteries to which the 
 offenders belonged. That document began by bewail- 
 ing the declining state of religion, the open profana- 
 tion of the Sabbath, the contempt of public worship, 
 the increasing luxury and levity of the age. At a 
 time when Divine Providence was scourging the land 
 with poverty and war, how shameful that the ministers 
 of Christ should be supporting the playhouse, and 
 setting an example so evil before apprentices and 
 students and other light-headed persons! "When 
 our gracious Sovereign, attentive to the voice of 
 Providence, is calling from the throne to humiliation 
 and prayer, how unseemly is it for his subjects to give 
 themselves up to mirth and jollity ! When war in 
 which we are engaged and many awful tokens of the 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 71 
 
 divine displeasure bespeak us in the language of an 
 inspired writer to redeem the time because the days are 
 evil, should that time be squandered away in running 
 the constant round of foolish not to say sinful amuse- 
 ments? When the wants and cries of the numerous 
 poor require extraordinary supplies, how unaccount- 
 able is it to lavish away vast sums for such vain and 
 idle purposes ! When the wisdom of the nation has 
 guarded the inhabitants of this city and suburbs from 
 the infection of the stage by a plain and express 
 statute, is it not a high instance of folly to break 
 down that barrier and open a door with their own 
 hands for theatrical representations, which are in 
 many respects no less inconsistent with good policy 
 than unfriendly to religion, and will be found sooner 
 or later to affect their temporal as well as spiritual 
 interests?" 
 
 This Admonition brought most of the offending 
 brethren to their knees. One, in extenuation of his 
 offence, pleaded that he had never darkened the door 
 of a theatre before, that he would never do so again, 
 and that on the occasion in question he had sat in 
 a corner of the house so as not to be seen ! Yet his 
 unrelenting judges sentenced him to six weeks' suspen- 
 sion. The Glasgow clergy joined hands with their 
 Edinburgh brethren in anathematising the stage, 
 characterised actors and actresses as dissolute persons, 
 declared it vain to expect any reformation of the 
 theatre, and called upon the next General Assembly 
 to take action. The Presbytery of Duns alone resented 
 the interference of the Edinburgh Presbytery, and 
 reminded it of what was enacted in the Form of 
 
72 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Process "That nothing ought to be admitted by 
 any Church judicature as the ground of a process 
 for censure but what hath been declared censurable 
 by the Word of God, or some act or universal custom 
 of this national Church agreeable thereto." "We 
 expected," the brethren of the Duns Presbytery con- 
 tinued, "that in compliance with this known statute 
 you would have mentioned some passages of scripture 
 or some acts of the General Assembly to which the 
 conduct of our brethren was repugnant. However, 
 to make up the want of such authority, you give us 
 a detail of certain acts and proceedings of your Rev. 
 presbytery in the year 1727. Whatever regard may 
 be due to these, we are persuaded you do not appre- 
 hend they should be considered as standards of this 
 Church. Nor can we believe you will think a minister 
 of the presbytery of Duns should be accounted 
 criminal because he did not pay suitable regard to 
 the acts of your Rev. presbytery. You say zeal for 
 vindicating the credit and promoting the usefulness 
 of the holy ministry and supporting the interests of 
 religion are the motives of your present conduct. 
 And in charity we are bound to believe they are. 
 You must, however, excuse us when we say that 
 your intermeddling in the manner you have done 
 with the conduct of your brethren, who have hitherto 
 been eminently useful in our bounds, hath a natural 
 tendency and will undoubtedly, unless guarded against 
 by the utmost prudence and caution on our part, 
 greatly mar and obstruct those valuable ends you 
 seem to have in view." 1 
 
 1 Scots Magazine, xix. 215. 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 73 
 
 Nor was Carlyle of Inveresk the man to brook 
 interference from outside quarters, and even when his 
 own Presbytery threatened to libel him for his theat- 
 rical offences he refused to submit meekly. "On 
 deliberating about this affair," he says, 1 "with all the 
 knowledge I had of the laws of the Church and the 
 confidence I had in the goodwill of my parish, I 
 took a firm resolution not to submit to what I saw 
 the Presbytery intended, but to stand my ground on 
 a firm opinion that my offence was not a foundation 
 for a libel, but, if anything at all, a mere impropriety 
 or offence against decorum, which ought to be done 
 at privy censures by an admonition. This ground I 
 took and never departed from it ; but I, at the same 
 time, resolved to mount my horse and visit every 
 member of the Presbytery, especially my opponents, 
 and by a free confession endeavour to bring them 
 over to my opinion. They received me differently 
 some with a contemptible dissimulation, and others 
 with a provoking reserve and haughtiness. I saw 
 that they had the majority of the Presbytery on their 
 side, and that the cabal was firm, and that no sub- 
 mission on my part would turn them aside from their 
 purpose. This confirmed my resolution not to yield, 
 but to run every risk rather than furnish an example 
 of tame submission, not merely to a fanatical but 
 an illegal exertion of power, which would have stamped 
 disgrace on the Church of Scotland, kept the younger 
 clergy for half a century longer in the trammels of 
 bigotry or hypocrisy, and debarred every generous 
 spirit from entering into orders." 
 
 1 Autobiography ', p. 315. 
 
74 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 A libel was served against this Prince of Moderates, 
 charging him with keeping company, familiarly convers- 
 ing, and eating and drinking with West Diggs, one of 
 the actors on the unlicensed stage or theatre at the 
 head of the Canongate of Edinburgh commonly called 
 the Concert Hall, or with Miss Sarah Ward, an actress 
 on the said theatre , " persons that do not reside in 
 his parish, and who by their profession and in the eye 
 of the law are of bad fame, and who cannot obtain 
 from any minister a testimonial of their moral char- 
 acter ; and he, the said Mr. Alexander Carlyle, did 
 not only appear publicly in the said unlicensed theatre, 
 but took possession of a box in a disorderly manner, 
 and turned some gentlemen out of it in a forcible 
 manner, and did there witness the acting or represen- 
 tation of the foresaid tragedy called Douglas, when 
 acted for hire or reward, in which the name of God 
 was profaned or taken in vain by mock prayers and 
 tremendous oaths, such as ' by the blood of the 
 Cross ' and ' the wounds of Him who died for us on 
 the accursed tree.'" The case went against Carlyle 
 in the inferior court, but on appeal to the Synod his 
 prosecution by libel was condemned, while he was 
 discharged with a censure. This mild decision was 
 sustained by the General Assembly ; but at the same 
 time the clergy were prohibited from being concerned 
 in or countenancing theatrical representations. Thus 
 ended the theatrical scandal case in probably the only 
 way possible to wise men, but leaving the gulf that 
 separated the two parties in the Church wider than 
 before. 
 
 The Douglas controversy produced a rich crop of 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 75 
 
 pamphlets and pa'squinades. The best written in 
 defence of the theatre was "The morality of stage 
 plays seriously considered." The author was Adam 
 Ferguson the philosopher, in whose house in Edinburgh 
 the memorable meeting of Robert Burns and young 
 Walter Scott took place. Ferguson in his pamphlet 
 argues that no composition is to be condemned merely 
 because it is in the form of a play. To do so would be 
 to condemn Holy Scripture itself, St. Paul quoting 
 from the play of a Greek dramatist in i Cor. xv. 33. 
 The only law of the Church against theatre-going is 
 an Act of Assembly, 1574, declaring " that no comedies 
 or tragedies or such plays should be made on any subject 
 of canonical scriptures nor on the Sabbath-day. If 
 any minister be the writer of such a play he shall be 
 deprived of his ministry. As for plays of another 
 subject, they also should be examined before they be 
 propounded publicly." Dealing with the influence of 
 the theatre on the young, he appeals to persons who 
 have the care of the education of youth "whether 
 they would not gladly see their pupils come to the 
 theatre and mix with grave and decent company if by 
 that means they could break up more dangerous 
 meetings for low gaming and riot, where youth has 
 no good example to lead them, and no restraint from a 
 sense of decency and shame." 
 
 On the other side the best writing was by Wither- 
 spoon, minister of Beith. He was an able but 
 wordy pamphleteer, who wrote ninety long pages 
 against the stage, besides a letter covering nine. 
 In every sense of the word Witherspoon was a mili- 
 tant Churchman. A lineal descendant of John Knox, 
 
76 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 he went out in 1745 at the head of a company of 
 militia, raised by his own efforts, "in defence of 
 our only rightful and lawful sovereign King George." 
 At Glasgow the little band of loyalists was dispersed 
 by order, as the Government had not the means of 
 furnishing them with arms. Witherspoon, instead 
 of returning to his ministerial duties in Beith, went 
 to the front and was present at the battle of Falkirk ; 
 there he was taken prisoner and confined for a time 
 in the Castle of Doune. He went subsequently 
 to America, and became President of the College of 
 Princeton, New Jersey. 
 
 Witherspoon holds that the theatre is forbidden to 
 a Christian. Yet he understands the other side of the 
 question, and even states it quite fairly. " Comedy is 
 exposing the folly of vice. Is not this commendable ? 
 Is not ridicule a noble means of discountenancing vice ? 
 And is not the use of it warranted by the satire and 
 irony that is to be found in the holy scriptures ? 
 Tragedy is promoting the same end in a way more grave 
 and solemn. It is a moral lecture or a moral picture in 
 which virtue appears to great advantage. What is 
 history itself but representing the characters of men as 
 they actually were ? and plays represent them as they 
 may be. In their perfection plays are as like history 
 and nature as the poet's art and actor's skill can make 
 them. Is it, then, the circumstance of their being 
 written in dialogue that renders them criminal ? Who 
 will pretend that? Is it that they are publicly 
 repeated or acted over? Will any one pretend that 
 it is a crime to personate a character in any case even 
 where no deceit is intended ? Then farewell parables, 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 77 
 
 figures of speech, and the whole oratorical art. Is 
 it a sin to look upon the representation? Then it 
 must be a sin to look upon the world, which is the 
 original of which plays are the copy." " I believe it is 
 very possible," he adds, " to write a treatise in the form 
 of a dialogue in which the general rules of the drama 
 are observed, which shall be as holy and serious as 
 any sermon that ever was preached or printed. 
 Neither is there any apparent impossibility in getting 
 different persons to assume the different characters 
 and rehearse it in society. But," and now for his 
 attack, " it may be safely affirmed that if all plays were 
 of that kind, and human nature continue in its present 
 state, the doors of the playhouse would shut of their 
 own accord, because no one would demand access 
 unless there were an act of parliament to force at- 
 tendance ; and even in that case as much pains would 
 probably be taken to evade the law obliging to attend 
 as are now taken to evade those that command us to 
 abstain. The fair and plain state of this question then 
 is, Whether it is possible or practicable in the present 
 state of human nature to have the above system of 
 things under so good a regulation as to make the 
 erecting and countenancing the stage agreeable to the 
 will of God, and consistent with the purity of the 
 Christian profession ? " Witherspoon sums up his 
 indictment against the theatre in three propositions 
 (i) that the stage is an improper amusement ; (2) that 
 instead of being a proper method of instruction, it is 
 hurtful and pernicious ; (3) that none can attend the 
 theatre without partaking of the sins of others and 
 contributing to their injury. 
 
78 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Carlyle wrote (and published anonymously) a highly 
 diverting booklet, entitled " An argument to prove that 
 the Tragedy of Douglas ought to be publickly burnt by 
 the hands of the Hangman." "The zeal and violence 
 of the Presbytery of Edinburgh," he confessed after- 
 wards, 1 "who had made enactments and declarations 
 to be read in the pulpit, provoked me to write this 
 pamphlet, which, in the ironical manner of Swift, 
 contained a severe satire on all our opponents." 
 Sincerely regarding the squabble as much ado about 
 nothing, he turns the whole hubbub into delightful 
 ridic'ule. "Joseph Addison, Esq.," he begins, "was 
 certainly drunk when he laid it down as a maxim in 
 one of his Spectators, that a perfect tragedy is the 
 noblest production of human nature." In the re- 
 mainder of his satire he elaborates five reasons why 
 the play should be " burnt by the hands of the hang- 
 man." (i) There is hardly a single word true from 
 beginning to end ! (2) It is reported to be a singularly 
 good tragedy. (3) The author is a clergyman, learned, 
 eloquent, and witty, so much so that his company has 
 been very much sought after by persons of superior 
 station. Worst of all, he is a young clergyman. (4) 
 The tragedy is said by some to be an honour to our 
 country. (5) It has given great offence to the nobility 
 and gentry of Scotland. " Is it not the height of folly 
 and presumption for this rash young man to step in 
 before his betters, and take upon him, forsooth, to raise 
 the reputation of his country higher than ever it was 
 before for fine writing, which is the first and most 
 excellent of the fine arts ? " Of the Presbytery of 
 1 Autobiography, p. 313. 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 79 
 
 Edinburgh he says : " They have winked for many years 
 at the diversions of the theatre, and permitted the most 
 virtuous matrons and tender virgins to repair to that 
 shop of iniquity unreproved, reserving the fire of their 
 zeal till it should be blown up by motives purely 
 ecclesiastical. They have long been the leading 
 presbytery in the Church, and after this master-stroke of 
 ingenuous zeal I soon hope to see them dictate to every 
 other presbytery in Scotland. For observe their ad- 
 mirable conduct : they scorned to attack the stage on 
 its weak side of comedy, or even on that of exception- 
 able tragedies ; but have waited many years with the 
 utmost coolness and patience till a tragedy appeared 
 with which every mortal was highly delighted, and 
 which the best judges pronounced to be one of the 
 most moral poems that ever was composed." He 
 then concludes : " Next Wednesday, then, let it be 
 publickly burnt by the hands of the hangman, and 
 I shall exceeding rejoice that I have been instru- 
 mental (though unworthy) to save my country from 
 ruin, and prevent the downfall of true religion." 
 
 Carlyle also issued "A full and true History of the 
 Bloody Tragedy of Douglas as it is now to be seen 
 acting in the Theatre at the Canongate." This 
 he wrote in one day, and it was cried through the 
 streets on the next. It is a plain matter of fact 
 narrative, printed on a single sheet, and intended for 
 the lower orders to waken up their interest in the 
 play. 
 
 The boldness of the half-dozen country parsons 
 who, with Carlyle at their head, defied the con- 
 ventionalities of their cloth and elbowed and jostled 
 
80 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 their way into the Canongate theatre, is the subject 
 of several amusing" street-ballads of the time. Specially 
 witty is one entitled " A first night's Audience," which 
 tells how 
 
 " Hid close in the green-room some clergymen lay, 
 Good actors themselves, too, their whole life a play : 
 C lyle with a cudgel and genius rare, 
 With aspect as stern as a Hessian hussar : 
 Derry down, down, down, Derry down." 
 
 It need not surprise us that in the middle of the 
 eighteenth century the efforts of those who sought to 
 encourage the practice of histrionic art should be met 
 by their ecclesiastical brethren with determined re- 
 sistance. Twenty years earlier, Allan Ramsay, nothing 
 daunted by the bigoted opposition to his scheme of a 
 circulating library, set about erecting a playhouse for 
 the entertainment of his fellow-citizens. He addressed 
 them in the lines : 
 
 " Shall London have its houses twa, 
 And we be doomed to nane ava? 
 Is our metropolis, ance the place 
 When lang-syne dwelt the royal race 
 Of Fergus, this gait dwindled doon 
 To the level o' a clachan toun? 
 While thus she suffers the desertion 
 Of a maist rational diversion." 
 
 Ramsay's playhouse was in Carrubber's Close, and 
 an advertisement in the Caledonian Mercury announced 
 that it had been built regardless of expense in order 
 that, during the winter nights, "the citizens might 
 enjoy themselves in hearing, performed by competent 
 actors, dramas that would amuse, instruct, and 
 elevate." This was in 1736. The following year a 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 8 1 
 
 statute was passed by Parliament for the regulation 
 of theatres. It enacted that no performance of stage 
 plays was lawful outside of London save when the King 
 chanced to be residing in some other town. The effect 
 of this statute on Ramsay's venture was that it well- 
 nigh involved it in ruin. In a poetical epistle he 
 appealed to Lord President Duncan Forbes : 
 
 " Is there aught better than the stage 
 To mend the follies o' the age, 
 If managed as it ought to be, 
 Fra ilka vice and blaidry free ? 
 Wherefore, my Lords, I humbly pray 
 Our lads may be allowed to play, 
 At least till new-house debts be paid off, 
 The cause that I'm the maist afraid of: 
 Which lade lyes on my single back, 
 And I maun pay it ilka plack." 
 
 How he and his playhouse successors evaded the 
 enactment was to name the theatre a Concert Hall, and 
 render the performance of the play gratis. 
 
 However we may regard the conduct of Carlyle and 
 the other clergymen who countenanced the acting of 
 Home's tragedy, it was clearly made too much of by 
 the party of orthodoxy, as the decision of the supreme 
 court of the Church practically admitted. At the same 
 time, few of their brethren wholly approved of it. 
 Many, on the other hand, admired Principal Robertson 
 at this time. He publicly and privately exerted 
 himself to shield his friends from the punishment 
 which threatened them ; and, as Dugald Stewart in his 
 account of his life remarks, his arguments had all the 
 greater weight from the fact that he himself had never 
 been in the inside of a theatre, " a remarkable proof, 
 6 
 
82 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 among numberless others which the history of his life 
 affords, of that scrupulous circumspection in his private 
 conduct which, while it added so much to his useful- 
 ness as a clergyman, was essential to his influence as 
 the leader of a party, and which so often enabled him 
 to recommend successfully to others the same candid 
 and indulgent spirit that was congenial to his own 
 mind." 
 
 Whether we are to interpret it as a decline in circum- 
 spection or an advance in refinement, by 1785 we find 
 the General Assembly adjourning its evening sederunts 
 so as to allow members the opportunity of hearing 
 Mrs. Siddons. On her first visit to Edinburgh the 
 year before, the celebrated actress appeared in Douglas 
 several nights. People travelled all the way from 
 Newcastle to see her ; and such was the rage excited 
 by her peerless acting, that on one of the days of her 
 1785 visit to the Scottish metropolis as many as 2557 
 applications were made for 630 places. 
 
 There have always been people who have anathe- 
 matised the theatre as well as those who have 
 supported it ; and the latter, when put on their defence, 
 have usually contended that if religious people would 
 only visit it more they would help to reform it, and 
 make it a school of virtue and morals. The religious 
 people in reply have commonly given the answer 
 Witherspoon gave, that a reformed theatre would soon 
 have to close its doors. " As soon as the playhouse 
 shall be thoroughly reformed it will be as ill attended 
 as the Edinburgh week-day sermon." 1 The attitude 
 of serious people towards playgoing, something half- 
 1 Scotland and Scotsmen, ii. 547. 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 83 
 
 way between disapproval and indifference, need not 
 always be put down to bigotry and sour Puritanism. 
 Even Plato disapproved of the theatre, and of all poetry 
 that went beyond hymns to the gods and the praises 
 of famous men. In his Republic he would not allow 
 the profession of the actor. " We should not," he said, 
 " depict or be able to imitate any kind of illiberality 
 or other baseness, lest from imitation we come to be 
 what we imitate." 1 In Home and Carlyle's days, what 
 embittered some in their dislike of play-acting was 
 the conviction that the taste for it was one of those 
 frivolous and objectionable things for which the Union 
 was responsible. Till the year 1715 there had been 
 no theatrical entertainments in Edinburgh from the 
 time that the Duke of York held his Court at the 
 Abbey. Now, under the influence of " the predominat- 
 ing partner," Scotland seemed to be losing its head. 
 What a writer says about the religious state of the 
 country in 1761 must have been pretty near the truth : 2 
 "Within the bosom of the Church there appeared a 
 conformity to the world and a reckless disregard of 
 the official decencies of life which threatened the 
 interests of vital godliness even among those who 
 ought to have supported it. The easy, social, and 
 gentlemanly manners of the clergy of the Church of 
 England after the Union were aped and copied by the 
 leading Moderates of the Church of Scotland. Instead 
 of the Sectarian sourness of the covenanting period, 
 they verged to an opposite extreme of softness and 
 complacency, chiming in with the literature and 
 amusements of the age. The strong points of 
 1 Book III. 2 Struthers' History of the Relief Churchy p. 167. 
 
84 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Calvinistic theology were thrown into the shade, and 
 the moral virtues were decked out in their sentimental 
 discourses with every possible finery of language. The 
 Cross of Christ was merely referred to in the way of 
 distant allusion. In signing the Confession of Faith, 
 some did not scruple to acknowledge it contained all 
 their belief and a great deal more." 
 
 At an early period of the controversy, Home had 
 resigned his charge and settled in London to a life 
 of literary labours. From all accounts he was a most 
 likeable man. He, too, had been one of the fighting 
 parsons at the battle of Falkirk, and shared the same 
 fate as Witherspoon. Henry Mackenzie gives two 
 evidences of his popularity as a parish minister. First, 
 when he left Athelstaneford and preached his farewell 
 discourse there was not a dry eye in the audience. 
 Second, when, years afterwards, he came back from 
 London to retire from public life, and built a house in 
 East Lothian near his former home, his old parishioners 
 led all the stones for the building, and would not accept 
 payment from him. Although the intimate friend of 
 Lord Bute, "he never asked (and, Mackenzie says, I 
 cannot mention it without feeling equal surprise and 
 displeasure) he was never offered any office or appoint- 
 ment, so many of which Lord Bute had in his power 
 to bestow." Like Oliver Goldsmith, who could not 
 beg for himself but could do it for others, Home more 
 than once recommended others to favourable situations. 
 It is said, however, that Bute gave him a Government 
 pension. 
 
 A specimen of Home's wit almost the only one ex- 
 tant may close our study of the Douglas controversy. 
 
THE PLAYHOUSE BATTLE 85 
 
 It happened that a young man, bearing hitherto a good 
 character, absconded with a considerable sum of money 
 belonging to his employer. The incident came up in 
 conversation at a dinner party at which John Home and 
 his namesake David Hume were present. The latter 
 declared it a moral problem which entirely baffled him, 
 how a person of high character could do such a thing 
 and bring ruin upon himself. " I can easily account 
 for it," said Home, "from the nature of his studies and 
 the kind of books he was in the habit of reading." 
 ' ' What were they ? " asked the philosopher. ' * Boston's 
 Fourfold State" rejoined the poet, "and Hume's 
 Essays." 1 
 
 1 Mackenzie's Life of John Home, p. 22. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 AN AYRSHIRE " NEW LIGHT." 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 A Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ. By W. M'Gill, 
 D.D. Edin. 1786. 
 
 The Burgher Associate Synod's Warning against Socinianism. 
 Works of Robert Burns. Wallace's edition. Edin. 1896. 
 M'Kerrow's History of the Secession Church. Edin. 1839. 
 Struthers' History of the Relief Church. Glasg-. 1843. 
 
 THERE is no better sign of the times, or one 
 deserving of more credit, than an honest at- 
 tempt to render practical and intelligible the difficult 
 dogmas of religion. It is true those who become 
 mediators between Reason and Revelation not infre- 
 quently bring disaster on themselves, and earn the 
 unenviable distinction of being disturbers of the 
 Church's peace. The faults of rashness and impru- 
 dence may, as a rule, be safely enough laid at the 
 door of such men ; but they are usually persons 
 characterised by a considerable measure of ability, 
 spirituality, and seriousness of mind. Dr. M'Gill of 
 Ayr was a case in point. When he published, in 1786, 
 A Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ , he was 
 certainly animated with the laudable desire of calling 
 the attention of the Church to those practical aspects 
 of the Atonement on which all are agreed, and which 
 
 86 
 
AN AYRSHIRE "NEW LIGHT" 87 
 
 tend to promote godliness of life. His effort, indeed, 
 came far short of a full and worthy account of the 
 profound theme, but it showed him to be all that the 
 poet Burns, who was a particular friend of his, declared 
 in characteristic vigour concerning him, that he was 
 "one of the worthiest as well as one of the ablest of 
 the whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland in every 
 sense of that ambiguous term." 1 
 
 But, like many men who from the best intentions 
 have set themselves to explain the Atonement, M'Gill 
 came very near explaining it entirely away. His 
 anxiety to bring it down to the level of everyday life, 
 so as to commend it to the acceptance of men of 
 reason and common sense, led him to describe it after 
 the fashion of Arian and Socinian notions, and to empty 
 it of all precious content. His explanations are partly 
 an anticipation of the teaching of F. D. Maurice and 
 partly Socinianism pure and simple. He attributes to 
 the Atonement no objective character as a satisfaction 
 rendered to Divine Justice. Its value is purely sub- 
 jective, a part of Christ's message to sinners ; and 
 the Priesthood of Christ is not associated with His 
 Death, but is an office to which He rises in reward for 
 His life and death of obedience. The object of Christ's 
 coming into the world was not to die for sinners. His 
 death was but an incident in the career of our Lord. 
 "The direct and immediate end of His mission," he 
 says, " was to preach the gospel of the Kingdom or 
 reveal the Will of God ; to confirm His doctrine by 
 proper evidences ; to set an example of what He 
 taught ; and, in short, to promote the salvation of 
 1 Letter to Graham of Fintry. 
 
88 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 sinners in the most effectual manner, whatever suffer- 
 ings the doing- so might bring upon Him, and though it 
 should cost Him His life." 1 "Next to the mercy of 
 God, which is never to be forgotten, the benefits of our 
 redemption by Christ flow chiefly from the holiness 
 and righteousness of His life ; and particularly from the 
 eminent patience, piety, submission, and benevolence 
 displayed at the close of it, which avail with God, in 
 favour of sinners, in the same manner as do the piety 
 and virtue of good men in general : only the effects of 
 such singular excellencies are proportionably greater 
 and more extensive." 2 Rightly enough he held that 
 sinful men have often received very valuable benefits, 
 which they had no title to on their own account, not only 
 through the instrumentality but on account of the virtue 
 of others ; that God makes even the imperfect virtue 
 which is to be found among men a source of blessed- 
 ness, not to its immediate owners only, but to others 
 also who are estranged from it. The happiness of 
 its votaries He increases, by suffering their piety to 
 overflow, to the good of all with whom they are con- 
 nected, or for whom they interest themselves. He is 
 pleased to accept of it at their hands, both on their own 
 behalf and in some sort, too, as the price of benefits 
 bestowed upon the undeserving." 3 The error in such 
 statements was not, as some at the time mistakenly 
 declared, that they countenanced the Popish doctrine 
 of supererogation ; it lay in the insinuation which they 
 contained, that the vicarious sufferings of the Son of 
 God were on a par with human vicariousness. Human 
 vicariousness is a fact which in such examples as 
 1 A Practical Essay, p. 245. 2 Ibid. p. 275. 3 Ibid. p. 269. 
 
AN AYRSHIRE "NEW LIGHT" 89 
 
 Abraham and David receives ample recognition in 
 Scripture. But while it may serve as a good illus- 
 tration of the efficacy of Christ's death for sinners, 
 it would be an error to hold it as identical with that, 
 the error into which M'Gill apparently fell. 
 
 M 'Gill's honest but mistaken efforts to construe the 
 Atonement in practical and intelligible terms brought 
 down upon him the mild censure of the Church. A 
 Committee consisting of fifteen clergy and ten elders 
 were entrusted by the inferior court to consider and 
 report upon his views. It is said that among the 
 latter was included Fisher, the original of Burns' 
 "Holy Willie." The Committee found the Doctor 
 guilty of erroneous teaching on these important 
 matters : the original and essential dignity of the Son 
 of God ; the doctrine of Atonement by His sufferings 
 and death ; the method of reconciling sinners to God ; 
 and subscription to the Confession of Faith. 
 
 How he fell foul of the Confession of Faith must be 
 told. It seems that M'Gill had remained silent under 
 all the censures of the orthodox party for upwards of 
 a year after the publication of his unfortunate volume. 
 But when one who was a near neighbour, and up till 
 that time a friend, denounced the essay as heretical and 
 the author of it a person who " with one hand received 
 the privileges of the Church while with the other he 
 was endeavouring to plunge the keenest poniard into 
 her breast," he could no longer keep silence. " There 
 was a period of the Christian Church," he said in 
 defence, "when they were thought worthy of censure 
 who would not consent to wholesome words, even the 
 words of the Lord Jesus Christ. But now we are liable 
 
90 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 to very severe censure if we do not set aside these 
 wholesome divine words and substitute in their room 
 the commandments of men ; yea, submit to the dictates 
 of every reverend upstart creed-maker who has pre- 
 sumption not only to impose on us his own sense of the 
 Scripture and of the Confession of Faith, but to set up 
 their unscriptural phrases as the objects of our rever- 
 ence and worship." It was this sneer at Creeds and 
 Confessions that did M'Gill most injury. But for it, his 
 lucubrations on the Atonement might have been allowed 
 to pass. At the worst they would have been char- 
 acterised as the raving's of a man " who had travelled 
 beyond his depth, and who was dealing with matters 
 too high for his comprehension." But when the vener- 
 able Confession of Faith was brought into contempt, 
 it was a different matter. The clergy looked upon 
 their craft as in danger, and the cry arose, " Great is 
 Diana of the Ephesians." 
 
 Dr. M'Gill, however, was not an obstinate fighter. 
 From all accounts he was a person of singularly 
 amiable disposition. On that point all are agreed. 
 Even those who were hardest on his views spoke well 
 of the man. Being a man of peaceable nature, we are 
 not surprised to hear that when his errors were pointed 
 out, and he saw how they had wounded the hearts of 
 good men, he at once retracted them, and expressed 
 regret. He regretted that what was honestly meant 
 to serve the interests of religion should have had the 
 opposite effect, and have offended brethren whom he 
 respected. He never intended his essay to be taken 
 as a theological treatise, but merely a practical exposi- 
 tion. His sole design in publishing it had been to 
 
AN AYRSHIRE "NEW LIGHT" 91 
 
 promote the life of godliness in the souls of his readers ; 
 and apparently so absorbed had he been in his purpose, 
 so intent on carrying out his design, that he may have 
 omitted things which he held to be true, because the 
 practical use of them did not appear. " In every work 
 of man, more especially of some length and variety, it 
 is not to be expected but there will be failures and 
 blemishes which may have crept into it : at which, 
 however, men of judgment and candour will not be 
 offended when they are convinced that the design 
 upon the whole is good." As upon further reflection 
 he found in his writings ideas that were evidently 
 though not intentionally erroneous, and references to 
 divine things that were unguarded and ambiguous, 
 he publicly disclaimed them, and expressed regret 
 for having employed such expressions, and anew de- 
 clared his belief in the original and essential dignity 
 of the Son of God, the doctrine of Atonement by His 
 sufferings and death, the Priesthood and Intercession 
 of Christ, the method of reconciling sinners to God, 
 and subscription to the Confession of Faith. 
 
 This manly recantation was made in 1790, four 
 years after the publication of the offending volume. It 
 brought great relief to the minds of disturbed ecclesi- 
 astics. " Impressed," said they, " with a deep sense of 
 that harmony and concord with which this matter has 
 been settled, and convinced that what they have done 
 will, under the blessing of God, tend to promote peace 
 and truth in this Church," they proceeded to thank the 
 Lord for the countenance and direction He had given 
 them in the matter. A section throughout the country 
 at large regarded the ecclesiastics as thankful for very 
 
* 
 
 92 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 small mercies, and they continued to keep up an 
 agitation against the "heretic" who had been so easily 
 dealt with ; but the agitation gradually subsided after 
 another abortive attempt had been made to libel 
 M'Gill. The Burgher Associate Synod joined in the 
 feeling of dissatisfaction which for a time lingered 
 among a remnant of the National Church, and, true 
 to their reputation for rigid orthodoxy, published about 
 this time "a Warning against Socinianism," in which 
 they inveighed against the bold doctrines of Dr. 
 M'Gill and his New Light friends. The Seceders 
 lectured their people against these doctrines, warned 
 them against them, and condemned the judicial un- 
 faithfulness of the Church courts. 
 
 The other side in this controversy has received 
 immortal treatment in the writings of the poet Burns. 
 He, as we have seen, enjoyed the friendship of Dr. 
 M'Gill, and once and again in his published corre- 
 spondence speaks respectfully about him. His own 
 religious beliefs were much influenced by M 'Gill's 
 teaching. We can trace this influence upon the 
 poet's thinking, not only in poems like " Holy Willie's 
 Prayer" and "The Kirk's Alarm," but in a passage 
 from one of his letters to Clarinda, in which he gives 
 a full and direct statement of his religious creed. 
 After declaring himself deeply interested in her good 
 opinion, he proceeds to lay before her the outlines of 
 his belief. "He who is our Author and Preserver," 
 he says, "and will one day be our Judge, must be 
 not for His sake, in the way of duty, but from the 
 native impulse of our hearts the object of our rever- 
 ential awe and grateful adoration. He is almighty 
 
AN AYRSHIRE "NEW LIGHT" 93 
 
 and all-bounteous ; we are weak and dependent ; hence 
 prayer and every other sort of devotion. * He is not 
 willing that any should perish, but that all should 
 come to everlasting life ' ; consequently it must be in 
 every one's power to embrace His offer of * everlasting 
 life ' : otherwise He could not in justice condemn those 
 who did not. A mind pervaded, actuated, and governed 
 by purity, truth, and charity, though it does not merit 
 heaven, yet is an absolutely necessary prerequisite, 
 without which heaven can neither be obtained or en- 
 joyed ; and by Divine promise, such a mind shall never 
 fail of attaining ' everlasting life ' ; hence the impure, 
 the deceiving, and the uncharitable exclude themselves 
 from eternal bliss by their unfitness for enjoying it. 
 The Supreme Being has put the immediate admini- 
 stration of all this for wise and good ends known 
 to Himself into the hands of Jesus Christ, a great 
 Personage, whose relation to Him we cannot com- 
 prehend, but whose relation to us is [that of] a Guide 
 and Saviour ; and who, except for our own obstinacy 
 and misconduct, will bring us all, through various 
 ways and by various means, to bliss at last. 
 
 "These are my tenets, my lovely friend ; and which 
 I think cannot be well disputed. My creed is pretty 
 nearly expressed in the last clause of Jamie Dean's 
 grace, an honest weaver in Ayrshire : ' Lord, grant 
 that we may lead a gude life ! for a gude life maks 
 a gude end ; at least it helps weel ! ' " * Earlier, in a 
 letter to Mrs. Dunlop, the poet had expressed himself 
 ready to draw his sword in defence of the Ayrshire 
 "heretic." "I ever could ill endure," he tells her, 
 1 " Letter to Clarinda," Jan. 8. 1788. 
 
94 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 ''those surly cubs of 'chaos and old night' those 
 ghostly beasts of prey who foul the hallowed ground 
 of Religion with their nocturnal prowlings ; but if the 
 prosecution which I hear the Erebean fanatics are 
 projecting against my learned and truly worthy friend, 
 Dr. M'Gill, goes on, I shall keep no measure with 
 the savages, but fly at them with the faucons of 
 Ridicule, or run them down with the bloodhounds of 
 Satire, as lawful game, wherever I start them." 1 
 His ballad, "The Kirk's Alarm," with the two open- 
 ing stanzas of which we conclude this chapter, was 
 the poet's tribute to his friend Dr. M'Gill, and an 
 expression of sympathy for his views. The vigour 
 and severity with which in this ballad the poet lashes 
 M 'Gill's persecutors, shows the keen interest which 
 Burns took, as became a Scot, in the religious con- 
 troversies of his country. 
 
 " Orthodox, Orthodox, who believe in John Knox, 
 
 Let me sound an alarm to your conscience : 
 There's a heretic blast been blawn i' the west, 
 That 'what is not sense must be nonsense,' 
 Orthodox! That 'what is not sense must be nonsense.' 
 
 Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac, ye should stretch on a rack, 
 
 To strike evil-doers wi' terror ; 
 To join Faith and Sense, upon any pretence, 
 
 Was heretic, damnable error, 
 
 Doctor Mac! 'Twas heretic, damnable error." 
 
 1 " Letter to Mrs. Dunlop," Nov. 4, 1787. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 The Edinburgh Christian Instructor, 1825-26-27-29. 
 Hanna's Life of Chalmers. Edin. 1849-52. 
 Oliphant's Life of Edivard Irving. Lond. 1862. 
 Pamphlets of the time. 
 The Eclectic Review of the time. 
 Streane's The Age of the Maccabees. Lond. 1892. 
 The Apocrypha. (S.P.C.K. 1889.) 
 
 Articles on The Apocrypha in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, 
 and the Encyclopcedia Biblica. 
 
 THE early years of the nineteenth century witnessed 
 a dissemination of the Scriptures on the most 
 marvellous scale. By 1827 the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society could boast that they had issued the Word of 
 God in no fewer than one hundred and forty-three dif- 
 ferent languages. The energy and enterprise with which 
 the work at all times was conducted was something 
 amazing. Even in 1826, the year of the short corn, 
 when famine and commercial distress threatened to pro- 
 duce a collapse in all kinds of philanthropic effort, the 
 Bible Society went on with its work with a stability 
 that nothing could disturb. All that needed to be 
 said was, " In this season of peculiar distress to the 
 poor, we think the rich have a loud call to double 
 
 95 
 
96 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 the amount of their ordinary subscriptions." Scotland 
 contributed a considerable share to the work of Bible 
 propagation. It was said, but perhaps unwarrantably, 
 that in the room in which David Hume died, the 
 Bible Society of Scotland was afterwards constituted, 
 and held its first meeting. 1 The myth, if it be such, 
 embodied a sense of satisfaction and even triumph 
 in connection with the Society's work which in the 
 circumstances was both natural and pardonable. Dr. 
 Chalmers, in the early years of his great career, made 
 the establishment of local branches of the Society one 
 of his hobbies, supported them by the weekly pence 
 of the subscribers, and by this means educated the 
 people of Scotland to believe in the power of littles, 
 and to maintain a great Church by voluntary aid. 
 It was, however, the fate of this prosperous organisa- 
 tion to pass through an acute crisis in its history, 
 known as the Apocrypha Controversy, a controversy 
 which lasted long, and was conducted with un- 
 paralleled bitterness, resulting, moreover, in the most 
 trifling and insignificant benefits to the Christian 
 world. 
 
 Those who would follow this controversy have to 
 remember what the one party in the strife was for 
 ever dunning into the ears of the other, that the 
 British and Foreign Bible Society was started in a 
 Protestant country by Protestants, for printing and 
 circulating the Holy Scriptures without note and com- 
 ment. It was never the intention of the promoters 
 to include the Apocrypha. In 1815 an order appeared 
 in the minutes of the Society excluding all non- 
 1 See Old and New Edinburgh, ii. 160. 
 
THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY 97 
 
 canonical writings. The necessity for this arose from 
 the fact that, two years earlier, liberty was granted 
 to some foreign Societies to publish at the British 
 Society's expense Bibles containing the Apocrypha, 
 but without note or comment. The permission to do 
 this had been given under the impression that the 
 Word of God would find entrance into communities 
 where it was most desirable to carry it, but where, 
 without the inclusion of the Apocrypha, it would be 
 vain to attempt to introduce it. These were the 
 Greek Church, Roman Catholic communities where the 
 Apocrypha was revered and sanctioned by the Council 
 of Trent, Lutheran communities where the decree of 
 Trent was not accepted, but where the Apocrypha was 
 revered and allowed a secondary degree of inspiration 
 and authority, and certain Reformed Churches of the 
 Continent, where the Apocrypha was regarded, as it is 
 in the Church of England, as useful for edification. 
 
 This apparently harmless proposal was received 
 throughout the country, especially in Scotland, with 
 a perfect hurricane of opposition. Let the Society, 
 it was said, supply the New Testament pure and 
 simple in such places, or let them prosecute their 
 labours of Bible propagation in other neglected fields 
 of operation where the Society could carry on its 
 work on its own constitutional lines. It was held 
 to be intolerable that a Society like the British 
 and Foreign, with an irreproachable record, should 
 now sink to the level of doing evil that good might 
 come. It was also asked where this principle of 
 accommodation would stop. Why not print an ex- 
 purgated New Testament for Unitarians, or a Bible 
 7 
 
98 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 with the Book of Enoch included for the Abyssinian 
 Church? Why not bind the Liturgy with the Bible 
 for the convenience of the English Church, and the 
 Westminster Confession for the Scottish people? 
 Finally, it seemed to the anti-Apocryphalists that in 
 granting the liberty referred to, the Society was play- 
 ing into the hands of continental rationalism. The 
 Society was charged with " putting a most fearful 
 fraud upon the world, and laying a deadly snare for 
 the souls of men." The Apocrypha was held up as 
 not only uninspired, but even inferior to many writings 
 that laid no claim to inspiration; it was "abundantly 
 interspersed with falsehoods, false doctrines, supersti- 
 tions, and contradictions of itself and of the Word of 
 God," yet advancing "a deceitful claim to reverence 
 and attention." The Society was denounced for 
 having "gone out of its direct and legitimate course 
 to give its sanction to a human composition replete 
 with error which wickedly assumes to be a revelation 
 from heaven." Whereas it undertook the circulation 
 of the pure Word of God, and received the money 
 of the public for this purpose and no other ; it was 
 charged with having used the funds entrusted to it 
 fraudulently, and even to be forcing the Apocrypha 
 on many who were willing to take the Bible without 
 it. In many quarters the resolution was accordingly 
 come to, to stop the supply of funds until the Society 
 should repent of its conduct, conduct that 
 
 " Made angels weep and devils triumph." 
 
 " What would we say," asked the indignant contro- 
 versialists, "of the conduct of a jury who would bring 
 
THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY 99 
 
 in a verdict of not guilty when it had been fully proved 
 that the panel at the bar had poisoned the bread he had 
 made and sold, by witholding a portion of good flour 
 from the leaven and supplying the place thereof with 
 a substance quite deleterious and hurtful ? Would the 
 judges discharge him simpliciter without a single 
 remark ? What would the law as it stands inflict on 
 the physician who, because his patients would not take 
 medicine unless poison was mixed up with it, should 
 hearken to their demands and comply with their 
 requests, when he was well aware it was contrary to 
 law, and that the consequences would be death ? " 
 
 The Apocryphalists met their objections with a re- 
 joinder framed in the spirit of Nathan the Wise. They 
 said, " Supposing there were found Mahomedans so 
 candid to our opinions as to accept our Scriptures and 
 unite with us in the establishing of a Bible Society at 
 Mecca or Damascus, agreeing to respect the integrity 
 of our Scriptures but without pledging themselves never 
 to circulate their own Koran, should we decline such 
 association, and advise them to fling the volume they 
 had been used to venerate from infancy into the flames 
 or the Euphrates if ever they hoped to benefit by the 
 perusal of the Word of God ? Would this be the way 
 to disarm opposition and conciliate confidence ? Would 
 they not more readily imbibe the impression of our 
 being fair men, whose strength lay in the goodness of 
 our cause, by our thus accosting them ; ' That is your 
 book and this is ours ; each professes a divine origin 
 and authority which both cannot possess : bestow on 
 each a faithful and strenuous examination, as the 
 welfare of your souls is involved in the result ; let 
 
100 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 nothing that concerns their internal merit or external 
 evidence pass unexplored ; and if after that the Koran 
 still retain in your eyes the majesty of truth and the 
 Bible confirm itself to your conviction as a cunningly 
 devised fable, we shall hold you acquitted in continuing 
 invincible Mussulmans.' ' 
 
 One of the few Scotsmen who were Apocryphalists 
 was M 'Gavin, editor of the Protestant, who went as far 
 as to say, " I wish all the world had the Bible even with 
 the Apocrypha beside it, nay even with Tom Paine beside 
 it. I would trust God's Word in presence of its greatest 
 enemy, and feel no anxiety about the consequence." 
 Those hostile to the mixed Scriptures were unable to 
 abide these views. Even at home, among people able 
 to discriminate between canonical and non-canonical 
 books, they would not trust a mixed copy of the Bible ; 
 much less among the ignorant Papistry who could not 
 make the necessary distinction, and who would only 
 too greedily take the falsehoods of men for the truth of 
 God, especially as the mixed Bible came from a Society 
 that professed to handle the pure Word of God. 
 
 The Edinburgh Committee by advocating these 
 views were accused of dictating in a high-handed 
 way to foreign Societies, but with genuine Caledonian 
 pride they told the Southroner that while the foreign 
 Societies were the recipients, they were the donors, 
 and it was not the part of the former to coerce the 
 conscience of the latter. "We neither," said they, 
 " force anything on them nor take anything from them. 
 We only withhold what we believe to involve error in 
 itself and sin in the communication, and offer what 
 we believe to be the volume of inspiration and the only 
 
THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY IOI 
 
 thing that we can safely or innocently impart." " What 
 about the Scottish paraphrases?" retorted the other 
 side. " Would any one call it sinful to bind them to- 
 gether with the Holy Scriptures ? And yet why not ? " 
 " Whoever heard such stark nonsense?" was the 
 reply. "The paraphrases have not the least appear- 
 ance of forming a part of the divine record, or have 
 ever been declared by any Church or Council to possess 
 that character." 
 
 The Edinburgh party carried their demands. " Who 
 is to watch over the purity of the Sacred Word," asks 
 one of their notable men, " if it is not a Society profes- 
 sedly formed for the purpose of giving more extensive 
 circulation to the Holy Scriptures -without note or com- 
 ment? Have not they been constituted in some sense 
 the public guardians of the Word of God : and in point 
 of fact have they not been daily in the habit of claim- 
 ing the support of the Christian world for their success- 
 ful efforts in diffusing * the pure truth without any 
 intermixture of error ' ? And have we not been told 
 times without number that to the rigid maintenance 
 of this grand principle is to be mainly ascribed the 
 high measure of prosperity which the Institution has 
 attained ? If the Bible Society is to be held as under 
 no obligation to adhere to a pure Canon and to act 
 rigidly on its own avowed resolutions, and if it is to 
 give its countenance and aid to anything or to every- 
 thing which its agents may palm upon it under the 
 guise of sacredness ; and if all inquiry on such matters 
 is precluded by the very comprehensiveness and 
 liberality of its constitution, then I say that the 
 Bible Society runs the imminent hazard of becoming 
 
102 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 one of the greatest curses that ever visited our 
 globe." 1 
 
 The battle raged fiercely for a considerable time. 
 Among the finer spirits in the fray was that honourable 
 Scotsman, Robert Haldane, who is said to have com- 
 posed fifteen pamphlets, so great was his anxiety to 
 suppress "that dreadful abomination the Apocrypha." 
 An equally fair and honourable man on the other side 
 was Dr. Wardlaw, who wrote some pithy doggerel 
 which he entitled " Hints on Controversy," hitting off 
 the controversial manners of the time : 
 
 " Be sure that the object for which you contend 
 Is worth all the time and the labour you spend ; 
 Since gifts are for profit and life's but a span, 
 To waste them becomes not accountable man. 
 
 shun the dogmatical airs of conceit ! 
 Forget not how little the wisest can know, 
 In the twilight of heavenly science below : 
 The high ipse-dixit, infallible tone 
 
 Is the right of the Pope and his Council alone. 
 
 When you quote an opponent, be candid and fair, 
 'Tis needful the more that the virtue's so rare ; 
 Disjoint not his periods to answer your end, 
 Nor a word nor a syllable alter or bend. 
 
 1 always suspect latet anguis in kerba, 
 
 When a man does not quote my ipsissima -verba" 
 
 The protagonist of this controversy was undoubtedly 
 Dr. Andrew Thomson, "a gladiator of the intellect," 
 as Edward Irving called him. He had a giant's 
 strength, but used it like a giant, as the pages of the 
 
 1 Dr. Burns (see Edinburgh Christian Instructor for 1827, 
 p. 220). 
 
THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY 103 
 
 Edinburgh Christian Instructor show ; but he was, taking 
 him all in all, among the greatest of his countrymen. 
 
 The picturesque figure in the drama was, of course, 
 Edward Irving, who is found on the anti-Apocryphal 
 side. A contemporary chronicle supplies a graphic 
 picture of Irving at one of the noisy meetings then so 
 common. "The Rev. Edward Irving stood forward, 
 but was assailed from the platform and side seats with 
 yells and hissing of the most outrageous description. 
 Mr. Irving, however, stood his ground manfully, and 
 with a look of mingled scorn and indignation raised 
 his voice above the clamour, and, addressing the side 
 seats, exclaimed, < What, do you know the spirit in 
 which I mean to speak that you thus dare to put me 
 down ? ' The cry became very general now to hear 
 him from the body of the meeting, but such was the 
 hooting and noise from the platform and side seats that 
 it was doubtful whether it would not have been necessary 
 to adjourn the meeting or call in peace officers. At 
 length Lord Mandeville came forward and demanded 
 a hearing for Mr. Irving, and several of his other friends 
 also came forward to support him. Silence having been 
 partially restored, Mr. Irving said that he had left his 
 sickbed for the purpose of performing what he con- 
 ceived to be a sacred duty not only to the Church, but 
 to the great Head of the Church. That duty he would 
 perform fearlessly but in the spirit of meekness. (Here 
 great clamour and hooting was again excited by certain 
 individuals in the left side seats about the centre of 
 the room.) 'Ay!' continued Mr. Irving 'this duty 
 I will perform although I should be hooted and hissed 
 from this room ; yes, and if you will even thrust me by 
 
104 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 violence out of this room.' (Here the reverend 
 gentleman was loudly cheered, and repeatedly during 
 his speech the yells of those who had come to put 
 down all opposition to the Committee were drowned by 
 the cries of Hear him, Hear him.} l He attended that 
 meeting as a peacemaker, and not with the view of 
 interrupting the business of the day. He had been 
 entrusted with several remonstrances from various 
 Societies in his native land against the proceeding of 
 the officers of the Society ; but these he had laid before 
 the Committee rather than by means of them attempt 
 to do anything hostile to the Society at this meeting. 
 The first recommendation was that the Committee 
 should record their regret for having unwittingly and 
 unwarily, or any other way they choose to word it, 
 aided in the pernicious practice of circulating the fables 
 of man, that is to say, the Apocrypha, intermingled with 
 and as an integral part of the Word of God. What 
 Protestant,' said the reverend gentleman, 'be he 
 member of the Church of England or Scotland, can 
 refuse to express his regret for this ; and without 
 this expression of regret, how can you expect the 
 public to believe you are sincere in your abandonment 
 of the Apocrypha ? The second recommendation is to 
 decline aiding foreign Societies or individuals who 
 adhered to the Apocrypha, or at least to prefer aiding 
 Societies which did not so act. And the third, to take 
 care in any future elections of Committee or officers of 
 the Society not to admit any persons but those who 
 were cordially opposed to the circulation of the 
 Apocrypha, and who would carry into effect the anti- 
 Apocrypha resolutions in the spirit as well as in the 
 
THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY IO5 
 
 letter ; for he must say that after a careful observation 
 of the proceedings of the Committee for a whole year, 
 he saw enough to convince him that there was such 
 a thing as observing their resolutions in their letter 
 without adhering to their spirit : and what indignity 
 could there be in adopting such resolutions, resolutions 
 which he was authorised to say would restore almost 
 complete harmony to the Society, and would in particular 
 recall Scotland to its attachment : and for his beloved 
 native land he would say this much, that her zeal in 
 opposing the Apocrypha was not to be wondered at, 
 when it was remembered that the Church of Scotland 
 never had in any way admitted the Apocrypha either as 
 the Word of God or as an adjunct to it : and her 
 firmness need not be wondered at, when it was also 
 remembered that rather than surrender her doctrines 
 and forms of worship, Scotland had endured, and 
 successfully endured, a whole century of swords and 
 bayonets.' (Here the reverend gentleman was again 
 interrupted by the same yells and hisses as before.) 
 He said, ' I see it is vain to speak, for you are 
 determined that I shall not be heard. However, I have 
 performed my duty to my Lord Jesus Christ : let those 
 answer to Him who have this day withstood me. And 
 I will say this also, I have stood alone, alone, too, not 
 among my enemies, but my brethren ; and although my 
 honourable friend Mr. Noel has said that it is not 
 glorious so to do, I would remind him that Apostles 
 and Martyrs and Confessors have often stood alone 
 among their brethren. I would ask him if Jesus Christ 
 Himself did not stand alone when forsaken by His 
 disciples ; and if the Apostle Paul did not stand alone 
 
106 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 when at Antioch he withstood both Peter and James 
 and Barnabas ? ' The close of Mr. Irving's speech was 
 delivered with great emphasis, and was on the whole 
 loudly cheered." 1 
 
 This controversy was characterised by nothing 1 so 
 much as its bitterness. How much both parties had 
 to learn of the spirit of toleration may be seen by the 
 language they were in the habit of employing. Speak- 
 ing of a writer in the Eclectic Review, the Edinburgh 
 Christian Instructor said, " Before this advocate for 
 corrupting the Word of God can be restored to the 
 credit which he has lost in the esteem of every sound 
 believer, it will be necessary for him to perform a 
 lustration. But enough at present of this half-bred 
 theologian and most miserable guide of public opinion." : 
 Speaking of another Eclectic Reviewer, the Edinburgh 
 Christian Instructor also said, "It is more destitute of 
 argument than its predecessors : but it overflows with 
 the grossest scurrility that ever polluted a literary 
 journal. The author is in a rage throughout, and his 
 rage is so lawless that he tramples on all the decencies 
 of civil as well as Christian life. It is a sort of lycan- 
 thropy, which Johnson defines to be a kind of madness 
 in which men have the qualities of wild beasts ; and 
 yet there is some method in his madness, such at least 
 as to make him justly responsible for all that he has 
 said, notwithstanding the insanity of its general 
 character. . . . He is like the culprits who roll them- 
 selves in the dirty kennel that their pursuers from 
 sheer disgust may not lay hands upon them and get 
 
 1 See Edinburgh Christian Instructor for 1827, p. 411. 
 
 2 Ibid, for 1826, p. 313. 
 
THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY 1 07 
 
 them put into durance vile." 1 Of another opponent, 
 the same journal says, "He is driven from the field 
 of argument and has had recourse to angry railing, 
 to the vilest personalities and the most disgusting 
 scurrilities. He asserts that our review is garnished 
 with lies, that certain allegations in it are infamous 
 lies. Where he was born, and bred, and brought 
 up, and taught to speak we know not and care not ; 
 but of this one thing we are certain, that the process 
 of early discipline through which he may have passed, 
 and the respectable society into which, from his pro- 
 fession, he must have been admitted, have not yet 
 polished him into a man of good taste and well-bred 
 sentiment or expression in letter-writing. To such 
 gross language his own words, the world being judges, 
 are completely in point. It is such as none but a 
 clergyman or a woman could hope to use with 
 impunity. I think even a clergyman might be benefited 
 by observing the conduct of the men of the world, 
 and that he should scrupulously abstain from any word 
 or insinuation for which they would demand redress by 
 the pistol or the sword." 2 
 
 Dr. Wardlaw protested against the controversial style 
 in vogue. "Why are we," he said, "at every step to 
 be taxed with 'slyness,' and 'naughty quibbling,' and 
 'unfairness,' and 'perversion of truth,' and 'mournful 
 disingenuousness ? ' Is this Christian? Is it gentle- 
 manly? Away with it, sir! It is in every respect 
 unworthy of you ; unworthy of your high talent and 
 vigorous intellect as a writer, unworthy of your dignity 
 
 1 Edinburgh Christian Instructor for 1826, p. 662. 
 
 2 Hid. p. 668. 
 
108 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 as a gentleman, unworthy of your principles as a 
 Christian. You have too long treated your opponents, 
 in this question, as if it were either impossible to be 
 an honest man or a man of common sense, without 
 going all lengths with you in your hostility to the 
 Earl Street Committee." Forgetting his own advice, 
 Dr. Wardlaw concluded, " No more of your rotten 
 eggs, then, Mr. Editor, till you are sure they are 
 deserved." 1 
 
 Although the bitterness that degraded this contro- 
 versy was, as we see, most humiliating, the explana- 
 tion of it was obvious enough. The anti-Apocry- 
 phalists were all keen Protestants who remembered 
 how the Council of Trent had exalted the Apocrypha 
 to an equality with the inspired Canon. " Learn 
 here, every good Christian," Latimer had said, " to 
 abhor this most detestable and dangerous poison of 
 the Papists ; learn here, I say, to leave all Papistry, 
 and to stick only to the Word of God." "What," 
 asked Dr. Burns, "was it that led the Council of 
 Trent to approve of Tobit and Co. ? Mosheim says 
 because of the detriment done to Popery by the 
 Reformers' teaching from the Bible. They decreed to 
 prohibit the indiscriminate reading of the Bible, and 
 that the Vulgate with its Apocryphal intermixtures 
 was the only authentic copy of the Word of God." 2 
 
 In addition to this anti-Papal prejudice against the 
 Apocrypha, it was disliked on its own account. The 
 opponents of the Apocrypha had little historical 
 faculty, such as enables men at the present day to 
 
 1 Edinburgh Christian Instructor for 1826, p. 784. 
 
 2 Ibid, for 1827, p. 298. 
 
THE APOCRYPHA CONTROVERSY 109 
 
 value ancient writings irrespective of their agreement 
 with the contents. Accordingly they denounced it 
 because of its contradictions and absurdities, its 
 magic and superstitions, its doctrine of the trans- 
 migration of souls, prayers for the dead, etc. etc. 
 Because of these blemishes they saw in it nothing but 
 what was wrong and pernicious. Had they regarded 
 the matter from our standpoint, they would have 
 tolerated the circulation of the Apocrypha, and per- 
 ceived some important ends to be served by it. The 
 First Book of Maccabees, for instance, helps to fill the 
 gap between the last of the Old Testament prophets 
 and the Advent of our Lord ; surely, therefore, it 
 becomes an important addition to the Scriptures? 
 Then the books called Apocryphal are full of instruction 
 regarding the preparation for the gospel in the cen- 
 turies immediately prior to the Advent. The rise of the 
 several ecclesiastical parties that are seen in our Lord's 
 time struggling for the mastery, the phenomena of 
 Essenism, Phariseeism, and Sadduceeism, the growing 
 importance of the high priestly office in a worldly sense, 
 the development of the doctrines of angels and of a future 
 life, these and other spiritual and social forces that 
 are seen at work in the days of Christ and the Apostles 
 can be studied in the Apocrypha by the student of the 
 Gospels as nowhere else. Valuable apologetic service, 
 too, might have been rendered by having the canonical 
 and the non-canonical elements placed side by side. 
 The difference of tone in the two sets of writings, the 
 artificiality of the one compared with the heavenly 
 simplicity of the other, would have given the inspired 
 writings an air of authority and conduced to their 
 
1 10 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 acceptance as the Word of God. A story of the 
 statesman Pitt well illustrates how the difference 
 between the two appealed to the ordinary reader of 
 Scripture. Pitt was in the habit of studying the 
 Bible, and knew it well. It happened, then, that a 
 bishop was reading 1 to him in manuscript an exposition 
 of the Creed in the course of which there were several 
 quotations from Scripture. Then came a quotation 
 which the great statesman interrupted. "I do not 
 recollect that passage in the Bible," he said, "it does 
 not sound like Scripture." It was a quotation from the 
 Apocrypha. 
 
 Apocryphal prejudice lasted a whole generation after 
 the controversy was dead. When Queen Victoria 
 placed an inscription on the monument of Prince 
 Albert at Balmoral, she derived it from an Apocry- 
 phal Book " He being made perfect in a short time 
 fulfilled a long time : for his soul pleased the Lord : 
 therefore hasted He to take him away from among the 
 wicked. " The innocent act drew a censure from Dr. 
 Andrew Thomson's successor. He declared it to be 
 "the deed of the Broad Church clergy whom Her 
 Majesty brought about her." 1 
 
 1 Memorials of Macleod Campbell, ii. 50. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 EDWARD IRVING 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant's Life, i., ii. Lond. 1862. 
 
 The Collected Writings of Edward Irving. Lond. 1864. 
 
 The Orthodox and Catholic Doctrine of our Lord's Human 
 Nature. By Edward Irving. Lond. 1830. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle's Reminiscences. Lond. 1881. 
 
 Life of Story of Rosneath by his Son (Principal Story). Camb. 
 1862. 
 
 Hanna's Life of Chalmers. Edin. 1849-52. 
 
 The Edinburgh Christian Instructor, 1830-1831-1832. 
 
 The Expositor, October 1887. 
 
 The National Review, vol. xv. Lond. 1862. 
 
 Regent Square. By John Hair. Lond. 1898. 
 
 Cunningham's Church History, ii. Lond. 1859. 
 
 EDWARD IRVING is one of that illustrious 
 company who in the early part of the nine- 
 teenth century awoke their countrymen from religious 
 slumber and indifference. His co-workers included 
 Thomas Chalmers, John Macleod Campbell, Erskine 
 of Linlathen, Thomas Carlyle, and pre-eminently the 
 pioneers of the Tractarian Movement. These men, 
 following 1 such diversive paths, were all baptized into 
 the same spirit, and had all one common end in view. 
 Whether they thought to attain it, like the Tractarians, 
 by a revival of patristic ideals ; or, as Campbell of Row 
 
 and the Seer of Linlathen did, by a return to more 
 
 in 
 
112 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 inward spiritual views of Christianity ; or, like Chalmers 
 and his Non-Intrusion party, by the setting up of a 
 Church for the people and by them, all appeared bent 
 on the same noble object, the rescue of their fellow- 
 men from religious formality and carelessness. 
 
 In this harvest field Edward Irving took his place. 
 As a youth he had cherished the ambition of creating 
 a higher type of Christianity than any commonly 
 met with, and in order to its accomplishment looked 
 not to the ordinary methods of evangelism then in 
 vogue, but to the inauguration of a new dispensation 
 direct from heaven. The youth was father of the man. 
 After he went to London, but before he became a 
 pulpit celebrity, he conceived the wish specially to 
 address himself to the cultured scientific class, largely 
 found in the metropolis, who influence others mightily 
 but are not themselves easily laid hold of by the 
 Church. Speaking of the work of his brother clergy- 
 men, we find him saying, "They prepare for teaching 
 gipsies, for teaching bargemen, for teaching miners, 
 by apprehending their way of conceiving and estimating 
 truth ; and why not prepare for teaching imaginative 
 men and political men and scientific men who bear 
 the world in hand ? " l 
 
 How he devoted his genius to this unique task, 
 and with what brilliant though brief success, forms 
 a romantic story. Nor was he ambitious to influ- 
 ence the class in question only from the pulpit. He 
 entered their circles of social intercourse, made himself 
 acquainted with the leading celebrities of the day, and 
 even attained to terms of warm intimacy with the best 
 1 Oliphant's Life, i. 167. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 113 
 
 of them. Coleridge, Carlyle, and Sir David Wilkie met 
 the young pulpit orator in their rooms ; and on them 
 he made considerable impression. He did the same 
 on those whom he knew less intimately. Sir Walter 
 Scott once dined with him, and confessed he could not 
 keep his eyes off the preacher all the time. Charles 
 Lamb claimed acquaintance with him, and told his 
 friend Leigh Hunt, that although "a Boanerges in 
 the temple," in a room he is "a most amiable, sincere, 
 and modest man." All the while he bore himself in 
 the presence of the best with the dignity and in- 
 dependence of one who acknowledged Christ and 
 called no man master. Speaking of Irving's friend- 
 ship with these gifted men, one who knew him well 
 said, " No act was done but in prayer ; every blessing 
 was received with thanksgiving to God ; every friend 
 was dismissed with a parting benediction." When he 
 went to Lord Melbourne with an address on the needs 
 of the country, as he and his companions were waiting 
 for the interview in an anteroom, he had them all on 
 their knees while he besought the Divine blessing on 
 their undertaking. On retiring from the presence of 
 the great Minister, Irving, holding him by the hand 
 and with an air of apostolic authority, invoked the 
 guidance of the Almighty on his administration. 
 
 But we must not think of him as an evangelist only 
 to men of rank and genius. An address is extant to 
 Scottish Journeymen Bakers resident in London and the 
 neighbourhood, in which a brotherly hand is held out, 
 and a proposal made to set apart Saturday evening 
 once a fortnight for meeting and conversing with them. 
 " Take this," it says, " in good part, my dear country- 
 8 
 
1 14 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 men, and believe that it proceeds from a real interest 
 in your welfare, especially in the welfare of your souls." 
 Unquestionably, however, his special call was to 
 the noble ; and although he was profoundly disap- 
 pointed with the impermanency of the results, he 
 reaped as great a measure of success as would have 
 turned the head of a vainer man. He was, indeed, 
 charged with vanity ; but surely it was not like vanity 
 to refuse the degree of D.D. from his alma mater on 
 the ground that he had not sat an examination for it, 
 or decline to print a sermon because both style and 
 matter were, in his own opinion, deficient, notwith- 
 standing the fact that it had been delivered before 
 Royalty, and many requests had come to him to do 
 so. Of course, like every other genius, he was fully 
 conscious of the powers he possessed. A delightful 
 evidence of this occurred at Rosneath on a visit 
 to his friend Story. They were having a walk, 
 and had reached a high barred gate. Irving had an 
 athletic frame, and leaped over it at a bound. " Dear 
 me, Irving," said his companion, " I did not think you 
 had been so agile " ; to which Irving immediately 
 replied, "Once I read you an essay of mine, and you 
 said, ' Dear me, Irving, I did not think you had been 
 so classical.' Another time you heard me preach, 
 ' Dear me, Irving, I did not know you had so much 
 imagination.' Now you shall see what great things 
 I will do yet." 
 
 We cannot read his life without seeing that he had 
 also a nature rich in sympathy and humanity. Whether 
 he entered a Bridgeton artisan's kitchen with his usual 
 salutation, "Peace be to this house," or sat by the 
 
EDWARD IRVING 115 
 
 bedside of a dying weaver, endeavouring to assure him 
 of the love of God ; whether he mixed in the society of 
 London savants, or travelled the country scores of miles 
 carrying a message from house to house, he always 
 strove to bear testimony to the truth, always aimed at 
 a higher type of Christian life, and withal carried with 
 him not the bearing of the priest only and the apostle, 
 but that of the brother and the man. 
 
 Eloquent he must have been as, accompanied by fit 
 gesture and sway, the rich Miltonic sentences poured 
 themselves forth, holding an eager multitude entranced. 
 But he was no mere orator. His power of attraction 
 was always subservient to his desire to save. The 
 evangelist was never lost in the rhetorician. The 
 claims of eternity were ever kept in the forefront. 
 Even in his private correspondence he wrote as 
 M'Cheyne preached. Take one of the letters to his 
 wife: "Oh, Isabella, put nothing off ; my dearest, put 
 nothing off; have nothing to do, have all besought, 
 have all believed, have all done, and live quietly 
 unto eternity ! Say so to your dear father and 
 mother and all the family. We know not what a day 
 may bring forth. If you be languid, then cry for help ; 
 if you be under bondage, then cry for deliverance ; and 
 abide believing, abide believing ; opening your heart 
 to the admonitions of the Holy One your ear to the 
 admonitions of every faithful one. Turn aside from 
 lies, from flattery, from vanity and folly. Be earnest, 
 be grave always ready. There will be no folly nor 
 laughter nor bedimming of truth with false appearances 
 nor masquerading in eternity." 
 
 Attention is here drawn to Irving's lofty seriousness 
 
Il6 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 before his views are examined, because he has been 
 spoken of as a vainglorious pulpiteer carried away with 
 a craze for popularity, and at length driven mad thereby. 
 By this manner of representing him an injustice has 
 been done to his memory, and prejudice excited against 
 his peculiar views. His pulpit oratory attracted edu- 
 cated London as sermons have seldom done before his 
 time or since. It was Canning who lifted his genius 
 into fame. He had been urged by Sir James Mackintosh 
 to hear him, and he came away profoundly impressed. 
 Thereafter the question of Church revenues came up 
 for discussion in Parliament, and something was said 
 about good remuneration being necessary to command 
 high gifts. When Canning spoke, he told the House 
 that on a recent occasion he had worshipped in a 
 chapel owning no wealthy endowments, but he had 
 listened to eloquence surpassing anything he had ever 
 heard. Irving's name was immediately made, and his 
 popularity mounted to the giddiest heights. People 
 had to fight their way into his chapel, and accidents 
 often occurred by reason of the crowds that besieged 
 the doors. 
 
 Yet his preaching sometimes consisting of thirteen 
 sermons within eight days was usually continued far 
 beyond the limits so liberally allowed at the time. Even 
 Dr. Chalmers complained about this in his diary. "I 
 undertook to open Irving's new church in London. The 
 congregation in their eagerness to obtain seats had 
 already been assembled three hours. Irving said he 
 would assist me by reading a chapter for me. He chose 
 the longest in the Bible, and went on for an hour and a 
 half. On another occasion he offered me the same aid, 
 
EDWARD IRVING 1 1? 
 
 adding, 'I can be short.' I said, 'How long will it 
 take you?' ' Only an hour and forty minutes." 1 He 
 had an orator's knack of utilising opportunities. Once 
 when describing the coming of the Son of Man, the 
 church of a sudden darkened, the rumble of thunder 
 was heard, a flash of lightning lit up the edifice, and a 
 crashing peal followed, filling the people with conster- 
 nation. Irving paused for a moment in his discourse, 
 and in solemn tones pronounced the words, " For as 
 the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth 
 even unto the west, so shall the coming of the Son 
 of Man be." The effect upon the congregation was 
 powerful. 
 
 His greatest preaching triumph was in Edinburgh 
 during the sittings of the Assembly. On that occasion 
 an audience filled to overflowing the largest church in 
 the city every morning at six o'clock. The early hour 
 was chosen for two reasons, to exclude mere idlers and 
 to suit the convenience of the ecclesiastics. At Annan, 
 his native town, ten thousand souls assembled to hear 
 their celebrated son, and listened from noon till after 
 five, with only an hour's interval. At Kirkcaldy, where 
 Carlyle and he had been schoolmasters together, the 
 preacher's unparalleled fame brought about a dis- 
 tressing tragedy. One of the galleries was so over- 
 crowded that it fell, and in the resulting panic thirty-five 
 persons lost their lives. The catastrophe filled him 
 with an overwhelming grief, and some people added to 
 it by cruelly imputing the blame to Irving. The crowd 
 of fashion that attended his London sermons at length 
 began to melt away. They did not follow him from the 
 old Caledonian Chapel to the new church at Regent's 
 
Il8 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Square. Irving was acutely disappointed. What he 
 lamented was not his waning popularity, but the failure 
 of his message to take permanent root. And this turn 
 of the fashionable tide exercised a baneful influence on 
 Irving's methods and views. It led him along new 
 lines that ultimately raised him into the perilous heights 
 of notoriety. 
 
 That new life which, as we saw at the beginning of 
 this chapter many good men were seeking, Irving 
 connected with the dawn of a new dispensation. In 
 his opinion the ordinary means of grace were broken 
 cisterns that held no water. Pentecostal days would 
 only return by a reversion to Pentecostal methods and 
 agencies. "You are content," he had said, speaking 
 to certain brethren when he and they were crossing the 
 Gareloch, "to go back and forward on the same route, 
 like this boat ; but as for me, I hope yet to go deep into 
 the ocean of truth." At another time he claimed for 
 the Church of his own day a participation in spiritual 
 gifts as extraordinary as in any earlier time. "Think 
 ye that Abraham took test of God by His dealings with 
 Noah? or Moses by Abraham? or the Apostles at 
 Pentecost by the Schools of the Prophets in Bethel or 
 in Gilgal? If we have the Word of the Lord, we have 
 the Word of the Lord and nothing else, and not thou 
 or I, nay not Paul nor Peter nor Moses, but He of 
 whose fulness they all received." 1 
 
 While these revolutionary thoughts were occupying 
 the attention of this profoundly spiritual soul, a move- 
 ment was setting in on the banks of the Clyde, which, 
 though small at first, was destined to become a world's 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 333. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 119 
 
 wonder. Isabella Campbell after a singularly holy life 
 had passed away, leaving" behind her her sister Mary. 
 The family to which the sisters belonged resided on the 
 Gareloch, and had enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Story, 
 their minister. They had another spiritual guide in 
 A. J. Scott, then a licentiate of the Church of Scotland, 
 and afterwards closely identified with Irving and his 
 circle. Mary Campbell was looking forward to the 
 position of a missionary's wife, when the sickness that 
 closed the life of the saintly Isabella settled down on her. 
 She became the centre of a remarkable little company 
 of devout souls, who, without as yet knowing Irving, 
 had come to share similar expectations to his about the 
 return of apostolic gifts to the Church. The friends 
 visiting her on a Sunday evening found to their amaze- 
 ment that the gift of tongues had come upon her. The 
 gift of healing had likewise descended on certain of the 
 little company. James Macdonald, the Port Glasgow 
 shipbuilder, had, it was said, bidden his consumptive 
 sister arise and stand upright, with the result that the 
 woman obeyed the call and found herself cured. Mary 
 Campbell, too, arose in like manner from her sickbed 
 miraculously cured, and travelled from hamlet to hamlet 
 addressing astonished gatherings. In her case it was 
 believed the gift of tongues came opportunely with the 
 recovery of her health in order to fit her as the mission- 
 ary's wife to teach the heathen in their own language. 
 
 Many persons came from London to witness the 
 wonderful manifestations, among them some of Irving's 
 friends. The next thing we hear is the appearance 
 of similar gifts at meetings in Regent's Square, 
 greatly to the disturbance of staid old - fashioned 
 
120 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 people there. Such people said little at first about the 
 extravagances, partly because they were limited to 
 meetings at non-canonical hours, partly out of respect 
 for Irving. He, however, soon felt that he could not 
 confine the gifts of the Spirit to small private gatherings. 
 So long had he prayed for a day of Pentecost, that now 
 it was come he felt he dare not hamper the movement, 
 lest he should be found fighting against God. At his 
 trial by the Church Courts he told how he had been led 
 to admit it within the Church. " I had sat at the head 
 of the church praying that these gifts might be poured 
 out on the Church, believing in the Lord's faithfulness ; 
 and that I was praying the prayer of faith, and that He 
 had poured out the gifts in the Church in answer to 
 our prayers. Was I to disbelieve what in faith I had 
 been praying for and which we had all been praying 
 for ? When it came I had every opportunity of proving 
 it. I had put it to the proof according to the Word of 
 God, and I found it, so far as I was able to discern, 
 that it is the thing written in the Scriptures, and into 
 the faith of which we had been baptized. Having 
 found this, I was in a great strait between two opinions, 
 and much burdened, God knoweth ; for certain days, 
 nay even weeks, my burden I could disclose to no one. 
 A great burden it was, for I felt it was my duty to act ; 
 and I feared if I were to go seeking counsel of others, 
 and any were to say, * Do not introduce it into the 
 church,' then I should be putting myself into a strait 
 between my obedience to the Lord and my inclination 
 to follow the counsel of wise men. In this state I 
 remained some time, and I need not tell the leadings of 
 Providence which led me at length to determine ; but 
 
EDWARD IRVING 121 
 
 it was very much the testimony of my own heart. In 
 the morning meeting" the Spirit burst out in the mouth 
 of that witness whom you examined yesterday ; and 
 several times in one day the voice of the Spirit was 
 that it was quenched and restrained in the church. I 
 felt this very burthensome to me, and this conviction 
 came at once to my heart : It belongs to you to open 
 the door ; you have the power of the keys ; it is you 
 that are restraining and hindering it. I reflected on it 
 all that day, and next morning I came to the church. 
 After prayers I rose up and said in the midst of them 
 all, * I cannot any longer be a party to hinder that 
 which I consider to be the voice of the Holy Ghost 
 from being held in the Church.'" 1 
 
 From that time disorder reigned in Irving's church, 
 and scenes of wild excitement were witnessed week by 
 week that were a grief and humiliation to all who loved 
 sane and sober religion. The screams and gesticula- 
 tions of frenzied men and women, the loud outbursts of 
 the speakers with tongues, their unintelligible babel 
 of sounds, the spectacle of women running up and 
 down the aisles waving their hands and beating their 
 breasts, filled Irving's best friends with sorrow and 
 even shame. His confidence in the new movement, 
 however, never wavered. He declared to the trustees 
 of the church his firm persuasion that the work going 
 on within their sanctuary, which they were taking 
 steps to prevent, was God's work, to blaspheme which 
 was to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, to act against 
 which was to act against the Holy Ghost. At the same 
 time he upbraided them for their hostility, their love of 
 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 432. 
 
122 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 ease in Zion, their fear of public odium, their aversion 
 to whatever was new. The trustees, while they winced 
 underneath these scoldings, remained firm in their re- 
 solve to limit the use of the church for the disorderly 
 gatherings to non-canonical hours. Irving, believing the 
 voices to be of God, could not silence them even in the 
 public assembly. " It hath pleased Him," he said, " to 
 give to some of us, in my church, this baptism, with its 
 sign of speaking in unknown tongues and with its sub- 
 stance of prophesying ; and I as His dutiful minister, 
 standing in this room responsible (as ye all are) to Him, 
 have not dared to believe that when we prayed to God 
 for bread He would give us a stone ; that when we 
 asked for a fish He would send us a serpent ; but believ- 
 ing that He is faithful who has promised, and trying 
 the thing given by test of the Holy Scriptures and the 
 testimony of God in my own conscience and in that of 
 His people, and having thus been satisfied of the truth 
 of the manifestations, I have not dared to put it to 
 silence, as being the thing witnessed in the Holy 
 Scriptures ; and have ordered it, as I can show, in 
 nothing contrary to the standards of the Church." 1 
 
 Irving proved immovable. Once launched on his 
 fanatical career, nothing was able to restore him to 
 reason. There is ground for thinking that he duly 
 counted the costs. "If I perish," he wrote to his 
 brother and sister, " I perish." Friends and foes alike 
 warned him of the ruin that lay before himself and his 
 misguided followers, but in vain. The London Times 
 in somewhat offensive language said: "The great 
 body of Mr. Irving's adherents would probably have 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 422. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 123 
 
 remained by him if in his headlong- course of enthusiasm 
 he could have found a resting-place. They might 
 pardon his nonsense about the time and circumstances 
 of the millennium. They might smile at unintelligible 
 disquisitions about ' heads ' and ' horns ' and ' trumpets ' 
 and * candlesticks ' and * white and black horses ' in 
 Revelations. These things might offend the judgment 
 but did not affect the nerves. But have we the same 
 excuse for the recent exhibitions with which the metro- 
 polis has been scandalised? Are we to listen to the 
 screaming of hysterical women and the ravings of 
 frantic men? Is bawling to be added to absurdity, 
 and the disturber of a congregation to escape the 
 police and treadmill, because the person who occupies 
 the pulpit vouches for his inspiration ? " 
 
 In Carlyle's Reminiscences, a large part of one volume 
 is occupied with Irving's tragic career, and nothing is 
 spoken by the cynical Chelsea seer but what is tender 
 and kindly. Carlyle tells how his wife and he, calling on 
 Irving', heard from an adjoining room, where a meeting 
 was being held, the peculiar babel of tongues. They 
 came away from the house grieved and indignant. 
 Subsequently Carlyle tried to reason with him, but it 
 had no effect. 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant describes Robert Baxter, his chief 
 follower, arriving in hot haste from Yorkshire, with the 
 announcement of the abandonment of the movement and 
 his recantation of his claims to inspiration. She gives 
 Baxter's own words ; "I reached him on the morning 
 of his appearance before the Presbytery of London. 
 Calling him and Mr. J. Cardale apart, I told them my 
 conviction that we had all been speaking by a lying 
 
124 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 spirit and not by the Spirit of God." 1 When this act 
 of apostasy was rushed upon poor Irving, there was a 
 young man present who was the missionary in Regent's 
 Square, David Brown by name, afterwards the vener- 
 able Principal of Aberdeen Free Church College. He 
 has supplemented Mrs. Oliphant's narrative by telling 
 us how Irving stood the shock. It would appear that, 
 returning to the room after hearing Baxter's message, 
 he said, " Let us pray," whereupon all present kneeled. 
 Then Irving raised his voice in prayer: " Have mercy, 
 Lord, on thy dear servant who has come up to tell us 
 that he has been deceived, that his word has never 
 been from above but from beneath, and that it is a lie. 
 Have mercy on him, Lord : the enemy has prevailed 
 against him, and hither he has come in this time of 
 trouble and rebuke and blasphemy to break the power 
 of the testimony we have to bear this day to this work 
 of Thine. But let Thy work and power appear unto 
 Thy poor servant." ; Irving's fortitude and faith, as we 
 see from Dr. Brown's touching reminiscence, were 
 proof against the worst disaster. His attitude to the 
 manifestations was different from that of A. J. Scott, 
 afterwards Principal Scott of Owens' College, Man- 
 chester, whose tract on the Charismata had been the 
 means of first directing Irving's thoughts to the subject. 
 " Irving," says one who was present, " threw himself 
 forward on his elbows and buried his face in his hands 
 as if overcome with reverence ; but Scott, who had 
 offered prayer earlier in the meeting, sat erect with 
 compressed lips and knit brows, as if keeping his 
 intellect poised for the formation of a right judgment. 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 263. 2 The Expositor for October 1887. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 125 
 
 The two men were revealed in their attitudes. The 
 one fell before the fascination ; the other stood firmly 
 beyond its range." 1 
 
 After hearing 1 this report of an eye-witness, it is 
 difficult to realise that Irving acknowledged himself 
 more beholden to Coleridge for his knowledge of Divine 
 truth than to any other. Addressing Coleridge in a 
 dedicatory epistle, he had said, "You have been more 
 profitable to my faith in orthodox doctrine, to my 
 spiritual understanding of the Word of God, and to 
 my right conception of the Christian Church, than any 
 or all the men with whom I have entertained friendship 
 and conversation." : Would that this impressionable 
 genius had come more under such sane influences as 
 this which he with characteristic gratefulness acknow- 
 ledges, and that the whole sad tribe of prophetic 
 pedants and hysterical pietists had gone their own way 
 leaving him to go his ! The Albury sages, as they were 
 called, were no doubt a conclave of good and sincere 
 men, but they made miserable shipwreck of Irving's 
 genius and usefulness. 
 
 One man might have restored Irving to mental sta- 
 bility, namely, Story of Rosneath, his steadfast friend 
 to the end ; but it is just possible he would have refused 
 to listen to what was in Story's power to divulge. Irving 
 came to Glasgow in 1834, and, meeting Story, pleaded 
 with his old friend to consider what was coming on the 
 earth and enter an ark of safety. " I seldom bow my 
 knee in prayer," he had once told a friend, " but I pray 
 to God that Story may be brought to see the truth 
 
 1 " A Garden of Graves " (Sunday at Home, 1881). 
 " Oliphant's Life, i. 205. 
 
126 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 as I see it." The latter after his arrival at Glasgow 
 addressed a copy of Mary Campbell's confession to 
 him which he had received some time before, which ran 
 in these words ; "I had before receiving 1 your letter 
 come to the resolution to write to you and to confess 
 my sin and error for calling my own impressions the 
 voice of God. Oh ! it is no light thing to use that holy 
 name irreverently, as I have been made to feel." Ac- 
 companying the confession, Story sent a note from 
 himself exposing Mary Campbell's want of simplicity, 
 and how disappointing a career hers had turned out, 
 especially as she was considered "the most remarkable 
 and conclusive evidence of the Holy Ghost bemg again 
 with power in the midst of the Church." 1 Story con- 
 cluded by confessing that he had greatly sinned in not 
 exposing her earlier, but he had been restrained from 
 doing this by feelings of affection. What change this 
 letter might have wrought on Irving had he received 
 it we cannot tell. Probably not even Story's voice 
 could have now recalled him. But he never received 
 the letter. Before it had time to be delivered, 
 Irving was summoned to go forth and meet his 
 Lord. 
 
 Although Regent's Square Church, London, was the 
 scene of this remarkable display of religious excite- 
 ment, across the border, where Scotsmen claimed Irving 
 and his work as their own, the keenest interest was 
 taken in the movement. There, however, it was uni- 
 versally disapproved. Logical and theological Scotland 
 had no patience with it. To Scotsmen the continuity 
 of a miraculous dispensation like that of the apostles 
 1 Life of Story of Rosneath (p. 231, note). 
 
EDWARD IRVING I2/ 
 
 to the present day appeared ,a manifest absurdity. A 
 miraculous dispensation must needs be temporary, 
 otherwise it is a contradiction in terms. Besides, if 
 the Holy Ghost can still give men the gift of tongues, 
 why do not our foreign missionaries receive it ; or 
 who would be likelier to receive it ? If it be replied 
 that miraculous gifts come only to those who exercise 
 great faith, the logical Scot at once answered, great 
 faith can dispense with the aid of miracles. Many 
 able writers north of the Tweed joined in the contro- 
 versy, as the pages of the Edinburgh Christian Instructor 
 testify. One of the most temperate of them put the 
 matter in this form ; "Is there no danger of the 
 blasphemy of the Spirit being committed when men 
 tell us that the more unthinkable a language is, that 
 is to say, the less evidence we have of its being a 
 language at all, the greater is the proof of its having 
 come from Him whose inspiration giveth us under- 
 standing? ... Is there not something like a re- 
 flection on the arrangements of Providence and a 
 tempting of the Spirit of the Lord, when it is seriously 
 and boldly affirmed that at this late period in the 
 world's history Jehovah has seen meet to institute a 
 new ' ordinance ' in favour of the female sex in 
 particular, even the ' ordinance ' of new tongues, in 
 order that woman may be rescued from the cruel 
 tyranny of man, and that man may be convinced by 
 the most striking of all evidences that she is 
 his coequal and coessential ? All this and something 
 more than this I have heard with my own ears . . . 
 and all this, too, accompanied with the most un- 
 seemly infringements on that goodly order which 
 
128 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 becomes the worship of God and the assemblies of the 
 saints. God is not the author of confusion, but of 
 peace." 
 
 From David Hume who rejected miracles, to Edward 
 Irving and his friends who claimed to be workers of 
 them, was a long step, especially for Scotsmen. The 
 two men stood at exactly opposite poles, the one a 
 philosopher, with the critical and sceptical faculties 
 over-cultivated to the ruin of the finer perceptions ; 
 the other an orator, stirring men to noble deeds, 
 but examining nothing critically or in the dry light 
 of reason. And the Church of Scotland had less 
 patience with the views of the visionary than with 
 the negations of the philosopher, because the former 
 diverted men from the voice of God speaking in His 
 Word to voices speaking a babel of unintelligible 
 jargon, and by that means encouraged schismatic 
 courses of the most intolerable kind. Irving's was a 
 noble genius notwithstanding his sad divergencies, 
 and his contemporaries were inhumanly hard upon 
 him. His eccentricities were nothing more than the 
 delusions of a pious mind that had lost for the time 
 its finely-adjusted balance. Yet this is doing him less 
 than justice. It is grossly unfair to class him among 
 those ill-starred men of genius whom much learning 
 has made mad. He addressed other messages to 
 the world besides those connected with a return to 
 apostolic institutions. His doctrine of the human 
 nature of our Lord was what he regarded as his 
 principal message to the world. It brought him 
 into deep waters with his ecclesiastial superiors, yet 
 with all its crudity and over-statement it formed an 
 
EDWARD IRVING 129 
 
 important contribution to Christian thought. To 
 this subject we now turn our attention. 
 
 When Irving' made his appearance as a Christian 
 teacher, he found himself at variance with current 
 notions on the subject of our Lord's human nature. 
 It was a conviction with him that the views ordinarily 
 believed and taught on this subject were unsatis- 
 factory and unsound. There seemed to him to be few 
 Christian teachers who felt the importance of holding 
 and affirming our Lord's true humanity. He therefore 
 resolved to do the subject greater justice than it usually 
 received at the hands of the ordinary teacher of spiritual 
 truth. The view he propounded was that Christ's 
 human nature was true human nature, humanity of the 
 substance of the Blessed Virgin, humanity body and 
 soul under all the conditions of the Fall, tempted 
 precisely as we are tempted, yet at all points triumph- 
 ant ; but triumphant not through difference in the pro- 
 perties and propensities of the humanity, but through 
 the power of the Holy Ghost, which upheld it under 
 temptation. 
 
 How earnestly and eloquently he urged these views 
 we shall show from representative quotations from his 
 writings. His advocacy of them procured him the 
 condemnation of his Church ; but there was that in 
 his teaching on this difficult theme which has helped 
 Christian preachers ever since, or, where it has failed 
 to do this, has at least commanded their profound 
 respect. Irving pressed his doctrine on this head 
 strenuously, because he believed it to be vital to the 
 maintenance of the religious life. "I believe," he 
 said, "that my Lord did come down and toil and 
 9 
 
130 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 sweat and travail in exceeding great sorrow in this 
 mass of temptation with which I and every sinful man 
 am oppressed : did bring His Divine presence into 
 death-possessed humanity, into the one substance of 
 manhood created in Adam, and by the Fall brought 
 into a state of resistance and alienation from God, of 
 condemnation and proclivity to evil, of subjection to 
 the devil ; and bearing it all on His shoulders in that 
 very state into which God put it after Adam had sinned, 
 did suffer its sorrows and pains and swimming anguish, 
 its darkness, wasteness, disconsolateness, and hidden- 
 ness from the countenance of God ; and by His faith and 
 patience did win for Himself the name of the Man of 
 Sorrows, and the Author and Finisher of our faith." 1 
 
 When the controversy came on and had reached an 
 acute stage, he declared in the preface to his book 
 on the Human Nature of Christ; " The great point 
 between us, the precious truth for which we contend, 
 is not whether Christ's flesh (human nature) was holy, 
 for surely the man who saith we deny this blasphemeth 
 against the manifest truth, but whether during His life 
 it was one with us in all its infirmities and liabilities to 
 temptation, or whether by the miraculous generation 
 it underwent a change so as to make it a different body 
 from the rest of the brethren. They argue for an 
 identity of origin merely ; we argue for an identity of 
 life also. They argue for an inherent holiness ; we 
 argue for a holiness maintained by the person of the 
 Son through the operation of the Holy Ghost. " : 
 
 Irving's predispositions were the reverse of scepti- 
 cal and revolutionary. On all the burning questions of 
 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 109. 2 Hair's Regent Square, p. 91, note. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 131 
 
 his day, the Apocrypha question, for example, and the 
 Catholic Disabilities Act, his leanings were distinctly 
 conservative. He was naturally disinclined to novelties 
 and heresies in religion. To be deemed a heretic was 
 not a position that had any fascination for him. " I 
 shall never forget" he said, "the feeling which I had 
 upon first hearing my name coupled with heresy. So 
 much did it trouble me, that I once seriously meditated 
 sending a paper to the Christian Observer in order to 
 contradict the man's false insinuations. But I thought 
 it better to sit quiet and bear the reproach." 1 
 
 It never occurred to him, when he propounded his 
 views on Christ's human nature, that there were two 
 opinions in any orthodox creed and true Church on the 
 subject. As it was sound doctrine to believe that but for 
 sin neither suffering nor death would have entered the 
 world, so he regarded it as most orthodox to conclude 
 that neither could they meet and inflict their wound on 
 anyone save as he was an inheritor of the nature of 
 fallen humanity. " That suffering can come to a fallen 
 creature without any sinful act of his own, is manifest 
 in every child that is born ; and that death can come 
 to a fallen creature without any sinful act of his own, 
 is manifest in every child that dies ; and therefore there 
 is no difficulty whatever in believing that without any 
 sinful act of the will Christ in a fallen nature should 
 both suffer and die, because this very thing is the 
 universal experience of every fallen creature. But 
 there is not such a thing in the records of being as 
 that an unfallen creature should suffer. The will must 
 fall first by sinning before suffering can be felt. But 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 8. 
 
132 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 that in the fallen state the just should suffer for the 
 unjust and the innocent for the guilty, is the great truth 
 experienced of all : seeing God visits the sins of the 
 fathers and the sin of Adam especially upon those who 
 have as yet no power of will whereby to commit a sin : 
 so that I may truly say the whole history and constitu- 
 tion of man's estate under the Fall is to the very end of 
 schooling us into the method of the incarnation ; of 
 teaching us how without evil actings of the will suffer- 
 ing and death may be experienced by a creature in the 
 fallen state." 1 "Death being the proper penalty of 
 sin, the sign of God's holiness and justice upon a 
 sinning man is not to be reached or come at by any 
 person otherwise than through the way of sin. If a 
 sinless person could die, then death could not be the 
 sign of God's hatred of sin ; for in that case it would 
 without sin be neglected. Now, that Christ is a sinless 
 person we all admit, and how then could He reach 
 death ? He could not reach it by coming in a sinless 
 and unfallen nature such as Adam's ; for such a nature, 
 not having sinned, could not die without making death 
 void as the great sign of God's holiness. To reach 
 death there is no other way but by coming in the nature 
 of a sinful creature ; in that nature which, having sinned, 
 did underlead the curse of death. If with His holy 
 person He inform this nature He may die ; nay, He 
 must die: for when human nature was sentenced in 
 the person of Adam to death, it was all sentenced, 
 every particle of it whatever ; and the death of it is 
 the grand demonstration of God's holy hatred and final 
 justice against sin ; and therefore agreeing that the 
 1 Human Nature of Christ, p. 73. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 133 
 
 death of the clean and innocent Lamb of God is the 
 means unto our redemption or atonement, I say it 
 could not otherwise be reached but through His taking- 
 humanity, fallen, sinful, and under death. " l 
 
 Astounded as orthodox opinion was at the announce- 
 ment of these notions, Irving did not for one moment 
 suspect that heresy lurked in them. "I believe it to 
 be most orthodox," he said, "and of the substance and 
 essence of the orthodox faith, to hold that Christ could 
 say till His resurrection, not I, but sin that tempteth 
 Me in My flesh : just as after the resurrection He 
 could say, I am separate from sinners. And, moreover, 
 I believe that the only difference between His body of 
 humiliation and His body of resurrection is in this very 
 thing, that sin inhered in the human nature, making it 
 mortal and corruptible till that very time that He rose 
 from the dead ; and if this principle must go to the 
 wall, I shall go to the wall along with it." 2 
 
 Not only did he believe himself in accord with the 
 teaching of the orthodox faith, however his views may 
 have collided with the popular religion of his own time. 
 He pressed them upon the attention of the Church 
 under the impression that they were vital to the wel- 
 fare of true piety. In the popular religion of the time 
 there was much coldness and formality, God and the 
 soul were strangers to one another. Irving, deploring 
 this gulf, aimed at bridging it over, and with this object 
 in view searched for means by which he could bring 
 home to his fellow-men the precious truth of Christ's 
 incorporation with humanity, and give the doctrine of 
 Incarnation a fundamental place in theology. Most 
 1 Human Nature of Christ, p. 91. 2 Ibid. p. 127. 
 
134 TH E RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 ingenious was his use of Regeneration to bring this 
 out. "In its natural propensities we undoubtedly 
 hold, and to the death will maintain, and for the faith 
 of it shall have to praise God through eternity, that 
 Christ's human nature, His undivided manhood, was in 
 all respects as ours ; but, being anointed with the Holy 
 Ghost and animated by the power of the Son of God, 
 it was ever in that state of subjection and subordina- 
 tion to God in which the regenerate man ought to be 
 and is whenever he doeth good." " Was He conscious, 
 then, to the motions of the flesh and of the fleshly mind ? 
 In so far as any regenerate man when under the 
 operation of the Holy Ghost is conscious of them. 
 Yea, verily, He knew the evil law of that nature He 
 was clothed with : He knew every point and passage 
 of it, and at every point and passage of it He met it 
 with the Spirit and drove it back, and put bonds upon 
 it, and led it forth again tamed and reclaimed : a 
 servant of Himself, an unwilling servant, and still in 
 all things a servant unto God. I hold it to be the 
 surrender of the whole question to say that He was 
 not conscious of, engaged with and troubled by, every 
 evil disposition which inhereth in the fallen manhood, 
 which overpowereth every man that is not born of 
 God : which overpowered not Christ, only because He 
 was born or generated of God : the Son of God that 
 day begotten in the flesh when He was conceived of 
 the Virgin. I say that to yield a jot of this is to yield 
 all : I will not yield a jot of it : I will suffer loss of all 
 things sooner, and death itself, than suffer the doctrine 
 to be shaken so long as I can help it." l " It is of the 
 1 Human Nature of Christ, p. no. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 135 
 
 essence of the truth, it is all that the truth is worth, 
 to maintain that Regeneration or impartation of the 
 Holy Ghost addeth nothing, withdraweth nothing, 
 changing nothing of our created substance, but by an 
 invisible person of Godhead controlleth and overcometh 
 it : so necessary is it to believe likewise of Christ's 
 human nature, that its generation of the Holy Ghost 
 added and altered nothing of its creature's substance, 
 but ever operated by Godhead-power to restrain and 
 subdue and sanctify and uphold all its motions and 
 actions. This was His great work of humiliation and 
 sufferings ; and believing this, I were found a most 
 unworthy and unfaithful witness to what He did for 
 me and for all the world, did I not repudiate and resist 
 those who cut His work short and exhibit it as some 
 holiday engagement or incomprehensible action, instead 
 of a comprehensible self-inflicted degradation for the 
 end of meeting sin in its own stronghold, and redeem- 
 ing both soul and body from its dominion." 1 
 
 In his sermon on the Incarnation, in language of 
 terrific boldness Irving thus shows the bearing of the 
 views now quoted on the question of the sinfulness of 
 sin: "That sin should be able to struggle with God- 
 head itself, that a fragment of the perilous stuff being 
 assumed into the personality of the Son should weigh 
 down the Almighty One from His delectation in the 
 bosom of the Father and make Him say, ' Why hast 
 Thou forsaken Me ? ' that a fragment of the perilous 
 stuff being taken into the person of the Living One, 
 Life of life, should agonise Him with hunger and thirst, 
 and oppress Him with weariness, and tempt Him with 
 1 Human Nature of Christ, p. 3. 
 
136 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 the round world's idle state ; should make the Divine 
 Person groan and weep and sweat great drops of blood, 
 and be passive to all suffering which flesh is heir to, 
 this is the mightiest demonstration of sin's iron gripe 
 and deadly hold, proving it to be all but the mightiest 
 power in being." 
 
 Principal Brown, in his brief but valuable reminis- 
 cences, says that Irving's temerity filled all Scotland 
 with alarm. He was charged with blasphemously 
 impeaching the holiness of Jesus Christ. From Cole, 
 the idle Church of England parson, who first raised 
 the cry of heresy, to the Edinburgh Christian Instructor, 
 whose attacks were positively indecent, this was the 
 unjust charge which one railing tongue bandied about 
 to another. " What I felt," gasped the virtuous Cole, 
 "at hearing such awful blasphemy against the person 
 of the Son of God, declaimed with accompanying 
 vehement gesticulations before upwards, I should sup- 
 pose, of two thousand persons, I cannot describe." 1 
 
 There was, of course, no denial of our Lord's 
 absolute freedom from sin on Irving's part, nor would 
 it have been possible to impute such to him had not 
 the Church been asleep at the time, and, as he said, 
 "awaked in bad humour and spake angrily about 
 things before her eyes were well opened." The ques- 
 tion in dispute was not as to Christ's holiness, but 
 whether His holiness was due to some physical supe- 
 riority of His nature rather than to the triumphant 
 working of moral power. "The great point at issue 
 is simply this, whether Christ's flesh had the grace 
 of sinlessness and incorruption from its proper nature 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 7. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 137 
 
 or from the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. I say the 
 latter." 1 
 
 At his trial before the Annan Presbytery, from 
 whom he received his licence as a preacher of 
 the gospel, which took place in March 1833, he 
 warmly repudiated the charge of impeaching the 
 character of Christ, a charge, to their lasting dis- 
 credit, brought against him by almost all his prose- 
 cutors. Speaking under intense excitement, he said : 
 "As to my maintaining that Christ is other than 
 most holy, I do protest that it is not true. It is not 
 true ! before the living God I do declare it is false. 
 And though all men should say it is true, I say it 
 is false, and that it proceeds from the father of lies. 
 It has been held up in every pulpit within this land 
 that I have preached and disseminated doctrines in- 
 consistent with the unity of God. Albeit I deny it 
 I deny it ! It is a lie. It has not a shadow of 
 foundation in truth. I would give my life, and if I 
 had ten thousand lives I would give them all, to main- 
 tain the contrary. It is an unjust slander. I never 
 wrote, I never preached such damnable doctrine : and 
 that all honest men can say. I stand in this place 
 and say that I am ready to die for it. ... I stand here 
 a witness for the Lord Jesus, to tell men what He 
 did for them : and what He did was this He took 
 your flesh and made it holy, thereby to make you 
 holy ; and therefore He will make every one holy who 
 believes in Him." 1 
 
 He ended his defence in an outburst of impassioned 
 declamation. * ' Mock me not by speaking of popularity. 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. n. 2 Ibid. ii. 344. 
 
138 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 The reproaches of a brother are hard to bear. Ye 
 know not what I have suffered : you know not what it 
 is to be severed from a flock you love : to be banished 
 from your house : to be driven from a place of worship 
 in which ye have been honoured, as God's servants, 
 by the tokens of His approbation. Yet though thus 
 scorned and trampled on, truth is prevailing. You 
 shall not go one half mile in London but you shall 
 see some of our Scottish youth, yea, and of our English 
 youth also, standing up to preach that truth for 
 which I now appear at this bar. At Charing Cross, 
 at London Bridge, at the Tower, and in all the high 
 places of the city, you shall find them preaching to 
 a perishing people ; and though often hooted and 
 pelted, yet patient withal. And I am sure the day 
 is not far distant when the Evangelist shall go forth 
 and be listened to throughout the land. Ministers and 
 elders of the Presbytery of Annan ! I stand at your 
 bar by no constraint of man. You could not no 
 person on earth could have brought me hither. I 
 am a free man on a free soil, and living beyond your 
 bounds. Neither General Assembly nor Pope has a 
 right to meddle with me. Yea, I know ye have sinned 
 against the Head of the Church in stretching thus 
 beyond your measure, and this sin ye must repent 
 of. ... Is it nothing, think ye, that ye have brought 
 me from my flock of nine hundred souls, besides 
 children, looking up to me for spiritual food ? Is it 
 nothing that ye have taken me away from ruling 
 among my apostles and elders, and brought me three 
 hundred miles to stand before you at this bar? ... I 
 stand here not by constraint, but willingly. Do what 
 
EDWARD IRVING 139 
 
 you like, I ask not judgment of you ; my judgment is 
 with my God." 1 
 
 In these views on the human nature of our Lord, 
 Irving held that he followed the Scottish Confession 
 of 1560, a document which he was in the habit of 
 reading to his congregation twice every year, so great 
 was his admiration for it. He called it the pillar of 
 the Reformation, and said it was "written in a most 
 honest, straightforward, manly style, without compli- 
 ment or flattery, without affectation of logical precision 
 and learned accuracy, as if it came fresh from the 
 heart of laborious workmen, all the day long busy 
 with the preaching of the truth, and sitting down at 
 night to embody the heads of what was continually 
 taught." ' What the worthy document still a standard 
 of the Scottish Church teaches on the human nature 
 of our Lord will be found in the 8th article, and is 
 expressed in these quaint words: "It behooved that 
 the Sonne of God suld descend unto us and tak Him- 
 selfe a bodie of our bodie, flesh of our flesh and bone 
 of our bones, and so become the Mediator betwixt 
 God and man, giving power to so many as beleeve 
 in Him to be the sonnes of God." 
 
 Whether this statement can bear the construction 
 put on it by those who hold the doctrine of peccability, 
 is open to question. Irving believed it could. Most 
 people at the time thought him mistaken. They held 
 that, however firmly he repelled the blasphemy imputed 
 to him, his views involved him in a denial of Christ's 
 absolute sinlessness. He contented himself with 
 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 346. 
 
 2 Schaff s History of the Creeds, p. 684. 
 
140 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 repeated and emphatic repudiation of the charge. 
 At an early period in the controversy he inserted one 
 of his protests in a newspaper. In addition to the 
 signatures of himself and his fellow office-bearers, it 
 bore that of "David Brown, Missionary." It is 
 an interesting document. The signatories declared 
 that they "utterly detest and abhor any doctrine that 
 would charge with sin, original or actual, our blessed 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ . . . and we further 
 declare that all our peace of conscience, progress in 
 sanctification, and hope of eternal blessedness resteth 
 upon the sinlessness of that sacrifice, and the com- 
 pleteness of that atonement which He hath made for 
 us as our substitute." 1 How low the ethics of con- 
 troversy had fallen since Hume's time, may be seen 
 by the language of the Edinburgh Christian Instructor 
 towards the high-toned document just quoted. " If 
 the manifesto which has issued from Mr. Irving and 
 his associates is not a gross violation of the very 
 first principles of integrity, we know not what that 
 virtue is nor what that word means." "They will 
 say anything to suit their purpose, being the basest 
 and most unprincipled controversialists that ever set 
 a foot upon the surface of the religious world." 
 
 For some time previous to 1831, a Committee of 
 General Assembly had been at work investigating the 
 reports as to the recent publication of erroneous writ- 
 ings. It soon transpired that they had specially in 
 view two of Irving's works, The Orthodox and Catholic 
 Doctrine, published in 1830, and Chrises Holiness in 
 the Flesh, in 1831. They reported to the Assembly 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 164. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 141 
 
 that these contained a distinct "assertion of the sinful 
 corruption of Christ's human nature, and a rebellion 
 in Christ's natural will to the will of God " ; and the 
 Assembly, by 147 votes to 38, enjoined any Presbytery 
 within whose bounds Irving should appear in a mini- 
 sterial capacity, to call him into their presence, lay the 
 books before him, demand of him whether he acknow- 
 ledged their authorship, and proceed accordingly. 
 
 The following year they advanced a step further, 
 instructing the Presbytery of Annan to proceed against 
 him by libel. The trial took place on i3th March 1833. 
 According to a contemporary chronicle, "Mr. Irving 
 arrived at Annan by the London Mail, and was met by 
 Mr. Ker of London, one of his deacons. A crowd was 
 collected in the street, in expectation of the reverend 
 gentleman's arrival by the mail ; and upon his alight- 
 ing at the house of his brother-in-law, Mr. Dickson, 
 where the coach stopped on its way to the inn, the 
 crowd, which was at that time dispersed in groups, 
 ran eagerly to the spot to catch a glimpse of their 
 celebrated townsman. In the course of the forenoon 
 hundreds of individuals of all classes kept pouring into 
 Annan from the neighbourhood. . . . Twelve o'clock 
 was the hour appointed for the proceedings to com- 
 mence at the parish church, and by that time the place 
 was literally crammed. It is computed that at least 
 two thousand persons were assembled." 1 
 
 The trial lasted six hours, and ended in deposition. 
 
 In the same church where he had been baptized, and 
 
 where, seventeen years before, he had preached his 
 
 first sermon, Edward Irving, singularly enough, was 
 
 1 Oliphant's Life, \\. 342. 
 
142 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 deposed. He never thought of taking 1 an appeal to 
 the higher Courts of the Church, and did not even 
 wait to hear the sentence pronounced ; but he loitered 
 in the romantic border-country, addressing open-air 
 gatherings, convinced that he had a call to those 
 who thronged to hear him, who were as sheep 
 without a shepherd. "When I saw the gross dark- 
 ness of these poor ministers " (who had presumed 
 to judge and sentence him), "and the errors with 
 which they have filled the breasts and minds of the 
 people in all these parts, I was much and powerfully 
 convinced that it is my duty to tarry here some 
 days and preach the gospel to the benighted people 
 around." 1 
 
 Irving's " heresies " reminded many of the old errors 
 of Bourignianism, and on that account were deemed 
 intolerable. Antoinette Bourignon was a French 
 visionary of the seventeenth century, settled in Holland, 
 who indulged in many mystical extravagances, and 
 drew around her an admiring following. Her views 
 penetrated to Scotland, and proved fascinating to 
 some of the Episcopal clergy of that unsettled time. 
 Antoinette regarded religion as an inward experience 
 of the soul that is quite independent of Church or 
 Scriptures. Acts denouncing her heresies were passed 
 by the Kirk in 1701, 1709, and 1710, and licentiates 
 were sworn among other errors to disown Bourig- 
 nianism. In addition to a doctrine of Christ's human 
 nature similar to that for which Irving was con- 
 demned, Bourignianism included doctrines such as 
 neither he nor any instructed theologian could have 
 1 Oliphant's Life, ii. 352. 
 
EDWARD IRVING 143 
 
 much sympathy with, and formal deposition was pro- 
 nounced by the Assembly on an Episcopalian minister 
 of Aberdeen for supporting several of the Bourignian 
 tenets. Hetherington disposes of Bourignianism in a 
 way that shows how lightly Irving's case sat on the 
 ecclesiastical mind. Speaking of Bourignian views, 
 he says : " It would be inexpedient to state here what 
 these heretical opinions were ; but it may be mentioned 
 in passing that some of them are much akin to several 
 of those with which Religion has been disturbed in 
 our own times." l 
 
 Scotland's greatest son, at the time, was Dr. 
 Chalmers, and the part he played in the controversy 
 has been severely animadverted on by several writers. 
 Although the intimate friend of both Irving and Macleod 
 Campbell, at the acutest crisis in their lives he seems 
 to have observed a neutrality strangely out of keeping 
 with his usual independence, and, however to be ac- 
 counted for, most remarkable. It may have been that 
 the position of a great party leader demanded silence 
 when a less responsible person could have boldly 
 spoken out. On the other hand, the probability is 
 that Dr. Chalmers' passivity was due to a failure to 
 understand the new thought that was breaking loose 
 from a dead traditionalism. We know that when 
 Irving took him to visit Coleridge, with whom they 
 spent three hours, Chalmers declared that the con- 
 versation which they heard was to him astonishing 
 and incomprehensible. It was only at intervals he 
 caught sight of the seer's meaning ; "On returning 
 from this interview," so his biographer tells us, " Dr. 
 1 History of the Church of Scotland, ii. 226. 
 
144 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Chalmers remarked to Mr. Irving upon the obscurity 
 of Coleridge's utterances, and said that for his part 
 he liked to see all sides of an idea before taking up 
 with it." "Ha!" said Mr. Irving in reply, "you 
 Scotchmen would handle an idea as a butcher handles 
 an ox. For my part, I love to see an idea looming 
 through the mist." Mrs. Oliphant, in her excellent 
 biography of Irving, accuses Dr. Chalmers of wanting 
 courage. In this she is unfair to a great man's 
 memory. Chalmers kept silence not for want of 
 courage to speak out, but for want of faculty to under- 
 stand this new evangelicalism of which Irving and 
 Macleod Campbell were the apostles and high priests. 
 Chalmers would not condemn, nor could he defend 
 the new thought. Macleod Campbell tells us that he 
 went and laid his views before Dr. Chalmers, and that, 
 unlike the average clergyman of the period, whose 
 habit was first to pronounce the views erroneous and 
 next proceed to put the author of them right, Dr. 
 Chalmers, like the philosopher he was, undertook to 
 weigh them carefully before coming to a conclusion, 
 and at the same time, like a true friend, expressed 
 the hope that Macleod Campbell would win his case. 
 The likelihood is that he felt kindlier on the whole 
 to the latter's presentation of the truth than to the 
 strange opinions of Irving. But in the case of both 
 it is next to certain that his regrettable silence was 
 due to the hesitancy of an undecided mind, and not 
 to the influence of temporising motives. 
 
 Nothing was nearer Irving's heart than to bring 
 Christ's person and work into closer relations to all 
 who looked to Him for salvation. That being so, no 
 
EDWARD IRVING 145 
 
 service should have been more cordially welcomed by 
 all who valued true religion, for it is not uncharitable 
 to say that religion in Irving's time was a thing in 
 the clouds for most people, and the great need was to 
 have it brought down to human nature's level. Since 
 his day, and largely by the spread of his aims, the 
 Church has corrected her former mistakes. She has 
 gone back to Christ and made a study of Christology. 
 Biographies of Jesus Christ have multiplied : New 
 Testament Theology and Christian Ethics have now 
 a place assigned to them equally with Dogmatics and 
 Church History : the fact of the Incarnation has re- 
 ceived greater prominence and honour in the writings 
 of divines ; and in other important directions the con- 
 tendings of Edward Irving for a Redeemer at once 
 human and Divine have borne rich fruit. 
 
 He went wrong in imagining that the Saviour could 
 not be a real partaker of our nature unless He came 
 in sinful flesh. He did not perceive that so coming 
 He must needs be involved in all the consequences 
 of the Fall. From a logical as well as from a 
 Christological point of view, his position was unten- 
 able. The error lay in confounding accident and 
 substance. He looked on sinfulness as if it were an 
 essential part of human nature ; as if instead of being 
 an accident and disease it were a substantial element 
 of man's constitution. This was his error. It was 
 an error to maintain that to be a real man one has 
 to partake of a sinful nature. The crowning proof 
 to the contrary is Christ Himself. As Bishop Gore 
 has said, the evidence that sin is not according to 
 man's true nature, "that it is rebellion and not nature, 
 10 
 
146 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 lies in the fact that in Christ, the true Man, sin had 
 no place." 1 Irving testified to a great truth when 
 he declared that what restrained our Lord from sin 
 was something else than a nature to which sin was 
 impossible. What was impossible to Him was an 
 impossibility of consenting to sin. 
 
 1 Gore's Bampton Lectures, p. 167. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ROW HERESY 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 Reminiscences, by Dr. Macleod Campbell. Lond. 1873. 
 
 Memorials of John Macleod Campbell. By his Son. Lond. 1877. 
 
 The Nature of the Atonement. By Dr. Macleod Campbell. 
 Camb. 1856. 
 
 The whole Proceedings in the Case of the Rev. John Macleod 
 Campbell. Greenock, 1831. 
 
 Proof for the Prosecution in the Case of John Macleod Campbell. 
 Greenock, 1831, 
 
 " Scottish Influence upon English Theological Thought." D. J. 
 Vaughan, Contemporary Review, xxxii. 
 
 Life of F. D. Maurice. By Frederick Maurice. Lond. 1884. 
 
 Memoirs of Bishop Ewing. By A. J. Ross. Lond. 1877. 
 
 Mitchell's Introduction to the Minutes of the West-minster 
 Assembly. Edin. 1874. 
 
 Letters of Erskine of Linlathen. Hanna. Edin. 1878. 
 
 Erskine of Linlathen. By the present Author. Edin. 1899. 
 
 A BEAUTIFUL, serious soul, as his son's Memorials 
 clearly reveal, a man interested in all the thought 
 of his strenuous time, yet viewing all things sub specie 
 ceternitatiS) John Macleod Campbell suffered at his 
 brethren's hands the full penalty of ecclesiastical rigour 
 because of peculiar theological views. In whatever 
 way we look at these views now, whether we super- 
 ciliously pass them by as some have done, and dispose 
 of him as a mere eccentric thinker, or, on the other 
 hand, regard him as a teacher worthy of the highest 
 
 H7 
 
148 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 respect, of this there can be no question, that for the 
 finer orthodoxy of the heart, for supreme and untainted 
 loyalty to Christ, for singular sweetness and charm 
 of disposition, no Church in Scotland has produced 
 his equal. One ignorant of the ways of Scotsmen 
 might marvel that such attractive qualities did not 
 secure for him at the time a larger number of friends 
 and admirers. But in the realm of theological contro- 
 versy Scotsmen have never allowed personal considera- 
 tions of this kind to influence their judgment. They 
 have invariably placed a stern extinguisher on all 
 sentimental feelings. A heretic might be a person in 
 all respects a paragon of virtue, a character worlds 
 superior to his orthodox persecutors, this has weighed 
 not a grain with Scotsmen in their verdict upon his 
 heresies. They have proceeded to the condemnation 
 and punishment of the heretic all the same, their wrath 
 no more restrained by his amiable qualities than was 
 John Knox's by the charms of Queen Mary. 
 
 In the case of the Row heresy there was an addi- 
 tional cause of dislike, in spite of its author's winning 
 character. Scotsmen have never relished their spiritual 
 food too highly seasoned. They have a strong distaste 
 for the element of enthusiasm and religious assur- 
 ance. They have enjoyed a religion that they could 
 argue and fight over, but they have not readily taken 
 to one that has abounded in rapture and ecstasy. 
 Now Macleod Campbell's teaching ran counter to his 
 countrymen's prejudices in this regard, and at an early 
 period in his career he apprehended trouble arising 
 from this cause. What militated against the reception 
 of his message was, that it demanded from men 
 
 
THE ROW HERESY 149 
 
 personal belief, personal awakening, personal assur- 
 ance ; and this demand, made tenderly as became a 
 message of grace, was yet enforced with such insist- 
 ence that it caused them discomfort, and aroused in 
 the more hot-headed a hurricane of opposition. On 
 this account they were led to exaggerate the unsound 
 element in his teaching, and combined together to 
 crush him ; and as his zeal for personal assurance 
 put their indifference to shame, they became the more 
 zealous advocates of rigid orthodoxy. An example 
 of the serious spirit in which he entered into his 
 ministerial vocation occurred at the funeral of Isabella 
 Campbell of Gareloch fame, of whom we have spoken 
 in the previous chapter. The day happened to be 
 wet, and the funeral party were crowded into the 
 cabin of a steamer on their way to the burying-ground. 
 "Then," Macleod Campbell tells us, "I stated to 
 them that I felt it my duty to improve the time in 
 saying something of what it had been my privilege 
 to know of her whose remains we accompanied. And, 
 having once begun to speak, I proceeded to explain 
 the secret spring of all that distinguished her the 
 simplicity of the assurance of her faith ; and then 
 I pressed that faith on them ; and God enabled me 
 to speak from the time I commenced till the boat 
 stopped, which would be an hour and a half." 1 A 
 clergyman taking his office thus seriously was not 
 the favourite type of the period ; nor need we wonder 
 that when he appeared in the ecclesiastical arena, and 
 it became noised abroad that besides being a man of 
 extraordinary devoutness he was the holder of strange 
 1 Macleod Campbell's Memorials, i. 45. 
 
ISO THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 theological notions, the ordinary ecclesiastical person 
 was not disposed to regard him too favourably. 
 
 As a preacher, Macleod Campbell excelled in power- 
 ful personal application, like all the famous preachers 
 of former days. What he aimed at was not the pro- 
 pagation of new views, but the production of religious 
 impressions, the rescue of men from the gross darkness 
 which covered the land ; and while the heresy hunt was 
 pursuing him up and down the country, he had some 
 good opportunities for accomplishing his purpose. For 
 instance, on a summer Sabbath evening of the famous 
 year 1832, he preached in the new churchyard of Greenock 
 to a congregation numbering six thousand souls. 
 
 One of the charms of Macleod Campbell's character 
 was the ideal relation in which he stood to all the 
 members of his family. His father, also a clergyman 
 of the Church of Scotland, was his son's confidential 
 friend, and to him he forwarded during the period of 
 strain a weekly budget describing all he felt and did. 
 The elder Campbell was a member of the Assembly 
 that deposed him. Before the vote was taken, he 
 addressed the House in the most affecting terms. " I 
 bow to any decision," he said, "to which you may 
 think it right to come. Moderator, I am not afraid 
 for my son ; thoug - h his brethren cast him out, the 
 Master whom he serves will not forsake him ; and 
 while I live, I will never be ashamed to be the father 
 of so holy and blameless a son." 1 This was finely 
 spoken, but it sets the laws of those days in a painful 
 light to find that the Church required of the old man 
 to read from his pulpit a document condemning the 
 1 Memorials, i. 78. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 151 
 
 doctrines for which his son was cast out. This the 
 Church required ; but, disregarding her orders, he re- 
 fused to pronounce anathema on one who, besides being 
 so gifted and good, was his own flesh and bone. 
 
 The ideal relations to which we have referred are seen 
 in Macleod Campbell's intercourse with his children, 
 especially in his letters to them. In these letters he 
 sends them advice regarding their studies, their pro- 
 spects in life, their pleasures, the habit of theatre- 
 going, and so on, that make them model compositions 
 of their kind. His sweet seriousness comes out in 
 these dealings with his children, as it does also in 
 all his books and public appearances. As Norman 
 Macleod said, there was no one whose character so 
 closely resembled that of Jesus Christ. 
 
 In controversy he was a model of dignity and fair 
 play. Always willing to be proved in the wrong, if 
 that were possible, he regarded himself only as a ser- 
 vant of the truth. Ready, too, at all times to give the 
 views of an opponent the best possible presentation, he 
 could not abide the ordinary controversialist's craze for 
 votes and victories. All he sought was the triumph of 
 righteousness and truth. In another respect he and 
 the worldly type of controversialist differed entirely. 
 Instead of asking with the latter what was the teaching 
 of the Church on any subject, and what did she require 
 her servants to declare, he was wont to ask what Truth 
 demanded from her servants, and what was the teach- 
 ing of her voice. 
 
 We are now to follow the life-work of this remark- 
 able man, an epoch-making man in theology and one 
 of unique personality, whose character, according to 
 
152 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 his judges, the breath of scandal never dared touch. 
 Ordained to the ministry at Row on the Gareloch in 
 1825, at a time of much spiritual darkness, it was 
 soon discovered that a light had arisen in the 
 Church sky that might yet prove blinding and 
 bewildering to many through sheer excess of bright- 
 ness. Events soon proved that these alarms were 
 only too well grounded. Mutterings of dissatisfac- 
 tion with the new and unfamiliar teaching of the 
 Row pulpit began to fall cautiously from the lips 
 of grave and godly parishioners. The murmurs 
 gradually grew more articulate, until at length a 
 memorial was handed round for signature, complaining 
 to the Church Courts regarding the alleged heresy. 
 The memorial was lodged with the proper authorities 
 early in the year 1830. This step on the part of the 
 memorialists was not approved by all, and a counter- 
 memorial was drawn up bearing the signatures of eighty 
 householders and heads of families, who expressed 
 4 'their undiminished attachment to Mr. Campbell as 
 their pastor," and trusted "that nothing would be 
 done by the Presbytery to weaken the hands of so 
 faithful a minister of the gospel." Campbell's spiritual 
 superiors having these documents before them, directed 
 him to give them a sample of his doctrine from the Row 
 pulpit. Campbell did as required. When they heard 
 the discourse there were two statements which they 
 received with marked disapproval : that " God loves 
 every child of Adam with a love the measure of which 
 is to be seen in the agonies of Christ"; and "the 
 person who knows that Christ died for every child of 
 Adam is the person who is in the condition to say to 
 
THE ROW HERESY 153 
 
 every human being-, Let there be peace with you 
 peace between you and your God." 1 
 
 Not understanding 1 these statements, the good men 
 went home and framed a libel against the author 
 of them, charging him with uttering unsound doc- 
 trine. Campbell was then tried before the inferior 
 Court in the first instance, and was found guilty of 
 having " entertained and promulgated the doctrine of 
 universal atonement and pardon through the death of 
 Christ ; and also the doctrine that assurance is of the 
 essence of faith, and necessary to salvation." 2 The 
 case went next on appeal, according to the forms of the 
 Church, from Presbytery to Synod, and from Synod to 
 General Assembly. The supreme tribunal gave a 
 decision against Campbell by one hundred and nineteen 
 votes to six ; that is, out of a total membership of over 
 three hundred, of which the General Assembly consisted, 
 only one hundred and twenty-five took part in a vote 
 which excommunicated from the pale of the Church the 
 saintliest and one of the most learned of its servants. 
 Passing over this extraordinary phase of the trial for the 
 present, it is worth recording that there were some like 
 Erskine of Linlathen, one of Campbell's great friends, 
 who viewed the Disruption which occurred twelve years 
 afterwards as a doom inflicted on the Kirk for the harsh 
 measures which she meted out to this man of God. 
 
 Everyone acquainted with Scotland knows what droll 
 characters some of the old Scottish judges were, how 
 harsh their treatment of prisoners, how grotesque their 
 administration of law. As we read the proceedings 
 in the trial of John Macleod Campbell, we are sometimes 
 1 Case (xix.). 2 Memorials, i. 69. 
 
154 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 reminded of these antique worthies. Not that ecclesi- 
 astical procedure in the thirties of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury was as barbarous as the criminal trials of Lord 
 Braxfield's time, but it can be alleged without breach 
 of charity that many of Campbell's judges were per- 
 sons who eyed the meek Christian standing at their 
 bar as no better than the worst moral delinquent whom 
 it was their duty to hurry to the cells below as quickly 
 as possible. We say this after hearing what they said 
 of him. For instance, one of them in the course of the 
 trial informed the Court, evidently with the intention of 
 prejudicing the case, that all the clergymen of the Church 
 of Scotland had refused to hold professional intercourse 
 with him; another, with a guffaw, said, "Some of us 
 might have been his father: and without any great 
 arrogance I may say that we had as much divinity as 
 he has before he was born : and we may be allowed to 
 have made some addition to it during the thirty years 
 he has been in the world." The same blustering divine 
 objected to the accused being allowed to quote the Holy 
 Scriptures in his defence : " We are far from appealing 
 to the Word of God on this ground: it is by the Con- 
 fession of Faith that we must stand : by it we hold 
 our livings." 1 
 
 Perhaps the most cruel and hurtful reproach brought 
 against Campbell was when, imitating Socrates' ac- 
 cusers, they charged him with the dissemination of 
 ideas tending to the corruption of youth. The saintly 
 man smarted under this reproach. He had the best of 
 reasons for knowing that the effect of his teaching, like 
 the aim and intention of it, was the reverse of what 
 1 Case (xxix. ). 
 
THE ROW HERESY 155 
 
 they slanderously reported. At the time such charges 
 were being- recklessly circulated, he had in his possession 
 testimony to the power of his teaching from the very 
 class he was supposed to be contaminating. In a letter 
 to his sister at this time he said : " I have heard some 
 encouraging things that I would just mention. Stand- 
 ing in Mr. Wilson's wareroom " a Glasgow merchant 
 " last week, a man came in whom Mr. Wilson intro- 
 duced to me. The man immediately took me by the 
 hand, taking off his hat with his other hand, and with 
 his eyes full said : ' Dear sir, I am most thankful to 
 meet you. The first ray of spiritual light that ever 
 entered my mind was through you at Paisley three years 
 ago, and up to that time I was a Socinian.' A young 
 man, a printer, employed in the printing-office in which 
 my sermons were printed, took home with him one 
 night a damaged sheet to read it. He was struck, and 
 showed it to his mother. It took hold of her, and this 
 incident was the commencement of a reading of the 
 sermons, tracts, etc., in that house, which has issued in 
 the father, mother, brothers, and sisters being now all 
 rejoicing in God." 1 Nor were such testimonies either 
 few or limited to a particular class. From the Greenock 
 shoemaker who refused payment of an account, saying, 
 " Sir, you will pay nothing. I trust I may say I owe 
 you a thousand times more," to the English Church 
 clergyman, author of a volume of Christian evidences 
 bearing the dedication, "To my honoured friend, John 
 Macleod Campbell, this little volume is respectfully 
 dedicated in grateful acknowledgment of many invalu- 
 able lessons learned from his works," a cloud of 
 1 Memorials, i. 105. 
 
156 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 witnesses could be gathered to testify to the purifying 
 and ennobling tendency of his influence. The new ideas, 
 when they were fortunate enough to find lodgment in 
 youthful minds, invariably awoke a new joy and en- 
 kindled a fresh interest in religious things. 
 
 Campbell was deposed in 1831, and by 1833 he was 
 surrounded by a circle of disciples, gathered from Glas- 
 gow and the West country, to whom he continued 
 ministering week by week and day by day, till the 
 excessive strain brought on a temporary breakdown 
 in health. During this season his teaching and per- 
 sonality acted as a leaven quietly and unnoticed, but 
 ultimately permeated the whole character of theological 
 thinking. Charged as he was with good tidings to 
 men, he could not choose but publish them. Three 
 times a Sunday and once on Mondays in Glasgow ; 
 every Tuesday in Paisley, each Friday in Greencck, 
 for years, that was his weekly programme of work. 
 
 There is reason to believe that he would have been 
 welcomed into the ministry of the Church of England ; 
 but besides other reasons against it, he was too honest 
 a man to take refuge in a Church whose creed was 
 identical with that of his own Church, at least on the 
 points on which she cast him out. Yet he never felt 
 easy in his isolated position. " So far am I myself," he 
 says, " from being contented with it, that my heart's cry 
 to Him in whose hands I feel myself is, that in His own 
 time and way He would deliver me from it : though in 
 this sense I seek to be contented, that I endeavour to 
 bear this cross as long as He may lay it upon me." : 
 
 In addition to his unwearied propaganda by the 
 1 Memorials, i. 190. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 157 
 
 living- voice, he devoted the years now before him 
 to the preparation of works for the press. The first 
 of these appeared in 1851, being a volume on the 
 Eucharist in reply to the teaching of the Church of 
 Rome, and was entitled "The Bread of Life." The 
 following year appeared " Fragments of Truth," being 
 expositions of passages of Scripture, a work that has 
 gone through four editions, the last being so recent 
 as 1898. "Fragments of Truth" was a book that 
 Charles Kingsley read and enjoyed. Next came his 
 magnum opus in 1854, "The Nature of the Atonement," 
 the work he is best known by, and which has gone 
 through several editions. In the days when he occupied 
 the pulpit at Row he had proclaimed a universal Atone- 
 ment. Now he fulfilled a long-cherished wish to follow 
 up his testimony to the universality of the Atonement 
 with an exposition of its nature. The late Principal 
 Tulloch of St. Andrews directed his students' attention 
 to this work, strongly recommended it to the young men, 
 and commented on it in two lectures to his Divinity 
 class. Campbell felt that the Church of Scotland, by this 
 action of Tulloch's, had made a certain amend to him. 
 
 His last theological effort was called forth by the 
 publication of the famous " Essays and Reviews," which 
 fell upon the Christian world like a bombshell in the 
 early sixties. This was "Thoughts on Revelation," 
 published in 1862, in which he develops his teaching on 
 Assurance of the old Row days, precisely as in his book 
 on the Nature of the Atonement he supplied a corollary 
 to his old proclamation of its universality. In this 
 work there is a marked improvement in the quality of 
 lucidity. After its appearance Norman Macleod wrote 
 
158 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 him : "I left a copy of your noble book at Florence 
 with the Free Kirk minister there. What a marvel- 
 lous advance you have made in diction ! This book 
 is as clear as sunshine." In the year 1868 his 
 alma mater, the University of Glasgow, conferred on 
 Campbell the degree of D.D. " Few," said Bishop 
 Ewing, "who have had any interest in the religious 
 life of Scotland for the last forty years but will regard 
 the event with deep emotion, significant as it is of the 
 change in religious feeling which has taken place. If 
 it has been Mr. Campbell's happiness to receive in 
 this life that recognition which confessors too often 
 but receive after their death, it is becoming on the 
 part of those who rejoice in the recognition to testify 
 their joy, and to return thanks to those by whom the 
 recognition has been made." 
 
 In one of the speeches at his trial, Campbell referred 
 to himself as a thinker born before his time. His 
 words are worth recalling. He said: "It is an awful 
 heresy that would invade the freedom of searching 
 the Word of God by the ministers of the Church ; that 
 would teach that because she is an Established Church 
 her ministers are to enjoy less liberty when seeking 
 to bring forward, for the edification of their people, 
 from the Word of God things new and old. On this 
 subject I entreat my brethren and fathers to remember 
 this plain fact, that the Church at no time has contained 
 all the light that is in her living Head, that of the 
 fulness that is in Jesus Christ there has been but a 
 part at any time in His body as a living thing. And 
 unquestionably the Church has to take to herself 
 admonition from the example of the apostle (Phil. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 1 59 
 
 iii. 13) : ' This thing I do, forgetting" those things 
 which are behind, and reaching forward unto those 
 things which are before.' In respect of the Christians 
 to whom he writes, the apostle distinctly recognises 
 that their knowledge is limited, and teaches that it 
 ought to be progressive, expressing his trust that it 
 would be so (ver. 15). What is true of individual 
 Christians is true of the Church as a body ; and 
 surely as the Church would admit that an individual 
 Christian was rejecting the express command of the 
 Holy Ghost if he said, * I shall be satisfied with the 
 knowledge unto which I have attained, and shall not 
 seek to be taught farther,' she cannot consistently 
 hold that such language would become herself. . . . 
 If a Confession of Faith were something to stint and 
 stop the Church's growth in light and knowledge, and 
 to say, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther,' then 
 a Confession of Faith would be the greatest curse that 
 ever befell a Church. Therefore I distinctly hold that 
 no minister treats the Confession of Faith aright if 
 he does not come with it, as a party, to the Word of 
 God, and to acknowledge no other tribunal, in matters 
 of heresy, than the Word of God. In matters of 
 doctrine, no lower authority can be recognised than 
 that of God." 1 This was spoken in 1831. By 1847 
 the leaven had wrought so effectually that he could 
 say ; " There has been of late a great breaking up 
 of the Calvinism of this country ; and not only a 
 preaching of the universality of the Atonement, but a 
 reaction against Calvinism which, like all reactions, 
 has tended to an opposite error ; and more especially 
 1 Memorials, \. 82, 
 
160 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 to much that is very superficial and even untrue on 
 the subject of divine teaching- and regeneration ; while 
 the recognition of the universality of the Atonement 
 has been unaccompanied by any more spiritual insight 
 into its nature. The persons who have been coming 
 to me had been under this new teaching, and had been 
 coming to feel that it did not meet the deep wants of 
 their being, and in some way had been led to come to 
 our meetings ; and the response which they inwardly 
 felt to what they heard caused them to hope that now 
 they were in the way of receiving what they needed. 
 What it may grow to I know not ; but the people 
 of whom they are a part are many, and doubtless they 
 will be communicating their own experience to their 
 friends." 1 
 
 The questions made prominent in the Row heresy 
 were three ; (i) the Extent of the Atonement ; (2) the 
 Nature of the Divine Pardon ; (3) the place of Assurance 
 in Christian experience. Beginning with the first of 
 these questions, Campbell maintained and taught that 
 the Atonement was of universal extent. The Death 
 of Christ as a Sacrifice for Sin availed for every son 
 of Adam. His words are ; "I hold and teach that 
 Christ died for all men, that the propitiation which 
 He made for sin was for all the sins of all mankind, 
 that those for whom He gave Himself an offering 
 unto God for a sweet-smelling savour were the children 
 of men without exception and without distinction. 
 And this," he added, "the Scriptures teach." Such 
 was the clear statement of his position which he made 
 at his trial. It has a familiar and commonplace sound 
 1 Memorials, i. 203. 
 
THE ROW HERESY l6l 
 
 now in the twentieth century, but when first uttered by 
 its intrepid author in the first half of the nineteenth, 
 it startled people as a dangerous and revolutionary 
 doctrine. His conception of the Person of Christ 
 carried with it this large idea of the provision of 
 salvation. According to Campbell, Christ as our 
 elder brother, yea, our fellow-servant, voluntarily sub- 
 mitted Himself to the whole law of God, and therefore 
 could not be supposed to love some of His brethren 
 unto death and not all. "My dear fathers and 
 brethren," he said at his trial, "whom I seek to 
 address as in the feeling of the presence of our Father 
 and our God, I ask you whether you do not all believe 
 that Christ fulfilled the righteous law of God?; 
 whether you do not all believe that Christ came under 
 that law, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy soul, heart, mind, and strength, and thy neighbour 
 as thyself? I ask you, then, whether you do not believe 
 that Christ did love His neighbour as Himself? And 
 I ask you whether you believe that He Himself has 
 taught us to regard every human being as our neigh- 
 bours? And do you not believe that the man Christ 
 Jesus did love every human being, as a man I say 
 as a righteous man as a man fulfilling the righteous 
 law of God? If, then, the righteous man Christ Jesus 
 did love every human being, and if the mind of Christ 
 is the mind of God, surely it follows alas ! that 
 any should wish anything else to follow it follows 
 that God loveth every human being. I ask, then, 
 how did Christ express His love and show that He 
 loved every man as Himself? Was it not by His 
 deeds ? was it not by His dying as well as by all 
 ii 
 
1 62 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 His other doings that He set forth His love ? If, then, 
 Christ loved all, and if thus it appears that God loved 
 all , and if Christ's actings expressed His love, which 
 is God's love to all, then this great act of humbling 
 Himself to the death, even the death of the Cross, this 
 great act must be expressive of the love of Christ to 
 all men, and therefore of the love of God to all men." x 
 
 The same generous conclusion is reached when he con- 
 siders Christ in His sovereign and judicial capacities. 
 Christ as King and Judge of mankind must needs have 
 made atonement for all men. When Scripture says, 
 The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all 
 judgment to the Son, the reason is because Christ hath 
 done something for all men, even died for them. 
 Christ's right to judge them, according to Campbell, 
 springs from His having bought them with a price. 
 Take away His love for all manifested in His sufferings 
 for all, and you take away all reason for His being 
 exalted as their judge. At the Day of Judgment the 
 only sin that will condemn men will be their continued 
 rejection of Christ. The condemnation of the Father 
 will no man incur, but only the wrath of the Lamb. 
 
 On these and other grounds Campbell argued for a 
 universal provision of Atonement, and thus summed 
 up ; "On these grounds, therefore, do I hold the 
 doctrine of universal Atonement to be the doctrine 
 of Scripture, namely, That there is not one word 
 pointedly or distinctly limiting the Atonement, that 
 there are many expressions distinctly averring that 
 the work of Christ has been for all men, that the 
 appointing Him King of Zion and ordaining a media- 
 1 Proof, p. 182. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 163 
 
 torial kingdom in His hand are announced as good 
 news to all men, that the various forms in which this 
 gospel of the kingdom is preached contain internal 
 evidence that Christ died for all, that the footing on 
 which the call to repentance is addressed to sinners is 
 the manifested love of God in Christ to them, that the 
 ground on which the obligation to love our brethren 
 is put, is the love of God in Christ, and the call to 
 prayer for them is founded on Christ's having given 
 Himself a ransom for all, that the judgment to come, 
 both in respect of a resurrection of men for judgment, 
 of the principle of the judgment, and of His title to 
 judge, before whose judgment-seat all must stand, teach 
 the same doctrine, and, finally, that it is implied in the 
 statements of the Scripture on the subject of election." J 
 Turning to the next matter in dispute, the subject 
 of a universal pardon, he distinguished between the 
 different senses of pardon. Pardon may mean (i) an 
 act of absolute and unconditional amnesty declared to 
 all men and bestowed upon them irrespective of their 
 moral character ; (2) the act of God when He receives 
 a sinner back unto Himself ; (3) a removal of the judi- 
 cial barrier interposed by man's guilt, so that the fact 
 of his sinfulness presents now no obstacle in the way 
 of his return to God. Now, Campbell utterly repudiated 
 the first of these descriptions of pardon ; he said : " To 
 neither unbeliever nor believer is any immunity from 
 future wrath secured apart from his being prepared for 
 being found of God m peace at that day in which He 
 shall judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ." 
 As regards pardon in the second sense, no one at the 
 1 Case, p. 31. 2 Case, p. 33. 
 
164 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 time made it the subject of dispute. In this second 
 sense Campbell did not hold pardon to be universal, for 
 the reason that all have not repented and turned to 
 God. But in the third sense of pardon he did hold it 
 to be universal : not that all men are delivered from 
 wrath to come, but that they are redeemed from the 
 curse of sin, delivered from the penalty of the law, and 
 placed under terms of grace. " In this sense," he said, 
 "I do hold and in this sense I teach the doctrine of 
 universal pardon through the death of Christ. For 
 such a pardon I believe the Scriptures to reveal as 
 extended to all as the result of the atoning sacrifice 
 of Christ for all as the fruit of His propitiation for 
 the sins of the world as the condition in which God's 
 accepting the sacrifice of Christ for mankind has placed 
 the children of men : and," he went on to say, " if it be 
 this doctrine that the libel designates as * universal 
 pardon through the death of Christ,' I deny the rele- 
 vancy of the libel in respect of it, with reference to the 
 Scriptures, holding it to be altogether beyond contro- 
 versy that this is the doctrine of the Word of God." l 
 
 What he here avowed as his belief did not amount 
 to the old doctrine of Arminius, that God is ready 
 to save and pardon all men on condition of their 
 repenting and receiving the gospel. He explicitly 
 guarded himself against being so understood. "No 
 two doctrines," said he, " can be more widely different. 
 Arminianism is the sanctifying with the name of 
 religion pure self-righteousness. After a man is 
 supposed to have repented and believed on that 
 system, he is only then in that condition of right to 
 1 Case, p. 35. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 165 
 
 come to God with confidence, in which, according to the 
 true doctrine of the Scriptures, he was placed by the 
 Sacrifice of Christ, as a propitiation for his sins ; and 
 as long as repenting and believing occupy in men's 
 minds this place of preliminary requisites, in order to 
 have title to approach God with boldness, of confidence 
 in His Fatherly love to us and free acceptance of us, 
 it makes little difference whether we professedly hold 
 the system known by the name of Arminianism, or 
 attempt to separate between ourselves and it by limiting 
 the Atonement and by holding strictly that the faith 
 and the repentance are the gifts of God." 1 
 
 Campbell's insistence on assurance as an essential 
 of Christian experience was another article of contention 
 between him and current theology, as it had been with 
 the Marrow men before his day. It was involved in 
 his doctrine of grace. Assurance was a corollary to 
 universal pardon. On limited theories of Atonement, 
 assurance had no such place as he gave it. On such 
 theories you could be assured of the truth of God's 
 word, not of a personal love for each and all of 
 mankind. On Campbell's doctrine of grace you were 
 bound to go thus far. According to that doctrine, all 
 men were entitled to feel sure of God's love to them 
 personally, irrespective of who and what they were. 
 This was more, on the one hand, than being sure that 
 God's word was true ; on the other hand, it was less 
 than assurance of personal salvation. Campbell 
 described it as the assurance of faith. " It is no doubt, 
 when abounding in the assurance of faith, that, if the 
 eye turns inwardly, and the thoughts are directed to 
 1 Case, p. 36. 
 
1 66 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 our own state, we shall also enjoy the assurance of 
 being in a state of salvation ; but still the two assurances 
 are distinct in themselves, and I at present feel it to be 
 important to refer to the distinction, because, whilst I 
 hold assurance to be of the essence of faith, I do not 
 hold that the converted person is necessarily always in 
 a condition of assurance as to his being in a state of 
 salvation ; inasmuch as I do not hold it to be impossible 
 for a converted person to be, at times, so overcome of 
 the temptations of Satan, causing darkness, through 
 the flesh, as it may be to stand in doubt of the first 
 principles of the oracles of God ; and it is manifest that, 
 if brought into such darkness and such unbelief, there 
 must be the interruption to the blessed consciousness 
 of being a child of God and an heir of glory." * 
 
 That it is our duty as well as our privilege to feel 
 certain of God's love to ourselves personally, that the 
 certainty of this is an essential accompaniment of true 
 and intelligent faith, was a position from which, 
 however denied by the great mass of his countrymen, 
 Campbell seems never to have swerved. Thirty years 
 after being condemned for maintaining it, its power 
 over him is still seen from some remarks that he 
 makes on the agnostic verses of the poet A. H. Clough. 
 Writing to his friend Erskine of Linlathen, he says : " I 
 have lately had my attention directed to dough's 
 poems (by Mr. Shairp), and have felt in them though 
 in a philosophic garb the instinctive impatience of the 
 doctrine of assurance which we were so familiar with 
 thirty years ago, in minds differing widely in respect of 
 religion ; some serious, some careless, some Calvinistic, 
 1 Case, p. 49. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 167 
 
 some Arminian ; but which were alike in this, that they 
 knew not that they knew the living God. I say, " knew 
 not that they knew " ; for I believe that some know 
 God more truly than they know that they know." l 
 
 He proclaimed the doctrine of universal atonement 
 and the necessity for the peace and joy of assurance, 
 with all the warm zeal of a Church Father contending 
 for the faith once delivered to the saints. To his 
 clear spiritual vision these were matters that were 
 great and cardinal. To deny or doubt that God loved 
 every individual man to the extent of sending His Son 
 to die for them, was in his view to be guilty of the 
 arch-heresy of denying that God Himself was love. To 
 put any limitations to the extent of Divine grace was 
 tantamount to a denial of it. For God to love some 
 of His creatures and to pass by others, were to represent 
 Him as capable of caprice and devoid of love. In like 
 manner, to require from believers in God the assurance 
 of faith, was in his opinion the most natural and 
 reasonable duty. It was but saying that they that 
 know His name should put their trust in Him, should 
 have peace through believing, should rejoice because 
 the Lord had done great things for them. 
 
 In support of his contention, he cited the Fathers of 
 the Church and the Confession of Faith. He quoted 
 to his accusers the words of the old Scottish Confes- 
 sion of 1560: "Regeneration is wrocht be the power 
 of the Holy Ghost working in the hartes of the elect 
 of God ane assured faith in the promise of God reveiled 
 to us in his word, by whilk faith we apprehend Christ 
 Jesus with the graces and benefits promised in him." 
 1 Memorials, ii. 27. 
 
1 68 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 He quoted to them the words of Patrick Hamilton, the 
 Scottish Reformer: "And they that believe not that 
 their sins are forgiven them, and that they shall be 
 saved for Christ's sake, they believe not the gospel." 
 He claimed to have the holy and learned Boston with 
 him in these views. Boston had written in his Notes 
 to The Marrow of Modern Divinity : "And the doctrine 
 of assurance or an appropriating persuasion in saving 
 faith, as it is the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures, 
 Rom. x. 9 ; Acts xv. 1 1 ; Gal. ii. 20 ; so it is a Pro- 
 testant doctrine, taught by Protestant divines against 
 the Papists ; sealed with the blood of Martyrs, in 
 Popish flames : it is the doctrine of Reformed Churches 
 abroad and the doctrine of the Church of Scotland." 
 An eminent Scottish divine, Dr. Colquhoun of Leith, 
 had said, treating of assurance: "There are two 
 different kinds of assurance, the assurance of faith and 
 the assurance of sense. The former kind belongs to the 
 essence of faith. It is essential to saving faith, and is 
 nothing but faith itself." Again, " This particular trust 
 or confidence in the Saviour for Salvation is what our 
 Reformers from Popery called the assurance of faith ; 
 and by it they usually describe saving faith." " For my 
 part, I am utterly at a loss to know what trusting in the 
 Saviour for Salvation can mean, unless it means my trust- 
 ing that He will perform the part of a Saviour to me" * 
 
 It is now time to turn to the arguments employed 
 against Campbell. These, it will be easily understood, 
 though sufficient to bring in a verdict against him, 
 were such as would hardly be listened to now. Not 
 unscholarly in a sense, or utterly without cogency and 
 1 Case, p. 65. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 169 
 
 reason, they were mainly irrelevant to the subject in 
 hand. Thus the idea of a universal atonement was 
 met by a flat denial. Scripture, it was alleged, no- 
 where countenanced the idea. The statements of 
 Scripture that seemed to favour the idea could all 
 be explained away. " These statements," it was said, 
 "are very general, and it must be taken into con- 
 sideration that the Scriptures are not a dry philo- 
 sophical treatise. The great part of the statements 
 of Scripture on religious doctrine are interwoven 
 with history ; and it must be borne in mind that the 
 persons to whom the first intimations of the gospel 
 were dictated, and by them published to the world, 
 were labouring under a strong national prejudice, 
 reluctant to admit the Gentiles into the bosom of the 
 Church ; and strong language was necessary to show 
 the wide extent of the evangelical administration, 
 that it was a universal and not a partial one. But 
 there are statements which seem to limit it. Our 
 Saviour says that He came into the world not to be 
 ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a 
 ransom for many "This is My blood shed for many 
 for the remission of sins." 1 
 
 The doctrine of assurance, again, for which Campbell 
 was condemned, was not, as he was at pains again 
 and again to show, the doctrine which he held and 
 taught, namely, the assurance of faith. His opponents 
 imputed to him a doctrine of assurance which he firmly 
 repudiated, namely, the assurance of personal salva- 
 tion, and condemned him accordingly under the Act of 
 1720, which, as we have seen, the Moderate party of 
 1 Proof, p. 240. 
 
I/O THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 that time passed in order to suppress the teaching of 
 the Marrow theology. 
 
 By these methods Campbell was condemned, partly 
 by the employment of arguments that were not 
 relevant, and by accusing him of views which he did 
 not hold, and partly because his message was un- 
 acceptable and unintelligible to men obstinately 
 attached to a form of Calvinism that Calvin himself 
 would have repudiated. Thus was he cast out from 
 a religious communion in which his fathers and he 
 had been reared, and in which they were conspicuously 
 gifted servants. It was a sad day for him, for he 
 loved his Church well, and never lifted up a stone 
 against her to the end. But while it was a sad day 
 for him, it was a humbling one for the Church that 
 now flung from her bosom her loyal and gracious son. 
 The Church has long since regretted her folly ; but the 
 error could not be undone. She has found no place for 
 repentance, though she may have sought it with tears. 
 
 i. Looking at the Row heresy at the distance of 
 seventy years, one sees a great deal in it that did not 
 stand out at the time, notably the Act of Assembly 
 under which the trial took place. It is referred to 
 in the major proposition of the libel in these terms : 
 "The doctrine of universal atonement and pardon 
 through the death of Christ, as also the doctrine that 
 assurance is of the essence of faith and necessary to 
 salvation, are contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and to 
 the Confession of Faith, approven by the General 
 Assemblies of the Church of Scotland and ratified by 
 law in the year 1690 : and were, moreover, condemned 
 by the $th Act of the General Assembly, held in the 
 
THE ROW HERESY I /I 
 
 year 1720, as being directly opposed to the Word of 
 God and to the Confession of Faith and Catechisms 
 of the Church of Scotland." 
 
 It has been pointed out how the Act of 1720 came 
 into force, how it was drawn up in haste by men 
 who aimed at suppressing the new evangelicalism of 
 their day, the Marrow theology ; how it condemned 
 the book from which the new evangelicalism drew its 
 inspiration as contrary to Scripture and the Confession 
 of Faith ; how it prohibited the Clergy from recom- 
 mending the book, and even required them to warn 
 their flocks against reading it. 
 
 Now this Act of Assembly that did all this never 
 became a law of the Church, although in Campbell's 
 time it was employed in that character. At the most, 
 it was a decision of Assembly in a particular case : 
 not even a Declaratory Act giving new expression to 
 the sense in which the Church interpreted her old 
 standards ; but only a declaration of the sense in 
 which the Assembly of 1720 interpreted most people 
 would now say misinterpreted the teaching of a 
 particular book. Before it could attain the force and 
 authority of a law of the Church, it would have required 
 to pass down to Presbyteries under the Barrier Act> 
 one of the wisest safeguards of freedom enjoyed by 
 the Church. The terms of the Barrier Act are worth 
 recalling here. They provide, ' ' That before any General 
 Assembly of this Church shall pass any Acts which are 
 to be binding rules and constitutions to the Church, 
 the same Acts be first proposed as overtures to the 
 Assembly, and being by them passed as such, be re- 
 mitted to the consideration of the several Presbyteries 
 
172 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 of this Church, and their opinions and consent reported 
 by their Commissioners to the next General Assembly 
 following-, who may then pass the same in Acts, if 
 the more general opinion of the Church thus had agreed 
 thereunto" 
 
 Had the Act of 1720, under which Campbell was 
 tried and condemned, passed the various stages of this 
 wise Barrier Act, it would have been exalted to the 
 rank of a Law of the Church, and Campbell's trial 
 under it would have been just and competent. As it 
 was, his trial was neither. Moreover, from the days 
 of Thomas Boston to those of Dr. Andrew Thomson, 
 as Story of Rosneath pointed out in his powerful 
 defence of Campbell, some of the most respected 
 authorities in the Church, including Boston and Dr. 
 Andrew Thomson themselves, had regarded the Act 
 1720 as a blot on the Church's character. When it 
 was originally passed, as we have seen in a preceding 
 chapter, all the most learned evangelical divines of 
 the day offered it an ineffectual resistance, headed 
 by Boston and Ebenezer Erskine. They showed, 
 although all in vain, that the teaching that the Act 
 condemned had been maintained by all Reformed 
 divines in this country and on the Continent, and 
 that some of the sentences of the condemned book 
 that gave greatest offence to the then leaders of the 
 General Assembly were the ipsissima verba of Luther 
 himself. Fraser of Brea, a nomen prceclarum in Scottish 
 theology, had taught a twofold destination of the 
 Atonement ; one restricted to the elect, the other 
 coextensive with the human race. As Campbell had 
 not gone farther than this, his friends thought it 
 
THE ROW HERESY 173 
 
 right to make Fraser's position known, which was 
 done by Erskine of Linlathen, who published extracts 
 from Fraser's work in support of the Row opinions. 
 
 Campbell then suffered and suffered illegally under 
 the Act that condemned the evangelicalism of the 
 eighteenth century ; and it need not be said that for 
 that Act he had the same cordial disrespect that all 
 evangelical divines in Scotland have ever entertained. 
 He gave expression to this in his own gentle manner : 
 "The Act of 1720 I regard with regret," he said, 
 "and as a minister of this Church have cause to be 
 humbled on account of it." 1 Probably in this direc- 
 tion we are to find an explanation of the extraordinary 
 fact already pointed out, that out of an Assembly of 
 over three hundred members only one hundred and 
 twenty - five took part in the fatal vote. The great 
 majority of the members were certainly not favour- 
 able to Campbell's views, but they were evidently 
 as honestly opposed to condemning him under the 
 disgraceful Act 1720. At the same time it was not 
 to their credit that they silently acquiesced in a 
 decision arrived at by wrongful and unjust means. 
 
 2. Although Campbell had the honour of suffering 
 on grounds similar to those on which the evangelical 
 party of the eighteenth century were condemned, it 
 must not be supposed that he was a mere modern 
 Marrow man. His views more resemble Amyraldism, 
 a system belonging to the seventeenth century, that 
 deserves more than a passing notice. This system 
 derived its name from its author, Moses Amyraut, a 
 French theologian who did much to modify and 
 1 Case (xxvi.). 
 
174 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 liberalise the dogmatic Calvinism of his day. Amyraut 
 held the Calvinistic doctrines of predestination and 
 the Divine decree, but joined on to them a doctrine 
 of universal salvation through the sacrifice of Christ 
 offered up for all. God's will and desire are that all 
 should be saved. So far grace and pardon are 
 universal, and they are unconditional. But in the 
 result they are not universal but particular, reaching 
 those only who do not reject them. As Calvinism 
 interprets the divine intentions from an observation 
 of the results of salvation, Amyraldism argues in an 
 inverse order from God's goodness and love to His 
 creatures, to His desire and intention towards them, 
 and draws the inferences therefrom of a universal 
 provision of salvation. Amyraut's ideas created great 
 excitement in the Reformed Churches of France, 
 Holland, and Switzerland, and the consequent 
 divisions were sharp though not relentless. Accord- 
 ing to one party, Amyraut had Scripture on his side 
 and was altogether in the right. But this party was 
 opposed by the logicians, who contended that what 
 God did not accomplish it could not be said that He 
 willed and intended, and that universalism founded on 
 impossible conditions was no more productive of the 
 results of salvation than was the hardest form of 
 particularism. No such extreme measures, however, 
 were resorted to as in Campbell's case. The French 
 Church in its National Synod of 1659 declared Amyraut's 
 universalism to be purely ideal and academic, and 
 therefore to be tolerated. The Scottish Calvinists, on 
 the other hand, although they did not reason against 
 the new views with the vigour with which Rivet, 
 
THE ROW HERESY 1 75 
 
 Spanheim, and Peter Du Moulin did, had probably 
 a more accurate perception of their tendency. They 
 saw a danger attending the toleration of even ideal 
 and academic universalism that their abler French pre- 
 decessors saw not, namely, that of advancing to a 
 universalism which, as Schaff says, "turns conversion 
 into a process of nature and dulls the edge of warn- 
 ing," and is inconsistent with the possession of human 
 freedom, a possession which " implies the continued 
 power of resistance." 
 
 3. It ought not to be forgotten that Campbell 
 brought much of the trouble on himself by his per- 
 sistent use of terms such as "pardon," in a loose and 
 misleading sense. His manner of using that term 
 landed him constantly in misunderstanding. He em- 
 ployed it to describe the state of pardonableness in 
 which the atoning death of Christ has necessarily 
 and unconditionally placed every sinner of mankind. 
 God has, he persisted in saying, through the merits 
 and mediation of Jesus Christ, absolutely and un- 
 conditionally pardoned every sinner of mankind. 
 Questioned as to what he really meant by this de- 
 claration, he replied that he meant only that God had 
 removed the barrier that stands in the way of the 
 sinner returning to Himself. Campbell was not careful 
 enough in his use of terms. Granting that some most 
 substantial benefits have accrued to the race through 
 Christ's eternal relationship to it and His interposition 
 in its behalf, preservation in life, mitigation of the 
 curse of sin, an open door for the sinner's return to 
 God, we cannot speak of such benefits or any others 
 that may be secured to the whole race of mankind as 
 
1 76 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 equivalent to the remission of sins. Carlyle, Campbell's 
 counsel in the case, waved aside this objection, on the 
 ground that his client's meaning was clearly and 
 repeatedly explained in the evidence. But Story of 
 Rosneath had a finer discrimination of the value of 
 words, and did not hesitate to take his friend to task 
 on the subject. Speaking 1 of his use of the term 
 "pardon," he said, "The term itself I have no 
 hesitation in unreservedly and unequivocally con- 
 demning, as fitted to mislead, as not framed to give 
 right conceptions of the truth, either in the Scriptures 
 or the standards. But the truth must not suffer 
 although arrayed in an unseemly garment." 1 Surely 
 not, but Campbell certainly suffered from the con- 
 struction put upon his words by his opponents. They 
 seldom credited him with holding the doctrine of 
 universal pardon in the restricted sense which he 
 claimed. On the contrary, they usually attributed to 
 his words a meaning that he always repudiated. For 
 this his peculiar phraseology was to a large extent 
 unfortunately responsible. 
 
 4. It is an interesting point how far the first of 
 Campbell's universals the doctrine of universal atone- 
 ment may be honestly read into it cannot be read 
 out of the Westminster Confession of Faith. In his 
 later days Campbell seemed inclined to doubt whether 
 it could be honestly read into it. Writing to a friend, 
 thirty years after his deposition, he said, "Although 
 I felt it right, seeing ground for so thinking, to state 
 reasons for concluding that the word * redemption ' 
 was not used by the Westminster Assembly in the 
 1 Case, p. 94. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 
 
 sense in which holding redemption limited was a limiting 
 of the atonement, I was at pains to make it clear that 
 I stood simply on the truth of my teaching, its 
 harmony with the Scriptures. I did not, indeed, then see 
 the subject of election as I now see it ; otherwise I must 
 have recognised a pointed contradiction of a part of my 
 faith, as contained in the Westminster Confession." 1 
 
 A story told by A. J. Scott (a licentiate of the 
 Church of Scotland when Campbell's trial was pro- 
 ceeding, and deprived of his licence as a preacher of 
 the gospel by the Assembly that deposed Campbell, 
 for teaching similar views) ascribes this opinion to 
 him at the time. The two kindred spirits were in 
 the Assembly hearkening to each other's condemna- 
 tion. At the close of Scott's condemnation they 
 moved homeward together, and as they paced the 
 silent streets of the old city in pensive melancholy, 
 an interesting confession took place. The story is 
 best given in Scott's own words. " After that dreary 
 night in the Assembly, the dawn breaking upon 
 us as we returned at length, alike condemned, to our 
 lodging in the new town of Edinburgh, I turned round 
 and looked on my companion's face under the pale 
 light, and asked him, ' Could you sign the Confes- 
 sion now?' His answer was 'No.' The Assembly 
 was right. Our doctrine and the Confession are in- 
 compatible." 2 
 
 Some allowance must be made for the depressing 
 circumstances in which the friends stood at the 
 moment when Campbell is said to have thus de- 
 clared himself beaten. Something, too, must be de- 
 
 1 Memorials, ii. 34. 2 Erskine's Letters, p. 106. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 ducted from a confession wrung from a gentle spirit 
 by a somewhat commanding nature like that of 
 Scott. Although he may have assented to the latter's 
 view of the Westminster Standards, that they shut 
 the door against ideas of universal atonement, 
 Campbell argued for these ideas and for their 
 toleration under the Standards in such a manner as 
 to raise these Standards in the estimation of the world 
 to the rank of liberally conceived and wisely com- 
 prehensive documents. He interpreted their careful 
 clauses by the light of historical knowledge that has 
 stood the test of time, and that has been confirmed 
 by the most recent apologists for them. Campbell's 
 argument was that, although the Confession affirmed 
 the redemption by Christ to be particular, it said nothing 
 regarding a particular work of atonement. According 
 to his reading of the matter, the Confession has 
 significantly refrained from limiting the death of 
 Christ to the Elect only. The latest orthodox de- 
 fender of the Confession apparently agrees with 
 Campbell on this point. He says, "The statement 
 in our Confession is cautiously expressed. It is simply 
 an anticipation of the doctrine of effectual calling. 
 It really leaves untouched the question of the worth 
 of Christ's work, which is surely in itself infinite, and, 
 thus viewed in its essential worth, abundantly suffi- 
 cient to satisfy the justice of God for the sins of the 
 whole world." x 
 
 It is known that there were members of the West- 
 minster Assembly who held and advocated views of 
 the Atonement almost identical with those of Macleod 
 1 Macpherson's Handbook, p. 77. 
 
THE ROW HERESY 179 
 
 Campbell. Calamy was one of these. " I am far 
 from universal redemption in the Arminian sense," 
 he said; "but that that I hold is in the sense of 
 our divines in the Synod of Dort, that Christ did 
 pay a price for all, absolute intention for the elect, 
 conditional intention for the reprobate in case they 
 do believe." "These views," says the Confession's 
 apologist just quoted, "were not recognised, and 
 certainly they got no place in the Confession ; yet 
 that formula was so framed that Calamy and his 
 party found no difficulty in accepting it. The opinion 
 of the great majority of members was undoubtedly 
 in favour of what we call, in the strictest sense of the 
 term, the doctrine of a limited atonement, that Christ 
 died for the elect only ; yet even the express statement 
 (iii. 6), that the elect alone are saved by Christ, is not 
 so put as necessarily to offend the evangelical men, 
 who demand an unchallengeable ground for the un- 
 restricted offer of salvation." 1 Another authority on 
 the subject, Dr. Mitchell, says, "Those who in modern 
 times have pronounced most confidently, that the more 
 restricted view is exclusively intended, seem to me 
 to have unconsciously construed or interpreted the 
 words, ' neither are any other redeemed by Christ 
 effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and 
 saved, but the elect only,' as if they had run, ' neither 
 are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, 
 or justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the 
 elect only.' But these two statements do not neces- 
 sarily bear the same meaning. Calamy, Arrowsmith, 
 and the others who agreed with them, may have 
 1 Macpherson's Handbook, p. 25. 
 
ISO THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 felt justified in accepting the former, though they 
 might have scrupled to accept the latter." 1 
 
 From these authorities on the teaching of the West- 
 minster Confession of Faith, the standard by which 
 Campbell was professedly tried, it appears that that 
 venerable symbol of the faith has not committed itself 
 on the subject of the value or extent of the Redeemer's 
 death. The matter is untouched, or at the most 
 expressed cautiously, according to Macpherson and 
 Mitchell, and for this good reason, that the Confession 
 was intended to promote the union of Christians and 
 not their separation. It is interesting to remember that 
 at the time of his trial Campbell propounded his views 
 on this point in language that almost anticipates that 
 of the authorities just named. Speaking concerning 
 the Confession's statement, " Christ, by His obedience 
 and death, did fully discharge the debt of all those 
 that are thus justified, and did make a proper, real, 
 and full satisfaction to His Father's justice in their 
 behalf," he said: "Now, you will remember that 
 where redemption is spoken of it is not merely said, 
 positively, that the elect are redeemed, but, negatively, 
 that none else are ; but here where the death of Christ 
 is spoken of there is no, negative. But if the negative, 
 where redemption is spoken of, had referred to the 
 death of Christ, it would naturally have been intro- 
 duced here, which, indeed, was its fittest place ; and 
 that, when they are speaking pointedly about the death 
 of Christ for the elect, they do not say it was for the 
 elect alone, is not without a meaning. The real 
 history of this choice of language seems to be, that 
 1 Introduction to Minutes of Westminster Assembly, p. 57. 
 
THE ROW HERESY l8l 
 
 inasmuch as there were many men in that Assembly 
 who were opposed to the universality of the Atonement 
 (which, alas ! is matter of historical truth not to be 
 denied) , and inasmuch, on the other hand, as there 
 were many who held that doctrine, that there was no 
 farther liberty taken with the articles of the Church, 
 which they were revising, neither was there any 
 farther compromise resorted to for the purpose of 
 securing that harmony, with special reference to which 
 they were met, than their observing silence on the 
 subject of the extent of the Atonement." 
 1 Proof, p. 213. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 The Life of Principal Morison. By W. Adamson, D.D. Lond. 
 1898. 
 
 Principal James Morison. By Oliphant Smeaton. Edin. 1901. 
 
 History of the Evangelical Union. By Fergus Ferguson. 
 Glasg. 1876. 
 
 History of Congregational Independency in Scotland. By James 
 Ross. Glasg. 1900. 
 
 The Extent of the Propitiation. By James Morison. Lond. 1847. 
 
 OF the movement now to engage our attention, 
 nothing is truer than that it was the genuine 
 offspring of its age. During the thirties of last cen- 
 tury the Legislatures of our country were made to 
 recognise the rights of man as they had never done 
 before. In politics the long night of privilege was 
 far spent, and the dawn of a new era was beginning 
 to appear. Old social standards of measurement and 
 old economical doctrines, such as that the many existed 
 for the benefit of the few, were showing signs of 
 breaking up. The voice of the poor and the needy 
 was making itself heard, and their demands for justice 
 and redress were receiving attention. We have but 
 to remember the activity of Parliament during that 
 and the preceding decade the Catholic Emancipation 
 
 182 
 
THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM 183 
 
 measure of 1829 ; the Reform Bill of 1832 ; the Abolition 
 of Slavery within the British Colonies in 1833 ; the Poor 
 Law of 1834; the restoration of the rights of munici- 
 palities in the year following, and the foundation of a 
 system of national education in 1839 to see how the 
 aspirations of the nation were tending, and how humani- 
 tarian sentiment was finding expression. Brotherhood, 
 equality, and fair-play were clamouring loudly at every 
 closed door, and refusing to be turned away. A corre- 
 sponding claim, quite independent of politics, was being 
 made in the name of Christian theology. Here also it 
 was demanded that doors of privilege be thrown open. 
 The conception of a God who maintained His Church 
 and provided redemption for the favoured few was 
 being declared an intolerable anachronism. Freedom 
 for all, food for all, education for all, and salvation for 
 all, were now coming to be the national watchwords. 
 
 At such crises in the history of a nation the forward 
 advance has generally been brought about by a leader 
 of commanding personality. Others may co-operate 
 in the preparation of the way ; they may dig the 
 trenches and bring the army on the field to the point 
 of attack, but his decisive action storms the citadel, 
 and his sword accomplishes the victory. There were 
 preachers of the three universalities before James 
 Morison, some of them even within the small sect 
 that cast him forth from its midst ; but the honour 
 of victory was his who made them current coin. What 
 emboldened him to work and suffer for the propagation 
 of his condemned opinions, was the wonderful spiritual 
 results that ever followed their proclamation. Could 
 he doubt the soundness of his views when he saw them 
 
1 84 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 instrumental in the conversion of multitudes? Like 
 another Wesley, although within narrower limits, he 
 went forth on itinerary preaching- tours from 1840 to 
 1844; and revivals invariably followed as the result 
 of his preaching. Confirmed in his beliefs by such 
 tokens of the Divine presence, he and his followers 
 sought to influence a wider public than they could 
 reach by the spoken appeal. Religious journalism, 
 now so popular and influential, commenced its great 
 career at that time, and one of the weekly journals 
 then started, the Christian News, still flourishes. It 
 is the oldest religious paper in Scotland. 
 
 Among the views for which, in 1841, Morison, then 
 a minister of the United Secession in Kilmarnock, was 
 arraigned before the Church Courts, were the follow- 
 ing: That the object of saving faith is the statement that 
 Christ made atonement for the sins of the person invited 
 to believe, as He made atonement for the sins of the 
 whole world ; that those to whom the gospel is 
 preached are under no natural inability to believe, or 
 to put away unbelief, the only obstacle to salvation 
 which the Atonement had not removed ; that no person 
 ought to be directed to pray for grace to help him 
 to believe, even though he were an anxious sinner ; 
 and that no person's prayers could be of any avail 
 till he believed unto salvation, which believing must 
 immediately give the knowledge that the person is 
 saved ; that repentance in Scripture meant only a 
 change of mind, and was not godly sorrow for sin ; 
 that justification is not pardon, but is implied in 
 pardon ; that God pardons only in His character of 
 Father, and justifies only in the character of Judge, 
 
THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM 185 
 
 and that justification is the expression of the fatherly 
 favour of God ; that election comes in the order of 
 nature after the Atonement. Morison was also charged 
 with publishing expressions unscriptural, unwarrant- 
 able, and calculated to depreciate the Atonement. On 
 the subject of Original Sin, it was alleged that he was 
 not prepared to say that all men by nature are deserv- 
 ing of the punishment of death, temporal, spiritual, 
 and eternal, on account of Adam's sin. 
 
 After an excited discussion of these views, the 
 Kilmarnock Presbytery decided to "admonish Mr. 
 Morison, and suspend him from the exercise of his mini- 
 stry and the fellowship of the Church ; aye and until he 
 retract his errors and express his sorrow for the offence 
 given to the brethren in the Church by the propagation 
 of these errors." In dignified tones Morison replied, " I 
 need not say how deeply I am pained by the decision 
 to which my fathers and brethren have come." A 
 leading citizen of the town retorted with less dignity, 
 "Moderator, Mr. Morison has protested in his own 
 name against the decision that has just been reached, 
 but I protest in the name of the commissioners and 
 of the congregation. It will be left, however, to the 
 congregation to say whether they will appeal to the 
 Synod or not. But, friends, I counsel you to let 
 the Presbytery depart in peace. As a people we have 
 been much tried by them in the past, and they have 
 often met here ; but this is the last time they will ever 
 meet in Clerk's Lane Church." 
 
 When the case came before the Synod in Glasgow 
 the same year, it created intense excitement. A news- 
 paper of the day said, "In so far as the interests of 
 
1 86 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 the Secession Church and of religion generally are 
 concerned, a more important cause was never before 
 tried in Scotland." The decision of the lower Court 
 was confirmed, and Morison was cut off from the 
 Church of his fathers. He received the sentence with 
 remarkable composure, and contented himself with the 
 memorable remark, "Sooner shall my right hand forget 
 its cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my 
 mouth, than that this decision shall prevent me from 
 preaching the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ. Seeing 
 the Supreme Court of the United Secession Church has 
 passed sentence against me, even to suspension from 
 the exercise of my ministry, and that on most unjust 
 grounds, as I conceive, I protest against the decision, 
 and I will hold myself at liberty to maintain and preach 
 the same doctrines as if no such decision had been 
 come to." It is right to state it was with anything 
 but a light heart that some of the United Secession 
 fathers condemned Morison. 
 
 One of the most respected of them, Dr. Heugh, 
 though he took a leading part in that unhappy day's 
 work, remarked to Principal Harper, "We have this 
 day cut off from us the ablest of our younger men, 
 and one who need never have left us had his honesty 
 not been in excess of his worldly wisdom." Another 
 who was out and out against Morison's expulsion was 
 his old professor, Dr. John Brown. He might well 
 have been unwilling to condemn his former pupil, as 
 it was currently reported he held similar views. In- 
 deed, he ran no small risk of being libelled for heresy 
 himself. Dr. Brown made a powerful speech in defence 
 of the youthful "heretic," but it was of no avail. 
 
THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM 187 
 
 Morison entertained no feeling of resentment towards 
 his ecclesiastical prosecutors. He went home to his 
 lodging easier in mind than the men who brought 
 about his overthrow. " How have things gone? " said 
 his young wife, to whom he had been married between 
 the trial of the case at the Presbytery and this meeting 
 of Synod ; he replied, " All is well." A little company 
 of sympathisers were gathered in the room which he 
 now entered. He asked them to join him in prayer. 
 All knelt down devoutly, and the first words of 
 Morison's prayer were, " Father in heaven forgive 
 them; for they know not what they do." 
 
 The result of Morison's deposition was the rise of 
 a new denomination in Scotland, popularly, but not 
 unkindly, known as the Morisonian Church, which 
 came into existence two days before the eventful Dis- 
 ruption of 1843. The Evangelical Union body, to give 
 it its proper name, arose as a reaction from extreme 
 Calvinism, and a protest against the doctrine of neces- 
 sity and unconditional election to grace. Its positive 
 creed is summed up in three articles : the love of God 
 the Father in the gift and sacrifice of Jesus to all men 
 everywhere p , without distinction, exception, or respect 
 of persons. The love of God the Son, in the gift and 
 sacrifice of Himself as a true propitiation for the sins 
 of all the 'world. The love of God the Holy Spirit, 
 in His present and continuous work of applying to 
 the souls of all men the provisions of Divine Grace. 
 It has been said that at first Morison and his friends 
 did not contemplate the setting up of an independent 
 sect ; but the logic of events proved too strong for 
 them, and it is difficult to see how their important 
 
1 88 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 mission to the evangelical Churches of Christendom 
 could otherwise have been accomplished as satis- 
 factorily as has been the case. Since 1897 the 
 " Morisonians " have been united with the " Independ- 
 ents " ; but considerably before that date it was given 
 to Dr. Morison, then a venerable and universally re- 
 spected divine, to see the principles for which he had 
 suffered, tolerated, and the denomination which he had 
 founded when he was a young man of twenty-seven 
 years of age, satisfactorily completing its providential 
 purpose. 
 
 Dr. Morison, though he maintained a strenuous 
 battle all his life against Calvinism, resembled Calvin 
 in one respect most closely. Like the great Genevan 
 divine, he excelled as an expositor of Scripture, and 
 his most enduring work is his Commentaries on several 
 books of the Bible. As a theologian, the Hamiltonian 
 philosophy influenced him as it did so many others 
 of his time, stimulating him by its challenges and its 
 negations to discover a solid ground for the Faith in 
 knowledge and intelligence. Accordingly, we never 
 find him lowering the claim of theology to be regarded 
 as a science, even the queen of sciences ; nor had he 
 much sympathy with the pseudo-liberal school who 
 scoffed at creed and dogma. "What is the use of 
 belonging to a Church at all, if you do not know its 
 specific articles of belief?" he was in the habit of 
 saying to those who were yielding to the spirit of 
 religious and theological supineness. A powerful 
 controversialist, as his appearance in the lists against 
 the Edwardian system at the time proved, he had 
 all a philosopher's distaste for wrangling and disputa- 
 
THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM 189 
 
 tion. That he should have been so frequently obliged 
 to accoutre himself for war, in defence of his views, 
 seems strange to us now, to whom these views are 
 so familiar and reasonable. "The Atonement Con- 
 troversy," as the trial of Morison's views was at 
 the time called, brought forth such expressions of 
 them as this: "The Atonement is not pardon, but 
 a something on the ground of which all sins and 
 sinners may be pardoned ; not deliverance from the 
 condemnation of the law, but a something on the 
 ground of which all who are under the law may be 
 accepted and treated by God as if they were as 
 righteous as Jesus Himself; not redemption, but a 
 something on the ground of which every miserable 
 captive of Satan may for ever be emancipated from 
 his accursed slavery ; not reconciliation, but a some- 
 thing calculated to slay the bitterest enmity of the 
 wickedest heart out of hell." It was a notable service 
 to the faith to broaden the mind of a time that would 
 not acquiesce in a doctrinal statement so noble and 
 so reasonable. 
 
 The service of Dr. Morison to the cause of religious 
 progress received ample though tardy recognition in his 
 own lifetime. In 1882, Glasgow University made him a 
 Doctor of Divinity, an honour of a similar kind having 
 been conferred on him twenty years earlier from a foreign 
 University. In 1889, theologians from the Colonies, 
 America, and several continental seats of learning met 
 along with the citizens of Glasgow to do him honour, 
 a meeting that was remarkable for the presence of 
 Dr. Cairns, the leading representative of the Church 
 that forty-eight years previously had cast him out. 
 
190 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Towards the close of his life, two thousand influential 
 ministers and laymen of that Church presented him 
 with an address, making what reparation they could 
 for the sentence of their fathers fifty years before. 
 This change of attitude must have been a proud grati- 
 fication to Dr. Morison. 
 
 The animus to which, in that same city, his theo- 
 logical opinions had subjected him, may be guessed 
 from the following agonising utterances found in the 
 preface to his Commentary on Romans, published in 
 1849. It is entitled an Epistle dedicatory to the Pro- 
 fessors of Theology in the Established and Non-Estab- 
 lished Churches in Scotland: " Possibly also," he says, 
 "an intenser flame of intellect might have glowed from 
 my pages . . . had not my spirit, day by day, week by 
 week, month after month, and year after year, been sub- 
 jected to influences of a peculiarly chilling and ardour- 
 quenching description. Is it needful that I become 
 to you the historiographer of these influences ? Do 
 not even those who are only strangers in Scotland 
 know that the very name which I bear has been 
 metamorphosed into a byword, and tossed about 
 from seacoast to seacoast as a favourite football of 
 reproach ? Do not the least observant in society 
 take notice of the fact, that almost every weakling in 
 theology who sees it needful to become valiant in 
 defence of those tenets which have affixed to them 
 the superscription of the Genevese divine, aspires to 
 establish his credit for theological prowess by fear- 
 lessly adventuring to give a trenchant thrust into 
 the sides of the ideas which that class delight to 
 brand with the ignominy of my name. . . . When 
 
THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM Ipl 
 
 you take into account, then, that it is not possible 
 that such things as these could happen without having 
 conjoined with them insultation of my person, mis- 
 representation of my tenets, calumniation of my char- 
 acter, and defamation of my motives, you may form 
 some idea of the wintry influences that have been, for 
 many summers and winters together, and therefore 
 during the entire progress of my literary labour in 
 the work before you, streaming in upon the fervour 
 of my spirit." 
 
 A specimen of the influences referred to in the 
 foregoing extract may be given to illustrate the 
 standpoint of Morison's critics during the early days 
 of " Morisonianism." A controversialist of the narrow 
 school, appropriately called Gall, had issued a pam- 
 phlet under the title, "Wherein the Morisonians are 
 Wrong." It was composed in defence of the Car- 
 rubber's Close Mission, which had excluded members 
 of Evangelical Union Churches from co-operation in 
 Christian work. Gall contended that Morisonianism 
 gave no safeguard for the sinner's trust, as it put 
 Christ's work in place of Christ Himself, that is, a 
 doctrine in place of a Redeemer. As a rejoinder, 
 Dr. Morison published another pamphlet, entitled 
 4 'Wherein the Morisonians are not Wrong but 
 Wronged," which had the effect of making Gall 
 and his friends rescind their " boycott" of the Mori- 
 sonian party. 
 
 So far all ended well enough ; but the brand of 
 suspicion which the orthodox Churches in Scotland 
 put on Morison and his followers stuck to them up 
 till within a few years of their leader's death in 
 
192 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 1893. Perhaps the most interesting encounter in 
 which this powerful preacher of a universal atone- 
 ment took part, was when he took Dr. Candlish to 
 task for his comments on the text, "He is the 
 propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but 
 also for the sins of the whole world." Candlish, in 
 his volume on The Atonement ', had denied that that 
 passage contained any general or universal reference of 
 the Atonement to all mankind. Morison issued a reply 
 to this volume, with the title, "Vindication of the 
 Universality of the Atonement," in which, referring 
 to the restricted interpretation put on the phrase 
 "the whole world," he asked ; "If that expression 
 could really be so dwarfed as to embrace only ' all 
 brethren in Christ,' then what will Dr. Candlish, 
 we would ask, make of the apostle's statement in 
 the only other passage in which the same expression 
 is found ? What will he make of chapter v. 19 : * We 
 know that we are of God, and the 'whole world lieth in 
 wickedness ' ? Will he in that case too, suppose that 
 the apostle refers to believers only ? " 
 
 Morison's Vindication gave the death-blow in Scot- 
 land to all theological defences of a limited atonement. 
 Dr. Candlish was the last of his race, and even he seems 
 to have come round to the universalist view, judging 
 by a passage found in the preface to the second 
 edition of "The Fatherhood of God." Commenting 
 on the verses already quoted (i John ii. i, 2), Dr. 
 Candlish now wrote: "The possibility of a child of 
 God sinning is assumed. . . . And now it is intimated 
 that when he sins, he has no other propitiation on 
 which to fall back but that which is common to all 
 
THE RISE OF MORISONIANISM 193 
 
 that which is available for the entire race of mankind. 
 If any one of those who are sons commit sin, he 
 transgresses the law. And he has nothing for it but 
 to have recourse anew, as the whole world may have 
 recourse, to that atoning work of Christ which deals 
 with all sin, his sin and the world's sin, in exactly 
 the same way." It was for such expressions as these, 
 written in 1865 and received with general favour, 
 that Morison had to leave the ministry of the United 
 Secession Church. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SCOTCH SERMONS 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 Scotch Sermons. Lond. 1880. 
 
 General A ssembly Debates. 1 88 1 . 
 
 Caird's Fundamental Ideas of 'Christianity. Glasg. 1899. 
 
 Salvation Here and Hereafter. By John Service. Lond. 1877. 
 
 A VOLUME bearing the title "Scotch Sermons" 
 appeared in 1880, which, though destined soon 
 to be forgotten, the fate of most sermons, furnished 
 a lively subject of debate at the General Assembly of 
 the Church of Scotland in 1881. It was under the 
 editorship of Professor Knight of St. Andrews, and 
 among the more notable contributors were Principal 
 Caird, Dr. Story, and Dr. John Cunningham of Crieff. 
 It "originated in the wish to gather together a few 
 specimens of a style of teaching which increasingly 
 prevails amongst the clergy of the Scottish Church." 
 The sermons were further described in the Preface as 
 "the work of those whose hope for the future lies 
 not in alterations of ecclesiastical organisation, but in 
 a profounder apprehension of the essential ideas of 
 Christianity ; and especially in the growth, within the 
 Church, of such a method of presenting them as shall 
 show that they are equally adapted to the needs of 
 
 194 
 
THE SCOTCH SERMONS 1 95 
 
 humanity and in harmony with the results of critical 
 and scientific research." 
 
 In the execution of this excellent scheme it was 
 inevitable that misunderstandings should arise. All 
 the "specimens" given in the volume of this new 
 school of Broad Church preaching were earnest and en- 
 lightened appeals on behalf of a simpler, soberer, more 
 ethical rendering of Christianity than was current ; 
 and if they erred at all, it was more by what they did 
 not say, than by positive erroneous statements. Two 
 sermons, however, were singled out from among the 
 rest as objectionable, and became the subject of a mild 
 1 heresy hunt.' They were contributed by the Rev. 
 W. L. M'Farlane, minister of Lenzie, and were entitled 
 "Authority," and "The things which cannot be 
 shaken." What was objected to in the latter sermon 
 was the description of such "fundamentals" of the 
 faith as the Fall, the Doctrine of Election, Eternal 
 Punishment, and so forth, as "the discredited dogmas 
 of the Schoolmen." The author began his sermon 
 with an enumeration of the " discredited dogmas," seven 
 in number. These were (i) the descent of man from 
 the Adam of the Book of Genesis ; (2) the fall of Adam 
 from a state of original righteousness by eating the 
 forbidden fruit ; (3) the imputation of Adam's guilt 
 to all his posterity ; (4) the consequent death of all 
 men in sin ; (5) the redemption in Christ of an 
 election according to grace ; (6) the quickening in the 
 elect of a new life ; and (7) the eternal perdition of 
 those who remain unregenerate. 
 
 Various causes were assigned for the rejection of 
 
 jj 
 
 these dogmas. " It seems, in the first place, said 
 
1 96 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 the preacher, "to an increasing number of intelligent 
 persons, that Science has established her right to claim 
 for man an antiquity so great as to be wholly incom- 
 patible with the scriptural account of a first progenitor 
 of the human race, who was created, and who sinned 
 and fell, some six thousand years previous to the 
 present date. It seems to them, in the second place, 
 that all investigations into the condition of man during 
 these millenniums, many more than six, throughout 
 which the human race has occupied the earth and left 
 vestiges of its occupancy, prove that the path trodden 
 by mankind has been one upwards and not down- 
 wards ; disprove, in other words, the doctrine that 
 the race has lapsed from a state of paradisaic innocence, 
 of primeval wisdom and integrity, such as that which 
 Jewish Rabbis, and after them doctors of the Primitive 
 Church, Mediaeval Schoolmen, Puritan Divines, have 
 imagined. Independently, however, of all scientific 
 conjectures as to the origin of the human race, as to 
 the condition of prehistoric man, as to the progress 
 of mankind through successive stages of intellectual 
 and moral growth, the old theological doctrine of the 
 Fall of Adam, and the consequent death in sin of all 
 his posterity, seems, in these days, to many men and 
 women of cultivated intelligence, untenable. The 
 spread of democratic ideas has rendered impossible for 
 them the belief in hereditary demerit any more than in 
 hereditary merit. They admit, of course, the hereditary 
 transmission, from generation to generation, of habits, 
 aptitudes for good or evil, qualities intellectual and 
 moral no less than physical. They deny, on the 
 other hand, the hereditary transmission of guilt or 
 
THE SCOTCH SERMONS 1 97 
 
 blameworthiness, the imputation to the son of the sin 
 of the father. They refuse to believe that the Infinite 
 Being, of whom we speak as the Moral Governor of 
 the Universe, has dealt with the successive generations 
 of men as earthly sovereigns have with the children 
 of rebels, whom, in obedience to a political exigency, 
 real or imaginary, they have condemned to perpetual 
 poverty and disgrace. They reject the proposition 
 that the non-elect will, because of Adam's trans- 
 gression, be punished with "the everlasting punish- 
 ment of eternal fire." 
 
 M'Farlane's case was quickly disposed of by the 
 General Assembly. It was urged by his friends 
 that he had been misunderstood in his exposition 
 of the views in question. The views objected to 
 were those of modern thinkers which the preacher 
 was expounding. The preacher did not claim them 
 as his own views. He was not careful enough, indeed, 
 to dissociate himself from them, and so far was to 
 blame and deserving of admonition. But he could 
 not be held guilty of heresy merely for repeating other 
 men's heretical opinions. Dr. Cunningham took this 
 line of defence, and led a minority of sympathisers with 
 Broad Church teaching in a clever speech. He con- 
 tended that M'Farlane was alone answerable for what 
 he had said, and not for what he had not said. No 
 man was responsible for his thoughts save to God ; 
 and he objected to any thumbscrew, mental or physi- 
 cal, being applied to the accused brother. " There lay 
 beyond this the question of toleration in the Church 
 of Scotland. It was said there had not been a deposi- 
 tion for heresy within the last forty years. It was a 
 
198 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 proud thing to be able to say that ; and when they 
 went beyond these forty years they found that of the 
 depositions which had taken place, the Church of 
 Scotland was heartily ashamed. Never was a policy 
 more successful than that of toleration ; and was the 
 present Assembly going" to reverse it at this particular 
 crisis in the theology and theological history of our 
 country? If they did so, it would be a most disastrous 
 day for the Church of Scotland and for the theology of 
 Scotland. If they gave a decision in a just and 
 generous spirit, they would attract to them thousands 
 of men who were seeking for a refuge and resting- 
 place." Some interpreted the closing references of 
 this remarkable speech to the Robertson Smith case, 
 then occupying the attention of the Free Church of 
 Scotland, and to the dissatisfaction with which many 
 in that Church regarded the prosecution against their 
 distinguished scholar. 
 
 Dr. Cunningham's able plea for toleration was, how- 
 ever, rejected by the Assembly. By a vote of 230 
 against 61, it was decided to accept Professor Flint's 
 motion, calling upon M'Farlane to disclaim the views 
 objected to. The question was put to M'Farlane: 
 "Do you disclaim the identification of your own 
 views regarding the doctrine specified in Sermon II. 
 with those of the modern theologian described as 
 holding these doctrines, to be specially untenable, 
 regret that your sermons should have given occasion 
 to doubts as to the soundness of your teaching, and 
 promise carefully to endeavour to avoid in future 
 what may give occasion to such offence?" M'Farlane 
 brought the case to an end by satisfactorily answering 
 
THE SCOTCH SERAfONS 1 99 
 
 the question put to him. The sermon was preached, 
 he said, with a view to meet special objections that 
 had been urged against certain doctrines in the 
 Church's belief; and that it had not been his intention 
 to identify himself with the objectors, but to state and 
 try to meet their objections. "I regret that the un- 
 guarded publication of this sermon (without explana- 
 tion of its motives) has given occasion of offence to 
 any of my fathers and brethren ; and I engage in the 
 future to be careful not to give them any cause of 
 anxiety as to my soundness in the faith." Thus 
 ended the case of the ''Scotch Sermons" before the 
 Church Courts, in a manner highly satisfactory to the 
 ecclesiastical mind, but somewhat disappointing alike 
 to the ambitions and to the reputation of the Broad 
 Church party. 
 
 No fault had been alleged against the positive ele- 
 ment in M'Farlane's teaching. The things that could 
 not be shaken were three, and were expressed in the 
 form of propositions ; (i) that righteousness is blessed- 
 ness ; (2) that there is a Divine Being who is seeking 
 to make men sharers in His blessedness by making 
 them sharers in His righteousness ; and (3) that in the 
 cravings of the human soul for communion with that 
 Power without it, which is the source of its being and 
 the ground of its moral life, there is the pledge of its 
 immortality. "In the three words Duty, God, Im- 
 mortality are truths which no discoveries of science, no 
 investigations of the Biblical critic, no wind of modern 
 doctrine, can really endanger." 
 
 Many would doubt the alleged impregnableness of 
 the ideas of God and immortality; but M'Farlane's 
 
200 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 first impregnable dogma links him on to the best 
 traditions of the Scottish philosophy, of which he may 
 be regarded as a true nineteenth century disciple. He 
 was evidently a robust believer in a moral and rational 
 religion. His code of ethics might not be severely 
 spiritual, but in reading his sermon and his elaboration 
 of the proposition righteousness is blessedness, one feels 
 one's self back in the atmosphere of Hutcheson and 
 the eighteenth century divines whom he influenced, a 
 eudaemonistic atmosphere of the better type if you 
 will, with its genial appeals to the agreeable and the 
 benevolent, and its studied avoidance of all reflections 
 fitted to mortify and humble human nature. That part 
 of M'Farlane's sermon would have rejoiced the heart 
 of David Hume. It comes near what he wished to 
 hear more frequently from the pulpit, a moral sermon 
 without doctrine. 
 
 Among the "Scotch Sermons" were two by Dr. 
 Cunningham, one on " Home-Spun Religion," the 
 other on "The Religion of Love," admirable speci- 
 mens of a type of teaching common enough now but 
 not too familiar in those days. A sermon that dis- 
 turbed the slumbers of the traditionalists not a little, 
 was that of Dr. Story on "Authority," in the course 
 of which occurs many a bracing thought. Take, for 
 instance, what is said as to the respect that is due to 
 the human faculties. "It matters little what a man 
 calls himself , a 'prophet,' or an 'apostle,' or a 
 1 descendant of the apostles ' the question is, What 
 can he do ? What can he teach ? What is he in 
 himself? It matters little what men say against or 
 for a new form or a new system ; that it is not 
 
THE SCOTCH SERMONS 2OI 
 
 Scriptural : that it is not according to the Fathers 
 of the Church : that it is not according to the 
 common custom ; or that it is in accordance with 
 Scripture and tradition and the usage and order of 
 the Universal Church. The question is, Is it true? 
 Is it better than what we have hitherto believed 
 or practised ? Does it approve itself to our reason 
 and conscience as a thing reasonable, beneficial, as 
 far as we can see according to God's will? If so, 
 then it is no matter what custom or tradition is for it 
 or against it. God has not given us our faculties that 
 we should obey custom and tradition, but that in the 
 growing light and liberty of our knowledge and faith 
 we should serve Him, and learn the most we can of His 
 truth, and do the best we can for His service : not with 
 a grudging terror at every step of going wrong, but 
 with a large and liberal trust in His fatherly guidance 
 of us, as long as our hearts are right with Him." 
 
 Taking them all in all, however, the most interesting 
 sermons in the volume were two by Principal Caird, 
 one of them in especial on " Union with God." Caird 
 had done his Church great service as a preacher before 
 this time. Appearing in the forties when the Church of 
 Scotland was still stunned and bleeding, and before 
 she had recovered from the desolate forsakenness 
 brought on her by the Disruption, he did much to 
 brighten her prospects in the country. For it should 
 never be forgotten that there were many clergymen left 
 in the National Church who felt like Norman Macleod, 
 that it was even harder to remain in it as repairers of the 
 breach, than to go out amid " the huzzas of popular 
 enthusiasm." 
 
202 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 In 1855, Caird made his own fame and restored that 
 of his Church by his sermon before Queen Victoria 
 on The Religion of Common Life , a sermon that 
 Dean Stanley characterised as the " greatest single 
 sermon of the century." In later years, following in 
 the footsteps of Chalmers and of all the great divines 
 of the Scottish School, he made use of the results of 
 philosophy in building up his religious and theological 
 teaching. He made it, indeed, the great aim of his life 
 to show that religion had a basis in human reason. 
 He had no patience with the school of Mansel, who 
 accepted the Hamiltonian doctrine of relativity, and, 
 abandoning reason, found refuge in faith. In his 
 opening lecture as Professor of Divinity in Glasgow 
 University, he entered a powerful protest against 
 philosophical scepticism. "God, the highest of all 
 beings, should be one of whom not the fewest, but the 
 greatest number of qualitative limitations can be pre- 
 dicated. He is the Being in whom are all conceivable 
 powers, excellencies, good and great qualities in their 
 highest perfection. . . . The conclusion, therefore, to 
 which by such considerations we seem to be led is, 
 that the intellectual impotence with relation to divine 
 things, of which so much has been made by this school 
 of thinkers, is no real impotence. It is the impotence 
 of thinking about nothing. If this philosophy be 
 true, it is the apotheosis of zero ; the highest type 
 of religion would be sheer vacuity of mind, and of 
 all human beings the idiot would be the most devout." 
 
 In his "Scotch Sermon" on " Union with God," we 
 can trace the influence of the Hegelian view of things. 
 On Hegelian principles of development we should ever 
 
THE SCOTCH SERMONS 2O3 
 
 study the highest representative and not the lowest in 
 the ascending scale, if we wish to know the truth about 
 a creature's nature ; in the case of Man, it should be 
 Man in his most mature and most civilised condition, 
 not Man as we find him in the childhood of the race or 
 of the individual. Caird gives fine point to his sermon 
 when he applies this well-known principle to the under- 
 standing of the soul's union to God. Combating the 
 Unitarian criticism that the Incarnation presents us 
 with a Saviour who is no Saviour, inasmuch as the 
 double nature dehumanises Him, Caird says with fine 
 impressiveness, ''Whilst there is no doubt a way of 
 thinking about the nature of God and man which would 
 render this objection to the Christian doctrine un- 
 answerable, there is another and different conception 
 of them . . . which completely meets the difficulty. 
 He makes it possible for all men to sympathise with 
 Him, not by levelling down His own nature, but by 
 raising theirs: not by disclaiming His own Divinity, 
 but by declaring that there are Divine elements, Divine 
 possibilities, in the common nature of man. He does 
 not impoverish Himself of His own Infinitude, but He 
 reveals the possibilities of an infinite wealth in us. 
 'It is true,' He seems to tell us, 'that I am Divine, 
 that the human consciousness in Me is in absolute 
 union with the consciousness of God: "Thou, Father, 
 art in Me, and I in Thee." But in so saying, I do 
 not place an impassable gulf between My nature and 
 yours, so as to remove Myself beyond the reach of your 
 human fellowship and sympathy. I do not say that 
 what I am you can never hope to become. In the 
 contemplation of My example and of the ideal of good- 
 
204 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 ness and greatness which I set before you, there is no 
 point at which human sympathy and hope need be 
 arrested. You too may become " partakers of a Divine 
 nature." It is no impossible and extravagant aspira- 
 tion for you also to entertain, that ye "may be perfect 
 as your Father in heaven is perfect." "This is the 
 record that God hath given to you, eternal life," "that 
 eternal life which is in the Father and in His Son Jesus 
 Christ." To enter into such identification with the very 
 nature of Deity, that your thoughts, like Mine, shall be 
 God's thoughts, your will and actions, like Mine, a 
 Divine will, a Divine activity, to become thus one 
 with God as I am, is not to transcend but to realise 
 your true nature as men. For nothing less than this 
 is the height of spiritual attainment, the glorious con- 
 summation which I seek for humanity, for all My 
 brethren after the flesh, "That they all may be one: 
 as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee. ... I in 
 them and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect 
 in one."'" 
 
 Broad Church teaching of the "Scotch Sermons" 
 type did an important work in Scotland. It widened 
 the door of the visible Church, met men of culture and 
 "honest doubt" on their own ground, bridged over 
 the gulf separating the "sacred" and the "secular," 
 and drew a much-needed attention to the grand yet 
 simple elements present in all faith. Broad Churchism 
 is often spoken of as a spent and dead force in the land. 
 We should rather say it has done its work so well, 
 leavening the thinking of the Churches with its tolerance 
 and intelligence and putting an end to obscurantism in 
 theology, that its occupation is for the present mostly 
 
THE SCOTCH SERMONS 2O5 
 
 gone. In illustration of this point we have but to 
 recall sentences from the volume dealt with in the 
 present chapter, now tolerated everywhere, but at the 
 time they appeared quoted with disapproval. " Chris- 
 tianity consists as much in a well-ordered life as in an 
 orthodox creed, perhaps more so." " The Bible is 
 authoritative because true, and not true because 
 authoritative." "If we avoid sin merely because we 
 dread its punishment . . . we are utilitarians and 
 economists, not Christians." " I know nothing 
 which has exercised a more pernicious influence on 
 religion than that unhappy divorce which has been 
 effected between religious duty and the everyday duties 
 of life. When a mother is faithfully tending her chil- 
 dren, and making her hearthstone clean and her fire 
 burn bright that everything may smile a welcome to 
 her weary husband when he returns from his work, it 
 is never dreamt that she is religiously employed. When 
 a man works hard during the day, and returns to his 
 family in the evening to make them all happy by his 
 placid temper and quiet jokes and dandlings on his 
 knee, the world does not think perhaps he does not 
 think himself that there is religion in anything so 
 common as this. Religion is supposed to stand aloof 
 from such familiar scenes. But to attend the church, 
 to take the sacrament, to sing a psalm, to say a prayer, 
 is religion. Now God help this poor sinful world if 
 religion consists only in these things and not also in the 
 other." 1 
 
 One of the strongest of the Broad Church teachers in 
 Scotland, a quarter of a century ago, was John Service 
 1 Scotch Sermons^ pp. 51, 212, 46. 
 
206 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 of Inch, the friend of Professor Nichol of Glasgow. 
 The volume Scotch Sermons would have been weightier 
 than it was had it included Service among its contri- 
 butors. He, besides being a gifted litterateur, is 
 remembered as the most daringly original preacher in 
 the Church of Scotland. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 Answer to the Form of Libel now before the Free Church Presby- 
 tery of Aberdeen. By W. Robertson Smith. Edin. 1878. 
 
 Article " Bible " in Encyc. Britannica. gth edition. 
 
 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church. W. Robertson 
 Smith. Edin. 1881. 
 
 Proceedings of the Free Church Assemblies of 1880-81. 
 
 Professor T. M. Lindsay's " Critical Movement in the Scotch 
 Free Church." Contemporary Review, vol. xxxiii. 
 
 The Authority of Scripture independent of Criticism. Pamphlet 
 by Professor Jas. S. Candlish, D.D. Edin. 1877. 
 
 Bryce's Studies in Contemporary Biography. Lond. 1903. 
 
 The Bible and Criticism. By Principal Rainy, D. D. Lond. 1878. 
 
 Modern Criticism, and the Preaching of the Old Testament. 
 Professor G. A. Smith. Lond. 1901. 
 
 Article " Hexateuch " in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. 
 
 Driver's Deuteronomy. Edin. 1895. 
 
 Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. 
 Edin. 1892. 
 
 Assembly Proceedings of United Free Church of Scotland, 1902. 
 
 Reports to the United Free Church Assembly, 1902. 
 
 /^HILLINGWORTH'S saying, "the Bible and the 
 ^^ Bible only is the religion of Protestants," does 
 not sound so strikingly true as interesting and sug- 
 gestive. Thinking over it, the mind goes back to a 
 time when men were excited and elated at their 
 emancipation from the Papal power. Prior to the 
 
 207 
 
208 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Reformation, the Church was the all-powerful factor ; 
 it ruled everything 1 and everywhere, and in consequence 
 Scripture was put into the background, alike in life 
 and worship. Dante complains that Churchmen in 
 his time give not the Scriptures the consideration they 
 deserve, all their attention being set on dogmas and 
 decretals. To such broken cisterns they had resort 
 instead of looking 
 
 "to Nazareth, 
 Where Gabriel once with wings wide open came." l 
 
 At the Reformation a reaction set in. Churchmen 
 and scholars now revelled in new translations of the 
 Bible and revised versions, with the important result 
 that the Scriptures and the Church changed places. 
 All for a time promised well, until the new ideas of the 
 importance of Scripture grew hopelessly beyond con- 
 trol, and by the seventeenth century a theory of verbal 
 inspiration had become the order of the day. Claims 
 were set up in favour of Scripture that were almost as 
 indefensible and mischievous as the old pretensions of 
 the Papacy had been. The nineteenth century, how- 
 ever, was fruitful of happy changes. In that remark- 
 able time a movement hostile to mechanical theories 
 of Scripture arose, under the influence of the modern 
 scientific spirit, and following the lead of the new 
 philology and the historical method. In this new 
 departure from moribund views, Scotland took an im- 
 portant share under the leadership of Robertson Smith. 
 
 Scholarship, strictly so called, had not hitherto been 
 common among learned Scotsmen. Their studies had 
 taken them more frequently into the fields of logic 
 1 Paradise, ix. 133. 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 209 
 
 and metaphysics rather than into those of literature 
 and linguistics. Not that the latter were wholly neg- 
 lected. Boston of Ettrick, as we have seen, prepared 
 a work on Hebrew accentuation which won the approval 
 of several continental authorities. John Livingstone, 
 one of the ministers banished in the cruel days of 
 Charles n., knew Hebrew and also something of 
 Syriac. David Dickson edited a series of scholarly 
 commentaries which included Hutchison on the Minor 
 Prophets and Durham on the Song of Solomon, 
 favourite books for a long time with the intelligent 
 laity. But work of this kind was the exception. The 
 historical method which has compelled us to examine 
 our sacred books critically makes its appearance 
 among us in the nineteenth century, although it may 
 be seen asserting itself crudely in certain of the writings 
 of the eighteenth century Deists. Their incredulity re- 
 garding the miracles of the Bible, in spite of its coarse 
 and unscientific character, may be said to carry in it 
 a demand for those later methods of historical treat- 
 ment which the progress of philology was destined to 
 bring to the birth. 
 
 The beginnings of the Higher Criticism are to be traced 
 in France and Germany to the end of the seventeenth 
 century. In 1680, Simon, a French priest, announced 
 the discovery of double accounts of the same event 
 in the Book of Genesis. Seventy years later, another 
 Frenchman, Astruc, propounded the hypothesis of an 
 Elohim and a Jahveh source running through the 
 Pentateuch. About the same time, the German 
 Eichhorn brought forward independent evidence of a 
 similar discovery. At the beginning of the nineteenth 
 14 
 
210 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 century, De Wette saw material in the Book of 
 Deuteronomy so divergent from anything recorded in 
 the earlier books, that he claimed for it the rank of 
 a fourth document within the Pentateuchal canon. 
 By the time of Ewald, the separate documents com- 
 posing- the Hexateuch were disentangled from the col- 
 lection, and by the middle of the second half of the 
 nineteenth century the clear evidence of four principal 
 Hexateuchal documents was corroborated by inde- 
 pendent scholars of the Bible, belonging to widely 
 separate places and schools of theology, such as 
 Kuenen in Holland, Wellhausen in Germany, Briggs 
 in America, Driver in England, and Robertson Smith 
 in Scotland. 
 
 The last named in this illustrious band held the 
 Aberdeen professorship of Hebrew and Old Testament 
 Exegesis in the Free Church of Scotland from 1870 
 till 1 88 1. He had come under the powerful spell 
 of the great Hebrew exegete, A. B. Davidson. On 
 his installation to the chair at the early age of twenty- 
 four, he chose for the subject of his inaugural address 
 the significant theme, " What history teaches us to 
 seek in the Bible." On account of his eminence as a 
 Biblical scholar, he was asked to write a number of 
 critical articles for the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia, 
 Britannica. For the views propounded in these con- 
 tributions notably for his article " Bible " the young 
 and talented Professor was brought before the tribunals 
 of his Church. The charges brought against him were 
 mainly three (i) Denying that the Aaronic priesthood 
 was instituted in the wilderness. (2) Alleging that 
 the legislative parts of Deuteronomy were a prophetic 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 211 
 
 recasting of the Mosaic law not older than the seventh 
 century B.C. (3) Denying the verbal infallibility of the 
 books of Chronicles. Other minor charges preferred 
 against the Professor were his peculiar interpretation of 
 the Song of Solomon, his assertion of corruptions in the 
 text of the Old Testament, and his manner of describ- 
 ing the work of the prophets as addressing themselves 
 in the first instance to the needs of their own times. 
 
 The new account of Deuteronomy proved to many a 
 stone of stumbling. When it was alleged that the legis- 
 lation imputed in Deuteronomy to Moses was, at least 
 in great part, not his at all, but developments of later 
 times that came to be associated with his name, people 
 unaccustomed to critical studies regarded this as 
 equivalent to imputing fraud to the writers of the 
 Bible. In particular, the question of one sanctuary, 
 and Robertson Smith's explanations thereof, raised 
 great commotion. What was affirmed was, that for 
 centuries in Canaan local sanctuaries had been recog- 
 nised and sanctioned alike in law and practice. In 
 the seventh century B.C., however, such gross abuses 
 had crept in in connection with them, that a law 
 was introduced for their abolition, and requiring in 
 their stead one central sanctuary. Now, as this law 
 of the central sanctuary forms part of the Deutero- 
 nomic legislation, we have here a clear proof, said 
 Robertson Smith, "that Deuteronomy was unknown 
 till long after the days of Moses. How could Joshua, 
 if he had known such a law, have erected a Macceba 
 or sacred pillar of unhewn stone under the sacred tree 
 by the sanctuary at Shechem ? Nay, this law was still 
 unknown to Isaiah, who attacks idolatry, but recognises 
 
212 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Macceba and altar as the marks of the sanctuary of 
 Jehovah. 'In that day,' he says, prophesying the 
 conversion of Egypt, ' there shall be an altar to Jehovah 
 within the land of Egypt, and a Macceba at the border 
 thereof to Jehovah ' (xix. 19). Isaiah could not refer 
 to a forbidden symbol as a Macceba to Jehovah. He 
 takes it for granted that Egypt when converted will 
 serve Jehovah by sacrifice (ver. 21), and do so under the 
 familiar forms which Jehovah has not yet abrogated." 1 
 
 When it became known that these were the views of 
 a professor of the Free Church of Scotland, a cry arose 
 throughout the country, in the Highlands notoriously, 
 that the Bible was in danger of destruction, and that, 
 too, at the hands of its paid defenders. Good men 
 grew frantic, and said, why cannot professors let the 
 Bible alone ; what call for raising doubts and alarms ; 
 have the servants of Christ no better work to do than 
 to encourage infidelity and sow the seeds of schism ? 
 
 The storm which now sprang up over the Robertson 
 Smith Case was, of course, quite creditable to the 
 Church in which he was the most gifted teacher. 
 The questions he raised in his article " Bible," the 
 doubts and difficulties he occasioned in men's minds, 
 the revolutionary upheaval of old and cherished con- 
 victions he headed, could not be matters of indifference 
 to the Church of Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish. 
 To count it a matter of secondary importance what 
 this new criticism asserted, Scripture being a sure and 
 impregnable rock of truth against which the gates of 
 hell could not prevail, was an impossible position for 
 men to whom the Bible was something more than a 
 1 The Old Testament in the Jewish Church" p. 353, 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 213 
 
 book of information, even the voice of God speaking 
 direct to their souls. Had they held, with Lessing and 
 the Broad Church writers, that Scripture was a mere 
 mine of doctrinal knowledge, a primer of religious 
 education, the wildest theories of criticism might have 
 been tolerated or ignored by them. A text-book of 
 religious science like any other text-book might be so 
 thoroughly well mastered by the student, that he could 
 become in a great measure independent of the book, 
 and no question as to its authorship or manner of 
 composition need ever disturb his faith. 
 
 But the Free Church of Scotland, like other branches 
 of the Reformed Church, held a different view of the 
 place and purpose of the Bible. They held that it 
 was given us not merely to put men in possession of 
 true ideas of God, but as a means of enabling them 
 to meet with God and enjoy fellowship with Him. 
 Reading therein what holy men of old recorded, the 
 believer sought to enter into living communion with 
 Him who moved them to write as they did. The 
 believer took the Bible into his hands not to replenish 
 his mind with thoughts safely enough lodged there 
 already by repeated perusal of it, but in order to hold 
 intercourse with God and vividly realise His gracious 
 personality and presence. Tennyson tells us that he 
 read his friend's -old letters, ''the noble letters of the 
 dead," not so much to inform himself of what he had 
 said in them, but to hear him saying it, until, 
 
 " Word by word and line by line 
 
 The dead man touched me from the past, 
 And all at once it seemed at last 
 The living- soul was flash'd on mine." 
 
214 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 So it is necessary for us to bear in mind that by those 
 to whom the new learning was an offence, the Bible 
 was rightly regarded as a Divine instrument intended 
 to bring God and the soul into living touch. Having 
 this incomparable value for them, we can easily account 
 for the vehemence with which in certain highly 
 respected quarters the work of the Higher Criticism 
 of the Bible was resisted. 
 
 But among the intelligent laity of the Free Church 
 there was a small though gradually increasing number 
 who understood the true significance of the critical 
 movement, and perceived its value and inevitableness. 
 They saw how it arose from the new intellectual con- 
 ditions of life at the present day, how in every depart- 
 ment of human knowledge the methods and tests of 
 historical science are being rigorously applied, and 
 how the theory of evolution requires of everything 
 that exists an account of its origin and development. 
 Every existing thing in this world having necessarily 
 had a beginning, a growth, a course of progress, and 
 a history, the mind inevitably seeks to trace the path 
 of progress that any given fact has followed. Out of 
 this necessary habit of the mind the criticism of the 
 Bible has sprung ; and not out of wantonness and 
 unbelief, as some at the time honestly believed ; but 
 from a sincere and imperative desire to investigate 
 the sources, origins, history, and growth of the record 
 of divine revelation. Those who adopted this philo- 
 sophical view of the matter maintained that, without 
 assenting to all Robertson Smith's conclusions, the 
 work in which he was employed was a legitimate and 
 a necessary occupation of the believing mind. As he 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 215 
 
 himself said in his preface to The Old Testament in the 
 Jewish Church, "It is of the first importance that the 
 reader should realise that Biblical Criticism is not the 
 invention of modern scholars, but the legitimate inter- 
 pretation of historical facts. . . . In an age when all are 
 interested in historical research, no apologetic can pre- 
 vent thoughtful minds from drifting away from faith if 
 the historical study of the Old Covenant is condemned 
 by the Church and left in the hands of unbelievers." 
 
 The formal trial began in 1878 in the Presbytery 
 of Aberdeen, where Smith was professor, and resulted 
 in his acquittal by substantial majorities. As the 
 questions dealt with in the case were all new to the 
 Churches in Scotland, and the chief debaters on both 
 sides showed a conspicuous amount of ability and 
 learning, the case became a great education to the 
 Free Church, the traces of which she carried with her 
 when in 1900 she entered into union with a sister 
 Church in Scotland. Smith's friends in the Presbytery 
 did not accept all his critical conclusions, as a matter 
 of fact they repudiated most of them, but they claimed 
 for their distinguished comrade a place of tolerance 
 in the Church, seeing that in their opinion he had 
 written nothing that trenched on the fundamentals. 
 The case came before the Assembly of 1878, where 
 Smith had against him the few surviving stalwarts of 
 the Disruption, James Begg, Wilson of Dundee, and Sir 
 Henry Wellwood Moncreiff. On the other side at that 
 time stood Robert Rainy and his henchman John Adam of 
 Glasgow, the former then as always a host in himself. 
 
 The absurdity of a crowd of ministers and elders, 
 numbering in all six hundred, constituting themselves 
 
2l6 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 a court of justice to decide with calm judicial temper 
 the most delicate points of doctrine, was never more 
 palpably manifest than by an incident that happened 
 in the course of the trial. The case occupied the two 
 sederunts of a single day. At the morning sitting, 
 which usually lasted till five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 the party that followed Moncreiff and Begg secured 
 a condemnation of the Professor's views, although on 
 obviously unfair grounds, as was afterwards admitted. 
 This party went home considerably elated with their 
 victory, and returned in the evening to the remainder 
 of the fray. Then a surprise awaited them. The 
 accused appeared at the bar in his defence, and de- 
 lighted the House with such a speech as he only could 
 deliver, in which he shrivelled up the arguments of his 
 assailants, and brought against them the impeachment 
 of condemning him that morning for a doctrine of 
 inspiration which was not and never had been his. 
 The oratory of Robertson Smith exercised the same 
 magic influence that Gladstone's did. It won those 
 who listened to it to the speaker's side even before it 
 had penetrated their understanding. On this even- 
 ing, as those who were present testify, his eloquence 
 transcended almost anything they had ever heard, 
 and wrought such a revulsion of feeling that a 
 motion declaring him untainted with heresy was 
 carried triumphantly! In the swing of the pendulum, 
 one gentleman, who in the early part of the day had 
 voted the Professor a heretic, in the evening seconded 
 the motion that cleared him of heresy ! 
 
 With regard to Smith's power as a speaker, one 
 felt there was something in it that gripped the 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 217 
 
 hearer more than mere words. Nor was the secret 
 difficult to discover. To scholarship, the fame of 
 which, as one has said, 1 would have filled half Europe 
 had he lived in the glorious prime of the Italian 
 Renaissance, and to gifts of expression such as come 
 not once in a generation, Smith united the subtle 
 charm of unction, a quality of the spiritual genius 
 which is neither bred in the bone nor learned at the 
 schools, and without some small mixture of which 
 sacred eloquence is as sounding brass and tinkling 
 cymbal. " If I am asked," so he told his accusers, 
 " why I receive Scripture as the Word of God and as 
 the only perfect rule of faith and life, I answer with all 
 the Fathers of the Protestant Church, because the Bible 
 is the only record of the redeeming love of God, because 
 in the Bible alone I find God drawing near to man in 
 Christ Jesus and declaring to us in Him His will for 
 our salvation." 2 
 
 The cause of toleration unfortunately had but a 
 shortlived victory. The fact is, many men had voted 
 for toleration under considerable pressure. They 
 admired the man whose name was in everybody's 
 mouth ; they knew him to be both a humble Christian 
 man and a loyal son of the Church, but they did not 
 like his critical conclusions and did not accept them. 
 These they regarded as having decidedly a " dangerous 
 and unsettling tendency," to use the familiar phrase 
 applied to them, and every one who wished the Pro- 
 fessor well, devoutly hoped they had seen the last of his 
 attacks on the accepted views, and that he would be 
 
 1 Bryce's Studies in Contemporary Biography. 
 " Answer to the Form of Libel. 
 
2l8 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 careful in the future not to try the Church's long- 
 suffering as he had done. In May 1880 his party 
 obtained another victory, their hero being acquitted by 
 a majority of seven in a house numbering close upon 
 six hundred members. 
 
 But it was a margin too slender for the demand 
 to be made upon it. The Fathers and brethren 
 of the Assembly had barely time to get home to 
 their Highland and rural manses, thankful that the 
 strain of the two past years was now considerably 
 eased, and that the prospect of peaceful days was 
 now before their beloved Church, when unexpectedly, 
 like a bolt from the blue, another " dangerous and 
 unsettling" article appeared from the pen of the 
 exasperating Professor in a new volume of the En- 
 cyclopczdia Britannica. The subject was " Hebrew 
 Language and Literature," and the effect of the article, 
 appearing at the time it did and after all that had 
 preceded, was that the Professor was interdicted by 
 the August Commission from teaching his classes the 
 following winter. More serious results followed. 
 Although no new error was discovered in the offending 
 article, the Assembly of 1881 deprived him of his pro- 
 fessoriate altogether, and that without a trial ! He 
 thus found himself ejected from the service of a Church 
 he dearly loved, not because he stood convicted of error 
 or had departed from her standards, but to save the 
 Church from a state of disturbance that threatened to 
 split her in pieces. Honoured leaders who had hitherto 
 ranged themselves on the side of tolerance, saw fit now 
 to alter their policy and join in the cry for his dismissal. 
 Doubtless they acted in what they considered to be for 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 219 
 
 the best interests of Christ's cause, but it is believed 
 some of them would afterwards have given a good deal 
 to be able to undo what they then did. 
 
 One who fought bravely for the toleration of the new 
 criticism was Professor James S. Candlish of Glasgow. 
 At an early stage of the proceedings he gave the 
 Church the benefit of his views in a pamphlet on 
 " The Authority of Scripture independent of Criticism," 
 characterised by much breadth, sobriety, and lucidity. 
 He began by quoting with approval the statement 
 contained in the Larger Catechism , "The Scriptures 
 manifest themselves to be the Word of God by their 
 majesty and purity : by the consent of all the parts and 
 the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to 
 God : by their light and power to convince and convert 
 sinners, to comfort and build up believers unto salva- 
 tion : but the Spirit of God bearing witness by and 
 with the Scriptures in the heart of man is alone able 
 fully to persuade it that they are the very Word of 
 God." He then went on to say, " It is thus a truth of 
 which we can be sure on truly religious and spiritual 
 evidence : and if we hold it firmly on this ground 
 our belief will be independent of criticism ; both the 
 Mower' or textual and grammatical, whose function 
 it is to ascertain what is the original and correct 
 reading and the real meaning of the sacred writings : 
 and what is called the * higher ' or historical criticism, 
 which aims at an understanding of the general ideas 
 of the various parts of Scripture and their historical 
 connections. Both these kinds of criticism are legiti- 
 mate and valuable : but as they only deal with the 
 meaning of the sacred books, no results to which they 
 
220 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 lead can affect a faith which rests upon the grounds set 
 forth in our standards. If, however, we are not content 
 with these grounds, but think it necessary to add to 
 them some theory as to the nature of Scripture, we 
 make our belief of the Bible depend upon questions 
 on which criticism alone has a right to decide. The 
 purity, heavenliness, and spiritual power of Scripture 
 are qualities with which no criticism, lower or higher, 
 has to do ; and therefore a faith that rests on them is 
 secure whatever criticism may say. But if we lay 
 down such propositions as these ; Scripture being 
 divine must have an absolutely pure text, or must be 
 written in perfect grammatical style, without solecisms 
 or irregularities, or must be always literally interpreted, 
 or cannot contain an exhibition of mere earthly love or a 
 work of imagination ; we endanger our faith by making 
 it depend on the replies to questions that can alone be 
 answered by criticism. For it is that alone that can 
 tell us whether the text of a book is pure, or its style 
 grammatical, or its contents historical or figurative." 1 
 Pursuing the argument in favour of toleration, Dr. 
 Candlish went on to attempt a mediation between 
 the opposing parties. " There is a parallel to Pro- 
 fessor Smith's view of Deuteronomy," said he, "not 
 only in the Book of Job, but also in that which is 
 held by nearly all scholars, even the most orthodox, in 
 regard to Ecclesiastes. This book is admitted by such 
 men as Hengstenberg, Keil, and Delitzsch to be of much 
 later date than the time of Solomon, and to consist of 
 reflections on the vanity of human life without God 
 that are put into the mouth of the wise king, by a 
 1 Authority of Scripture, p. 2. 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 221 
 
 poetical figure, to give them greater point and em- 
 phasis. But it is maintained that there was in this no 
 deception, and nothing inconsistent with divine inspira- 
 tion ; because it was well known at the time to be 
 merely a form of representation." 1 The writer of this 
 pamphlet was a philosophical divine, but without the 
 oratorical gifts necessary to give his words weight in 
 the Assembly. No other man at the time, however, 
 exercised a saner judgment, or was so anxious to see 
 criticism tolerated. ' ( We are not, " he said, in urging the 
 duty of approaching the Bible unbiassed by presupposi- 
 tions, " in a position to judge beforehand in what form 
 God will make Himself known and reveal His will to us ; 
 and we may very easily suppose that He must give us 
 a kind and degree of certainty about every part of His 
 revelation which it has not pleased Him to afford. He 
 may have seen fit to leave us, in regard to many of the 
 events in the history of His salvation, in a state of 
 ignorance or uncertainty that we would not have 
 thought beforehand a divine revelation would have 
 left. To assume that because it is a Divine Book, 
 the Bible, or any particular part of it, must be written 
 in any particular way, is to adopt the principle of the 
 most thoroughgoing and dangerous Rationalism. Our 
 only safe method is to learn from the study of itself 
 what the Bible actually is, and to judge from the nature 
 of each part and its relation to others what is literal and 
 what is figurative, what historical and what poetical." 
 
 The ejected Professor was too magnanimous to stand 
 on his legal rights, but he was not above taking his 
 appeal to the people of Scotland and defending his 
 1 Authority of Scripture^ p. 23. 2 Ibid. p. 17. 
 
222 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 critical methods in the sight of the world. This he did 
 in two series of lectures, delivered in Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, at the request of certain laymen of the Church, 
 and afterwards published under the titles, "The Old 
 Testament in the Jewish Church" and " The Prophets 
 of Israel." Latterly he left Scotland and took up his 
 abode in Cambridge, where he held important academic 
 appointments, being finally appointed Lord Almoner 
 Professor of Arabic, and where in 1894, amid universal 
 lamentation, he died. 
 
 Like the old tyrants of Syracuse, who never confessed 
 themselves mistaken, the Church Courts of Scotland 
 have never reponed heretics. Since that discreditable 
 day in 1881 when a majority of the Free Church deemed 
 it expedient that one man should die for the people, 
 Robertson Smith's case has never had any official 
 notice taken of it. But the Church that cast him out 
 from her bosom has served herself heir to his prophetic 
 mantle, and since his ejection has developed a strong 
 liking for critical studies that may well be construed 
 as an act of repentance and reparation. Robertson 
 Smith has lit a candle in the Church that will not 
 soon be put out. There are few, whether they are 
 aware of it or not, whose knowledge of religious truth 
 has not been broadened and enriched by the critical 
 movements associated with his name. To many the 
 Bible, once a sealed volume, or a mere collection of 
 allegories, now brings a message that quickens the 
 intelligence and is a joy and rejoicing to the heart. 
 Sweepingly rash and presumptuous 'the conclusions 
 of Criticism have often been, but its method is right, 
 and in wise hands is seen to be capable of yielding a 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 223 
 
 rich harvest. When we see what the prophet's message 
 meant to his contemporaries, when studying the text 
 historically we take our stand where the first hearers 
 of the prophet stood, the words of Scripture are found 
 intelligible, inspiring, and helpful to the circumstances 
 of our own time. Preachers like Savonarola, going 
 back to the standpoint of the Old Testament writings 
 until their minds are steeped therein, hearkening with 
 open ear to the prophet's very words of appeal and 
 complaint which he addresses to the statesmen of 
 Judah, rouse a sinful people to repentance with a 
 power that is irresistible. There have been heresy 
 prosecutions since Robertson Smith's day, and 
 attempts made to suppress new learning, but criti- 
 cism has never been treated as something forbidden 
 or its merchandise declared contraband. 
 
 Eight years after Robertson Smith's lamented death, 
 Old Testament criticism, for which he had done such 
 splendid service, was again on its trial before a Scottish 
 General Assembly. The "offender " was George Adam 
 Smith, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament 
 Literature in the United Free Church College of 
 Glasgow, and his cause of offence a volume of 
 lectures delivered in America and published in this 
 country, under the title Modern Criticism and the 
 Preaching of the Old Testament. In these lectures the 
 Professor was charged with advocating views of the 
 most revolutionary kind ; attributing to the religion of 
 Revelation a polytheistic character down to the time 
 of the great prophets ; denying the historicity of the 
 early chapters of Genesis, and tracing their origin to 
 Babylonian legend and myth : imputing a fanciful 
 
224 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 and parabolic character to the lives of the patriarchs ; 
 treating- Messianic prophecy naturalistically ; and 
 supporting critical theories that were flagrantly in- 
 consistent with the teaching of our Lord. 
 
 A memorial embodying these charges was sent to 
 the College Committee from a meeting held in 
 Edinburgh in September 1901. That learned body 
 investigated the charges and prepared a report to 
 come before the Assembly of 1902. The report bore 
 that the volume under dispute was manifestly apolo- 
 getic in its aim, was, as the author himself expressly 
 stated, "in defence upon critical grounds of the 
 Christian's faith in the Old Testament as containing 
 the Word of God " : and this fact the memorialists had 
 overlooked, with the result that the points selected for 
 attack had been placed in a false perspective. 1 At the 
 same time, the Committee deprecated the manner in 
 which the Professor had set forth his opinions. He was 
 not sufficiently considerate of views hitherto universal 
 in the Church. "The conclusions which he advances 
 are at times presented in a way that is fitted to perplex 
 men who have no desire to fetter free and reverent 
 inquiry, but who deprecate and are disturbed by hasty 
 decision on matters of such vital moment as those 
 involved." 2 A sample of the inconsiderateness referred 
 to occurs in Professor Smith's second lecture, where 
 the author admits that modern criticism has won its 
 war against traditional theories, and adds, "it only 
 remains to fix the amount of the indemnity" an 
 unfortunate expression for which the Professor was 
 taken to task by one great leader of the Church. 
 1 College Committee's Special Report, p. 2. 2 Ibid. p. 3. 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 225 
 
 The report next dealt with the alleged polytheism of 
 the Bible. The view objected to was in these words : 
 " It is plain, then, that to whatever heights the religion 
 of Israel afterwards rose, it remained before the age 
 of the great prophets not only similar to, but in all 
 respects above mentioned identical with, the general 
 Semitic religion ; which was not a monotheism, but a 
 polytheism with an opportunity for monotheism at the 
 heart of it each tribe being attached to one god as to 
 their particular Lord and Father." 1 The Committee 
 did not greatly object to this view. They did not 
 interpret it as meaning that God in His Word 
 sanctioned a belief in the reality of other gods : 
 although it implied that it was long before Israel was 
 able to clear itself from the idea of national gods and to 
 rise to the conception of Jehovah as the one only God. 
 Jehovah seems to have been for a time regarded by 
 Israel as their tribal deity ; nor did they question the 
 existence of the gods of other nations. That was all 
 that was in the view. Professor Smith did not in- 
 sinuate that Israel was free to worship other gods than 
 Jehovah. His view was that until the monotheistic 
 germ at the heart of their relation to Jehovah had 
 developed, the obligation to worship Him alone did not 
 prevent belief in the legitimacy of the worship of other 
 gods by these nations. He distinctly taught that from 
 the first Israel saw in their own God attributes of a 
 higher kind than any that the heathen attributed to 
 their gods ; and that by the eighth century, and 
 probably before that time, the bonds of a mere tribal 
 
 1 Modern Criticism and the Preaching of the Old Testament, 
 p. 130. 
 
 '5 
 
226 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 morality and of a tribal conception of God had been 
 broken. 
 
 The Committee found even less to object to in Dr. 
 Smith's account of Mosaic legislation^ that it was a 
 body of law that at various later dates was received 
 as authoritative, and had assumed its present form 
 about the age of the Exile. They did not agree 
 with the Memorialists in thinking that this was a view 
 inconsistent with the Divine Inspiration and authority 
 of the Bible ; on the contrary, they held that it enabled 
 us to recognise more impressively than before the 
 process of the Divine Revelation in the Bible. 
 
 Summing up the result of their investigations, the 
 Committee showed that in the volume Modern Criticism 
 and the Preaching of the Old Testament, the Professor 
 had not gone beyond the train of conclusions usually 
 drawn by the representatives of recent criticism. That 
 criticism has presented, indeed, a new view of Hebrew 
 literature and a new conception of Hebrew history ; but 
 it has gained the assent of a large number of competent 
 scholars, many of them believing men. If the criticism 
 is wrong, let it be discussed and the teachers of 
 erroneous critical theories put right, not libelled. 
 This attitude of tolerance was worthy of men who 
 had not failed to profit by the lessons of the Robertson 
 Smith case. 
 
 The Professor's explanations were equally frank and 
 pacificatory. He explained that in publishing his 
 lectures he had in view those who are embarrassed 
 by the Religion of the Old Testament, and by the 
 interpretation of it furnished by the modern critical 
 school. " I endeavoured, and as I believe with success, 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 227 
 
 to show that a critical treatment of the facts presented 
 by the Hebrew Scriptures, so far from compelling a 
 thoughtful Christian to give up his faith, furnishes for 
 the main doctrines of our religion what (in my opinion) 
 are stronger grounds than those furnished by the 
 former apologetic of the Church." 1 He showed how 
 the religion of Israel, though starting from the level of 
 other Semitic peoples, became in course of time mono- 
 theistic. And he made it clear that the progress in 
 Israel's case was due not to physical, intellectual, and 
 political conditions, in which respects the other Semite 
 tribes were not different from them, but purely and 
 entirely to Divine Revelation. As to the early chapters 
 of Genesis, Professor Smith boldly claimed for Reve- 
 lation the right to use the early Semitic folk-lore 
 contained in myth and legend for the investment and 
 conveyance of its own higher spiritual teachings, even 
 as to the very end the Bible speaks in the language of 
 an exploded astronomy. The employment of human 
 cosmogonies and myths is an example of His power 
 who said, " Behold, I make all things new." The 
 " raw material " out of which the framework has been 
 constructed has in these first eleven chapters of Genesis 
 been purged of all polytheistic elements, and that book 
 alone of all Semitic cosmogonic literature presents us 
 with a pure and sublime monotheism. In equally lucid 
 and reasonable terms the Professor explained his treat- 
 ment of the Messianic element in the Old Testament, as 
 well as his firm belief in the personality of Abraham 
 and the Patriarchs. 
 
 The Assembly that year (1902) met in Glasgow, 
 1 College Committee s Special Report, p. 9. 
 
228 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 " where," to quote Dr. John M'Ewan's breezy words, 
 "Alexander Henderson once so nobly presided, and 
 where they did notable things in the way of cleansing 
 the Church from error." Both sections of the now 
 United Free Church of Scotland joined in the con- 
 troversy irrespective of their former ecclesiastical 
 division. That Boanerges of the United Presbyterians, 
 Dr. John Smith, joined hands against the Professor with 
 the Free Church son of thunder, Dr. John M'Ewan ; 
 and Dr. James Orr shared the honour of defending 
 him in company with Dr. Ross Taylor. Professor Orr 
 at the outset of the debate paid his colleague a finely- 
 expressed and well-deserved tribute of praise. What- 
 ever they might think of Professor Smith's speculations, 
 he remarked, there could be but one opinion among 
 them that he at least had nobly proved in the past his 
 faith, zeal, and evangelical fidelity, by works that had 
 made his name a household word and an honour ; that 
 he had preached a living gospel, and had been made 
 instrumental, as few were, by tongue of fire and vivid 
 imagination and prophetic fervour to kindle faith and 
 move to godliness in an age far lost to prophetic ideals. 
 Rather than accentuate by continual controversy and 
 new Committees the points on which they might un- 
 happily differ, let them unite in thanking God for the 
 gift He had given in him, and for the work he had been 
 enabled to accomplish for God's glory. 
 
 Some, preferring principles to persons, deemed this 
 eloquent eulogium irrelevant to the matter in hand. A 
 Church that went on from generation to generation, 
 said Dr. John Smith, could not build upon individual 
 men or their private convictions. Where were the men 
 
ROBERTSON SMITH AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM 22p 
 
 who built up the great Free Church ? Gone. The only 
 foundation of a Church was a basis of consistent and 
 coherent principles. Therefore let them leave the 
 discussion of the men and search their positions. 
 {f What about this believing criticism? " he continued. 
 " It started where the naturalistic criticism started. 
 It adopted its principle of natural development. In 
 the main it adopted the disintegration of the 
 Pentateuch. In the main it held by the literary 
 analysis on which that disintegration was based. In 
 all that, it had gone as thoroughly away from the self- 
 witness of revelation, of a divine plan proceeding on 
 divine lines according to a plan in the counsel of God, 
 as the naturalistic criticism itself. Here -came in the 
 difference. Good men brought up in a warm and 
 spiritual atmosphere, discerned even in the fragments 
 of the broken mirror gleams of God. They saw there 
 was something more than natural here. There was an 
 authentic revelation of God. But that only showed 
 that up to this point they had been proceeding on 
 mistaken ideas. Some went farther and some not so 
 far ; and the Church was to fluctuate with all the 
 fluctuations of these Protean minds. Why, they would 
 need to set up a Reuter's agency and offer a hundred 
 critical opinions for a guinea, that ministers might 
 know how far to go and where to stop. There was 
 the yawning gulf at their feet." l 
 
 He was against accepting the Committee's report, 
 and in favour of the appointment of a large representa- 
 tive Committee to take account of the situation. On 
 the other side, the motion of Principal Rainy proposed 
 1 Assembly Proceedings y p. 104. 
 
i 
 
 230 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 to receive and adopt the report, and declared no process 
 for a libel necessary. At the same time it neither ac- 
 cepted nor authorised Professor Smith's views, warned 
 ministers to be careful in their treatment of critical ques- 
 tions, and exhorted the people of the Church not to be 
 soon shaken in their mind. In support of his motion 
 the Principal made the speech of the day. It was 
 characterised by masterly power and judiciousness. 
 "If the facts," he said, "turned out to be facts, the 
 discovery of them might very likely involve pain. 
 But if the facts were facts the ascertainment of them 
 was pure gain, so far as they were facts, to everybody. 
 That was why he did not like Professor Smith's words 
 about indemnity. He knew nothing of indemnity. 
 When he saw evidence for the facts they were God's 
 facts, and they would only be his help in the end if he 
 could duly make use of them. Supposing that such 
 facts began to be proved? Must they give up the 
 Bible ? No. But they must submit to the modifica- 
 tion of some cherished views about the way in which 
 the lines of the revelation of God's will for our salva- 
 tion were appointed by Him to take shape in the 
 Scriptures ; and they would find themselves very much 
 as they did about those earliest chapters of Genesis in 
 reference to Creation, acquiring a new way of under- 
 standing the mind of God." 
 
 The debate ended in a victory for the College 
 Committee and the offending Professor. Peace and 
 harmony again entered the Church like a flood of 
 grateful sunshine. The harsh notes of discord and 
 threatening subsided, and fathers and brethren settled 
 once more to the fulfilment of their practical duties. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 
 
 AUTHORITIES 
 
 Proceedings of Free Church Assembly ', 1890. 
 
 College Committee's Special Report. 
 
 Dods' Commentary on i Corinthians. Lond. 1889. 
 
 Sermon by Dr. Dods on Revelation and Inspiration. Glasg. 1877. 
 
 Sermon by Dr. Dods on What is a Christian? Edin. 1890. 
 
 The Expositor, viii. 3rd Series. 
 
 Dr. A. B. Bruce's The Kingdom of God. Edin. 1889. Sixth 
 Edition 1904. 
 
 Article "Jesus " in Encyclopcedia Biblica. 
 
 Dr. Bruce's The Miraculous Element in the Gospels (Lond. 
 1886), and other writings. 
 
 Memorials of a Ministry on the Clyde] with Memoir of Macellar. 
 By A. B. Bruce. Glasg-. 1876. 
 
 HAVING now reached the final chapter of our 
 story, we may pause for a moment, for the 
 sake of taking a backward glance along the road we 
 have travelled, and of noting one or two things touch- 
 ing the uses and the character of religious controversy. 
 In the first place, Scottish religious controversy, as 
 we have had abundant occasion to see, has usually 
 been carried on with a considerable amount of warmth 
 and even bitterness. Our ecclesiastical and theological 
 guides, when they have fallen out by the way, have 
 not been prone to consider and conciliate one another, 
 but have too often confronted one another with angry 
 
 231 
 
232 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 altercation, and sometimes even resorted to the cruel 
 tactics of the persecutor. And over such unhappy 
 spectacles the world has shaken its virtuous head, 
 and cried derisively, Behold how these Christians love 
 one another! But there is surely a sounder and more 
 robust way of viewing these sad and sombre habits 
 of the controversialist. Granting that the battles of 
 religious men have been accompanied by a regrettable 
 loss of temper and by many a humbling display of 
 human infirmity, we should remember what vital issues 
 were, or were believed to be, at stake, as also that 
 there are times and seasons when it is neither weak 
 nor wicked to be angry, or when at least anger is 
 an infirmity of noble minds. If the sacred interests 
 of religion are in danger, it may be no ignoble virtue, 
 on the part of earnest men, to contend right lustily 
 for the truth, and even to deal out blows at the 
 defenders of error which are meant, metaphorically 
 speaking, to draw blood. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that the clang of con- 
 troversy, whether admirable from the ethical point 
 of view or not, has ever been an important and 
 necessary condition of intellectual progress. At no 
 time has either a person or a principle become epoch- 
 making without having first encountered criticism 
 and condemnation. Some element of antagonism 
 seems necessary for the propagation of truth. It is 
 not necessarily a waste of time, therefore, as some 
 good men have supposed, when a Church finds herself 
 engaged in bitter and prolonged theological strife. 
 So far from this, it is the means which Divine Pro- 
 vidence employs for leading the Church into larger 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 233 
 
 liberty and into fuller possession of the truth, which 
 is her best heritage. 
 
 Besides, when we consider the difference between 
 the scholarly and the ecclesiastical habit of mind, we 
 see that collision and contention are unavoidable. 
 Like the man of science, the scholar concerns himself 
 mainly with facts, and gives his whole attention to 
 their examination and analysis. The questions which 
 he asks relate exclusively to their reality and ground. 
 With their practical drift and tendency he is not 
 primarily interested. It is different with the ecclesi- 
 astic. He, like the statesman, considers at once the 
 bearing that new facts are likely to have on the beliefs 
 and practices of men, asks how he is to deal with 
 them, how meet them, how resist them, how reconcile 
 them to accepted facts. The ecclesiastic has the 
 safety of his Church to consider, and naturally views 
 new facts with a certain measure of suspicion and 
 dislike. Now these divergent habits of mind exist 
 side by side in every large Christian communion, and 
 the consequence is that from time to time we hear 
 of open rupture within the Church's borders. 
 
 Thus it came about that in 1890 the Free Church 
 of Scotland found herself once more in the ferment 
 of controversy and entangled with the difficulties of 
 the Dods-Bruce case. The Church at that time did 
 not number within her ranks a clergyman more highly 
 esteemed than Dr. Marcus Dods. For years he had 
 exercised his ministerial gifts in Glasgow among the 
 better educated classes of the city ; but his name and 
 influence had extended far beyond the bounds of the 
 western capital. A man full of reverence yet daringly 
 
234 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 speculative, a scholar of rare faculty and attainment, 
 the master of a lucid, persuasive style, Dr. Dods' name 
 was familiar to the religious world long before his 
 orthodoxy was challenged, and that for the second 
 time, by means of his published lectures and exposi- 
 tions. In 1889 he had been promoted to the chair 
 of New Testament Exegesis in the New College, 
 Edinburgh, an appointment that was made with much 
 satisfaction and enthusiasm by the Church. But he 
 had been only a year in the professorial chair when 
 some utterances of his on the most fundamental 
 doctrines were quoted with disapproval. An ephe- 
 meral crop of pamphlets, memorials, and overtures 
 sprang up through the country, calling attention to 
 the Professor's heretical views on Holy Scripture, 
 the Divinity of Christ, the Atonement, and the Resur- 
 rection, and a rally of the faith's defenders entered 
 the field armed with weapons that were not less 
 hurtful because they were so obsolete, resolved to 
 bring the offender to their feet. 
 
 In the quotations from his speeches and writings 
 which were to form the indictment against him, Dr. 
 Dods, it must be confessed, had (at least to those 
 who ignored the important fact of his apologetic aims 
 and methods) something of the appearance of a teacher 
 who rather courted challenge than feared it. Thus, 
 in his expository work on ist Corinthians, he had 
 spoken of our Lord's resurrection as if its historicity 
 were a matter of indifference. " If any one finds it 
 impossible," he said, "to believe in the bodily resur- 
 rection of Christ, but easy to believe in His present 
 life and power, it would only be mischievous to require 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 235 
 
 of him a faith he cannot give in addition to a faith 
 which brings him into real fellowship with Christ." 
 Again, preaching from the historic pulpit of St. Giles' 
 Cathedral, in a sermon on "What is a Christian?" 
 he had said, " If, then, we are accepting God's forgive- 
 ness, and living humbly in the sunshine of His favour, 
 we need not be seriously disturbed in spirit if we 
 find that we cannot accept what is known as the 
 orthodox theory of the Atonement. That theory is 
 that Christ took our place and bore the punishment 
 due to us, so that we can now claim forgiveness in 
 His name and on the ground that our sins have been 
 punished in Him, and are therefore not punished in 
 us. This theory has the great advantages of being 
 easily stated and easily intelligible, of linking itself 
 to the sacrificial rites of the Old Testament and of 
 answering to a large part of the language of the 
 New Testament. It is open, however, to obvious 
 objections. Men are conscious, very conscious, that 
 they bear the punishment of their own sins all their 
 life through. They find they are delivered from punish- 
 ment precisely in proportion as they are delivered from 
 sin, and they cannot understand how it can be said 
 that Christ bore their punishment in the sense of 
 relieving them from all suffering of punishment. They 
 cannot believe that God needed to be propitiated, 
 but rather accept the statement of our Lord Himself, 
 that God loved and longed for His children even when 
 they had strayed from Him. They consider Christ's 
 life and death to be a manifestation or expression of 
 His redeeming love ; that Christ came to the world 
 to reveal God's love, and by dying show that there 
 
236 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 was no bound to that love, that it gave all that could 
 be given. It is this they think which conquers men, 
 this which humbles men, this which causes them to 
 feel rightly towards God and towards sin. In point 
 of fact both theories of the Atonement produce good 
 Christians." l 
 
 The College Sub-Committee, reporting on the Pro- 
 fessor's views, could not approve of them outright, 
 although it leaned decidedly to the side of toleration. 
 For one thing, it remarked on " the easy way in which 
 it can be said, both theories of the Atonement produce 
 good Christians" and declared such an attitude to be 
 "little in keeping with the moral earnestness on this 
 fundamental doctrine for which we must look in our 
 professors." The Professor, however was not to be 
 moved from his position. "As regards the Atone- 
 ment," he told the Committee, "I can only say that 
 I have carefully and repeatedly gone over the Con- 
 fessional statement of this doctrine, and I can detect 
 in it nothing with which I do not agree, or with which 
 any published statement of mine is inconsistent. The 
 Confessional statement is indeed surprisingly brief. 
 It emphasises the satisfaction of the Divine Justice, 
 and this I too desire to emphasise ; but it is to be 
 remembered that the Atonement being the central 
 fact of this world's history, has a hundred different 
 faces and aspects, and I claim liberty to emphasise as I 
 find occasion and according to my impression of exist- 
 ing needs, aspects, and bearings of the death of Christ 
 which are not specified in the Confession." 
 
 On the Divinity of our Lord, the Committee pro- 
 1 What is a Christian ? p. 5. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 237 
 
 nounced the teaching of the St. Giles sermon difficult 
 in any way to justify Dr. Dods had said: "We 
 must not too hastily conclude that even a belief in 
 Christ's Divinity is essential to the true Christian. 
 To the mature Christian it is essential no doubt ; but 
 in Christ's own life some sincerely followed Him who 
 only at a later period were convinced that He was 
 not only sent by God, but was God." 1 At the same 
 time, the Committee candidly allowed that the sermon 
 was addressed to those who were exposed to modern 
 negative influences, and such as were believed to have 
 honest though imperfect and mistaken impressions of 
 the Person of Christ ; and the point of the preacher 
 seemed to be that such hearers, provided these crude 
 impressions did their work upon their honest minds, 
 would ultimately come to clear Christian views of Christ. 
 Were, then, such hopeful ones to be denied the name 
 of Christian because their knowledge was imperfect? 
 The Committee, agreeing with the preacher, thought 
 not. Dr. Dods, they said, was not thinking merely of 
 the state of mind which denies Christ's Divinity. He 
 was thinking of an attitude of mind; and heart tow r ard 
 Christ which "practically makes Christ its God." 
 This was an experience which logically required the 
 recognition of the doctrine of Christ's Divinity. But 
 Dr. Dods supposed that minds so situated may fail 
 to realise all that their own experience really implied. 
 
 The curious thing about the offending sermon was, 
 
 that years before it was delivered in St. Giles, the 
 
 guileless Fathers and brethren who attend the Sabbath 
 
 services in the Assembly Hall while the Assembly is 
 
 1 What is a Christian ? p. 6, 
 
238 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 in session, had the same sermon delivered in their 
 hearing, but without challenging its orthodoxy ! The 
 fact was that none of Dr. Dods' ' heretical ' opinions had 
 been rashly or recently adopted. His views on Inspira- 
 tion formed the chief complaint against him, but they 
 had brought him prominently before the Church Courts 
 as early as 1877. At that time he preached and pub- 
 lished a sermon that gave great offence, on " Revela- 
 tion and Inspiration." And although, in deference to 
 the advice of his brethren, he agreed to suppress it, he 
 consistently refused to disown the views contained in it. 
 And now, thirteen years afterwards, we find him again 
 in trouble on the same subject, in his inaugural lecture 
 as professor in the New College. With honest, and 
 even cavalier outspokenness, he described the doctrine 
 of verbal inspiration as "a theory of inspiration which 
 has made the Bible an offence to many honest men, 
 which is dishonouring to God, and which has turned 
 inquirers into sceptics by the thousand, a theory 
 which should be branded as heretical in every Christian 
 Church." The Committee, while clear that no case 
 had arisen against Dr. Dods for process, but one only 
 for friendly discussion, and that his views were not 
 excluded by the Confession of Faith, described the 
 language of the foregoing extract as intemperate. 
 
 But what caused chief alarm in the Church was an 
 article in the Expositor, viii. (3rd Series) in which Dr. 
 Dods imputed to the Old Testament mistakes and im- 
 moralities. These ill-chosen terms, too strong for 
 anything intended by them, provoked a whirlwind of 
 indignant protest. " If we have not an infallible 
 book," said Mr. Howie of Govan, "where are we to 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 239 
 
 get our doctrines and duties?" Dr. John M'Ewan, 
 Edinburgh, declared the matter to be graver than the 
 issues at stake at the Disruption, a matter of life or 
 death with the Church. Dr. Dods, before the case 
 came to the Assembly, explained his position in an 
 admirably conciliatory yet independent tone: "As 
 regards the inspiration of Scripture," he said, "I 
 hold with the Confession, that all the writings of the 
 Old and New Testaments are ' given by inspiration of 
 God to be the rule of faith and life"* ; but I do not hold 
 that inspiration guarantees Scripture from inaccuracy 
 in all its particular statements ; neither do I find that 
 the Confession either expresses or implies any such 
 idea of inspiration. The affirmation of inaccuracy in 
 certain details has assuredly a bearing on one's theory 
 of inspiration ; but it does not, on my part, involve the 
 slightest hesitation as to the Divine authority of Scrip- 
 ture, the pervading influence which makes it God's 
 Word, and its fitness, when interpreted, as the Confes- 
 sion itself directs, by a due comparison of its various 
 parts, to be the conclusive rule of faith and life." 1 
 
 The debate in the Assembly centred round the College 
 Committee's report ; and five different motions were 
 brought forward, each proposing to deal with the 
 trouble in a way of its own. Two of these only need 
 occupy our attention here. One of them was proposed 
 by Dr. John Adam of Glasgow. It agreed with the 
 Report of the College Committee, that there was no 
 ground for a libel against the Professor, but deemed it 
 necessary to declare to the world that the Church stood 
 immovably by the cardinal doctrine of our Lord's 
 1 College Committee s Report, p. 15, 
 
240 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Divinity, and disapproved of all representations tending 
 to lower its importance. So on the subject of the 
 Atonement the motion repudiated the description of it 
 as a mere theory ; and on the Resurrection of Christ, 
 declared it to be a fact incontestably proved and lying 
 at the foundation of Christianity. As regards the 
 "mistakes" and "immoralities" of the Bible, the motion 
 characterised Dr. Dods' language as an utterly 
 unwarrantable account of certain admitted difficulties 
 presented in Scripture. 
 
 Dr. Adam's motion, while it totally sundered him 
 from those who desired a libel, was supported in 
 a speech which consisted of one blow after another 
 at the Professor for the annoyance and trouble he 
 had brought on the Church. Adam was a typical 
 ecclesiastic. A kindly man, and a respectable scholar, 
 he was at the same time a born fighter. While 
 not over-popular in the Church Courts, it must be 
 said that the official leaders had no truer friend and 
 comrade, and his sudden death before the Church's 
 highest honour came to him was an event uni- 
 versally deplored. He did not waste time cultivating 
 pet hobbies or examining facts critically. Like the 
 Duke of Wellington, the one question with him always 
 was, "How are you going to carry on the Govern- 
 ment? " In his speech on this occasion he complained 
 that what the Professor had said gave the Unitarians 
 cause to rejoice, and reduced the orthodox doctrine 
 of the Atonement to the level of one theory out of 
 many. Yet he frankly admitted that Dr. Dods was 
 personally a believer in the Atonement. Upon this 
 some members of the Assembly interrupted the speaker 
 with murmurs of disapprobation and cries of " Oh ! 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 241 
 
 oh ! " But Adam silenced them in a moment, and 
 declared that the proof of what he was saying was 
 furnished by Dr. Dods' writings. But in another 
 moment he seemed to draw back the admission he had 
 made. He would not have a man reduce the confessional 
 view of the Atonement to the level of a mere phase 
 or aspect of the Saviour's death. " His opinion, and it 
 was the opinion in which he would die, was that if the 
 Atonement be anything, it was everything. It was 
 central, it was vital, it was all-controlling. It was not 
 sufficient to him that in voluminous writings they could 
 cull two or three references to it. That was not the place 
 it ought to occupy. He thought it ought to stand out 
 with great prominence and shed its light over the entire 
 field of divine truth." 1 
 
 With the dexterity of "an old parliamentary hand," 
 Adam then tackled the question of errors and immor- 
 alities, now praising the Professor, now blaming him, 
 toying with his arguments and tearing them asunder, 
 balancing views the most contradictory, frankly 
 making concessions and then drawing them back 
 or qualifying them, but all the while sending home 
 the conviction to the mind of the Assembly that they 
 need not carry matters to the last extremity, but only 
 dissociate themselves completely from the Professor's 
 rash and faulty utterances. As to the Professor's view 
 that the writers of Scripture were not divinely guarded 
 against every kind of inaccuracy, but only infallibly 
 guided in relation to the great purpose of the Bible, 
 Adam reminded the Assembly that Dr. Dods held this 
 view long before the Church had appointed him to the 
 
 1 Assembly Proceedings (1890), p. 73. 
 16 
 
242 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 chair which he now occupied. He had never concealed 
 his views of inspiration from the Church, but had 
 published these widely in season and more frequently 
 out of season. It was a comparatively new view to 
 them, and one altogether opposed to the ideas enter- 
 tained by all their former theologians. But there was 
 no question it had come to be most extensively 
 adopted. Without doubt it involved tremendous risks. 
 Where were they to stop in their application of such 
 a principle ? Here was a chink, would it not open and 
 widen until the whole flood came rushing in ? Chang- 
 ing his tack, he reminded the Assembly that they must 
 recognise facts. One fact they could not get past was, 
 that a number of the most earnest and believing 
 defenders of Christianity had adopted this view of 
 inspiration, and did so because they honestly thought 
 it gave them the best ground on which to meet infidel 
 attacks and guard the citadel of their religion. 
 
 Veering round again, the versatile leader denounced 
 Dr. Dods for calling the verbal theory an offence to 
 honest men, dishonouring to God, and making inquirers 
 sceptics, a view that ought to be branded as heretical 
 in every Christian Church. "That," said he passion- 
 ately, "was wild language. He regarded it as foolish 
 language. He thought it was presumptuous in Dr. 
 Dods, with all his eminence, so to characterise a view 
 that had been held by many of the most learned and 
 able and devoted theologians in this age and in past 
 ages." x As to the mistakes and immoralities of the Old 
 Testament, the friends of Dr. Dods assured him, and 
 he believed them, that all that he meant by the offensive 
 1 Assembly Proceedings, p. 74. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 243 
 
 language was that the morality of the old economy 
 was not so perfect as that of the new, an admission 
 which again drew from the left the cry of * ' Oh ! 
 oh ! " Adam rounded on them in a moment. Did they 
 mean to tell him that the light of the old economy was 
 the same as the new ? Did they mean to say that the 
 power of the Spirit under the old economy was what it 
 was under the new ? Again turning on the object of 
 his wrath, he delivered himself of a parting blow. If 
 that were all that Dr. Dods meant by errors and 
 immoralities, " why in all the world did he not say 
 what he meant, and say it plainly ? Dr. Dods knew the 
 English language ; he could use it well : why should 
 he speak in mystery ; and why use language needlessly 
 irritating and offensive ? " 
 
 Another way of dealing with the case was proposed 
 by Mr. Howie of Govan. He wanted a special 
 Committee appointed to deal further with Dr. Dods. 
 He would not accept the College Committee's report. 
 His motion declared that the publication of his views 
 was specially blameworthy in Dr. Dods after the 
 clear expression of the Church's mind in 1878. His 
 motion also condemned the view that there are errors 
 in the Scriptures as originally given. What no one 
 could understand was how Mr. Howie could find com- 
 fort in the phrase the Scriptures as originally given, a 
 phrase as mischievous as it was unauthorised. As Dr. 
 Ross Taylor pointed out, the idea of there being a sub- 
 stantial difference between the Scriptures as we presently 
 possess them and the Scriptures as originally given, was 
 pure unverifiable assumption. It was, besides, danger- 
 ous doctrine. Dr. Ross Taylor held that our people have 
 
244 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 in their hands at present as perfect a Bible as the Holy 
 Spirit regarded as needful for their spiritual knowledge 
 and salvation, and as was ever given into the hands of 
 men. " He did not admit that there was some very 
 special miraculous care at one time, and that then it was 
 allowed to go on the waves of time. He held that it 
 came from the Father ; and when he found that there 
 were small minute details that suggested difficulties, 
 the question came to be, how did these bear on their 
 doctrine of inspiration ? The result was that they as 
 humble learners from God's own Word came to the 
 conclusion that the divine revealing Spirit in declaring 
 His will for men's salvation had given them in His 
 blessed Word and had designed to give them not a 
 record marked by slavish exactness in regard to every 
 immaterial detail, but a full and adequate and perfect 
 revelation of what they required to know for their 
 salvation, revealing Christ in type, promise, prophecy, 
 and fact." l 
 
 One of the best speeches in favour of Dr. Dods was 
 by a country brother, M'Kenzie of Falkland. It over- 
 flowed with character, unconventionality, and humour. 
 He told the House that he had been a member of 
 Assembly for twenty years, and never listened before 
 to so much orthodoxy in one day ! They were all 
 hyper-orthodox. "Dr. Dods had not brought all this 
 into the Free Church. Such views were found in the 
 press, in the religious novels of the time. Major 
 Macleod called them criminal ! He would tell them 
 what was criminal. It was criminal to shut their eyes 
 to these things. Dr. Dods had gone down to the arena 
 1 Assembly Proceedings, p. 117. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 245 
 
 and tried to fight these men with their own weapons, 
 and men were crying- out, ' You have bungled the 
 whole business.' A great deal was said of Dr. Dods' 
 statement regarding the minimum of belief necessary 
 to a Christian. But Dr. Dods had said, ' I must do 
 the work I am called to do. I am delighted that other 
 men should put things differently, but I have also an 
 evangelistic function which I cannot decline to dis- 
 charge.' Dr. Dods was an evangelist. All that the 
 Highland ministers under whom he himself used to sit 
 gave as the necessities of salvation, were a deep con- 
 sciousness of sin, and a deep sense of the need of a 
 Saviour. He had known a good deal about Mr. 
 Howie's work in the Wynd ; and if they insisted upon 
 shutting up Dr. Dods and refused to let truth be put 
 as he had put it, they struck the ground from any 
 man who wanted to grapple with the sinner. They 
 would subject the inquirer to a process of tuition in 
 theology. The Philippian jailer, then, would never 
 have been saved, for who would say that he knew all 
 that Dr. Dods' opponents demanded as necessary to a 
 Christian. Did even Saul of Tarsus know all they 
 say is necessary for sinners to know before they 
 become Christians ? They had been told that the eyes 
 of the world were on them. Yes, the eyes of the world 
 were on them ; but it was because Dr. Dods had got the 
 ear of the world. Let them take care lest they did any- 
 thing that would hinder his voice reaching the ear of 
 the world, and reaching it with a message of salvation." 
 The speech made a deep impression on the House. 
 
 The antipathy of some of the brethren to the views 
 under discussion was most pronounced. "Pass your 
 
246 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 motions," said Mr. Macaskill of Dingwall, "and shield 
 your professors ; but let this House in any way degrade 
 the Holy Word of God, and you may bid good-bye as 
 a Free Church to your influence in the Highlands." 
 "If they passed Dr. Adam's motion," said Dr. John 
 M'Ewan of Edinburgh, "then it was an open question 
 and so grave that he for one would feel his relation 
 to the Church fundamentally changed the moment 
 it passed." Yet Mr. Macaskill lived and died an 
 honoured servant of the Church that shielded Dods, 
 and Dr. John M'Ewan is still a respected leader in it. 
 
 It must be admitted that the language which Dr. 
 Dods applied to the Bible was a little trying ; and 
 perhaps for all that, as it turned out, he meant by it, 
 he might have found milder language. "Errors" 
 and "mistakes" were strong words to make use of 
 for a mere discrepancy like that found in the two 
 narratives of the centurion whose servant Christ 
 healed, St. Matthew informing us that he came him- 
 self for Christ, while St. Luke tells us he did not 
 come himself, but sent his servants. Yet this was 
 an example of the " errors," " mistakes," and " in- 
 accuracies " Dr. Dods quoted to the College Com- 
 mittee. His mention of "immoralities" in the Bible 
 was a more dangerous instance of the evil that can 
 be done by the use of unguarded language. When 
 asked to explain his meaning, he said : " I do not 
 mean that Scripture records the immoral actions of 
 persons whose lives are recorded as a part of the 
 history of Israel, for that, of course, was necessary 
 if it was to be a faithful record. But that actions 
 severely reprobated in the New Testament are allowed 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 247 
 
 or commended or even commanded in the Old. Under 
 this category fall such laws as ' An eye for an eye, 
 and a tooth for a tooth,' which our Lord explicitly 
 repeals ; the extirpation of tribes conquered in war ; 
 the occasional taking of young women into captivity ; 
 the permission of bigamy and even of polygamy." 1 
 Had Dr. Dods described these so-called ' immoralities ' 
 as cases of rudimentary morality, the phrase, although 
 clumsier, would have been harmless and quite accurate. 
 On the other hand, would his purpose have been 
 served had he used mild and soothing language ? 
 Could he have roused an apathetic age out of its 
 acquiescence in mechanical theories of God's truth ? 
 Was it not well known to him how in Reformation days 
 sturdy champions of God's Word, building their faith 
 
 "on the rock that nought can move," 
 
 dared to criticise the Bible with the divine right of 
 men to whom the personal God had vouchsafed a 
 knowledge of Himself? Did not Luther claim the 
 right to correct the trifling discrepancies of Scripture, 
 and even to charge whole books with spuriousness ? 
 To him it seemed clear that the Epistle of James was 
 no genuine apostolical Epistle, "was neither written 
 by an apostle nor has it the true apostolic ring, nor 
 does it agree with the pure doctrine," but "was a 
 right strawy Epistle, having no true evangelical 
 character." Dr. Dods probably fulfilled the mission 
 which was given him with the only instruments which 
 were ready to his hand. His aim was high and 
 worthy, to restore to men faith and joy in the truths 
 1 College Committee s Report, p. 31. 
 
248 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 of the Divine Word. By too many it had been viewed 
 after the manner of a magical charm ; by too few, as 
 the means for bringing to us a knowledge which is 
 life and joy and blessedness. 
 
 The controversy, which ended, as we might expect, 
 in a victory for Dr. Adam's motion, was not remark- 
 able for bringing to the front any new ecclesiastic or 
 theologian ; but it materially contributed to the repu- 
 tation of one whose character as a good man and a 
 great ecclesiastic already stood high. The speech of 
 Principal Rainy was sufficient to give the debate 
 historical importance. We close our account of the 
 discussion with two extracts from it. "Suppose a 
 student said to him, ' I take the Word of God as my 
 rule of faith and life. I hear the voice of God every- 
 where. I find it assuring me on this point and that 
 on what my Father will have me to be and to do ; but 
 on the whole, looking to what the Scripture seems 
 to me to claim for itself, and looking to all the facts, 
 I think it is fairer and truer to say that these human 
 incidents of inaccuracy in smaller things that are 
 characteristic just of human history, have not in all 
 cases been averted more than other human incidents 
 or conditions of human writings.' If they asked 
 him to say to that student, * You are not in a condi- 
 tion to sign the Confession of Faith as a minister 
 of the Free Church,' he would not do it." 1 
 
 "When will it end? it is asked. He thought that 
 
 a grave question. But suppose one said to him, ' If 
 
 you allow the questioning of anything, even the 
 
 smallest and most apparently insignificant in the 
 
 1 Assembly Proceedings, p. 114. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 249 
 
 Scriptures, if you allow the idea that God has ordered 
 His inspiration of the Scriptures so as in these matters 
 to permit what I am now speaking of, where will you 
 find the limit ? ' Was it impossible that it should turn 
 out that the Scriptures were so constructed as to lead 
 every honest inquirer to the right decision which they 
 pointed to ? Was that impossible ? The Bible was 
 a most remarkable book as to its construction, and 
 they were not entitled to assume that God always 
 would give them though, according to the view that 
 he rested in, He had given them in this respect that 
 He would always give them mathematical lines. God's 
 way was not always to give them mathematical lines. 
 God had not given them clear mathematical lines 
 about the Canon, and yet they found that they had 
 surmounted that difficulty and that there was no real 
 difficulty about the Canon. God had not given them 
 mathematical lines about the Text ; and that was a 
 great matter of difficulty once, and they had sur- 
 mounted it, and there was no real difficulty about 
 the Text now. God had not given them mathematical 
 lines about Interpretation, and yet honest students 
 of Scripture were agreed about Interpretation he 
 meant in all the main and essential matters. Then 
 there might be difficulties about Discipline. Perhaps 
 it would be well that they should be taxed with 
 difficulties about Discipline by and by. But he rather 
 thought that the primary object of the Bible was to 
 prove itself a sufficient guide to honest inquirers, and 
 not its primary purpose to enable them with ease to 
 exerci-se discipline upon dishonest ones." l 
 1 Assembly Proceedings, p. 115. 
 
250 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 Turn now to the case of Dr. Bruce, whose name 
 was conjoined with that of Dr. Dods, because the two 
 cases were tried at the same Assembly. Alexander 
 Balmain Bruce's name awoke at the time the most 
 opposite feeling's in different men, and even yet con- 
 tinues to do so. There were in the Church those who 
 distrusted Bruce ; but there was also a number whose 
 feelings towards him were those of hero-worship. 
 Men who knew not his attractive nature, and whose 
 acquaintance with his teaching extended only to certain 
 garbled extracts from his books, considered him the 
 most dangerous and destructive force that had as yet 
 assaulted the Church from within ; but the younger 
 clergy, and all who really knew the man and his work, 
 reputed him to be, with all his faults, the freshest 
 expounder of the gospel in the nineteenth century. 
 At College, Bruce came under two influences that 
 moulded many Scotsmen of the period Sir William 
 Hamilton and Thomas Carlyle. From the latter he 
 imbibed that hearty contempt for cant, insincerity, and 
 Pharisaism which almost runs riot in his writings, 
 and made them for a time unpalatable with certain 
 classes, but which latterly was often quoted with ap- 
 proval by such as could appreciate honest anger and 
 zeal for righteousness. As a minister he was first 
 settled in the quiet pastorate of Cardross in Dumbarton- 
 shire, where he pursued a course of study in the Greek 
 dramatists, and laid the foundations of his first and 
 probably his best known book, The Training of the 
 Twelve. What was seen to be remarkable about him 
 at that period, and what was true of him to the last, 
 was his uncommon insight into human character ; and 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 251 
 
 being himself a singularly pure-hearted man as well 
 as a bold thinker, he was led to conceive of God and 
 interpret the divine character from what he knew of 
 the noblest and the best in human nature. 
 
 One of a student coterie which met in Bruce's college 
 days at a round table in a house in Edinburgh, where 
 were discussed literary and philosophical questions, 
 tells us that once the subject under discussion was the 
 fate of the heathen, and whether a noble heathen like 
 Socrates could be denied salvation. " Omnipotence 
 can do anything," said one. "Omnipotence can surely 
 do nothing unjust," interposed another. "Omnipotence 
 could not," said a third, "condemn a man of lofty 
 character." " He might do so," said the first speaker, 
 "if He did not approve of his goodness." Bruce, 
 coming forward with clenched fist, closed the debate 
 by an oracular deliverance most characteristic of the 
 man. "I say, Daniel, God couldn't damn Socrates" ; 
 and, as the narrator of the incident adds, "his scorn 
 for every form of unreality, and his abhorrence of 
 views and practices which were the outcome of world- 
 liness or of a mere passing 'fashion,' moulded all his 
 later as his earlier work." 
 
 Dogmatic upon all the surer orthodoxies of the heart, 
 Bruce had learned to have the greatest possible respect 
 for honest intellectual difficulty. His own experience 
 had taught him this. An interesting glimpse of his 
 early struggles in this direction is afforded in a letter 
 written to his friend Macellar of Gourock, a young 
 minister of great gifts, and for a time oppressed with 
 tormenting doubts. " I was in your case for years, 
 diseased at once in body and mind, each acting on 
 
252 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OI SCOTLAND 
 
 and intensifying the other. If you were a student, I 
 would find no difficulty in knowing what to say ; I 
 would say, ' Hae faith and ye'll win through,' ' Let 
 patience have its perfect work. ' When I was in your 
 case, I could not have imagined what perfect peace 
 and rest of mind and heart I was to attain to, and 
 have attained to now, by the mercy of God. I do not 
 know the scope and extent of your doubts. I asked 
 your brother-in-law whether they referred to truth itself 
 or to your personal state, and he said the former in 
 order to the latter. With respect to doubts about 
 an interest in Christ, my advice always is, never heed 
 your personal interest, suppose the worst, leave your- 
 self in God's hands. What art thou afraid of hell? 
 Well, be it so ; * Though He slay me, yet will I trust 
 in Him.' With respect to doubts on doctrine, it is 
 not so easy to speak, especially in ignorance of what 
 these doubts are. This I will say, I have doubted 
 the whole supernatural system of truth, the incarna- 
 tion, the atonement, the resurrection of Christ and 
 of men in general, the future world, the inspiration 
 of Scripture, and been indescribably miserable. Now 
 I have attained to the full assurance of understanding, 
 to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and the 
 Father, and of Christ ; and so will you. Meantime, 
 get up the tone of your body, and do nothing rashly." 1 
 A man with this buoyancy and wonderful life- 
 history behind him could not fail to be a helper of 
 his brother-man, and to leave a profound impression 
 on his age. Bruce enriched our knowledge of Christ 
 and Christianity by many valuable publications. The 
 1 Memorials of a Ministry on the Clyde, p. xiii. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 253 
 
 first of these we have already named. The last was 
 the article ''Jesus" in the Encyclopedia Biblica> which 
 appeared in 1901, two years after the writer's death. 
 That article leaves a fear in the mind of the reader, 
 that Bruce had at last apostatised to the side of 
 naturalism after fighting all his life long in behalf of 
 a supernatural gospel. What gives colour to this 
 apprehension is the summary with which the article 
 opens. It is couched in startling words ; "Jesus 
 Christ, the author and object of the Christian faith, 
 a Jew by race, was born in Palestine towards the end 
 of the reign of Herod the Great. The home of his 
 childhood was Nazareth, a town in the lower division 
 of the province of Galilee. The family to which he 
 belonged was of humble estate. In early youth he 
 worked at a handicraft. On arriving at mature man- 
 hood he became a public teacher, rapidly gained fame, 
 gathered about him disciples, offended the ruling 
 classes by free criticism of the prevailing religion, and 
 ended a brief but extraordinary career by suffering 
 crucifixion." 1 As the article proceeds, however, we 
 find our alarms to be groundless, and see that the 
 author had died as he lived a firm believer and ex- 
 ponent of the supernatural. What statement could 
 be more satisfactory than this "the healing ministry" 
 (of Jesus), "judged by critical tests, stands on as firm 
 historical ground as the best accredited parts of the 
 teaching " ? 2 Or what could form a more luminous and 
 edifying interpretation of Christ's ministry of healing 
 than these words : "These healing acts are a revela- 
 tion of the love of Jesus, a manifestation of his 
 1 Encycl. Bibl. col. 2435. z Ibid. col. 2445. 
 
254 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 * enthusiasm for humanity,' to be placed beside the 
 meeting with the publicans of Capernaum as an aid 
 to the understanding of his spirit and aims. By that 
 meeting he showed his interest in a despised class of 
 men ; by the healing ministry he showed his interest 
 in a despised part of human nature the body, and 
 so evinced the healthy catholic nature of his concep- 
 tion of redemption. He was minded to do all the 
 good in the world he could. He was able to heal 
 men's bodies as well as their souls ; and he did it, 
 thereby protesting against that pagan notion of the 
 body, as something essentially evil and worthless, 
 which underlies all modes of asceticism ; and against 
 a false spiritualism which regards disease of the body 
 as essential to the health of the soul. The healing 
 ministry shows Jesus not as a thaumaturge bent on 
 creating astonishment, but as in a large grand human 
 way the friend of men, bearing by sympathy their 
 sicknesses as well as their sorrows and sins as a 
 burden in his heart." 
 
 The work around which controversy raged for a 
 time was The Kingdom of God ; or, Christ's Teaching- 
 according to the Synoptical Gospels, published in 1889. 
 In this volume the author was blamed with giving 
 away some of the things most surely believed among 
 us. The ordinary Calvinistic doctrine of election 
 seemed to be superseded by a theory of the writer's 
 own, which throughout almost all his books he has 
 advocated with repeated and persuasive insistence. 
 It was indeed one of the articles of his creed, one 
 of the good tidings of his gospel, which he never 
 1 Encycl. BibL col. 2446. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 255 
 
 weaned iterating and reiterating, and which, like his 
 favourite explanation of the atonement, and the 
 paradox element in the parables, the Churches of our 
 land have now received into the sum and substance of 
 their living faith. The offending passages were the 
 following: " How far Jesus was from regarding men, 
 all or any of them, as predestined to damnation, ap- 
 pears from His doctrine of election. He did not think 
 of the elect as chosen to an exclusive salvation, or as 
 enjoying a monopoly of divine favour. He regarded 
 them rather as chosen to the noble vocation and 
 function of saviours to their fellow-men. ' Ye are the 
 salt of the earth ' ; ' Ye are the light of the world ' : 
 such was the language He employed to indicate the 
 purpose of their election. The aim is universal human 
 salvation, and the elect of any age are God's agents 
 in the execution of the beneficent plan. If any are 
 unsaved, it is a miscarriage for which God is not 
 responsible, and which wrings from the Redeemer's 
 heart tears of bitter regret. ' I would, ye would not.' 
 It is true, indeed, that from some texts we might gather 
 that even Christ cared only for the elect, and without 
 a pang left all the rest of mankind outside the chosen 
 few to their fate. Thus, in the discourse on the last 
 things, we read, ' He shall send His angels with a 
 great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather His 
 elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to 
 the other.' Again, in the same discourse, it is stated 
 that the days of tribulation preceding the second 
 advent shall be shortened 'for the elect's sake.' I 
 do not envy the man who can extract from these 
 texts in an obscure apocalyptic discourse the mean- 
 
256 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 ing : What does it matter what happens to the rest 
 of mankind, either in this world or in the next, if 
 only the dear elect are safe ? in defiance of the general 
 scope of Christ's teaching, and the broad human 
 sympathies that are the very essence of His gospel. 
 Such men, if they exist, belong to an elect that has 
 lost its savour, and is fit only to be trampled under 
 foot." 1 
 
 Bruce's only defence of these views was, charac- 
 teristically enough, an emphatic repetition of them. 
 "In this work, as in several other of my writings, 
 I have emphasised the truth that election does not 
 imply a monopoly of Divine favour ; that the elect 
 are chosen not only to personal blessing, but to the 
 noble function of being God's agents in blessing the 
 world. I believe this to be an important Bible truth, 
 taught clearly in both Testaments, and with special 
 point and emphasis in Christ's sayings, * Ye are the 
 salt of the earth ' ; < Ye are the light of the world.' " 2 
 
 What proved the principal cause of offence, however, 
 were the critical views contained in the book. The 
 Professor treated these matters in a manner so revolu- 
 tionary, that memorials and petitions were pressed 
 upon the College Committee from various quarters 
 throughout the country, calling upon it to deal with 
 the case. A memorial from office-bearers in Glasgow 
 charged him with imputing untrustworthiness to the 
 writers of the Synoptist Gospels. He was said to have 
 represented the evangelists as intentionally misplacing 
 many incidents in the life of our Lord with the object 
 
 1 The Kingdom of God, p. 322. 
 
 2 College Committee's Report, p. 50. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 257 
 
 of producing a false impression. Speaking of the 
 evangelist Luke, he had said: "He has taken the 
 scene in the synagogue of Nazareth out of its true 
 historical place and set it in the forefront of his 
 Gospel, to signify that the mission of Jesus concerned 
 men's souls, and that it concerned all men. That 
 scene, as it stands there, stamps Christ's whole 
 ministry with the attributes of spirituality and uni- 
 versality, proclaims it to be throughout a ministry of 
 love to all the sinful, sorrowful sons of men. True, 
 the evangelist's thought is not necessarily the thought 
 of Jesus ; and in transferring that scene from its 
 true place, late in the evangelic history, he may be 
 conveying a false impression as to the views and 
 hopes with which the Herald of the kingdom began 
 His ministry." 1 Towards the close of the book he 
 said also: "It is conceivable that a direction given 
 by Jesus to His disciples concerning the rite " (bap- 
 tism) " before His death, say, on the eve of the Passion, 
 at the same time that the Holy Supper was instituted, 
 might have been transferred by the evangelist to 
 what was deemed a specially suitable place in the 
 history the final leave-taking, there to assume the 
 character of a last instruction by the Master, just 
 before His ascension, to the future apostles." 2 
 
 Luke was also said to have invented narratives as set- 
 tings for certain of Christ's sayings. Thus, " Suppose 
 the fact were that there was no mission but that of 
 the Twelve, and that the mission of the Seventy is an 
 invention of Luke, or of those to whom he owed his 
 information, the point to be noted is that for this 
 1 The Kingdom of 'God ', pp. 50-51. " Ibid. p. 257. 
 
 17 
 
258 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 * invented ' mission there are no invented instructions. 
 The instructions are simply a repetition in substance 
 of those given to the Twelve. If Luke furnished un- 
 historical settings for some sayings of Jesus, this 
 was the limit of his editorial licence : he reported no 
 sayings which he did not believe to be in substance 
 genuine logia of the Master." 1 
 
 Dr. Bruce was further charged with quoting from 
 Strauss with evident approval. " It may be doubted, 
 indeed, whether a real knowledge of the historical 
 Christ be now possible. Strauss writes : ' We know 
 very little about Jesus. The evangelists have daubed 
 his life-image so thick with supernatural colours, that 
 the natural colours can no longer be restored. The 
 Jesus of history is simply a problem, and a problem 
 cannot be the object of faith or the exemplar of life. It 
 is the penalty he pays for having been a God. ' ' In the 
 second edition of The Kingdom of God, Dr. Bruce felt 
 compelled to repudiate the misconstruction put upon 
 this reference to Strauss. " I have been surprised," he 
 said, "to learn that some have understood me to be 
 expressing my own view in the first sentence of the 
 last paragraph, and have even imagined that the quota- 
 tion following it from Strauss is intended to indicate 
 my own position. I should have imagined that every 
 intelligent person would see that my meaning was, that 
 this sceptical attitude as to the possibility of know- 
 ing the historical Christ was a thing apologists had to 
 reckon with. I cite Strauss as an illustrative instance, 
 as in an earlier part of this chapter I cite Huxley. " : 
 
 1 The Kingdom of God, p. 27. * Ibid. p. 359. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 357. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 259 
 
 The Memorialists, in their endeavour to bring home 
 Dr. Bruce's errors, argued that such liberties as he 
 had imputed to the evangelists were incompatible with 
 honest biography, not to say inspiration. It was in- 
 tolerable to them that Dr. Bruce's suppositions about 
 the evangelists adapting, altering, and toning down 
 their material to meet the needs of the time, should be 
 suffered to pass unchallenged and uncondemned. Was 
 a professor of the Church to be tolerated who taught 
 that "it is not at all unlikely that a certain number 
 of the existing variations are due to the evangelists 
 themselves"; that these men "so far exercised their 
 discretion in the use of their sources, as to make the 
 material serviceable to the edification of those for 
 whose special benefit they wrote acting not in a spirit 
 of licence, but with the freedom of men who believed 
 that it was more important that their readers should 
 get a true impression of Christ, than that they should 
 know the ipsissima verba of His sayings. Thus may 
 be accounted for alterations of words and phrases 
 occurring in the documents, and omissions of material 
 found there, not deemed suitable for his purpose by 
 the compiler " ? l Was it permissible to speak of our 
 Lord, as Dr. Bruce did in his volume, as investing 
 the hard prosaic fact of His death with poetic, mystic, 
 spiritual meanings ; as a genius able to cope with 
 death and rob it of its sting and repulsiveness ; as 
 "divining His fate from the treatment experienced by 
 the prophets " ; and as arriving by a process of reason- 
 ing at the conviction that He must rise from the dead ? 
 "Was there anything in the Gospel records," asked 
 1 The Kingdom of God, p. 7. 
 
260 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 one of Bruce's prosecutors, "to countenance such a 
 view, so unworthy of, so dishonouring to, our Divine 
 Saviour? Was He a mere calculator? Was this 
 Christ of Dr. Bruce the Christ of the Gospels, the 
 Christ they had been taught to revere and to trust ? " 
 " He," said another, "had been keeping company with 
 a certain school of German critics, not the most re- 
 putable school, so that he had come to see matters 
 very much from the standpoint of these critics. His 
 work was full of references to Kuenen, Ritschl, et hoc 
 genus omne." l 
 
 The Kingdom of God contained yet other causes of 
 offence. The author had brought down a heavy hand 
 on the very classes that rose in arms against him, after 
 the manner of Burns' assaults on the "unco guid." 
 " To be religious without love," he had written, "was 
 to be at the farthest possible distance from God 
 and true righteousness." 2 "I am even disposed to 
 think that a great and steadily increasing portion of 
 the moral worth of society lies outside the Church, 
 separated from it not by godlessness, but rather by 
 exceptionally intense moral earnestness. Many, in 
 fact, have left the Church in order to be Christians." 1 
 Christ has taught us to " look for the most aggravated 
 types of moral degeneracy from the divine ideal of 
 manhood, not among the irreligious, but among the 
 inhumanly religious." 4 " At times the spiritual Salem 
 has resembled certain terrestrial cities known to us as 
 they appear in the time of frost, enveloped in a grimy 
 
 1 Assembly Proceedings, pp. 156, 157. 
 
 2 The Kingdom of God, p. 141. 
 
 3 Ibid. p. 144. 4 Ibid. p. 146. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 261 
 
 fog which shuts out the sun and blue sky visible in 
 the surrounding country. At such unhappy periods 
 the question suggests itself, Is the Church of any 
 use : were it not well that it perished, that Christianity 
 might the better thrive ? Then, instead of claiming 
 for the Church that within it alone is salvation to be 
 found, earnest men are more inclined to ask whether 
 salvation is to be found in it at all, and does not rather 
 consist in escaping from its influence. A good many 
 are asking such revolutionary questions even now ; and 
 it is foolish for Churchmen simply to be shocked, and 
 to characterise them as profane. The Church is only 
 a means to an end. It is good only in so far as it is 
 Christian. There is no merit or profit in mere ecclesi- 
 asticism. Whatever reveals the true Christ is of value 
 and will live. Whatever hides Christ, be it pope, 
 priest, or presbyter, sacraments or ecclesiastical mis- 
 rule, is pernicious and must pass away. But we may 
 hope that there will always be enough of Christ's spirit 
 in the society which bears His name to keep it from 
 becoming utterly savourless, and to bring about such 
 reforms as may be necessary to make it serve the end 
 for which it was instituted. Should this hope be 
 disappointed, then the visible Church, as we know it, 
 must and will pass away, leaving the spirit of Christ 
 free room to make a new experiment, under happier 
 auspices, at self-realisation. To be enthusiastic about 
 the Church in its present condition is impossible, to 
 hope for its future is not impossible ; but if it were, 
 there is no cause for despair. Christ will ever remain 
 the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever: and the 
 kingdom of God will remain a kingdom that cannot 
 
262 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 be moved." 1 Such plain speaking aggravated Dr. 
 Bruce's guilt in the opinion of his enemies. In addition 
 to being a dangerous and irreverent heretic, he was 
 branded as a treacherous and disloyal servant of the 
 Church. 
 
 Dr. Bruce explained his critical attitude in the 
 offending volume in a manner that satisfied the 
 Church as a whole. He implored his prosecutors to 
 consider that attitude in the light of the aim set forth 
 in the volume. The question there discussed was how 
 far the Synoptist writers Matthew and Luke may 
 be regarded as putting us in possession of Christ's 
 teaching in its original form, and the problem he had 
 set before him to solve was that of accounting for 
 Luke's omissions otherwise than through ignorance. 
 Can we or can we not ascertain with substantial 
 accuracy the words of our Lord as He may have 
 originally spoken them ? To this important and 
 difficult question, different men have, of course, given 
 different answers. Mr. Huxley has answered the 
 question in a negative. We cannot be sure that we 
 know almost anything respecting Christ's teaching. 
 Dr. Bruce, on the other hand, in the sequel of the 
 introductory chapter of his book, gave an affirmative 
 reply to the question ; and endeavoured to show 
 that we can with substantial accuracy, although with 
 varying degrees of literal exactness, learn from the 
 Synoptists what Christ's teaching originally amounted 
 to. He showed that of the two, Matthew came nearest 
 to the primitive form of the Master's sayings ; whereas 
 Luke receded from it to a certain limited and ascer- 
 1 The Kingdom of God, p. 271. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 263 
 
 tainable extent, from motives in every way worthy of 
 him as a canonical writer and an inspired evangelist. 
 Such was the situation discussed in the volume which 
 had given rise to so much panic. In reality, Dr. Bruce, 
 as became a professor of Apologetics, was defending 
 instead of, as was alleged, attacking the faith. It might 
 be that certain expressions applied to the evangelists 
 were most liable to be misunderstood, as, for example, 
 the phrase " perfectly trustworthy." In regard to that 
 phrase, he explained that it referred to the reliableness 
 of the sources viewed objectively, and not to the good 
 faith of the writers, which he had not the remotest 
 intention of calling in question. As regards his 
 representation of the evangelists suiting their reports 
 of Christ's words to the practical needs of their readers, 
 there was nothing offensive in such a supposition. On 
 the contrary, was it not the duty of the strong to have 
 regard to the infirmity of the young and weak in the 
 faith ? and if the evangelist Luke acted on this 
 principle, in the omissions and modifications peculiar 
 to his Gospel, was he not simply following the Master's 
 own example when He told the disciples that He had 
 yet many things to say to them, but they could not bear 
 them then ? 
 
 At the discussion of the Professor's book in the 
 Assembly of 1890, two of the leaders of the Church 
 supported the finding of the College Committee, which 
 was to the effect that while there was much to regret 
 in it, there was really no case for a heresy charge. Dr. 
 Ross Taylor reminded the House that Dr. Bruce was 
 not to be held responsible for the questions discussed 
 by him in his volume : he had not raised them for the 
 
264 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 first time : they existed independently of him : and had 
 been often used by infidel and rationalistic writers so 
 as to weaken men's faith and loyalty to the truth. Dr. 
 Bruce, as an accredited guide and teacher in the 
 Church, had refused to shut his eyes to these dangers 
 that threatened the common faith, and had valiantly 
 striven to meet them. As an explorer in critical fields 
 of inquiry, he had come back with his faith unshaken 
 and even confirmed in the verities of divine truth. 
 Should such a man have his mouth closed on these 
 questions at the invitation of panic-stricken alarmists, 
 or content himself with empty sneers and jeers at 
 German rationalism ? Did the Church admire that 
 type of professor? Had not the time come to face 
 boldly and frankly the questions which were agitating 
 them all ? He looked upon it as a great thing that in 
 their Free Church of Scotland they had men who were 
 determined to take these questions in hand with a 
 strong grasp, and to let the public know what was true 
 and worthy, and what was to be rejected as mere 
 speculation and guesswork. The speech tended 
 greatly to the pacification of the Church. 
 
 Principal Rainy still further succeeded in allaying 
 the feeling of alarm. Dr. Bruce, he argued, was 
 dealing with the vexed question of the variations that 
 existed independently of any of them in the Gospels. 
 He was dealing with these variations quite legiti- 
 mately along the lines of a certain hypothesis. On 
 the highest possible view of inspiration, a variation 
 in the report which God was pleased to sanction in 
 the Gospel might conceivably be a variation in the 
 report which the evangelist Luke might produce as 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 265 
 
 the agent of God in composing the Gospel. Dr. Bruce 
 must carry on the teaching to which they had appointed 
 him, in his classes and his books, from his own and 
 not from their convictions. Every honourable man in 
 such a position as he was must do that, and he was 
 certain that, while, like all professors, he would con- 
 tinue to maintain his own convictions, the primary 
 duty of an honest man, he would desire to have such 
 tender regard as an honest man might have to the 
 convictions and susceptibilities of the Church of God. 
 Dr. Rainy's speech was a noble plea for toleration, 
 and, as has been said, did much to allay the suspicion 
 and fears which prevailed in the bosom of many good 
 men. 
 
 But, to the surprise of all and to the special delight 
 of his friends, the speech of Dr. Bruce himself 
 exercised the most restoring and quieting influence 
 of any. In a winning and genial manner, he began 
 by reminding the Assembly that his book dealt with 
 a comparatively new department of theology. As 
 a pioneer work, therefore, it might surely claim the 
 indulgence due to those who trod unfrequented paths. 
 The aim of the book was to expound Christ's teaching 
 as recorded in the first three Gospels. The attempt 
 involved apologetic as well as exegetical handling, 
 inasmuch as in certain so-called free-thought circles 
 the Gospels were not deemed reliable sources of the 
 teaching of Christ. This was the situation in view 
 when he wrote the book ; and his aim was to vindicate 
 the general reliableness of the Gospel records of 
 Christ's words, and to do so by processes of reasoning 
 which might be regarded as valid by the advocates of 
 
266 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 sceptical opinions. " I appeal to all intelligent and 
 candid readers to say whether I have not addressed 
 myself to the difficult and delicate task in a loyal spirit, 
 and whether the general effect of what I have written 
 is not conservative on the whole. I by no means claim 
 to have written a book which is not open to criticism. 
 I am sure of my intention to do a service to the faith. 
 I am not so confident of the success of my perform- 
 ance ; and in so far as by infelicity in expression, 
 or by inadvertence, or by preoccupation with out- 
 side and unbelieving opinion, I have so written as 
 to give rise to misunderstanding, I have no hesitation 
 in expressing in the frankest manner my sincere 
 regret." 1 
 
 On the general subject of inspiration, he expressed 
 cordial respect for the jealousy of their Church, and 
 proceeded to say that the comparative study of the 
 religions of the world had deepened his conviction 
 that the Bible was an exceptional, a divine book. 
 "Whether we compare the accounts of the origin of 
 things in Genesis with those found elsewhere, or the 
 psalms with the Vedic or Accadian hymns, or the 
 prophets with the highest utterances of poets and 
 sages, or the Gospels with the so-called Teaching of the 
 twelve Apostles , or the Epistles with the ethical doctrine 
 of pagan moralists, the impression ever is This is a 
 Book by itself, the marvellous literature of a very real 
 revelation which God has made to mankind through 
 the Hebrew race. Whatever differences there may be 
 amongst us as to the exact theological definition of 
 inspiration, or the inferences to be drawn therefrom, or 
 1 Assembly Proceedings, p. 174. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 267 
 
 the wisdom and validity of a priori inferences on such 
 a subject, a point on which past experience in the 
 history of theology is full of warning-, however we may 
 differ on these matters, we are at one on the main 
 question. I venture to think that on this subject, or 
 indeed on any subject, we are not so far apart as in the 
 heat of debate we may seem." l 
 
 " My youth," he went on, turning autobiographical, 
 "was cast in a time of ecclesiastical controversy. I 
 went to College in 1845, less than fifteen years old. It 
 is not good for youth to know too soon the evil that is 
 in the world, even though it be necessary evil. I made 
 my escape from the strife of the Churches to the 
 teaching of Jesus, where I saw in its brightness and 
 unearthly beauty the Christian ideal. But the ideal 
 casts a deep shadow on all reality, on one's own 
 character, on the religious life of the community, on 
 the course of ecclesiastical history. It is the shadow 
 of the ideal that rests on those passages in my books 
 in which I speak of the Church. I am not greatly 
 concerned to defend all I have said. I am content that 
 you should apply to these passages all the epithets 
 that hostile criticism can think of. Call them one- 
 sided, severe, pessimistic ; all true, possibly, and more. 
 But that is only one side. The other is, I have been 
 looking at the Church in the dazzling light of the King 
 and the Kingdom. 
 
 " In the closing passage of its special report the 
 
 College Committee recognise the * intellectual vigour ' 
 
 of my book. I thank them for the compliment. But I 
 
 must take leave to say that it is a small thing to me in 
 
 1 Assembly Proceedings, p. 175. 
 
268 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 connection with such a work to be complimented on 
 my ability. The question is, Have I seen Christ and 
 helped others to see Him ? I would rather be one of 
 the ' babes ' to whom the things of the Kingdom were 
 revealed, than one of the ' wise and prudent ' from 
 whom they were hid. I would rather be one of the 
 ' unlearned and ignorant ' men who through com- 
 panionship with Jesus had become imbued with His 
 spirit, than one of the Sanhedrin who with all their 
 learning could see in Jesus and His companions only a 
 band of bold, lawless, dangerous men to be got rid of as 
 soon as possible. I have been trying all my life to see 
 Jesus and to show Him ; and if I have failed, it will be 
 small consolation to be told that I have written with 
 considerable ability." 1 
 
 " In the Review of Reviews for February is a catalogue 
 of the best hundred books for a minister's library, as 
 compiled by the theological professors of Princeton 
 Seminary. Dr. C. W. Hodge supplies the list in New 
 Testament exegesis, and in it stands this entry 
 ' Bruce's Kingdom of GodS When I consider what a 
 bad book this has been thought to be by some who have 
 read it and by many more who have not read it in this 
 Church ; and when I mark the tremulous caution with 
 which our worthy College Committee has put forth its 
 hand to touch it, I can hardly help thinking, either that 
 there has been some printer's mistake in the Review of 
 Reviews, or that the Dr. Hodge who made that entry 
 is not a genuine orthodox Hodge, but one of those 
 heterodox professors of the Dods and Bruce type who 
 by some mischance find their way occasionally into 
 1 Assembly Proceedings^ p. 176. 
 
THE DODS-BRUCE CASE 269 
 
 orthodox Colleges. If, on the other hand, Dr. Hodge is 
 to be regarded, as no doubt he is, as a thoroughly 
 orthodox theologian, then the conclusion I come to is 
 that my loyalty to the faith which the motion of Mr. 
 Balfour declares should be made manifest to the world, 
 is fully as manifest to the orthodox world of America 
 as it is to this Free Assembly. 
 
 " In conclusion, Moderator, I need not say that the 
 controversy that has arisen has given me pain chiefly, 
 I may say almost exclusively, because of misunder- 
 standings which have arisen in the minds of men whom 
 I love as my brethren. The personal bearing of this 
 controversy has never cost me a thought. I am 
 thankful to say that I have been sustained in the 
 utmost buoyancy of spirit all through ; but it has been 
 a grief to me to be misunderstood by good men. I 
 trust, however, that the painful feeling on all sides will 
 soon pass away, and that I shall be able in the evening 
 of my days to look back on the unpleasant incidents of 
 the present year, partly as the needful discipline of my 
 infirmities, but partly also as the honourable marks of 
 the Lord Jesus." 1 
 
 The day that heard this noble Apologia, was the last 
 day for criticism to be dreaded as a foe that intended a 
 destructive assault on the Truth. The Churches in 
 Scotland have allowed their sacred documents to be 
 subjected to critical investigation, not with the uneasy 
 trembling of former days, but under the conviction that 
 they must be submitted to the same searching tests 
 that are applied to other historical records. Faith in 
 the Bible as the Word of God welcomes every fair and 
 1 Assembly Proceedings > p. 176. 
 
270 THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES OF SCOTLAND 
 
 reasonable inquiry into the character and credibility of 
 the records. And the Churches are now more and 
 more prepared to " believe in the Bible not in spite of 
 criticism, but because of it ; not under protest against 
 it, but by reason of it ; not although criticism has 
 shown that certain views of inspiration are untenable, 
 but just because this has been the case." l 
 1 Contentio Veritatis, p. 208. 
 
INDEX 
 
 ACT of General Assembly (1720), 
 
 27, 170-3- 
 
 Adam, Dr. John, 239-43. 
 
 Amyraldism, 173-5. 
 
 Apocrypha Controversy : the 
 matter in dispute, 96-7 ; 
 Arguments, 08-102 ; the con- 
 troversialists, 102-6 ; value of 
 the Apocrypha, 109 ; story of 
 Pitt the statesman, no; Queen 
 Victoria and the Apocrypha, 
 
 1 10. 
 
 Arianism, 9, 18-9. 
 
 Astruc, 209. 
 
 " Auchterarder Creed, the," 25. 
 
 Barrier Act, the, 171-2. 
 
 Bible the, and Criticism : Pre- 
 Reformation neglect of Bible, 
 208 ; revived interest at Refor- 
 mation, 208, mechanical views 
 of Inspiration, 208 ; Scholar- 
 ship in Scottish Church, 208-9 > 
 beginnings of Criticism, 209; 
 Robertson Smith, 210-11 ; 
 opposition to Criticism, 212 ; 
 Criticism inevitable, 214; 
 authority of Bible independent 
 of it, 219-21 ; Criticism toler- 
 ated, 223-30 ; mistakes and im- 
 moralities in Bible, 238-44, 
 246-9 ; trustworthiness of Ev- 
 angelists, 256-60, 262-3 ; Vari- 
 ations in the Gospels, 264-5 '> 
 Inspiration, 266-7. 
 
 Bible Society, the work of the, 95. 
 
 Blair, author of The Grave, 65. 
 
 Boswell, 45. 
 
 Boston, Thomas : his essay on 
 Hebrew Accentuation, 16, 209 ; 
 his famous dissent, 16 ; his re- 
 marks and opinions, 12, 17, 25, 
 29, 30, 33, 1 68. 
 
 Bourignon, Antoinette, 142. 
 
 Brown, Principal David, 124, 
 140. 
 
 Brown, Dr. John, 186. 
 
 Bruce, Professor A.B., personal 
 character and work, 250-2 ; 
 article Jesus, 253-4; The 
 Kingdom of God, 254-62 ; 
 objections to it, 259-60 ; the 
 author's explanations, 262-3 ; 
 the case before the General 
 Assembly, 263-5 Bruce's 
 Apologia, 265-70. 
 
 Burns, Robert, quoted, 24, 87, 
 94; the poet and Dr. M'Gill 
 of Ayr, 94 ; the poet's views 
 on the Christian religion, 92-3. 
 
 Burns, Dr. and the Apocrypha 
 Controversy, 108. 
 
 Caird, Principal, 194 ; his 
 service to the Church of 
 Scotland, 201-2 ; his philo- 
 sophy of religion, 202 ; his 
 sermon on Union "with God, 
 202-4. 
 
 Calvinism, 37, 159, 187. 
 
 Campbell, Dr. John Macleod, 
 in; high character, 147-8 ; 
 
 271 
 
2/2 
 
 INDEX 
 
 spirituality, 149 ; as a preacher, 
 150; Campbell, senior, 150; 
 Campbell's fairness, 151 ; mini- 
 stry at Row, 152 ; his teaching, 
 152 ; trial, 153 ; his judges, 154 ; 
 his spiritual influence, 155 ; de- 
 position, 156 ; views on the Con- 
 fession of Faith, 158-9 ; views 
 on the Atonement, Pardon, and 
 Assurance of Faith, 160-8 ; 
 arguments of his opponents, 
 168-70 ; ideas on the subject 
 of Pardon, 163-5, I 75- 
 
 Campbell, Mary, 119; her con- 
 fession, 126. 
 
 Candlish, Principal, 192. 
 
 Candlish, Professor James S., 
 219-21. 
 
 Canning, 116. 
 
 Carlyle, Dr., of Inveresk ; opinions 
 and policy, 46, 66, 73 ; libelled 
 in connection with the play of 
 Douglas, 74 ; his defence of the 
 play, 78-9. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 19, in. 
 
 Caryl, Joseph, 22. 
 
 Chalmers, Dr. Thomas, 96, III, 
 
 143-4- 
 
 Chillingworth, 207. 
 
 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 9, 10, n. 
 
 Coleridge, 112, 125, 143. 
 
 Colquhoun, Dr., of Leith, 168. 
 
 Confession of Faith, Old Scottish 
 (1560), 139, 167. 
 
 Confession of Faith, Westminster, 
 159, 167, 176-81. 
 
 Controversy, Religious, in Scot- 
 land : its character and services, 
 
 23I 7 3- 
 
 Cunningham, Dr. John, 194, 197- 
 198, 200. 
 
 Dante, 208. 
 
 Davidson, Professor A. B., 210. 
 
 Deists, the, 209. 
 
 De Wette, 210. 
 
 Dickson, David, 209. 
 
 Dods, Professor Marcus : his 
 alleged heresies, 234, 238 ; the 
 St. Giles sermon, 235, 237, 
 College Committee's Report, 
 236-7 ; his explanations, 239 ; 
 
 the case before the General 
 Assembly, 239-49 ; his services 
 towards a better knowledge of 
 the Scriptures, 247. 
 
 Edinburgh Christian Instructor, 
 
 the, 106, 140. 
 Eichhorn, 209. 
 
 Erskine, Ebenezer, 29, 35, 172. 
 Erskine, Ralph, 29, 35. 
 Erskine of Linlathen, in, 153, 
 
 166. 
 Evangelical Union Church, creed 
 
 of, 187. 
 Ewing, Bishop Alexander, 158. 
 
 Ferguson, Adam, 75. 
 Flint, Professor, 198. 
 Fraser of Brea, 27, 172. 
 
 Garrick, David, 66. 
 Grange, Lord, 14, 15. 
 
 Hadow, Principal, 14, 23. 
 
 Haldane, Robert, 102. 
 
 Hamilton of Airth, 28. 
 
 Harnack, 10, 19. 
 
 Harper, Principal, 186. 
 
 Hervey, 24. 
 
 Heugh, Dr., 186. 
 
 Highlanders and Criticism, 245- 
 246. 
 
 Home, John : Douglas on the 
 Edinburgh stage, 66 ; the play 
 of Douglas, 68-9 ; excitement, 
 69-70 ; The Admonition of the 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh, 70; 
 effect produced, 71 ; Home's 
 character and wit, 84-5. 
 
 Howie, Dr., 243. 
 
 Hume, David : disposition and 
 character, 45 ; Rousseau, 46 ; 
 in Paris, 47 ; relations to Reid 
 and Dr. Campbell, 47 ; in- 
 tellectual character, 48 ; The 
 Treatise of Human Nature, 
 49-5 2 > History of England, 
 52-3 ; Essay on Miracles, 
 53-4 ; extracts from the Essay, 
 55 ; Paley's attack on Hume, 
 56-7 ; Hume's Scepticism, 62 ; 
 his services to Christianity, 63 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 273 
 
 opinion of John Home, 67 ; 
 ballad on Hume, 68. 
 Hunt, Leigh, 113. 
 
 Irving, Edward : his ambition, 
 112; influence, 113; self- 
 consciousness, 114; eloquence, 
 115 ; earnestness, 115 ; fame in 
 the pulpit, 116-18; expects a 
 new dispensation, 118; the 
 spiritual gifts, 120; scenes, 
 121 ; Irving's defence, 122 ; 
 the Times on Irving, 122 ; 
 Baxter's apostasy, 123 ; Mary 
 Campbell's confession, 126 ; 
 Edinburgh Christian Instructor 
 on the Tongues, 127 ; Irving's 
 eccentricities, 128 ; his views on 
 the Human Nature of our Lord, 
 1 29-36 ; his trial for heresy, 
 137 ; the Old Scottish Con- 
 fession of 1560, 139 ; Bourig- 
 nianism, 142-3 ; Dr. Chalmers' 
 silence, 143-4 ; Irving's ser- 
 vices to Christology, 145. 
 
 Kid of Queensferry, 29. 
 Kingsley, Charles, 157. 
 Knight, Professor, 194. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 113. 
 Lessing, 213. 
 Livingstone, John, 209. 
 
 M'Ewan, Dr. John, 228, 239. 
 
 M'Farlane of Lenzie : sermon on 
 The Things which cannot be 
 shaken, I95-I97 199-200 ; 
 Cunningham's defence, 197-8 ; 
 M'Farlane's apology, 199. 
 
 M'Gill, Dr. William: the 
 Practical Essay, 87 ; extracts, 
 88 ; falls foul of the Confession 
 of Faith, 89 ; retracts, 90. 
 
 Mackenzie, Henry, 66. 
 
 M'Kenzie of Falkland, 244-5. 
 
 M'Laren, John, 6, 7. 
 
 M'Laurin, John, 14. 
 
 Macleod, Norman, 151, 157, 201. 
 
 Marrow of Modet n Divinity, the : 
 first appearance of the book, 
 22 ; outline of, 22-3 ; the 
 
 18 
 
 author, 23 ; James Hog's 
 edition, 24 ; spread of Marrow 
 views, 26 ; opposition, 26 ; 
 their alleged unsoundness, 27 ; 
 the controversialists, 28 ; the 
 Representers , 29 ; their replies 
 to the Assembly, 30-2 ; pro- 
 test not read, 32-3 ; persecu- 
 tion of Marrow men, 36 ; the 
 Marrow teaching, 38-41, 171 ; 
 the Marrow teaching and the 
 Secession Church, 42. 
 Morison, Principal James : his 
 views, 184 ; trial at the Synod, 
 185 ; suspension, 186 ; an ex- 
 positor, 1 88 ; controversialists, 
 189 ; recognition of Morison 
 and his views, 189-91. 
 
 Orr, Professor James, 228. 
 
 Paley, 56-7. 
 Plato, 83. 
 
 Rainy, Principal, 229, 248, 264. 
 Ramsay, Allan, 80, 81. 
 Robertson, Principal, 81-2. 
 
 Scott, A. J., 119, 124, 177. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 113. 
 
 Service, John, 205. 
 
 Sheridan, 67. 
 
 Siddons, Mrs., 82. 
 
 Simon, 209. 
 
 Simson, Professor John, his 
 Arminianism, 5 ; the Church's 
 judgment, 8 ; his Arian errors, 
 n ; the Simson "affair," 12; 
 Simson's students, 13 ; re- 
 tracts, 13; suspension, 14; 
 his character, 17. 
 
 Smith, Professor G. A. , 223 ; his 
 critical views, 224-7 '> his case 
 before the General Assembly, 
 227-30. 
 
 Smith, Dr. John, 228-9. 
 
 Smith, Professor W. Robertson, 
 208; article "Bible," 210 ; his 
 account of Deuteronomy, 211 ; 
 excitement in the Church, 
 212-5 ; his trial, 215 ; his 
 fine gifts, 216-7 ; judgment in 
 
274 
 
 INDEX 
 
 the case, 218 ; his subsequent 
 
 career and death, 222 ; estimate 
 
 of his work, 2223. 
 Stewart, Dugald, 81. 
 Story of Rosneath, 114, 119, 
 
 125, 126, 172, 176. 
 Story, Principal, 194, 200-201. 
 
 Taylor, Dr. W. Ross, 228, 243, 
 263-4. 
 
 Tennyson, 213. 
 
 Thomson, Dr. Andrew, 102. 
 
 Tulloch, Principal, 157. 
 
 Wardlaw, Dr., 102, 107. 
 Webster, James, 5-6. 
 Willison of Dundee, 8. 
 Wilson, Gabriel, 35-6. 
 Witherspoon of Beith, 75-7, 82. 
 Wodrow, n, 12, 17. 
 
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