Chapter VI: The Reformation in Scotland

Had I the time and space I would be glad to give a history of the Reformation in Scotland under John Knox and others. After all the prolonged suffering and conflict, it has precious little more of Protestantism than is common in the English State Church. There we also find the reigning monarch represented in the General Assembly by a nobleman, as Lord High Commissioner, who, on some occasions, has taken upon himself to dissolve the Assembly without the consent of its members. In 1843 a conflict between the ecclesiastical and civil courts brought about a great disruption, giving rise to the Free Church of Scotland, so that there is also the "General Assembly of the Free Church." But these two General Assemblies are not on equal footing--in the very nature of the case could not be. In the one, the proceedings of the Assembly carry with them the sanction of the law, backed by the civil power; while those of the other have no such sanction, and are only binding upon willing adherents, who, by tacit agreement, are under moral obligation. The one is a corporate body in the eye of the law; the other entirely voluntary. But both bodies hold that the acts of their respective assemblies are binding upon their churches. Consequently those churches are in subjection to a rule of which the apostolic churches knew nothing, and, therefore, are not in faith and practice in subjection to the Bible alone. The "Confession of Faith" is the standard of appeal. Infant baptism, infant membership, and numerous other departures from apostolic Christianity stand out to refute any claims that these churches of Scotland might put in. They may protest against Rome or Episcopacy, but what matters that, as the Bible protests all of them?

THE INDEPENDENTS

But it is not to be supposed, even though the multitudes settled down in violation of their professed principles, that all would refrain from a fuller application of them. Hence the multiplication of distinct parties, each claiming to be the church, or a nearer approach to the church as ordained by Christ. Coming out in this way from the English State Church we find the Independents, who sacrificed property, liberty and life. They were glad to escape to Holland or to this country. Others suffered on and aided largely to win against a persecuting State Church the liberties the people now enjoy. Belknap's "Life of Robinson" gives the following principles as underlying their church organization:

(1) That no church ought to consist of more members than can meet in
one place for worship and discipline.
(2) That a church of Christ is to consist only of such as appear to
believe in and obey him.
(3) That any competent number of such have a right, when conscience
obliges them, to form themselves into a distinct church.
(4) That, being thus incorporated, they have a right to choose their
own officers.
(5) That these officers are teaching elders, ruling elders, and
deacons.
(6) That elders being chosen and ordained have no power to rule the
church, but by consent of the brethren.
(7) That all elders and all churches are equal in respect to power and
privileges.
(8) That the Lord's Supper is to be received sitting at the table.
(When in Holland they observed it every Lord's day.)
(9) That ecclesiastical censures are wholly spiritual, and not to be
accompanied with temporal penalties.

They admitted no holy days but the "Christian Sabbath," though they had occasional days of fasting and thanksgiving; and finally they had renounced all human inventions or impositions on religious matters.

In Scotland we find Congregational principles as far back as the Commonwealth. Independency had obtained much hold in England among all classes. The soldiers of Cromwell carried their principles with them, and are said to have formed a Congregational church in Edinburgh. But that church was not permanent, and we find nothing of churches of like order in Scotland till 1726, when John Glass, an eloquent and able minister, with avowed convictions in harmony with those of the English Independents, withdrew from the Church of Scotland and formed churches in most of the large towns of Scotland. These churches were called "Glassite." Mr. Glass and his adherents taught:

(1) That national establishments of religion are unlawful and
inconsistent with the true nature of the Church of Christ.
That the church being spiritual, ought to consist only of true
spiritual men.
(2) That a congregation of Jesus Christ, with its elders, is in its
discipline subject to no jurisdiction under heaven, save that
of Christ and his apostles.
(3) That each church should have a plurality of elders or bishops,
chosen by the church, according to instruction given to
Timothy and Titus, without regard to previous education for
the office, continuous engagement in secular employment being
no disqualification.
(4) That the churches observe the Lord's Supper on the first day of
every week; and that love feasts be held, after the example of
the primitive Christians.
(5) That mutual exhortations be practiced on the Lord's day, any
member able to edify being at liberty to address the church.
(6) That a weekly collection be made in connection with the Lord's
Supper in aid of the poor, and for necessary expenses.

Mr. Glass was largely eclipsed by Robert Sandeman, whose activity wielded a wide influence. Those who adhered to his teachings were called "Sandemanians." Sandeman prominently repudiated that mischievous mysticism which views "saving faith" as an inspiration directly from the Holy Spirit. His teaching has been thus summarized:

"One thing is needful," which he called the sole requisite to
justification, or acceptance with God. By the sole requisite to
justification, he understood the work finished by Christ in his death,
proved by his resurrection to be all sufficient to justify the guilty;
that the whole benefit of this is conveyed to men only by the
apostolic report concerning it; that every one who understands this
report to be true, or is persuaded that the events actually happened,
as testified by the apostles, is justified, and finds relief to his
guilty conscience; that he is relieved not by finding any favorable
symptom about his heart, but by finding their report to be true; that
the event itself, which is reported, becomes his relief so soon as it
stands true in his mind, and accordingly becomes his faith; that all
the divine power which operates in the minds of men, either to give
the first relief to their consciences, or to influence them in every
part of their obedience to the Gospel, is persuasive power, or the
forcible conviction of truth.

From this we see that he saw with some degree of clearness the nature of faith, but not that the divine economy provides that faith shall be perfected by surrender to an ordinance of the Lord's own appointment. On some other points in regard to faith he was more or less confused. He advocated the weekly observance of the Lord's Supper; love feasts; weekly contribution for the poor; mutual exhortation of members; plurality of elders; conditional community of goods; and approved of theaters and public and private diversions, when not connected with circumstances really sinful. His influence extended to the north of Ireland, but the people there did not adopt all his views. They attended weekly to the Lord's Supper, contributions, etc., but were opposed to going to theaters or such places of amusement; to the doctrine of the community of goods; feet washing, etc., as advocated by Sandeman. Sandeman's influence extended also to England and to this country.

HALDANE AND AIKMAN

At the close of the eighteenth century spiritual religion in Scotland was at a very low ebb. Then village preaching and extensive itineraries were entered upon by James A. Haldane and John Aikman. They were members of the Established Church of Scotland. They took in hand preaching tours unauthorized by the clergy. They were "laymen," and preaching by such men was then a strange thing in Scotland. Their labors were so far successful that a revival of spiritual life set in at many places and a spirit of inquiry was aroused. They made successive tours throughout all Scotland, as far as the Orkney Islands. Then Robert Haldane turned his attention to the spiritual needs of his native land, and determined to devote his large fortune to spreading the Gospel through its benighted districts. This led to the formation of a society for the dissemination of religious knowledge, and to the employment of young men of known piety to plant and superintend evening schools for the instruction of the young in religious truths. This movement grew to considerable proportions. But it met with determined opposition, both from Presbyterian Dissenters and the Established clergy. The decrees were fulminated by entire bodies, as the Relief Synod, obviously leveled against the devout and ardent itinerants. In like spirit the Antiburger Synod decreed:

That as lay preaching has no warrant in the Word of God, and as the
Synod has always considered it their duty to testify against
promiscuous communion, no person under the inspection of the Synod
can, consistently with these principles, attend upon or give
countenance to public preaching by any who are not of our community;
and if any do so they ought to be dealt with by the judicatories of
the Church, to bring them to a sense of their offensive conduct.

Going beyond this, the General Assembly of 1799 accused the itinerant preachers of "being artful and designing men, disaffected to the evil constitution of the country, holding secret meetings, and abusing the name of liberty as a cover for a secret democracy and anarchy." In the midst of this opposition a church was formed of some fourteen persons in a private house on George Street, Edinburgh, which was the beginning of the Tabernacle Church Leith Walk, in which James Haldane eventually became minister, in which capacity he exercised, without any emolument, all the public and private duties with unbroken fidelity and zeal for a period of fifty years. For some time this church was content with monthly communion, but in 1802 it resolved to spread the Lord's table on the first day of every week. By the close of 1807 some eighty-five Independent churches had been established. Out of this movement a further advance took place, and thence arose Baptist churches in Scotland.

THE SCOTCH BAPTISTS

Churches holding the immersion of believers as the only authorized baptism have, possibly, stood out against the apostasy (not as Baptists), even from the days of the apostles, though frequently driven into hiding places by the force of persecution and for the preservation of their faith and order and also of their lives.

Concerning the origin of the Baptists in England I shall not dwell; though their early history is very interesting, and far more in accord with the apostolic style than the present-day Baptists. Passing at once to Scotland, I find no trace of Baptist churches till the latter part of the eighteenth century, excepting one of short duration formed by soldiers of Cromwell's army. The earliest Scotch Baptist Church is said to have been formed in Edinburgh in 1765 under the efforts of Robert Carmichael, who had been a minister in the Antiburger Church at Coupar-Augus; but later became minister of an Independent Church ("Glassite") in Edinburgh, of which Archibald McLean was a member. Early in life a strong impression had been made on the mind of McLean by the preaching of George Whitfield. In 1762 he withdrew from the Established Church of Scotland and united with this Independent Church. But it was not long till some trouble arose over a case of discipline which resulted in the withdrawal of both Carmichael and McLean from the church. While thus standing aloof from church membership they directed their attention to baptism. McLean, not having read a line upon the subject, went carefully through the whole of the New Testament with the inquiry before him, "What is baptism?" This led him to the firm conviction that only those capable of believing in Christ are its subjects and that it must be performed by immersion of the whole body in water. A year later Carmichael reached the same conclusion. He then went to London where he was immersed by Dr. Gill at Barbican, October 9, 1765. On returning to Edinburgh, he baptized McLean and six others, and formed a Baptist church. In 1769, Carmichael moved to Dundee, and McLean became minister of the newly-formed church. Other churches of immersed believers were soon planted in Glasgow, Dundee, Montrose and other places, and the sentiment in favor of returning to the scriptural act of baptizing grew among the people. The marked piety and noble disinterestedness of Archibald McLean stand out as worthy of all admiration. His labors were immense and given gratuitous, as he persisted in continuing in employment as overseer of a printing establishment.

As Scotch Baptist churches multiplied there arose a disturbing element. McLean and others held the necessity of an ordained elders to the proper observance of the Lord's Supper; consequently, notwithstanding that they taught the importance of observing the Lord's Supper on the first day of every week, it had to be omitted when an ordained elder could not be present. But ere long others among them saw more light and insisted that elders were not essential to the being of a church, that the church existed before its eldership, and that where the church is the Lord's table should be spread on the first day of every week, irrespective of the presence of an ordained elder. This led to contention, and, indeed, to separation. But truth will not down. We may go with it any distance we please, but when we say, "Thus far and no farther," truth struggles to remove the hindrances thrown across its path, and in the end starts on afresh to complete the journey.

As leaven will permeate so truth must influence more or less the mass into which it is cast. From Scotland the principles associated with the names of the Haldanes, Carmichael and McLean found receptive hearts in Wales. Even in Ireland, also, there was in men's minds the struggling of truth and error, the partial expulsion of the false by the true, the consequent advance to apostolic faith and order, and falling short of a complete return thereto, notwithstanding progress calling for thankful recognition.

THE SEPARATISTS

About the year 1802 there were a few persons in Dublin, most of them connected with the religious establishments of the country. The most noted among them were John Walker, G. Carr and Dr. Darby, all of whom organized religious bodies, differing in minor points from one another. Their attention was directed to Christian fellowship, as they perceived it to have existed among the disciples in apostolic times. They concluded from the study of the New Testament that all the first Christians in any place were connected together in the closest brotherhood; and that as their connection was grounded on the one apostolic gospel which they believed, so it was altogether regulated by the precepts delivered to them by the apostles, as the divinely commissioned ambassadors of Christ. They were convinced that every departure of professing Christians from this course must have originated in a withdrawing of their allegiance from the King of Zion, and in the turning away from the instruction of the inspired apostles; that the authority of their word, being divine, was unchangeable, and that it can not have been annulled by or weakened by the lapse of ages, by the varying customs of different nations, or by the enactments of earthly legislators.

With such views in their minds they set out in the attempt to return fully to the course marked out in the Scriptures; persuaded that they were not called to make any laws or regulations for their union, but simply to learn and adhere to the law recorded in the divine Word. Their number soon increased; and for some time they did not see that the union which they maintained with each other, on the principles of scripture, was at all inconsistent with the continuance of their connection with the various religious bodies round them. But after a time they were convinced that these two things were utterly incompatible; and that the same divine rule which regulated their fellowship with each other forbade them to maintain any religious fellowship with others. From this view, and the practice consequent upon it, they were called "Separatists."

They held that even two or three disciples in any one place, united together in the faith of the apostolic gospel, and in obedience to the apostolic precepts, constitute the Church of Christ in that place.

They held that the only good and sure hope toward God for any sinner is by the belief of this testimony concerning the great things of God and his salvation. And as they understood by faith, with which justification and eternal life were connected, nothing else but belief of the things declared to all alike in the Scriptures, so by repentance they understood nothing else but the new mind which that belief produces. Everything called repentance, but antecedent to the belief of the Word of God, or unconnected with it, they considered spurious and evil.

They considered the idea of any successors to the apostles or of any change of Christ's laws as utterly unchristian, and did not tolerate any men of the clerical type among them. They believed that the Scriptures taught the community of goods. They held that there is no sanction in the New Testament for the observance of the first day of the week as the Sabbath; and that the Jewish Sabbath was one of the shadows of good things to come, which passed away on the completion of the work of Jesus on the cross. They believed themselves bound to meet together on the first day of the week, the memorial day of Christ's resurrection, to show his death, in partaking of bread and wine, as the symbols of his body and his blood shed for the remission of sins.

In their assembly they joined together in the various exercises of praise and prayer, reading the Scriptures, exhorting and admonishing one another as brethren according to their several gifts and ability; contributed of their means and saluted each other with "an holy kiss." In the same assemblies they attended, as occasion required, to the discipline appointed by the apostles, for removing any evil that might appear in the body.

When any brethren appeared among them possessing all the qualifications of the office of elders or overseers, which are marked in the apostolic writings, they thought themselves called upon to acknowledge them as brethren in that office, as the gifts of the Lord to his church. They held themselves bound to live as peaceable and quiet subjects of any government under which the providence of God placed them; to implicitly obey all human ordinances which did not interfere with their subjection to their heavenly King.

The baptism of believers was cast aside as anti-Christian, except in the case of the heathen, who on conversion had made no previous confession of faith. Their mistake lay in the belief that baptism was intended to mark the mere profession of Christian faith. They failed to see that it was commanded by the Lord himself to follow upon a real believing with the heart, and a confession with the mouth. Any act called baptism prior to that is not the ordinance of Christ, and stands for nothing. The time for baptism is so soon as that believing confession and heart trust exists as a fact. So long as it remains unperformed after that there is a cessation in that particular of compliance with the divine command, which should be terminated by obedience so soon as possible.

While these people were scriptural in a number of things, in others they fell far short of returning to apostolic Christianity. So we must continue our search.

As we have already seen, there was a great struggle in Europe to escape from the direful effects of departure from apostolic simplicity. These efforts brought forth many sects, and each sect fought desperately to secure the Bible within its own party by the spiritual fetters of partisan interpretation. The clergy of each denomination, arrogating to themselves the claim of being its divinely-authorized expounders, caused it to speak only in the interest of their sect, and thus the Bible was made to speak in defense of each particular creed. Detached sentences, relating to matters wholly distinct and irrelevant, were placed in imposing array in support of positions assumed by human leaders; the people, on the other hand, seemed to have quietly surrendered into the hands of the clergy all power of discrimination and all independence in religious matters. It seemed vain that the Bible had been put into the hands of the people in their mother tongue, since the "clergy" had succeeded in imposing upon it a seal which the "laity" dared not break, so that while Protestants were delighted that they were in possession of the Bible, it was, in fact, little else than an empty boast, so long as they could be persuaded that they were wholly unable to understand it.

The Bible thus trammeled had, nevertheless, set free from spiritual bondage individuals here and there, who were more or less successful in their pleadings for reform. But among them all, however, there was no one who took hold of the leading errors with sufficient clearness and grasp as to liberate it from the thraldom of human tradition and restore the Gospel to the people in its primitive simplicity and power.