Looking Back: December 1733

From 1933

December 1733

By Professor Hugh Watt, DD, New College

On the fifth day of December 1733 a group of six men, two of them still, and four of them until shortly before, ministers of the Church Of Scotland, met in a cottage at Gairney Bridge, near Kinross, and there took the first step towards founding a body which made a notable contribution to the history of religion in our land and the reunited Church Of Scotland, looking back across two centuries, does well to recognise that day as one of the main landmarks in its evolution.

In the engraving (above) which depicts the scene they look exceedingly unperturbed, if not complacent. But this is a fancy picture. They were men in deep perplexity as to their duty, though in none as to their position. They were facing an unprecedented situation, and they knew that the eyes of many sympathisers and opponents were upon them.

The position of the four brethren who form the centre of the group, Ebenezer Erskine of Stirling, William Wilson of Perth, Alexander Moncrieff of Abernethy, and James Fisher of Kinclaven, was anomalous in the extreme.

They had been expelled from the ministry of the Church Of Scotland less than three weeks before, had there and then declared that they made a Secession from its prevailing party, and yet had continued to minister to their congregations and parishes; they were about to form themselves into a Presbytery , but an Associate Presbytery “for the relief of the oppressed Heritage of God thro’ the land,” and they were to refrain for three years for any Presbyterial action: they were also on the point of framing a manifesto, not a testimony against but a Testimony to the Doctrine, Worship, Government, and Discipline of the Church Of Scotland.”

The dissatisfaction that lay at the root of their action had two main counts. One was constitutional. Under the law of Patronage, reimposed by the State twenty years before upon a protesting Church, the call of the Christian people was being, through the action of majorities in recent Assemblies, denuded of all reality. The other was doctrinal. What to them were precious evangelical truths had been condemned in the Marrow controversy; what to them were dangerous defections from sound Christology had been leniently dealt with in high quarters. On these two points they had uttered their mind by voice and pen, and they could not acquiesce in their witness of the best days of the Church Of Scotland, being silenced. This was the very core of their protest. The Church must retain, of course within the limit of its acknowledged standards, the liberty of prophesying.

Nothing is more noteworthy in the early documents than the reluctance, on both sides, to make a final breach. The Seceders might name themselves a Presbytery, but all their early meetings were for Christian fellowship, not for ecclesiastical procedure, despite the calls from many parts of the country for supply of sermon. The General Assembly repented its first hasty action, retraced its steps, and sought to win them back. But since the friendly attitude towards themselves was not accompanied by any change of policy nor any diminution of intrusions into parishes, they felt themselves driven finally to proceed to acts of jurisdiction.  This naturally and inevitably led to their deposition in 1740, and Scotland saw, for the first time, two Presbyterian organisations side by side.

For almost two centuries thee two remained apart, each conscious more at times of the other’s shortcomings than of the other’s worth. By 1929 both had moved so far from the circle of problems that bounded the horizon of 1733 that the major part of the children of the Secession could bring their inherited and acquired testimony and characteristics into the union of that year. More than fifty years ago, Dr John Ker penned words which most regarded as a pious but impossible dream: “When the scattered children of the family are brought into one Church again, the names of the Erskines, and the impulse they gave to Christian work, will find their acknowledged place.” This very month, Bristo Church, the Assembly Hall, Edinburgh, and many other centres throughout the country will see that prediction amply fulfilled.

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