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The mediating influence of the school of
thought represented by the Aberdeen Doctors is seen in the discussions
that arose on questions of doctrine as well as on those pertaining to
Church government. Here again the Reformation left certain points
unsettled, or at all events the spirit of free inquiry, which is the
prerogative of Protestantism, asserted itself during the time of which
we are speaking, as it did at an earlier, and as it has done at a later,
period. Protestantism of course arose, in the first instance, as its
name signifies, in protest against the government, doctrine, and worship
of the Roman Church ; but it cannot live on mere protest; it must have
freedom of thought, and the power of development within itself. This,
however, was not altogether understood by the first Reformers, nor is it
universally admitted even yet. Indeed, when the Confessions of the
Protestant Churches were put into shape, they, in the view of their
authors, were quite as binding upon the minds of their members as the
dogmas of the Roman Church upon its adherents, and it would seem as if
the main duty of the magistrate, or civil power, was to see that the
terms of the Confession were enforced, by compulsion if necessary.
Tolerance, as we conceive it, was not understood in those days, and the
Scottish Church was certainly no exception to the rule which guided the
other Protestant Churches in this matter. Indeed, it was less tolerant
than some, and never for a moment doubted that it could be mistaken.
But the spirit which it had called up from
the deep could not remain quiescent or silent. It was bound sooner or
later to bestir itself, and to speak out. If, according to the teaching
of Protestantism, no power has the right to'1 intervene between the soul
and God, and if every man is entitled to test truth in the light of
Scripture, as interpreted by the Spirit, then it follows that freedom of
religious thought is a privilege and a duty, which no Church or
Confession should unduly hamper or bind. Well, it must be admitted that
the Scottish Confession of 1560 gave considerable room for freedom of
thought on some of the most important doctrines of the Christian Faith,
much more freedom than the Westminister Confession which superseded it.
It came, as Edward Irving said, " from the hearts of laborious workmen
all the day long busy with the preaching of truth," and who had neither
the time nor the inclination to put it into the iron cast form which
characterises the present symbol of the Scottish Church. There is
accordingly a flexibility in the old Scottish Confession, not
necessarily an ambiguity, which, while it may not invite, as its Preface
does, objections or suggestions, permits a certain independence in the
working out of details. Shall we say that in doctrine, as in Church
government, everything had not been thought out, and that on purpose or
by necessity the spirit of Protestantism was to be allowed its
inalienable right to interpret and to develop Christian truth?
In any case, two tendencies began to
manifest themselves. The first in the direction of a more rigorous
conception of the Calvinistic theology, on which the Confession of the
Scottish Church was based; and the second in the direction of freedom
from certain of its premisses and the conclusions logically drawn from
them. Scotland did not stand alone with regard to these two movements.
It acted in line more or lem with the other
Reformed Churches, and this twofold tendency, seeing it was so general,
must have been inherent in Protestantism itself, and in the
circumstances which conditioned its progress at the first. One can see
at a glance the necessity for the hardening process, as it may be
termed, whichbegan soon after the Reformation. A Church, as an
institution, cannot hold its own against the world, or even exist,
without a definite code or symbol, which is binding on all its members.
And the Churches of the Reformation felt the special need of this in
view of the enemy, which was the Church of Rome. They had no outward
organisations, such as it had, no tradition, no hierarchy ; all that
they had were their Confessions ; these, accordingly, which were sneered
at as paper Popes, must be made as distinct and binding as possible.
Hence arose that logical development in the Reformed Churches, of the
Calvinistic theology, which very soon in the hands of certain of its
interpreters passed into a barren scholasticism, a system which is
purely intellectual, without having any very close relation to man's
spiritual or practical life.
This phase finds ample illustration in the
literature of the period. On the purely theological side the leading
exponent was Robert Boyd of Trochrigg, who for some years discharged the
duties of Principal and Professor of Divinity in the University of
Glasgow. His teaching is found in the commentary which he wrote on the
Epistle to the Ephesians. In elaborate dissertations on the chief points
of the Calvinistic theology he states his views, which are elucidated
and supported by all the learning of the times, and by mental qualities
of the highest order. The more rigid form which Calvinism was now taking
is clearly shown in Boyd's work. It can also be seen in the new
Confession of Faith, which was submitted to, and approved by, the
General Assembly which met in Aberdeen in 1616. It was never adopted by
the Church, and its chief importance lies in the light which it throws
on the doctrinal teaching of the times. According to Dr. Milroy, there
is in this Confession " an advance along the whole line, and it is an
advance in strict Calvinistic orthodoxy. Opinions which could have been
freely held under the Scottish Confession could not have been maintained
under that of Aberdeen. The decrees of God are absolute and from all
eternity. Before the foundation of the world, God, according to the good
pleasure of His will, did predestinate and elect in Christ, some men and
angels unto eternal felicity, and others He did appoint for eternal
condemnation to the praise and glory of His justice.' There is not only
election mentioned, but its counterpart, reprobation, and reprobation is
not merely a passing over of some, but an absolute appointment to
eternal condemnation. Redemption is particular, limited to the elect
alone, who in time are redeemed and restored, not of themselves, or of
their works, but only of the mercy of God through faith in Jesus
Christ." There should not be much regret that this Confession was
dropped, but it remains, adds Dr. Milroy, "as an old neglected stone
pillar, on which there can still be read, inscribed in clear characters,
the faith then professed ; and is an unimpeachable witness to the
significant fact that, though the government of the Church had been
changed from Presbytery to Episcopacy, the Faith of the Church changed
only in the direction of a narrower and stricter orthodoxy." This
opinion, however, requires to be modified by the fact, which Dr. Milroy
himself mentions, that the Confession was largely designed by King James
to promote the closer union of the Scottish with the English Church, and
as the latter was at the time strongly Calvinistic, the doctrinal bond
of union must necessarily be made to conform.
If the tendency just indicated towards a
more definite and logical statement of the doctrinal position of the
Church arose, more or less, from the necessity of making its forces
compact and its bulwarks strong against the Church of Rome, other
weapons were at hand for protecting it against the attacks that were
being made, and it was in the forging and using of these weapons that
the Aberdeen Doctors chiefly interested themselves. They were not, as we
shall see, Calvinists of the strict and orthodox sort. The method which
they employed for proving the doctrinal stability of the Scottish Church
differed from that of Boyd and the framers of the Aberdeen Confession.
They met the arguments of the Roman theologians with arguments of their
own, and wrote books in defence of the Reformed theology. Bishop Patrick
Forbes himself was active in this field, and he published a work,
entitled A Defence of the Lawful Calling of the Ministers of Reformed
Churches against the Cavillations of Romanists. Some of the more
important of Baron's works had a similar object in view, and the
criticisms penned by Dr. William Forbes on the margins of his copy of
Bellarmine's works were thought so highly of, particularly by Baron, as
to be carefully preserved by him for future use and publication ; but
the volumes went amissing, and have never been recovered. But the most
notable champion of the doctrines of the Reformed Church was Dr. John
Forbes.
All over Protestant Europe, emissaries of
the Roman Church were to be found spreading its tenets, trying to make
converts, and casting discredit upon the teaching and belief of the
Reformed Church. The Reformation was not yet a century old, and it was
hoped that its work might still be undone, and that its misguided
children might again be gathered within the folds of the Mother Church.
Scotland did not escape the attention of these emissaries. Their great
argument was that the whole of antiquity stood on their side and was
opposed to the doctrines of the Reformers, and for that end they brought
forward many opinions from the Fathers which favoured the Roman
doctrine. Hence some of the more simple were induced to leave the
Reformed Communion, believing that Catholic antiquity stood by the other
side. But others rejected all antiquity, as if it were contrary to Holy
Scripture. The Romanists accordingly boasted that if the Reformed
religion were proved to be new it could be condemned as false.
We thus see that the issue raised was clear,
and sharp, and definite. The Roman Church had found its champion in
Bellarmine, and it is not too much to say that the Reformed Church, of
Scotland at least, found its champion in John Forbes.
The weakness of the popular Protestant
position is found in its rejection of the whole of Catholic antiquity,
and in resting its arguments on Scripture alone. This, it may be said,
has been the weakness of popular Protestantism all along, for it
involves the disadvantage of abandoning all historical continuity. The
Church of the Reformation was linked on to the Church of the Apostles,
but the space which intervened between the Apostles and Reformers was
passed over. The Church was thus not an historical development, but a
new creation quickened into life by the Divine Word. It will accordingly
be seen that the advantage, so far as choice of ground was concerned,
lay with the Roman Church, and the Bishop and clergy of Aberdeen,
realising their responsibility, founded the Chair of Divinity in King's
College for the express purpose of appointing a professor, who should
combat the views of the Roman Church, and prove that the doctrines of
the Reformed Church were no upstart novelties, but had their basis in
Scripture and in Catholic antiquity, and were the only true development
of Christian thought.
The man chosen for this work was Dr. John
Forbes, and no better man could have been found. He instituted the study
of Historical Theology in Scotland. He took up each doctrine of the
Church, showed its sure basis in Scripture, and then traced its
development from century to century. Brooding over this work with the
greatest diligence, he unfolded the Fathers and councils. Not trusting
to the quotations of others, he consulted the authors themselves, and
faithfully presented to the students of theology the historical movement
of religion through each age. He thus proved that if the charge of
novelty is to be levelled against any Church it must be against that of
Rome, and that the Reformed Church was the only valid successor of the
Church of the Apostles and the Fathers. The results of these years of
study Forbes afterwards incorporated in his great work on the Doctrines
of the Catholic Church Historically Considered} It was published in
Amsterdam in 1644, and remains one of the greatest monuments of
theological learning, candour, fairness, and force of argument of that
or any other age.
It requires no forced interpretation to see
the bearing of Dr. John Forbes' teaching on present-day movements in the
Scottish Church. There is, to begin with, a deeper appreciation of the
doctrine of the historical continuity of the Church than there used to
be. The old extreme conception of Protestantism as a severance of
Christian thought and life from the Church Catholic has now been largely
abandoned. And while Scripture, as the foundation of the Church, has
lost none of its value, the long-neglected truth, upon which Forbes so
strongly and rightly insists, that the Reformed Church is a development
of the Apostolic and Early Church, is being more clearly seen and
cordially admitted. It was in this sense that the Aberdeen Doctors
arrogated to the different branches of the Protestant Church the term
Catholic, and, in the conception which they thus claimed, and which is
again being revived, we find the Scottish Church to be a living branch,
and not a detached twig, of the Church Catholic, and a guarantee of that
unity of spirit which is being more fully recognised in our day.
But the second tendency to which I referred
now began to make its appearance. It was bound to do so. It was in the
direction of freedom from the trammels of the dogmatic and confessional
theology of the times. The very fact that the Protestant Church was
thrown back upon itself, and had to vindicate its position against the
criticisms of its opponents, necessarily quickened the spirit of free
inquiry which was inherent in it. The question of authority was
fundamental. The grounds on which it based its validity had to be
examined and vindicated afresh, whether Scriptural, or doctrinal, or
confessional. It is thus seen that, however much inclined the Reformers
and their successors might be to bind together in a solid body the
members of the Protestant Church by adherence to a series of beliefs
carefully formulated and put into symbolical forms, there was to be no
finality. The very weapon with which Protestantism had pierced the Roman
Church was now about to be turned against itself.
While this movement was more or less general
all over Protestant Europe, its centre was to be found in Holland. Like
every other new departure, which may, in its development, involve many
features and phases, it began with the discussion of a single point. It
started with a repudiation of the Calvinistic doctrine of
predestination. This doctrine, like many others of Protestant theology,
was borrowed from Augustine, who in turn was indebted for it to St.
Paul, but in the hands of the two great Doctors of the ancient and
Reformed Churches the doctrine was put into a metaphysical mould, and in
its later developments was carried out with a logical rigour which
compelled men who had warmth of love in larger measure than coldness of
intellect, to turn away from it with something like horror. Paul was far
from putting the doctrine in the repellent shape which it afterwards
assumed, and although by the laws of formal logic the Augustinian, and
especially the Calvinian, conception of it may be irrefutable, still
formal logic is a very poor instrument by which to measure the religious
consciousness. In any case so thought certain members of the Reformed
Church in Holland, and their protest having been taken up by Arminius,
the revolt spread over Western Europe, touched our shores, and found
sympathisers in various parts of the country, particularly in Aberdeen
and among its learned Doctors.
It is not necessary for our purpose to enter
into the controversy with any fulness of detail. It will be sufficient
to state in a word the diverging line of thought between the two
systems. "The Divine decree, to which human salvation is to be
attributed, was, according to Calvin's conception, absolute and
irresistible. It implied a Divine partition of the human race into saved
and into not saved, originating in the pure will and determination of
God. The decisiveness of the decree was quite as real on the negative as
on the positive side ; the reprobate, as they were called, were as
definitely marked out as the saved. The whole drama of the moral world,
in short, in its antagonism of good and evil, hung on the absolute fiat
of an Almighty Will." Against this Arminius protested; he would exclude
from the sphere of the Divine determinism the origin of evil, or, in
other words, the event of the Fall, and he brought prominently forward
the free activity of the human will as a co-determinent in the work of
salvation. " In defining the character and measure of this co -
determination, the Calvinists accused Arminius of virtually denying
Divine grace, and transferring the work of salvation from God to man. To
this Arminius replied, that Calvinists converted the Divine will into
mere fate, and so made God the author of sin." Such, in broad outlines,
were the points of difference, but these speedily multiplied, and in the
disputes which followed there was much shedding of ink and losing of
temper. All the same, one vital result followed. The spirit of free
inquiry, of independent thought, of the duty of private judgment, all
inherent in Protestantism, were again asserted; and an impetus was given
to theological reflection and progress, from which can be traced the
first beginnings of Biblical research and scholarship within the Church,
and of philosophical thought without it,
Among the first in Scotland to sound the
note of this new departure was John Cameron, who took Boyd's place in
1622 as Professor of Theology in Glasgow University. He was admitted on
all hands to be one of the most learned men of his time, and he came to
his work in Glasgow after a lengthened training both as student and
teacher in some of the most important schools of learning on the
Continent. He only remained a year in Glasgow, but even within that
short period he did enough to quicken the interest of many in the
pressing theological problems of the day. The most important of his
positions is perhaps the one he held with regard to authority in
religion, and his exposition of the Word of God in this relation is both
powerful and suggestive. He also attacked Calvinism more or less on the
lines of Arminius, with a certain differentiation which, in the hands of
his pupil Amy-rauld, established a school of his own. In the following
century his views were adopted by Richard Baxter, and were widely known
and strongly condemned in Scotland under the name of Baxterianism.
The Aberdeen Doctors, as we have said,
shared in this movement. It was a breaking up of the Calvinian
scholasticism into which the Church was fast drifting. The freedom of
the will, the nature of predestination, of God's foreknowledge, the
scope of Christ's atonement, the character of election, the possibility
of reprobation, were only some of the subjects discussed. Even the
relation between faith and works again cropped up, so too did the
subject of authority, of rites and ceremonies, of orders, Church
government, and of Church union. In fact, the whole circle of
theological encyclopaedia, as then known and understood, came in for
discussion, and champions of both sides entered the field in large
numbers, and displayed an ability, scholarship, and subtlety which have
never been surpassed in this country. It was a time of great
intellectual awakening on the subject of religion, the one which at the
time was of supreme interest to the public. The spirit of free inquiry,
however, was soon to be crushed; the Covenanting Assembly of 1638
effectually put an end to the new movement. Every minister and professor
suspected of heresy was tried, and any divergence from the strictest
Calvinism was a sufficient reason for deposition. The Aberdeen Doctors,
who took a leading part in the discussion of every important question
that then interested the Church, and who were among the advanced guard
in the new movement, were among the first to be tried and to be deposed.
The chief question, of course, was the one
which centred in Predestination, and here again, as in that of Church
government, which was discussed in the last lecture, there were two
extreme positions maintained. There was, of course, the strictly
Calvinistic, but there was also the ultra-Arminian. With regard to the
first, sufficient has already been said ; it was represented by the vast
majority of those who led the Church towards the settlement which ended
in the Westminster Confession of 1645, and which effectively damped the
spirit of liberty, of free inquiry, and of theological progress in the
Scottish Church for two hundred years. The second party was necessarily
in a very small minority, and the fact of this need not be regretted.
They were represented, for example, by a man like John Crighton, a
professed Arminian, and Popish champion, and a cousin of Baillie the
Covenanter. One is not surprised that " he was the first minister
deposed by the Assembly of 1638. His heresies were numerous. He was said
to have advocated confession and prayers for the dead; to have described
the English Liturgy as so excellent and perfect that man nor angel could
make a better; to have taught that both Papists and Protestants went to
heaven though they entered by different gates ; and that to sit at
Communion was to ' sit with God cheek by joule.' His Arminianism, or
rather the liberal theology denounced as such, was quite as apparent,
and was still more forcibly expressed. He taught that Christ died for
all—for Judas and Peter ; that it was possible for us to fulfil the law
; that, in spite of Christ's prediction, Peter might have contained his
tongue within his teeth and not denied Christ ; and that the difference
between Papists and Protestants, Calvinists and Lutherans, Arminians and
Gonnarians, Conformists and Nonconformists, was but a mouthful of
moonshine; and if Churchmen were peaceably set they might be easily
reconciled. Predestination he denounced with noble vehemence as a
doctrine rashly devised, hatched in hell, and worthy to be deleted out
of God's Word. Whoever mentions, says he, election or reprobation before
the foundation of the world, mentions a damnable doctrine."
Such extreme views were bound to defeat
themselves, and their only value and interest consist in their showing
how great was the reaction that had set in. The Aberdeen Doctors, true
to their spirit and to the policy which guided them in most of their
efforts, took up a moderate position, and endeavoured to mediate between
the extreme sections. This at the time was no easy task; it was, as some
even yet think, an impossible one, and their attempt was in any case
prejudiced by the fact that the Anglo-Catholics, both in the Scottish
and English Churches, with whom they were supposed to be in sympathy,
were for the most part Arminians of a rather pronounced type. The
leading exponent among the Doctors of the theological movement which was
agitating the Church was Baron. He had written on the subject, and, as
has already been mentioned, he engaged in a public dispute with Samuel
Rutherford over the main questions at issue. It might be thought that
the Covenanters, seeing he was dead, would have allowed his memory to
rest in peace; but that was not their way. They caused the house of his
widow to be invaded, and any papers he might have left to be secured and
brought before them for examination. This, on the first blush, might
seem altogether unnecessary, for his published works bore ample
testimony to his views. They also subjected Dr. Sibbald to a similar
inquiry. His papers too were seized, and he bitterly complained that
they regarded, as evidence against him, fragments of thought, quotations
from books which he had read, and hurried notes which he had made for
probable lectures. He was pilloried as an Arminian, and as a
semi-Papist, because he defended Lent, the consecration of Churches, and
the use of clerical dress. Nor was he regarded as sound on the question
of Divine justice and punishment, and the relation between faith and
works.
Dr. Garden, in his life of John Forbes, says
that the manuscript of the discussion between Baron and Rutherford was
in existence in his day. I have not, so far, been able to trace it, but
in any case there is sufficient authority for the points in dispute
between them and for the position taken up by each. In the public
disputation that took place, Baron maintained, first, that God
predestined the wicked to Hell because he foresaw their wicked works;
and, second, that Christ died for all men. Rutherford vehemently
maintained, on the contrary, that God "predestined the wicked to hell,
not because He foresaw their wicked works, but by His own absolute
decree, and that Christ died not for all men, but for the elect
only." 1 Baron's teaching was similar to that of Cameron : "the will of
man was free, there was no necessity for acting in this manner or in
that imposed on man's will by God, either by an eternal decree or by
subjecting it to the influence of an irresistible motive. The will being
free, the actions were also free; God did indeed predestinate some to
everlasting life, and others He left to perish, but this predestination
was not absolute and arbitrary, but proceeded from His foreknowledge of
the faith and repentance of some, and of the voluntary unbelief and
impenitence of others." The atonement also was universal. Christ had
died for all men, and therefore all men might become reconciled to God
in Christ, provided only they believed the Gospel and repented.
It is worthy of remark that the commission
appointed by the Covenanters to inquire into the teaching of Dr. John
Forbes acquitted him of Arminianism. I do not know if they were
altogether justified in doing this, but their action points to two
things. It indicates their desire to secure his continued services for
the Church. There is no doubt whatever about their lothness to part with
him. They stretched any toleration of which they were capable, in his
case, to the breaking-point. If he had just signed the National Covenant
they would have acquitted him of everything, but this he could not do,
for he knew that in signing it he would have charged himself with
everything. Their action indicates also that his Arminianism must have
been of a very mild type, and this is really the case. He was not
carried away by the new movement in theology, just as he was not
over-persuaded by the fresh departure in Church government, or in the
practice of ceremonies which marked the Church of his time. On this as
on every other question he manifested that sobriety of judgment which
comes from a thorough knowledge of the subject, and from the possession
of a calm, unprejudiced, and evenly balanced mind. The one point in the
Calvinian theology at which he emphatically drew the line, was the
predestination of man by God to evil. He differed widely from the
current theology on the question of reprobation; he thought it horrible
blasphemy that God should be held to damn, from all eternity, a certain
section of the human race; otherwise he regarded himself as an
Augus-tinian.
We are far removed from these old struggles.
The questions which agitated the Church in the time of the Aberdeen
Doctors, and which were so gravely and learnedly, and not unfrequently
hotly, discussed, have ceased to interest us in the same keen manner as
they did them. The theological compass has veered round and points in
other directions ; and yet to thinking men, whether they be Protestants
or Roman Catholics, Churchmen or Secularists, Believers or Agnostics,
the fundamental problem which so engrossed the minds of the leading men
of that age remains a fundamental problem still, and will continue to do
so for all time. It should not be overlooked that however much the
Calvinist and the Arminian differed, they were practically agreed on one
point. Neither of them denied the absolute sovereignty of Almighty God,
and man's moral relation to and dependence upon Him. There was no
question as to whether God had the power to issue decrees which some
might regard as horrible. The question in dispute was, whether such
decrees were in keeping with the character of God as he had been
revealed to man, in all the depth and tenderness of his Fatherhood by
Jesus Christ. It is being admitted now, although it was not understood
then, that certain of the problems raised by Calvinism, although capable
of being drawn out to a clear and definite conclusion by formal logic,
are, in their issue, repellent to the Christian consciousness, and, in
themselves, transcend human reason. This, however, does not cause us,
just as it did not compel John Forbes, to repudiate Calvinism, or to
fail to see in it the only conception of theology which gives a rational
view of God, man, and the world. Indeed, whether we care to admit it or
no, the common belief of our own Church, and of almost every other
Church, is Calvinist in essence and Arminian in detail. The essence, of
course, is the vital thing. It has been belief in God, as the supreme
sovereign and judge, as the one being with whom man has to do, that has
revolutionised the modern world and made Protestantism the great
spiritual force in regenerating mankind. When the Church begins to lose
hold of this belief, it will cease to be a force in the world-When man
repudiates his relation to God as a moral being, conduct will lose its
spring. Yet the Arminian element, or, as we should regard it, the
softening, liberating, and broadening features of the movement, which
began to affect Christian thought at the time with which our lectures
deal, is not without its value. It encourages inquiry, gives the hope of
progress, inculcates charity, and diverts the thoughts of men from the
vague discussion of transcendental and insoluble problems, to the plain
path of duty, and to the intrinsic value in the sight of God and man, of
practical conduct and the homely virtues. In these, after all, as
flowing from man's moral relations to God, is true religion to be found.
This natural reaction towards the practical
side of Christian thought and life, is fully illustrated in the writings
of the Aberdeen Doctors. The absorbing interest of the time in those
transcendental questions which are associated with hyper-Calvinism were
drawing the minds of men away from the plain path of duty and the
practical virtues, with which conduct is concerned. At all events the
ethical element in the Christian religion was receiving but scant
justice. It was to a fresh, and necessary, reconsideration of this
important question that the Aberdeen Doctors drew the attention of their
contemporaries, and, strange to say, it was brought as a charge against
them. The matter first of all came up over their view of the relation
between faith and works. Dr. John Forbes, Doctor Baron, and Dr. Sibbald,
along with Dr. William Forbes, were all equally implicated in this
supposed heresy. Dr. John Forbes puts his position thus : " Good works
are the works of the creature, through the working in him of the
Creator." These, he thinks, are predestined, but the wicked deeds of the
same creature, inasmuch as they are only his, and proceed not from the
will of God, "may be said to be foreknown, but not predestined by
God." The sentence which, in this connection, is of importance, is the
one in which he says that " good works are the works of the creature
through the working in him by the Creator." Baron adopted a similar
view, and so did Sibbald, who was accused of regarding almsgiving as
meritorious ; in other words, of maintaining that man deserves some
credit for good conduct and charity. Dr. William Forbes was held to be
even a greater sinner on this question, for he maintained that man was
justified not by being accepted as righteous, but by being made
righteous.4 This teaching raised at the time a
storm of opposition, but is it not the case that in our day it is
received with greater favour ? That a man is justified not by a
righteousness imputed to him, but by a righteousness wrought in him, is
certainly not Calvinistic doctrine, but in the form in which it has been
moulded by John M'Leod Campbell, and others, it is frequently taught in
Scottish pulpits and certainly does not excite the strong feelings of
indignation which it did in Forbes' day.
The important point, however, in all these
discussions, is that there was a party in the Church anxious to lead the
minds of men away from a scholastic theology, which ended in a fruitless
controversy on theories that are still held to be very much in the air,
to the bed-rock of the Christian religion, which is found in human
conduct as the result of a profound belief in God as the moral Governor
and Father of all. This tendency is further seen in two important works
written by Dr. John Forbes, the one of which deals with Christian
Ethics, and the other with the Pastoral Office. It is surely very
significant that in the days of which we are speaking, which are
associated in our minds with endless debates and divisions on questions
of Church government, doctrine, and ceremonies, important books should
be written by a leading scholar and thinker in the Scottish Church on
subjects that are so matter of fact as conduct and duty on the part both
of the people and of ministers. This can hardly be regarded as a sign of
the times, nevertheless it is a prophecy of what was to happen in the
more or less distant future. The war of parties raged till after the
Revolution Settlement, but after that the Church settled down, and it
was the spirit and practice of Dr. John Forbes that governed it until
the Disruption, and, if I mistake not, it is his teaching that is again
coming to the front and will prevail over the difficulties that are now
facing us. Forbes took as the subject of his lectures on Ethical
Theology the Decalogue, and he discusses the great moral problems raised
by each of the ten commandments in the most thorough manner. He first of
all gives an exposition of the precept with which he is dealing, traces
the development of the various controversies regarding it, and gives an
explanation of the cases of conscience that may be involved. Here again
he follows the historical method, the surest, most informing, and
illuminating. He shows great freedom and independence in handling the
various questions which arise. In discussing the fourth commandment, for
instance, he proves himself to have been fully abreast of the times, and
to have anticipated the broader interpretation of its meaning which is
current in our day.
In his other work, just referred to, that on
the Pastoral Office, we find the same practical tendency. He laboured
that his students should have a due sense of the great weight and
responsibility of their vocation, and he thought that no one should
undertake the duties of the pastorate unless called by God. He deals
with the question of ordination, vocation, and residence, and is careful
to guard the future ministers of the Church against the assumption of
duties outwith their province. His counsels are full of wisdom, and his
prelections must not only have afforded guidance to his hearers, but
have also inspired them with a high sense of their calling.
Enough, I think, has been said to show the
sane, and truly national course, adopted by the Aberdeen Doctors, on the
doctrinal discussions of their day. Their aim all through was to get at
the truth, as far as possible from the party feelings and prejudices
that affected most of those who took part in the current disputes. If in
the end their theology took the form of practice, it ought surely to be
put to their credit. This was the common ground on which all could meet.
Christian morality is not a matter for dispute, and it is based, as
every one admits, on Christian theology. If men then be agreed upon the
one, they cannot differ very widely, or seriously, upon the other. It
may be true that in the course of time the practical teaching of the
moderate party, represented by the Doctors, failed in religious fervour.
But there is nothing good but which, through over-exaggeration, may
manifest defects. But so far as the Doctors themselves were concerned,
their teaching and their life were evenly balanced. No one can accuse
them of lack of fervour ; their piety was rare even for their day. Nor
did they fail in theological knowledge or grasp. The practical result of
their thought must accordingly have been full of matter and imbued with
a truly religious spirit. It is towards this happy combination that the
steps of all the Churches are being directed in our day, and it is
fortunate that they are not without bright examples from the past to
light and guide them. |
