The period between 1560, when The Scots Confession was ratified by the Scottish Parliament, and 1647, when The Westminster Confession of Faith took its place, was a time of great difficulty and trial for the Scottish Church. The forces of Erastianism were on the march, preparing the way for the return of Romanism, and if those in authority had had their way, Presbyterianism would have been rooted out of the land. In 1638, when the General Assembly met in Glasgow, the Church re-asserted its independence, Episcopalianism was disowned and, as Alexander Henderson expressed it, the walls of Babylon were cast down. In that year the National Covenant (“Scotland’s Magna Carta”) was drawn up and subscribed by multitudes. Five years later The Solemn League and Covenant, which had as its aim the “reformation and defence of religion, the honour and happiness of the king, and the peace and safety of the three kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland,” was subscribed.
The Establishment Principle is to found embedded in both The National Covenant and The Solemn League and Covenant. We quote from the former: “That all Kings and Princes at their coronation, and reception of their princely authority, shall make their faithful promise by their solemn oath, in the presence of the eternal God, that, enduring the whole time of their lives, they shall serve the same eternal God, to the uttermost of their power, according as he hath required in His most holy Word, contained in the Old and New Testament; and according to the same Word shall maintain the true religion of Christ Jesus, the preaching of His holy Word, the due and right ministration of the sacraments now received and preached within this realm, (according to the Confession of Faith immediately preceding) and shall abolish and gainstand [withstand] all false religion contrary to the same; and shall rule the people committed to their charge, according to the will and command of God revealed in His foresaid Word, and according to the laudable laws and constitutions received in this realm, nowise repugnant to the said will of the eternal God; and shall procure, to the uttermost of their power, to the kirk of God, and whole Christian people, true and perfect peace in all time coming: and that they shall be careful to root out of their empire all heretics and enemies to the true worship of God, who shall be convicted by the true kirk of God of the foresaid crimes”. (2)
The Westminster Confession of Faith and all these prior documents were obviously all closely studied by those responsible for the framing of the Claim, Declaration and Protest which was adopted by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1842. That document was to be embodied in the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843 and we have clear proof of that fact in that among the questions required to be answered by office-bearers at their ordination or induction was one which required them to state their approval of the Claim of Right and the Protest of 1843. In the last paragraph of the Protest, the Disruption fathers firmly asserted in unequivocal terms that “the right and duty of the civil magistrate was to maintain and support an establishment of religion in accordance with God’s Word”.
In view of the foregoing, it is quite remarkable and ironic that, within 20 years, there was to be found within the pale of the Free Church many who were prepared to sacrifice the Establishment Principle in order to facilitate union with the United Presbyterian Church. The controversy which arose as a result of this movement for union with a Church which steadfastly adhered to the Voluntary Principle gave a plain indication to the godly in the Free Church that there were many office-bearers within her bounds who were not faithful to the Westminster Confession of Faith or indeed to the Bible. (3) Voluntaryism, as defined by Principal Cunningham amounts in substance to this: “that the only relation that ought to subsist between the state and the Church – between civil government and religion – is that of entire separation; or in other words, its advocates maintain that nations as such, and civil rulers in their official capacity, not only are not bound, but are not at liberty, to interfere in any religious matters, or to seek to promote the welfare of the Church of Christ as such”. Rabbi Duncan said of this doctrine that it is “not only anti-Christian, but atheistical”. Yet the anti-establishment movement in the Free Church had gained such momentum by the year 1877 that Dr Rainy was found maintaining on the floor of the Assembly that “the principles of the Claim of Right and Protest of 1843” condemned the “existing connection between Church and state in Scotland”. (4)
That the existing relationship between Church and state in Scotland was not satisfactory was admitted by Dr Begg and his supporters but, in their view, this did not affect the duty of the Free Church to maintain firmly the principles of the Disruption. These principles, in Dr Begg’s view, could only be fully maintained “in connection with a decided adherence to the universal supremacy of Christ as King of nations as well as King of saints, with the consequent duty of nations to serve and honour Him”. It was Dr Rainy, however, who won the day.
In 1886 Mr R B Finlay, the Member of Parliament for Inverness, brought a Bill before Parliament that sought to redress the grievances of the Church, which had led to the Disruption. Rainy was so alarmed that he travelled all the way to London to canvass Members of Parliament to vote against it, and the United Presbyterians repudiated the Bill in a document that was apparently twice its length! At a Conference attended by Professor Smeaton, Dr Aird, Creich, Mr Baillie, Gairloch, and many other godly ministers including Mr Macdonald, Shieldaig, and Mr Macfarlane, Moy, the aim or principle of the Bill was approved. That aim was “the statutory recognition of the independent jurisdiction of the Church in spiritual matters, as set forth in her doctrinal standards and repeatedly ratified by Parliament”. The Rev Donald Macfarlane’s view of the Bill is quoted in his Memoir: “I believe it would, if passed into law, put the Church of Scotland on a scriptural basis. I entirely differ from Mr MacQueen, Daviot, and Mr MacKay, Dores, in their sweeping condemnation of it, and I am as firm as ever in my opposition to Disestablishment; and the removal of such eminent leaders as Dr Begg, Dr Kennedy and Dr MacKay from the battlefield makes me see the greater need for adhering steadfastly to the principles for which they so faithfully and honestly contended, and I would feel thankful if I saw the Scripture relation between Church and state restored, though I feel more concerned about the Principle of Establishment than any pecuniary benefits accruing from it”.
Not surprisingly, our founding fathers in the Deed of Separation adopted and signed on 14 August 1893 did not fail to mention the relevance of the Establishment Principle to the position in which they found themselves. After referring to the documents making up our constitution, which is that of the Disruption Free Church, they specify their first reason for acting as they did: “And, further considering that the Establishment Principle – that is, the national recognition and encouragement of religion and the Church of Christ by the state as such – is part of the Constitution of the Free Church of Scotland as settled in 1843, and since repeatedly affirmed in Acts and Proceedings of her General Assemblies, and that the maintenance of said Principle is binding and obligatory on all Ministers and Office-bearers of said Church; and now seeing (1st) That the present subsisting Church now calling herself the Free Church of Scotland, through majorities of her Commissioners in General Assembly met, has, in violation of one of the fundamental principles embodied in the Constitution of the Free Church of Scotland, of late years repeatedly passed resolutions having for their object the separation of Church and State, and the abandonment of the distinctive testimony of the Free Church of Scotland in favour of a national recognition of religion, and that without any declaration in favour of any Scheme for the Reconstruction of a National Church on the basis claimed by the Church of Scotland in 1842 . . . “. There can be no doubt then that the Establishment Principle is embodied in the constitution of the Free Presbyterian Church.
In 1889 the General Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland passed an Act which loosened the Church’s connection with The Westminster Confession of Faith and, in 1921, Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland, which had been negotiated and agreed with representatives of the United Presbyterian Church, were declared lawful by Parliament. This Act paved the way for the 1929 union, which gave birth to the present Church of Scotland. The union was effected on the understanding that the Establishment Principle was no longer to be recognised as an article of belief and obligation in the Church of Scotland. According to Francis Lyall, “the constitutional basis of the relationship between the Church and the civil authority stated in the Articles Declaratory is that each recognises the separate responsibilities of the other, and some matters are recognised as spiritual”. (5) There is no longer any obligation laid on the civil magistrate to act as keeper of the two tables of the moral law. If that had been safeguarded, then the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland would not, for instance, have been able to mutilate what it professes to be its own subordinate standard by removing from it the paragraph which describes the Pope of Rome as the Antichrist of Scripture.
Those who contended for the principle of establishment well realised that departure from it would subvert the securities of the Reformation and the Revolution Settlement. Subsequent history confirms only too clearly that that was the case. In our own day we witness the Scottish Parliament departing from its scriptural obligation to honour Christ, and its sessions are now opened, in turn, by representatives of many so-called “faiths”, including the apostate Church of Rome. The wheel has turned full circle and we now find Scotland in effect, through its Parliament, which is supposed to represent the people, disowning the crown rights of the Saviour and repudiating His claim to be the King of nations. We witness our Queen, our head of state, who declared at her coronation that she was a faithful Protestant, attending multi-faith services and, clad in penitential black garments, visiting the Pope in the Vatican. Only very recently the First Minister of the Scottish Parliament, Henry MacLeish, was televised bowing down before the Pope and apparently kissing his hand. All this and much more is the result of departing from the Establishment Principle. We believe that the widespread increase in crime and immorality, the breakdown of marriages and the infidelity which characterises our generation, can be attributed to the failure of the civil magistrate to do his duty.
Across the Atlantic, the Presbyterian Church of America in 1788 saw fit to alter The Westminster Confession of Faith, her subordinate standard, in order that its terms might be in conformity with the false view that Church and state are totally separate and that all religions are to be regarded as equal before the law. Little wonder that most of the cults which have spread plague-like throughout the nations originated in that land which by the First Amendment to its Constitution repudiated the Establishment Principle and laid down that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. How far removed is the oath of office which the President of the United States takes on his inauguration from that which the framers of our National Covenant (6) required of such as aspired to sit on the Scottish throne: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States of America and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America“. That Constitution fails to make explicit reference to the Word of God as the ultimate standard and implicitly denies the Kingship of Christ; it does not acknowledge His sovereignty over all things – the claim which the Governor among the nations requires to be inserted in every political constitution under the sun.
What of the future? We look for the coming of His kingdom, but as William Wilson in his Chalmers Lecture, delivered in 1887, declared: “Even when the predicted time comes, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, the Church and state shall not be amalgamated. They will still have distinct institutions and modes of administration. There will still be church rulers, and state judges and magistrates taking cognisance of different matters, although it may be in reference to the same individual. In such a condition of things the civil magistrate will rule in the fear of God, and his subjects will yield obedience to him, not for wrath, but for conscience’ sake; but the church ruler will also have his distinct province of administration, and continue to exercise the power of the keys.” (7)
It is not to Cunningham, Bannerman, M’Crie, Begg or Chalmers, great men as they were, that the final word is to be given, but to a humble, godly Presbyterian minister labouring in the backwoods of Ontario, Canada, towards the end of the nineteenth century. This is the Rev John Ross’s view: “The Headship of Christ over the Church and the Headship of Christ over the nations are the two principles for which the true Church of Scotland has contended all through her history, and these are the two principles which shall not only introduce, but maintain, the Kingdom of Christ in its millennial glory all through to the end. Look at the nineteenth of Revelation. You will find them both there, and both in such a prominent position that they are given as the two published names of the divine rider. His name is called the Word of God. In going forth to do battle under that name, He certainly goes to bring a people under positive and unreserved subjection to the Word of God, and that is simply asserting and establishing his own absolute Headship over them.
“But He has another conspicuous name. ‘He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.’ In going forth to do battle under that name, He certainly goes to bring kings and their kingdoms under positive and unreserved subjection to Himself, and to Himself as the Word of God. And so real is their subjection in the end, that He shall ‘rule them with a rod of iron’. If that is not asserting His Headship over the nations and winning it too, what is it? . . . The whole Millennium springs from the Church being brought actually to yield to the Headship of Christ over herself; and it culminates and continues by the world being brought, by means of that now loyal Church, actually to submit to the Headship of Christ over the nations.” (8)
1. The final part of a paper given at the Theological Conference in 2000.
2. The Westminster Confession of Faith, p 351.
3. History of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, p 11.
4. History of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, p 23.
5. Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology, p 180.
6. Quoted above, p 176.
7. William Wilson, Free Church Principles, p 70.
8. Anna Ross – The Man with the Book, or Memoirs of John Ross of Brucefield, p 200.