John Willison · 10 of 19

Testimony · Part 8

Ans. If we would do it in an evangelical strain, and with success, we must 1mo, Press duty as the natural and necessary fruit of faith in a crucified Christ, and love to him, who suffered thus to satisfy for our sins, and to purchase to us the image of God and holiness which we had lost: and therefore let us represent the love mid sufferings of Christ in a lively manner to our people, in order to leave them to abhor all known sin, and to love Christ that thus loved us, and live to him that died for us; and pray earnestly for the Spirit of regeneration and sanctification which he had purchased for us: and this is the most effectual way to promote morality and holiness among them.—2do We must set before the eyes of our people the attractive charms and beauties of a crucified Jesus in all his offices, that they may get a view of his glory, as the Chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely, and as the Pearl of great Price; that so the Desire of all nations may come to be the desire of their hearts, and they may count all things but dung and loss in comparison of a crucified Christ. And as we must recommend to them to close with him as their Priest and sacrifice to atone for their sins, so also to subject themselves to him as the lovely King of Zion, whose government is easy, his service pleasant, his commandments not grievous, and his rewards to obedient subjects unspeakably great. The whole precepts of the moral law are the laws of this King; but, to all his willing subjects, he makes his yoke easy and his burden light.—3tio, We must enforce duties from a principle of love, and of gratitude to Christ for his love. It should not be so much authority, as grateful love to Christ, that should constrain us to live to his glory, to study holiness and constant obedience to his commands; and this we should do, as we should approve ourselves to be Christ’s discipIes, and as we would enjoy communion with him here, and be accepted of him at his appearance to judgment.—4tio, We should direct our people to perform duties by the grace and strength of the Lord Jesus Christ our Head, Surety and Treasurer. We must be united to him by faith, as our Head of influences, and derive all our life and strength for duty out of his fulness. Alas! this direction is little minded by many of our moral preachers, whose discourses generally seem to proceed upon the supposition of the strength of our natural powers, as if we had no natural impotence or enmity to what is good, nor been at all disabled by the fall.—5tio, We must persuade men to leave sin, and perform duty, by the terrors of Christ’s coming to judgment, and the wrath of the Lamb, that will then be intolerable to all who slight his grace and disobey his laws.—3tio, When we press duties, let us put our hearers in mind, that all our duties and good works have no worth or merit before God; they are not our justifying righteousness, nor can they come in any way to share in this matter with Christ’s righteousness; they are only accepted of God through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ: and that, after we have done all, we must say, we are but unprofitable servants; and our main desire is to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness, which at best is but filthy rags, and can not be any skreen or covert to us before God.—7mo, Let us instruct our people, that through Christianity doth enforce morality by the strongest arguments, yet unregenerate morality will never please God. Till the heart be renewed, and the soul grafted in Christ the true Vine, the fruit will be always sour and unpleasant to God. A moral man, though he profess himself a Christian, is not really so, unless he be united to Christ, and look for daily influences from him to perform duties, and to the righteousness of Christ to cover him and all his duties; and be still saying, Though I could perform never so many duties, I should be lost and undone forever, if it were not for the righteousness and mediation of Christ my Surety and Saviour, in whom is all my hope and trust.— For all true holiness and acceptable morality is the proper result of the soul’s union with the holy Jesus our living Head, who is the first and immediate receptacle of the holy Spirit and of all sanctifying influences for the use of his members; and out of Christ’s fulness we must by faith receive them for our sanctification.

Let us make every subject we insist on point to Christ. If we discourse upon the attributes of God, let us consider them as they shine forth in Christ and his glorious undertaking;—If upon the blessings and promises of the gospel, let us consider them as the purchase of Christ’s blood:—If upon the providence of God, let us mind that the administration is put in Christ’s hands, and he is Head over all things for the church; If we exhort to repentance and mourning for sin, let us direct our hearers to look to him they have pierced;—If to prayer, let us direct them to look to Christ, by whom only they can have access and success in this duty.

O how happy were it both for us and our hearers, if we did thus reduce every thing to Christ, and make him the main subject of all our sermons. and if the scope of them all were to persuade sinners to come to Christ, and all that profess him to live by faith on him, and make daily use of him! To this glorious person did all the prophets of the Old Testament give witness, and much more should all the ministers of the New.

Now, this way of preaching is surely the most excellent and preferable to any other way; Why? 1mo, The preaching of Christ crucified is the mean which God hath appointed for gathering in elect sinners to himself, and to which he promises his blessing. Hence it is that Paul saith, God makes the preaching of the cross and of Christ crucified the Power of God to them that are called: and though natural men count this way of preaching foolishness, yet it pleases God by this way to save them that believe, 1 Cor. i. 18, 21, 24.

2do, It was by this way of preaching among the Corinthians that the apostle Paul had such wonderful success in bringing them to Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 2. it was when Peter preached a crucified Jesus and the peculiar doctrines of Christianity to the people, that the Holy Ghost fell on them, and converted multitudes of them; as Luke observes several times, Acts ii. 36, 37. Acts x. 40, 44. It was not when he was preaching morality that the Spirit descended and gave success to the word.—Also he observes, when these preachers from Cyprus preached the Lord Jesus to the people of Antioch, the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed, and turned to the Lord, Acts xi. 20, 21. 3tio, It is the preaching of a crucified Christ, that God in his wisdom hath pitched upon as the way to reform men from their vices, and to bring in virtue, godliness and good order into nations, cities and congregations. The Heathen philosophers and wise men had, for some thousands of years, tried all means which the powers of nature or reason could afford, to bring men to God and virtue, but in vain; for they remained still ignorant of God, and run further away from him into all abominable impieties.—Likewise in many places there are several masters of reason and eloquence, who excel in a sort of rational and moral way of preaching, exclusive of Christ; but what success have they in it for converting souls? Alas! their people still sink in vice and corruption; all their fine reasonings cannot change the perverse will of one sinner. They may, perhaps, entertain two or three, or a few of their audience, who have a taste of the beauties of fine reasoning; but the body of the congregation remain untouched and asleep, so that all they hear is lost to them. Surely the value and usefulness of things are to be reckoned from their capacity and fitness to answer the end they are designed for: now the end of preaching is to win souls to Christ, so that these sermons are the most excellent that serve this design most; and these, we see, are the sermons which are fullest of Christ.—Alas! Christless moral sermons bring few off from their vices to the practice of morality, and far fewer into Christ. Such a way of preaching is a longsome unsuccessful method to reclaim and reform the vicious: whereas the short and effectual way to reform sinners, and make them moral, is to preach Christ to them; if you bring them to Jesus, you turn them from all their sins, and make them moral at once, yea, inwardly holy, which is more. O then, let us preach Christ above all things!

4to, If we look through the world, we will find it is only these ministers who preach Christ most, who have most success: and that the life and spirit of true religion rises or falls among a people, according as a crucified Redeemer is faithfully preached among them or not. And these acquainted with church-history observe, that when God is about to leave a people, and his glory to depart from his house, he usually gives them up to a lifeless and formal ministry, who neglect the preaching of Christ and the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, such as free justification by the righteousness of Christ, and inward regeneration by the Spirit of Christ; and do not inform their people that it is from a crucified Jesus the virtue must come for breaking the power of sin in the soul, and subduing it to God. No wonder our flocks look poor and lean, when we take no care to lead them into these green pastures of evangelical truths, but set before them the dry insipid stuff of a Heathenish morality, which can never feed them nor keep them in good liking! How can we expect assistance from Jesus Christ in our work, or the influences of his Spirit in preaching (upon which all our success depends) when we take no more notice of Christ in our sermons than the moral philosophers among the Heathens? Wo will be to this national church, if such a way of preaching shall prevail in it notwithstanding of the foresaid act of assembly, and a sound Confession of Faith, which all ministers subscribe to. God forbid that the church of Scotland become ever like the church of England in this respect, who subscribe to sound articles of doctrine, and never mind them more afterwards.

Likewise, as by the word of God ministers are bound to separate between the precious and the vile, the clean and the unclean, the sincere and the formalist; so, by the foresaid act. 1736 concerning preaching, all ministers are appointed, in application of their sermons, to endeavour rightly to divide the word of truth, speaking distinctly to the various cases of their hearers, whether converted or unconverted, &c. Alas! it is to be feared, the making of this difference is too much neglected by many, both in dispensing the word and sacraments.

These and several other good things did the assembly 1736, but it is to be regretted they were not steady and uniform in their proceedings; for, while they discouraged and stopt some intrusions, they encouraged others: and they gave no small occasion of offence by their management in the affair of Professor Campbell at St. Andrews, who had vented several dangerous errors in his writings, such as his Oratio Academica, his Enquiry into the original of moral Virtue, his Discourse concerning enthusiasm, g&c.g wherein he asserts,

That men by their natural powers, without revelation, cannot find out the being of a God; That the law of nature is sufficient to guide rational minds to happiness; That self-love, interest, or pleasure, is the sole principle and motive of all virtuous and religious actions; That Christ’s disciples had no notion of his Divinity before his resurrection, and before that they expected nothing from him but a worldly kingdom; and, during the interval between his death and resurrection, they looked on him as an impostor.”

Likewise, while speaking against Enthusiasts, he utters several things very disparaging and reproachful to the work of the holy Spirit upon the souls of the people of God. These errors were brought before the assembly 1735, who referred them to their commission; and they appointed a committee to consider them, and prepare their report to the next assembly. Mr. Campbell laboured to give in sound and orthodox explications of these his positions, which the committee brought before the assembly 1736, with their remark and censures upon them, and the recommendations they judged fit to be given him. The assembly, upon hearing Mr. Campbell at great length, were of opinion that the committee’s examining and stating the matter as they had done, was sufficient to caution against the errors charged upon Mr. Campbell, without giving any judgment or formal sentence upon the committees report; only they recommended to him not to use doubtful expressions or propositions, which may lead his hearers or readers into error. This issue of the process many in the assembly and out of it were highly dissatisfied with, judging that Mr. Campbell did justly deserve a sharp rebuke for the many incautious and unsound expressions he hath in his writings, however orthodox his explications might be: and with these; we do heartily join. Though the assembly gave no judgment upon Mr. Campbell’s positions or explications, yet severals would charge the assembly with adopting one of his errors; because, when he explained his positions concerning Self love he declared he meant no more but that our delight in the honour and glory of God was the chief motive of all virtuous and religious actions. Now (say they) this Delight is the same with Self-love or the desire of our own happiness, which is the error charged on him; yet the assembly dismissed him without quarrelling it. But this should be looked upon as a pure oversight in the assembly, through their not adverting to the import of the word DELIGHT, but taking delight in the glory of God, for the same with regard to the glory of God, because of their affinity. For when assembly 1737 was informed that severals had taken offence, as if the assembly 1736 had adopted some of Mr. Campbell’s offensive expressions on the head of Self-love, they vindicated this church from that charge, by making an act, declaring that they do stedfastly adhere to the doctrine expressed in our standards on that head, particularly in the answers to that question in our Shorter and Larger Catechisms, What is the chief end of man?

In the year 1735 there was an essay made by an unknown hand to alter our Shorter Catechism, which was printed at London under the title of the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism revised, and rendered fitter for general use. The reviser casts it into such a mould, as to make it agree with Arian, Socinian, Popish, and Arminian schemes of doctrine. As soon as it was publicly known in Scotland, the commission took it under their consideration, as the synod of Lothian had done before them, and past an act condemning it, and gave warning about it to all the presbyteries in this church, that they might be on their guard against the spreading and infection thereof. And would to God that our assemblies had in like manner given plain and faithful warning to all the corners and members of this church against Professor Simson and Professor Campbell’s errors, and others which have been vented and spread in this church, and shewn to them their inconsistency with the Word Of God, and our Confession of Faith and Catechisms!—May God in his infinite mercy revive our zeal for all the truths therein contained, and against all sorts of error opposite thereto!

After all, it is to be regretted that the national church was not duly humbled by all these awful rebukes for her manifold defections and particularly for disregarding Christ’s flock in settlements; neither did she amend her ways and doings, and turn to the Lord: wherefore we find the hand of the Lord stretched out against her still, and a new sharp trial carved out for her from an airth [probably “direction”] that none could have expected.—One Captain Porteous, that had been condemned to die for several murders, having obtained a reprieve by the interest of some great men, the mob rose up notwithstanding, and executed him at Edinburgh the 7th of September 1736. The king and parliament resented this affront so highly, that they framed a strange and extraordinary act for discovering the actors: and because some of the church’s enemies suggested, without all ground, that the Scots clergy, at least a sett of them, encouraged the people in such mobbish actions, they appointed all the ministers of Scotland to read the said act in time of divine service in their churches every first sabbath in the month for a whole year, beginning in August 1737: and the penalty for the first negIect of reading it was, that they shall be declared incapable of sitting or voting in any church judicatory; and this was to be executed against them by the civil judges in Scotland. The most part of ministers in many synods and presbyteries, though they scrupled not to condemn the outrageous insult of the mob as murder, yet they had not freedom to read the said act, because they judged the penalty foresaid to be properly a church censure, seeing by it ministers would be divested of the power of church government and discipline, which is given them by the Lord Jesus Christ the Head of the church, and is essential to their office as preaching or dispensing the sacrament. Now, for the civil magistrate to assume the power of the keys, or of inflicting church censures, which Christ hath put in the hands of his own officers, they judged a manifest incroachment upon Christ’s Headship over his church, and contrary to the word of God and the Confession of Faith they had subscribed, chap. 30, par. 1, 2. and chap. 23. 3. And for ministers to become the magistrate’s heralds, to proclaim this law on the Lord’s day, in such a solemn manner, would be an homologating [to approve or confirm officially] of this incroachment, and a consenting to this Erastian power of the magistrate. Likewise they judged, to approve or concur with a law so prejudicial to the doctrine and discipline of this church, as established by law civil and ecclesiastical, would be to give up with fundamental securities, and act contrary to the solemn engagements ministers come under to maintain the doctrine and discipline of this church, and do nothing prejudicial thereto.—Besides, they did not think it agreeable to the office of these, who were ambassadors of the gospel of peace, to become heralds or executors of this or any sanguinary law; especially when they apprehended there were several things in it inconsistent with justice and equity, besides the Erastian Penalty aforementioned. These and other arguments, set in a clear light in several pamphlets published at that time, determined us to join with these who bore testimony against the reading of the foresaid act, and to run the hazard of all its penalties. And we wish the light of all the ministers of Scotland had been the same with ours in this matter, which would have prevented much division and stumbling that different practices have occasioned.

But yet we must do justice to these of a different light, so far as to own, that there were several pious and conscientious ministers who read this act, because of the quite different view they had of it from these who refused it; and seeing, by the tenor of their lives and actions, it appears they have acted uprightly and honestly in other matters, we are in charity bound to think they acted sincerely in this also. Their reasons for reading were; A sinful penalty in the act, should not hinder their reading those parts of the act which might be lawful; and they judged they were bound to read some parts of it, to warn their people of the danger of harboring or succoring the rioters.—And they did not look on the penalty scrupled at as any church censure, or Erastian incroachment upon Christ’s Headship; and, as they judged, no more was meant by it, but that the non-readers should forfeit the magistrate’s protection in sitting in church courts; and that the magistrate, without assuming the power of the keys, might, by his civil power as magistrate, exclude or render ministers incapable of sitting in church-courts, by confining or banishing them. And they sincerely declare, that, if they had thought their reading of that act had in the least wronged the Headship of the King of Zion, they would rather have suffered the loss of their stipends, or any thing else. Now, charity obligeth us to believe pious men to be ingenuous in such declarations.

But, alas! notwithstanding of all these shaking dispensations, the church was not brought to a right sense of her sins and defections; and therefore the Lord’s controversy with her was not at an end: for we find the assembly 1738 continuing in former steps, and giving new offence to many in the church, by another decision in a process of error. The magistrates and town-council of Edinburgh having chosen Mr. William Wishart a minister at London to be Principal of their college, and having got a call to him also to be one of the ministers of the city, the presbytery of Edinburgh refused to concur with the said caIl, and charged him with venting several erroneous propositions in two of his printed sermons with respect to the power and office of the magistrate in religious matters, the liberty of Christian subjects, the subscribing of Confessions, the education of children, the influence of arguments taken from the awe of future rewards and punishments, his excessive charity to Heathens and others who reject the gospel offers and institutions, and the sinful and corrupt state of all men from their birth, &c. This affair being brought by appeals to the general assembly, and Mr. Wishart having made his explications, and given in a subscribed declaration of his adhering to the Confession of Faith, and the particular articles of it which his propositions seemed to oppose, and also of his disclaiming all errors whatsomever (whether charged upon him in the presbytery’s articles or not) that are contrary to the Confession of Faith, or any article of it; the assembly thereupon assoilzied [absolved] Mr. Wishart from the process against him, and also they sustained his call to, be one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and appointed the presbytery to admit him as such.

Here we cannot but testify against such soft proceedings, whether in the case of Professor Campell, Dr. Wishart, or others processed for error; seeing we judge it far from being sufficient to terminate a process for error, or to vindicate persons accused of it that they explain their words into a sound and orthodox sense, though perhaps contrary to the obvious meaning of them, according to the plain and ordinary acceptation of words; or that they profess their adherence to our Confession Of Faith, and its articles, which their tenets are thought to contradict. For a heretic, when in hazard of censure, may make a shift to put an orthodox sense upon his words, if that will save him, though it should be quite contrary to the common sense and meaning of them; and he may declare his owning the words of our Confession of Faith, and yet affix a sense and meaning to them directly opposite to the known sentiments and doctrine of this church: so that it is plain, such a loose superficial way of managing a process for error, is not an effectual way to suppress it. Wherefore we think it further necessary for that end, that these who are processed for venting error or unsound propositions, should particularly and directly renounce the erroneous tenets and principles charged upon them, upon account of their words, and the unsound sense which they naturally convey; and that they be at least rebuked for departing from the form of sound words, contained in the word of God, and our standards, which are framed agreeable thereunto. We see it is God’s express command concerning such men, Tit. I. 13. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. Sharp rebukes preserve soundness, but easy absolutions encourage error. No sooner is Dr. Wishart assoilzied, but he falls a recommending and prefacing books of bad character, such as Dr. Whitchcot’s sermons, that savour of Socinianism, as the reverend Mr. Bisset of Aberdeen makes appear in a letter he hath lately published. Ah! how low must the case of this poor church be, when the head of the most frequented college in Scodand recommends such books impune [not yet punished] for college-students and preachers to form upon!

These and other proceedings of our assemblies, were very, gracious to many worthy ministers and others in this church; and the four succeeding brethren before mentioned, with other four, viz. Masters Nairn, R. Erskine, Mair, and Thomson, who afterwards joined them, took occasion from such actings to carry their secession and separation to very great heights, by licensing preachers, invading parishes, and preaching up separation every where; not sparing their best friends, nor these who dissented from the evils of the time, and took all regular methods to, testify against them; but charging the whole ministry with very black things. They also framed an Act and Testimony of many sheets, with very much of church authority in it, which they required all their followers to adhere to. Though we own there were many good things in it, yet there were also many mistakes in it, and misrepresentation of facts, very harsh and unsuitable expressions, and also bitter reflections against their brethren, and even our worthy forefathers, &c. These things being laid before the assembly, they appointed the ministers of the presbyteries and synods where the said brethren reside to be at all pains by conference, and other gentle means of persuasion to reclaim them; and to report their diligence to the commission, whom they impowered, if they should see cause, to take all proper steps to sist [stay] the said brethren before the assembly 1739.—Accordingly these eight brethren were libeIled and cited to the said assembly, who all compeared [appeared in court] before them, in the capacity of a constitute judicatory; and, instead of answering to their libel, they by their moderator read an act of their court, condemning the judicatories of the national church as not being lawful courts of Christ, and declining all their authority and jurisdiction over them.—Upon which they withdrew, and attended the assembly no more. Whereupon the assembly past an act concerning them, declaring, That for their declinature, [declining] contempt, and schismatical courses contrary to their vows, and for the many groundless and calumnious reflections which they have cast on the church and her judicatories, they deserve deposition: but that they resolved to forbear them another year, to give them further time to bethink themselves and return to their duty; and they appointed them to be cited to the next assembly 1740.

Being cited accordingly, and not comparing the ass. 1740 proceeded to depose the whole eight brethren. But there having been debates about wording the sentence, and different senses put on it, we must look to the words themselves, which are, They depose them from the office of the holy ministry, prohibiting them to exercise the same within this church. And we must say, we are sorry to see a sentence of this sort so ambiguous.—If these words, Within this church, be connected with the word Depose, as well as with the word Prohibit, they mean no more but that they depose them from being ministers of this church; and many who voted it say they meant no more: so that, in this sense, the sentence is only a loosing of their relation from the national church; which the brethren themselves had done in effect, by their secession from her, by their renouncing all her authority and jurisdiction, and refusing all communion with any of her ministers.—But, on the other hand, if the words, Within this Church, be not connected with the word Depose, then the assembly meant to depose them simpliciter from the office of the ministry itself: and in this sense many members understood the sentence; and therefore a good many voted against it, and dissented from it. For though they did not approve of their wild divisive practices, yet they had not the freedom to unminister them, seeing they looked upon them as pious orthodox Presbyterian ministers, who had been useful in the church, and might still be useful in preaching Christ to lost perishing sinners. And, if the sentence be taken up in this…,[unlegible word] we join with those who testified against it; in regard we think the world cannot easily spare any of these ministers who are upright and zealous in preaching a crucified Jesus to fallen men, especially at a time when Deism and dry moral discourses are like to thrust out true Christianity.—Neither do we think it was time for the church to proceed to censure the brethren, till once they had done all they could to remove the evils and redress the grievances which were the grounds of their separation, and thereby had made them inexcusable in their schism; which, alas! Is far from being done. And as for the brethren’s licensing of preachers, which is one article of their libel, the assembly and commission might prevent that, if they pleased to observe our good rules, and particularly the 14th act of ass. 1736 against intrusions; seeing it is manifest, that, by every new intrusion and forced settlement which they make, they give encouragement to the brethren to erect a new tent, and license a new preacher; and, till such time as they shall cease from the one, they cannot well expect the brethren will cease from the other.—And, with respect to several other parts and articles of their libel, we think them too general, and no ways so particular, nor duly laid, as ought to have been in a process of this kind; and some of the most material things charged against the brethren are left out. But as we cannot justify the assembly in their conduct, so neither can we vindicate the brethren in theirs. And seeing, we proposed in this performance to give a fail and impartial testimony against the defections and evils of the time, whether upon one side or another, we shall briefly mention some of our seceding brethren’s defections and strayings from the good old paths; which they have been led into, partly by their own precipitancy and misguided zeal, and partly by the headstrong humours of their followers: Such as,