WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM
PRINCIPAL CUNNINGHAM was born on the 2d of October 1805, at
Hamilton, where he also spent the earlier years of his youth, and was taught to
read. His father, a merchant in the town, having died suddenly, the widow, with
three orphan sons, removed to the grandfather’s farmhouse of Drafane, near
Crossford, in the parish of Lesmahagow ; and amid the happiest advantages of
rural seclusion and domestic comfort, the education of the boys went on as
hitherto. But the aged tenant of Drafane was taken away by death not long
after, and the family whom he had so generously sheltered, exchanged
Lanarkshire for Berwickshire, to be comfortably settled at Cheeklaw, a
farm-steading not far from Dunse.
There were kind relatives at Dunse, and a
superior school, where the lad who had excelled in all the branches of
Elementary tuition, kept still the highest place in Classical competition. No
boy is more eager than William Cunningham on the playground, but even at this
stage he was not less bent on reading. It is not improbable that the blood of
Peden was in the mothers veins ; and at all events, in mental sinew, as well as
in outward frame, the matron was worthy of the hero. But if slightly austere,
as a covenanter might well be, tenderly did the mother love her son, and as
affectionately did the son love his mother ; and though then he knew not God at
all, yet, anxious to ease her of any burden, and win her smile, William took
his mother’s place in conducting family worship, whilst he was no more
than fourteen years of age.
In 1820, William Cunningham proceeded from the
provincial school of Dunse to the University of Edinburgh, and there he lost no
time in shewing that he was a match, both in Latin and Greek, for even the
duxes of the Metropolitan High School. Only a week after the Session had
commenced, Professor Pillans asked the meaning of a hard passage in a difficult
Roman author, and William Cunningham was the first out of the large Humanity
class who stood up ready to give the translation. All the classes embraced in
the Literary curriculum of the college William Cunningham attended, in their
usual order, with marked distinction. But he did not graduate. And for this
reason, that in his day, the degree of M.A. was no badge of merit, and even
Professors discouraged students from making it an object of ambition.
It
was in 1816 that the Edinburgh University Diagnostic Society was set on foot,
and in 1821 William Cunningham became a member. We record this fact with
especial interest, for now had he taken a step, or entered on a path, which was
eventually to change the entire direction and object of his life. From the
first he was punctual in his attendance at all the meetings of the society, and
evinced the same readiness in debate, the same fearless candour, and the same
lucid, though bald expression, which were the characteristics of his eloquence
ever afterwards. But it was here he was brought into contact with those who now
became the constant companions of his day and the chosen friends of his bosom -
young men like himself in tastes and aims, but who, perhaps, in Christ before
him, were the means of waking him up to spiritual thoughtfulness and concern.
Born and bred a Moderate, William Cunningham had up to this hour no inward
wants which required more than what the negative theology and hollow ethics of
Moderatism were sufficient to meet. Drawn, however, by his new associates
within the sphere of evangelical influence, he now often attended the ministry
of Gordon; and in 1825, a sermon from that wonderful preacher on Regeneration
was the means, in the hand of the Holy Ghost, of subduing the enmity of his
carnal heart, and making him a new creature by faith in Jesus Christ.
Old
things are passed away with William Cunningham, but not less are all things
made new; and whilst ardent as ever in the accumulation of learning, he took
part, with all this intense enthusiasm, in every scheme or society within the
university which had the progress of the gospel and the glory of Christ for
their object. Previous to this date, the Spirit had been poured out on the
students of the Edinburgh Divinity Hall, and during the decade, extending from
1823 to 1833, in the much prayer and holy joy and zealous activity which were
conspicuous, it seemed as if the days of Rollock and Leighton were come back.
The Theological students formed their Association for the Diffusion of
Christian Knowledge towards the end of 1825 ; the Church Law Society was
instituted in 1827; a committee was organised that same year to place the
Library of the Hall upon a more liberal basis, after an age of resolute and
inexplicable mismanagement: and in each of these efforts William Cunningham
always bore a leading part.
He finished his curriculum as a student of
divinity in the spring of 1828, and being licensed, a few months later, as a
probationer by the Presbytery of Dunse, he preached his first sermon on the
14th of December at Larbert, in the pulpit of the late Dr John Bonar.
Dr
Cunningham was desirous of visiting the Continent, and his wish seemed to be on
the point of being realised at this time, when the arrangement he was counting
on unexpectedly failed; “While at Dunse,” he writes in a letter dated
25th August 1828, “1 received a letter from an acquaintance of mine,
wishing to know if I would accept the situation of tutor to the Marquis of
Tweeddale’s son, to reside on the Continent, and talking of it as if he
had the disposal of it. I would not have liked to have gone to the Continent
with every family, but as the Marquis and Marchioness are truly Christian
people, I wrote that I had no general objection to the situation, and requested
to have some particular information about it. Now, I have been expecting to
receive an answer to this letter every day literally for a fortnight, and I
wished, of course, to be able to tell you of the result. I am a good deal
surprised at not having heard, and don’t know very well how to account for
it. However, I have ceased to think of it, and give myself no concern about the
matter.”
Dr Cunningham was now on terms of most affectionate intimacy
with with Dr Thomson and Dr Chalmers, and it is difficult to say which of these
great men had the highest place in his esteem. “I spent,” he writes
in a letter dated 17th November 1829, “Saturday and Sunday se’nnight
with Dr Chalmers at Penicuik very delightfully. But nothing pleased me so much
in his conversation as the way in which he spoke of Dr Thomson - the kindliness
and admiration he expressed towards him. ‘A most valuable man, he said.
‘One of the blithest and most delightful men you can meet with ; just a
tower of strength. I cannot express the thankfulness I feel for his great
talents as a public speaker, and his importance in the General Assembly. I
never felt myself so impregnable as in the Assembly 1825, when Thomson was a
member.’
Chalmers also thinks that ‘the second statement’
for the Bible Society by Thomson, was one the ablest and most conclusive pieces
of argument he ever read.”
What has long gone by the name of “the
Row Heresy,” broke out first in 1828, and as one who was very suspicious
of its tendencies, Dr Cunningham thus expresses himself in a letter of
1829;-
“The Row doctrines continue to spread. Thomson has been
preaching against them for two Sabbaths past. It is a most injurious perversion
of the gospel. Some of the Campbellites, I understand, have the boldness to
allege that Paul mis-stated the gospel to the jailor, when he said,
‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,’ in place
of saying, ‘Believe that thou art pardoned, and be saved.’ They seem
to be under no apprehension of the consequences that must inevitably tend the
preaching of another gospel than Paul preached. Like other heretics, they are
waxing worse and worse. Headiness, high-mindedness, and itching ears, are the
endemic diseases of the theological world in the present day, against which
young theologians are especially called to watch and pray.”
In 1830 Dr
Cunningham became assistant and colleague to Dr Scott, the Middle Church,
Greenock, and greatly was he blessed here, both the pulpit and in the parish.
At the same time he keenly watched the evolutions of Rowism and not only warned
his flock against that insidious heresy, but deposed one of his elders who was
bold enough to avow it at a meeting of Session.
Dr Cunningham visited
London for the first time in 1833, and preached in Regent Square Church, from
which Irving had been recently ejected. During the week he heard some of the
ministers best known for their talents and usefulness, and greatly admired
them.
"I have been now,” he writes in March 1333, “nearly a
fortnight at Berners Street, and have been very busy and very happy. I have
been in both Houses of Parliament, and it is as most interesting to behold the
men on whom, under God, depends, in a great measure, not only the destinies of
Britain. but of the World. I have heard some of the most popular preachers in
the Established Church - M’Neil of Albury, who has got quite clear of
Irvingism, Mellville who took an active part, and made a powerful and eloquent
speech, at the formation of the Trinitarian Bible Society and Baptist Noel,
whose character as an efficient pastor stands very high, although he has been
weak enough to go back to Earl Street. Mellville and M’Neil are both
decidedly superior men to Noel, and men who preach faithfully and powerfully to
the times, although they are neither of them men who commend themselves to your
understanding as authorities - persons to whose sleeve you would be at all
inclined to pin your faith. I have preached two Sabbaths in the Scotch National
Church, and I attended a meeting of the Presbytery of London, who are really a
very respectable body. They are desirous that our Assembly should do something
to encourage them, and they send a deputation to the next Assembly. That
Asscmbly will probably be the most important in its consequences of any that
has sat for many years. May the great Head of the Church send up to it men full
of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and gruide them in all their
deliberations.”
So far back as 1826, Dr Cunningham, while only at the
Hall, used to declare that were he a member of Presbytery, and a presentation
against which the people reclaimed laid on the table, he would move that it be
rejected. This early announcement of non-intrusion principles was mentioned by
a fellow-student to Dr George Cook, and the quick remark of the astute
politician of Laurencekirk, even at that date, was, -“Let the attempt be
made, and there is an immediate conflict between the civil and ecclesiastical
courts.”
The view which Dr Cunningham had formed in 1826, he
expounded - with matchless clearness and force in the Assembly of 1833, when
supporting Dr Chalmers’ proposal of the Veto; and the impression then by
his speech was, that though defeated on that occasion, defeat was only the
prelude of a coming and conclusive victory.
A battle, however, must be
fought ere this issue is achieved; and that he might be at the centre of
Scottish influence when the crisis was advancing, Dr Cunningham was translated
to Edinburgh in 1834, and became minister of Trinity College Church. In this
sphere, though the advantages were manifold, he wrought with energy, and
acceptance, and encouragement. But possessed of an aptitude for ecclesiastical
business, and a capacity for ecclesiastical discussion, such as rendered George
Gillespie so famous, Dr Cunningham soon exchanged pastoral life for political
conflict; and from this point his life was bound up in the history of that
Church which he strove so manfully to reform, if haply it might be preserved,
and not overthrown.
There were public questions lying outside the Church of
Scotland, such as Popery, Voluntaryism, Education, Tests; and each of these Dr
Cunningham took up and set in their true light. But it was rather domestic
measures and controversies he reserved himself for, and it was seldom that his
wise and temperate judgment on such matters was disputed, or even modified.
In 1838 Dr Cunningham was brought to the verge of life by fever; but
graciously spared, he girt himself for more strenuous labour than ever from
that time, and in 1839 prepared his “Reply to the Dean of Faculty” on
the Auchterarder case; following up this masterly exposure with his
“Defence of the Rights of the People,” in answer to Robertson Ellon,
in 1840. It was in 1841 that Dr Chalmers moved the deposing of the Strathbogie
ministers who refused to obey the authority of the General Assembly, and the
speech of Dr Cunningham in seconding the motion was eminently distinguished as
much for a lofty tone as by luminous argument.
The Convocation met in 1842,
and the Disruption took place in 1843. Without loss of time “the New
College” was constituted, and Dr Cunningham appointed Junior Professor of
Theology, with Apologetics as his department. Though this was a department of
theological literature in which he never felt peculiar interest, yet he at once
addressed himself to it with thorough earnestness, as the following extract
from a letter, dated 8th August 1844, will shew :—
“It is my
earnest wish that I may be enabled to do something for promoting the cause of
sound theological education, and to contribute to make our future pastors able
ministers of the New Testament. I hope I may be able to carry out some of the
leading views upon the subject which have been put forth in the Presbyterian
Review, and which I know to be approved by many of the best ministers in our
church. As I will have only the first year’s students under my charge next
winter, I must be mainly occupied with the origin, authority, character,
objects, and uses of the Word, and the way and manner in which it is to be
interpreted and applied as the sword of the Spirit—that is, very much in
illustrating the first chapter of the Confession, and bringing out the
information which the Word of God gives us concerning itself, and the means by
which the knowledge of it is to be acquired. I propose to give some prominence
to the subject of the Bible as the rule of faith—not merely negatively, by
exposing the Apocrypha and Tradition, but positively, by opening up the
sufficiency and perfection of the Scriptures, as these topics used to be
discussed between the Papists and the Reformers.
“All these subjects
may be handled in such a way as to bring the students a good deal into contact
with the Bible itself; and when taken together, they should, I think, lay a
good foundation for their theological studies.”
At the request of the
Church, and just at the time when he was in much sorrow for the loss of a
beloved child, Dr Cunningham crossed the Atlantic in mid-winter of 1844, to
inquire into the constitution and working of the Presbyterian theological
seminaries in the States; as also to explain the principles of the Free Church.
Soon after he had arrived (in 1845) from America, owing to the lamented death
of Dr Welsh, Dr Cunningham was placed in the Chair of Church History; and two
years afterwards (in 1847) he became Principal of the New College, as successor
to Dr Chalmers, of whom the Church had been suddenly bereaved.
Earnestly
alive to his responsibility, as Principal, for the development of theological
education, and the advancement of theological science, Dr Cunningham now
directed all his energies to the equipment of the New College as a Model
institute for training students of divinity; and his hope was, that he might be
allowed to carry out his ideas in all their extent before other Halls were
contemplated. But what he pleaded for was not granted. Aberdeen and Glasgow
insisted on being dealt with, from the outset, as Edinburgh, and their claims
were looked upon with favour by those who guided the affairs of the Church. The
College controversy then broke out, and after an arduous struggle, Dr
Cunningham, to his chagrin and sorrow, was foiled.
A wide chasm after this
severed Dr Cunningham from those with whom he had hitherto acted in the Free
Church, and the alienation, as obvious as it was unhappy, continued from 1852
to 1858, when the wound was closed whether it were healed or not. Old friends
were induced to come together once more, and in 1859 Dr Cunningham was chosen
Moderator of the General Assembly, amid the acclamation of the whole Church.
Perhaps it would have been well had this honour been postponed; for there can
be no doubt that his official duty in the chair told against the failing health
of Dr Cunningham, and ripened the seeds of lurking disease.
During the
summer, however, Dr Cunningham seemed to rally; and in 186o he opened the
Assembly, as retiring Moderator, with a masterly discourse ujon the Atonement.
This was the last sermon he ever preached, and it was his greatest. The
greatest speech he ever delivered was on the Australian Union, in 186r, and it
was his last. Throughout the summer and autumn of 1861, Dr Cunningham had
apparently gained strength, and he was cheerful as of old. But all at once the
tall cedar shook: and now it was the root, not the branch, that was smitten. On
the 15th of December he died, and on the 18th he was buried—his sorrows
ended, and his labours crowned, in the saints’ everlasting rest.
J. J.
B. (John Bonar)
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