REV. THOMAS
McCRIE,
various quotes and
writings
REV. THOMAS McCRIE, D.D., Edinburgh, 1772-1835.
Born in
Dunse. Dedicated to the Lord by his mother on Dunse Law.
Licensed 1795. He
subscribed the formula with a reservation, which he requested to be made
public. Shortly after he took alarm at the “enlargement of the
Testimony,” with its germinant Voluntaryism, and shrunk back from carrying
out the “new light” to its logical conclusion.
The “Life of
Knox” (1811) was declared by Francis Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review to be
“by far the best piece of history which has appeared since the beginning
of this century.” He was the first Dissenter on whom a Scotch university
(Edinburgh) conferred D.D. This was in 1813.
Six articles on M’Crie by
Hugh Miller appear in “The Headship." Dr. M’Kerrow furnishes a fine
biographical sketch in his “History of the Secession.” Dr. Wylie
contributes another to Scott’s “Annals and Statistics of the 0. S.
Church.”
M’Cric was a scholar among a brotherhood whose
poverty made scholarship rare among them. Poor and obscure as the Secession
were, however, they professed to be the only legitimate representatives of the
Church of Scotland in her best days - those of Andrew Melville and Robert
Bruce; and it was a piece of natural and legitimate ambition in the man who was
their literary ornament to endeavour to show that in the old days they had
possessed one of the greatest scholars of his age. He was a man of many
accomphishments.
(Dr. J. H. Burton.)
It is impossible to think
without respect of this most powerful writer, before whom there are few living
controversialists that would not tremble, but his Presbyterian Hildebrandism is
a little remarkable in this age.
(Hallam, “Constit.
History.”)
There was no Hildebrandism in him, except that sort and
degree of it which is inseparable from genuine Scotch Presbyterianism. Gregory
VII. claimed absolute power, religious, civil, and ecclesiastical, over the
world. A scotch presbytcry only claims an exclusive authority over such persons
as. choose to place themselves under its jurisdiction in regard to the
spiritual affairs of their own church. It was not wonderful that the biographer
of John Kuox should have had a horror of Popery, which made him except that
religion from the usual rights of civil toleration. He was a tall, thin,
apostolic looking person, not known in society, into which, indeed, he never
went; very modest, very primitive, absorbed in his books, his congregation, and
except when there was likely to be concession to Catholics never interfering in
any public matter.
(Lord Cockburn.)
In whatever aspect we view
M’Crie he is one ef the noblest sons of the Church of Scotland (of which
he ever viewed the Secession as truly a part), whose works illustrative of its
past heroes will embalm his memory to future generations.
(Scotus.)
We have a strong inclination to begin with the elder M’Crie. Who amongst
us has been unconscious of the thrill of Protestant enthusiasm when reading the
classic pages of his immortal histories?
(John Macfarlane, LL D.)
I
saw him standing over the body of one [Knox] that had been buried long in the
grave defending it from all men.
(Chaldee MS.)
STATEMENT OF THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE SECEDERS AND THE GENERAL. ASSOCIATE SYNOD. 1807.
Dr.
M’Crie withdrew from the General Associate Synod in 1806. The occasion of
his doing so was the passing of the Act of 1796, as follows "The Synod declare
that as the Confession of Faith was at first received by the Church of Scotland
with some exception as to the power of the civil magistrate relative to
spiritual matter, so the Synod, for the satisfaction of all who desire to know
their mind on this subject, extend that exception to everything in that
Confession which, taken by itself, seems to allow the punishment of good and
peaceable subjects on account of their religious opinions and observances; that
they approve of no other way of bringing men into the Church, or retaining them
in it, than such as are spiritual and were used by the apostles and other
ministers of the Word in the first age of the Christian Church; persuasion, not
force; the power of the Gospel, not the sword of the civil magistrate,
etc.”
Yet he carefully abstained from magnifying the mere connection
of Church and State apart from evangelical truth. “I am afraid,” he
wrote, “ that civil establishments must come down before all things go
right.”
"Scotus."
ON THE COVENANTS AND THE REFORMATION.
A
reprint from “Discourses on Unity.” With an appendix containing
Additional Thoughts on Union, by the same author. Cf. reply anent the healing
of the breach of the Secession
. A VINDICATION OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANTERS.
Glasgow, 1824.
A reprint of the Review of the Tales of my Landlord. At the
end of the volume there was added a Review of the British Critic’s attack
upon Dr. M ‘Crie, also an appendix containing sketches of ecclesiastical
history and Fox’s history of James II. - "Some extracts not according with
his sentiments” (M’Crie the Younger).
MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS,
CHIEFLY HISTORICAL. Edited by his Son. 1841.
Contains - Review of Tales,
Lives of Henderson, Patrick Hamilton, Francis Lambert, Andrew Rivet, John
Murray, The Talorites, etc. Dr. M’Crie also wrote the “Reformation in
Italy, 1827, which obtained the honour of a place in the Index of prohibited
books, the “Reformation in Spain," 1829, “Lectures on Esther,”
etc.
LIFE OF THOMAS M’CRIE, D.D. by his Son. Edinburgh, 1840.
The
real object of the Secession as a formed and separate profession was to assert
and defend the principles of the Reformation. The original Seceders identified
themselves with the Church of Scotland, as she existed in her purer days,
particularly during the period of the Second Reformation between 1638 and 1650.
On this era distinguished as that of the Solemn League and Covenant, they took
up their ground and planted the banner of their testimony. They not only
espoused the principles of the Covenanters during that period, and of the great
body of them during the bloody persecution which followed, but were themselves
Covenanters, being the only religious body in the country who renewed the
national Covenants in a Bond suited to their circumstances, and thus
practically recognised their obligation as national deeds on
posterity.—Lift of Dr. M’Crie.
The learned and excellent Dr.
M’Crie died on the 5th (August, 18351. He has done great honour to the
Scotch Seceders, of whom he was by far the most eminent in literature.
(Lord
Cockburn.)
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