VOLUNTARYISM IN THE STATE CHURCH
Prof.
Charteris
Voluntaryism is as difficult to define as spiritual
independence. I have never seen an intelligible definition which was also
consistent with itself, In its bare and logical consistency it is supposed to
mean that the State, or, as the reformers put it, the civil magistrate, has
nothing to do with religion - that the sphere of the national ruler is purely
secular. . . . It is, that a nation, as a nation acting through its civil
ruler, shall take no account of religion; that civil legislation shall be
confined to outward and secular affairs of communities; that for the nation, as
a nation, there shall be no God and no Saviour; that it is not righteousness
that exalteth a nation; that the civil magistrate is not Gods minister
for good; but that to ignore God is the highest civil freedom. I think we
understand that not only does it proscribe any natural recognition for the
religious education of the young, or for religious ministrations to the poor
and perishing - it means much more. It means that the legislator does wrong if
he secures to the toiling millions their right to rest on the day God has made;
if he maintains the divine purity of the marriage law; if he hallows the
administration of justice by oaths wherein the appeal is unto him who sitteth
upon the throne. It means that wrong is done if on any public and national
occasion God is acknowledged as King of kings and Lord of lords, whether by
prayer in Parliament, or by a national thanksgiving, or by humiliation under
the burden of mercies or of chastisements. We ask ourselves if it is to the
adoption of such principles as these men are leading the Church of Chalmers.
Ah, sirs, I know no historical precedent for such national degradation as this
would bring us to, save when the maddened populace of Paris, who had banished
God with clamour from their ways, worshipped a strumpet as the Goddess of
Reason. I. there, then, any modified Voluntaryisin to which the Free Church and
other Presbyterian Churches may betake themselves! There is. But it is barely
intelligible, and it is certainly inconsistent with itself. We find it in
articles of agreement among the Dissenting Churches .f Scotland as printed in
1869 Stripped of all verbiage and driven from it. vague-sounding phrases, this
emasculated Voluntaryism comes to mean a strong desire and longing that the
present Established Churches shall be deprived of their endowments. It rests on
no broad principle of polity, and the moment they come with actual struggle and
combat, its advocates will be compelled to tako broader ground and to fall back
on the atrocious Voluntaryism which at present they denounce. They cannot stir
the country with intimations that they would like to deliver us of the Church
of Scotland from our endowments; they cannot persuade a godly land that they
have a good case when they seek to confiscate the national endowments of
religion to provide (or the education of Scottish children In everything but
religion. If we were seeking a victory at the expense of our brethrens
honour we should bid them persevere in their suicidal folly. - Prof. Charteris,
DD, Lecture from Chair of Biblical Criticism, 1874.
THOMSON' S REPLY
I shall not quote the more
offensive sentences, because there are signs that the professor who uttered
them is becoming half ashamed of them. But I will say this: that when men seek
to represent the views of a Church, and especially when that Church has through
its supreme court stated and explained its views, common fairness demands that
we should turn for information to its own authoritative utterances. Now, there
are the well-known Articles of Agreement united with the
Articles of Difference, which have more of synodical authority and
sanction upon them than anything else recently emitted by our Church, and I
defy any man of common understanding and candour to read these and to adhere to
that most obnoxious charge.
The fact is that this is an old slander raised
from its grave, in which we were charged with holding that religion has nothing
to do with the civil magistrate, and that this civil magisrtrate hath nothing
to do with religion. Both limbs of this sentence were repudiated then by the
champions of our Church; explanations followed; one great historian, who had
been temporarily misled by these misrepresentations, acknowledged his mistake,
and I hope the professor to whom I refer will show the same magnanimity and
justice now as Dr. Merle dAubigne did then. Why, it is in the very name
of religion, and on time ground of Christs authority that we tell the
civil magistrate that he has no right to prescribe anything to a Church or to
Interfere in its Internal administration.
- Rev.
Andrew Thomson, D.D.