A STORM ABOUT A SCOTCH THEOLOGICAL CHAIR.
IT is seldom that an appointment to a Scotch Theological Professorship can be of any interest to a non-Scottish public. The several sects into which Presbyterianism in Scotland is divided have their special " Divinity Halts," as they are termed, where candidates for the ministry are trained in theology. The Free Church, United Presbyterians, and Original Seceders do not send their students to the classes taught by Professore in connec- tion with the Theological Faculties of the Universities. These have come therefore to be considered the special training-ground for the students of the Established or. National Church, that is, the Church of Scotland. It is the specific work of the• Theological chairs of—for instance, in the University of Edinburgh—to prepare' candidates for the ministry of that Church. But the Church has no direct influence over appointments to these Chairs. The patronage pertains to the Crown, and thus it devolves upon the Government of the day when a vacancy occurs to select a suitable presentee. In doing this the Crown has to consider what may be beat for the interests of the Church, and distinguished clergymen of the Kirk have come, as a rule, to be the natural aspirants from among whom the selection is made. In these circumstances it might be supposed the task to be discharged would be a simple one, in which gross mistakes or any error likely to lead to serious results must be difficult, if not impossible. For the Church of Scotland is a self-governing ecclesiastical corporation. At the time of the Union of England and Scotland her freedom and autonomy were guaranteed to her. These have been practically recognised and established by legal decisions since. Her Courts are courts of the realm, possessing a definite jurisdiction and co-ordinate in authority with the Courts of law. So long as they do not traugrees the limits assigned them or act inconsistently with the conditions of their existence, their sentences cannot be reduced or over-ridden by the Court of Session itself, which is the highest legal tribunal of Scotland. "Spiritual independence" has been insured in Scotland, to such an extent, as shown by a case two or three years ago, that so long as the Ecclesiastical Courts act within their proper sphere their proceedings cannot be reviewed by the Law Courts. Thus the Church of Scotland has complete powers of discipline and is the guardian of the purity of her doctrines. Any of her ministers liable to a charge of heresy may be proceeded against by " libel " in the Presbytery to which he belongs, and if the " libel " be proved and is of a sufficiently serious character he may be deposed from his sacred office. So long, then, as the Crown selects Professors for the Theological Chairs of the Scotch Universities from among the clergy of that body, there ought to be no cause of complaint. Scotch Churches have not been reluctant to hunt down heretics in the past, and in the absence of a "libel" against a minister it should be safe to assume there has been no reason for proceeding against him.
Yet the bestowal of the appointment to the Church History Chair in Edinburgh University—vacant by the retirement of Dr. Stevenson—upon a well-known clergyman of the Church of Scot- land, is at this moment causing dire excitement and alarm in Church circles and elsewhere in Scotland. Though not gazetted to the office, the Crown, it is known, has appointed the Rev. Dr._ Robert Wallace, the vigorous successor of the late Dr. Robert Lee in Old Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh, to the Chair in question. Immediately intimation had been given that this was so, an application was got ready in hot haste- to the Moderator of the General Assembly, begging him at once to call together the Commission of that body, to consider what should be done in reference to the Church His- tory Chair. The General Assembly is the supreme Court of the Church, but its sittings—extending over ten days—are only held once a year. The Commission is its representative while it is not sitting, but it is not a Court of the Church, and has no jurisdiction as such. Its functions are consultative, or may be—under special directions from the Assembly—administrative, but in no sense legis- lative or judicial. The Moderator did as he was asked, the Commis- sion met last week in Edinburgh, and after a display of clerical and lay oratory, spiced with no little animosity against heretics, a resolution was passed by a substantial majority protesting against Dr. Wallace's appointment, and virtually asking the Crown to- reconsider and rescind it. What manner of spirit the majority were of may be estimated from the statement made by one of them, none other than the former occupant of the Church History Chair in question, that even if it should ultimately be found there were no valid objections to Dr. Wallace, better he should suffer than that the Church should labour under suspicion, though falsely, of shelter- ing an unsound Professor—a clerical inversion of the old Fiat justitia reef ccelam. The grounds on which the application to the Govern- ment is to be made to rest are that the presentee to the Chair is "generally believed " to be a teacher of heresy, and without saying or seeking to determine whether the on dit be true, the Commission ask the Government to hold him disqualified in consequence. Obviously such a proceeding is wholly irregular, as it is flagrantly unjust to the presentee. Dr. Wallace is condemned without trial or without being able to say a word in his own defence ; and if the Government will only condemn him by withdrawing the appointment, he need not be tried at all. Of course the Govern- ment can do nothing of the kind, and must simply ignore the- Commission and its strange courses. To any objections against. Dr. Wallace it has the conclusive answer that Dr. Wallace is a. minister of the Church of Scotland. The very fact of applying for suspension of the appointment because of his alleged heretical-. views involves an accusation against the Church of failing iu. its duty as the guardian of the purity of its own pulpits. Were the Crown to rescind the appointment now' because the Commis-
sion of Assembly had met to declare Dr. Wallace a generally suspected heretic, it would both stultify itself and indirectly, but very really, slander also the Church. For a number of ordinarily honourable and intelligent men—and, odd to tell, the majority was mainly composed of "elders," or the lay representatives of the Church, the clergy, as a rule, opposing the resolution on the ground of its informality—to suppose the Government can give ear to such an application, only shows into what dubious courses men may be led when blinded by theological zeal.
But though it is plain the Commission has stultified itself, though it is equally evident the Crown cannot consent to gratify the Commission by following its example, and therefore the appointment must stand, that does not necessarily make an end of the whole matter. We wish sincerely that it did. After the charges of heresy brought against the presentee by speakers in the Assembly Commission—speeches fully reported in the Scotch papers—the Presbytery of which Dr. Wallace is a member, and to whose jurisdiction he is amenable as a minister, cannot remain inactive. Though the Commission have not secured the exclusion of Dr. Wallace from the Church History Chair, they have, pro- b Ably, insured another heresy prosecution in Scotland. Whether the reverend gentleman might avoid that by resigning his ministerial office and clinging to the Professorship we cannot say, but we do not suppose he will shrink from meeting his accusers by trying any such device. The Presbytery of Edinburgh, through several of its members, has virtually pledged itself to proceed to " libel " the new Professor, and if the latter hold himself respon- sible for what his friends have been saying on his behalf, he will welcome the opportunity of meeting his accusers face to face.
Even if the Presbytery were unwilling to take action, it can scarcely help itself now. An external pressure has been added to the internal. The advocates of disestablishment have been sup- plied with a new argument, which they will be only too eager to use if no attempt be made to deal with the alleged heretic. The sectarian zealots threaten an instant crusade against the State Church, if that institution is to remain a refuge for noted heretics such as the new Professor is accused of being. The cry has been already raised against the Church of Scotland that she is latitudi- narian, and negligent of the interests of Christian truth. If after what has been now said and done no further steps were to be taken by the Presbytery against its alleged heretical member, and if the Church were to accept certificates of attendance at the Church-History class of the new Professor as qualifying students for its ministry, the orthodox Dissenters would certainly unite with the political voluntaries to agitate for disestablishment in the interest of orthodoxy.
Of course, such an agitation, or the threat of it, ought not to influence the Church, or lead her to endeavour to draw tighter the bonds—already sufficiently cumbersome—by which her clergy are bound. It ought rather to be matter for gratification that there is room for complaint of too abundant latitude and liberty in any of the Scotch Churches. At the same time, if no inquisition be made into this case, the Church of Scotland must members of the Education League was but part, and not the most be prepared for the exercise of perfect doctrinal freedom. For important part, of my object in telling you the story of the it seems that Dr. Wallace, though he has signed the Westminster Birmingham Education Society. But as I did make the charge, I Confession—that most complicated of Church standards—has may as well insist upon it. There is reason. in the plea that been left at liberty to preach and teach in a manner subversive of Nonconformists in 1868 had no choice but to make use of the what are usually accounted the fundamental principles of Chris- tianity. He is charged with assailing the credibility of the Re- surrection of our Lord, and with assuming the attitude of a Secularist, who is sceptical of the truth of Christian doctrine in general. Now, of course, we hold that the more perfect the freedom of a Church, the more it permits to its clergy liberty of thought, research, and utterance, within the limits of hearty concurrence in fixed devotional assumptions, the better it must be for it and for the truth in the end. Accordingly we have no little sympathy with Dr. Wallace's demand that the State clergy should be free to seek truth by every means honestly available. Nor can we con- demn him for trying to realise that aim in the Church to which he belongs, if he really does not transcend the limits we have sug- gested. Nothing is more painfully hampering than the clogs bound round Christian teachers, by subscription to a series of obsolete metaphysical dogmas as the Confession of their faith. Dr.1 Wallace has done good service in working in the Church to bring about a relaxation of that system.
But at the present moment that is not the question at issue. The question is the probable result of the appointment of a clergy- man exposed to charges of heresy, in the peculiar circumstances of the Church of which he is a minister, to be one of its theological, professors. We have seen that she will feel bound to institute a prosecution for heresy. She has been called to it by loud appeals. She is urged to it by threats of external agitation. And deeply as it is to be regretted, it will not be surprising
if the Church take action. She can only abstain from doing so if she has nothing to fear from free inquiry, and is prepared to aban- don all attempts to fetter needlessly the minds and thoughts of her clergy. What Church is bold enough to do that? We fear the Church of Scotland is not. And we think it unfortunate that the occasion for such a heresy-hunt as we deprecate has been sup- plied. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the present appointment has been made. Dr. Wallace is a man of a good deal of rude intellectual force, and the sceptical bent of his mind has been allowed free play, but he is not so exceptionally qualified for a theological Professorship that it was indispensable he should have the first vacancy. He has done nothing to establish a claim to special fitness to lecture on Church history. His only known published contribution is a politico-ecclesiastical article in a volume of essays called " Recess Studies," and though an able controversial speaker and an effective preacher, there are several men in the Church of Scotland who have written with freshness and force on Church history, and who prima facie are better qualified than he. There was no necessity, then, to appoint Dr. Wallace, and as the appointment was sure to stir up a fierce opposition, it is to be regretted for the sake of theological and ecclesiastical peace. The Church of Scotland has been going quietly forward—if slowly—in the paths of progress. There is more scope for liberty of thought within her borders than in any of the sects. The fact of Dr. Wallace being allowed so long to preach unassailed is proof of that. Scotch Dissenting papers- boast that this would never have been possible in a non-established Church in Scotland, which we quite believe. Indirectly the appointment threatens to abridge this liberty. It was certain to call into full force all the heresy-hunting proclivities lying latent both in the Church and outside of it. The risk might have been worth running if the reverend doctor had been exceptionally gifted and qualified in regard to the subject he is to teach. But nobody knows him to be any such thing. He is mainly notorious for openly flouting the standards of his Church, which he has signed again this week. In this he has shown bold- ness, whether or not he may have manifested sensitiveness of conscience. It is not, however, from too great laxity on the part of a Presbyterian Church that danger is to be dreaded, but from the opposite source. What we fear is that an impetus may be gained by the movement in favour of disestablishment, and if dis- established, the Church of Scotland would in all likelihood become as narrow as any of the sects.
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