Dugald Macfadyen

“ Allon was a man of sound judgment, strong will, great moral courage and personal kindness. His acquaintance with literature was wide, his own style lucid and decisive. In social and political affairs he was a convinced individualist. Both as leader of Union Chapel and in denominational affairs his courage and discretion, his simple faith, combined with a broad-minded sympathy with the intellectual movements of the time, made his ministry a widespread influence for good. ”

“ The three ends proposed by the church in such discipline are there stated to be, (1) that those who lead scandalous lives may not to the dishonour of God be numbered among Christians, seeing that the church is the body of Christ; (2) that the good may not be corrupted by constant association with the wicked; (3) that those who are censured or excommunicated, confounded with shame, may be led to repentance. He differentiates decisively between excommunication and anathema. ”

“ The Englishman’s Greek Concordance of the New Testament, and the Englishman’s Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance, are books intended to put the results of the above-mentioned works at the service of those who know little Hebrew or Greek. Every word in the Bible is given in Hebrew or Greek, the word is transliterated, and then every passage in which it occurs is given—the word, however it may be translated, being italicized. ”

“ The divine mind in Christ is the mind of perfect sonship towards God and perfect brotherhood towards men. By the light of this divine fact the Incarnation is seen to develop itself naturally and necessarily as an atonement ”

“ Each congregation had a plurality of elders, pastors or bishops, who were chosen according to what were believed to be the instructions of Paul, without regard to previous education or present occupation, and who enjoy a perfect equality in office. ”

“ When Christ promises that what his ministers bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, he limits the power of binding to the censure of the church; by which those who are excommunicated are not cast into eternal ruin and condemnation, but by having their life and conduct condemned are also certified of their final condemnation unless they repent. ”

“ It was presented to the queen on the 3rd of November 1737, a fortnight before her death.
Although Cruden’s biblical labours have made his name a household word among English-speaking people, he was disappointed in his hopes of immediate profit, and his mind again became unhinged. In spite of his earnest and self-denying piety, and his exceptional intellectual powers, he developed idiosyncrasies, and his life was marred by a harmless but ridiculous egotism, which so nearly bordered on insanity that his friends sometimes thought it necessary to have him confined. ”

“ Campbell was greatly loved and esteemed by a circle of friends, which included Thomas Erskine, Norman McLeod, Bishop Alexander Ewing, F.D. Maurice, D.J. Vaughan, and he lived to be recognized and honoured as a man whose opinion on theological subjects carried great weight. ”

“ No persons so excommunicated shall incur any civil penalty or incapacity whatever, save such sentence of imprisonment, not exceeding six months, as the court shall direct and certify to the king in chancery.
In the churches which consciously shaped their polity at or after the Reformation the principle of excommunication is preserved in the practice of church discipline. Calvin devotes a chapter in the Institutes (bk. iv. chap. xii.) to the “Discipline of the Church; its Principal Use in Censure and Excommunication.” ”

“ MACKENNAL, ALEXANDER (1835–1904) , English Nonconformist divine, was born at Truro in Cornwall, on the 14th of January 1835, the son of Patrick Mackennal, a Scot, who had settled in Cornwall. In 1848 the family removed to London, and at sixteen he went to Glasgow University. In 1854 he entered Hackney College to prepare for the Congregational ministry, and in 1857 he graduated B.A. at London University. ”

“ On completing his course, Melville left St Andrews with the reputation of “the best poet, philosopher, and Grecian of any young master in the land.” He then, in 1564, being nineteen years of age, set out for France to perfect his education at the university of Paris. He there applied himself to Oriental languages, but also attended the last course of lectures delivered by Turnebus in the Greek chair, as well as those of Peter Ramus, whose philosophical method and plan of teaching he afterwards introduced into the universities of Scotland. ”

“ Subsequent critics have pointed out that Campbell’s position was not self-consistent in the place assigned to the penal and expiatory element in the sufferings of Christ, nor adequate in its recognition of the principle that the obedience of Christ perfectly affirms all righteousness and so satisfies the holiness of God. In 1859 his health gave way, and he advised his congregation to join the Barony church, where Norman McLeod was pastor. ”

“ Unless the people be able to convince them of errors and mistakes in their sentence, they are bound to joyn their judgment with theirs to the compleating of the sentence. (4) The sentence thus compleatly issued is to be solemnly passed and pronounced upon the delinquent by the ruling Elder whether it be of censure or excommunication.” In this passage it is clear that the effective power of discipline is regarded as being wholly in the power of the individual church or congregation. ”

“ He was educated at the grammar school, Aberdeen, and studied at Marischal College, intending to enter the ministry. He took the degree of master of arts, but soon after began to show signs of insanity owing to a disappointment in love. ”

“ In 1868 Blaikie was called to the chair of apologetics and pastoral theology at New College, Edinburgh. In dealing with the latter subject he was seen at his very best. He had wide experience, a comprehensive grasp of facts, abundant sympathy, an extensive knowledge of men, and a great capacity for teaching. In 1870 he was one of two representatives chosen from the Free Church of Scotland to attend the united general assembly of the Presbyterian churches of the United States. ”

“ This is a graded procedure as in the Jewish synagogue and makes exclusion a last resort. Nothing is said as to the nature and effects of excommunication. The tone of the passage when compared with the disciplinary methods of the synagogue indicates that its purpose was to introduce elements of reason and moral suasion in place of sterner methods. Its object is rather the protection of the church than the punishment of the sinner. The offender is only treated as a heathen and publican when the purity and safety of the church demand it. ”

“ For these opinions he was in 1728 suspended from the discharge of ministerial functions, and finally deposed in 1730. The members of the society already referred to, however, for the most part continued to adhere to him, thus constituting the first “Glassite” or “Glasite” church. ”

“ In the middle of the 19th century Charles Hermann Bruder brought out a beautiful edition (Tauchnitz) with many improvements. The apparatus criticus was a triumph of New Testament scholarship. It collates the readings of Erasmus, R. Stephens’ third edition, the Elzevirs, Mill, Bengel, Webster, Knapp, Tittman, Scholz, Lachmann. It also gives a selection from the most ancient patristic MSS. and from various interpreters. No various reading of critical value is omitted. An edition of Bruder with readings of Samuel Prideaux Tregelles was published in 1888 under the editorship of Westcott and Hort. ”

“ He is said to have gained £800 by these two editions. He returned to London from Aberdeen, and died suddenly while praying in his lodgings in Camden Passage, Islington, on the 1st of November 1770. He was buried in the ground of a Protestant dissenting congregation in Dead Man’s Place, Southwark. He bequeathed a portion of his savings for a £5 bursary at Aberdeen, which preserves his name on the list of benefactors of the university. ”

“ The school soon began to expand into a missionary college, and a government minute was adopted on the 7th of March 1835, to the effect that in higher education the object of the British government should be the promotion of European science and literature among the natives of India, and that all funds appropriated for purposes of education would be best employed on English education alone. Duff wrote a pamphlet on the question, entitled “A New Era of the English Language and Literature in India.” ”

“ The public expulsion or suspension of the offender is necessary for the good repute of the church, and its influence over the faithful members. The expelled member may be readmitted on showing the fruits of repentance.
In Scotland three degrees of church censure are recognized—admonition, suspension from sealing ordinances (which may be called temporary excommunication) , and excommunication properly so-called. ”

“ Among these were several men learned in civil law and political science, and their society increased Melville’s knowledge of the world and enlarged his ideas of civil and ecclesiastical liberty. In 1574 Melville returned to Scotland, and almost immediately received the appointment of principal of Glasgow University, which had fallen into an almost ruinous state, the college having been shut and the students dispersed. Melville, however, set himself to establish a good educational system. ”

“ Concordances in this last sense were first made for the Bible. Originally the word was only used in this connexion in the plural concordantiae, each group of parallel passages being properly a concordantia. The Germans distinguish between concordances of things and concordances of words, the former indexing the subject matter of a book (“real” concordance) , the latter the words (“verbal” concordance) . ”

“ Lev. xxvii. 16-34 defines the law for dealing with “devoted” things; according to v. 28 “No devoted thing that a man shall devote unto the Lord, of all that he hath, whether of man or beast, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed. None devoted shall be ransomed, he shall surely be put to death.” ”

“ His father suffered for his adherence to the Free Church at the Disruption in 1843, and removed to Edinburgh, where the son was educated, showing exceptional ability from the first. His early religious doubts, awakened especially by Strauss’s Life of Jesus, made him throughout life sympathetic with those who underwent a similar stress. After serving as assistant first at Ancrum, then at Lochwinnoch, he was called to Cardross in Dumbartonshire in 1859, and to Broughty Ferry in 1868. ”

“ The elders are to go before the congregation in laying open the rule so far as reacheth any particular now to be considered, and to express their judgment and determination thereof, so far as appertains to themselves. ”

“ In November 1837 he returned to Edinburgh, where he became the most distinguished student of his time, graduating M.A. in 1841, first in classics and philosophy and bracketed first in mathematics. While at Edinburgh he organized the Metaphysical Society along with A. Campbell Fraser and David Masson. He entered the Presbyterian Secession Hall in 1840, and in 1843 wrote an article in the Secession Magazine on the Free Church movement, which aroused the interest of Thomas Chalmers. The years 1843–1844 he spent at Berlin studying German philosophy and theology. ”

“ He was educated at the universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh, where he gained a lasting reputation for classical scholarship. He entered Glasgow Theological Academy under Ralph Wardlaw in September 1827, but in December of the same year he left to become classical tutor at the Blackburn Theological Academy (afterwards the Lancashire Independent College) . ”

“ The church, which was built at a cost of £50,000, was specially adapted for congregational worship and was mentioned by an architectural journal as one of the hundred remarkable buildings of the century. ”

“ After a residence of three years, however, political troubles compelled him to leave France, and he went to Geneva, where he was welcomed by Theodore, Beza, at whose instigation he was appointed to the chair of humanity in the academy of Geneva. ”

“ The Disruption controversy reached its climax immediately afterwards, and Blaikie, whose sympathies were entirely with Chalmers, was one of the 474 ministers who signed the deed of demission and gave up their livings. He was Free Church minister at Pilrig, between Edinburgh and Leith, from 1844 to 1868. Keenly interested in questions of social reform, his first publication was a pamphlet, which was afterwards enlarged into a book called Better Days for Working People. ”

“ The book, being attacked from the standpoint of high Calvinism, became the standard of a far-reaching movement in Scottish Presbyterianism. The “Marrow men” were marked by the zeal of their service and the effect of their preaching. ”

“ He played an effective part in expressing the popular desire for peace between England and America in reply to President Cleveland’s message on the Venezuelan boundary dispute, and was invited to Washington to preach in connexion with the endeavour to establish an international arbitration treaty. In 1896 he was elected chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. In 1898 his health began to fail, and he died suddenly on the 31st of January 1899. ”

“ He formed an association for providing better homes for working people, and the Pilrig Model Buildings were erected. He also undertook the editorship of the Free Church Magazine, and then that of the North British Review, which he carried on until 1863. ”