The Reformed Presbyterians join the Free Church

How the union came about

The Act of Union recites the steps. The General Assembly of the Free Church, “on the 30th May 1874, upon Overtures [formal proposals] from Presbyteries, declared the cordial satisfaction with which they would contemplate a scriptural union with the Reformed Presbyterian Church”. Its Commission [the Commission of Assembly, which acts between Assemblies], “on the 18th November, received a communication from a Committee on Union, appointed by the Reformed Presbyterian Synod”, and appointed a committee for conference, and “in the months of January and February of the year 1875, statements on the part of the Committees were exchanged, setting forth the principles and historical position of both Churches … and especially on the part of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, with reference to the second Reformation and Revolution Settlement”.¹

Hutchison quotes one of the Free Church overtures of 1874: “considering the valuable testimony which the Reformed Presbyterian Church has been honoured to bear to the truth of Christ in Scotland, and the many services it has rendered to the cause of true and undefiled religion, as well as the absence of any sufficient cause of continued separation between that Church and the Free Church”. Two of the conferences met on 20 January and 17 February 1875, and the Union Report to the Synod of 1875, Hutchison writes, “was submitted by Rev. Dr Goold”. MacPherson writes that the Reformed Presbyterians responded “under the leadership of Dr. Goold”.²

In May 1875 the Synod resolved, Hutchison writes, that it “now feels called upon, in the providence of God, to agree to union with the Free Church, in the event of its next General Assembly arriving at a similar conclusion”, and sent the resolution down to its Presbyteries and Sessions [the minister and elders of each congregation]. An amendment, which held that adopting “the Formulas [the statements of belief that ministers and elders sign] of the Free Church” would be “obviously fatal to conserving the distinctive principles of our Church”, was defeated: “56 voted for the motion, and 4 for the amendment; 5 declined to vote.”³

The terms were set out in the Free Church’s overture of 1875, as the Act of Union repeats it: the Synod were “willing to accept, without reserve, the existing Formula of the Free Church of Scotland, on the understanding that the Act of Assembly, August 27. 1647 [the Act approving the Westminster Confession], and the Preamble to the Act XII. Assembly 1846 [the Free Church’s Act guarding the Confession against misconstruction] are held to be in force as interpreting the said Formula, and also to allow the name of the united Church to be the Free Church of Scotland”. The Assembly sent it to Presbyteries “in terms of the Barrier Act” [the rule that a new standing law must first be approved by the presbyteries].⁴

In March 1876, the Act records, the Synod found that its overture “had received the approval of all the Presbyteries, and of all the Sessions reporting, with the exception of two”, and declared it “the Resolution of the Church in accordance with its law and practice”. Hutchison gives the vote at that meeting as 57 to 6.⁵

The last Synod, 22 May 1876

Hutchison writes: “On the 22nd of May, 1876, the last of the long series of Synods of the Reformed Presbyterian Church met in Martyrs’ Church, Edinburgh. The Rev. W. H. Goold, D.D., was chosen Moderator”. Naismith, minister at Chirnside, records that “37 ministers and 34 elders were present”, and that “Dr Goold, who had so long and ably acted as convener of the Committee on Union, was chosen moderator.”⁶

Hutchison writes that when it was moved that the Synod consider the matters connected with the union, “there was one solitary dissentient, the Rev. Thomas Easton of Stranraer, who had all along opposed the union, and now declined to take part in it.” The Act of Union “was read and sanctioned as the uniting Act of the two Churches, and ordered to be engrossed in the Minutes of Synod”, and the arrangements for the support of the ministry and the Church’s funds were agreed. Goold then gave a closing address, “in a way befitting the last Moderator of the old Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland.”⁷

The Assembly, 25 May 1876

On 25 May, in its eleventh session, the Free Church Assembly passed the overture into law: “Therefore the General Assembly, with consent of a majority of Presbyteries, hereby enact and ordain that an Incorporative Union may now be effected by the Assembly upon the terms above indicated”. Hutchison writes that “seventy-one out of seventy-two home Presbyteries had approved the Overture”, and that the Act of Union was “sanctioned by the Assembly without a dissentient voice”.⁸

The Assembly then instructed “the Principal Clerks to proceed to the place where that Synod is now meeting, and to intimate that the Assembly are ready to hold the joint meeting in this Hall, if that shall be agreeable to the Synod.”⁹

Hutchison describes what followed: “The members of Synod then marched two and two in procession from Martyrs’ Church to the Free Assembly Hall, from the towers of which the old blue banner of the Covenant waved. As they entered the Hall the vast audience received them standing and in solemn silence”.¹⁰

The Act of Union

The Assembly’s record: “The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church having entered the Assembly, and taken their places, it was moved by the Convener of the Free Church Committee on Union, and seconded by the Convener of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Committee on Union, and unanimously agreed to”, the Act of Union. “The Act of Union was signed by the Moderators and Clerks of the Free Church Assembly and of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod.”¹¹

In the Act, the Assembly and Synod “first of all desire to express their devout thankfulness to the great Head of the Church for the spirit of love and concord which has prevailed during these negotiations for Union”. They then “enact and declare that the two Churches do and shall henceforth constitute one united Church in all matters spiritual and ecclesiastical; that the said Church shall include and consist of the Free Church of Scotland as existing previously to the union, and of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland as existing previously to the union; that the name of the united Church shall be ‘The Free Church of Scotland;’ and that its supreme Court shall be designated ‘The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland’”. They reserved to the Reformed Presbyterian Church “its separate name and existence in so far as regards the civil rights and property” belonging to it or its congregations.¹²

It is signed:¹³

• Wm. H. Goold, Moderator of Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland
• John Kay, Clerk to Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland
• Thos. M’Lauchlan, Moderator of General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland
• H. Wellwood Moncreiff, Principal Clerk of General Assembly of Free Church
• William Wilson, Principal Clerk of General Assembly of Free Church
• G. Meldrum, Depute-Clerk of General Assembly of Free Church

The roll of the Synod

“The Roll of Members of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church was given in by the Clerk of Synod”, and is printed in the Assembly’s Acts with each minister’s elder and congregation. The ministers and congregations, by presbytery (among them the historians Matthew Hutchison of New Cumnock and Robert Naismith of Chirnside):¹⁴

• Presbytery of Glasgow: Wm. Symington, D.D., Glasgow, Great Hamilton Street; David D. Ormond, Stirling; John M’Dermid, Glasgow Southern Congregation, Cumberland Street; David Taylor, Glasgow, Dover Street; John Torrance, Glasgow, St George’s Road; John Edgar, A.M., Glasgow, Barrowfield; John Kay, Coatbridge; Thomas W. Patrick, Rutherglen; Airdrie (an elder only)
• Presbytery of Kilmarnock: Alexander Davidson, Kilbirnie; M. G. Easton, D.D., Darvel; William Clow, Kilmarnock; Thomas H. Lang, Ayr; Matthew Hutchison, New Cumnock; John Jackson, Girvan
• United Presbyteries of Newton-Stewart and Dumfries: Walter R. Paton, Whithorn; James Goold, Newton-Stewart; Thomas Easton, Stranraer; Matthew Brown, Hightae; William Milroy, Penpont; James Morrison, Eskdalemuir; Robert M’Kenna, A.M., Dumfries; George Lawrie, Castle-Douglas; James Bowie, Dunscore
• Presbytery of Edinburgh: Thomas Martin and Nathan Cosh, Strathmiglo; Wm. H. Goold, D.D., Edinburgh; Robert Naismith, Chirnside; John Wylie, Dundee; J. Hunter, A.M., B.D., Laurieston; Thomas Ramage, Douglas-Water
• Presbytery of Paisley: Alexander Baird, Port-Glasgow; Andrew Symington, Greenock; Charles N. M’Caig and James M. Fulton, Lochgilphead; George Clazy, Paisley; George Davidson, Renton; John H. Thomson, Eaglesham; Lorn (no minister named)

“The General Assembly unanimously adopt the Rev. Dr Thomas M’Lauchlan as their Moderator”. Dr Moody Stuart led in prayer, and the Moderator “addressed the late Moderator and members of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod and congratulated the whole Assembly on the Union now accomplished. The late Moderator of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod made a suitable reply.” The Assembly then placed each Reformed Presbyterian congregation in a Free Church presbytery: Chirnside in Dunse and Chirnside, Douglas in Lanark, Ayr in Ayr, and so on.¹⁵

Of Goold’s reply, Hutchison writes that he “dwelt on the normal condition of Presbyterianism as being that of unity, and on the doctrinal and historical bearings of the Union”; the speech is printed in his Appendix No. XIV.¹⁶

Those who stayed out

MacPherson writes: “Of the thirty-eight ministers of the Synod, only one, the Rev. Thomas Easton of Stranraer, refused to enter into the union.” Hutchison writes: “Only one minister declined to go into the Union, and only one congregation besides his own chose to retain a separate position. The congregation at Carnoustie returned to its former connection with the Original Secession Church, and the congregation at Liverpool had just been disjoined in order to take part in the approaching Union of Presbyterians in England.”¹⁷

Couper writes that Easton, “followed by his congregation, remained aloof”, until his death in 1887, “when they quietly joined the remanent [remaining] Reformed Presbyterian Synod.” Hutchison adds that Whithorn too was received into the minority Synod after 1876. Keddie counts five congregations that declined the union: “Douglas Water, Rothesay, Stranraer and Whithorn later returned to the continuing RP Church, while Carnoustie rejoined the Original Secession Church”.¹⁸

As the Act provided, the Synod continued for its property alone: it was appointed to meet “on the second Tuesday of March, 1877”, Hutchison writes, “and it has continued to meet regularly up to the present time.” Keddie records that it remained “a Synod quoad civilia [for civil purposes only]” until 1932.¹⁹

Hutchison closes his history with the view that “this Church of the Old Dissenters was justified in merging itself in the Free Protesting Church of Scotland.” Keddie, from the continuing Church, writes that the Synod “was simply absorbed into the massive structure of the Free Church – perhaps 10,000 souls among a third of a million!”²⁰