The Act, Declaration, and Testimony

A testimony long delayed

Hutchison writes that after the Reformed Presbytery was constituted in 1743 “it was felt to be very necessary, that a more full and formal statement of the position and principles of the Church should be prepared.” The work was laid first on Thomas Nairn, but “ere it could be accomplished his conduct brought him under the censures of the Church.” It was then given “to another member of Presbytery, Mr Hall, we believe; but his secession in 1753 prevented the carrying out of the work.”¹

The Act’s own Introduction tells the same story without names. The Presbytery, “soon after their erection, being convinced of the expediency and necessity of emitting [issuing] a judicial testimony, to discover [show] to the world the principles upon which, as a judicatory [church court] of the Lord Jesus Christ, they stood”, appointed one of their number to prepare “a draught [draft] of this kind”. He, “after sundry delays”, laid himself open to “the censures of the church”. The brother appointed next proved to be “of the separating party” when “the presbytery was rent asunder”, and the few that were left were “almost wholly discouraged from attempting again what they had been oftner [oftener] than once disappointed in.”²

Still, the Presbytery “again laid their appointments upon some others, to prepare a draught of An Act, Declaration, and Testimony”, and the long delay, it explained, came “partly from the fewness of their number, and great extent of their charge, and partly from the great distance of members residence from each other, whereby they can seldom have access to meet all together”.³

Hutchison dates the renewed work to “about 1757, as the earliest extant minute, of date February, 1758, speaks of a Committee already in existence, to whom the preparation of the proposed Act had been entrusted, but no names are given.” From the minutes he learns only that “different portions were assigned to particular individuals, that each carefully revised the work of the others, and that the task of writing out a fair copy of the whole was laid upon the Clerk of Presbytery, Mr Thorburn, then a probationer [a licensed preacher not yet ordained].”⁴

The men who prepared it

Hutchison writes that John Courtass “was ordained in 1755”, and that “for seven years the whole ministerial charge of the Societies rested upon Mr Courtass and Mr M’Millan”, that is, John M’Millan the younger (“John M’Millan II” in Couper’s lists). John Thorburn, born near Ecclefechan, was clerk to the Presbytery in 1758, “licensed at Crawfordjohn on 1st February, 1759”, and ordained there on 6 May 1762.⁵

Hutchison divides the Act into “three parts, historical, controversial, and doctrinal. The first two are believed to have been written by the Rev. John Courtass, and the last has been ascribed to the Rev. John Thorburn.” He doubts the second ascription, since Thorburn was “only a probationer” when it was adopted, and “there is nothing in the minutes to show that he did more than write out a fair copy”; the doctrinal part, he thinks, “may with greater probability be ascribed to the Rev. John M’Millan, afterwards of Sandhills and Glasgow.”⁶

Ploughlandhead, 6 June 1761

The Act opens its first part with the Presbytery’s minute: “At Ploughlandhead, the 6th day of June, 1761. The which day and place, the Reformed Presbytery being met, and taking into their most serious consideration, the deplorable situation of the interest of Christ and religion at present, in these sinning lands”. Hutchison writes: “It received the final sanction of the Presbytery on 6th June, 1761, and was issued under the title, ‘Act, Declaration, and Testimony for the whole of our Covenanted Reformation.’”⁷

The Introduction gives six reasons for publishing. The third is that “yet never, since the national overthrow of the glorious structure of reformation, has any church judicatory, constituted purely on the footing of our covenanted establishment, appeared in a judicial vindication of our Redeemer’s interest and injured rights.” The fifth is “to wipe off the reproach” cast on the Presbytery and its people by some “who invidiously call them a headless mob, whose principles cannot be known, anti-government men, men of bloody principles”. For these reasons the Presbytery found itself bound “to throw in their small mite of a testimony, against the manifold avowed backslidings and defections of all degrees of men”.⁸

The Act closes with the words “Extracted by Jo. Thorburn”, the Presbytery Clerk.⁹

What it contains

The first part is headed: “Containing a brief historical narration of the several periods of the Testimony of the Church of Scotland, and of the faithful contendings of the witnesses for Christ, particularly from the commencement of the Reformation in these lands, down to the late Revolution; with the Presbytery’s approbation [approval] thereof.”¹⁰

Hutchison describes the whole. The historical portion has “a sketch of the contendings of the Scottish Church from the Reformation till 1649, a review of the various steps of defection from that date till the Revolution, and a lengthened re-statement of the grounds upon which the Societies refused to homologate [give approval to] the Settlement either in Church or State then made”. “The controversial portion is devoted to an elaborate criticism of the principles of the Seceders, with respect to the ordinance of civil magistracy”. “The doctrinal part, which is comprised within the modest limits of thirty pages, is a clear and compact summary of evangelical truth on the lines of the Confession of Faith.” Its purpose, in the Act’s words as he quotes them, was nothing less “than the right stating of the Testimony for the Covenanted interest of Christ in these lands, and judicial vindication of all the heads thereof.”¹¹

Of the dispute with the Secession, Hutchison writes that “the great difference between the parties concerned the doctrine of civil magistracy, and the attitude that should be maintained towards the existing civil authorities.” He quotes the Act on the Church’s freedom: “They reject and condemn that gross Erastian [state-over-church] principle that the civil magistrate is supreme head over all persons, and in all causes ecclesiastical”.¹²

Terms of communion, and later editions

When the Act was issued, Hutchison writes, “it was deemed desirable to have a new and shorter formula for the admission of members drawn up”, and six articles were adopted:¹³

• I. The acknowledgment of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and the alone infallible rule of faith and practice.
• II. The acknowledgment of the Confession of Faith and Catechisms, Larger and Shorter, to be founded upon and agreeable to the Word of God.
• III. The owning of the Divine right and original of Presbyterian Church Government.
• IV. The acknowledgment of the perpetual obligation of our Covenants, National and Solemn League, and in consistence with this, acknowledging the renovation of these Covenants at Auchinsaugh, 1712, to be agreeable to the Word of God.
• V. The owning of all the scriptural testimonies and earnest contendings of Christ’s faithful witnesses, whether martyrs under the late persecution, or such as have succeeded them in maintaining the same cause, and especially of the Judicial Act, Declaration and Testimony, emitted by the Reformed Presbytery.
• VI. Practically adorning the doctrine of God our Saviour by walking in all His commandments and ordinances blamelessly.

Apart from a change to the last part of Article IV in 1822, Hutchison writes, “this formula continued in force till 1876.” “Several editions of the Act were published during the next seventy-six years, and various alterations were made upon it, but these were of a minor character and did not affect its substance.” The copy online is the third edition, printed at Edinburgh in 1777 “with several additions”.¹⁴

The next year, 1762, the whole community, until then “regarded as one great congregation”, was divided into a Northern and a Southern congregation. From 1763 John M’Millan and John Thorburn had charge of the Northern, and John Courtass and John Fairley of the Southern, and, Hutchison writes, they were long remembered as the “Four Johns.”¹⁵