ARTICLE III.—JAMES MORISON AND HIS COMMENTARIES. A History of the Evangelical Union. By FERGUS FERGUSON, D.D. Glasgow: Thomas D. Morison, 1876. A Critical Exposition of the Third Chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans. A Monograph. By JAMES MORISON, D.D. London Hamilton, Adams & Co. Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1866. A Practical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark. By JAMES MORISON, D.D. Boston: N. J. Bartlett & Co., 28 Cornhill, 1882. A Practical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew. By JAMES MORISON, D.D. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Boston: N. J. Bartlett & Co., 1883. GEOGRAPHICALLY, New Haven is situated between Andover and Oberlin;-theologically, her Divinity School has been supposed to hold a corresponding position in relation to those flanking forces, East and West. But, by the signs of the times, Andover and Oberlin seem to have exchanged theological positions, yet New Haven remains unmoved. Out of the serenity of a conquered peace with all truth new and old, she, who long ago hailed Andover as orthodox, and Oberlin as one day so to be, has now the privilege of hailing Oberlin as orthodox, and Andover as one day so to be. So much for a catholic position to begin with. And, it is as holding this position,―Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri,—that The New Englander may take some notice of a Theologian, who, as a scholar and a reformer, has had a career, at many points, the counterpart of those its columns represent. Like the New Haven divines of forty, fifty years ago, James Morison and those about him have contended, and we think, successfully, for the right of Protestants to find out for themselves what the Bible contains; and to vary, if need be, the applications of its truths to the varying needs of the soul. The nicknames and the personal contempt cast at those men have already gone the way of all things worthless; the benefits of their claims for a reverent yet free investigation of the unchangeable Word are at length appearing. But let us not anticipate,-let us rather present a brief sketch of this fellow-helper to the truth, and direct attention to his stately Commentaries, now in their latest editions made accessible to American readers. At his graduation, James Morison left Edinburgh University not only a successful prizeman, but under the special encomiums of his instructors. Greek and Philosophy have always been favorite studies at Edinburgh; and in these specialties, Mr. Morison gave early promise of eminence. His Professor in Greek (Pillans), offered to see him advanced in the Established Church if he chose to enter it. His Professor in Philosophy (Wilson,-" Christopher North "), wrote on the back of his ticket, that "Mr. Morison had manifested as much intellectual power as had ever been displayed in his class." From the University the young graduate passed into the Divinity Hall of his Church, the United Secession, now the United Presbyterian Church,-where he had the instruction of such men as Dr. John Brown,-then without a peer in Scotland, as an exegetical theologian,-Drs. Balmer, Mitchell, and Duncan. At his licensure, in 1839, Dr. Brown declared that the young scholar was "the hope of their church." And, according to George Gilfillan, about that time the three "young Hannibals,"-the lions' brood of the Secession Church, were John Eadie, John Cairns, and James Morison. Dr. Eadie, held in honor while he lived, has passed away, Drs. Cairns and Morison are still at such posts of honor and responsibility as seem to make good the words of the literary prophet. During his probationary year, spent mainly in home missionary work in the bleaker counties of the North, Mr. Morison came under searching and serious religious impressions; and, having had to read his Bible for his own eternal life, his naturally deep and earnest nature became "seized and pos sessed" of the glorious gospel of the Blessed God, in an intensely practical way. And, what had blest himself be desired to proclaim to others; so, as he had come into "the peace that passeth understanding" by a simple belief in Christ as his personal Saviour, because presented as a Saviour for all men, "Christ for every man" must thenceforth be his theme of themes. Not only was the young preacher born again, his preaching was born again,--his language, manner, methods, aims, all took the intensely practical turn that usually characterizes the newly quickened. Here might follow the story of the crowds and conversions, the protracted meetings, the new measures, the alleged extravagances of statement,--sometimes no doubt justly enough alleged, the peculiar directions to the inquiring, and the discussions thereupon,--but, after allowing for the differing manners of different countries, the story is what the dwellers in this region are all familiar with. In 1840 Mr. Morison was ordained pastor of Clerk's Lane Church in Kilmarnock; but he was not peaceably settled. His Presbytery, and a small minority of his congregation, took exceptions to several doctrinal and practical points in his teaching, almost all of them turning upon his views of the Scriptures on the nature and extent of the atonement. To the Presbytery's credit, the preaching of the unrestricted propitiation for sin was not one of the counts in the libel, served upon him within a year after his ordination. Yet, it is noticeable, that in all the ensuing discussions of the case, the great difference, or source of difference, between Mr. Morison and his brethren was on the matter of the atonement. His contention was that according to the Scriptures, Christ had died for all men, without distinction and without exception; their contention was that neither the Bible nor the church's standards admitted of any such assertion; that the atonement, in itself considered, had a limiting refererce to believers, and so far had an aspect, or particular reference coördinating it with election, justification, sanctification, and redemption. Mr. Morison's preaching drew distinctions, sharp and clear, between the coördinated blessings just enumerated, and the ground of them all, the dying of the Lord Jesus; that he preached, in itself as really available for one man as for another. But during the discussions between Mr. Morison and his Presbytery, he did not deny that his teaching, upon this and other theological points, differed from the Church's subordinate standards. And we have no doubt that Mr. Morison believed, with many other enlightened Presbyterians, Charles Hodge, Albert Barnes, and others, Old School and New, that he had a liberty, within the standards, to give his own expositions of particular Scriptures; to favor certain experiences; even to maintain the changed aspects of certain doctrines, provided he held to the grand outlines of the Protestant faith. Before his Presbytery Mr. Morison said: "That he preached no doctrines contradictory to the main scope of the Church's standards of faith. He had a high veneration for those standards, and he conceived them to embody the grand peculiar Protestant doctrines of grace. With those grand doctrines he had never preached anything at variance. His subscription secured that he would not teach anything like Pelagianism, Socinianism or Roman Catholicism; but it did not bind him, he conceived, to every minute tittle and iota within these subordinate standards. * * * * * + He himself had been taught by his own professor things expressly at variance with those standards. The eternal generation of the Son of God is explicitly taught in the confession of faith; but he had heard it as explicitly contradicted by his venerated instructor. He took no license with the standards that other ministers did not take. He stood pledged to maintain the grand Protestant doctrines of grace, and to adhere to the main scope of the standards; but he could not permit himself to be so positively imprisoned by their human formularies as not to take his own views of certain doctrines, and his own modes of presenting all of them to the minds of his hearers."* Speaking in a claim for substantially the same liberty, opposing a proposition for a Church Commentary which should accord with the faith of the word of God as briefly set forth in the standard of the Westminster Assembly, Dr. Charles Hodge, a Presbyterian of the conservative order, deservedly high in honor among Presbyterians everywhere, says, "We could not hold together for a week, if we made the adoption of all its professions [1. e. of the Westminster confession] a condition of ministerial communion. Who can tell us the Church's sense of the confession: it is notorious that as to that point we are not agreed." That the Presbytery citing Mr. Morison for his departure from the standards did not take that view of them, appears in a significant sentence closing the first count in the * Ferguson's History of The Evangelical Union, page 65. + Quoted by Professor Dwight in The New Englander for March, 1881. libel served upon him. They complained that his view of the Atonement "Represented it, as if it had been fitted to secure the salvation of all men, irrespective of the electing grace of God. Because, in order to lay a foundation for immediate and permanent assurance to the believer, it taught a doctrine which involved a security for the salvation of all men :-viz : that there is a fact in Scripture which has only to be barely seen to be true, in order to give to any man the assurance of salvation. It was true that Mr. Morison did not say that this proposition involved that doctrine; but this could not alter the nature of the proposition, nor warrant the Presbytery to tolerate its being taught.”* According to this, if we understand it aright, forty years ago a Presbyterian minister might be exscinded, not for what he said, but for what he did not say, provided his co-Presbyters' logic concluded against him. The Apostle Paul asked, "Why should my liberty be judged of another man's conscience." What might he have said had his doctrines been condemned upon another man's interpretation of them? What he did say in an analogous case, see Romans iii. 8. Indeed, in certain Presbyteries, the right to demand that each member's doctrinal instructions shall be, virtually, subjected to the judg ment of the others, is stili insisted on. The case of Dr. McLane, now of New Haven, is a case of relief sought from this very thing. If we are not misinformed, his co-Presbyters, not contented with what he did say, insisted that he should say more to satisfy those who thought "the gospel" was not preached unless their views of it were presented in their way. But we have no wish to delay upon this difference of opinion. regarding the amount of liberty possible to ministers in a confederated Church. We refer to it here not to criticise any Presbytery in a given case,-that were both gratuitous and ungracious, for every Church Court has its own business in its own hands, and strangers do not well to intermeddle, but to inform ourselves on the way an assertion of the Protestant right of private interpretation was met; and to note what numbers. of the Church Catholic stand condemned, if these deliverances against the preaching of Christ as really and truly available for every man, seriously amount to anything. Formally they may, as the decision of a majority against such of their own |