the scottish episcopal church

A New History, by gavin white

Preface

1
Tullochgorum

2
Eighteenth Century

3
Seabury

4
Worship

5
Edinburgh

6
Oxford Movement

7
Glasgow

8
Publications

9
Church or Province

10
'English Episcopal'

11
Schools

12
Social Service

13
Synods and Councils

14
Clergy Training

15
A Small Dog Barking

16
As Others See Us

17
Women

18
Society

19
Second World War and After

Selected bibliography

Links

"The history of the Established Presbyterian Church is a thing almost of yesterday - a thing that passed under the eyes of the grandfathers or great-grandfathers of men still alive. And the two main elements of Presbyterianism were these - parity of ministers, and Calvinism." These words appeared in the Scottish Guardian of 1879, and they typify the Episcopalian view of Presbyterianism until that decade or shortly later. They may not seem rational to us to-day, but it was possible for reasonable people to hold them in the middle of the last century. After various shifts in one direction then another, Presbyterianism had triumphed in 1690, but the shifts had been so many that 1690 was not seen as final. (1)

Furthermore, there were then many forms of Presbyterianism. There was the Church of Scotland, the largest, and the one established in law, and there was the Free Church, which had taken out a third of the Kirk's members and ministers in 1843 on the principle of spiritual independence. This made it something of a Scottish parallel to the Oxford Movement in the Church of England, though this was not then recognised by many in either body. And there were the various Secessionist churches of the eighteenth century which, divided into four groupings, apart from the Relief Church, gave an appearance of disunity which was somewhat misleading. Most of them had already united in 1847 to form the United Presbyterian Church, of which the very name aroused ridicule amongst Episcopalians since Presbyterians, by their nature, could never be "united". That there was no central principle to Presbyterianism was as firm a belief amongst most Episcopalians as the belief amongst English Roman Catholics that there was no such principle in the Church of England. In 1871 a letter in the Scottish Guardian said bluntly, and without contradiction, "That Nemesis of disunion, which follows upon every deliberate departure from Catholic order, is gradually bringing Presbyterianism to a state of disintegration." It was not a church at all, and many would have agreed with the clerical hero in an Episcopalian novel called Marie Altenshaw and serialised in 1867, when he observed of a Presbyterian minister met on a Clyde excursion vessel, "some of these fellows are beginning to dress as if they were clergymen," when they obviously were not. (2)

Again, there was no recognition that "parity of ministers" was something positive, implying a system of church courts which was soon to spread into the Episcopal Church and into the Church of England. It was taken to mean rejection of bishops and nothing more. As for Calvinism, the Episcopal clergy seem to have known little of it. The grandeur of Calvin's system, the positive value of its study, was overlooked, and the word taken to mean double predestination to heaven or hell, of a nature which would have been alien to Calvin himself. To many Episcopalians, it meant a belief in a harsh God which produced a harsh nation, and, as stated in 1934, "humiliating backwardness in culture and spiritual perception". The only answer was anglicisation, and this was a rapid process through most of the nineteenth century. Nor was it initially unwelcome; it is said that Scots welcomed it until about 1890, while the English generally treasured the old picturesque Scots customs, and after 1890 Scots reverted to asserting their national identity, while the English tried to subvert it. In fact there were many gradations and overlapping contradictions in the process. (3)

But there was one more cause of confusion, and this was the widespread Anglican assumption that Presbyterians were Unitarians and did not hold a doctrine of the divinity of Christ, even if they themselves were unaware of this. There was some excuse for this error. In eighteenth century England the bulk of the Presbyterian chapels had become Unitarian, as had much of New England Congregationalism. In fact, the stress of Calvinism upon the majesty of God did tend to minimise the place of Christ, but this was a tendency normally offset by other factors in church life and not a serious threat to orthodoxy. But Anglicans with a background in Oxford Movement writings were not well placed to understand the matter. J.H.Newman had consistently thought of Protestantism in terms of the denial of Christ's divinity, while other Oxford worthies such as Hugh James Rose and E.B.Pusey had drank deep of the waters of German scholarship and had then come to dismiss it as rationalism. (4)

So Episcopalians from 1840 until about 1890 took it for granted that Presbyterians were on the way out, and they were on the way in. On the other hand, the existence of a "high church" group of liturgical Presbyterians puzzled some, just as the existence of Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England puzzled some Roman Catholics. But Episcopalians either wrote them off as having no substance, or welcomed them as potential leaders of the great mass of Scots into the true church. In 1864 the liturgical innovations of Dr. Robert Lee were greeted with favour, "It is a movement in the right direction. We should recognise it, and hail it with sympathy and encouragement. Instead of meeting it with abuse...". Which is what some did. (5)

But this picture was due to change. Episcopalians increased their proportion of the population until about the end of the nineteenth century, though their rate of increase slowed after about 1840, suggesting that their earlier withdrawal from Calvinism had been a greater attraction than had the liturgical worship which came after. Around that date it became evident that they were not going to outstrip the Presbyterians, and it became evident that Presbyterians were not dividing but uniting. The union of the Free Church with the United Presbyterians in 1900 was preceded by decades of preparation, and seen as a step to union with the Church of Scotland, which occurred in 1929. Episcopalians had two choices; they could try to get in on the union, or they could tiptoe out of their claims to be the ancient Scottish church. Instead they could be a "province" of the newly formed Anglican Communion, and the name "province" was first used of the church in 1890. In 1938 an unnamed historian attributed this change to the Seabury Centenary services of 1884, when "it had become abundantly clear that the Scottish Episcopal Church already possessed inexpugnable contacts with the Church of England and with the Church in America which had unmistakable priority over any local propaganda for union with Presbyterianism in Scotland or elsewhere." So, "there gradually declined that tendency to contemplate any partial accommodation with the adjacent Presbyterianism... a policy with which Aberdeen churchmen never had any sympathy." (6)

Yet others did look to union in Scotland and throughout the 1920s, while social developments grated on Episcopalians, anti-Presbyterian diatribes were fewer and when they did occur were sometimes answered with sharp rebukes. Of course some had not noticed the change; as late as 1926 someone could still write that "something has evaporated from the substance of Scottish Presbyterianism", which was merely "the last refuge of Scottish nationalism". And this was part of a lingering belief that Scottish identity was waning and would soon be only a memory. But those who looked for union in Scotland were scarcely realistic. In 1927 it was said that non-Episcopalians had to take the "serious step of admitting the invalidity of their orders" to start things going, and, "Reunion will require humility and a forgiving atmosphere...", as if Episcopalians were in a strong position and others were not. Another writer said that the "real Auld Kirk of Scotland", by which he meant the Episcopal Church, still fascinated Presbyterians, but in fact there was overwhelming evidence that it did not. In 1929, the year of union, there was reference to completing the triangle by "the addition of the third side", the Episcopal one, and laments that the union was incomplete. There was also resentment that when the Moderator and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, had spoken at the union ceremonies of "the further inclusion" of Episcopalians, there was "but a partial and hesitating response". Episcopalians had assumed that they could sit back and wait to be courted, but in this instance the ugly sisters had triumphed and Cinderella had not been invited to the ball. (7)

We may see this process in the diaries of Dean Farquhar. In 1900 he was worried about "the break-up of the old-fashioned, Scotch, Evangelical, Calvinism, before the onset of German critical ideas", and wondered if this would challenge the conservatives in the Church of Scotland and drive them into agreement with Episcopalians. He was encouraged by Professor James Cooper who stood for a Catholic form of Presbyterianism, but in 1907 Farquhar realised that in the General Assembly Cooper had won only fifteen votes for including Episcopalians in unity talks. Two years later Farquhar pondered the results if the United Free and Church of Scotland united, "we shall be in total eclipse", though such a union would "work out for good". By 1913 he thought those Presbyterians "sound" on the incarnation might join the Episcopal Church, or "we shall be terribly eclipsed and handicapped facing a single Presbyterian church with 80% of population." In 1918 he noted that Bishop Plumb of St. Andrews had been attending meetings to ensure that the projected union "would not stand in the way of a subsequent union with us". But of course it did. (8)

In 1930 Episcopalians were being called upon to stand up and be counted, with no more "fondly imagining that in time the Presbyterian Church may embrace the principle of Episcopacy." Canon Barrett-Ayres began to wonder if the apostolic succession was all that good a thing, which brought down on his head the wrath of Canon C.L.Broun, who made charitable mincemeat of him, but managed to show favour to Presbyterians as well. But when an argument had fallen into the hands of two such as those, it had ceased to be popular. In the years to come the approach to Presbyterians as seen in the church press was bitter and bewildered. (9)

To begin with Dean Perry, who was never bitter and never bewildered, he observed in 1933 that, "Since the union of the Presbyterian churches, our Scottish claims need to be emphasised more than ever...". A woman wrote that before 1929 the Episcopal Church, though small, was one of a number of denominations, but now it was like a small dog barking at a mastiff. Yet the barking went on. And on much the same terms as before. First, there was Calvinism. In 1930 an editorial referred to "the diverse dissenting Presbyterian 'churches' north of the Grampians". There was a tendency to take the small bodies, which were still Calvinist, as typical, and the large body, which was no longer Calvinist in any real sense, as untypical. In 1931 there was a reference to "the popular Calvinism that has hung like a pall over Scottish religion for more than three centuries", focusing on "human failure, defeat, and desolation". Later in the year it was asserted that Calvinism had been shown wrong by the response to the war, that Protestantism as a whole had broken down, and its preaching was of a "sham German Jesus". These words, it is good to record, did bring a rebuke. Constant sniping at the Church of Scotland also brought a reasonable and learned reply from the minister of the town kirk, Holy Trinity, in St. Andrews, John W. Baird, but such interjections were always discounted by Episcopalians who thought they knew the Church of Scotland better than those in it. But the argument against Calvinism was growing weaker. It was beginning to be forgotten that there ever was such a thing. Far better to complain that tourists were not offered postcards of St. Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh, which was a real cathedral as it had a bishop, and were offered postcards of St. Giles', which was not a real cathedral as it did not have a bishop. (10)

Secondly, there was episcopacy, or what was thought to be episcopacy. "We have to supply once more to Scottish minds the conception of episcopacy that has everywhere in Christendom provided the framework upon which civilisation has grown." What kind of civilisation this implied was not clear, but, "The Scottish mind cannot picture that line of single consecrated persons...", and it was argued that even if there could be a succession of presbyters, that line had been broken. This time it was T.B.Stewart Thomson, minister of St. Stephen's, Edinburgh, who demonstrated that this was not so, and that Presbyterians re-ordained Congregationalist and Baptist ministers but not converts from Episcopalianism, or from Roman Catholicism. But he could not get to the root of the disagreement. The Episcopalians were thinking of single consecrated persons, bishops, as they had once thought of single consecrated persons, kings. The Presbyterians were thinking of consecrated communities, and ultimately standing above the claims of single persons, whether bishops or kings. And episcopacy, of course, was equally a matter of an order or community standing above any single person, but this was not clear in the popular thinking of Episcopalians. Similarly, Presbyterians balanced their belief in consecrated communities with a belief in the need for consecration of the single person. But they saw, however dimly, that the doctrine of the single consecrated person in the contemporary bishop was linked to English class structure. (11)

Yet the arguments were muddled. When Malcolm MacColl, who was normally saner, stated in 1939 that, "The rise of non-Episcopal ministries in the 16th century was due to the fact that the arch-heretics, Luther, Calvin, Knox, etc., were not in episcopal orders", he was probably moved by identification of Protestantism with Capitalism and thus the hardships of the day. This was a recurrent theme, that Protestantism was individualistic, and Catholicism communal. Nobody seems to have noticed that in the Scottish context it was being argued by the Episcopal church which claimed to be Catholic as it believed in individual consecrated persons, against a church which claimed to be Protestant and believed in consecrated community. But the social issue was much in the foreground. When someone in that same year described Presbyterians as united only by "their common determination to reject the historic witness of the Holy Spirit at work throughout the centuries" they may have had some such thing in mind, or perhaps nothing much in mind. It is hard to be sure. But 1939 was a particular year for complaint. There was also the unwillingness of the press to honour titles of Episcopalian bishops, calling the Bishop of Edinburgh the Episcopalian Bishop of Edinburgh, which was really necessary if the average reader was to know who was meant. It was then argued that this lack of courtesy stemmed from "the jealousy that our church, notwithstanding its smallness in numbers, is so important because it is part of the Anglican communion." Which was really accepting defeat. (12)

And then, in the midst of war, when all sorts of submerged beliefs came to the surface, there was a revival of the old notion that Presbyterians did not believe in the divinity of Christ. It began with Oswald Barkway in 1943, "most Protestants do not believe in the Incarnation and Divinity of Our Lord", it was taken up by C.L.Broun with regard to foreign churches, "practical unitarianism is widespread in most Protestant bodies", was then dashed by Barkway's father, the Bishop of St. Andrews and a former Presbyterian minister who knew enough to be able to say that the Scottish Establishment had "kept loyal to the Catholic faith in Our Lord". And Barkway then condemned rude remarks by Episcopalians, "The learning which characterises the Presbyterians' ministry may well make them a little contemptuous of our own." This was a telling hit; Episcopalians liked to think that Scottish universities were not real ones, and that Presbyterian ministers were trained but uneducated, while Anglican clergy taught by Oxbridge men in theological colleges had the real thing, though at second hand. (13)

M.E.M.Donaldson then referred to "the inherent tendency of the Presbyterian system to issue in Socinianism", which meant that even if no Presbyterians really denied the divinity of Christ they might as well have done so since they had such a tendency. Then Broun clarified his earlier remarks by quoting the Westminster Confession to show that the Church of Scotland was all right on this, even if foreign churches might not be. Next came Archbishop Darbyshire of Cape Town, formerly Bishop of Glasgow. In the midst of his other cares, Darbyshire found time to write to Scotland that, "the unperceived, perhaps unintended, lapse of Protestant thought from the traditional dogma has gone much further than many good Protestants realise...". (14)

Behind these and other remarks lay the fact that Anglicans had been largely unaware of contemporary European theology, which sought to re-interpret the divinity of Christ for a new age. To Scottish Episcopalians, inherently suspicious of any re-interpretation of anything, and relying on unchanged formularies, "the faith once committed to the saints", all this was infidelity. But what they never seemed to take into account was the effect on their own laity, most of whom regarded themselves as Protestants, of a propaganda which asserted that Protestants had abandoned or were abandoning the faith.

And yet there were always clergy and laity who were more sympathetic to Presbyterianism than were their colleagues. First were the educated and thoughtful who, if they could not overcome the general ignorance, did not share it. Secondly, there were a small number of converts from Presbyterianism who knew its shortcomings, but also knew its strengths and still felt some loyalty to it. Thirdly, and more surprisingly, some Catholic-minded clergy were more sympathetic than those who were middle-of-the-road. And there were instances, probably many instances, where Episcopal clergy who roundly denounced all Presbyterian ministers would make exceptions of those ministers they happened to know.

The story should end with Canon C.L.Broun. In 1931 there had been an argument over whether the Episcopal church really was the "true and ancient Church of Scotland", since at two stages of history there had been no bishops in Scotland, though clergy had been episcopally ordained. Broun, maddeningly right as usual, argued that bishops were not everything - - the life of the church might go on, and apostolic succession was about more than just bishops. Nobody seemed to know what he meant. If the Presbyterians did not understand what was meant by apostolic succession, it seems that many Episcopalians did not understand either. (15)