MONG the names which appear in the martyr roll of the Disruption period, there is not one which was regarded in its day with a deeper reverence than that of Dr Gordon. He did not mingle much in the strife. He took little part in the debates which were constantly occurring in popular assemblies and church courts. So far as we know, he wrote no controversial pamphlets. And it was never to him that his party looked when they were battling with the politicians. But there was no man who moved forward with a firmer tread - no man who was more resolute in asserting the Church's independence, or more ready to brave all consequences in order to maintain it; and the very quietness, and calmness, and dignity, which characterised his usual demeanour, gave an almost startling impressiveness to his words and actions when he emerged, as he did once and again, from the crowd, and took up an advanced position as one of the undoubted leaders in the great movement of his time.
His outward personal history was not an eventful one. He was born at Glencairn, in Dumfriesshire. After receiving license to preach the gospel, he became Mathematical Assistant to the Rector of the Perth Academy, - an office in which he was succeeded by the Rev. Dr Forbes of Glasgow. There his gifts came to be known to Lord Gray, who presented him to the parish of Kinfauns, where he continued to labour from 1816 to 1820, when he was translated to Edinburgh. In that city he remained till his death in 1853, but during that long period his services were not confined to one congregation. His first charge was that of Hope Park Chapel; his next was the New North, in Brighton Street; his third was the High Church Parish; and his last the Free High Church, at the head of the Mound. In all he maintained, from first to last, the character of an able and earnest evangelical preacher. His discourses were prepared with extraordinary thoroughness and care. They were delivered in a manner which was particularly impressive. And there is the best reason for believing that his ministry was eminently successful, in the highest sense of that expression. A volume of his sermons was published in 1825, and since his death two other volumes, containing additional examples of his method of expounding Scripture, especially the prophecies relating to the Messiah, have been given to the world. We have it also on good authority that he contributed several articles on mathematical subjects to the Edinburgh Cyclopedia, a publication which was edited by Sir David Brewster. But his highest memorial is the spiritual fruit which followed from his pastoral labours, and the emphatic testimony which, with all the weight of his character, he gave to the principles which constitute the heritage of the Church of Scotland.
In the latter connection, there are several outstanding incidents in the life of Dr Gordon which are peculiarly worthy of being referred to in such a record as the present.
One of these was his appearance at the bar of the Court of Session, along with the Presbytery of Dunkeld. That Presbytery had been placed in a somewhat singular position. Two men - Mr Clark and Mr Kessen - had been nominated to the pastorate of Lethendy, a parish within their bounds. The former was first in the field, but he was vetoed, and, with the concurrence of the patron, was set aside. Mr Kessen was then presented, and he having received in addition a call from the people, the usual steps were taken with a view to his settlement. Mr Clark, however, was not prepared to be thus dropped. He asked the Court of Session to interfere on his behalf, and the Court did so, issuing an interdict forbidding the Presbytery to proceed to Mr Kessen's ordination. Lord Cockburn, commenting not long afterwards on this act, says in his Journal: - "This is the second deep cut into the nervous system of the Church, for if we can order a Presbytery not to induct, I don't see that we have not the power to bid it induct. And after this, where is the peculiar power of the Church?" So reasoned the Church itself. The Presbytery was forced to settle for itself the question, of whether in a matter so purely spiritual as the ordination of a minister, it was bound to obey the civil court or its own spiritual superior. The General Assembly's command was explicit: - "You shall proceed to Mr Kessen's induction to the pastorate of the people of Lethendy, leaving the law to determine, as it has a right to do, to whom the benefice shall belong." The Court of Session was equally articulate: - " This is a matter which concerns us, and you must not ordain Mr Kessen until we give you leave to do so." In just such a dilemma was once the famous Presbytery of Strathbogie. The civil power said one thing, the Church said another, and they were in a strait between the two. But they came to a very different conclusion from that which was reached by the Presbytery of Dunkeld. At Marnoch, the will of the Court of Session was carried out, and the ministers got their reward by being upheld by the law in the performance of all their spiritual functions, even after their deposition. At Lethendy the order of the Church was obeyed, and the offenders were threatened in consequence with fine and imprisonment. It is no secret, now, that in the breasts of some of the judges, who had been, as they thought, defied, there raged such a feeling of anger that, if it had not been for the influence of some of their more temperate brethren, measures of a very extreme character would certainly have been taken. As it was, the men who had dared to ordain a minister without the permission of the Parliament House, were summoned to answer for their conduct at the bar of the Court of Session. And in the remarkable historical picture which, in consequence of this summons, came to be framed in Edinburgh on the 14th of June 1839, one of the figures which appears most prominently in the foreground was that of Dr Gordon.
He was not, of course, a member of the Presbytery of Dunkeld; but he believed that they were being called to suffer in a public cause, and for the maintenance of a great principle - the freedom and independence of the Church - and he resolved to place himself by their side, to share their shame and their glory, and to give to them what comfort was to be derived from his openly identifying himself with their interests.
It must have been a striking scene:-
"In front, elevated on their bench, clothed in their robes of human authority, and invested with the stern insignia of secular power, sat the judges, twelve in number. Opposite stood another court - a court of Christ - called to their bar for executing the spiritual functions conferred by the Lord Jesus on His Church. . . . A very few of the most respected ministers of Edinburgh and the neighbourhood - sufficient to countenance their brethren, but not to have the slightest appearance of a bravado - attended them to the bar. First one, then another, and then a third, followed them. A frown darkened the brow of the court; but the crowd closing, as if all had come in, nothing was said. After a moment's pause the crowd opened again, and yet another entered. It was Dr Gordon. No sooner was his noble and venerable head seen emerging from the crowd, at the end of the bar, than the smothered feeling broke forth, and a proposal burst from the bench to turn out these clergymen from the bar; but an indignant and solemn remonstrance from Lord Moncreiff checked the attempt."
What followed belongs to the ecclesiastical history of the period. It is enough, in the present sketch, to connect Dr Gordon, as a leader, with one of the most significant battles of the "ten years' conflict."
Two years later, in 1841, Dr Gordon received the well merited distinction of being called to the Moderatorship of the General Assembly; and in that capacity he was required to perform a duty which could not but have been painful, but which he discharged, there can be no doubt, with the entire approbation of his own conscience - we refer to the pronouncing of the sentence of deposition on the seven Strathbogie ministers. Occupying the chair of the Assembly, as he did, it did not fall to him either to take part in the discussion which preceded the judgment, or to vote upon the two motions which were made on the occasion. It is rather remarkable, however, that in the history we should find him so closely associated with the two cases in connection with which the Church asserted its Spiritual Independence most emphatically, and in the face of all hazards. The good-will and active support of the civil powers he no doubt highly valued, and it could not but pain him to find himself in such direct collision with them. But whether these powers were for him or against him, there was one principle which he could surrender in no circumstances - that of the Church's inherent freedom - its right to rule without secular interference, within its own province.
And some months later he gave distinct and articulate expression to these feelings in the famous meeting of office-bearers which was held in St Cuthbert's Church, Edinburgh. That meeting was attended by over twelve hundred ministers and elders, and was the first of a series held in different parts of Scotland, in which the Evangelicals everywhere banded themselves to resist the encroachments of the State. Dr Gordon was called on to preside; and those who heard his opening speech, as chairman, were never weary afterwards of telling of the profound impression which was made by it. He uttered strong words, but these did not exceed in strength the feeling which manifestly possessed him. Never, we have heard it said, did Chalmers himself speak with more power, and intensity, and effect:-
"It has come to this," said he, "plainly and distinctly, that I, a minister of the Church of Scotland, who have solemnly sworn before God, and as I shall answer to Him at the great day of judgment, that I believe in my heart and conscience that Christ is the great Head of the Church, and that He has appointed office-bearers in it, distinct from the civil magistrate, to whom He has committed the keys of His spiritual kingdom; who are to loose and to bind, to lay on and to take off, spiritual ecclesiastical censures; it has come, I say, to this, that I am called upon either to renounce these principles, or to renounce the privileges which I hold as an ordained minister of the Church of Scotland."
Having thus clearly stated the nature of the issue which was at stake, he, with equal explicitness, announced the practical conclusion to which he had come - viz., that he would maintain the great principle of the Church of Scotland, whatever might be the consequence.
It was one of the first unmistakeable foreshadowings of the coming Disruption. Dr Gordon even then clearly foresaw the catastrophe toward which the civil courts were driving; and his address derived an additional solemnity from the picture which he silently held up before his audience.
One other outstanding Incident of these times is well worthy of mention in this connection. The General Assembly of 1842 adopted The Claim of Rights - a document in which the position of the Church was finally defined, with a view to a last appeal being made to the legislature. The adoption of that great historical State Church paper was moved by Dr Chalmers, and seconded by Dr Gordon. In the short speech which he delivered on that occasion, Dr Gordon expressed a hope that Parliament would act in a wiser way than the Court of Session had done.
"But, Sir," he went on to say, "if, unhappily, it should be otherwise, if they have resolved on refusing to grant what we think reasonable on our part to ask, I feel, for one, that we are bound, as honest men and Christian ministers, with all calmness and all respect, but with all firmness and determination, to tell them that we cannot carry on the affairs of Christ's house under the coercion of the civil courts; and, however deeply we may deplore the loss of those advantages which we derive from our connection with the State, if ultimately the legislature determine that they will not listen to our claim, then those advantages we must relinquish, because we could not hold them with a good conscience."
When the 18th of May 1843 arrived, and intimation was formally given that no more was to be hoped for from the legislature than from the civil courts, Dr Gordon took, without the slightest hesitation, the now unavoidable step of seeking, with his brethren, spiritual liberty outside of the Establishment; and for ten years more he was honoured to do the work of an evangelist in Edinburgh, and to aid effectually in the organisation of the Church of Scotland, free.
But he was not allowed to spend this last decade of his life in absolute quiet. The refusal of sites, in many places, for the erection of Free Churches, had resulted in the appointment of a Parliamentary Commission to take evidence on the subject, and Dr Gordon was summoned to London as a witness. He appeared before the Commission on the 27th of March 1847, and some of the things which he said on this occasion are important enough to warrant our quoting them here:-
"SIR JAMES GRAHAM: A very important point in dispute between the Free Church and the Established Church, which you have left, is the efficacy of the call by the hearers of the clergyman to Be appointed?
"DR GORDON: The main question I hold to be the spiritual independence of the Church ; the interference of the civil authority with matters purely spiritual.
"SIR J. GRAHAM: Is not the call a very important check, among others, against the abuse of patronage in your opinion?
"DR GORDON: No doubt, BUT THE QUESTION WHICH LED TO THE DISRUPTION, WAS THE QUESTION OF THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE CHURCH. . . .
"MR FOX MAULE: The question of Patronage was not that upon which the Free Church separated from the Establishment?
"DR GORDON: CERTAINLY NOT
"MR F. MAULE: It was a question entirely as to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church?
"DR GORDON: YES. . . .
"MR W. PATTEN: At what period do you think the Established Church relinquished the truth?
"DR GORDON: At the time of the Disruption.
"MR W. PATTEN: Were any steps taken at the time of the Disruption, other than those which had been taken previously?
"DR GORDON: They then homologated the act and deed of the civil authority in interfering in spiritual matters.
"MR W. PATTEN: Was that the first time they had done that?
"DR GORDON: The first time they gave consent to it. . . .
"MR G. W. HOPE: Is it not denied by those who adhere to the Church, that they do exercise these functions under the guidance of the State?
"DR GORDON: They believe, I suppose, that Lord Aberdeen's Bill has protected them; but the very introduction of the Bill appeared to me to be an admission that the law which led to the Disruption had, in fact, deprived the Church of her rights and privileges as a spiritual court. . . .
"MR BROTHERTON: Have they changed within the last seven years?
"DR GORDON: We think that they have admitted the civil power to interfere in spiritual matters, so that the spiritual liberty of the Church has been sacrificed.
"MR BROTHERTON: In what respect?
"DR GORDON: In permitting themselves to be dictated to in spiritual matters by the civil authorities.
"CHAIRMAN: Has the great body of the Scottish dissenters separated from the Church of Scotland upon the same ground, that of interference with the spiritual independence of the Church?
"DR GORDON: The original dissenters from the Church of Scotland left it partly on the ground of patronage. They considered that as an interference with the liberties of the Church. We continued in the Church, and thought that we retained our liberties, even with the law of patronage, although among us there were many who looked upon patronage as rather a grievance - indeed, a great grievance - but still we did not consider that patronage itself, if the call had its proper place, was such an encroachment upon the liberties of the Church as to compel us to leave it."
The Scottish worthy, of whom the above is a most imperfect sketch, was engaged in the preparation of a sermon for his communion Sabbath, when the summons reached him to go up higher. The sermon was never finished and never preached; but after his death it was published for the edification and comfort of his people. We have that discourse of his now before us, and it is most striking and affecting to see that the last words he ever penned were these:- " Death is swallowed up in victory. O death! where is thy sting ? O grave ! where is thy victory?"
N. L. W.
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