Free Church of Scotland

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The first Free Church of Scotland General Assembly, May 23rd, 1843

Thomas Chalmers, Moderator

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Principles of the Free Church of Scotland

Moncreiff, Henry Wellwood

The Free Church Principle: its Character and History  1884  297 pp.  Chalmers Lectures

A Vindication of the Free Church Claim of Right  1877  315 pp.

Isbell, Sherman – The Church in Relation to its Constitution  2006  12 pp.

Isbell describes the European understanding of a constitution and argues that a church’s constitution is inviolable and cannot be changed

Fentiman, Travis – A Defense of the Majority Opinion in the Free Church of Scotland on Covenanting  2014  36 points, 135 paragraphs, with a select annotated bibliography

This is an extensive articulation and defense of the majority historic view on the Solemn League and Covenant, argued from scripture, history and the reformation in Scotland.

Cunningham, William – Principles of the Free Church of Scotland  1863, p. 257, 32 pp. from his Discussions on Church Principles, ch. 10 

Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) Legal Advice and Property Committee – The Right of Continued Protest  2011

See also Quotes on the Right of Continued Protest

Theonomy and the Confession of Faith: Report of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, 1998  35 paragraphs

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On the Free Church Generally

M’Candlish, John – Why are we Free Churchmen?  A Present-Day Question  1893  96 pp.  bound with Rejoinder to Dr. Alison’s Pamphlet ‘Why we are not Free Churchmen’  1893  30 pp.

M’Crie, Charles G. – The Free Church of Scotland: her Ancestry, her Claims, and her Conflicts  1893  

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Bibliographies of Free Church Writings

Johnston, John C. – ‘Free Church Literature’  1887  32 pp.  in Treasury of the Covenant, Part 2, pp. 499-531

Walker, Norman – Ch. 18, ‘Contributions to Literature’  1895  50 pp.  in Chapters from the History of the Free church of Scotland  Thomas Chalmers’ Lectures

A Bibliography of the Disruption, page 21, three pages, from The Free Presbyterian Magazine, vol. 48, June, 1943 

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On the Disruption

Articles

Barbour, G.F. – ‘The Great Disruption’  1843  The Spectator

King, Andrew – ‘Narrative of Events Issuing in the Institution of the Free Church of Scotland in Separation from the State’  1861  30 pp.

Kennedy, John – ‘Disruption Times’  25 pp.  being chapter 13 from his biography of Rev. Dr. M’Donald, the ‘Apostle of the North’

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Books

ed. Baillie, J. – Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1843  1843  255 pp.

Buchanan, Robert – The Ten Years Conflict, being the History of the Disruption of the Church of Scotland, vol. 1, 2  1849

Brown, Thomas – Annals of the Disruption… in 1843  1884  885 pp.

Beith, Alex. – Memories of Disruption Times: a Chapter in Autobiography, embracing the half year preceding and the half year following 18th May, 1843  1877  290 pp.

Wylie, J.A. – Disruption Worthies: a Memorial of 1843, with a Historical Sketch of the Free Church of Scotland from 1843 down to the present time  1881  740 pp.

Watt, Hugh – Thomas Chalmers and the Disruption  Buy  1943  363 pp.  Chalmers Lectures for 1940-44

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Histories of the Free Church of Scotland

Blaikie, William Garden – After Fifty Years, or Letters of a Grandfather on the Occasion of the Jubilee of the Free Church of Scotland in 1893  1893  145 pp.

Bayne, Peter – The Free Church of Scotland: her Origins, Founders and Testimony  1894  346 pp.

Chapters from the History of the Free Church of Scotland, 1895, 396 pages, by Norman Walker, one of the Thomas Chalmers’ Lectures

Answer to the Declaratory Statement of 1892 in the Free Church of Scotland, part 1part 2, HTML, by John Kennedy, with the five paragraph Declaratory Act at the beginning.  The Declaratory Act of 1892 in the Free Church was a declaration of the Church’s interpretation of the Westminster Confession under five points, some of which taught against the Confession itself.  The intent of the Act was to open the door to union with the broader United Presbyterian Church.  The Declaratory Act, not being of a constitutional nature, but only a current interpretation of the constitution, did not materially change the constitution.  Thus the conservatives, bound by their unaltered constitutional vows to the constitution of the church, stayed in the church, though two ministers left and formed the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.  The foreseen union between the United Presbyterian Church and the Free Church took place in 1900 and the United Free Church was formed.  The Constitutionalists stayed out of the unconstitutional union, continued the Free Church of Scotland, and repealed the Declaratory Act in 1905. 

The Introduction of Instrumental Music into the Worship of the Free Church Unscriptural, Unconstitutional and InexpedientHTML, no date, 29 paragraphs, by John Kennedy 

The Story of the Scottish Church: from the Reformation [1560] to the Disruption [1843]  Buy  1875, specifically chapters 10-12, p. 537, 30 pp.

Orr, John Boyd – Scotch Church Crisis: the Full Story of the Modern Phase of the Presbyterian Struggle  Ref  1905

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Missions

Articles

Duff, Alexander – ‘Foreign Missions: being the Substance of an Address delivered before the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland’  1866  45 pp.

Ritchie, Lionel Alexander – ‘Daniel Edward (1815-1896) and the Free Church of Scotland Mission to the Jews in Central Europe’  2001  15 pp.

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Books

Hunter, Robert – History of the Missions of the Free Church of Scotland in India and Africa  1873  395 pp.  with a preface by Charles J. Brown

Free Church – The Sea of Galilee Mission of the Free Church of Scotland  1895  95 pp.

Lectures on Foreign Churches, delivered in Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1845, in connection with the objects of the Committee of the Free Church of Scotland on the State of Christian Churches on the Continent and in the East, First Series  1845  470 pp.

The India Mission of the Free Church of Scotland  1891  200 pp.

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Special Topics

‘The Free Church of Scotland and Armaments’  1889  1 page

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Biographies of Free Church of Scotland Men

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Documents of 

The Practice of the Free Church of Scotland, 1995, 8th edition, paginated, this is the Book of Church Order of the Free Church, otherwise known as the Blue Book

 The Claim, Declaration and Protest, 1842

The Protest of the Free Church of Scotland, 1843 

Judgments of the House of Lords

Churches (Scotland) Act, 1905 

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Influence on & View from America

Balfour, R. Gordon – Presbyterianism in the Colonies with Special Reference to the Principles and Influence of the Free Church of Scotland  1899  350 pp.  Chalmers Lectures

Spurgeon in Scotland, from the Monthly Record of the Free Church of Scotland, Aug., 1958, including his impressions of a Free Church General Assembly and of John Kennedy’s Free Church in Dingwall.

The Scotch Assemblies, 1880, p. 12, 19 pages, by R.L. Dabney, an American southern presbyterian, from his Discussions, vol. 5, mainly consisting of his impressions of the Free Church.

Refutation of Professor W. Robertson Smith, 1890, p. 399, 40 pages, by Robert L. Dabney, from his Discussions, vol. 1.  W. Robertson Smith (1846-1894) was a liberalizing professor in the Free Church College, who came under a heresy trial in the Free Church for teaching contrary to the inerrancy of scripture and was consequently deprived of his professorship in 1881.

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“The Free Church is dearer to me than myself.”

“I rejoice in being a member of a Free Church, but I rejoice still more in being a member of the catholic church of the Lord Jesus.”

John ‘Rabbi’ Duncan

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Related Pages

Scottish Church History

Constitutionalism