The Scottish Reformation. Alexander F. Mitchell
the date of its formation, and took part in the business of all its General Councils, at the first of which, held at Edinburgh in 1877, he laid on the table a paper which he had drawn up on "The Harmony between the Bibliology of the Westminster Confession and that of the earlier Reformed Confessions, exhibited in parallel columns." He was appointed Convener of the Committee on the Desiderata of the History of the Presbyterian Churches; and at the following General Council, held at Philadelphia in 1880, it fell to him, in consequence of the death of Principal Lorimer, who was Convener of the British section of the Committee on Creeds and Formulas of Subscription, to give in the report containing "Answers to Queries regarding Creeds and Confessions." The Answers as regards the Church of Scotland, which had been prepared by himself, are to be found in the Report of the Proceedings of the Council, pp. 969–984. When in America he also delivered a course of lectures at Alleghany. His connection with the Alliance brought him into close contact with some of the leading Presbyterian divines of Britain and America, with whom his opinions on the history of the doctrine, worship, and government of the Church carried great weight; and Dr. Schaff has acknowledged his obligations to him, among others, in his well-known work entitled 'The Creeds of Christendom.'
In 1885 the Church showed her appreciation of the Professor's character and work by electing him to the Moderatorship of the General Assembly, an office which he filled with a union of dignity and authority which reflected honour upon the Church. If there are parties in the Church of Scotland, he never identified himself with any of them, and had learned to call no man master but Christ. He knew his own mind, and could give forcible expression to his convictions when occasion required. Naturally of an unassuming disposition and unobtrusive manners, he never courted popularity nor sought to thrust his opinions upon others; and it was for this reason, perhaps, that he was deferred to even by those whose views were in some respects widely divergent from his. It was doubtless for this reason also, as well as for others, that he wielded so great an influence in the counsels of the Church, and probably few men had more to do than he with the shaping of her policy in recent years. In paying a tribute to his memory at a meeting of the Presbytery of Edinburgh a few days after his decease, the Very Rev. Dr. Scott of St. George's said that "by Professor Mitchell's death the Church had lost a laborious, faithful, successful, and honoured minister and professor, and perhaps one of the soundest and wisest counsellors that the Church ever had. He was a man who had friends in all the Churches. He knew how powerfully his influence had told in the Church—always for conciliation, not only so far as those without their own Church were concerned, but those within the Church also. Had it not been for Dr. Mitchell's influence the relaxation of the formula regarding the subscription of elders would never have been carried through."
A man of a very catholic spirit, and a lover of peace and concord, the Professor, like many others who longed for a comprehensive union of the Scottish Churches, would willingly have made all reasonable concessions for the attainment of so desirable an object. But he was too loyal a son of the Church of Scotland to consent to any unworthy compromise, and in the hour of danger no one was more ready than he to exert all the influence at his command in her defence. Readers of Dr. Boyd's 'Twenty-five Years of St. Andrews' may remember the account there given of the impression made by the Professor's sermon in the Town Church in the height of the contest in 1885, when the question of Disestablishment was brought so prominently before the electors of the St. Andrews Burghs. Dr. Boyd says: "It had been intimated at the services during the day that Dr. Mitchell, our Professor of Church History, would lecture in the parish church in the evening on 'Some aspects of the Church Question deserving of consideration in the present crisis.' Dr. Mitchell was that year Moderator of the Kirk: and he very seldom preaches. The church was filled by a great congregation. I should not in the least degree have been surprised to hear Dr. Mitchell preach wisely and devoutly: that is his usual way. But it did surprise me to find that man of calm and well-balanced mind fire up into a pathos and vehemence which I have rarely seen equalled and never surpassed. The question of disestablishment had been raised: and one was made to realise how it stirs the blood of good men here. And not merely were there this evening a fire, a keenness, a power of stirring a multitude to the depth of their nature, which are rare indeed, but an incisive severity of denunciation which few had expected from that calm, cautious man. And if the preacher was at white-heat, so was the congregation long before he was done. Several times there would have been loud applause, had it not been hushed."
The attitude which the Professor maintained in regard to the doctrine and worship of the Church was a strictly conservative one, and may be best described in his own words, taken from an article included in the list of his minor works. In that article, after quoting the advice tendered by an eminent minister of the Church of England to a minister of the Church of Scotland—"Stick by your own Kirk: it is an honest Kirk, one of the few that has fairly rid itself of sacerdotalism and ritualism, and you have no cause to be ashamed of it"—he goes on to say: "The advice is not unneeded in the present day by others than he to whom it was originally tendered, and I give it this publicity for the benefit of all whom it may concern. The Reformed Church of Scotland from the first rid herself of these medieval corruptions, and the attempt to bring her again under the yoke issued in dire disaster to those who made it. This surely is no time for the Presbyterian Churches to swerve from the testimony they have so long and resolutely borne against all such errors. When we think of the mischief they are now causing in the Church of England, and the grief they are occasioning to many of her most loyal sons, rather does it become us to bear more decided testimony to the truths, that under the New Testament there is but one Priest, who ever liveth to make intercession for us, and one[Pg xxxiii] sacrifice once offered, which perfects for ever them that are sanctified; that He has not communicated His priestly office to His ministers either by succession or delegation, nor authorised them to repeat or continue that sacrifice which is the propitiation for sin; and that He has neither Himself imposed, nor warranted others to impose, a load of 'fondly' invented ceremonies in His worship."
If the Professor thus strenuously opposed sacerdotalism on the one hand, he had as little sympathy with Broad Churchism on the other. The non-natural sense in which the narratives of the New Testament miracles are understood and interpreted by some of the modern critics he rejected as subversive of Christian truth, a common saying of his being, "If the Gospel is not true historically, it is not true at all: 'If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain'"; and while he mellowed with advancing years, he never wavered in his deep religious convictions, nor for a moment relaxed the tenacious grasp which he had of the doctrines of Christianity as set forth in the standards of the Reformed Churches. One of his latest sayings was, "I die in the faith which I have always professed."
From his Alma Mater the Professor had received the degree of D.D. in 1862, and in 1892 the University of Glasgow conferred upon him the degree of LL.D. in recognition of his eminence as a teacher and an author. A young minister of the Church, himself one of his most distinguished students, has drawn a picture of him as he appeared about the latter of these dates, which is so true to the life that no excuse is needed for introducing it here. He says: "St. Andrews and Professor Mitchell are inseparable. For forty-four years he has taught in the University: first the Hebrew Tongue; next the History of the Church of Christ. As a Professor, Dr. Mitchell comes into contact with a comparatively small number of students. The classes in St. Mary's are diminutive—in some ways a source of much gratification to the writer and others—consequently he is little known by most men here. Of course, all are familiar with the Figure pacing the town in the bright of the forenoon; or, arm-in-arm with a youthful Professor, walking as far as the Swilcan; or, at a Graduation Ceremony, scanning the audience, if perhaps he may get a glimpse of some old pupil among the crowd of interested spectators. For many of his students have risen high: and some of them have a weight of years to bear. But all are not aware that in the Church History Class-Room English is spoken as she is nowhere else in St. Andrews. The beautifully rounded and perfectly balanced sentences, and the elegance of the language, will hardly be excelled. To make the study of Church History what is called popular is one of the few impossibilities of life, but there is no man living who can invest the subject with more interest; for Professor Mitchell is thoroughly up to date with all his facts, and loses no opportunity of visiting the great German authorities. … To be reproved in class by the Professor is not to be desired: to be 'spoken to' in his ante-room still less so. Many men stand in awe of him—I have always thought unnecessarily so."
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