Free Grace AND a Free Gospel. III

Pictured: Ettrick Kirk, where Boston ministered for twenty-five years after he left Simprin in 1707. The tower is a 19th Century addition.

The Church of Scotland had regained her freedom at the Glorious Revolution of 1688. However plans had not been wanting to bring her into bondage once again. in 1714 one of the Divinity professors at Glasgow was accused of 'Socianianism, Arminianism and Jesuitism' and tried for heresy. He wriggled and escaped, partly due to the Assembly's unwillingness to try him. What was more worrying, however, was that some of the statements made in the Assembly's trial of the professor seemed to deny Evangelical truth and erred on the side of legalism. The Presbytery of Auchterarder, determined that no-one holding unevangelical views should hold office in the bounds of their presbytery, drew up a list of questions to be asked to candidates for ordination. One of these questions ran thus: "I believe it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ, and instating us in covenant with God."
The presbytery intended to guard against legalism. Taken out of context, however, their question might be seen as antinomian. When a student refused to sign this article and was refused license to preach, he complained to the Assembly, who roundly condemned the article as antinomian in 1717.
It was in that very year that James Hog of Carnock republished The Marrow of Modern Divinity. A veritable firestorm ensued.

Of which we shall tell (God willing) next time.