"Rainy wi'oot the Principal". XII
In 1873 Robert Smith Candlish, principal of New College Edinburgh, died. One of the chief organisers of the Disruption, Candlish had been a fiercely energetic man. His very energy had burned out his physical frame, and as the end came Dr. Rainy and Dr. Alexander Whyte were in attendance. Candlish called the two men to his bedside and said to then: "Whyte, I leave the Church to you. Rainy, I leave the College and the Assembly to your care - goodbye." He died soon after.
Rainy preached Candlish's funeral sermon. It was really a foregone conclusion when the Assembly of 1874 elected Rainy to the office of Principal of New College. The title of 'Principal' would become welded to his name as it is to no their former principal of New College. Chalmers, Cunningham and Candlish were never known as 'Principal' to the exclusion of all other titles, and their biographers would not have considered affixing 'Principal' to the name of their subject on the spines of their books. But Rainy is 'Principal Rainy'.
His inaugural address, on Evolution and Theology was simply a sign that Rainy was part of the international evangelical mainstream. In the 1870s most Evangelicals were busily finding a place in the Bible for Darwinism. Rainy was not giving up his evangelicalism by any means. Let the scientists say what they like in their sphere, he said, but once apply their methods to the Bible, and you will lose your way. Christianity is not a product of evolution, it is a creation.
We smile today at the thought that a conservative evangelical should accept Darwinism -things have certainly 'moved on' in evangelicalism(!) - but to men like Rainy their faith was not a thing affected by Darwin's theory. It consisted of two parts, personal experience and theology. Rainy had both.
The year of 1874 was also significant in that it was the year in which Rainy published his one most important work, a book entitled The Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine. The book was really his Cunningham Lectures delivered in 1873 with a great mass of supplementary material included in the form of notes. It is my experience that the early Cunningham Lectures are always worth consulting, and Rainy's are no exception. Other Cunningham Lectures include Buchanan's Justification, Smeaton's The Holy Spirit, and Laidlaw's Bible Doctrine of Man, to give just three examples.
The question of doctrinal development was a live one, since the publication of John Henry Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, and Rainy knew it. It is an interesting exercise to read Newman, then Rainy. Turning from Newman to Rainy is like coming out of a great Gothic cathedral rendolent with incense into the open air of the Bible. Yet his book is not a mere answer to Newman, it is an original work presenting a Reformed and Evangelical view of the subject. As well as addressing Newman, Rainy examined liberal ideas of doctrinal development. His conclusion can be very simply stated: true doctrinal development is not a departure from Scripture, outgrowng it, nor is it an adding to Scripture on the pretext that it is growing out from the Bible. The error of both is to assume that the starting point is a complete knowledge of Scripture; in fact it is the measure of understanding of the post-apostolic Church. It is a growing of the whole Church into the Scriptures, understanding better the Word of God. Rainy defines Christian doctrine as "the obedience of my thoughts to the collective Scriptures", therefore the development of doctrine is "more fruitful obedience."
In his last Chapter Rainy deals with the question of creeds and Confessions of Faith. Creeds we must have, he says, yet the Church always has the right to revise her creed, either by adding new material, or by modifying existing material to take account of whatever future light may break forth out of God's word.
He was 'Principal Rainy' now. Some of the Highlanders would come to pun on that name, which is where the title of this series comes from. For Rainy was an astute 'master of Assemblies', to use another pun. To call him unprincipled was unfair. Rainy had a great guiding principle. It was 'the good of the Free Church of Scotland'. The problem was that the Free Church did not always agree with Rainy, and there was a party who rarely did.
Of the great controversy of Rainy's life, the Robertson Smith Case, we have already said all that needs to be said. But the controversy ushered in a new age in the Free Church, an age over which Principal Rainy had to preside. He had the unenviable task of keeping together a Church that was threatening to fly apart. In the end he failed. We shall, God willing, say something about Rainy's age next time.
Rainy preached Candlish's funeral sermon. It was really a foregone conclusion when the Assembly of 1874 elected Rainy to the office of Principal of New College. The title of 'Principal' would become welded to his name as it is to no their former principal of New College. Chalmers, Cunningham and Candlish were never known as 'Principal' to the exclusion of all other titles, and their biographers would not have considered affixing 'Principal' to the name of their subject on the spines of their books. But Rainy is 'Principal Rainy'.
His inaugural address, on Evolution and Theology was simply a sign that Rainy was part of the international evangelical mainstream. In the 1870s most Evangelicals were busily finding a place in the Bible for Darwinism. Rainy was not giving up his evangelicalism by any means. Let the scientists say what they like in their sphere, he said, but once apply their methods to the Bible, and you will lose your way. Christianity is not a product of evolution, it is a creation.
We smile today at the thought that a conservative evangelical should accept Darwinism -things have certainly 'moved on' in evangelicalism(!) - but to men like Rainy their faith was not a thing affected by Darwin's theory. It consisted of two parts, personal experience and theology. Rainy had both.
The year of 1874 was also significant in that it was the year in which Rainy published his one most important work, a book entitled The Delivery and Development of Christian Doctrine. The book was really his Cunningham Lectures delivered in 1873 with a great mass of supplementary material included in the form of notes. It is my experience that the early Cunningham Lectures are always worth consulting, and Rainy's are no exception. Other Cunningham Lectures include Buchanan's Justification, Smeaton's The Holy Spirit, and Laidlaw's Bible Doctrine of Man, to give just three examples.
The question of doctrinal development was a live one, since the publication of John Henry Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, and Rainy knew it. It is an interesting exercise to read Newman, then Rainy. Turning from Newman to Rainy is like coming out of a great Gothic cathedral rendolent with incense into the open air of the Bible. Yet his book is not a mere answer to Newman, it is an original work presenting a Reformed and Evangelical view of the subject. As well as addressing Newman, Rainy examined liberal ideas of doctrinal development. His conclusion can be very simply stated: true doctrinal development is not a departure from Scripture, outgrowng it, nor is it an adding to Scripture on the pretext that it is growing out from the Bible. The error of both is to assume that the starting point is a complete knowledge of Scripture; in fact it is the measure of understanding of the post-apostolic Church. It is a growing of the whole Church into the Scriptures, understanding better the Word of God. Rainy defines Christian doctrine as "the obedience of my thoughts to the collective Scriptures", therefore the development of doctrine is "more fruitful obedience."
In his last Chapter Rainy deals with the question of creeds and Confessions of Faith. Creeds we must have, he says, yet the Church always has the right to revise her creed, either by adding new material, or by modifying existing material to take account of whatever future light may break forth out of God's word.
He was 'Principal Rainy' now. Some of the Highlanders would come to pun on that name, which is where the title of this series comes from. For Rainy was an astute 'master of Assemblies', to use another pun. To call him unprincipled was unfair. Rainy had a great guiding principle. It was 'the good of the Free Church of Scotland'. The problem was that the Free Church did not always agree with Rainy, and there was a party who rarely did.
Of the great controversy of Rainy's life, the Robertson Smith Case, we have already said all that needs to be said. But the controversy ushered in a new age in the Free Church, an age over which Principal Rainy had to preside. He had the unenviable task of keeping together a Church that was threatening to fly apart. In the end he failed. We shall, God willing, say something about Rainy's age next time.
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