by Charles Ivey

Macleod, Donald. From the Marrow Men to the Moderates: Scottish Theology 1700-1800. Ross-Shire: Mentor, 2023. 352 pp. $32.99.

Introduction

Donald Macleod may well be the preeminent expert on Scottish theology. In his latest work, From the Marrow Men to the Moderates, he explores the major events in18^th Century Scottish church history. The book deals with eternally relevant questions surrounding justification, repentance, legalism, and antinomianism.

Why Study Church History?

Macleod begins the book by zooming out and discussing the reasons for doing historical study in the first place. He points out that ultimately, we need to see the ways that God has revealed himself in redemptive history (xiii.) I appreciated that the author saw his task as more than merely recounting historical details and recognized the need to evaluate those details and events theologically in the light of Scripture (xv).

Thomas Boston

The author spends considerable time on the life and ministry of Thomas Boston. Right away, we learn that Boston’s life was not without suffering. He and his wife had 10 children but only 4 survived (10). Boston’s wife outlived him by five years, yet her health was so poor that she remained bedridden for the last ten years of his life (9-10). Today we recognize Boston as an important figure in reformed theology, but Macleod paints a surprising picture of him as a man of not exceptional intelligence or writing ability. He was described by others as “naturally silent”, so probably an introvert (8). At the same time, Boston was a principled man whose greatest concern was for the common member of his flock (1-4).

Boston’s theology was evangelistic, broad, and grounded in Scripture (11-13). His writing style was simple and clear. As Macleod puts it, “… when all is said and done, the reader seldom has to wrestle with a Boston sentence to make it yield its meaning (14).” The hallmark of Boston’s life and ministry was the free, universal offer of the gospel (15). In his Soliloquy on the Art of Man-Fishing, Boston affirmed “God excludes none from the benefits of the gospel that will not exclude themselves; it is free to all (16).” He also wrote on miscellaneous theological questions, eventually addressing what would be the very subject of the Marrow Controversy, namely the role of repentance in salvation (20).

The Marrow Controversy

The so called “Marrow Controversy” was sparked by the Auchterarder Creed, circa 1717. The Creed stated, “It is not sound and orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ (70).” Ministerial candidates were presented with the Creed and could lose their jobs if they answered wrongly. Unfortunately, the statement was so poorly worded that it caused a lot of confusion and grief for the Scottish Church.

Macleod noted that the key players “… attracted followers who had little comprehension of the issues, but had partisanship in abundance … (65).” In other words, much like our current social media age, there was plenty of name calling and failure to listen in the Scotland of the 1700’s. To be sure, Scotland’s preaching had become infected with legalism. The focus seemed to be on a supposed innate ability in man to perform certain duties before God, rather than on free justification by faith alone in the completed work of Christ. In that context, any preaching that went against legalistic trends was bound to seem antinomian by comparison. Even Boston himself had tended toward “legal preaching” earlier in his ministry (68). Macleod later circles back around to this tension, pointing out that antinomianism and a related downplaying of Scripture’s authority were real concerns for critics of the Marrow Men (107).

Thomas Boston would discover a forgotten book called The Marrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher. Boston and the other “Marrow Men” found Fisher’s book helpful in these debates. They saw repentance as an element of salvation but not a condition or qualification for it. Boston reasoned from Scripture, including John 14:6, that no one comes to God but through Christ, specifically faith in Christ, and therefore faith must come before there can be any repentance (73).

What critics of the Marrow either ignored or failed to recognize was the distinction between the law of works and the law of Christ. The Marrow taught that believers are not under the law as a covenant of works (75-76). The Marrow Men pointed out that their critics already affirmed this teaching in the Larger Catechism Q97 when it states that those in Christ are “delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so as thereby they are neither justified or condemned.” At the same time, the Marrow Men denied accusations of antinomianism, as they affirmed the ongoing role of the law as a rule of Christian life. Macleod helpfully writes, “We may be secure from (the law’s) condemning power, but we are not secured from its commanding power .”, and “Lawlessness is what we have been redeemed from, not what we have been redeemed to (77-78, emphasis added).”

The “matter” of both the Covenant of Works and the Law of Christ are the same, the Ten Commandments. As Macleod explains, “The difference is that to the legalist these commands represent things he must do to earn eternal life, while to the believer they represent the rule by which he must live as one who already enjoys eternal life, but only as a debtor to unconditional grace (78).” He also rightly notes that Christ’s expectations are more demanding than mere outward obedience to the law. Hatred and lust are equivalent to murder and adultery, revealing any idea of works righteousness to be impossible. The Marrow Men denied that any of this means the sins of believers are no longer sins, or that believers avoid God’s temporal displeasure and chastisement when they sin (78-80). The believer’s assurance of salvation motivates his desire to obey God the Father out of love and respect, not the threat of hell and promise of heaven (81-82).

The Marrow and the Covenant of Grace

Unlike the standard covenant theology of contemporary 18^th Century Scotland, Fisher’s Marrow did not teach the tri-covenantal system of a Covenant of Redemption, Covenant of Works, and Covenant of Grace. Rather, the Marrow was bi-covenantal, with only a COW and COR and not a distinct COG as such (83-83). Boston would later write “The (COR) and (COG) are not two distinct covenants, but one and the same covenant.” Macleod explains that the Marrow Men were motivated by “a deep seated fear of the merest hint of conditional grace.”, and that “Any idea of a covenant to which man was a partner immediately introduced legalism … (85).”  

In their reading of Hebrews 9:16-17, the Marrow Men saw Christ as Mediator and testator of an inheritance in which the legatees are “Sinners of mankind without exception (94)”, effectively framing gospel preaching as the public reading of a will, specifically Christ’s will. As with an earthly will, the hearers may or may not accept what is being offered. Proponents of the Marrow affirmed both absolutely unconditional grace on God’s part and absolutely necessary faith on the sinner’s part.

Macleod transitions from the Marrow Men’s universal offer of the gospel to their views on the nature of assurance. Boston’s contemporaries embraced a distinction between a “direct” act of faith that trusts in Christ as Savior and a “reflex” act of faith in which one has actually exercised saving faith (100-101). At this point, I have to admit my struggle in understanding the difference. That being said, Macleod proves to be a helpful guide. Essentially, saying “Christ is the Savior” or even “Christ is my Savior” is connected to but not identical to saying, “I am actually receiving and resting on Christ.” The first is more broad and less personal than the second. One can recognize the danger for the naturally introspective believer to end up like the centipede who can’t stop thinking about how all his feet work together and ends up constantly tripping all over himself.

The Rise of the Moderates and Moderate Preaching

Macleod traces the label of “Moderate” to James VII’s 1687 Proclamation of Toleration (239). In the Proclamation, James refers to “Moderate Presbyterians”, i.e. those who submitted to the King’s restrictions by meeting in private houses, as opposed to open fields. The Moderates of the General Assembly assured the Crown that they would abide by the guidelines, convinced it was their duty before God and man, with Christ as their example (240).

It was not until the 1750s that the self-identified “Moderate Party” came on the scene, lead by William Robertson (246-247). Macleod is careful to note that the Moderate Party functioned more as a political party than a distinctively theological group. Unfortunately, later preachers in the Moderate stream would downplay if not ignore traditional Reformed doctrines including unconditional election, limited/ definite atonement, and irresistible grace (297).

In the book’s final chapter, Macleod provides a case study on the Moderate preacher Hugh Blair who, appealing to Enlightenment philosophers, emphasized a supposed innate and sufficient moral sense in man (298-299). Without overstating the connection, Macleod then persuasively draws a line from the Moderate “coolness” towards their professed confessional standards, to those who openly denied the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ, the influence of German higher criticism, and the eventual full-blown theological liberalism that would overtake Scottish churches in the later part of the 19^th Century (325-326).

Conclusion

Donald Macleod’s From the Marrow Men to the Moderates is a thoroughly researched look at Scottish Church history. The author provides deep insight into the various personalities while also acting as a reliable guide to the theological nuances involved. While this book ends on the somewhat depressing state of Scottland’s theological drift, readers can still be encouraged by what came before and the truth that Christ remains on his throne. Recommended.