Yuille - History of the Baptists in Scotland - Landmark Baptist

4. THE CONVERGING STREAMS
— 1800-50.
Percival Waugh.
1. SCOTCH BAPTIST EXPANSION AND DECLINE.
The Scotch Baptist Churches having now multiplied through the teaching and
zeal of Mr. M’Lean, the tenets of faith and government of the Edinburgh
Church formulated under his guidance were naturally embraced by the others.
His vigorous and inquiring mind rested not in authority, and every question
was brought to the test of the sacred scriptures, which received a more literal
interpretation than was general. The conclusions he reached and promulgated
tended to the stricter Calvinistic conceptions of divine revelation, and thus he
was in entire accord with the greater part of the denomination in England. It
was in relation to Church order that deviation occurred, and while on all hands
this order was strictly congregational, the usage within the Church was in
contrast with the English practice. “The apostolic plan” was scrupulously
followed; each Church, to answer the prototype, must have a presbytery of
Elders — a plurality of Pastors — as well as a body of Deacons, otherwise it
was considered defective; the breaking of bread took place every Lord’s Day,
and was for baptized believers alone, and of those only such as held the same
principles of order and with; the prayers and exhortations of the brethren in the
public meetings, the fellowship or contribution for the poorer brethren, the
Agape or Love Feast were all Scriptural institutions to be observed. Minor
observances held as obligatory were sustained with a sober judgment; the kiss
of charity and the washing of feet, reserved for special occasions, were not
regarded as religious institutes. It was the duty of a Christian to marry “only in
the Lord,” and submission to the civil power in all things lawful was
prescribed. f74 A unanimity required in Church decisions became the fruitful
parent of secessions.
These sentiments of the Scotch Baptists had been previously held in large
measure ‘by the Glasite or Sandemanian body, from which so many of them
had advanced to the truth of believers’ baptism. But these Baptist pioneers
were not Sandemanian Baptists, as they were stigmatized later, and they
strongly repudiated the appellation. The theology of John Owen, the Puritan
divine, had appealed to Mr. M’Lean, and he had reprinted one of his books in
1760 in his publishing days before he had become a Baptist, and he accepted