The Lion of the Secession: Alexander Moncrieff and the Strength of the Church by Rev. Benjamin Glaser

 

In my study right next to a deer skull/antler mount is a picture of Seceder and original Marrow Man Alexander Moncrieff. He’s long been my favorite of the Gairney Six due to his doggishness and godly spirit, both as a minister and as a fighter for the truth of the Scriptures. Moncrieff was called “the Lion of the Secession” and was later appointed as the Secession Church’s Professor of Divinity and served faithfully at the Associate congregation in Abernethy near Perth. He was most well-known later in life for aligning himself with those who were against the imposition of the Burgher Oath, which sadly caused a break amongst his brethren. Yet in all these things Ebenezer Erskine was able to say of Moncrieff that he was the backbone that allowed others to stand tall in the day of trial in the difficult days of 1733.

Here recently I had the blessing to re-read a pamphlet of his entitled, The Glory of Immanuel and the Desolation of Immanuel’s Land For the Sins of Them That Dwell Therein. For these sermons he takes as his primary texts Isaiah 8:7-8 and John 1:14. In the former portion of Holy Scripture Moncrieff notes that there is a prediction made concerning the coming invasion of the Holy Land by the Assyrians. The reason given for the troubles that were afoot came because the people sought safety in Rezin and Remaliah rather than in Shiloh. The whole focus of this treatise by Moncrieff is that what had happened in Scotland is that the people rather than resting and trusting in Christ, they had instead given themselves over to idolatry and the doctrines of demons, particularly the pomp and circumstance of popery, and the false philosophy of deism.

So what is Moncrieff’s solution to the declension of the Scottish Church? 

More Jesus Christ and less man. 

Through the opening chapter he spends a considerable amount of space eloquently stating a deep doctrine of Christ which marks out how and why the believer brings himself to poverty each time he chooses fleshly idols rather than  the sweet honey from the Rock. 

Here are couple examples:

His Glory is a divine glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, He is the Son of God by an ineffable generation. And it is an encouragement to the sons of men to look to Him and be saved, that He is full of grace and truth. He is Immanuel, and His Church is called the Land of Immanuel, because in it the pure worship of God and His ordinances are observed; and because of His interest in it, He is the Lord and King of Immanuel’s Land, which is His free and independent kingdom, God having set Him as King over Zion, the Hill of His Holiness.

The word ‘Flesh’ in Scripture is often used to signify the entire human nature, consisting both of body and soul: the Word was made Flesh, that is, He took the human nature into an intimate and real union with His divine person. To what height and honor has He raised our nature by making it the Temple of the Deity, the Habitation of eternal Wisdom? By this the glorious Majesty of Heaven is become related in a surprising manner to the despicable race of man; for now both He  that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.

Notice that in both of those quotes Moncrieff seamlessly integrates deep theological concepts with the free teaching of the Bible. One of the things we can learn from men like Moncrieff is that if the largely illiterate farm boys of Abernethy could grasp what Alexander was selling then our supposedly much better educated men and women of today can totally get it as well. This is an aside, but something that irked me tremendously as a youth (if I could have ever been called a youth, I’ve been an old man since kindergarten) was the way that everything seemed to be dumbed down for teenagers. All flashy nonsense cotton candy that left us unable to deal with real life. If a kid can understand geometry he can get the hypostatic union, but back to Moncrieff for a moment. The “Land of Immanuel” is to be marked out by its adherence to true worship and the ordinances offered by Christ. In what the Lord has provided is where the peace and comfort of the believer is to be found. Anything that competes with Jesus will cause division for a house divided against itself cannot stand. Does strange fire belong with the pure adoration of the Lord?

Let's look some more at the situation in the days of Moncrieff.

Writing later in the sermon he says:

…every ordinance that has not [Christ’s] institution is superstitious and impeaches His wisdom and care for the Church. Of this sort are all the inventions of men in the worship of God as prevail among those of the English hierarchy; and such of the superstitions imposed upon the world by the idolatrous Church of Rome. Such as the worshipping [and making] of images of Christ and of the saints and their idolatrous mass and their absurd transubstantiation… condemned by the word of God, and abjured [meaning rejected] in our covenants, National and Solemn League. Many of the dregs of those superstitions have not only been retained in the Church of England, and have crept in among ourselves, in contradiction to the Oath of God made by these Three Kingdoms in the Solemn League and Covenant…And how much of this land is now disposed to superstition, does appear not only from the practice of many in observing superstitious days, but from the conduct of many of late to going to visit and gaze at a picture of our blessed Lord and Savior upon the cross.

A besetting sin of our day is assuming that in the past everyone was a Christian and that the compromised church we see today is an aberrance in the history of the Anglo-West. One of the many reasons why it is important for us to read these old dead white guys is that it reminds us that the battles we face in the Church today are not new. Scotland's giving itself over to Roman and pagan superstition in the late 18th century is most certainly still with us today. Violations of the 2^nd and 4^th Commandment are the rule rather than exception. One of the points Moncrieff seeks to make is that the Arianism and Antinomianism which afflicted the Scottish Church came in largely through the adoption of formalism and Watt's paraphrases. 

Part of the reason why the Church is so weak today is because we, like our Scottish cousins, have replaced the simple worship instituted by Christ for the superstitious porridge of man-made days, seasons, images, Hallmark traditions and the like. “What’s the big deal” is often the response to any attempt to point out the problematic nature of human tradition, as if the Lord needs our help to come up with ways to enjoy His presence in worship. Anything that clouds out the blessings of the ordinances provided by our King must be cleansed from among our presence. Because in bringing these things in we distract the sheep from the bounty of food found alone in the sacraments and means of grace given by the wisdom of our Savior.

That disposition which Moncrieff speaks of at the close of the above quote is something I think we can all identify with. While the idols may change, the divided heart does not. Until the Church, and the members of it, learns to put away childish things, which Paul dealt with in several places, like Colossians 2 and Galatians 2, imaged in the mindset of the old covenant superstructure, it will continue to fight a losing battle for the souls of men. That is the kind of thing Moncrieff warns about over and over again in this sermon, and because Moncrieff was ignored where is the Church of Jesus Christ in the land of Scotland today? Violating the covenant has serious consequences and while we do not live in a covenanted land (to our shame) the surefire trials that come with a failure to remember the lessons of Deuteronomy 26-30 remain the same.

The teaching of the Bible says that if we would see revival and reformation it needs to start in the hearts of the people of God. If we spend all our time worrying about the Ammonites and the Assyrians while looking towards Dan and Bethel will we see the blessing of Jehovah? 

The answer should be obvious.

So what would Moncrieff’s solution be to our troubles today? More Jesus Christ. Not His glory mixed with the wisdom of men, but His power and His gifts alone being the source of our trust and hope.

In closing, hear this call from Alexander Moncrieff as you think upon your own walk with Christ and the free offer made to all sinners to come and rest in Him:

Behold Him with a look of admiration, and love and affection (Ps. 73:25) with a look of assent, believing the record that God has given of His Son. With a needy look, and with a look of expectation and desire with your souls deferring to Him with the expectation of the poor and the needy shall not be forgotten forever. Look saying in the Lord do I have righteousness and strength and trusting in Him in whom the gentiles shall trust.  

To read the whole sermon see this link:

https://archive.org/details/practicalworksof01monc/page/38/mode/2up