THEOLOGICAL TESTS IN SCOTLAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 410, 12 October 1889, Page 3

THEOLOGICAL TESTS IN SCOTLAND.

One of the main difficulties connected with the new university legislation is the dis-. posal of the theological tests. The theological faculties have hitherto been exclusively in the hands of the Established Church, with restriction of the occupancy of the chairs to those submitting to her dis r cipline. Bub, besides, each professor in, the other faculties has been obliged co make a declaration on accepting office that ha will nob use his office in a spirit of hostility ,to the Church, or promulgate any doctrines inconsistent with the Confession of Faith. Tho Government recommended Parliament to abolish this mild test of the lay chairs, and to leave the regulation of the btrain of professorial teachingasamatterof discipline in the hands of the university authorities. For this change the country is, of* course, well prepared. But the settlement of the theological faculty itself is a much more thorny question. The first proposal made by Mr Edmund Robertson, member for Dundee, was that the theological faculty should be abolished, and its chairs of Hebrew, church history, and Biblical criticism transferred to tho faculty of arts. This was advocated by him on fehe ground of . thoroughgoing voluntaryism, which refuses to recognise the teaching of dogmatic theology as any parb of the business of the State. Mr Esslemont, member for East Aberdeenshire, supported the proposal, showing that of 682 students of divinity in Scotland 442 were prohibited by principle from taking their theological course at the universities. The proposal was rejected, but the discussion served to prepare the way for a subsequent debate of very considerable importance. The Lord Advocate, while intimating the Government's decision with legard to fie lay tests, said that three courses wero open to Uieiu in dealing with the theological chans. They might do away with all te3bs. This was the sharpest and clearest course of all, bub whether the people of Scotland would accepb ib was doubtful. They might throw the chairs open to all the Presbyterian , denominu tions holding the Westminster Confession ,of Faith. To do this would involve elaborate rearrangements of the interests of all parties. Or they might keep the theological faculty as it stood. The Government proposed to send the matter to the University Commissioners, , that they might make full inquiry into all the circumstances, and report to Parliament. Professor Bryce ga\ c ib as his opinion that the people of Scotland were ready for the abolition of all tests^'. Such subjects as Biblical criticism and, church history could bs taught apart from theological bias, and the treatment of even dogmatic theology should not be restricted. It would rest wibh bhe occupanb of bhe chair nob to outrage the susceptibilities of the public by his teaching. The idea that Biblical criticism and church history could be taught without any bearing on dogmatic theology was ridiculed by Mr A. J. Balfonr, who further assured the House that the people of Scotland would not be satisfied with the impartial consideration of dogma from a purely scientific standpoint. Mr E.. B. Finlay, member for Inverness, expressed himself in favour of throwing the chairs open to members of the Presbyterian churches, in the hope that they would thus be led to 'unite on one system of training in divinity for all their students. Mr Gladstone followed with a particularly clever and obscure speech, apparently in favour of the immediate abolibion of all tests, and closing wibh an expression of his fear that bhe question was about to be decided, not on its own merits, but with refei'ence to the maintenance in its present form of the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland. The lesson of that happy arrangement, which had had beneficial results in Ireland, they would rapidly learn, and also the price they would have to pay for it. This was meant to twit the Liberal Unionist representatives from Scotland with their incapacity to ao justice to Scotland in combination with the Government. But the member for Midlothian is certainly ab faulb in' imagining bhab. bhe Government's' proposal, which was finally adopted, is Out of harmony with Scotch opinion in its present unformed state with regard to the future of the theological faculties. People generallywant time to consider all the bearings of the question, and by the time that the Commissioners have done their work many things, will have happened. — Exchange.