Moncrieff being a popular preacher, nearly all the hearers followed him; the place in which Mr. Dale officiated was in consequence very much deserted, and continued to be so for some time. Although the church thus lost many of its members, with very few exceptions, none appear either to have left, or to have been excluded on account of error in the fundamental doctrines of the gospel; and the church itself has never swerved from the principles which it first professed.
Mr. Dale never appeared in print as an author. He was opposed to the publication of the above-named pamphlet on infant baptism, and succeeded in preventing the appearance of a second, which was written in reply. Although he did not publish his own views to the world, and discouraged others from, doing so, he freely availed himself of the pulpit for expounding and vindicating the distinctive principles of his communion. A statement of these principles may here be introduced.
In 1813 a correspondence took place betwixt the churches in Scotland with which Mr. Dale stood connected (which, by this time, had assumed the name of the Old Independent Churches, to distinguish them from the more modern, raised by Messrs. Haldane, Ewing, and others), and the Inghamite churches[1] in England, which, in 1814, produced a nnion of these two bodies, which still exists. This correspondence was printed; from one of the letters of which, written by the late Mr. James M'Gavin, one of the elders of the church at Paisley, we shall transcribe, what it professes to contain, "a concise abstract of the faith, hope, and practice of these churches."
First, "We receive the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as the Word of God; and that these two Testaments (not singly, but as united) are the only rule of faith and practice."
Second, "As taught in these oracles, we profess to believe, that by the first man's disobedience all are become guilty before God, and are so constituted by the imputation of his one offence, as well as by our own actual transgression against the royal law of God, which requires a perfection of godliness and humanity—hence are naturally under its curse; and that 'by the deeds of the law no flesh can be justified' in his sight."
Third, "That the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God equal with the Father, was 'born of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them who are under the curse of the law'—that 'he was made a curse in bearing our sins in his own body'—that 'sin was imputed to him, who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners'—that in the work the Father gave him to do as his righteous servant, he 'obeyed the law as our surety, and made atonement for sin in his own divine blood'—that in his obedience unto death, 'he magnified the law, and made it honourable, and brought in an everlasting righteousness'—and our assurance of the truth of this rests in the Father's raising him
- ↑ The Inghamite churches date their origin from Mr. Benjamin Ingham, who, in 1735, was ordained to the ministry by Dr. Potter, bishop of Oxford. He at first attached himself to John Wesley, and at his request went on a preaching tour to America. On his return, in 1741, he married Lady Margaret Hastings, sister to the Earl of Huntingdon. He founded religious bodies, about sixty in number, chiefly in the midland and northern counties of England, modelled on the plan of the Wesleyan and Moravian societies. They, however, very soon resiled from the peculiarities of Methodism, and adopted principles and practices almost the same as were afterwards adopted by the churches in Scotland. On the two parties discovering this, in 1812, a formal union of Christian brotherhood betwixt the two was formed in 1814.
