James Morison (evangelical)

Rev James Morison DD (1816–1893) was the founder of the Scottish evangelical union, also known as Morisonianism.

He was the son of Robert Morison (died 5 Aug. 1855, aged 74), minister of the United Secession Church, was born at Bathgate, Linlithgowshire, on 14 Feb. 1816. He was educated at the Edinburgh University, where his intellectual power attracted the notice of John Wilson ('Christopher North'), and in 1834 he entered on his training for the ministry in Edinburgh at the divinity hall of the United Secession Church, under John Brown, D.D. (1784–1858).

After license (1839) he preached as a probationer at Cabrach, Banffshire, and other places in the north of Scotland. His interest in the current movement of evangelical revival led him to study the doctrine of atonement ; he embraced the view (rare among Calvinists) that our Lord made atonement, not simply for the elect, but for all mankind. In Nairn, Tain, Forres, and at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, he preached with great success, and embodied his views in a tract, published in 1840, and entitled 'The Question, "What must I do to be saved?" answered by Philanthropes.'

In the same year he received a call to the United Secession Church, Clerk's Lane, Kilmarnock. On 29 September, the day appointed for his ordination by Kilmarnock presbytery, proceedings were delayed by the objections of two of its members, but Morison was ordained after explaining that he did not hold 'universal salvation,' and promising to suppress his tract. He acquiesced, however, in its being reprinted by Thomas William Baxter Aveling, a congregational minister in London, and, from the reprint, editions were issued (not by Morison) in Dunfermline and Kilmarnock. Hereupon he was cited before the Kilmarnock presbytery, and suspended from the ministry on 9 March 1841. He appealed to the synod, the supreme court of his church, and, though his cause was advocated by Brown, his tutor, the suspension was confirmed (11 June) on the motion of Hugh Heugh, D.D. Morison protested, and declined to recognise the decision ; he was enthusiastically supported by his congregation, to which in two years he added 578 members. His father, who shared his views, was suspended in May 1842 ; and in May 1843 there were further suspensions of Alexander Gumming Rutherford of Falkirk, and John Guthrie of Kendal.

The four suspended ministers, in concert with nine laymen, at a meeting in Kilmarnock (16–18 May 1843), formed the Evangelical Union. They issued a statement of principles, showing a growth of opinion, inasmuch as they had now abandoned the Calvinistic doctrine of election. Their movement was reinforced by the expulsion (1 May 1844) of nine students from the theological academy of the congregationalists at Glasgow, under Ralph Wardlaw, D.D.; and by the disownment (1845) of nine congregational churches holding similar views. From the 'relief church' in 1844 John Hamilton of Lauder joined the movement ; as did William Scott in June 1845, on his expulsion from Free St. Mark's, Glasgow. Not all who thus came over to Morison's views, and were hence known as Morisonians, became members of the evangelical union but they co-operated with it, and aided in the maintenance of a theological academy, established in 1843 by Morison, who held the chair of exegetical theology, and remained principal till his death.

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