Patrick Hutchison
Patrick Hutchison was a Presbyterian minister who produced the first systematic definition of the beliefs of the Relief Church in Scotland.
Early life and religious loyalties
Hutchison was born on 3 January 1741 into a farming family at Dunblane where his father was an elder of the Anti-burgher Church of the First Secession. Raised in that communion, he initially accepted its teaching without hesitation but, in circumstances that are unclear, came to question its principles. Concluding that some of these had no basis in Scripture, and dismayed by what he saw as the Anti-burghers’ preference for narrow dogma over moral conscience, he joined the Relief Church. By 1770 he had been licensed by the Relief Presbytery and appointed assistant to Dr James Baine, minister at College Street, Edinburgh, one of the fathers of the Relief. As a ruling elder of College Street he attended the first Relief Synod in May 1773.Ministry
In November 1774 he was inducted as first Relief minister at St. Ninians, near Stirling. There he was on terms of close friendship with Rev. Alexander Pirie, in whose church at Blairlogie he frequently preached and in debate with whom he refined his judgement on topics of ministerial concern. During his eight years at St. Ninians he became one of Scotland's foremost religious controversialists, publishing for the first time tracts systematically setting out what were the doctrinal beliefs of the Relief communion and why they were scripturally correct when different from those of other Presbyterian denominations.He largely withdrew from the printed fray in May 1783 upon removing to become minister at Paisley, a rapidly expanding town that required greater pastoral attention. But he still courted controversy with outspoken calls for political reform and for an end to the war with France, resulting in a rift within his congregation in 1796.
His preaching style was variously described as “warm and energetic” and “masculine, eloquent and impressive”, and he accepted invitations to preach across the west of Scotland such that his very name became “a tower of strength for his denomination”. He continued at Paisley until his death, by which time his large church there was regularly “full to overflowing”.
Writings
By 1779 the Relief was under attack from both Burghers and Anti-burghers, and Hutchison took it upon himself to hold the Relief's corner in print, publishing A Compendious View of the Religious System maintained by the Synod of Relief. This put at the heart of the system principles of independence of church from patronage and civil authority, toleration and friendly communion between all Protestant persuasions, and rejection of conventions that would, as Hutchison saw it, exclude Christ's apostles from membership of the church of the First Secession.The Burgher Synod replied with a pamphlet denouncing the Relief as unprincipled in its fellowship and conducive to immorality, to which Hutchison responded with A Few Animadversions on the Re-exhibition of Burgher-Testimony, and in 1780 he published A Dissertation on the Nature and Genius of the Kingdom of Christ, asserting that the form of the church should be consistent with its first foundation as described in the New Testament.
Ministers of other persuasions circulated papers containing further charges against the Relief, to which Hutchison issued a refutation in 1781. He wrote in vehement terms. This probably increased the appeal and circulation of his tracts, and they ran to several editions.
In 1788 he produced Three Discourses on the Divine and Mediatorial Character of Jesus Christ, described by Dr Struthers, the historian of the Relief Church, as “truly masterly discourses, determined by that breadth of intellect, and that fervour of mind, which so remarkably distinguished their author”. In 1803, following his death, a volume containing sixteen of his sermons was printed and this continued to be reissued into the 1840s.