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Stuart Robinson is known for his position, characteristic of the Southern Presbyterian Church, that — as John Muether has written in reviewing The Church of God as an Essential Element of the Gospel — “‘divine right’ Presbyterianism sees the church as a spiritual institution with spiritual means to accomplish spiritual ends.” The place of the church in relation to the gospel is front and center in Robinson’s thinking as is shown also by an extract from an address which he gave to the First General Presbyterian Council at Edinburgh, Scotland in July 1877 titled The Churchliness of Calvinism: Presbytery Jure Divino Its Logical Outcome (1877).
The mission of Messiah to execute the covenant of eternity was not simply to be a teaching Prophet and an atoning Priest, but a ruling King as well. His work, beside making an atonement, was not, as a Socrates, merely to enunciate certain truths and found a school, but likewise, as the result of all and the reward of all, to be a Solon, founding a community, organising a government, and administering therein as a perpetual King. Hence, therefore, the Church of God, as organised and visible, is but the actual outworking of the purpose to redeem an organised body of sinners out of the fallen race. It is therefore an essential element of the gospel theology. The foundations of the structure are laid in the very depths of the scheme of redemption; and the development, in time, of that scheme to redeem not merely individual souls, but a body of sinners organised under the Mediator, as Head and King, must of necessity develop a Church, visible and organised, as a part of the revelation to man of the counsels of eternity.
See the rest of Robinson’s address here, along with many other works by him, including newly-added issues of the newspaper he edited in Louisville, Kentucky, the Free Christian Commonwealth. He is a Presbyterian worth getting to know, and this address is representative of his passionate conviction in the important place of the Church in relation to the redemptive purpose and work of Messiah.
