Natural and Revealed Theology in Hill and Chalmers

Abstract

George Hill (1750–1819), a member of the Whig establishment, Principal of St Mary’s College, St Andrews and long-time leader of the Moderate Party at the General Assembly expressed a cautious and conservative theology that was pragmatic and even progressive in its application. He stressed the applicative doctrines that had moral force, such as the Atonement, and if not determinist, then at least a monist vision of the universe. Hill’s most famous pupil, Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), for all his evangelical formation, from his time as Professor of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews to his spell as Professor of Theology at Edinburgh University then the Free Church College after the Disruption of 1843, held to a solid baseline of a rational religion to which was added an emphasis on the doctrine of sin and a need to receive the atoning work of Christ by faith and to be sanctified. This was to be enabled by preaching to all, without expecting that all will react with sufficient personal faith for salvation. As with Hill, the Bible alone was the guide to truth.