Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/John Tulloch

TULLOCH, John (1823–1886), Scottish theologian, was born at Bridge of Earn, Perthshire, in 1823, went to school at Perth, and received his university education at St Andrews and Edinburgh. In 1845 he became minister of St Paul's, Dundee, and in 1849 of Kettins, in Strathmore, where he remained for six years. His literary gifts, shown in his contributions to various reviews, as well as his talent for society drew attention to him, and in 1854 he was appointed to the principalship of St Mary's College, St Andrews. The appointment was immediately followed by the appearance of his Burnet prize essay on Theism. At St Andrews, where he held along with the principalship the post of professor of systematic theology and apologetics, his work as a teacher was distinguished by several features which at that time were new. He lectured on comparative theology and treated doctrine historically, as being not a fixed product but a growth. From the first he secured the attachment and admiration of his students. In 1862 he was appointed one of the clerks of the General Assembly, and from that time forward he took a leading part in the councils of the Church of Scotland. In 1878 he was chosen moderator of the Assembly. No one, except perhaps Dr Robert Lee, has done more during the last generation to widen the national church. Two positions on which he repeatedly insisted in the Assembly have taken a firm hold of the mind of that church, first, that it is of the essence of a church to be comprehensive of various views and tendencies, and that a national church especially should seek to represent all the elements of the life of the nation; secondly, that subscription to a creed can bind no one to all its details, but only to the sum and substance, or the spirit, of the symbol. For three years before his death he was convener of the church interests committee of the Church of Scotland, which had to deal with a great agitation for disestablishment. He was also deeply interested in the reorganization of education in Scotland, both in school and university, and acted as one of the temporary board which settled the primary school system under the Education Act of 1872. His death took place at Torquay on 13th February 1886.

Tulloch's best known works are collections of biographical sketches of the leaders of great movements in church history, such as the Reformation and Puritanism. His most important book, National Theology and Christian Philosophy (1872), is one in which the Cambridge Platonists and other leaders of dispassionate thought in the 17th century are similarly treated. He delivered the second series of the Croall lectures, on the Doctrine of Sin, which were afterwards published. He also published a small work, The Christ of the Gospels and the Christ of History, in which the views of Renan on the gospel history were dealt with; a monograph on Pascal for Blackwood's Foreign Classics series; and a little work, Beginning Life, addressed to young men, written at an earlier period. A Life of Tulloch by Mrs Oliphant is in preparation.