[2] He studied Divinity at the University of Edinburgh and was licensed by the Presbytery of the Church of Scotland in Duns in 1828 and was posted as assistant minister to the Middle Parish in Greenock.

[5][4] Cunningham was appointed Professor of Theology at the New College, Edinburgh, before transferring to the chair of Church History in 1845, replacing Rev David Welsh.

[6] He succeeded Thomas Chalmers as Principal in 1847, serving in that position until his death, and was appointed moderator of the Free Church General Assembly in 1859.

William Garden Blaikie suggested that he was the "ablest defender of Calvinism in his day" and that the "gentleness of his personal character was a striking contrast to his boldness and vehemency in controversy.

[11] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, "his ... sympathies combined with his evident desire to be rigidly impartial qualifying him to be an interesting delineator of the more stirring periods of church history, and a skilful disentangler of the knotty points in theological polemics.