ONE of the dark features of the present time in connection with our country is the false charity that is so widely exercised towards the so-called “Church of Rome.” Nothing appears more plain to us than that the Pope as the head and representative of this Anti-christian body is “the Man of Sin” spoken of by the Apostle Paul in Second Thessalonians, second chapter. The inspired description suits no other personality. This was the opinion held almost universally in the Reformed Churches at the Reformation period and for a long time after. But along with a general departure from “the faith once delivered unto the saints,” we observe a general relinquishment of this Scriptural view of the Roman Catholic body, and widespread reverence shown it, as if it were a true Church. In fact, it would almost appear by some recent events as if our country is beginning to acknowledge anew the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, after the lapse of centuries. The signs of the times in this respect are ominous, but we trust that God’s wheels in providence are moving in an opposite direction to human policy and that Papal Rome may soon be crushed under them, in spite of all the schemes and efforts of man to the contrary. Meantime, however, we cannot refrain from bearing testimony against certain steps Romeward which leaders in Church and State have recently taken.
One of these steps was briefly referred to already in our columns, namely, the appointment by the King of Sir Henry Howard as Extraordinary Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Vatican. Diplomatic relations have thus been reopened with Rome, relations which were closed for about four hundred years. The temporal authority and power of the Pope have been recognised. The King in his letter of greeting, sent by Sir Henry Howard (himself a Roman Catholic), congratulates the present Pontiff in his accession to the Papedom, and invariably describes him as
his “Holiness.” Now, these are great concessions to the arrogant and presumptuous claims of “the Man of Sin,” and are to be deplored by every true Protestant throughout the country. When we further consider that His Majesty is speaking not for himself alone, but for the Government, we are bound to conclude that new national guilt has been incurred by our State, which will call for its own chastisement. Of course, the grand excuse for this wretched step is the War and its necessities. The Pope has influence with certain nations which have representatives at the Vatican, and so we must have our representative there. But the excuse is a very poor one at best. The Pope is not a recognised temporal sovereign, and on the Continent his influence is distinctly decreasing. Besides, the step is directly disloyal to our constitution as a Protestant country which threw over the tyrannical yoke of the Papacy in the glorious days when our civil and religious liberties were won. The Papacy has never been a blessing: it has always proved a curse to any nation that has yielded to its pretensions. Why should we then not maintain our noble independence and refuse any assistance from so wily an adversary, fawning a hypocritical friendship? The Pope evidently wishes to have a say in the final terms of peace and division of states, and thus to make the War a stepping-stone to the regaining of his temporal power which has proved the blight of nations. Our rulers ought to be ashamed to do anything to help forward his unholy schemes, but the King eternal is able to defeat them all, and to over-rule all for His own glory and the good of His kingdom.
A second step Romeward—in this case on the part of religious leaders—may be noticed as a sign of the times. Mr. R. J. Campbell, minister of the City Temple, London, recently advocated in a sermon, published in the Christian Commonwealth, the proposal that the Pope should be asked to convene a conference of representatives of all the Christian Churches with a view to get the war stopped. Mr. Campbell, as our readers may know, was prominently before the country some time ago as a preacher who adopted very erroneous views about the Person of Christ and the nature of sin. His ideas were of a rationalistic kind, and in some sense at the opposite pole from the Pope’s creed. But there is a proverb to the effect that extremes meet, and here it is fulfilled. All extremes of departure from God’s Word have a common root in sin as disobedience to the truth. The press reported that at least two Bishops of the Church of England, and two Nonconformist leaders, Drs. Meyer and Clifford, sent letters in favour of Mr. Campbell’s proposal. Of the four, we would have expected best of Dr. Meyer, but he also is found wanting. A time of war and distress, such as the present, is a testing time. It puts men’s principles to the proof. Blindness has fallen upon the Protestant world. We may know how little real Protestantism is to be expected from the general class of Protestant leaders in our day by the
above incident. The manly faithfulness of our forefathers is almost entirely gone from our midst.
A third incident which illustrates the decay of Protestantism in Britain recently took place in Scotland. The Moderators of the Established and United Free Assemblies, in co-operation with the Primus of the Episcopal Church, proposed an appeal to the people for a sober and good New Year. They arranged that a letter should be published in the press with the signatures of the chief men of all religious denominations, the Roman Catholic included. The Primus of the Episcopal Church was to secure the signature of the Roman Catholic Archbishop, which he successfully did. The Moderators of the Free and the Free Presbyterian Churches were appealed to for their signatures, but they refused to be associated with the Romish Archbishop, Smith of Edinburgh. What was our astonishment, however, to observe, when the appeal saw the light, that the names of the Moderators of the Original Secession Synod and the Reformed Presbyterian Synod, Professor Spence and Rev. William Russell, Paisley, were appended to it! These gentlemen profess to represent the most distinctly Covenanting bodies in Scotland, the most thorough opponents of Popery and Prelacy, and yet their names are here conjoined with the representatives of both. Their attitude is entirely different from that of their steadfast ancestors. Would Ebenezer Erskine, Adam Gib, or Richard Cameron and James Renwick have gone arm in arm, with a Papist, as Messrs. Spence and Russell have done? Possibly the latter may say that they entirely detest Popery, and that the case was simply a moral appeal to the community. But can we have sound morality apart from Gospel principles? There should be no fellowship with the “Man of Sin,” in any form, and the incident under review clearly shows that even the representatives of these bodies among us which were strongest at one time against Popery have not the wholesome fear of all contact with it that once obtained. The atmosphere is suffused with the poison of false charity, and few escape its influence.
In conclusion, we express our earnest desire that the Lord may in His rich mercy open the eyes of our once highly favoured nation to the dreadful dangers of Romanism. We are greatly opposed to the tyranny and cruelty of German militarism with the Kaiser at its head. Why are we not equally opposed to the same qualities in Romanism with its lord, the Pope?
A SOUL truly sensible of his own unrighteousness would not have this sentence, “The Lord our righteousness,” blotted out of the Bible for ten thousand worlds. A gracious soul triumphs more in the righteousness of Christ imputed than he would have done if he could have stood in the righteousness in which he was created.—Brooks.