THE “voice of the past” is how the Rev. Dr. Charles Warr, St. Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh (in a recent press article), describes a public expression of our views upon the un-Presbyterian and Anglican practice of appointing and observing religious festivals such as Easter and days such as Good Friday connected therewith. We recalled that the Church of Scotland cast out such observances as Christmas and Easter by Act of Assembly in the sixteenth century; and it is obvious that “the twentieth century is not the sixteenth,” as the minister of St. Giles’ observed. But this is a fallacious and dangerous trend of thought when employed to suppress old Scottish Presbyterianism of a Scriptural character on the one hand, and to seduce Scotland back to pre-Reformation formalities, play-acting and darkness, in the realm of religious practices and worship, on the other.
Do the people of Scotland need Good Friday, as it is called? Certainly not. Every Friday during the year might, under the blessing of the Lord, be a good Friday to the sincere and consistent Christian. The Cross of Calvary and the most solemn events connected therewith, are in a manner recalled by the Popish and ritualistic professors of the Christian faith, on Good Friday and at Easter. But the Cross of Christ is the glory of believers at all times, and seasons, and day by day, in the spiritual experience of their own hearts. The facts of the crucifixion and the truths respecting God so loving a sinful and lost people as to give His own Son, a ransom for them, should be taught and preached to our children and adults, in our homes, schools and the house of God, constantly and with repeated emphasis. But there is no Biblical authority why these great glories should have been emphasised in Scotland on Friday, the twenty-third day of March, especially, as in 1951, because this was so-called Good Friday.
The voice of the past making itself heard through the medium of present-day Scottish Presbyterians, who are consistent in holding to their heritage, does not necessarily mean that the past “cuts no ice,” as Dr. Warr stated, and has no application to the present. Why? Surely it is from the past that we hear the words, “It is finished,” from the lips of the dying Redeemer. Yes, the work of redemption was completed; and further, the feasts, holy days and ritual of the Mosaic economy were laid aside for ever, in the Person and by the work of Christ, the anti-type.
Scotland in the past embraced the simplicity of the gospel in doctrine and worship. This was no “bleak austerity,” as Dr. Warr described the form of worship of our fathers, still retained by the Free Presbyterian Church. It was not so to the Covenants, and to many souls, when revivals took place at such places as Kirk of Shots and Cambuslang under showers of blessing from heaven by the Holy Spirit’s presence. Then, thousands sat down under the preaching of the Word of God, and also remembered (not on Good Friday) in the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, what was accomplished outside the gates of Jerusalem, with hearts melted in true repentance and moved by sincere love to Jesus. One day of this were better than a thousand in the present St. Giles’ Cathedral. Forms and ritual in religion increase to-day, and true piety among the masses of people in Scotland diminishes. For instance, normal Church attendance figures to-day—what are they? A fraction of what they were forty years ago. The introduction of Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter into the Church of Scotland, has, as yet, failed to turn the people back to regular and weekly attendance upon public worship, in Presbyterian Scotland. Ritual can never do for backsliding Scotland, what repentance from heaven can accomplish.
Again, what of “Easter Sunday” as it is called? Do we need this ritualistic annual remembrance of the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ? Every Lord’s Day is a memorial of this glorious fact in the Christian faith. But it cannot be denied that the “old Scottish Sabbath” as it is sometimes described, is by the majority of people disregarded and relegated to the category of institutions which are a burden too heavy to be borne in modern Scotland. Ministers and others in the Church of Scotland, are to be found, who do not believe in the reality of Christ’s resurrection at all. We wonder how many of these hypocritically pay lip service to “Easter Sunday.” And surely, enthusiasm for one season in the year relative to the Resurrection, to say the least of it, is inconsistent and a Popish form of godliness, while denying the power of true godliness.
The voice of the past sounds to us over the centuries through the noble Apostle Paul, thus, “Ye observe days, and months, and times and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain” (Gal. iv, 10, 11). And the voice of the past informs us that the term “Easter” is derived from the Saxon Ostora, the goddess of Spring; so now we understand why the Rev. Dr. Warr described “Easter Day” as “the Queen of all Christian Festivals,” irrespective of the obvious, that it was the King of Glory who rose from the grave. But a mixture of paganism is thought worthwhile to garnish Christian worship. And even in the early Church there was no uniformity in the day observed by those who gave place to Easter. Astronomy and mathematics, to a certain extent, are essential to fixing the time of Easter year by year; and, of course, there is no Scripture authority for such a festival, which is a moveable one, within the limits of March and April. In 1949, Good Friday was on the 15th of April; in 1950, on the 7th of April; in 1951, as already stated, on the 23rd of March.
If Presbyterians who fear God and abhor ritualism, abide by New Testament and Apostolic guidance, and the example of their fathers (albeit some of them lived in the sixteenth century), in excluding Christmas, Lent, Holy Week and Easter from their worship—then if their forms of worship are “uncouth and dreary,” as Dr. Warr, of the Church of Scotland, describes them, they find themselves in good company, spiritually. There are still a few consistent Presbyterians in Scotland, who in conscience must oppose the imposition upon themselves and their children, whatsoever tends to Episcopacy and Popery. Surely to be strongly and openly of this mind cannot detract from their reverence for the verities of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and their spiritual satisfaction in the worship of His Name according to Apostolic practice.
But the minister of St. Giles’ turns in his practice, increasingly to Episcopacy and an aping at Popery. We understand he publicly prays for the dead. It would be well if he heard the voice of the past, effectually, in the story of Jenny Geddes. He appears to turn his ear from the history of the past, which records the godly and invaluable services rendered to Christ and His Kingdom by eminent ministers of the Gospel and God-fearing laymen, in the establishment of Christ’s Kirk (Presbyterian) in Scotland, centuries ago, to the then purging and freeing of Scotland from the blight of Episcopacy and much that was a hindrance to the progress of the Gospel and to piety.
It is as clear as the noon-day sun that there are men in the Church of Scotland, who are deeply interested in the conferences between their own Church and Church of England dignitaries, with a view to closer relations; and thus they work to bring the people of Scotland to conform to Anglican practices. And so the Reformers and the godly of the past must be maligned and critically handled for having cast out of the Church the childish practices, and play-acting of pre-Reformation times. Truly we need that the Lord would raise up many, by His power, who would worship God in the Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh; such as would follow in the blessed footsteps of the Reformers.