BY REV. J. P. MACQUEEN.
Some church historians declare that the origin of the Friday Fellowship Meeting has been lost in the mists of ecclesiastical antiquity, but there are others who as emphatically assert that this is not the case. In some localities, where the useful and edifying custom prevailed, as, for instance, among a colony, or community, of Protestants on the French side of the Pyrenees, its origin there may be a subject of controversy, but the late Dr. Munro of Ferintosh and Rogart had no doubt as to its origin in the Highlands of Scotland. He told the present writer, on more than one occasion, that the God-fearing soldiers from Sutherland, who took part in, and survived, the Thirty Years War, under the command and leadership of the great Christian Swedish king, Gustavus Adolphus, became accustomed to the spiritually-edifying practice while serving in the army of that Protestant hero. On their return home they continued the good custom in their native Sutherland, after the Treaty of Westphalia had been signed, marking the end of a terribly bloody campaign, originated, like most international wars since, by the intriguing, and satanic plots, of the treacherous Jesuits. Incidentally, the Thirty Years War would have been appropriately designated the Protestant versus the Romanist War.
These God-fearing soldiers, of various nationalities, under the intrepid and noble Christian King of Sweden, were truly exercised Christians, and so felt, in their special circumstances, their need of Biblical confirmation that the inward work in them, on which they based their public profession of Christianity, was, in reality, saving grace. Generally, if not universally, speaking, the more the soul grows in grace the more the individual Christian discovers, with John the Baptist, that “He (Christ) must increase, but I must decrease.” As the Holy Spirit breaks up the fountains of the deep in the soul, the more the believer realizes, from inward personal experience, the truth that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, who can know it?” He believed this truth before, on the infallible, eternal, and immutable, authority of the Word of God, but now he has inward painful, but gracious, experience of its ingrained reality. He grows in the inward knowledge of personal corruption, so that he now understands better than ever before the meaning of the holy groaning of the Apostle Paul, when he declared:—”O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans vii, 24). When this corruption, which is like the troubled sea, that cannot be at rest, but continually casts up its mire and its dirt, defiles the soul and conscience, one’s evidence of being a Christian, (before now anticipating consciously comforting holiness of heart, to continue uninterrupted), becomes dim, so that one begins to question the reality of that previous peace and joy in believing, which at first, in regeneration, produced the assurance of faith, if not the assurance of sight, sense, and feeling, as well. Was it reality, or was he the victim of an illusion, even if the sweetest experience he ever knew?
It was this painful experience of the blurring, if not the temporarily obliterating, of the inward evidence and proof of supernatural grace, or Christianity, in the soul, that led the godly soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus’s army to initiate and establish the Friday Fellowship Meeting, so that by mutual fellowship and comparing of notes, relative to true Scriptural marks of grace, they would be more prepared, encouraged, and strengthened to perform the solemn duty of commemorating a Saviour’s love, and obeying His dying command:—”Do this in remembrance of Me,” on the coming Sabbath. These truly exercised Christian soldiers were men who had to battle, not only with flesh and blood, but with doubts, fears, misgivings, and questioning of the reality of their being in a state of grace, which was indispensably necessary to their being in a state of glory hereafter, hence the importance, if not the necessity, of the institution of the Friday Fellowship Meeting. It was the same questioning that led the justly-renowned English Calvinistic divine, Augustus M. Toplady, to write and publish his edifying and assuring pamphlet entitled:—”The Fears and Doubts to which God’s People are Liabile.” The North of Scotland Separatists thus only continued a long-established institution, while dispensing with ordained ministers.
When a God-fearing minister was obtainable, he was expected to give a doctrinal exposition of a suitable, simple, not complex or disputable, passage of Scripture, “given out” by one of “the men” (a layman), generally regarded as among the oldest, more experienced, and judicious, among the godly. As distinct from the present day, not one of “the men” read the passage, as owing to the widespread prevalence of illiteracy, it would be regarded as literary snobbery to read the verse, thus esteeming oneself more advanced than his brethren, which is diametrically opposed to Christian humility and precept. The suitability, or otherwise, of the passage was left entirely to the judgment of the minister “opening the question.” The Question Day existed long before the days of the Separatists. The Separatists ousted the ministers from it.
Strange to say, despite generations of the good and edifying custom, there are still, here and there, those who think that the Friday Fellowship Meeting, or Question Day, as it is otherwise called, was set apart for the elucidation, or exposition, of difficult, or obscure, passages of Scripture, calculated to put the minister “opening the question” himself on his back. On the contrary, the passage of Scripture chosen must be one that simply, obviously, and unmistakably describes, or embodies the doctrine of the new birth, or believing, such for instance, as:—(1) “Ye must be born again”; (2) “He that believeth on the Son hath life”; and (3) “We know we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.” The question in this case is not anything obscure or equivocal in the passage itself, but the questioning in the mind of the professed believer himself as to his being in a state of grace, or, alternatively, in a state of self-deception, due to his increasing knowledge of inward corruption, personal frailty, spiritual inability, and proneness to wander from the path of duty, as compared to the undoubted sense of joy, happiness, and assurance, of his first love. Such passages of Scripture as caused controversy, as to their exact meaning, among godly and scholarly divines and theologians, were rejected, among “the men,” as unsuitable for the special exercises of a Friday Fellowship Meeting, or Question-Day. It would be absurd and unbecoming, in such a connection, for instance, to choose as a passage for such exercises:—”And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” (Luke xvi, 9-13.). Many and varied have been the interpretations of the foregoing passage, and as often as unsatisfactory. The same applies to much of the symbolism in the Revelation of John, concerning which Rev. C. H. Spurgeon said:—”This is a book, concerning which, efforts at its elucidation, have ruined many an otherwise established reputation for Biblical interpretation.”
Dr. Munro, already referred to, said that the Sutherland “men” insisted on the simplest, lowest, and most obvious marks of grace, consistently with one’s being in a state of grace, and not the highest marks. They frowned emphatically on any abuse of the fellowship-meeting, as supposedly and wrongly affording an opportunity to give blows, metaphorically speaking, to a brother layman or minister present. They regarded such conduct as manifesting a lack of becoming courage and candour in one not having the gracious manliness to speak to such a brother privately, and not publicly. They equally denounced such conduct in a public prayer meeting, as showing that the one praying was not truly in a spiritual humble frame of mind, when thus adversely criticizing a brother publicly at a Throne of Grace. That did not mean that they spared the sins and declensions of their day and generation. The minister who “closed the question,” summed up, and he was expected lovingly, but firmly, faithfully, candidly, and conscientiously, to point out any flaws, errors, or irregularities, in the preceding statements of the brethren. The use of the term “men” was to distinguish them from ministers, and not because they were not women.
All “the men” were expected to be short and edifying in their remarks, and it was regarded as a violation of good manners, brotherly love, and courtesy, when any brother took up too much time, while there were present so many “men” to speak, whom all present wanted to hear. The one who thus overleaped the bounds of sobriety and propriety was regarded as esteeming his own natural gifts and eloquence as far above those of his brethren, and this was regarded as the opposite of spiritual-mindedness, gracious unction, and solemn heavenly liberty, in speaking, with pithy brevity. The other extreme of being too long in speaking was unbecoming abrupt shortness and brevity, as, according to the Sutherland “men,” showing a lack of becoming reverence. “Let brotherly love continue,” was their outstanding and constant resolution.
It has proved a most useful, encouraging, and edifying institution and exercise, and we have not a spark of sympathy with those who advocate its abolition, because it is so much departed from, by those who use it as an occasion for lecturing, speechifying, and hurling sly hints at their brethren’s faults and inconsistencies, while ignoring the beam in their own eye. As well might one advocate the abolition of preaching the Gospel, because the majority of pulpits in Scotland, and further afield, in our day, preach “another gospel, which is not another.” The abuse of a good thing is no excuse for its abolition, and the advocacy of such abolition is not from above.
The present writer sincerely believes that any suggestion to abolish the Friday Fellowship Meeting is from Satan and his human dupes, and from the type of arrogant selfish person who cannot bear to listen to anybody but himself. How degrading such conduct in a professed follower of the Gospel, but there have always been such, even when professedly evangelical and Calvinistically orthodox.
Unconverted ministers, whose main object in life seems to be the extension and multiplying of communion rolls, hate the discriminating exercises of a Friday Fellowship Meeting and “the fencing of the Lord’s Table,” as thus calculated to limit the number of communicants, for they themselves have never learned the unspeakable inestimable value of a precious immortal soul, and its eternal destiny. Who can estimate what a plague and curse a godless unconverted ministry can be to a parish, community, nation, or generation!
The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland has deep reason for humility, and gratitude to the Most High, that we have still in our midst men who can get up at a Fellowship Meeting to declare, for the edification, encouragement, and comfort of the Lord’s true people, what the Holy Ghost has done for their souls, in supernaturally applying to them the redemption purchased by Christ, with its fruits of conviction of sin, saving faith, evangelical repentance, justification, sanctification, and ultimately, inevitably and infallibly, eternal glory. The sole conscious aim of the writer, in thus writing, is the promotion, among Christian brethren, of Christian unity, harmony, peace, and concord, to the edification of the members of Christ’s mystical body, and to the glory of God.
“All the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and He is the Governor among the nations.” (Psalm xxii, 27-28.). “Let the whole earth be filled with His glory.” (Psalm lxxii, 19.). Let us, therefore, pray for the world-wide outpouring of the Holy Ghost.