The Church Case

THE HOUSE OF LORDS’ DECISION.

IT need hardly be said that the important decision by the House of Lords in favour of the Free Church is the subject of the hour in Scotland. From some points of view an event of equal importance or of such far-reaching consequence in the sphere of the Church has not happened for two hundred years. In addition to the fact that a vast amount of property and funds has been rescued from wrong and illegal purposes, certain valuable principles of truth, that were on the point of being extinguished by unfaithful men, have been vindicated in a striking manner before the whole world. It is also to be noted with much thankfulness that this decision has confirmed the testimonies of past as well as present witnesses for the truth of God in connection with the Free Church. The testimonies of those eminent men, now at their rest, who opposed the former union negotiations and other departures from the doctrine of the Confession of Faith, as inconsistent with the Church’s constitution and God’s Word, have been freed from the burden of unjust aspersions, and have received an impressive vindication that will abide to future generations. Though the House of Lords is not to be regarded as infallible more than any other human institution, yet it has done in this case an invaluable service to the cause of truth and righteousness.

We make these observations in full consciousness of the fact that the judgment of the Lords does not clear up all the points of difference which exist between the Free Presbyterian Church and the present Free Church. At the same time, on the broader issues, the victory is one for both, and if the Free Church uses it well, and follows it up by a consistent removal of the grounds of division, it may have a very beneficent result in respect of the relations of the two bodies. It is not our present object, however, to discuss these matters, but to give a brief review of the history of the case and of the decision in its general aspects.

The history is already well known, and does not require to be much enlarged upon. In October, 1900, the majority of the Free Church (so-called) consummated a union with the United Presbyterian Church and formed a body which has been since known as the United Free Church. A minority of the Free Church, consisting of twenty-five ministers and several thousands of people, refused to enter the union, declared that the majority in doing so had departed from Free Church principles, and claimed to be “the true and lawful Free Church of Scotland.” The United Free party treated their claim with contempt, Principal Rainy affirming that they were only “playing at Free Church.” The minority were now threatened with ejection from their churches and manses, and so in defence of their civil rights, they appealed to the Court of Session. Convinced that the majority had no right in law or justice to carry off the whole lands, property and funds of the Church into a new body, and believing themselves to be the lawful trustees thereof, they claimed that they were “entitled to have the whole of said lands, property, and funds applied according to the terms of the trusts upon which they are respectively held.” They also presented one special case (Buccleuch and Greyfriars Church) under the Model Trust Deed. The Court of Session, however, in both divisions declared against them, and dismissed the actions. They appealed to the House of Lords. The case was heard in the presence of Lord Chancellor Halsbury, and Lords Davey, Macnaghten, Robertson, Lindley, and Shand, but before judgment was pronounced, Lord Shand died. It is understood that Lord Shand favoured the United Free side, and that the judges, previous to his death, were equally divided. In view of the new circumstances they ordered a re-hearing of the case, and called in the assistance of three other judges, Lord Chief-Justice Alverstone, Lord James of Hereford, and Lord Kinross, a Scotsman. The latter, however, declined to sit as “it might be supposed that he would be prejudiced in hearing the case by former opinions he entertained.” It appears that Lord Kinross was one of the counsel that the United Free section had consulted previous to the union, and that had given them a favourable opinion as to the legality of their case. Strange, it is also on record that during the old union negotiations, he—then Mr. J. B. Balfour—was consulted, along with others, by Dr. Begg and his party, and gave an opinion favourable to those who were opposed to union with the U.P. Church. The re-hearing began on the 9th June of this year, and occupied nine days, the last being the 23rd of the same month. After a short period of anxious expectation, judgment was pronounced on Monday, 1st August. The Lord Chancellor moved the reversion of the judgment of the Court of Session. The appeals of the minority were upheld by five Lords to two, the two being Lords Macnaghten and Lindley. This decision came, we scarcely require to say, like a thunderclap upon the United Free Church, while it afforded just occasion of satisfaction and rejoic-

ing to the victorious Free Church and all who sympathised with them.

In understanding the grounds of the decision come to by the Lords, it is desirable first to observe the pleas put in by the contending parties. It was argued by Mr. Henry Johnson, K.C., and Mr. E. T. Salvesen, K.C., for the Free Church that the Establishment principle was an essential and fundamental principle of the Free Church as constituted in 1843, and that the majority had entirely thrown up this principle in their union with a Voluntary body such as the U.P. Church; further, that the Declaratory Act of 1892, from which the minority had dissented, and the Act of 1894, had abolished the authority of the Confession of Faith and prepared the way for the union, and that the majority had misused in this connection the Barrier Act of 1697, which was intended to prevent and not to admit innovations; that the Formula and Questions adopted by the United Church had substituted “the doctrine of this Church” for “the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith;” and finally that the Model Trust Deed made no provision for union with, or transference of property to, any body whose principles were inconsistent with the constitution of the Free Church as settled in 1843. It may be stated that the main stress was laid on departure from the Establishment principle. On the other side, it was argued by the Dean of Faculty (Mr. Asher) and Mr. R. B. Haldane, K.C., that the Establishment principle was not an essential or fundamental principle of the Free Church, though admittedly an opinion held by many at the Disruption and since; that the Church in 1843 secured a spiritual independence whereby they could interpret their Confession or alter their standards as they saw fit; that the Barrier Act gave them liberty to make alterations such as are embodied in the Declaratory Act of 1892, and in the Uniting Act of 1900; and that the Model Trust Deed provided for unions with other bodies. It was declared on the point of liberty to alter, that the Church was free to make any change short of an absolute renunciation of the Bible and the Headship of Christ.

Now, as to the opinions of the five Lords who decided in favour of the Free Church. As our readers are aware, each Lord gave his own deliverance on the case, stating his opinion in his own language and with emphasis on the point or points that appealed most strongly to him. First, then, the five Lords were agreed that the Establishment principle was a distinctive and fundamental principle of the Free Church. They based their opinion upon the standards of the Church, upon the utterances of Dr. Chalmers, expository thereof at the Disruption, and upon the documents in connection with former unions with Original Seceders and Reformed Presbyterians. Secondly, they agreed that the Barrier Act confers no powers upon the Church to change its faith or subvert or destroy any of its essential principles. Lord Alverston gives it as his opinion that “the Barrier Act recognises

that the Assembly possesses some powers of alteration with reference to doctrine, worship and discipline,” but not to the extent above stated. Thirdly, they agreed that the Model Trust Deed gives no “power to unite so as to bring into existence a Church” of a different character from the Free Church. Lord James says: “I do not think that the Model Trust Deed gives greater power of union than the Free Church possessed without it.” Fourthly, they are practically agreed that the Respondents (the United Free Church) have deposed the Confession of Faith from its place of authority as a standard of the Church, and have substituted “a belief in the doctrine of the Church as expressed in the Confession of Faith.” The Lord Chancellor expressly condemns the doctrine of the Declaratory Act of 1892, and selects one passage in particular which he declares is designed to exclude and denounce the doctrine of the Confession on Predestination. Fifthly, they agreed, in view of these various facts that all those formerly members of the Free Church, who had become members of the United Free Church, had lost and forfeited all right and title to the whole lands, property and goods of the Free Church and that “the pursuers and those adhering to them and lawfully associated with them conform to the constitution of the Free Church of Scotland” are entitled to have these lands, property and funds applied according to the trusts. The sum of their argument is practically this: The Free Church had a distinctive constitution; the property was held according to the terms of that constitution; no power was given in it to alter any essential principle or doctrine whatsoever; and the respondents of the United Free Church have so departed from the constitution that they have forfeited their right to the property and funds. The two Lords, Macnaghten and Lindley, who gave their voice against the appeals of the minority, did so on the ground that the Free Church of 1843, by her separation from the State, secured freedom to make changes and to alter her relation to the Confession of Faith if she chose. Lord Macnaghten expresses no opinion about the Barrier Act, but Lord Lindley bases also the powers of the Church to make alterations on the scope of this Act. They seemed to overlook the fact that the Free Church had a clearly defined constitution, and bound all her office-bearers in her Formula and Questions to the acceptance of the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith and to the renunciation of all erroneous tenets inconsistent therewith, and that the Free Church claimed to be no new body, but simply the Church of Scotland in everything except undue interference from the State. As already referred to, the Barrier Act is entitled an Act “for Preventing Innovations,” and while there may be some vagueness in its terms, yet it was never designed for the purposes to which it has been put in these latter years of departure “from the faith once delivered to the saints.”

In expressing satisfaction with the decision in the present case, we must not be understood as bound to endorse every word that falls from the mouth of the eminent judges who have decided in favour of the minority, or even to regard the present Free Church as the direct and thorough representative of the Free Church of 1843. The Free Presbyterian Church, which broke off from the main body after the adoption of the Declaratory Act, made this claim, and still makes it; and it is not too much to say that the ministers and people of this Church have as much right, if not more, to the property and funds than the present Free Church. It is not our intention, however, in this article, to enlarge on differences. Suffice it to say that it affords us great pleasure that the Establishment principle has been vindicated as an essential principle of the Free Church of Scotland, that the Declaratory Act of 1892 has been practically condemned as inconsistent with the Confession of Faith, and that the Free Church has been declared as bound, as long as it retains its emoluments, to hold fast without modification the whole doctrine of the Confession of Faith as founded upon and agreeable to the Word of God.

The King at Mass.—The Protestants of the British Empire will learn with deep sorrow and regret that the King has been at High Mass during his stay at Marienbad, in Bohemia. His Majesty has solemnly sworn that he believes the sacrifice of the Mass, as practised in the Church of Rome, is “superstitious and idolatrous.” No other layman in his dominions has taken such an oath. Unless it be lawful to do evil that good may come, it is hard to see any sufficient excuse for what has unhappily taken place. I do not for one moment suppose that the King really believes in the Mass, nor that he realizes how his presence at such a service will be used by Romish prelates and priests all over the Continent as an argument for the glorification of their communion. I wonder his Majesty went to such a “superstitious and idolatrous” service under any circumstances.

Approaching Conference.—Committees of the Free and United Free Churches are expected to meet on September 28th, for negotiations as to the occupancy of Churches and Colleges, etc., in view of the House of Lords’ decision. We hope that all the Colleges shall be retained henceforth by the Free Church. They have been too long the nurseries of heresy and infidelity, and though some of them should stand empty until the Millennium, as silent testimonies against their previous soul-destroying work, it would be better than to leave them in the present hands. We are glad the Free Church has made no offer of the New College, Edinburgh. The United Free can get plenty of halls on hire in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen capable of accommodating all their professors and students. As for the Assembly Hall, not an hour’s further use on any conditions! The present word for the Free Church is “Stand fast, quit ye like men, be strong.”

A Sermon

By the REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD.

Preached in the High Church-yard, Glasgow, on Sabbath,
13th September, 1741.¹

“They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying,
Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”—JER. vi. 14.

AS God can send a nation or people no greater blessing than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers, so the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world, is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, and unskilled guides. And yet, in all ages, we find that there have been many wolves in sheep’s clothing, many that daubed with untempered mortar, that prophesied smoother things than God did allow. As it was formerly, so it is now; there are many that corrupt the Word of God and deal deceitfully with it.

It was so in a special manner in the prophet Jeremiah’s time; and he, faithful to his Lord, faithful to that God who employed him, did not fail from time to time to open his mouth against them, and to bear a noble testimony to the honour of that God in whose name he from time to time spake. If you will read his prophecy, you will find that none spake more against such ministers than Jeremiah, and here especially in the chapter out of which the text is taken, he speaks very severely against them—he charges them with several crimes; particularly, he charges them with covetousness: “For,” says he in the 13th verse, “from the least of them even to the greatest of them, every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest, every one dealeth falsely.” And then, in the words of the text, in a more special manner, he exemplifies how they had dealt falsely, how they had behaved treacherously to poor souls: says he, “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”

The prophet, in the name of God, had been denouncing war against the people, he had been telling them that their house should be left desolate, and that the Lord would certainly visit the land with war. “Therefore,” says he in the 11th verse, “I am full of the fury of the Lord; I am weary with holding in; I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him that is full of days. And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together; for I will stretch out My hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord.” The prophet gives a thundering message, that they might be terrified and have some convictions and inclina-

¹ This Sermon (entitled “The Method of Grace”) is taken from the book on “The Revivals of the 18th Century,” particularly at Cambuslang.—ED.

tions to repent: but it seems that the false prophets, the false priests, went about stifling people’s convictions, and when they were hurt or a little terrified, they were for daubing over the wound, telling them that Jeremiah was but an enthusiastic preacher, that there could be no such thing as war among them, and saying to people, Peace, peace, be still, when the prophet told them there was no peace.

The words, then, refer primarily unto outward things, but I verily believe have also a further reference to the soul, and are to be referred to those false teachers, who, when people were under conviction of sin, when people were beginning to look towards heaven, were for stifling their convictions and telling them they were good enough before. And, indeed, people generally love to have it so; our hearts are exceedingly deceitful, and desperately wicked; none but the eternal God knows how treacherous they are. How many of us cry, Peace, peace, to our souls, when there is no peace! How many are there who are now settled upon their lees, that now think they are Christians, that now flatter themselves that they have an interest in Jesus Christ; whereas if we come to examine their experiences, we shall find that their peace is but a peace of the devil’s making—it is not a peace of God’s giving—it is not a peace that passeth human understanding. It is matter, therefore, of great importance, my dear hearers, to know whether we may speak peace to our hearts. We are all desirous of peace; peace is an unspeakable blessing; how can we live without peace? And, therefore, people from time to time must be taught how far they must go, and what must be wrought in them, before they can speak peace to their hearts. This is what I design at present, that I may deliver my soul, that I may be free from the blood of all those to whom I preach—that I may not fail to declare the whole counsel of God. I shall, from the words of the text, endeavour to show you what you must undergo, and what must be wrought in you before you can speak peace to your hearts.

But before I come directly to this, give me leave to premise a caution or two. And the first is, that I take it for granted you believe religion to be an inward thing: you believe it to be a work in the heart, a work wrought in the soul by the power of the Spirit of God. If you do not believe this, you do not believe your Bibles. If you do not believe this, though you have got your Bibles in your hands, you hate the Lord Jesus Christ in your heart; for religion is everywhere represented in Scripture as the work of God in the heart. “The kingdom of God is within us,” says our Lord; and “He is not a Christian who is one outwardly; but he is a Christian who is one inwardly.” If any of you place religion in outward things, I shall not perhaps please you this morning; you will understand me no more when I speak of the work of God upon a poor sinner’s heart, than if I were talking in an unknown tongue. I would further premise a caution, that I would by no means confine God to one way of acting. I would

by no means say, that all persons, before they come to have a settled peace in their hearts, are obliged to undergo the same degrees of conviction. No; God has various ways of bringing His children home; His sacred Spirit bloweth when, and where, and how it listeth. But, however, I will venture to affirm this, that before ever you can speak peace to your heart, whether by shorter or longer continuance of your convictions, whether in a more pungent or in a more gentle way, you must undergo what I shall hereafter lay down in the following discourse.

First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be made to see, to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail, your actual transgressions against the law of God. According to the covenant of works, “The soul that sinneth it shall die,” cursed is that man, be he what he may, be he who he may, that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. We are not only to do some things, but we are to do all things, and we are to continue so to do; so that the least deviation from the moral law, according to the covenant of works, whether in thought, word, or deed, deserves eternal death at the hand of God. And if one evil thought, one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation, how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives have been one continual rebellion against God! Before ever, therefore, you can speak peace to your hearts, you must be brought to see, brought to believe, what a dreadful thing it is to depart from the living God. And now, my dear friends, examine your hearts, for I hope you came hither with a design to have your souls made better. Give me leave to ask you, in the presence of God, whether you know the time, and if you do not know exactly the time, do you know there was a time, when God wrote bitter things against you, when the arrows of the Almighty were within you? Was ever the remembrance of your sins grievous to you? Was the burden of your sins intolerable to your thoughts? Did you ever see that God’s wrath might justly fall upon you on account of your actual transgressions against God? Were you ever in all your life sorry for your sins? Could you ever say, My sins are gone over my head as a burden too heavy for me to bear? Did you ever experience any such thing as this? Did ever any such thing as this pass between God and your soul? If not, for Jesus Christ’s sake, do not call yourselves Christians; you may speak peace to your hearts, but there is no peace. May the Lord awaken you, may the Lord convert you, may the Lord give you peace, if it be His will, before you go home!

But further: you may be convinced of your actual sins, so as to be made to tremble, and yet you may be strangers to Jesus Christ, you may have no true work of grace upon your hearts. Before ever, therefore, you can speak peace to your hearts, conviction must go deeper; you must not only be convinced of your actual transgressions against the law of God, but likewise of the foundation of all your transgressions. And what is that? I mean original sin,

that original corruption each of us brings into the world with us, which renders us liable to God’s wrath and damnation. There are many poor souls that think themselves fine reasoners, yet they pretend to say there is no such thing as original sin; they will charge God with injustice in imputing Adam’s sin to us; although we have got the mark of the beast and of the devil upon us, yet they tell us we are not born in sin. Let them look abroad into the world and see the disorders in it, and think, if they can, if this is the paradise in which God did put man. No! everything in the world is out of order. I have often thought, when I was abroad, that if there were no other argument to prove original sin, the rising of wolves and tigers against man, nay, the barking of a dog against us, is a proof of original sin. Tigers and lions durst not rise against us, if it were not for Adam’s first sin: for when the creatures rise up against us, it as much as to say, You have sinned against God, and we take up our Master’s quarrel. If we look inwardly, we shall see enough of lusts, and man’s temper contrary to the temper of God. There is pride, malice, and revenge, in all our hearts; and this temper cannot come from God; it comes from our first parent, Adam, who, after he fell from God, fell out of God into the devil. However, therefore, some people may deny this, yet when conviction comes, all carnal reasonings are battered down immediately, and the poor soul begins to feel and see the fountain from which all the polluted streams do flow. When the sinner is first awakened, he begins to wonder—How came I to be so wicked? The Spirit of God then strikes in, and shows that he has no good thing in him by nature; then he sees that he is altogether gone out of the way, that he is altogether become abominable, and the poor creature is made to lie down at the foot of the throne of God, and to acknowledge that God would be just to damn him, just to cut him off, though he never had committed one actual sin in his life. Did you ever feel and experience this, any of you—to justify God in your damnation—to own that you are by nature children of wrath, and that God may justly cut you off, though you never actually had offended Him in all your life? If you were ever truly convicted, if your hearts were ever truly cut, if self were truly taken out of you, you would be made to see and feel this. And if you have never felt the weight of original sin, do not call yourselves Christians. I am verily persuaded original sin is the greatest burden of a true convert; this ever grieves the regenerate soul, the sanctified soul. The indwelling of sin in the heart is the burden of a converted person; it is the burden of a true Christian. He continually cries out, “O! who will deliver me from this body of death,” this indwelling corruption in my heart? This is that which disturbs a poor soul most. And, therefore, if you never felt this inward corruption, if you never saw that God might justly curse you for it, indeed, my dear friends, you may speak peace to your hearts, but I fear, nay, I know, there is no true peace.

Further: before you can speak peace to your hearts, you must not only be troubled for the sins of your life, the sin of your nature, but likewise for the sins of your best duties and performances. When a poor soul is somewhat awakened by the terrors of the Lord, then the poor creature, being born under the covenant of works, flies directly to a covenant of works again. And as Adam and Eve hid themselves among the trees of the garden, and sewed fig leaves together to cover their nakedness, so the poor sinner, when awakened, flies to his duties and to his performances, to hide himself from God, and goes to patch up a righteousness of his own. Says he, I will be mighty good now—I will reform—I will do all I can; and then certainly Jesus Christ will have mercy on me. But before you can speak peace to your heart, you must be brought to see that God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up; you must be brought to see that all your duties—all your righteousness—as the prophet elegantly expresses it—put them all together, are so far from recommending you to God, are so far from being any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your poor soul, that He will see them to be filthy rags, a menstruous cloth—that God hates them, and cannot away with them, if you bring them to Him in order to recommend you to His favour. My dear friends, what is there in our performances to recommend us unto God? Our persons are in an unjustified state by nature, we deserve to be damned ten thousand times over; and what must our performances be? We can do no good thing by nature: “They that are in the flesh cannot please God.” You may do things materially good, but you cannot do a thing formally and rightly good; because nature cannot act above itself. It is impossible that a man who is unconverted can act for the glory of God; he cannot do anything in faith, and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” After we are renewed, yet we are renewed but in part, indwelling sin continues in us, there is a mixture of corruption in every one of our duties; so that after we are converted, were Jesus Christ only to accept us according to our works, our works would damn us, for we cannot put up a prayer but it is far from that perfection which the moral law requireth. I do not know what you may think, but I can say that I cannot pray, but I sin—I cannot preach to you or any others but I sin—I can do nothing without sin; and, as one expresseth it, my repentance wants to be repented of, and my tears to be washed in the precious blood of my dear Reedeemer. Our best duties are as so many splendid sins. Before you can speak peace to your heart, you must not only be sick of your original and actual sin, but you must be made sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances. There must be a deep conviction before you can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol taken out of our heart. The pride of our heart will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But if you never felt that you had no righteousness of your own, if you never felt the deficiency of your own righteous-

ness, you cannot come to Jesus Christ. There are a great many now who may say, Well, we believe all this; but there is a great difference betwixt talking and feeling. Did you ever feel the want of a dear Redeemer? Did you ever feel the want of Jesus Christ, upon the account of the deficiency of your own righteousness? And can you now say from your heart, Lord, Thou mayst justly damn me for the best duties that ever I did perform? If you are not thus brought out of self, you may speak peace to yourselves, but yet there is no peace.

But then, before you can speak peace to your souls, there is one particular sin you must be greatly troubled for, and yet I fear there are few of you think what it is; it is the reigning, the damning sin of the Christian world, and yet the Christian world seldom or never think of it. And pray what is that? It is what most of you think you are not guilty of—and that is the sin of unbelief. Before you can speak peace to your heart, you must be troubled for the unbelief of your heart. But, can it be supposed that any of you are unbelievers here in this church-yard, that are born in Scotland, in a reformed country, that go to church every Sabbath? Can any of you that receive the Sacrament once a year—O that it were administered oftener!—can it be supposed that you who had tokens for the Sacrament, that you who keep up family prayer, that any of you do not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? I appeal to your own hearts, if you would not think me uncharitable, if I doubted whether any of you believed in Christ; and yet, I fear upon examination, we should find that most of you have not so much faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the devil himself. I am persuaded the devil believes more of the Bible than most of us do. He believes the divinity of Jesus Christ; that is more than many who call themselves Christians do; nay, he believes and trembles, and that is more than thousands amongst us do. My friends, we mistake a historical faith for a true faith, wrought in the heart by the Spirit of God. You fancy you believe, because you believe there is such a book as we call the Bible—because you go to church; all this you may do, and have no true faith in Christ. Merely to believe there was such a person as Christ, merely to believe there is a book called the Bible, will do you no good, more than to believe there was such a man as Cæsar or Alexander the Great. The Bible is a sacred depository. What thanks have we to give to God for these lively oracles! But yet we may have these, and not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. My dear friends, there must be a principle wrought in the heart by the Spirit of the living God. Did I ask you how long it is since you believed in Jesus Christ, I suppose most of you would tell me, you believed in Jesus Christ as long as ever you remember—you never did misbelieve. Then, you could not give me a better proof that you never yet believed in Jesus Christ, unless you were sanctified early, as from the womb; for, they that otherwise believe in Christ know there was a time when they did not believe in Jesus Christ. You say you

love God with all your heart, soul and strength. If I were to ask you how long it is since you loved God, you would say, As long as you can remember; you never hated God, you know no time when there was enmity in your heart against God. Then, unless you were sanctified very early, you never loved God in your life. My dear friends, I am more particular in this, because it is a most doubtful delusion, whereby so many people are carried away, that they believe already. Therefore, it is remarked of Mr. Marshall, giving account of his experiences, that he had been working for life, and he had ranged all his sins under the Ten Commandments, and then coming to a minister asked him the reason why he could not get peace. The minister looked to his catalogue, Away, says he, I do not find one word of the sin of unbelief in all your catalogue. It is the peculiar work of the Spirit of God to convince us of our unbelief—that we have got no faith. Saith Jesus Christ “I will send the Comforter; and when He is come He will reprove the world” of the sin of unbelief; “of sin,” says Christ, “because they believe not on Me.” Now, my dear friends, did God ever show you that you had no faith? Were you ever made to bewail a hard heart of unbelief? Was it ever the language of your heart, Lord, give me faith; Lord, enable me to lay hold on Thee; Lord, enable me to call Thee my Lord and my God? Did Jesus Christ ever convince you in this manner? Did He ever convince you of your inability to close with Christ, and make you to cry out to God to give you faith? If not, do not speak peace to your heart. May the Lord awaken you, and give you true, solid peace before you go hence and be no more!

Once more, then: before you can speak peace to your heart, you must not only be convinced of your actual and original sin, the sins of your own righteousness, the sin of unbelief, but you must be enabled to lay hold upon the perfect righteousness, the all-sufficient righteousness, of the Lord Jesus Christ; you must lay hold by faith on the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and then you shall have peace. “Come,” says Jesus, “unto Me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This speaks encouragement to all that are weary and heavy laden; but the promise of rest is made to them only upon their coming and believing, and taking Him to be their God and their all. Before we can ever have peace with God, we must be justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ, we must be enabled to apply Christ to our hearts, we must have Christ brought home to our souls. so as His righteousness may be made our righteousness, so as His merits may be imputed to our souls. My dear friends, were you ever married to Jesus Christ? Did Jesus Christ ever give Himself to you? Did you ever close with Christ by a lively faith, so as to feel Christ in your hearts, so as to hear him speaking peace to your souls? Did peace ever flow in upon your hearts like a river? Did you ever feel that peace that Christ spoke to His disciples? I pray God He may come and speak peace to you.

These thinks you must experience. I am now talking of the invisible realities of another world, of inward religion, of the work of God upon a poor sinner’s heart. I am now talking of a matter of great importance, my dear hearers; you are all concerned in it, your souls are concerned in it, your eternal salvation is concerned in it. You may be all at peace, but perhaps the devil has lulled you asleep into a carnal lethargy and security, and will endeavour to keep you there, till he get you to hell, and there you will be awakened; but it will be dreadful to be awakened and find yourselves so fearfully mistaken, when the great gulf is fixed, when you will be calling to all eternity for a drop of water to cool your tongue, and shall not obtain it.

Give me leave, then, to address myself to several sorts of persons; and O may God, in His infinite mercy, bless the application! There are some of you perhaps can say, Through grace we can go along with you. Blessed be God, we have been convinced of our actual sins, we have been convinced of original sin, we have been convinced of self-righteousness, we have felt the bitterness of unbelief, and through grace we have closed with Jesus Christ; we can speak to our hearts, because God hath spoken peace to us. Can you say so? Then I will salute you, as the angels did the women the first day of the week, All hail! fear not ye, my dear brethren, you are happy souls; you may lie down and be at peace indeed, for God hath given you peace; you may be content under all the dispensations of providence, for nothing can happen to you now, but what shall be the effect of God’s love to your soul; you need not fear what fightings may be without, seeing there is peace within. Have you closed with Christ? Is God your friend? Is Christ your friend? Then, look up with comfort; all is yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. Everything shall work together for your good; the very hairs of your head are numbered; he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of God’s eye. But then, my dear friends, beware of resting on your first conversion. You that are young believers in Christ, you should be looking out for fresh discoveries of the Lord Jesus Christ every moment; you must not build upon your past experiences, you must not build upon a work within you, but always come out of yourselves to the righteousness of Jesus Christ without you; you must be always coming as poor sinners to draw water out of the wells of salvation: you must be forgetting the things that are behind, and be continually pressing forward to the things that are before. My dear friends, you must keep up a tender, close walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many of us who lose our peace by our untender walk; something or other gets in betwixt Christ and us, and we fall into darkness; something or other steals our hearts from God, and this grieves the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost leaves us to ourselves. Let me, therefore, exhort you that have got peace with God, to take care that you do not lose this peace. It is true, if you are once in Christ, you cannot finally fall from God:

“There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus,” but if you cannot fall finally, you may fall foully, and may go with broken bones all your days. Take care of backslidings; for Jesus Christ’s sake, do not grieve the Holy Ghost—you may never recover your comfort while you live. O take care of going a gadding and wandering from God, after you have closed with Jesus Christ. My dear friends, I have paid dear for backsliding. Our hearts are so cursedly wicked, that if you take not care, if you do not keep up a constant watch, your wicked hearts will deceive you, and draw you aside. It will be sad to be under the scourge of a correcting Father; witness the visitations of Job, David, and other saints in Scripture.

(To be continued.)

United Free Criticisms of the House of Lords’ Judgment.

SINCE the announcement of the House of Lords’ decision, various meetings of the United Free Church have been held. Their Commission met on August 10th (as also did the Free Church Commission), and meetings have been held at several places in the North—such as Inverness, Dingwall, Wick, Thurso, and Tain. Principal Rainy, Lord Overtoun, Dr. Ross Taylor, Professors Stalker, Denney, and Macewen, Principal Miller of Madras, Rev. John Kelman and others have delivered speeches on the crisis. Many ministers also have been declaiming against the decision from their pulpits or at Presbytery meetings, and have been urging their people to stand by the United Church, no matter what may be the consequences.

Many statements have been made, with a view to discredit the judgment of the House of Lords, and to weaken the effect of the decision on the minds of the community. These are of such an unwarrantable and unjust character that they call for refutation from any who love the truth. Two leading points, spiritual independence and the free offer of the gospel, we shall presently notice.

First, it has been and is still being declared all over the country that the Church’s spiritual independence has been violated, that independence which the fathers of the Free Church contended for at the Disruption. Now, this is a decided misrepresentation of the case. Verily, the ideas of United Free Churchmen on spiritual independence have received a rude and killing shock, but the thing itself has been in nowise interfered with. The Free Church never held that the Church was entirely independent of the State in determining questions of property and the terms of trust deeds. Even Principal Rainy and his colleagues consulted lawyers about property before entering into a Church union of a professedly spiritual nature. The Church of Rome only claims to be above the State and all civil law, and is this the

goal at which many U.F. churchmen would fondly arrive? Probably they are nearer it than they think. Again, U.F. speakers, in the interests of the doctrine of spiritual independence, declare that the Free Church had power to alter her creed, and that the House of Lords had no right to fix them down to the Confession of Faith. They affirm that this liberty was secured in 1843, and that the civil court has now taken it away. This is far from correct. What did the Lords actually do in the matter? They simply set themselves to find out what the constitution of the Free Church was, and upon what terms the property was held, and they came to the conclusion, after hearing very full statements on both sides of the case, that the constitution of the Free Church gave no power to change any of the doctrines of its faith or any of its essential principles, that the lands, property and funds were held under this constitution, that the United Free party had departed from the constitution, and therefore from the terms of the trust, and so had forfeited their civil rights. The House of Lords has made no new conditions for the Frees or the United Frees; it has simply declared the conditions that already existed. If it has fixed down the Free Church to the Confession of Faith, it has done so because it was fixed down already by its own constitution. If there is any complaint to be made, let it be made against the proper parties, the fathers of the Free Church who framed the constitution, or rather those who have culpably misinterpreted it and have led the United Free people into the ditch in which they now find themselves.

The spiritual independence which the Free Church claimed at the Disruption was the right of the Church of Scotland to manage her own affairs, according to her constitution and God’s Word, without unlawful interference on the part of the State. That constitution had already been recognised and approved of by the State, and the Disruption fathers justly contended that the State was breaking its own contract with the Church by this interference. Unlike the men who now unwarrantably claim to be their successors, they held that spiritual independence could be enjoyed and had a full right to be enjoyed in connection with the State, and that this was the Scriptural standard or ideal of Church and State relationship. It was not freedom from State connection, but freedom in State connection they contended and suffered for. And, moreover, it was certainly not a spiritual independence that would make their successors independent of the constitution or of “the form of sound words” which they so jealously held by, that they bequeathed to them, but a spiritual independence that was defined by and lay within the scope of that constitution. The Disruption fathers in this respect had the mind of Christ and His apostles. “The faith” was something to be held fast and not to be trimmed or surrendered according to the notions of the times; it was something to be handed down intact to future generations. In fact the spiritual independence that the United Frees are claiming as the

legacy left by those who went before is something which their forefathers would have disowned as an “ungodly idea,” a lawless independence that gives them liberty to wander at their own sweet will, wherever they please, a will-o’-the-wisp that has already led them to renounce not only the authority of the Confession of Faith but the authority and infallibility of God’s Word, as exemplified in the teaching of their theological professors.

The second point that is being “worked” by United Free orators and others at the present time is that the judgment of the House of Lords has condemned the free offer of the gospel, and that the Free Church is now debarred from preaching it. This is a very unjust representation of the matter. The Lord Chancellor, whatever may be his private opinion, in his judgment on the subject of Predestination and Free Will, simply places side by side paragraphs from the Confession of Faith and the Declaratory Act of 1892, and declares that they “exclude one another.” He does not enter into details on the subject. The Free Church pleaders in their speeches before the Lords never contended that the free offer or universal call of the gospel was not in the Confession, but they affirmed that the statements on this subject and foreordination in the Declaratory Act were not in harmony with the Confession. Of course, United Free speakers do not allow themselves to think that the Declaratory Act statement of the gospel call and foreordination may be open to condemnation; with a great deal of self-assumption they take it for granted that the Act is perfectly accurate in its statements, and that therefore a free gospel in the soundest sense of the term is condemned. They even go the length of saying that Free Church ministers cannot now preach a free gospel. All this is absolutely unwarranted. The Lord Chancellor is studiously general in his sentences, and all that can be safely or justly concluded is that he considers that the Declaratory Act is at war with the Confession of Faith. Free Church ministers are at as much liberty as ever to preach the universal call of the gospel.