Observations on the War

BY THE REV. NEIL CAMERON, ST. JUDE’S, GLASGOW.

SINCE the Lord placed man upon this earth, there has not been any War like the present. To think of twenty millions of armed men called out for the purpose of destroying one another is so appalling that one’s imagination recoils from the picture. What may happen before the end of it, or what effects it will have upon the future of the nations of this world, no man can even conjecture. If it will not be the means of making men sober, righteous, and godly, we shall not be able to say with Ephraim of old:—”Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised . . . turn Thou me and I shall be turned” (Jer. xxxi. 18). The Lord has certainly come out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. So far, we see no signs of repentance or turning from evil ways in this nation. Therefore we desire to draw attention to some outstanding sins which must be repented of, as otherwise punishment is sure to follow. But before we come to that, let us consider the cause which led us into this terrible conflict.

In the year 1839 the leading nations of Europe signed a treaty binding themselves to observe the neutrality of Belgium. This treaty meant that Belgium was to be a buffer state between France and Germany. None of these nations were to use Belgium as a battle ground to fight the other, and Belgium was bound not to wage War except to maintain her own neutrality. Germany in order to march her troops through Belgium broke this treaty by demanding a passage to fight the French. Belgium refused to be a party to the violation of her pledged word, and immediately Germany declared War against her. Britain warned Germany of the consequences of her conduct, and demanded of her to observe her treaty obligation. This Germany refused to do. So, it is quite plain that if Great Britain wished her solemn pledge to be of any value in the future she was bound to stand to it now. She resolved to act as she was bound to do.

At the same time this nation should consider that God is the moral Governor of the world, and that He does not afflict the children of men willingly or without a very real cause. This War is a loud call to us to consider our ways and to turn to the Lord. Let us therefore consider some of our ways, and see if the Lord has not a real cause for manifesting His displeasure against us as a nation. The Lord our God is of great mercy and full of compassion, and will forgive us our sins, if we will repent and turn to Him from our evil ways.

I. God has done great things for us in the past. When we were in the darkness of the idolatry and superstition of the Papacy, He had mercy on us by sending His word to us. The Bible was the means, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, to lead us out of the idolatry of that Church to the glorious freedom wherewith Christ makes His people free. The Reformation from Popery was the morning of this nation’s greatness. It brought us religious and political liberties, and made us an enlightened and prosperous nation. We bound ourselves as a nation to adhere firmly to Christ’s gospel whatever that might cost. We even bound our Kings, by a solemn oath, to uphold the Protestant religion in this Kingdom. Because our forefathers learned by painful experience that the Papists were continually intriguing to have the temporal power of the Pope reasserted in this nation, they not only took the precaution that no Papist could come to sit upon our throne, but they laid restrictions upon all Roman Catholics to prevent them from being placed in any positions under the government. In the year 1829 these restrictions were almost all removed by the Emancipation Act. We have since then repealed the King’s Royal Declaration. So that we have broken our pledge which we solemnly made to the King of kings. The idolatry which we were delivered from at the Reformation is now openly avowed amongst us. Our God is a jealous God. He punished the Church in Old Testament times for forsaking Him, and how do we expect to escape punishment also? He is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. What was sin two thousand six hundred years ago, is sin still. The destruction of the Jews then was partly on account of their idolatry. We, having this recorded in His infallible word so clearly that he who runs may read it, advance and practise the idolatry of the Church of Rome. Our King, members of our government who are called Protestants, ministers of the Reformed Churches both of England and Scotland, and many of our people, are guilty of this breach of covenant. God, I am certain, will make us suffer for this sacrilege, if speedy repentance and reformation will not prevent it. This is undoubtedly one of the causes of our afflictions.

1. The treatment which the Bible—God’s infallible truth—has been receiving amongst us is, we firmly believe, another cause of the wrath of Almighty God against us. There were atheists in the past, both in France and England, who denied the veracity of the Bible, but they made no profession of the Christian religion. Men arose in Germany during the last century who, in the guise of superior learning, began a tirade against the Bible. These men got the highest places in the Reformed Church of Germany, which enabled them to pollute the fountain at the head. Reason was exalted to be the arbiter as to what was true or false, forsooth, in the Bible. Everything supernatural had to be discredited and discarded, and they endeavoured to prove that a great part of God’s book was real forgery. Men in this nation caught the infection. No man was supposed to have either learning or much intelligence if he did not drink his fill of these infidel views. In name of superior learning these infidels got into our theological chairs, filled the minds of the young men studying for the ministry of our churches with this German Rationalism, which destroyed the faith of preachers and hearers in the truthfulness of the Bible, and caused that it has been almost a discredited book amongst us. The most of these men, who are now living, have confessed that they have gone too far; but their pride will not allow them to confess that the whole thing arose from spiritual ignorance and presumption. But the effect upon the peoples of both countries, yea, and upon other nations also, is appalling. Faith in God’s truth has departed, and we have only a form of godliness, while denying its power. This is certainly in the cup of God’s wrath, which Germany, Britain, France, etc., have to drink now. Would to God that men were to lay it to heart and repent of it. The warning with which the New Testament closes should make men’s flesh creep in face of all that has been written and taught against God’s book in this nation—”For I testify to every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book; if any man will add to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book” (Rev. xxii. 18, 19).

2. Another sin of which we are verily guilty as a nation is profanation of the Lord’s day. The fourth commandment is of perpetual binding obligation upon men. As sure as men transgress its precepts, punishment is as sure to follow. This is not only true as to eternal consequences of its profanation, but it is also true as to its temporal consequences. In the year 1832, the British House of Commons appointed a committee to investigate the effects of labouring seven days in a week, compared with those of labouring only six and resting one. That committee consisted of Sir Andrew Agnew, Sir Robert Peel, Sir Robert Inglis, etc. Among the witnesses examined was John Richard Farre, M.D., of London, of whom they speak in their Report as “an acute and experienced physician.” The following is the testimony:—

“I have practised as a physician between thirty and forty years, and during the early part of my life, as the physician of a public medical institution. I had charge of the poor in one of the most populous districts of London. I have had occasion to observe the effect of the observance and non-observance of the seventh day of rest during this time. I have been in the habit, during a great many years, of considering the uses of the Sabbath and of observing its abuses. The abuses are chiefly manifested in labour and dissipation. Its use, medically speaking, is that of a day of rest.

“As a day of rest, I view it as a day of compensation for the inadequate restorative powers of the body under continued labour and excitement. A physician always has respect to the preservation of the restorative power; because, if once this be lost, his healing office is at an end. A physician is anxious to preserve the balance of circulation, as necessary to the restorative power of the body. The ordinary exertions of man run down the circulation every day of his life; and the first general law of nature, by which God prevents man from destroying himself, is the alternating of day and night, that repose may succeed action. But, although the night apparently equalizes the circulation, yet it does not sufficiently restore its balance for the attainment of a long life. Hence one day in seven, by the bounty of providence, is thrown in as a day of compensation, to perfect by its repose the animal system.

“I consider therefore that, in the bountiful provision of Providence for the preservation of human life, the Sabbatical appointment is not, as it has been sometimes theologically viewed, simply a precept partaking of the nature of a political institution, but that it is to be numbered amongst the natural duties—if the preservation of life be admitted to be a duty, and the premature destruction of it a suicidal act.”

The above is both conclusive and ample evidence as to man’s absolute need of the rest which God has provided in the Sabbath. It shows that God’s law and natural laws are so intertwined that any breach of the one is also a breach of the others. How many of our criminals began their downward career by Sabbath desecration is well vouched for. I give another quotation in proof of this. “Of one hundred men admitted to the Massachusetts State Prison in one year, eighty-nine had lived in habitual violation of the Sabbath and neglect of public worship.”

In face of an enormous amount of evidence calculated to deter us from this crime against God, ourselves, and our fellow-countrymen, we have almost cast off all restraint on God’s holy day. Men in the highest positions in this nation are guilty of the sin of profaning the Lord’s day by golfing, travelling by trains and steamers, along with the many other forms of secret profanation of that holy day in which they indulge. Masters and servants have no scruples in doing every kind of manual labour on God’s holy day. The last computation we have heard of showed that there were over four thousand shops open in Glasgow alone on the Lord’s day. Our churches, by introducing unscriptural forms of doctrine and worship, have become nothing better than the theatre. It may be truthfully said of us that we have made the house of God a den of thieves, instead of its being the house of prayer. It is becoming quite the practice for men to leave towns for the week-end to play golf on the Sabbath. Football is played all over the country on that day. Newspapers are printed, published, and even hawked by boys shouting through our streets on the Lord’s holy day. More than the half of the people of this country spend this day in travelling through the country or visiting each other at their homes. In one word, we have thrown off all restraint, and live and act as if we had never heard of the fourth commandment.

But the Lord of the Sabbath will certainly bring men to an account for all this. If not before, assuredly He will at death and at the day of final judgment. For He tells us that: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew v. 18). The law of this day of holy rest is:—”Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shall thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shall not do any work.” Would that men in high positions, as well as the labouring class, were to lay to heart the guilt that we have incurred as a nation by our contempt of the authority of the Most High God in this matter, and would repent of it ere it be too late! But, alas, alas we have become so bold and daring that we neither obey God, nor fear His wrath! If God spared not the nation that professed His name in Old Testament times, but destroyed them by sword, famine, and pestilence, and thrust the few that were left into captivity during seventy years, until the land would enjoy her Sabbaths, how do we expect to escape severe punishment for our Sabbath desecration?

We have only touched the fringe of the sins of which we are guilty; but if the Lord would apply it to our consciences by His word and Spirit, it would have the same effect upon us that the exposure of one sin had upon the woman of Samaria. In the light of His omniscience, we would see that He knows all that we ever did. That this may be the effect is the prayer of the writer.