DURING the past month, we regret to say that the evidences of the Romeward drift have multiplied. The first of these evidences which we shall presently notice is in connection with the State, and the second, in connection with the Church.
First, as to the State. Early in the month there took place the death of Mr. John Redmond, M.P., the most prominent leader of the Irish Nationalists in Parliament, and long a member of the House of Commons. Though more reasonable and moderate in his policy than some others of his countrymen, he was the strenuous promoter of Home Rule for Ireland, and succeeded in getting a Home Rule measure placed on the statute book. The most of Protestants have viewed this measure with great alarm—and in our judgment, justly so—as preparing the way for “Rome” Rule, and so many thought that our statesmen went beyond the mark in their recent eulogies of Mr. Redmond, considering the dangerous political work in which he had been engaged. But in addition to this, the convictions and feelings of intelligent and faithful Protestants have been deeply wounded by the circumstance that a Requiem Mass for Mr. Redmond, held at the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral, was attended by, among others, representatives of the King and Queen and Prince of Wales, and personally by the Prime Minister (Mr. Lloyd George), the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. A. Bonar Law), Sir Edward Carson, and other prominent statesmen. This sort of thing is justified on grounds of sympathy and courtesy, but the grounds are entirely inadequate for its justification. As was pointed out recently in these pages, the Mass is one of the most superstitious and delusive rites of the Romish system, and embodies in itself almost every false dogma of that communion. Protestants are therefore called, not to view it with complacency or even indifference, but with strong disapprobation and protest. They are at perfect liberty to express affectionate sympathy for Roman Catholic friends and acquaintances in trouble, and to attend funerals of such, but it is quite a different thing to countenance a regular religious Roman Catholic service, the most complete embodiment of Popish errors and superstitions. A Requiem Mass is undiluted Romanism of the most offensive type to a genuine Protestant.
We see, then, in the present incident, not the exalted sense of sympathy and courtesy which marks our statesmen—these virtues were more perfectly developed in men of past times, who would have died rather than do as they have done—but the low and weak sense of the fundamental difference between Protestant Christianity and Romanism. The civil and religious constitution of this realm was originally constructed on the basis of this distinction. Our forefathers intelligently recognised by their own personal observation and experience the deadly elements in the Roman system, which is hostile to both the civil and spiritual interests of nations. They had painful experience of these before, and at the time of the Reformation, and since that period, during the ascendancy of the Stuarts upon the throne. No wonder, then, that they took steps to guard the Throne against the ascent of Roman Catholics, and made it plain before the world that they intended Britain should be a Protestant nation in constitution and laws. They took their stand upon God’s truth, where safety only is to be found, and not upon the decrees of an apostate so-called Church, which knows nothing of real righteousness and freedom, but has been, and still is, the chief seat of intolerance and persecution, let Cardinal Bourne attempt, as he may, to delude people to the contrary.
Secondly, let us notice a dark symptom of the Romeward drift in the Protestant Church as that appears in a volume recently issued from the press, to which reference is made in the “Notes and Comments” elsewhere. The title of the volume is “God and the Soldier,” and the joint authors are two young Scottish ministers of prominent standing, Dr. Norman Maclean, of St. Cuthbert’s Established Church, and Dr. J. R. P. Sclater, of the New North United Free Church—both in Edinburgh. Not many modern religious books come our way, and so we are indebted to the columns of The Bulwark for the present painful revelation of shocking error and delusion. There is a chapter in the aforesaid book entitled, “The Last Issue,” and the following sentences occur: “God is also in hell, and wherever He is, He can only be doing one thing—trying to win His children to Himself . . . and in the long, long end, God will win . . . If prayer be the mightiest weapon placed in our hands, we dare not restrict its power merely to the aid of the living. For the dead are still on the same great stream of life as we are. And they, too, need the shepherding and shielding of God . . . Multitudes to-day pray for their dead, in an agony of supplication, who never before prayed even for the living; and the Church must give expression to this yearning of their souls. Whatever the theorizings of theologians may say, the heart of man settles the matter.” It is questionable if anything more dreadfully or more subtly erroneous, in its essential elements, on the subject of the future state, has ever been found in a Romish manual of religion. These are the ideas of men of enlightened and scholarly culture. How true and applicable are the words of Christ: “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness!” When such shocking ideas are gaining currency, we may well tremble for the future of religion in Scotland. But we rejoice to think that God reigns, and that He can in a moment, suddenly, by the word of His power, put the prince of darkness to flight. Meantime, let us briefly examine some of these extraordinary statements.
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It is well to observe, to begin with, certain solemn facts conceded by these authors, namely, that some are dying quite unprepared for heaven, and are of just necessity in the place of misery. They do not hold that all, who die for their country, secure a title to heaven, and go immediately there. These concessions to truth, while they land the writers in grave inconsistency, may blind some people to the danger of their other opinions. Let us not be misled.
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The writers hold the unscriptural opinion that all the members of our race are God’s children, and that His Fatherhood is universal. According to this view, as they distinctly express it, those in hell are His children as well as those in heaven. The doctrine of God’s special election is not in their creed, and they ignore also the truth Christ spoke to the unbelieving Jews when He declared that God was not their Father. “Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John viii. 44).
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They affirm, further, what is distinctly wrong, that as “God is in hell, He can only be doing one thing (wherever He is), trying to win His children to Himself.” Here is more than one entire fallacy. God is a righteous judge as well as a gracious Father, and He is acting often even on earth in the first capacity alone and not in the second, while He is acting exclusively as judge in the place of woe. Besides, there is not a particle of evidence in Scripture that He tries to win His children there. Remember the incident of the rich man and Lazarus.
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These writers hold that moral persuasion is the only divine instrument of conversion. They do not believe in “effectual calling” by God’s Word and Spirit. The sinner is his own Saviour according to their theory, while the Bible teaches that “salvation is of the Lord.”
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They write of prayer as if it were a magical weapon, and as if prayer on the part of creatures was all that was necessary to save living or dead, forgetting that prayer is nothing without God, that it is an expression of dependence upon Him and an appeal to His sovereign mercy and power, and that no unwarrantable prayer, inconsistent with God’s revealed purposes and truth, will ever be heard.
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They advocate prayer for the dead, because the hearts of many in the present terrible time are yearning after their dead, and they base their theory upon the desires of the human heart. “The heart of man settles the matter,” they say, while they brush aside what they call “the theorizings of theologians,” no doubt alluding to those who base their views upon Holy Scripture.
Our misguided teachers of a new theology here expose the fallacy of all their reasonings. It is not the mind or heart of God and His Son Jesus Christ as expressed in inspired truth that is their guide, but the heart of poor, blind, fallen humanity, which is according to the divine Word, “deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” Truly these gentlemen are ignorant of the very alphabet of Christianity, and if they continue in their ignorance and unbelief, we must solemnly warn them that they are in danger of having a personal experience of that hell from which there is no recovery. “The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment.”
We do not desire to write anything unnecessarily offensive or severe, but it appears to us that ministers who teach such erroneous and delusive opinions are agents of delusion—deceiving immortal souls—and that they will have to give, if they change not in time, a dreadful account at the last day. Are the Assemblies of the Established and United Free Churches prepared to endorse or even tolerate such shocking views as are promulgated by these ministers? If so, things have reached a terrible pass. Romanism and Rationalism have come in like a flood. May God arise for our deliverance as a nation!
OH, that those who are now so desirous to be beautiful and handsome would not be too hasty to effect it with their foolish and sinful arts, but wait and study the heavenly art of beautifying the body, by endeavouring now to become all glorious within, with the graces of God’s Spirit! This would at length make them admirable and everlasting beauties. Thou must, indeed, O believer, grapple with death and shalt get the first fall; but thou shalt rise again, and come off victorious at last. Thou must go down to the grave; but though it be thy long home, it will not be thine everlasting home. Thou wilt not hear the voice of thy friends there, but thou shalt hear the voice of Christ there. Thou mayest be carried thither with mourning, but thou shalt come up from it rejoicing. Thy friends, indeed, will leave thee there, but thy God will not. What God said to Jacob concerning his going down to Egypt, He says to thee on thy going down to the grave: “Fear not to go down; I will go down with thee, and I will also surely bring thee up again.” Oh, solid comfort! Oh, glorious hopes! “Wherefore comfort” yourselves and “one another with these words” (1 Thess. iv. 18).—Thomas Boston.