The Protestant Outlook in Scotland

THIS is the title of an important article by the Rev. J. Hutchison Cockburn, D.D., Dunblane, in the Nov.—Dec. issue of Evangelical Christendom. Dr. Cockburn has gathered together a mass of statistics and information that must have taken him considerable pains to amass and to bring together in the coherent and informative way he does. At the outset he points out that there are really two classes of Roman Catholics in Scotland—(1) the native and (2) the Irish.

1. The native Roman Catholics live chiefly in Inverness-shire, Dumfries-shire and Banff. In 1930 there were 483 Roman Catholic children in the day schools in Inverness-shire; 583 in Dumfries-shire, and 736 in Banff. The school population in these cases does not show any increase since 1913 to 1930. In 1936-37, Inverness-shire has 506, Dumfries-shire, 595, and Banff, 656. Other native Roman Catholics are found in certain of the Western Isles (such as Barra and South Uist), and in the uplands of Aberdeenshire. At a liberal estimation they may be reckoned at 70,000.

2. The other Roman Catholic population is derived mainly from Ireland. These are an immigrant population. They and their forefathers have come to Scotland within the last hundred years. They supplied cheap labour in the making of railways, roads, etc. This Irish labour was invited to Scotland and encouraged to come because of its cheapness. The habits of these immigrants, says Dr. Cockburn, were and remain on a lower level than those of Scottish labour. Their priests are largely Irish and have done everything possible to keep it as a population apart. Its children are educated in its own schools which are now entirely supported by the State. This Irish element belongs to a lower type of civilisation than the Scottish as may be seen from the statistics of the Prison Commissioners and in the experience of those in charge of charities in Scotland. The adult population of Scotland is roughly estimated as follows: 44 per cent. Church of Scotland; 12½ per cent. Roman Catholic; 2 per cent. Scottish Episcopalian; 5 per cent. to other Protestant denominations; .6 per cent. are Jews and the remaining 36 per cent. belong mainly to Scotland’s Churchless Million. In 1921 in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Glasgow (Lanarkshire, Dumfartonshire, Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire and a part of West Stirlingshire) the population was 2,070,000, of whom 450,000 or 22 per cent. were Roman Catholic and mostly Irish by birth or descent. In Lanarkshire, Scotland’s most densely populated county, the Roman Catholics number one in three while for the whole of Scotland the proportion is one in eight. In 1881 the Roman Catholic population in Scotland was 327,329; in 1921 it was 601,304; in 1932 it was 607,900 while in 1937 the number is 614,021. When the school population is taken into account the same increase is observable. Comparing 1913 with 1930 the number of Roman Catholic pupils has increased by 25,196; an increase of 28½ per cent. In the Scottish Episcopal schools there has been a decrease of 2,765, i.e., 35 per cent., while in the other schools there has been a decrease of 35,264 or 5.4 per cent. The latest figures point in the same direction. Since 1930 the school population has fallen by 21,478; yet the number of scholars in Roman Catholic schools has risen by 2,035 and now constitute 16 per cent. of the school population in Scotland.

Dr. Cockburn rightly says that the Roman Catholic has been greatly strengthened in Scotland by the passing of the iniquitous Education (Scotland) Act of 1918. The following figures speak for themselves. Up to the end of the financial year 1930-31, Scottish Education Authorities have paid for the purchase of Voluntary Schools (Episcopalian and Roman Catholic but mostly Roman Catholic), the large sum of £771,000 and they have provided new Roman Catholic schools and additional accommodation at existing schools at a cost of £1,335,000. Other schools cost £6,354,000. A recent decision of the Law Courts has made it possible for the Roman Catholic Church to build schools in any quarter where they think they ought to have schools and then call upon the Education authorities to pay for them and take them over as part of the educational system of the land. When the Education Act of 1872 was passed the Established Church, the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church gave over their schools to the authorities as a gift. In addition to this extraordinary condition of things created by the 1918 Act it made Roman Catholic teaching in the Roman Catholic Voluntary Schools compulsory, while religious instruction of children in the other days schools is only permissive; it is dependent upon the decree of the Education Committee of the County Council or Town Council. Protestant Education Committees are bound to see that Roman Catholic teaching is given in these schools, but they are not bound by the Act to see that religious instruction is given in the other schools. The situation created by the Act is almost incredible. Added to all this is the fact that Protestants in having to pay Education rates are supporting these schools; though we have heard some good Free Presbyterians asserting that they were not helping the Roman Catholics in this matter. But whose hands are clean?

While all this is anything but comforting to all true Protestants yet the Roman Catholic situation in Scotland is anything but satisfactory to the Roman Catholic Church itself as the following quotation from a paper delivered by Mgr. Gettigan on “The History of the Mass” indicates:—”After more than three centuries of separation from the Church, Scotland shows no signs of returning. The ministrations of the Church, which have lacked nothing in earnestness and self-sacrifice, have made no impression on the Scottish people. Whatever progress the Church has made in point of numbers has been due to Irish immigrants, and their natural increase, for several generations. Through them the Church has obtained a fair hold on our three largest cities, and on our most populous county, but only amongst the working population, whose continuance is so precarious that it might be wiped out by the closing of one or two industries, or the stoppage of Unemployment Insurance benefit. In the counties which may be said to constitute Scotland by race and sentiment, the Catholic Church does not exist. And by a strange dispensation, in those very parts where her glory was most manifest—the districts of her cathedrals and abbeys—her presence is most signally absent. And even if there was a greater contact with Catholicism where it is unknown, it is not likely that the attitude to the Faith would be materially changed; for, as we see, where this contact does exist in a very proximate way, as in our industrial centres, it fails to make proselytes for the Church. The act which threw off the yoke of Rome still definitely persists (and it only needs to have its Protestantism ruffled to see how ugly it can become). There may be an increase of consideration for individual Catholics, and even a very genuine friendship, but for Catholicism there is none. The Pope, the priesthood and the Mass are as unacceptable to the people as ever.”

Such is the situation as seen through Roman Catholic spectacles; still, as Protestants, we cannot view the situation as very encouraging. Dr. Cockburn announces that the Church of Scotland, through a Committee, is preparing a list of questions which the Assembly will ask every minister to answer fully, dealing with every phase of the situation. Notwithstanding the lukewarmness of so many of the Church of Scotland ministers on this question no doubt the material thus gathered will be useful in learning where the Roman Catholic aggression is keenest and what methods are being adopted to further the interests of the Church of Rome.

Dr. Cockburn has well said: “A flabby Protestantism is the danger, and is a contradiction in terms; it harbours the seeds of its own Decay. The best attack on Rome is an attack on that too large fringe in Scotland who call themselves Presbyterian, but are nothing in particular; who rank themselves as Protestant, but are only indifferent and careless in all religious beliefs and practices. They are at best the raw material of our opportunity. If Scotland ever becomes the prize of the Roman Catholic minority it will only be because the Presbyterians did not care enough for the truths of the Evangel by which Scotland has been made great.” We need a revival from heaven when the great truths of revelation would become real to us as a people. Roman Catholicism can never flourish where the Holy Spirit is working. Our lifeless and unspiritual condition as a people make us an easy prey to falsehood and its manifold evils.

(To be continued.)

Sermon

by Rev. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.

Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.—Revelation, iii. 20.

THE Apostle John, who was the writer used by the Holy Spirit to pen the Book of Revelation, was according to his own statement, “in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Patmos, under the Roman Empire, was a place of banishment for criminals and the probability is that John was banished there during the persecutions which arose against the Christian Church under the Emperor Diocletian, thus experiencing what his divine Master, who was “numbered with the transgressors,” told His disciples, that “the servant is not greater than his Lord.” In permitting his exile to Patmos God had a purpose in view, and part of that purpose was to give him messages to the Seven Churches of Asia. It may be argued that God could have given these messages in Jerusalem as well as in Patmos, but in this case it was His purpose to give them in Patmos, and no doubt God had certain wise ends in view of which we may be blind.

In the messages which he is commissioned to deliver to the Seven Churches of Asia we see that these Churches were all more or less corrupted except two, that is, the Church of Smyrna and the Church of Philadelphia. The Church of the Laodiceans was so far gone that it was said of it, “So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Yet God manifests His long-suffering to that Church, for it is to it that the words of our text were originally addressed. In considering these words, as they apply to all to whom the gospel comes, I shall notice three things as enabled by the Holy Spirit.

I. The Person speaking in our text.

II. That which He is doing.

III. The promise He gives to all who obey Him.

I. The Person speaking in our text. We have here no less a person than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of sinners. As such it is not a mere creature that our attention is drawn to, but the Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, being of the same substance with Him, and equal with Him in power and glory. In the preceding context He appears to us under several names, and each name gives a view of the character that belongs to Him.

(1) He is spoken of as “the faithful Witness,” and “the faithful and true Witness.” He is the faithful and true Witness when He testifies concerning the character of God, for “no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him.” He faithfully witnesses concerning man, for He “needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in Man.” He witnesses concerning truth and error, life and death, time and eternity, Heaven and Hell, in such a way that all who hear Him will have to say, “Never man spake like this man.”

(2) He is referred to as “the first begotten of the dead.” The Apostle Paul in writing his First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter xv. 20, says, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept,” and further on in verse 23, “But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his ‘coming.'” In these portions, as in the whole chapter, he clearly shows that the resurrection entirely depends on Christ’s resurrection, and that it is because He rose that His people shall rise also, thus establishing that Christ is the “first begotten of the dead.”

(3) He is “the Prince of the kings of the earth.” He is King of kings, and Lord of lords. Many a haughty potentate said with Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice,” but found out to their cost that “He ruleth by his power for ever,” and that it was vain for the rebellious to exalt themselves. As the Governor of the kings of the earth, He not only brings to pass all that He has purposed, in spite of their rebellion, but He fulfills what He has purposed, even by the means of their rebellion. They must yield obedience to Him or be broken in pieces.

(4) It is also stated that He is the “Amen.” In Isaiah, lxv. 16, Jehovah is spoken of as “the God of truth,” (Hebrew, the God Amen) and Christ Himself, while on earth, often uses the word “Amen” to emphasise the truth of what He says, and which in our Version is translated “verily.” Thus when He speaks of Himself as the “Amen” He brings Himself before us as “The Truth.”

(5) Further, He speaks of Himself as “the beginning of the creation of God.” The enemies of the doctrine of Christ’s eternal generation have tried to make capital of the grammatical construction of this passage by maintaining that it refers to Christ as “the first created being of creation,” but the construction admits also of the view that He is the source or origin of creation, and this, when taken in the light of the whole tenor of Scripture, is the correct view.

What unspeakable condescension on the part of Him to whom these names belong that He should even look in pity on any of the race to which we belong, to say nothing of coming near to offer us mercy. Yet He has come near in such a way that we should not be surprised to find our text beginning with the word “behold,” in order to arrest our attention and lead us to more than a superficial view of that which would benefit our souls for an endless eternity.

II. That which He is doing. (1) I stand and knock. This indicates the long-suffering of the Lord of Glory. Not only was He crucified on Calvary by the human race, but He is being crucified afresh among them and put to an open shame. As surely as the Jews of old said, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him,” so all who are under the hearing of the gospel and rejecting it are saying. They despise and reject Him, and refuse to submit to Him, yet His long-suffering still continues, so that were it not for their fearful brutishness they would say in the language of the Psalmist, “He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.”

He is waiting to be gracious and looking for signs of returning to Him. With pity for poor sinners He views their lives ebbing away, and being wasted in the service of the Devil. Their time in this world is fast drawing to a close, and with it the day of opportunities is slipping away. From their childhood to extreme old age He stands at their door with that balm, even the efficacy of His precious blood, which is able to cleanse them from the loathsome plague of sin, and heal their sin-diseased souls. “He looketh upon men; and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not, He shall deliver his soul from going into the pit and his life shall see light.” Sinner, He is waiting at your door, and offering you what would heal you and enrich you for time and eternity. What is the reception He is getting?

In standing and knocking at the doors of sinners He is revealing that He has no delight in their death. If He had, His long-suffering and sparing mercy would not have been exercised for such a long time. Men and women at whose doors He is standing have no claim on His mercy, for while He is kept standing there, they show their base ingratitude and their enmity, not only by refusing to hear His voice, but by opening their doors wide enough to the pleasures of sin which are for a season. Thus they are ruining their own souls by wilfully refusing to make choice of “that good part which shall not be taken away.” But our text, in effect, tells us that He is saying to them what He said to others of old, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye, from your evil way; for why will ye die, O house of Israel.”

(2) There are many ways in which He knocks. He knocks by His Word, and by the common strivings of the Spirit through the Word. The Word of God shows the Christ-less sinner his condition in the sight of a holy God, and reveals that God is angry with the wicked every day. The sinner’s own conscience corroborates what the Word reveals and thus Christ knocks so loudly at times that the sinner trembles, and is often kept from indulging in open sin, but alas! where this is not accompanied by the saving power of the Spirit the sinner, after a while, grows secure and careless as before.

He also knocks by His providence. He does this often by the voice of death. Death enters into all homes, from the palace of the king to the cottage of the meanest of his subjects. He comes unsought, and often unexpected, and, for the time being, has a solemnising effect. The most hardened are brought face to face with the fact that death is a reality that must sooner or later come their own way, but no sooner are the last services performed for the dead than those who are left behind, begin to put death further away than ever, forgetting that the language expressed in this knock of Christ is, “Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die and not live.”

(3) Christ is knocking at the door of nations, churches, families and individuals. A few years ago the nations of Europe were in the furnace of a World War. Men were horrified at the amount of blood shed, and saddened by the countless miseries it brought in its train. That war came to an end and both victor and vanquished were greatly weakened, so that one would naturally expect to see them profiting by their fearful experiences—but no. They did not realise that in these experiences it was Christ who was knocking at their doors, nor had they any inclinations to open the door for Him to enter, with the result that a few months ago we were again on the verge of a World War, and though that has been happily averted for the time being, we know not how long. Oh! if only the nations of the world would realise that in this way Christ is knocking at their doors, but they seem to be like Jerusalem of old, of which He said, “if thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”

He is knocking at the door of Churches. One would be ready to think that there is no reason why He should be knocking there, because of their profession, they are the churches of Christ and one would expect that His dwelling would be in them, yet His own among the churches have many reasons for mourning an absent Lord. Many churches in our day have degenerated to be synagogues of Satan, while in those which outwardly, at least, have kept the word of His patience there is a felt desolation for want of His presence and the power of His Spirit in pulpit and pew. The reason is not far to seek. He has been grieved away by the sins of professors of religion so that He would be just in saying as He said to the Jews, “Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Instead of that He still stands at the door and knocks, exhorting churches, as in the case of the Church of Ephesus to “remember, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works.”

Further, Christ is standing and knocking at the door of families. Alas! there are many in our day who never let Him further than the door. Scotland saw other days when the majority of homes in our beloved land had their family altar. Morning and evening the family, servants, and the “stranger within the gates” were gathered round God’s Book, and by reading, singing and prayer, the morning and evening sacrifices were offered up, and in many a home there was a consciousness of Christ’s fellowship. These scenes of a generation ago have almost vanished and there are very few families where the fear of God is. Let the descendants of godly parents who remember such scenes in their childhood days, and who are now heads of families themselves, consider the great sin of which they are guilty, if Christ is not honoured in their own families. He was welcomed and honoured in their parents’ homes and they received His blessing; He is kept at the door and despised in their homes, and what can they expect but His curse. Yet, He is standing at the door and seeking admittance.

It is true that He is standing at the door of the individual who is under the hearing of the gospel; and sinner, the length of time you have kept Him at the door ought to make you ashamed and tremble. Ashamed, because He deserves better treatment from you, and tremble, because He may be on the point of leaving your door forever. He has knocked loudly with the terrors of the Law, and softly with the consolations of the gospel, but you have despised them both, strengthening your gates and bars with Unbelief. All who keep Christ at the door see not their need of Him, neither do they see His beauty nor His suableness to meet their lost and ruined condition. He is to them “as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness,” and therefore, they remain ignorant of His power to save.

III. The promise He gives to all who obey Him. (1) “If any man hear my voice and open.” He is here looking for willingness to receive Him, but not a willingness that belongs to the flesh. There are many like the stony ground hearers, who receive the Word, and through the working of their national feelings have a certain kind of joy, by which they deceive themselves into thinking that they have opened the door to Christ, but when trouble comes, or their emotions subside, they manifest very clearly that they never had Him. Christ knows very well that the poor sinner at whose door He is knocking can never open the door by any effort of his own, but Christ expects that sinner to be diligent in the use of the means which He has appointed, yea, He tells us that “Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.” Where there is a “watching daily” and a waiting, the Holy Spirit by His power will cause the sinner to hear the voice of Christ, and will make him willing to open the door, for “thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” When the will of the sinner is thus subjected to the will of Christ all that the sinner can says is “Thy will be done.”

(2) “I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” Christ is willing to come in to the poorest place. He has been oftener found in the poor man’s cottage than in the king’s palace, and has often passed by the “wise and prudent” of this world and dwelt with such as were accounted “babes” in knowledge, but the poor sinner whose door has been opened to Christ will wonder that He should condescend to enter such a miserable lodging as he has to offer. He finds his heart a veritable dung-hill and a cage of every unclean bird, and everything in the house of his soul so much out of order, yea, all his faculties so ruined through the Fall, and so wasted through long indulgence in sin that, with sorrow and shame, he considers them of no use for the service of Christ. Will He come where such misery and ruin is to be found? Christ, Himself supplies the answer: “I will come in to him.”

Not only will He come in to him, but He will sup with him, and the sinner will sup with Christ. This shows the close fellowship that is to exist between Christ and the sinner whose door has been opened. Someone made use of the fact that “supper” is the last meal one takes before retiring to rest, in order to point out that when Christ comes in to sup, there is an indication of the rest which He provides. He gives rest from the power and dominion of sin and Satan, from the curses of the Law, from the wrath of God and from the demands of justice. He gives such a rest as will enable His people to experience “the peace of God, which passeth all understandig,” and a “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

At this supper the poor sinner will be remembering what he had been, and what he had done to Christ in keeping Him at the door so long. This will cause him many bitter tears, which are evidences of the repentance and godly sorrow he is experiencing. This is pleasing to Him who will not despise “a broken and contrite heart,” and to encourage and strengthen the poor sinner He will reveal Himself as the God “that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage,” thus causing “the voice of rejoicing and salvation” to be heard. When Christ comes in to sup with the sinner it is not with an empty hand He will come in. He will bring with Him what will do for the soul for time and eternity, for He will open to him the store-houses of grace and glory, and but a little of that provision will cause the soul to say with the Church in the Song of Solomon, “He brought me to the banqueting house and His banner over me was love.”

Sinner, consider that Christ is standing and knocking at your door, and willing to come in to you, and that He has stood there so long that He can say, “My head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.” Consider that if you continue despising Him, there will be an end to that standing and knocking at your door on His part, for it is written, “My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh.” Consider further, the brevity and uncertainty of human life, and that when it comes to an end there are no more privileges and opportunities to be had, “for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Let these considerations cause you to flee to a Throne of Grace, pleading for the sake of Christ, that God the Holy Spirit would open your heart and make you willing to receive Christ in meekness and love. May He grant it. Amen.