by the Rev. JAMES MACLEOD, Greenock.
“Quench not the Spirit” (1. Thess. v. 19).
THE Word of God records many a sad instance of nations and individuals “quenching the Spirit” of God, and bringing condign punishment upon themselves. The Antediluvians, the people of Sodom, Gomorrah, and individuals in thousands have been left on record that “quenched the spirit” of God. We should take the greatest heed to this solemn, and divine exhortation, “quench not the Spirit.” The young as well as the aged should earnestly pray that the moral restraints, and strivings of the Holy Spirit should not be taken away from their minds by indulging in sin, nor going in the ways of transgressors. If the conscience is once hardened in sin by openly transgressing God’s law alas, for the future! God can awaken the dead and hardened conscience; but what pain and agony that will bring into the soul! We “quench the Spirit” when we reject the doctrines of God’s truth, and turn our minds away from the Word of God. When men for the slightest excuse shun the house and worship of God they “quench the Spirit.” Now, my dear friends, “quench not the Spirit.” Attend to your Bibles, secret prayer and to the Word preached and whatever will become of your souls for eternity, one thing sure in your case and that is, you will be found in the path of duty. “None perish that Him trust.”
The critical situation of the nations of Europe should cause us to tremble, especially the Christless. It is written in God’s Word “that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” God out of Christ is a “consuming fire” against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Christ advises His people not to be afraid of wars, nor rumours of war. He is the Prince of the kings of the earth. His unlimited power governs all events, nations, governments, and individuals. The Lord for
wise purposes permits Satan extraordinary power to operate through the minds of men in opposition to His own divine government! The present opposition against the Word of God in Church and State will be the very undoing of Satan’s kingdom. It is not Nationalism, nor any modern cult, nor the force of arms that is to purge the world of its present barbarism. The men of the world tried to civilise their fellows by philosophy. That failed. Religious cults were forced upon millions of men. That failed to save sinners from “the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life.” Modern science, and the application of scientific methods have been developed to the zenith of its present glory: and marvellous attainments have been made. Notwithstanding all these, men, women, and children, in hundreds of millions, continue as indifferent, obdurate, and dead to the claims of God and conscience, as if they were trained in Bedlam! Modern scientific knowledge has organised weapons of destruction in the air, on land, on sea, and under the water, that shall ultimately smash to fragments all the achievements of human culture! One need not be a prophet to visualise the terrific aftermath of another European war. The carnage, the chaos, and the terrible confusion that will follow—International Bankruptcy! Let us read calmly and carefully the 18th chapter of Revelation, to get a glimpse of what will be the results of another war. The atrocities by Italians in Abyssinia as reported in the “Glasgow Herald,” on 31st December, 1938, is worthy of the “Spanish Inquisition.” The Italians compelled the poor natives to dig their own graves and then buried them alive! On July 28 last they burned one hundred and eighty-two people alive. Men, women and children, slaughtered for no other reason than that they are natives. This is Italian civilization! The nations are armed to the teeth, in a measure and manner as never before, in the history of the world. Russia’s only religion is force, war, bloodshed and slaughter. The Germanic nations are fully prepared for the bloody fray; so is Italy, France, The British Empire, Japan, and the lesser nations. It is a gruesome vision
of the pagan-like attitude of the nations of the earth. Where the state is concerned in Russia, Germany, Italy and France the Church of Rome is out of all their calculations. The Pope, and his army of priests, orders, nuns, and Jesuits must not knowingly interfere in the national organisation of the said nations. Satan remains with his army of blind, dumb, deaf, malicious demons. The seed sown by popery from the 7th century has culminated in Hitlerism, Mussolinism, Stalinism, and French Atheism. What “frogs” from the bottomless pit! The present Pope has been recently complaining that certain Rulers have no respect to his grey hairs. Why should they have respect to his blasphemous pretensions? If his own hairns will eat, and devour, his fleshly power let his wicked organisation groan, and weep under the teeth of Hitlerism! We shall not shed a tear at the destruction of popery. It was concocted in hell and there it must return. The bottomless pit is the grave of popery. The Popes, and all who will follow that cursed religion, shall weep, and wail for ever in a lost eternity. Let God’s people rejoice, and sing the praises of their King at the destruction of popery—let the weapons of her destruction be Hitlerism, Italian barbarism, or French Atheism the Most High be praised that judgeth the Whore of Rome! Let us rejoice in our King. What causes serious alarm and pain to us is the sympathy and shelter given to popery in the British Empire, particularly in the British Isles. The door is wide open in England for Jesuits, priests, orders, and the priests’ friends, the silly nuns, to pour into our Island from their Continental dens! It is very sad. Earl Baldwin allowed the Jesuits to open offices in the City of London in 1926 without consulting Parliament. How foolish to do so. There are, at least, more than double the population in the U.S.A. of Roman Catholics than in the whole of the British Empire. The population of the British Isles is not half as large as the population of the U.S.A. and yet the ratepayers of Britain pay fifty times more for Roman Catholic Schools, and private Institutions than the U.S.A. for her Roman Catholic population
of twenty-five million. We, of course, are overwhelmed with Anglo-Catholics and Scoto-Catholics in Britain, and through the whole Empire. They are a more dangerous class of hypocrites than the born and bred children of the Roman Catholic Church. The Foreign Office is honeycombed with Anglo-Catholics. The Foreign Secretary is the lay leader of the English Anglo-Catholics. Their previous lay leader was the Foreign Secretary’s father. The present Prime Minister is a Unitarian. What a religious combination! Unitarianism and Anglo-Catholicism regulating the policy of Protestant Britain. The Jesuits will be pleased. Hitler and Mussolini know the Jesuits inside out and need we wonder if they manage between them to keep our Prime Minister on the trot between Germany and Rome. The Prime Minister, like every good Unitarian, is keeping his mission to Rome secret. He is to see the Pôpe in order to pay homage to his grey hairs! This is how Protestant Britain must retain and advance world peace. They try to run after peace, but peace is fleeing away from them. The Italians roasting alive Ethiopians, and Hitler crushing to death German Protestants: and our Chief Executive negotiating terms of peace with the Pope, Mussolini, and Hitler. What madness! These European gentry have no more respect for truth than a Canadian bull-frog has for its own croaking. “Your time is always ready, my time has not come.” When the time comes to pour the vials of His wrath upon the nations of Europe, their peace agreements will fade away as the rays of the setting sun fade from the sky. Hitler and Mussolini are trained intriguers. Last September our people shouted the praises of the Prime Minister in pulpit, press, and pew as our “peace maker” and “great deliverer.” The British people praised the wrong object. They will suffer for this delusion! It was the Most High that deferred the catastrophe, but left the men, engines, weapons, and implements of destruction ready for action—”the cup of the Amorites” is not full to the brim. Christ came into this world to destroy the works of the devil, and He will not leave root nor branch of them. They must be destroyed. It is not to be done by carnal weapons. The
gospel will do that work. The day is approaching when men shall not learn the art of war any more. The gospel in the heart and consciences of men as a living divine reality will do this great work. The Jews will be in that day “born again.” The malice of the Germanic, and Roman Catholic nations, cannot exterminate the Jews. The Jewish race will be preserved for the seed Royal of the King of kings, and Lord of lords. They are beloved for their fathers’ sake. The fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in, and Satan will be cast out for one thousand years. This is the day of our gospel privileges, and let us seek with all our hearts a vital interest in Christ. “Quench not the Spirit.” If we pass from time to eternity Christless we shall perish for ever, and die a living, eternal death in hell with the devils. Hell is a fearful place beyond all human conception. Eternally grasping death, and death eternally fleeing from the grasp of the dying. Here we flee from death by every means in our power: there seeking death and cannot die in the midst of death! The sinner enveloped in death, wrath, pain, and despair—depicted by our blessed Saviour as flames of fire, brimstone, a lake of fire never ceasing to burn, and burning the inmates of a lost eternity for ever. My dear friends, consider the language of the Saviour in the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke. Study every word and sentence that came from His blessed lips about the place of woe! From your study then turn to meditate on His own agony in the garden, and from there follow Him to the cross, most willingly suffering the pain, shame, and agony of it all in order to open for us a way to escape the wrath which is to come, and the pains of hell for ever. We cannot be reconciled to God in any other way but through the blood of Christ. If Christ is not ours we are lost for ever. Do we really believe that there is a lost eternity? If so, how can we be so indifferent to the eternal needs of our precious souls? Let us preach, warn, and cry aloud to our people, the awfulness of a lost eternity. Let our people hear from us on the authority of divine truth, and our own consciences, that there is a lost eternity, where the inhabitants thereof weep,
wail, and gnash their teeth for ever. If young men, and women, who frequent the dance halls, stuff their minds on the ashes of modern novels, who try to feed their lusts with gruesome habits, who float over their strong drink in the drinking dens of town and hamlets transgressing the precepts of God, destroying soul, mind, bodies, and goods, got a glimpse of a lost soul in hell it is very questionable if reason could stand to see such a sight for one moment! It is hell or heaven. We can be sure of the former (because we are fallen creatures), never of the latter if not by faith in Christ. May the Holy Ghost pour floods of gospel repentance into the souls of old and young among us. May the Lord’s people be earnest at a throne of grace, pleading that the Holy Spirit would convert our Christless people. We believe that the inroads of Satan, and the fierce attacks that have been permitted to come upon us for the last three years were because of our spiritual lethargy, and carnal formalism, satisfying our religious consciences with a mere routine of duties. The weapons the devil wielded so effectively were back-biting, and evil surmising. This was “quenching the Spirit” of prayer, love, holiness, and sanctified self-denial in earnest! “The works of the flesh are manifest: which are these” . . . . Need we wonder when these evil spirits were burrowing deep into the hearts of men and women if the horse of carnal zeal appeared as a mighty steed to rectify ecclesiastical abuses! “We shall not ride upon horses” must be experienced before it can be understood. “Awake! Awake, put on thy strength (faith, prayer, patience, love, courage and true humility) O Zion! put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.” The men and women of our Church spent much of their precious time in secret prayer in past days. The present inclination is talk, talk and no prayer. We have heard some engage in prayer and they might as well keep their eyes wide open and deliver their “lecture prayer” in the usual way. No confession of sin, praise, petition or any acknowledgment of God’s goodness—only incoherent quotations of portions of Scripture. Prayer is not a lecture nor an exposition of portions of Scripture as if explaining them in the attitude
of prayer to the Most High. When one stands in public praying and begins expounding the Bible in a crude, irreverent manner the people cannot say, “Amen,” to his self-esteemed grand speech. These men reveal clearly their ignorance of God, of themselves, His people, and of the needs of precious souls that are yet Christless. “Pray for all men” is not in their line of thought. It is our candid opinion that such men should not be called upon to pray in public, at least, not until men and women of spiritual discernment were persuaded that they had practiced a little more common sense, and good taste. We are fully convinced that we have heard men in the attitude of “praying in public” quoting scripture with the full intention of hurting God’s people. We love and rejoice to hear the broken hearted sinner floundering this way and that way trying to give an adequate expression to the deep and reverent consciousness of his tried soul. Prayer is very often in groans, and soul tears before the Lord. It is a day of small things. One should not, as a rule, be long in public prayer, especially when several are present to engage in that holy exercise. The closet is the place for long and constant prayer. “Pray without ceasing.” May the Most High grant His dear people a rich measure of the spirit of prayer in our Church at home, and abroad: and to His dear ones everywhere. We may be confronted with the most momentous trials in our national history, and in the history of the human race before this year runs out. The horizon is dark in all directions, and the gloom of judgment at our doors. It is futile to look to men in Church or in State. It was when men advanced in years that the greatest landslide in their life took place. The Holy Ghost has left it on record of many a solemn instance of men in advanced years up-rooting and casting down what they themselves and others so honourably and faithfully set up in accordance with the Word of God. “Quench not the Spirit.” It is a cause of rejoicing when one hears and sees men who went astray in their youth, returning back to the law and to the testimony. We met not long ago a Doctor of Divinity who told us that he had cast overboard his youthful
training and crude belief in the Word of God. That is a step in the right direction. If all the Protestant clergymen in Scotland were to return to the “Law and to the Testimony” what a bulwark they would be against the cursed increase of Romanism in poor Scotland. The pagan Roman Catholic organisation is making a strong bid for Scotland as well as for England. The leading article in the last issue of our Magazine is most instructive, however alarming; let us hear all the facts that can be appropriately divulged about the wicked encroachments of Romanism. The Protestant Churches are divided into fragments, and the fragments full of factions. There is no unity of action, nor zeal for the glorious attainments of Reformation principles. The Free Presbyterian Church stands for those principles in all their bearing on Church and State. The enemy has been active, by inside and outside methods, to destroy our Church, and the testimony raised against error in 1893. Every effort has so far failed. The Constitution of the Church has not been changed by all the blasts and storms that raged against it for the last forty-five years. When men, from ignorance or evil motives, try to assert that the Constitution of the Free Presbyterian Church has been smashed beyond repair, that may be their fond wish. For their own sake they should have respect to truth and bear in mind that they must give their final account to Christ, the Head of the Church at the Great White Throne. Some men make great noise about “the Constitution” who are so illiterate that they could not spell the word! What such illiterate folk mean by “Constitution” is carnal religious “sentimentalism.” Let our tried and harassed people at home and abroad rest assured that the Constitution of the Free Presbyterian Church is absolutely intact. It is our duty and privilege to see to it that it will remain inviolate against all invidious attacks. It is reckless for responsible men to maintain that the Constitution of our Church has been abrogated by certain Church procedure. It is a false statement and calculated only to deceive the simple. We know of some men going from house to house pouring into the ears of our people “that the Constitution was ruined and cast
out of our Church.” What false-hood! Job said that he would not put their fathers among the dogs of his flock. That can be applied very truly to some men in our day! Solomon calls them “tale bearers.” The Holy Ghost calls them “false accusers.” The sin of schism will not pass the righteous judgments of God. We strongly advise all who wish and desire peace to their souls, and the blessing of God upon their families to keep their hands and tongues off the Free Presbyterian Church! The Word of God is perfect; the laws and Constitution of our Church are wholly based upon the written, and inspired Word. It is no warrant for any man to separate from the Church on the ground of family squabbles, and individual feuds! God will search into the motives of men. He will be the supreme Judge. When unregenerated men are raised and appointed to the work of elders, deacons, and church members without the least responsibility, knowledge, or concern for the cause of Christ and the truth of God it is time for the godly to enter their chambers. “Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there; for the Lord our God has put us to silence, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord” (Jer. viii. 14). The Free Presbyterian people have on more than one occasion for the last forty-five years been put to silence through the painful conduct of men and women. Let us seek absolute dependence upon the Lord, and let us not “quench the Spirit.” When the conscience of a professing man or woman is hardened by secret sinful habits, no power, reason, nor Scripture can touch that guilty corrupt conscience until the Lord will aim a dart at it, which will bring home to it “thou art the man.” We have, also noticed that when men and women are in a back-sliding condition of soul that they become unwarrantly charitable towards the sinful ways of dead unregenerated sinners—especially if they are related to themselves. We must love the souls of our bitterest enemies, but we must hate their sins as we hate our own. “Quench not the Spirit.”