Viscount Halifax Attends Mass.
Reuter reports from New York, June 5th, 1941 that the Earl of Halifax, and Viscountess Halifax were present in St. Patrick’s Cathedral when the Archbishop Spellman “offered” solemn Pontifical Mass. The Protestants of the U.S.A. will be amazed, and undoubtedly offended that an Ambassador of the Protestant King of Great Britain would by his presence acknowledge this pagan, and blasphemous mass of the Pope of Rome. His Lordship is an Anglo-Catholic, and of course, all who are of that persuasion hate Protestantism. His Lordship on that account has neither claim nor right to represent our Protestant Nation. Millions in Canada will be deeply moved, and wounded in their hearts at such conduct on the part of the Ambassador. It was the treachery of the Anglo-Catholics that brought Britain to the brink of ruin. It was their Foreign Policy for years before this war that permitted the Dictators to raise their heads above the political dung-hills of Europe. It was their policy that lost for us Naval bases, and Air bases in Southern Ireland, and enabled Franco of Spain to win the Civil War in that unhappy country. Again it was their Foreign policy that allowed the Italian Dictator to butcher the defenceless Abyssinians. In New York City Viscount Halifax attends “Pontifical Mass.” What a curse! Let Protestant readers take note that Lord Halifax does not, and never did, and never will represent British Protestants. The “Mass” of Rome is a curse, a delusion, a snare, and most offensive to God! The Lord Jesus taught His disciples to pray “Let Thy Kingdom come.” The prayer of the Anglo-Catholics is Let the “Mass” advance, and let the Kingdom of Popery flourish all over the world. We hope that Protestants all over the Empire will protest against the conduct of Lord Halifax, and demand of him, as Britain’s Ambassador, that never again will he attend the blasphemous “Mass” of Rome. The “Mass” brought endless ruin on millions of souls. The curse of the “Mass” can hardly be conceived by us who in the providence of God have been brought up in the Protestant faith. The Gospel will destroy it when the Most High will open the eyes of men to see, and believe the perfectness of the atoning death of Christ. The “Mass” is to help to take “souls” out of purgatory—”a middle hell” which the priests of Rome concocted in order to enrich the Vatican with gold from all over the world. Hitler’s soul, as a renegade son of the “Church” would not go to the same place as the souls of the heretics—the Pope, and “Mother Church” places them in lower regions, so that it is possible to say solemn “Pontifical Mass” for Hitler provided friends will attend, and pay for the expense. Luther, Calvin, Knox, and all the Reformers abhorred the “Mass” of the Pope with all their heart. They with one voice designated it as a blasphemy against God, and ruinous to the souls of men!—J.M.
The Truth About Niemoller.
Some time ago it had been reported and given widespread publicity that Pastor Niemoller had been received into the Church of Rome. C. C. Griffiths, Rural Dean of Hastings, writing some time ago to the press, says, “It might interest your readers to know that we have received news from Geneva saying that Pastor Martin Niemoller is in good health, has unbroken courage, and that there is no truth in the rumour of his joining the Roman Church.” The above will give relief to many who remembered at a Throne of Grace this persecuted Christian pastor and who were much perturbed through believing the previous report. We cannot say who originated the false report, but we know who might hope to benefit by using it for propaganda purposes, and it is rather significant that though the true report has been known in this country for some time the press has not given it the publicity it gave to the false report. Is this another fruit of the Press of this country being controlled by Rome?
Rest and Refreshment Centre at Bedford.
We have received a letter from Pastor S. Rutherford Hunt, 29 Russel Avenue, Bedford drawing our attention to a Rest and Refreshment Centre at Bedford, for members of H.M. Forces, of which he is secretary. The Centre is opened in the express interest of such as desire quiet, homely surroundings and the absence of frivolous worldly amusements. No intoxicants of any kind are served. We consider that it is meeting a real need and would pray for the blessing of God on the efforts put forth there for bringing our young men, away from home and surrounded by many temptations, into close contact with the Scriptures and sound literature. Any of our young men in or about Bedford who may have a difficulty in locating the Rest Centre should communicate with Pastor Rutherford Hunt at the above address. As the upkeep of the Rest Centre involves expense we would recommend it to the sympathetic and prayerful consideration of friends.
Russia and the War.
Russia has now been thrown into the melting pot of the present terrible war, and thus the European situation has taken an unexpected turn. It is impossible at present to say what effect this will have on affairs as far as they concern our own nation. The Most High has taught us, as a nation, many bitter lessons to cease from man, and, therefore, we ought to be cautious about rushing into situations where we would be dishonouring God. Soviet Russia has done its utmost to banish the Gospel out of the world, and therefore is equally as bad as Germany. Both nations are a menace to Christianity, and the civilisation which is founded on it, and in permitting them to slaughter each other He may be paving the way for better days, and for that time when the whole earth shall be full of His glory.
The Methodist Church and Evangelistic Campaigning.
Widespread publicity has been given to the announcement recently made that the Methodist Church is going to start a national evangelistic campaign to re-awaken and re-vitalise the spiritual life of the nation, and all denominations are asked to lend it their whole-hearted support. At first sight, and to the casual observer, this proposal will appear a most laudable one. Our reason for uttering a warning in advance is that all such campaigns hitherto have failed, because while the object in view was most laudable, the methods employed, and the lack of spiritual discernment of those employing them, have been the cause of making the subsequent failure more detrimental to true and vital religion than any other cause we know of. It is one of the most lamentable signs of the times in ecclesiastical circles that the need for individual and national conviction of sin, repentance, confession, and supernatural regeneration, and new obedience, seems to be completely lost sight of, and that the ardent sentimental proclaiming of the so-called “love of Christ” is all that is necessary. As we have time and again stated in these pages, Britain’s greatest need to-day is the proclamation in every pulpit from John o’ Groat to Land’s End of the Moral Law of God by which alone is true knowledge and conviction of individual and national sin, followed by the equally unequivocal proclamation of God’s only remedy for sin—the Gospel of the precious blood of a crucified Saviour, risen, ascended, exalted, and forever interceding. Till this is done by British pulpits, as a result of deep Spirit-wrought conviction in the case of each preacher, such ardent noisy campaigning is far worse than useless. The Methodist Church with its Modernism, Arminianism, Antinomianism, and Sacerdotalism in its bosom, is only mocking God when professing to preach His Gospel, while cherishing these satanic evils un-rebuked, unconfessed, and unforsaken. The same applies to the other nominally Protestant denominations in our land that are asked to join in this nation-wide campaign, for we do not expect that even these ardent campaigners will invite the F.P. Church of Scotland to join, knowing our attitude to such methods. This clamouring for revitalising the spiritual life of the nation while cherishing such God-dishonouring wickedness in their churches is something worse than mere wearisome humbug, it is grossly insulting not only to God, but to the natural intelligence of right-thinking men and women. There is great need for spiritual revitalising, but “if I regard sin in my heart the Lord will not hear me.”
Church Discipline.
There are two extremes relative to the administration of church discipline which members of church courts would do well always to guard against. There is the danger of loose and lax sentimentalism overcoming one’s better judgment on the one hand, and a stern unrelenting rigidity impervious to evidence of repentance, on the other. The former dangerous extreme tendency has been the fertile cause of denominational backsliding and the prevalence of soul-ruining heresies in the history of the Christian Church, while the latter equally dangerous extreme has been the cause of making many office-bearers actual, if unconscious, persecutors of members of the mystical body of Christ, whom the Holy Spirit had restored after a grievous public fall on the part of particular backsliders. Those who yield to the former extreme allow themselves to be moved by personal considerations of pity for the individual, and other mixed motives, thus, often unintentionally, undermining church purity, while the other side are carried away by zeal and faithfulness, as they imagine, to such an extent that they forget that they themselves are still in the body, fallible creatures, often guilty of limiting the Holy Spirit, who is as much, to say the least, glorified in the penitent restoration of a backslider, as when He originally regenerates a precious immortal soul. If in the case of the former, personal considerations of favouritism influence their attitude and action, too often in the other extreme case it will be found that personal animosity, perhaps of long standing, against an individual backslider may assume the subtle disguise of zeal and faithfulness to the glory of God and the purity of the Church, whereas examination and scrutiny of the actuating motives in the history of the case may reveal a personal desire to keep a fallen brother down in the ditch even when the Holy Spirit has restored him, in humble self-effacing penitent modesty, to the Divine favour. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne at one time thought that if he preached a full-orbed Gospel, church discipline would look after itself, but he soon found that if he had not been as faithful and zealous relative to church discipline as he was in preaching the Gospel, he would soon have no Gospel to preach. One of the Puritan fathers declared that “he who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must travel himself; for everyone has need to be forgiven.” The importance of church discipline, in its most terrible severity, is exemplified in the cases of Ananias and Sapphira on the threshold of New Testament church history, so that for all future time men privileged to administer church discipline should not trifle with it. As the Most High, however, mingles judgment with mercy in all His dealings with His covenant people during the course of their earthly pilgrimage, it always becomes us, in this connection, to remember the faithful admonitions: “Let him who thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall,” and “If a brother be overtaken in a fault ye which are whole restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, lest ye also be tempted.”