THERE is a terrible threat pronounced against Amalek by the Lord in the Old Testament: “I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven” (Exod. xviii. 14) and the threat was carried out. In the divine record it is further recorded that Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi; because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.” (Exod. xviii. 15, 16),
In the New Testament, if we understand it aright, a threat as terrible has been pronounced against the Church of Rome—”Rome shall perish—write the word in the blood that she has spilt,” is how the poet put it. Rome has committed a great and daring evil. She has openly challenged the wisdom of heaven by a bold and defiant effort to displace the gospel of the grace of God. This is the crux of the battle as waged from the Christian standpoint. War, it is true, may be waged against this system because of its interference with the affairs of states and liberties of men. Patriots and politicians may wage war against her from this standpoint. Or, war may be waged against her by men who know nothing of the grace of God and His wonderful salvation because of the depths to which countries have sunk in ignorance and sensuality. During the period when Europe was sunk in a sea of vice and when its vile waters reached the steps of the papal chair and entered into the papal palace itself there were men who did not hesitate to raise their voice against the system that permitted such a state of things in the highest counsels of the Church. Among these may be mentioned Roman Catholic historians who have not hesitated to put on record the fearful condition of things existing and who unsparingly condemn the men who openly indulged in shameless vice while occupying the highest places of honour in the Church. While all right-thinking men will agree that a system that permits such a condition of things deserves unsparing denunciation yet the Christian
war with Rome has entered the conflict to battle for God’s truth against the devil’s lie. The attempt to displace the gospel in which there is a revelation given of the righteousness of God by faith and displace it by a gospel, which is not a gospel, which exalts the righteousness of man was a well-planned scheme of the devil. God will not stand unconcernedly by to see the righteousness of His Son displaced by that of sinful men. The warning of the Apostle to the Galatians still stands: “Though we, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than we have preached let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (Gal. i. 8, 9). If an angel by preaching another gospel would be accursed, i.e., regarded as a devil what must we say of a system that has daringly set aside the gospel of the grace of God.
In waging this war mere denunciation, though necessary, is not enough. We must enter the conflict with the sword of truth. Luther’s denunciations, and who could denounce like him, would never have given such a shattering blow to the Papacy were it not that he entered the conflict with the great doctrine of justification by faith so honouring to God and so alien to all man’s ideas of salvation. Free masons, free thinkers, modernists and others may enter the fray and deliver powerful arguments against Romanism but at the end of the day if they have to say like MacCheyne of his unconverted days, “Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.” In our witness against Romanism the great doctrine of justification must be brought more to the front. Our anaemic Protestantism is lacking in that vitality that made it a power in the land in the days gone by. Is it Bunyan or someone else who says about the warriors of old that they went into the battle for God’s truth as if their sword and hand were one.
Dr. Kennedy in one of his lectures speaks of sham battles in which blank shot is used. There is no lack of excitement and no lack of noise but the enemy leaves the field untouched. It is well when Protestants join in battle with the formidable foe of Romanism that they be equipped with the great doctrine of justification by faith and that both mind and heart have a strong grip of the doctrine.