IN times of outstanding victory, on the one hand, or devastating judgments, on the other, there is no book to which one may go as to get words to express one’s feelings like the Bible. There are two chapters, in particular, which have been often before our mind in recent years which seem to say to us: “Could anything be more descriptive of what has happened in Europe?” The chapters referred to are Ezekiel xxxi., in which Egypt is reminded of the crushing judgment that smote the mighty and goodly cedar, Assyria, to the ground lest Egypt should lightly think of her own fate announced by the prophet (Ezekiel). The other chapter is Isaiah xiv. While both chapters should be carefully read, yet for our present purpose we intend confining our attention to the latter chapter as it does not present the same difficulties of interpretation to the generality of readers as does Ezekiel xxxi.
The following is the chapter in Isaiah: “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there,—and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant places: and her time is near to come—and her days shall not be prolonged. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob—and will yet choose Israel and set them in their own land: . . . . It shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, That thou shalt take up this proverb against the King of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased!—the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked,—and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: —They break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee,—and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down,—No feller is come
up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee—to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee,—even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, art thou also become weak as we? —Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave,—and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thy heart I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, be in glory every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evil doers shall never be renowned. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of Hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bitttern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts.”—Isaiah xiii. 19—Isaiah xiv. 23.
Sermon.
By the Rev. JAMES MACLEOD, Greenock.
Now also many nations are gathered against thee that say, let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion. But they know not the thoughts of the Lord, neither understand they His counsel: but He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor. Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thy horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.—Micah iv. 11, 13.
Micah, the Morasthite, prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. It is said of him that he is one of the minor prophets. He must have lived for a good old age. He was a mighty prophet. There is nothing to shew that he was less or smaller than any of the greatest of the prophets! As a prophet is one who announces things to come, and one inspired by God to teach the people, Micah was one of the first rank in the glorious history of the prophets. His authority to teach, instruct, and rebuke was not the bombast of a popish grandee.
He was appointed by the Great Head of the Church of God to declare the will of God, in plain, simple, earnest and majestic language which a mere man could never do without the immediate aid of the Holy Spirit. “Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: let the Lord be witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple.” The Church was in a most dangerous position, departing from the Word of God, law, gospel, ordinances, and morality in general very low. Israel had almost gone into captivity. The cause for all this could be traced to the fact that they had forsaken the truth of God, and followed the way of the heathen. Judah was facing the same course if grace, repentance, and prayer would not prevent it in the infinite mercy of God. “For behold the Lord cometh forth out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.” Here we have a vivid description of the effects of bombs and atomic bombs—”Valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire.” “Hear, all ye people!” “What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?” The seats of worship had become dens of thieves, robbing God of His glory, and man of his only way of approach to the Most High. Micah was seeing the awful results of all this upon the whole land. It was coming. The false prophets prophesied the opposite to Micah. They would promise peace, no more war, plenty of everything, and, as they were deceived themselves, they were diligent in deceiving others lulling them to sleep. Like the false prophets of our own day. They used to say before the last war, “No more war, peace, peace,” but lo! and behold! the last war. “We may expect the false prophets to arise once more and they will predict great things for being deceived before (and many times over) will not silence them. Satan will see to that. His object is to deceive the simple. The false prophets will quote many parts of the Bible to maintain their position among those who are simple enough to listen to them. That was true in this land when wicked men began to introduce false doctrines into the churches. If the infamous “Declaratory Act” should be passed into law in the Free Church, the Utopia that would immediately follow in the course of a few months, or, in a very short time, would usher in the most glorious time ever known in the history of the church! One advantage that a prophet has over other poor mortals is that you cannot contradict him. He is a prophet. We must wait for the events. Micah was a true prophet. What he announced, and predicted, came to pass. Judah went into captivity. There they were for the space of seventy years. The Lord promised that they should return to the land of their fathers. That the Temple should be built. All that happened as Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel prophesied, which proved that they were true prophets of the Lord. In this Fourth Chapter, Micah has glorious things to tell about the great prosperity that was to follow, and also very dark sentences of what the church might expect from a hostile world. It is very significant, when he says, that they were to go to Babylon, “there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.” When the great Reformation took place in the 16th century, the Reformers were brought out of the Church of Rome—all of them. It was the only Church that existed in Western Europe. The Greek church was in the East of
Europe, Russia, and in many parts of Asia. When God redeemed His people from Babylon they were in captivity. They were not Babylonians. They proved very clearly how distinct they were from them although living among them. That is characteristic of the Jew to this day. No people in history has kept their distinctive characteristics like the Jews. They have been scattered among all the nations of the world for the last (near) two thousand years, and they never assimilated the characteristics of those nations. They have remained Jews. When the Church was in the fiery furnace in Egypt: in Babylon; and to this day, the seed of Jacob shall be the harbingers, as they have been in the past of the blessed epochs predicted in the Word of God that will come to pass. There is a glorious future before the Jews!
We shall endeavour to say a few things on the last three verses of this chapter.
First: Let us direct your attention to Zion—the Church of God.
Second: “Now also many nations are gathered against thee.”
Third: Their object in gathering against the Church is made very clear—“To defile Her.” And say they, “let our eye look upon Zion.”
Fourth: But these nations know not the thoughts of the Lord, nor His purposes.
First: Let us direct your attention to Zion—the Church of God. The true Church is made up of all regenerated persons, called by the Holy Spirit, united by faith to Jesus Christ in the Word of God. Christ, her blessed Redeemer, is her Head, she is His body. Where the head is there must be the body. It is not, of course, necessary that they be in one place or collected under one huge organisation. They were scattered abroad very early in the history of the apostolic church. They are more so in our own day. Some poor illiterate folk hold firmly to the crude opinion and silly idea that all true believers are confined to their own little and insignificant denomination. They judge all and sundry from the little knowledge that they have of their own gossipy village! They will quote Scriptures in support of their theory, and in so doing conclude that all who hold a different opinion from their own must be a pagan, or heathen! That was the atmosphere in which the old Pharisees moved so self-righteous and self-satisfied that when our Lord warned them of the damnation of hell if they should persist in that course they should have taken His life on the spot if it were not that they feared the common people. We hold that God’s people are scattered throughout the whole world. They are in China, Japan, India, Africa, Americas, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Germany, France, England, and a few of them in Scotland. Wherever they are there is Zion, the Church of God. No denomination as such is Zion, but the people of God may be, and undoubtedly are in all Protestant denominations, and where they are, Zion is there to the extent that the people of God are associated with that denomination. The true signs of the church militant is that she is fighting on the side of the Lord against the devil, the flesh, and the world. Any Christian denomination which ranges herself on the side of the world, the flesh and the devil shows plain enough that that body, sect, or church has ceased to be the spouse of Jesus Christ. We hold most firmly, after many years of study, that the church of Rome is not to be classified,
nor designated, as a “Christian Church.” That organisation is political, religious pagan, with an imaginary woman, whom they call “Mary,” as their god. They address the goddess as follows—”Serve Mary with love, and rejoice in her with trembling.” “Mary, my mother in thee I hope; save me from those who persecute me.” “Be thou exalted, O Mary, above the heavens, and thy glory above all the earth.” “I will sing to Mary while I live, I will sing psalms to God (meaning Mary) while I have my being.” “House of Mary, bless the Lord, those who fear the Lord let them bless Mary.” The above quotation from the Gospel of Witness, Toronto. G. Whitfield Ray, Missionary and Explorer, saw the above painted on the walls of the church of Maria, in Celaya, Uruguay. That is a pagan church like the Hindoo, or Red Indian devil worship. It is most wicked to call the church of the Pope Christian! The church of the Pope is extremely pagan, in constant league with the devil against Christ, His Word, and cause in the world. Her faith, hope, philosophy, politics, and religion is regulated by hatred, lies, hypocrisy, murder, robbing the poor and rich alike (for her real rulers, the Jesuits,) have no respect to King’s governments, nobles, common people, virgins, the living or the dead, the infant of days, or the helpless matron, the old man or cultured scholar! He would wade through rivers of human blood to gain his own evil ends. She is, indeed, the “mother of harlots, and the abomination of the whole earth.” It is the greatest folly to call this monster of all that is vile “Christian.” In contrast to the spouse of Jesus Christ, the Roman monster is the spouse of Satan. She is opposite to the Zion of God in every known moral principle, divine or human. Christ sets His people free, the Pope casts his followers into the prison of despair in this life, and into a place which he calls “purgatory” hereafter for thousands of years. The Christian religion is governed by the principle of love; the Pope’s religion is ruled by awful hatred, tyranny, lies, and murder. The Roman monster is non-Christian. The true Christian denomination must respect the Word of God. The Bible must be supreme in her courts, religion and worship. While the Jewish Church adhered faithfully to the Word of God, worship, and divine ordinances, her position and protection was secured by the divine promise. Her God was her Shepherd. The most powerful and malicious enemy could not touch her. When she departed from the Word, and Worship of her God, the “many nations” were free to gather against her. Her bulwarks were gone! The fire of her sacrifices, and her altars could not save her from ruin, decay, and final destruction. She became a prey to her enemies.
Second: “Now also many nations are gathered against thee.” They were all of one mind. They collected their forces to molest, torment and destroy her. Her end was near. The Babylonians poured into her cities, villages, and the seat of her worship was destroyed—Jerusalem. The mighty children of Judah became as weak as helpless women. They were led captive to Babylon. There they were to serve seventy years without an altar, priest, blood or Sabbath, with only the ruins of their ancient glory in their memory. As Jeremiah said: “But thou has utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.” Among the captives of Judah were gracious, and God-fearing young men. Men who were “born from above,” with saving grace in their hearts, and a living witness in their consciences willing to resist with their lives the idolatry of their captors. What they were not
allowed to do in the land of their birth, they were ready to die for the honour, glory, and worship of Jehovah in the land of the enemy. Noble young men! It was the aged and elders of their people who brought their land, Church, and State into ruins. They defiled the Church with their traditions, hypocrisy, and false worship. The Germans were the pioneers in the most malicious attack ever made on the Church of God in modern ages. They attacked the roots, foundations, as well as the citadel of the Christian faith in general. The Wellhausen school tore to shreds the first five Books of Moses, and the rest of the German critics followed in the wake of this atheistical school. In this country, Robertson Smith, A. B. Davidson, Dodds, Bruce, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs. They were all of one mind—to defile the Church. It is not unknown among men that there are men and women when they fall themselves into gross sins that they will do their utmost to drag innocent people (if they can) unto the same slough of despond as themselves. The old experienced thief will train the younger thief in the same art as himself. Satan had this object in view when he made use of these men to attack the Word of God. It was the final ruin of the cause of Christ in the world Satan had in view. He had made complete havoc of it in Asia, and the pagan church of Rome was at his feet in the mire of idolatry. His aim now was to defile the Protestant Church, deface her, and leave her in ruins. The nations of infidels were gathered against her, Germans, French, English, Americans, and Presbyterian Scotland ranged with the enemies to “defile the Church.” The best way to do it was to defile the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. When the Word of God would be defiled, the cardinal doctrines of it, and the Creeds based upon it, Government, practice, and discipline would cease to exist. Religion must have some form of authority. When the authority is taken away, or removed, confusion and chaos takes possession of the field, and all that is left is the debris of past glory. The schools outside the church collected their forces were, as we have said above, of one mind to ruin her. The universities, colleges, secular and religious, had decided that the Bible would have no place in the education of the youth except only in the measure the Higher Critics of the “many nations” would allow it to be taught. In other words, it ceased to be Word of God. The “nations” had decided against it. The political governments of the Protestant Nations did not protest against the conclusions of their learned theologians and infidel scientists, as they felt themselves unfit and indifferent to challenge men of such renowned learning! They, however, financed them and gave every encouragement to proceed on their ruinous course. Many leading politicians took the public platform in their defence, and applauded their infidel attacks on the Word of God. Thus was laid out the marshy field which bred the modern army of Communists that is now threatening to overwhelm and destroy the politicians, Statesmen, the Scientist, the modern Theologian, the Church, the well ordered government of all nations, and to rear up on the dung-hill a Universal State without God, religion, Bible, morality, or any reference to a hereafter. The Church of Rome can appeal to Canon Law and tradition. The Mohammedan to the Koran, but the benighted Protestant Church has no court of appeal, nor authority to appeal to. The “many nations” gathered against her devastated her ancient glory. The Word of God must not be referred to as such, so says one of the leading ministers of the Church of England! The people of God are silenced.
Third: “Let her be defiled.” . . . “Let our eye look upon Zion.” The Declaratory Act was passed in the Free Church of Scotland to accommodate the atheists and infidels of all nations. It seemed as if it was the duty of the theologians to discredit the Bible. It was, therefore, necessary to draw the Declaratory Act over its sacred pages, and bury the blessed Book in the debris of Darwinianism, agnosticism, pelagianism, arianism, archaeological dust, scientific infidelity, and ritualistic falsehood. The men who stood in the breach for so long, faithful, and full of courage, were removed from the Church militant to the Church above. The enemies of the Bible had the field to themselves. They could now wreak their pent-up vengeance on the Confession of Faith, as well as the Bible. Who should dare to oppose them! They were learned men! If the general public were not so well acquainted with their great knowledge, culture and learning, some of them were not beneath praising themselves in the public Press under an assumed name! Zion was methodically defiled. They were now free to preach, teach, and instruct the people in the light of “modern learning, knowledge and experience.” They could, with the greatest ease, jeer at Luther, Calvin, Knox, Owen, Boston, Edwards—the apostles Paul, Peter, John, James, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Moses, and the Lord Jesus did not escape the lash of their tongue and pen. “Let our eye look upon Zion.” The pagan Romanist, the Communist, the atheist, and the infidels of all nations could now look upon Zion so once glorious, laid in ruins. Her Sabbath days, her holy ordinances and solemn assemblies, discipline, and the practice of piety gone! It was no more what saith the Lord, but what saith the Scientist and the blasphemer. The way was open to the pagan Romanist, and the Jesuit to pour the utmost contempt on Reformation Principles, the Word of God, civil and religious liberty. They came from the Continent of Europe in thousands, men and women, to fill their Chapels in this Protestant land, and mutter their masses and invite their co-religionists from pagan Ireland to fill our factories, shipyards and offices, to the shame and ruin of our own people and commerce. Let our eye look upon Zion. The present Church of Scotland is helpless. They appointed a Committee of twenty-one men at their last General Assembly, with the object of modernising the Bible in the language of the common people! The Church of Scotland is like a ship at sea without compass, chart or captain. The recent adventure in the Ca’doro, Glasgow, on the Sabbath evening, where Sir Harry Lauder and the sprouting young Communist can sit side by side, sing community songs. The “Church” is preparing the way to meet the Russian Communist on his own ground in the hope that he shall not take from them all the wealth and riches they have gathered for ages past in the name of the religion they have managed to destroy! In the Highlands of Scotland, the ministers of the Church of Scotland will deny all this with airs of great zeal, piety and earnestness, knowing very well that they are falsifying the true position of their Church. Jesuit-like, such a small deception will suit them better than that their people should know too much about their Church in the “South.” They will piously quote the sayings of the godly of the past to lull their people to sleep.
The present Free Church find it very difficult to face the flood that has swept the Church of Scotland from her moorings to the lee shore of barren rationalism. Several of the younger ministers of that Church went over
to the Church of Scotland in recent years. Baptist ministers have been pouring into the Church of Scotland. They, no doubt, find it easier to exercise their freedom of speech in a Creedless Church than in a Church which professedly holds the doctrines of the Confession of Faith, the authority, and inspiration of the Bible. It is the discipline of those Churches that has broken down. They dare not apply it in case they will lose all their people. In fact, it is discipline that has broken down more than doctrine. Kirk-Sessions, Presbyteries and Assemblies are afraid to apply holy discipline to their people, when and where it is necessary to exercise it; afraid that the people will leave them. The authority the Church should exercise in the spirit and letter of the gospel is absent. The result is most deplorable. Thousands of Church members have no regard to the Law of God. They work on the Sabbath on cars, buses, post offices, trains, pleasure steamers; play golf, and tennis; and travel from city to city on the Lord’s Day the same as any other day of the week. Highlanders, Irish, and Lowland Scot, English, and foreigners. The employee often demands of the employer of labour to work on the Sabbath. The Youth Hostel, another trap of Satan and a mighty weapon to desecrate the Lord’s Day. A large percentage of the “Youth” are school teachers, office boys, typists, who travel on Sabbath as well as any other day of the week from hostel to hostel. They seldom go to any church, as they do not “believe the Bible, Church, nor ministers.” The promiscuous gathering of the “Youth,” male and female, in the hostels, will have its own evil results! The morality of the nation was never so low as it is now, in the long history of the British people. If they can do without the Bible, church connection, the public worship of God, they need not wonder if God will take from them restraining grace, and moral influence.
Fourth: They know not the thoughts of the Lord, nor His holy purpose. “For He shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor.”
In the last war the nations were gathered as never before in scores of millions from all parts of the known world, Jew and Gentile. The slaughter is considered so appalling that there is nothing in all history to be compared with it. Millions have perished. Millions have died of famine. Millions are on the verge of starvation. There is no peace. The nations cannot agree about clods of earth. They are contending, night and day, about how to divide the spoil, gain power, and prepare for the next war. Millions of money have been lost in strikes in sea ports, coal mines, railways and workshops. The servant must govern the master. The Communist must rule the world! They are gathering once more as sheaves on the floor. They are to be crushed by the weight of their iniquity. Their great ambition is to rule the world without God, His law, or any reference to His infinite power, glory and wisdom. They are to produce corn, oil, and wine for the good of the “working man,” but the working man must not work in case he will put his trade union boss out of office! The war goes on. The kingdom of Satan is very much divided, which is a sure sign of its fall. Let the rot develop, the chaos spread, and the confusion force men to acknowledge, like Nebuchadnezzar, “Now I praise and extol and honour the King of all heaven, all whose works are truth, and His ways judgment: and those that walk in pride He is able to abase.” They understand not the counsel of the Lord. If they will not acknowledge Him in mercy they must in judgment. There can be no doubt whatever but the
next war will be the most appalling of all wars. Sheaves were being gathered to be trampled down on the floor. “Arise and thrash, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.” It is the divine power of God that will enable the people of the Most High to arise to thrash their enemies. “I will make thine horn iron,” mighty and strong to pull down the opposition of the enemy. “I will make thy hoofs brass.” When the children of Israel went through the wilderness for forty years their shoes did not wear by use or time. They lasted all the time till they entered into the land of promise. Their horn of power was wonderful because the Lord was in the midst of them. The grace of God will make the most timid strong, upright, honest, truthful, resting in the power, wisdom, love and mercy of the Captain of the Lord of hosts. The weapons of the Church of God are not carnal, brutish, nor brutal. They are spiritual, heavenly, thrashing human carnal logic, unholy reason, and man-made philosophy into the dust. When the Spirit of God will come upon the people of God, as He did in apostolic times and at the Reformation, kings, governments, popes, papists and heathen will tremble at the power, and authority the Word of God demands of all to whom it will in that holy, divine power, and light come as from heaven to “beat in pieces many people.” The believer knows very well that the power of the Most High is enough to scatter, and lay low the high looks of carnal men. One said long ago: “For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.” The divine majesty of the law of God soon took down his high looks, and ignorant notions. It is the gospel of the grace of God that alone can change man in the hand of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit quickeneth the dead, abolishes ritualism, popery, Mohammedanism, Hindooism, immorality, high looks, false pretences, and converts the Arminian to acknowledge the power of free and sovereign grace. It is the doctrines of grace that will thrash out of the minds of men the covenant of works. It is the grace of God that can change a lion-like sinner in sin to be as tame and submissive to the will of God in Christ as a lamb. There is infinite power behind the saving grace of God. The Word of God which is to-day rejected by blind, guilty, ignorant men is the weapon, spiritual sword, that will force men to submit in love to Him, of whom one said: “He loved me and gave Himself for me.” When Knox was preaching the gospel in Edinburgh, at times the greatest braggart in his audience would tremble, and weep! John Knox was a man of small stature, physically weak, but mighty in spirit because the power of the Lord was upon him. Will not the great Head of the Church raise up others as powerful as Knox, Luther, Calvin, Edwards and Owen? If we doubt that we doubt the grace and promise of God. It was His grace that made them so useful and mighty in the Scriptures. It was His gifts that made them such great preachers of the gospel. “I will consecrate their gains to the Lord.” Yes, whatever advancements science will make profitable for man God will consecrate all that for the good of His chosen. Let them go ahead with it, for the “substance shall be consecrated unto the Lord of the whole earth.” The Bible has been sent out in many languages to all known nations and tribes on the face of the earth. The pope failed to stop that glorious work. He may burn Bibles in miserable Spain by the hundred thousand, and Mr. Churchill may praise the pope and popery, but the Word of God will not
return void, empty-handed. The divine purpose will be carried out. The Word will do its own blessed work in the hearts of sinners, even in the hearts of papists that will receive it in faith and love. What wonderful work has been going on in our Mission in Africa for the last forty years! “Arise and thrash, O daughter of Zion.”
In conclusion, I was to make a few remarks about our own beloved Church. First of all, our Bible is a pure Bible. It is the inspired Word of God to us and to our children.
We have no need of a new translation, either in English or Gaelic. We have no “Declaratory Act,” nor modern infidel doctrines covering its sacred pages from the eye of faith, and knowledge. We are dependent on the blessed Holy Spirit to give us spiritual light, understanding of the revealed will of God in Christ. We have able men in our Church who can read it in Hebrew, Greek or Latin, men who can expound it methodically, systematically, logically and Scripturally. Our Church stands four square on the cardinal doctrines of the Confession of Faith, and to the practice required by the Subordinate Standards of the Confession of Faith. Worship, government, practice and discipline is regulated and governed by the Word of God. We are dependent upon the Lord to send out men for His own harvest which is truly great. If the Church at times is disappointed by the conduct of some who offer themselves for the work of the ministry that, of course, has been part of the cross from the days of the apostles, and deeply felt by the holy prophets before them! We dare not “make ministers”; our duty and precious privilege is to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out servants for His own harvest. If He won’t send them out we cannot “make them.” We are very conscious of the fact that universities and colleges will never “make” servants to Christ of dead matter, however gifted men may otherwise be. That all human learning can never be a substitute for grace. The pride of man will not submit to that. He exalts education above grace. Education first, grace second. But he does not understand the things of the Spirit of God. He is ignorant of grace. The Word of God is not his delight. We are second to none in the nation in the place we give education as a means to an end. We dare not make education our lord and master. Christ, His grace, and Word, must have the pre-eminence. The conscience must be ruled by the Word, and not the Word by conscience. The understanding must be enlightened by the Word before conscience can serve the truth of God—”How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”—Heb. ix, 14. It is well-known from past history that Jesuits and others claim the rights of conscience without the least reference to the truth of God! That is not conscience, but prejudice, pride and deceit. Men who make lapwing noise about conscience only reveal their gross spiritual ignorance. In the recent controversy in our own Church we cannot recollect that even once reference was made to the Word of God. All the time it was “my conscience,” or “our consciences,” not that the Word of God was assailed at any time, anywhere, or at any time. It was conscience, but when it would suit such “consciences” to break up the Church, divide the people, families and congregations, that same “conscience” had evidently no qualms to do all this impious work! When “a tender conscience,” prejudice, pride, self-opinionated notions are set up as principles, unerring
judgment, faithfulness, piety and humility, it is time for the godly to try the spirits whether they are from God or not! Satan is a past master in the art of deception. Few in this generation can discern him when he comes as an angel of light to deceive the simple. If he assumes the garment of piety, evangelical doctrines and feigned love, he will soon make mountains of mole hills, and mole hills mountains! Supposing the protest tabled by the late Rev. D. MacFarlane, in defence of the Word of God, was not a legal instrument at all, nor flawless in the manner it was done, how much out of place to raise any suspicion in the minds of the young of the Church about it! But when the man of God acted in strict accordance with the constitution of the Church, and practice of the Reformed Church of the past the attempt will appear more contemptible to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. We pray and advise that no prejudice, or a self-righteous attitude be acted upon, nor shown to any who may see, understand, and turn back from the false step, and erroneous views they may, and did take, of the decisions of Synod. If ever discipline, and the authority of the Courts of the Church to exercise the same be weakened, or watered down to suit the carnal opinion of men, the Testimony for truth is gone! It was the discipline of the Protestant Churches that first broke down in Europe, England, Scotland, and United States of America. Let the Free Presbyterian Church adhere to the holy discipline of the Word of God, whosoever, inside, or from the outside may oppose them, the discipline that the Word of God requires, and demands, without the least respect to office, place or profession. Our Church is not against Union with men who honestly and faithfully accept the same position in relationship to the Word of God, Confession of Faith, and practice the same in spirit, and in truth. We long for the union of our fellow countrymen in the truth of God. We cannot move nor change from the truth for the sake of union with any church who confess one thing, and practice contrary to the confession. Some were saying for years past that our Church was so small and had no influence in the land, and would never have influence in the nation. It is quite conceivable that there were men and women who would say the same in the days of Noah. What happened to them who thought, and said, that Noah would yield no influence over his wicked generation? Let men take care that they have to do with God, and not with men. What influence has the Fourth Commandment over the lives of men and women in this nation to-day? Virtually none! Does that mean that the Fourth Commandment lost its authority because men have no regard to the divine precept? What authority has the Bible over the lives of millions of men, and women in this nation, or any other nation? Does that mean that the Word of God lost its influence, power, and authority? It is not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the living God that Zion will be builded in accordance with the Word of God. The ecclesiastical unions we have been eye-witnesses of in Scotland in recent times were, and are, a curse and not a blessing. The “Ca’dora” is one example of that union! What a farce, what mockery, what hypocrisy! Let our people rest assured in soul, and conscience, that their Church did not change from the position our fathers took up at the first Reformation: at the second Reformation, in 1843 and 1895. Your Zion is not defiled, nor defaced in any way, part, place, or position. The Most High help us to remain faithful to the end.
The cause of the Lord is low, very low, and the spirit of the age is defiance, a challenging to the Most High. The future is very dark. The Sabbath is almost gone out of the lives of the people. The Churches are empty. The Highlander, when he comes to the southern centres (with very few exceptions), neglects the means of grace, and in no time at all becomes as indifferent as the rest of the people. In many cases the Free Presbyterians are not better than others in this respect. If, and when they may be going home to visit their people, some will put in an appearance a Sabbath or two before they go home, although there are noble exceptions, which are a credit to their people, and Church. “For it is a day of trouble and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord God of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains.”—Isa. xxii, 5.