By REV. JOHN P. MACQUEEN.
THAT wonderful compendium of Biblical theology, the Shorter Catechism, puts and answers, at the very outset, that most momentous of all questions relative to man’s existence in this world, as an immortal being, on the way to Eternity. The solemn and blessed answer makes it plain, clear, and definite that God did not create and send man to inhabit this world that he might live as he liked, doing his own will and finding his own pleasure. That is what sinful man likes to believe, and act upon, in his natural state, so that all, in an unconverted state, are, without exception, practical atheists, even when they are not professedly so. God’s reason, or purpose, for creating man to inhabit this world is that by a holy heart, lips, and life he would glorify his Creator on earth, and enjoy Him for ever. The entrance of sin into our world, through the subtle temptations of Satan, and man’s own wilful wanton choice of wrong, acting as a free, rational, and accountable agent, rendered him henceforth guiltily unable and unwilling to fulfil the end, or purpose, of his creation. He thus became an enemy of God in his mind by wicked works, and thus forfeited all claim to life, health, strength, and every other mercy and blessing. It is altogether of Divine mercy that any one of our lost sinful race is spared. As a godly English divine of a past generation put it: “Every instance of our breathing outside the eternal Hell, which each and all of our sins deserve, is an instance of the exercise of Divine sovereign mercy towards us.” Yet nothing short
of the exercise of supernatural grace in our hearts will enable us to acquiesce in the truth of the foregoing statement. Man is so ruined that he must be supernaturally convinced of sin, and this work is the exclusive prerogative of the Holy Spirit.
What an unspeakable mercy that when man thus ruined himself, Jesus Christ, according to the everlasting Covenant, came into this sinful world “to seek and to save that which was lost,” otherwise irretrievably lost. He came into this otherwise lost world “to save sinners.” The Gospel records show that He saved the most notorious and abandoned sinners, and so the greatest sinner need not be afraid to come to Christ to be forgiven. Sinners cannot be saved in any other way, for “neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name, under Heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts iv. 12). This lost world, dead in trespasses and sins, has only one Saviour, and He is an almighty, all-sufficient, and all-suitable Saviour. In view of the general apostasy of our day these simple Gospel truths must be specially reiterated and emphasised.
Man, thus regenerated and saved, begins willingly and sincerely, though not perfectly, to fulfil the end of his creation, and the true purpose of his being in this world. As Matthew Henry puts it: “Sincerity is the believer’s Gospel-perfection, though not his justifying righteousness.” The desire of regenerating sanctifying grace in the heart of the believer is in accordance with the ultimate purpose of God, to conform that new-born soul to the perfect image of Christ, or perfection in holiness. How, then, is a believer to help to attain to this glorious end, working out his own salvation with fear and trembling, while God is working in him both to will and to do of His good pleasure? The answer of the Shorter Catechism is that the only perfect and infallible rule which God has given us, to this end, is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. There are three things, therefore, that would help the believer to refrain from trifling with sin and conscience, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, help him to walk practically humbly with God. The first is keeping the eye of a living faith firmly and constantly fixed on the perfect and infallible rule of God’s Word, as opposed to carnal popular opinion or custom, practised by the majority in one’s day and generation, thus refraining from “following the multitude to do evil.” The second thing is having the eye of a living faith firmly and constantly fixed on the Judgment-Seat of Christ, at which we are all to appear, and then worldly matters would assume, in our view, something like their proper proportions and their true value. The third thing is having the eye of a living faith firmly and constantly fixed on the fact that an omniscient God reigns above, and that He surveys, at a glance, from His omniscient outlook, not only the teeming millions of our contemporary world, but the very thoughts and intents of the heart of each individual of us, simultaneously. “Neither is there any creature that
is not manifest in His sight; but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him, with whom we have to do” (Hebrews iv. 13), and with whom we shall have to do through the endless ages of Eternity. Thus, the Bible, and not the individual conscience, however tender, is the final court of appeal.
The foregoing introduction may seem rather prolonged in comparison with the comparatively brief statement following, but one cannot but be convinced that if regard were had to the foregoing truths, we should hear less of claims to a monopoly of tenderness of conscience, on the part of some professing Christians, who cause endless trouble to others. We should periodically refer to, and emphasise, events of the past, not to keep open wounds, but to put us on our guard with regard to their recurrence. The children of Israel were not commanded, when they attained the further bank of the Red Sea, to forget all about their past slavery in Egypt, and their miraculous deliverance from their oppressors. On the contrary, they were divinely commanded to commemorate annually the anniversary of their merciful deliverance, and the fearful end of their tyrannical foes. Be it noted, for our learning, that they were not commanded to observe the passover weekly, or monthly, but annually, lest familiarity should breed contempt, but annually lest they should forget their greatest mercies. Incidentally, in passing, the commemoration of the Lord’s Supper is divinely ordained, lest believers should forget their deliverance from infinitely worse than Egyptian bondage, and the great and blessed cost of it; but too frequent repetition and observance, such as once monthly or weekly, would inevitably tend, human nature being what it is, to produce unbecoming and unhallowed familiarity. Hence the wisdom and sanctified common sense of our Scottish ancestry in insisting on a yearly or half-yearly observance of the Lord’s Supper in individual congregations. This, however, does not condemn the laudable practices of going to Communions in different congregations for their encouragement.
On the same principle we should not forget, but emphasise, the Most High’s merciful intervention in delivering our denomination, from time to time, from those who would undermine our constitution in the name of safeguarding it. Satan can make “tenderness of conscience” an obsession to an individual in an effort to cause dispeace in a Church and thus ruin or, if not, spoil its usefulness in witnessing for Christ. The past history of our Church affords abundant evidence of this fact, in the case of students, ministers, missionaries and members, who considered themselves right, and the Church courts, which Scripturally disciplined them, wrong. Some of these young men, who lived to old age, showed clearly in their books and writings that their unjustifiable quarrel with our Church continued an obsession to them till their dying day. This spiritual blindness, masquerading as “tenderness of conscience,” spoiled considerably, where it did not actually ruin, their
usefulness in their day and generation. This is a warning to others, whom Satan might tempt similarly. It can be said of this type of “tenderness of conscience,” what Madame Rolland said as she passed the Statue of Liberty on her way to execution: “O liberty, liberty, how many crimes are fostered in thy name.” O conscience, conscience, how many sins, quarrels, disputes, and schisms are fostered in thy name! As we stated already, these past events should not be referred to in a spirit of keeping wounds open, but with a view to promoting repentance on their part, and to aiding vigilance, prayerfulness, and watchfulness, relative to the present and future. Forewarned is forearmed, so if a man cheats you once, shame on him, but if he cheats you twice, shame on you.
In conclusion, we think it is high time the present 1900 Free Church of Scotland ceased its sophistry and propaganda, relative to the period 1898 till 1900. The pretence that the notorious Declaratory Act of 1892-93 did not become operative till 1900 is contradicted by historical fact, so that the sophistry and propaganda used to perpetuate that pretence will not stand the supreme test of the Judgment-Seat of Christ. Moreover, an enlightened posterity, anxious only to establish historical facts, will have nothing to do with the discreditable fiction that the godly leaders of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland acted with impatient precipitate haste in 1893, and so constituted themselves irresponsible schismatics, whereas the founders of the Free Church of 1900 manifested the very essence of calm sobriety and prudence. Personally, we would not take ten thousand worlds as a gift, to be the perpetrator of such perpetuation of falsehood.
The fact of the matter is, their speeches, delivered before the passing of the Declaratory Act of 1892-93, show clearly that the founders of the present Free Church failed lamentably in their duty, when they remained in a Church that changed the historical doctrinal free-grace Calvinistic constitution of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland to that of a free-will Arminian creed. After 1893, no minister, in any Presbytery of the Declaratory Act Free Church, could refuse on that ground to take part in the ordination and induction of any young minister taking advantage of the Declaratory Act, thus proving conclusively that the Act was operative during that period. What, therefore, is the use of sophistry and propaganda that can only deceive in this life, but that cannot stand the supreme test of the Judgment-Seat of Christ? Let conscience answer. Men who deliberately propagate sophistry, as opposed to logic and truth, cannot possibly be thinking of the Bible, the Judgment-Seat of Christ, and an omniscient God, when they do so. Did space permit, we could quote extensively from speeches delivered by the founders of the present Free Church, which make it as clear as daylight that the then proposed Declaratory Act would change the historical doctrinal constitution of the Free Church of 1843. These ministers stated that they would not stay a day in
the Free Church if the proposed Act became law. When it did, they showed that they had not the courage of their professed convictions and principles, and immediately began to cover their retreat by the sophistry already referred to—that the Declaratory Act was not operative till 1900. Since then they have tried to justify their unfaithfulness by denigrating the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and its God-fearing leaders.
Those who come under solemn ordination vows to be uncompromisingly faithful to their denominational testimony, and then practice the opposite, cannot be thinking of the Bible, the Judgment-Seat, and an omniscient God. They vow, for instance, to uphold evangelical orthodoxy, psalm-singing, and the Westminster Confession of Faith, and straightway enter the pulpits of hymn-singing, organ-playing, Modernist denominations. Where is consistency, or even common honesty, and where is the fear of God, and where is Church discipline? Such deserve from faithful contemporaries not the language of unvarying perpetual courtesy, but the Scriptural language of salutary denunciation, as distinguished, of course, from mere loud empty declamation. The present writer believes sincerely that the prevailing spurious charity of speaking of Satan and his human agents in our nation’s pulpits, in the language of uniform courtesy, is not of the spirit of the Gospel, but from Satan himself.