By REV. A. BEATON, Gairloch.
THIS is a quotation from the July (1954) issue of the Original Secession Magazine which indicates that there is a move on foot by that Church to join the Church of Scotland:
“A special sederunt of Synod was held on Thursday afternoon to consider overtures from the Session of Paisley congregation and the reconsideration of an overture of 1947 from Carluke congregation. The Synod met in Committee and in private to discuss these matters. It was agreed that the overtures have priority. The Paisley overture asked that the Synod take steps for the healing of division in the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and the Carluke overture urged reunion with the Church of Scotland. After a free and friendly discussion, it was moved by the Rev. David Walker, Carluke, and seconded by the Rev. J. R. Moffet, ‘that the Synod receive these overtures and remit them to Presbyteries, Sessions and congregations for their full consideration and report to next meeting of Synod, and that the Synod agrees to appoint a small committee to explore the situation, obtain information and pass it on for the guidance of Presbyteries, Sessions and congregations.’ This was unanimously agreed and the following were nominated to serve on the Committee:—Revs. Mr. Finlater, Mr. Dickson, Mr. Walker, Mr. Moffet and Mr. McKane, the latter to be convener.”
After reading the above one is ready to exclaim, “Oh, what treachery!” Our readers will note that the word “reunion” is used in one of the overtures received by the Synod. There is treachery and hypocrisy involved in the very words “reunion with the Church of Scotland,” for the simple reason that the Original Secession Church was never united with the present Modernistic-Scoto-Catholic-Arminian Church of Scotland. The Church which the Original Secession Fathers left was not doctrinally off the rails as the Church which is falsely and inconsistently called “The Church of Scotland” to-day. To pretend, as the above overtures do, that such a Modernist Church is the ideal with which the Revs. Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, and their contemporary brother ministers would wish to unite is a suggestion too ludicrous to deceive even the most simple.
Here are ministers under ordination vows to uphold psalm-singing exclusively in the public worship of God, without choirs or instrumental music, and without uninspired hymns, yet appointing a committee to consider union with a denomination where these unscriptural practices are the order of the day. These ministers also subscribed, without any qualification, the Westminster Confession of Faith as their personal confession of faith, and profess the Bible to be the Word of God, and now engage to “explore” how they can unite with a modernist church. They must take these vows very lightly. The present Modernist and Arminian Church of Scotland regards as behind the times any person to-day expressing belief in an inspired and infallible Bible and in the virgin-birth of Christ and the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. Besides, there is a party in the Church of Scotland, known as the Scoto-Catholics like the Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England, who seek union with the Church of Rome. Well may one say regarding the 1954 Synod of the present Original Secession Church, “How are the mighty fallen!” The testimony of the godly Erskines, Fisher and others has fallen into the hands of men unworthy of it.
The supposed union or “reunion” between the Church of Scotland (falsely so-called) and the Original Secession Church cannot be a union in any sense of the term, but an absorption. The Church of Scotland will absorb the Original Secession Church in its entirety, just as a lion devours a lamb, without in the least changing the nature of the lion.