By REV. JAMES MACLEOD, Moderator of Synod.
WE are beginning another year of our short span of life. Many passed into eternity last year, and many others, ere long, will be in the world of spirits. It is a sobering thought to leave this world for eternity. Let us pray for preparation. We need grace to prepare us and fit us to die. Time is precious. Eternity is infinite. If we die Christless, we are lost forever. If we live Christless, we shall die Christless. If by faith we are united to Christ through the Word of God, at death, we will be eternally with God in ineffable glory, peace, and happiness! Union with Christ is the way to glory. If we despise Him our doom is fixed, according to the Word of God. Some foolish men and women lay great emphasis on “God is love.” How infinitely true! Let us bear in mind that this same “God of love” was He who destroyed the inhabitants of the Old World in the days of Noah. This God of infinite love drowned Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, and destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah on account of their wickedness. Let our Free Presbyterian people lay to heart according to the Scripture that the “God of love” is also the God of infinite justice, and that will by no means clear the guilty. He is infinitely holy, just and good in all His ways. We in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland accept the Word of God without any human glossary “It is written” is enough for us, as it was for the Lord Jesus. His Word is our rule, guide, and precious comfort in our affliction, fears, temptations, or when maligned and traduced we turn to the Word of God for light and consolation.
From this divine fountain we receive our strength and comfort. It was from this fountain the late Rev. Donald MacFarlane and Rev. Donald MacDonald drank so deeply in the days of their youth, when old they were fat and flourishing in its defence. We appeal to the young to make good use of their Bibles, praying over it in private and seeking the light of the Holy Spirit to lead them into the heavenly marrow of it. It is full of spiritual sap, life and light. Christ is in it. “Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth, for thy love is better than wine.” It is through the Word one can experience the meaning of His “kisses.” How sweet are thy words to my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Ps. exix. 103). It was in its defence that our fathers had to separate from those who ceased to believe in the Bible. We are not only separate from corrupt Churches in Scotland but also from corrupt Churches abroad. It is said by our opponents that we are schismatics or (by some people, Seceders): that is, that we are guilty of dividing the Church without Scriptural warrant. If the allegation could be proved on the authority of God’s Word it would be a serious charge indeed, but we know that our opponents cannot show where we departed from the Word of God and the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is easy enough for some men to make charges and false accusations without conscientious respect to truth.
The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland stands four square on the Bible in the midst of the most determined opposition to break down all the barriers our fathers set up in defence of the Word of God. The Lord’s Day is a flagrant example in Scotland of how far the Churches of Scotland have departed from the Word of God. The desecration of the Sabbath by ministers, members and officials (who take Communion) is in itself a positive proof that the Word of God is not their rule of life in the family, pulpit or pew. It is an open revolt against God. Who, then, are the schismatics? The present Church of Scotland claims to be the successor of the Reformed Church of Knox, Henderson and Chalmers. It is a bold claim, but none of her able and learned sons are able to prove it. It is a misnomer! A minister of the Free Church declares that Arminianism is preached in his Church. Is that all? The Free Presbyterian Church is not a schismatic or separatist body but the legal heir of the Reformed Church of Scotland. Those who challenge that fact must prove from the Word of God, and historical records, that the Free Presbyterian Church somewhere or somehow departed from the Reformed Faith of the Church of Scotland—government, worship, practice and discipline. We believe that no honest man will ever attempt it let alone prove that the claim is wrong. Those who separated from our Church for the last 60 years placed themselves outside the pale of the Church by their own conduct, and disobedience, and open rebellion against the discipline of the Church. All who left blamed the Church, but that is human nature, and common to man, from the day Adam fell. “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest me to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Gen. iii. 12). The same old story repeated in the life of sinful men. The fault was not with the Constitution of the Established Church before 1843, but with the men who introduced foreign matter into her well defined and Scriptural Constitution. It has been loudly declared that we have somehow or somewhere changed the Constitution of our Church, but all such declarations without proof or evidence as to how, when or where.
The Free Presbyterian people are falsely accused, but you can rest assured that your Church is exactly standing upon the Word of God from the origin of her history, and her credo is the Confession of Faith, which the Rainy party cast overboard in 1892, and the discipline of the Word of God. They separated from, drifted away from the old standard, and ever since drifting towards the ancient ritualism of Romanism and the “mellow piety” of the cloister! What cruel injustice that has been done, and is being done to the people of Scotland. What can be expected of graceless men. That is the cause of all the trouble, men taking up religion that were never “born again.” It is very useful to be well educated, thoroughly trained in the arts, engineering, sciences, and in all branches of learning, but to think that an unregenerated sinner with all the learning in the world is fit for the gospel ministry is cruel and barbarous, such as young men because of their natural ability to learn languages or maybe attain high place in philosophy earmarked by the Church for the ministry without the least idea whether they were “born again” or changed in their state, or whether their sins were forgiven and reconciled to God through the death of His Son. How can such men have soul sympathy with Christ’s gospel, Word, and the souls of lost sinners? It is impossible.
The Lord of the harvest never sent them out, therefore they run without being sent and cause havoc to the cause they never understood. “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest” (Matt. ix. 38; see Luke x. 2). It is a national calamity to the Cause of Christ in every denomination of the Protestant Church that such men would run without being sent by the Lord. “When ye come to appear before me, who has required this at your hand, to tread my courts?” (Isa. i. 12).
In May, 1892, the Rainy party smashed the Constitution, discipline and the Reformed faith of the Free Church into fragments, divided the people, scattered them to this day, and sent multitudes of them to the “Sunday” newspaper, to gambling, to the divorce courts, for our national immorality must be largely traced to the time when the Protestant Churches in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland departed from the Word of God. The divine authority of God’s Word was taken away by wicked men and the common people were then left without restraints and the binding authority of the Word of God on the conscience. Where are they now? Many of them quite prepared, and ripening for the religion of the Communist, which is the old Voltaire philosophy resurrected by the devil in the minds of men, because the Protestant Church took away the key of knowledge from the people—the Word of God. Our fathers saw what was coming and prepared us against such a day as this.
Where doth the Free Presbyterian Church stand in relationship to other Churches? Are we against union, communion, and fellowship with other Christian bodies? Do we hold and believe in the “communion of saints” as laid down in the Confession of Faith? The first thing that we must consider is the first question. We are against union or communion with Churches that departed, or are departing from the Word of God in the form of worship, practice or discipline of the true Church of God. It was not us that set up the barrier to union but them who separated from us by their public declensions from the Bible. The Free Presbyterians stand firmly on the Word of God, Reformation principles, Confession of Faith, government, worship, discipline and practice of the Reformed Church of Scotland. In our public or private worship we have no organs, hymns, or any of the dregs and frills of the Church of Rome!
We have the Bible for our private and public devotions. We have the Confession of Faith for our Kirk Sessions, Presbyteries, and Synods; and the Church’s manual is based upon the Confession of Faith, and our Confession of Faith is based upon the Word of God. Upon this Rock the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland stands where Knox, Henderson, Chalmers and MacFarlane stood in defence of the Word of God. We condemn “Christmas,” “Lent” and “holy days,” of every kind as we are assured that they are pagan and without any warrant from the Word of God. Those who left our Church in recent times have drifted, and are drifting away, no courts, discipline, or any binding authority left to correct or direct them in the path of duty. How sad! Are such guilty of the sin of schism? There can be not the slightest doubt about that. We accept that Christ is the Head of our Courts; but they have no courts—who, then, is their Head? They are not under law to any man, free as the air, do what they like, say, and go where they like—outside the jurisdiction of the Courts of the Church of God. This is schism in its most destructive form. Let others take warning how serious and dangerous it is to place themselves, because of their rebellion, outside the pale of the Church. It is also a common practice that when our young marry outwith their own Church that they must follow their partner into their denomination or sect. We have known some who followed their husbands into the Church of Rome! We have known some girls in our Church who preferred not to marry at all than to separate from their own Church. We have known of others that made it a condition of marriage that they were not to be asked under any circumstance to leave their own Church. (See I Cor. vii. 16.) In our day it is a high privilege to be a member or adherent of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
The devil will try any means whatever to drag our young away and out of the Church. Parents should warn and admonish their children to adhere faithfully at home and from home to their Church. We know some do, others do not, and therefore the indifference of their poor children. But such are only Free Presbyterians in name. The Religion and Morals Report of last May should be most carefully read and studied by our people. That committee is rendering excellent service to the cause of Christ not only in our own Church but to others outside the Church. We ask the young to read it over and over again. We live under the shadows of great events in world history. Nations are armed to the teeth with weapons of destruction never known in human history. The leaders of the world are doing their utmost to make peace and keep the peace but, alas, no word is heard of God, and no regard to His Word, Law and Government! We had the League of Nations, and now N.A.T.O., Atlantic Charter, Conferences and all useless and fruitless. Why so? Because the Word of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and divine wisdom and divine guidance is utterly ignored. See the second Psalm. We rush on as in the days of Noah. The flood came and swept all away. Some kind of flood is to come to sweep away all refuges of lies, atheism, hypocrisy, idolatry, Romanism, Paganism, and Satan must be cast out for a thousand years according to the Word of God. When the Pagan Roman Empire was brought down it was the gospel that brought down the kingdom of darkness and established the kingdom of grace. It is by the same means that will take place again. The Word of God, with the Holy Spirit, are the means used to change sinners and turn them to the Gospel.
Let our dear people adhere faithfully to their Bibles, secret prayer, and attend on the preaching of the Word of God in your respective congregations and mission stations. When you are placed in the divine Providence of God where you cannot attend a place of worship of your own Church it is safer for you to remain at home on the Lord’s Day, read your Bible, and the writers of the Puritan divines, Scottish and English, Owen, Boston and Edwards. Do not support or countenance by your presence or means Sects or Churches that departed from the Word of God. Have no share or part in their sin. We ask and pray for the blessing of God to rest on all our dear people at home and abroad. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee” (Ps. cxxii. 6).