The Innocent Party in a Divorce Case.
Few things in contemporary British history have so demonstrated the tremendous penetrating grip that Jesuit casuistry and technique have on the national life of Britain as the recent news concerning Princess Margaret and Group Captain Townsend, who is described as
the innocent party to a divorce case. Most, if not all, of the English national newspapers, and many religious periodicals and magazines, have followed the false lead of the Archbishop of Canterbury in this connection. Not only has he written a book on divorce in which he asserts, dogmatically, the unScriptural Romanist principle of the indissolubility of marriage to be the only tenable one but he has had the effrontery to state officially that even the innocent party to a divorce cannot have a wedding ceremony in the Church, directly in the teeth of the present universally binding law and rule of the National Church of England (Protestant and Evangelical as established by law) on the subject. It is the present legal right of every clergyman in the Church of England, conferred on him by the law of the land, under the Matrimonial Clauses Act of 1857, to perform the marriage ceremony in the Church of the innocent party to a divorcee. Here is the official quotation in this connection: “The Matrimonial Clauses Act of 1857 gives the innocent party to a divorce the unqualified right to a new wedding ceremony in Church.” This law, or rule, has never been abrogated, and is therefore the present unquestionable law on the subject of the National Church of England. The A. P. Herbert Act of 1937 did not alter, in the least degree, this aspect of the law and of the State Church of England.
In stating that not even the innocent party to a divorce can marry in the National Church of England the Archbishop of Canterbury is only giving expression to the Anglo-Catholic majority opinion in the Convocations of Canterbury and York, but as these Romanising so-called Revised Canons have not yet obtained the sanction and authority of Parliament, they have not the force of law, and are only in the realm, so far, of Anglo-Catholic wishful thinking, headed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. As Her Majesty the Queen is the head of the Church as well as of the State in England, she could have commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury to perform the wedding ceremony of Princess Margaret in Westminster Abbey, according to the present law of Church and State in England. The British nation generally, and its public press, have been “caught napping” by sophistry in a matter of such supreme importance in the religious and ecclesiastical life of this nation. The Westminster Confession of Faith is very clear and explicit on this subject. Chapter xxiv., Clause v: “Adultery or fornication committed after a contract being detected before marriage giveth just occasion to the innocent party to dissolve that contract. In the case of adultery after marriage, it is lawful for the innocent party to sue out a divorce and, after the divorce, to marry another as if the offending party were dead” (Matthew xix. 9). When the Archbishop of Canterbury was asked how he could reconcile his agreement with the Papal view of the indissolubility of marriage with Matthew xix. 9, he resorted to the now common controverted device of Modernist sophistry: “The best scholars are now agreed that Matthew xix. 9 is only an interpolation.”—John P. MacQueen.
Psalms or Hymns.
In the Friendly Companion, a publication for the young, issued by the “Gospel Standard” Strict Baptists in England, there appears an article in the September issue entitled “Sacred Hymns.” This article is taken from a review by the late Mr. J. C. Philpot. The late Pastor Philpot was undoubtedly a gracious and faithful preacher and a well-known writer in his day, and was highly esteemed by many who loved the Gospel. But, of course, he was not without his faults and failings like other mortal men.
In this article there are accepted statements such as, “He inspired David, Asaph, Heman and Ethan to write those blessed Psalms which . . . have been such a treasure of consolation to His family in all time, and will continue to be so till time shall be no more”; and also, “The Psalms still remain as the enduring expression of every gracious feeling of the regenerate heart . . . embracing the whole compass of Christian experience. This . . . has made them the daily companion of the family of God, soothed many an aching heart . . . and inspired the last whisper of many an expiring breath.”
But after this eulogy Mr. Philpot proceeds to state, “It is true that we do not, indeed cannot, sing the Psalms.” This is indeed a sweeping assertion which he endeavours to sustain by arguments such as that “song requires poetry,” and as we have the Psalms in the Old Testament in prose, they cannot be sung unless chanted or in a solo voice. This is said by Mr. Philpot to be highly artificial, etc. With this we agree so far; yet the fact remains that the Psalms are sung in the prose form in certain branches of the professed Christian Church and are not wholly relegated to the background as a manual of praise in the worship of God, as Mr. Philpot would have them to be. He says, “. . . they cannot as translated into English prose be sung now in our assemblies.” That is, in Strict Baptist assemblies, as we understand the reference. And of course in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland we do not, like many of our fathers, accept or practice the singing of the Psalms in the prose because it is not so adapted to easy, harmonious congregational singing. But we have the prose Psalms cast into metre and rhyme which is helpful to young and old, in varied ways, to simplify their joining in the singing.
Now we are told by Mr. Philpot that “the attempts which have been made to versify them (the Psalms), and thus adapt them to singing, we all know what miserable failures have been the almost invariable result of such attempts.” Let those who are prepared to accept this judgment without due consideration, pause, and open the Psalms in metre as used in Scotland, and read and sing to appropriate tunes the 23rd Psalm, the 103rd Psalm, the 121st Psalm, etc., etc., and then ask, “Are these miserable failures?” We believe every unbiased mind must answer that the Philpot judgment is false. The Psalms in metre throughout are as near the prose terminology as possible
and retain and contain the substance of the doctrines of the Church of God, as purely as the originally inspired prose Psalms in the Authorised English version of the Bible.
But we are also told in this article that “Hymns then have naturally and necessarily come to occupy the place of the Psalms in Christian Churches; and this not only because poetical form is indispensably necessary to tune, but because they can set forth Christian truth in a way which the Psalms could not possibly do.” The first part of this statement is gratuitous. Surely the Church of Christ in Scotland has been outstanding for centuries as to Psalm-singing, on the part of many thousands of Christ’s blood-bought and pious followers and witnesses, who were most eminent in grace, in gifts and theology. But to not only say but teach that human, uninspired compositions by imperfect and frail mortals “set forth Christian truth in a way which the Psalms could not possibly do,” is more serious and to be deplored. We put it no stronger than that just now. For instance, as to sin turn to the 51st Psalm and other Psalms; as to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, we have the 22nd Psalm, etc.; as to effectual calling by divine power we read in the 110th Psalm, “Thy people shall be willing, in a day of thy power,” etc.; and as to the deep soul experiences of a sinner being brought to taste of saving deliverance and mercy, the hymn of human composition has never yet been written, and never will be, that could compare with, say, the 116th Psalm, in metre, and as sung by us here in Scotland. As a sample, we give the following verses:—
Of death the cords and sorrows did
About me compass round;
The pains of hell took hold on me,
I grief and trouble found.
Upon the name of God the Lord
Then did I call and say,
Deliver thou my soul, O Lord,
I do thee humbly pray.
God merciful and righteous is;
Yea, gracious is our Lord.
God saves the meek: I was brought low:
He did me help afford.
—(Ps. cxvi. 3-6: in three stanzas)
No human sentimentality or merely fleshly emotions intrude themselves in the least degree into the fabric of these words. They are a faithful rendering of what the Holy Spirit records of the effects of His divine work in the soul of the Psalmist.
Further, Philpot says of the Psalms that they “are inadequate exponents of Christian doctrine.” Well, let us take the doctrine of the Kingship of Christ. We have this set forth in the 2nd, 21st, 45th
and 72nd Psalms and elsewhere throughout the Psalms. Again we find the doctrine of Redemption, even the forgiveness of sins, in such Psalms as the 32nd, 103rd, 130th and so on, clearly exhibited with the cognate doctrine of the love of God linked up. But we forbear to add to these examples.
And to say, as Philpot does, that the Psalms “being versified by modern pens were human compositions also,” is to aver something without due and careful examination. As we have stated already, our Psalms in metre are a reproduction in metre and verse of the Inspired Word of God as found in the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament. Hymns of human composition are the production of, albeit godly persons, yet persons imperfect in every sense, in knowledge, experience and practice, and especially persons who cannot possibly claim to be guided as David, Asaph and Heman, who were inspired penmen by the Holy Spirit in what they wrote and which forms part of the inspired and infallible Word of God, viz., their Psalms. And on these compositions, our Psalms in metre are soundly based.
But at the time of writing these observations we find that the Editor of our Young People’s Magazine has begun to deal fairly fully with this matter in his November issue, so we shall not pursue our observations here further.
Dumfries Council on the Side of Lord’s Day.
Bailie William Wallace of Dumfries Town Council said at its meeting last month that bowling, putting and tennis are neither works of necessity nor mercy. Therefore according to the Shorter Catechism, he said, they should not be played on Sabbath. The Dumfries Town Council agreed with him and turned down a proposal to provide these games on Sabbath at its greens and parks next summer. Mr. George Douglas, who seemed to be against the Council’s decision, argued that only the provision of labour was valid in arguing against the opening of the greens, which, of course, came far short of the whole argument as briefly stated by Bailie Wallace. But Mr. Douglas made a statement which holds good: that if any used public transport on “Sundays” they have no case against the motion. He mentioned other things, too. Here is a man who sees no wrong in playing games publicly on the Lord’s Day, and yet he is right in arguing that those who use such as tramcars, buses and trains run in systematic disregard for God’s Day; that they contribute to the demand of Sabbath labour. And there are those who make a fair show in the flesh in defence of the Sabbath in Sabbath Observance Organisations and in Church assemblies who do just this very thing. The world sees through inconsistent professors of religion.
Was the Rev. Neil Cameron, Glasgow, Mistaken?
In the October, 1955, issue of the Free Church Monthly Record there appears a letter in which the writer states:—”The late Mr. Neil
Cameron, in one of his New Year lectures, had it that there were three parties in the Free Church. That was a good many years ago. His motives may have been good in asserting this, but I believe he was mistaken then as our brethren now when they insist that there are two parties in the Free Church.” If the writer is sincere in making this statement, and it is not for me to question his sincerity, he must be lacking even in discernment and observation when he denies the obvious. It is not merely the late Rev. Neil Cameron that made such an assertion, but time and again the present writer heard the late Rev. Dr. Munro of Ferintosh (afterwards of Rogart) asserting exactly the same truth, not privately but openly and candidly, quite regardless of who would hear him. He used to refer to the “advanced” party in the Free Church as “the ‘light-fiddlers,’ ” whom he did not hesitate to mention by name. He then referred to the evangelical conservative party, of whom he himself was a representative, while he spoke of the middle party as those who tried to keep together what we might call the extreme left wing and the extreme right wing. It was as plain and obvious as the midday sun then that there were these three parties in the Free Church.
Regarding what the Free Presbyterian brethren of the present day say about two parties in the present Free Church, one is amazed that a professed minister of the Gospel would seriously make such a statement. Did not the treatment of an Overture at a recent Free Church Assembly, which sought to forbid the exchange of pulpits with ministerial representatives of Modernist, Arminian, Scoto-Catholic Churches prove that there are two extreme and diametrically opposed parties in the present Free Church of Scotland?
Could the writer of the letter concerned conceive of certain ministers in his Church having the Modernist “Radio Padre,” Rev. Selby Wright, M.A., in their pulpits? Yet this minister, who recently abused the Free Church for protesting against Sabbath desecration by Royalty, preached in a Free Church pulpit. This “Radio Padre” prays for the dead as a matter of course, and in his broadcasts used slang terms and swear-words occasionally, as well as presiding as chairman at Burns concerts on Sabbath nights. Men of this type have been, from time to time, invited to preach in Free Church pulpits since 1900 to the present day, yet I am certain that there are some Free Church ministers, as the defeated Overture proved, who would not countenance in their own congregations and pulpits such heretics and such glaring inconsistency. Who is now right in stating that there are two parties in the Free Church?
In the September, 1955, number of the Free Church Monthly Record, in an editorial article, the writer states:—”The Free Church is maintaining a testimony in Scotland that is not upheld by any other denomination, and if this noble heritage of truth is to be conserved to us it must be done by a carefully instructed and faithful ministry.”
What is faithful about a ministry professing Calvinism and at the same time prepared to exchange pulpits with Arminian Modernist ministers? What is this testimony that is so unique in Scotland? Is it ardently professing one thing while practising its opposite?—
J. P. MacQueen.