By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
VI.—Can there be a true Union?
FROM what we have already noticed of both parties to this proposed Union we can come to no other conclusion but that there can never be a true Union between Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, for both parties have nothing in common except what individuals have brought into the Church of Scotland in direct violation of its original Constitution. Each party may agree to sink their differences, but these differences, being so numerous, by the time that is done nothing will be left of either party, but, as has been stated in a previous article, the Episcopal Church of England, being the larger body, if Union takes place, will swallow up the Church of Scotland so that the result will be that the latter will become Episcopal and forsake its Scriptural and time-honoured Presbyterian government. Ere it be too late it is time for Scotsmen to consider reasons why this Union should not take place.
Episcopacy not founded on Scripture.
The first and chief reason why there should be no Union between the Church of England and the Church of Scotland is that, while Presbyterianism is founded upon the Scriptures, Episcopacy has no such authority, although most of its supporters claim that it is the only form of Church government recognised in the Bible. We have already shown that this claim has not a vestige of a foundation, and that all its claims to Scripture authority are based on what appears to be a wilful ignoring of the true meaning of the word episcopus as used in the Bible. This is practically admitted by some of the more eminent and candid protagonists of Episcopacy, as, for instance, Bishop Lightfoot, who frankly admits that the names bishop and presbyter are different names for the same office, and that the one has no jurisdiction over the other. This view, being in accordance with the Word of God in the original Greek, one is more than surprised to find any who lay claim to a modicum of scholarship holding the opposite view, but when such a view is held and the whole fabric of Episcopacy based upon it, it is the duty of all who value the Word of God and who accept it as their guide to refuse to unite with such a system.
Incompatibility of Episcopacy and Presbyterianism.
A second reason why this Union should never take place is the incompatibility of Episcopacy and Presbyterianism. Apart altogether from the parity of the clergy in the latter and the opposite being the case in the former, Presbyterian Church government is the most democratic government in the world. Its office-bearers, whether clerical or lay, are in office because the people have put them into office. Before a Presbyterian minister can be in a position to sit in a Church Court, he must be called to a particular congregation by the people, and before any man can be a ruling elder he must be elected by the membership of the congregation, and in both cases, before ordination or induction, an opportunity is given to any, who may have reason to do so, to state and prove any objections they may have against the life or doctrine of the person about to be ordained or inducted. Failure to state objections implies concurrence in the act about to be performed by the Church Court. Under Episcopacy, ordination is the work of a single person, that is, the Bishop, and the laity have no voice in it.
This incompatibility extends also to the form of worship. In the Church of England a Liturgy is used whereas the Constitution of the Church of Scotland is opposed to the use of a Liturgy, our forefathers maintaining that a minister, called of God to that office, should not be dependent on set forms of worship, and should speak in prayer, as in preaching, as the Spirit gave utterance. The Church of England imposes the use of the Liturgy on all her clergy and apart from other objections, this Liturgy has a very unorthodox bias. The late Dr. Charles Hodge, writing of the objections of Presbyterians to the Liturgy of the Church of England, says, “The English Liturgy was framed on the avowed principle of departing as little as possible from the Romish forms. It was designed to conciliate those who were yet addicted to the Papacy. It retained numerous prescriptions as to dress and ceremonies, to which conscientious objections were entertained by the majority of Protestants. It required the people to kneel in the reception of the Eucharist, which was so associated with the worship of the host, that many left the Church of England principally on that account. Its baptismal service could not be understood in its natural sense otherwise than as teaching the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. It required the minister to commit to the grave all baptised persons who did not die by their own hand, or in a state of excommunication, “in the sure hope of a blessed resurrection,” no matter how heretical or how profligate they may have been. It was constructed on the platform of the Romish calendar.” (Church Polity, p. 160.)
Forsaking the Witness of the Fathers.
To unite with the Episcopal Church ought not to be a matter lightly undertaken by Scottish Presbyterians in the light of the attitude of our forefathers to Episcopacy. That attitude, be it remembered, was not the result of whim, or ill-humour, or that native stubbornness with which Scotsmen are credited. It was the product of a conscience, illuminated by the Word of God, savingly and powerfully worked upon by the Holy Spirit, begetting in them a reverence for that Word and all its doctrines, precepts, and institutions. This caused them, when an attempt was made to force Episcopacy upon them, to resist “unto blood,” with the full conviction that they were “striving against sin.” There is ample testimony that they did so and that the opposition was widespread, in the number of martyr graves dotted throughout the South of Scotland. The question may be asked, What is it that they gained by this opposition? The first, and most important thing, that may be mentioned, which was indeed a great gain, is that they kept on the right side of their own conscience and kept their religious profession unspotted, even to their last breath, in the face of all that they had to endure. This showed them to be men and women of integrity, whose religion had the stamp of reality, and who manifested their consciousness of being always under the gaze of the Unseen Presence. The second thing which they gained, and handed down to us is our religious and civil liberty. Absolute Monarchy and Episcopacy agreed well together, and if their protagonists had succeeded in imposing them on the whole nation, their success would have produced conditions akin to those prevailing to-day in countries dominated by Romanism or Communism. God purposed otherwise, and with a handful of men who, like Gideon’s company of old, had lights in their pitchers. He flung off the yoke of the oppressor and ensured that future generations would be permitted to worship God according to His Word, enabling His Church, down through the generations, to say, “And where is the fury of the oppressor?” To unite with those who opposed this liberty of the subject is to lightly esteem, and shamefully betray the inheritance which our forefathers bequeathed to us.
Removing Safeguards of Evangelicalism.
Another reason why this proposed Union should never take place is that the ceremonial worship connected with Episcopacy was not devised to give God the glory due unto Him, but always seeks to exalt man and to pay more regard, in worship, to what is merely the creature of the human brain. This was the case in connection with endeavouring to foist Episcopal government on the Scottish people. Laud found Scotland without a bishop or a Liturgy and he was determined to supply them with both, thus showing how ignorant he was of the substance of what was so well said by the Editor of The Scots Worthies, “A faith that honours God alone and not man, demands as its companion a worship which honours God alone and not man. The Calvinistic faith has ever frowned on a ceremonial worship. In the Scottish Reformation, far more fully than in that of England, this principle was faithfully applied. The prelatic system and a corrupt worship are a natural alliance, and the battle against Prelacy in Scotland lifted the Reformation Church into a purity of worship far exceeding that of England.” It is true that the present Church of Scotland has departed far from the doctrines accepted, and the mode of worship practised, in the Church of Scotland in its best days, but to unite with Episcopacy is only going to make matters much worse. Again, the Church of England is purely Erastian, the reigning Monarch being its head, and all appointments to office are made by the State. This causes that appointments are made for other considerations than spiritual, and that, provided men who do not believe the doctrines contained in the Thirty-nine Articles, are unscrupulous enough to sign them, they can believe and preach any doctrines they like, as long as these doctrines do not attack the State. To unite with such a body is dangerous in the extreme. It is a parting, in a very cheap manner, with our blood-bought principles and privileges, and taking away the fair face of our once glorious Church of Scotland. The condition of affairs in Scotland prior to the Revolution of 1688 is well stated in the following quotation from an Address sent from a general meeting of Presbyterian ministers in Edinburgh, to William, Prince of Orange: “Sir, as Your Highness hath wisely noticed, one great occasion of all the miseries under which this country hath for a long time groaned, to have been the driving of some hundreds of ministers out of their churches, without either accusation or citation, and the filling of many of their places with ignorant and scandalous persons; so it is well known, the true cause of this was the overturning of the presbyterial government, which was generally received as of divine right, and established by the national assemblies of this church, and sanction of many civil laws; and instead thereof the erecting of prelacy, which being attended with a numerous train of severe laws, rigorously executed both on ministers and people of all degrees, who found themselves bound up from compliance therewith, both by light and conviction from the Word of God, and the conscience of many solemn engagements, became the source of all the evils of sin and suffering which followed. And to complete our calamities, when counted and treated as sheep for the slaughter, we might not complain or petition without rendering ourselves highly criminal.” (History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, Vol. iv. p 481-482.)
The Church which caused these sufferings in Scotland is still the Church of England, without any reformation but as it was during the “Killing times,” and while it continues to look upon the ordinances of the Presbyterian Church as not valid, one can expect no other result from the proposed Union but the eliminating of the Presbyterian form of Church government, and consequently the refusal to acknowledge Christ as the Head of the Church. With this will go the preaching of a full-orbed gospel, and the Presbyterian form of public worship, both of which, it is very evident, have disappeared already, to an alarming extent, from the Church of Scotland. Under these circumstances, instead of turning to the Episcopal Church for Union, it would be much more profitable to take heed to the Scriptural exhortation: “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”