According to the Confession of Faith, it is the duty of the Christian magistrate to maintain piety as well as justice and peace. Ch. XXIII, section II.
In America one religion is not acknowledged more than another by the State. Voluntaryism leads to the multiplication of sects, and errors in doctrine, worship, discipline and government. The Holy Rollers, Seventh Day Adventists, Fifth Monarchy Men, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Quakers, are a few of the strange sects that are so numerous in America.
In Britain the Protestant Reformed Religion is established by law.
At every Coronation the Monarch has to swear to uphold it. Only a Protestant can hold the crown. The Lord Chancellor must be a Protestant. The Master of the Rolls ought to be a Protestant, as valuable documents are entrusted to him such as those relating to the Papal plots against the life of Queen Elizabeth I.
“According to Voluntaryism, all laws ratifying the Protestant religion in Britain, or even recognising Christianity and the Bible, must be set aside. The whole series of laws approving, confirming and establishing the Presbyterian religion, with the liberties and privileges of the Church in Scotland, to continue without any alteration to the people of this land in all future generations, whether granted in the more early periods of the Reformation, or in pursuance of the Claim of Right at the Revolution, the security of which establishment was declared to be a fundamental and essential condition of the union between the two kingdoms, without any derogation thereto for ever; all of these must be given up with and exchanged for the visionary and undescribed liberty of all religious professions. The Coronation Oath, by which Her Majesty swore that she would invariably maintain and preserve the settlement of the true Protestant religion, with the government, worship, and discipline, rights and privileges of the Church of Scotland, established by the laws, must be declared null and void; together with that fundamental law of the British Constitution, which provides that none shall ascend the throne of this kingdom, who is not a Protestant, or who marries any other than a Protestant.” Dr. Macrae’s Statement.
To repeal the union of the two kingdoms, as advocated by the Scottish Nationalists, might endanger the constitutional safeguards of our Protestantism and Presbyterian church government.
The first Confession of Helvetia (Switzerland) says, “Seeing that every magistrate is of God, his chief duty (except it pleases him to exercise tyranny) is to defend religion from all blasphemy. Preparations are being made to commemorate the 4th century of the Reformation, and at the same time ministers are being asked to familiarize their congregations with the Christian conviction that they should reunite with the Church of England, unpurged of Popish superstitions and ceremonies.”
The Brownists affirmed that the christian magistrate had no right to meddle at all with any matters of religion; and they plead for a universal toleration, under the specious pretence of liberty of conscience.
Against the above extravagant principles our reformed divines employed their pens, and discovered the contrariety of them to the Holy Scriptures, and their affinity to several of the gross principles of the ancient Donatists and Novatians. It is curious that when Parliament twice rejected the Romanized Prayer Book, which legalized the mass and mass vestments, Romanizers in England now seek to separate the Church from the State, so that they can innovate ad libitum, while at the same time they seek reunion with the Church of Scotland, and the Presbyterian Church of England, not on the basis of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which was drawn up for uniformity of worship in the three kingdoms of Scotland, England and Ireland.
The Confession of Bohemia, called also the Confession of the Waldenses, says, “The christian magistrate ought also to be a partaker, and as it were, a minister of the power of the Lamb, Jesus Christ; whom God hath, in our nature made Lord and King of Kings, that kings of the earth who in times past had been heathen, might come under the power of the Lamb, give their glory unto the church, and become nurses of it.”—D. J. Macaskill.
Quotations from “The Christian’s Great Interest.”*
- “The Christian’s Great Interest” has again been reprinted and is available at 5/6 per copy (6/1 by post) from the General Treasurer, 4 Millburn Road, Inverness.—Editor.
Marks of a Saving Change.
Introductory remarks on how some are drawn to Christ:—
There are some called from the womb, as John the Baptist was (Luke i); or in very early years, before they can be actively engaged in Satan’s ways, as Timothy. (2 Tim. iii. 15.) It cannot be supposed that those have such a preparatory work as we are to speak of. And because some persons may pretend to this way of effectual calling, we offer these marks of it, whereby those who have been so called may be confirmed . . .
Some are brought to Christ in a sovereign gospel-way, when the Lord, by some few words of love swallowing up any work of the law, quickly taketh a person prisoner at the first, as He did Zaccheus (Luke xix.), and others, who, upon a word spoken by Christ, did leave all and follow Him; and we hear nothing of a law-work dealing with them before they close with Christ Jesus . . .
There are some brought into Christ in a way yet more declarative of His free grace; and this is, when He effectually calls men at the hour of death. We find somewhat recorded of this way in that pregnant example of the “thief on the cross.” (Luke xxiii 39-45). Although this seems not very pertinent for the purpose in hand, yet we shall speak a little of it, that, on the one hand, man may be sparing to judge and pass sentence on either themselves or others before the last breath; and we shall, on the other hand, speak so particularly, that none may dare to delay so great a business to the last hour of their life . . .
The fourth and most ordinary may be which many are brought to Christ, is by a clear and discernable work of the law, and humiliation; which we generally call the spirit of bondage, as was hinted before. We do not mean that everyone, whose conscience is awakened with sin and fear of wrath, does really close with Christ; the contrary appears in Cain, Saul, Judas, etc. But there is a conviction of sin, an awakening of conscience, and work of humiliation, which, as we shall point out, rarely miscarries, or fails of a gracious issue, but ordinarily doth resolve into the Spirit of adoption, and a gracious work of God’s Spirit. And because the Lord deals with many sinners this way, and we find that many are much puzzled about giving judgment of this law-work, we shall speak of it particularly . . .
Some of the properties and native consequences of true believing:
I will not say that there is in all, as soon as they believe, a prevailing sensible love, which maketh sick; but there must be in believing, a rational and kindly love, so well grounded and deeply engaged, that “many waters cannot quench it. It is strong as death, and jealousy in it burneth as fire.” (Song of Sol. 6. 7.)
The third property or qualification of believing, as it goeth out after Christ, is that it must be rational. By this I mean that the man should move towards God in Christ, in knowledge and understanding, taking up God’s device of saving sinners by Christ as the Scripture holds it out; not fancying a Christ to himself otherwise than the gospel speaketh of Him, nor another way of relief by Him than the word of God holdeth out. Therefore we find knowledge joined to the covenant between God and man as a requisite—”And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.”
The fourth is faith; as it goeth out rationally, so it goeth out resolutely. The poor distressed people in the gospel did most resolutely cast themselves upon Christ. This resoluteness of spirit is in respect to all difficulties that lie in the way; violence is offered to these. The man whose heart is a laying out for Christ Jesus, cannot say, “There is a lion in the street.” (Prov. xxix. 13.) If he cannot have access by the door, he will break through the roof of the house. (Luke v 19.) He often does not regard that which the world calls discretion or prudence, like Zaccheus, climbing up on a tree to see Christ, when faith was forming in his bosom. (Luke xix.) This resoluteness of spirit foresees what inconveniences may follow, and disregard all these; at least resolving over all these, like a wise builder who reckoneth the expense beforehand. (Luke xiv. 18.) This resoluteness is also in regard to all a man’s idols, and such weights as would easily beset him, if he did not follow after Christ over them all, like that blind man who did cast his garment from him when Christ called him. (Matt. x. 50.) This resoluteness in the soul proceedeth from desperate self-necessity within the man, as it was with the jailer (Acts xvi. 30); and from the sovereign command of God, obliging the man to move towards Christ—”This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ” (I John iii. 23); and from the good report gone abroad of God, that “He putteth none away that come unto Him through Christ” (John vi. 37); but commends such as do adventure over the greatest difficulties, as the woman of Canaan. (Matt. xv. 28.) But above all, this resoluteness doth proceed from the arm of JEHOVAH, secretly and strongly drawing the sinner towards Christ—”No man can come to Me, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him.” (John vi. 4.)