The Most High is extolled by the psalmist as the God that wonders dost by His right hand most strong; and many have been the occasions, in the experience of the Godly, down through the ages when they could make a similar God-honouring declaration. God is worthy that all the manifestations of His mercy and power to His people in grace and providence, should be remembered by them throughout their pilgrimage here. And great and blessed favours and deliverances afforded His Church, issuing in much benefit to multitudes at different periods in the Church’s history and experience, are surely events not to be forgotten, but called to remembrance from time to time and from generation to generation by those who love and fear His great name.
A notable and wonderful event at the beginning of Israel’s history as a nation was, of course, their deliverance out of the land of Egypt. They were delivered out of the severe bondage and affliction which they endured in Egypt. And God saw their affliction, and raised up Moses and Aaron as instruments to do His bidding, and to lead Israel out of their bondage with a high hand. This the Lord accomplished in His own time and way, as we read in the Book of Exodus. It was deliverance afforded Israel by the Lord to whom all the glory was to be given, yet not forgetting Moses, the Man of God. Therefore, we read that this extraordinary event was to be remembered: “It is a night to be much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out from the land of Egypt: this is that night of the Lord to be observed by all the children of Israel in their generations.” (Exodus, Chap. 12, verse 42). And so the generations following those who actually took part in the exodus, were to recall again and again, the facts and wonders of that outstanding occasion in the Lord’s dealings with them as a nation, and His Church bound up with their nation.
And surely we have in the experience of Israel and God’s command to them, clear guidance as to the propriety of celebrating the Quarter-Centenary of the Reformation of 1560 in Scotland, in this year of 1960. Indeed, to do so is a duty and privilege in the view of all who value what has been handed down to us by our Reformation forefathers. Scotland was in bondage and affliction, spiritually and morally and intellectually, under the heel of Pope and priest, at the beginning of the 16th century. But God enlightened, raised up and thrust forth such a spiritual leader and instrument as John Knox to serve Him and do His will in bringing about a Reformation in doctrine, worship and practice, etc. And with the assistance of other Godly Reformers, Knox, under God’s guidance, was instrumental in leading the people of Scotland out of spiritual and ecclesiastical darkness, bondage and affliction, to have access to, and freedom to embrace, the true faith of the Gospel of God’s Word and of Christ Jesus, the one Mediator between God and men. Many were the benefits, both spiritual and providential which accompanied and followed upon this 1560 Reformation. But what must be called to mind by all who are truly interested is, that the Reformation was of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to whom alone must be given the praise and the glory, albeit we bless God for John Knox and his faithful companions who accomplished all they did through Christ who strengthened them.
We expect the Papists today to denounce and decry this Reformation as schism and the work of evil and irresponsible men. But they, and others also, who look upon the Reformation as best forgotten, are in blindness, denying and dishonouring the work of God Himself, and will have to reckon with God regarding their opposition to His glorious workings in our land.
It is not irrelevant to our subject to refer to the present Church of Scotland, such as it is, as owing its existence to the Reformation beginning with that of 1560. Thus, the largest Presbyterian Church in Scotland is to hold special celebrations of the 1560 Reformation in the Autumn of this year. From what we all know, their celebrations cannot possibly be characterised by agreement and harmony as to the value and benefits of this Reformation, especially on the part of many of their Church leaders and Ministers. Many of these are “bishop men” and given to ritual, and some can speak well of Rome etc. And it may be of interest to our readers and to some in the Church of Scotland to know something of a Society called “The Scottish Church Society,” which operates within the Church of Scotland. This Society was instituted in 1892. It has, until recently at any rate, had a President, Secretaries and a Treasurer. “The object of the Society is the maintenance of the Catholic Faith as embodied in the ancient Creeds and the standards of the Church of Scotland.” What does this Society mean by the “Catholic Faith?” If, we say if, it means the universal application of the Faith of the Gospel of Christ and the New Testament, and of the Protestant Church, surely the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments and the exercise of Scriptural discipline according to the Word of God are the means ready to hand to maintain the faith once delivered to the Saints. Such a Society as this within the bosom of the Church of Scotland is therefore a mystery. Again this Society is to maintain the Catholic Faith “as embodied in the ancient Creeds” firstly, and then as found in “the standards of the Church of Scotland.” We are quoting or copying exactly when we give a capital “C” to the term “Creed” and a small “s” to the word “standards.” This to us is not without significance. It seems that this Society places greater reliance upon the ancient creeds of the Fathers than upon the Holy Scriptures and Westminster Confession of Faith. And so from what we have here stated, readers may “read between the lines” as to the anti-Protestant, anti-Reformation character and activities of this Society. Ministers and laymen of The Church of Scotland hold office in this Society, and no doubt there are quite a number of members. In 1941 the subscription was 5/-, and the Society is officially publicised and recognised in the Church of Scotland Year-Book.
If there is to be an honest denominational celebration by the Church of Scotland, then such a Society as we have mentioned and its activities, should be denounced and disbanded by the authority of the Church. We write in this manner because we have evidence that as long ago as the year 1896, ministers and laymen of the then Established Church of Scotland belonging to this Society expressed themselves clearly on the side of Romish doctrines and practices. We may at some later date publish an article written in 1896 in which the actual words of these Romanisers in the Church of Scotland are quoted. We are not inclined to be as simple as to think that members of this Society today are less ardent for the things of Rome, and less anti-Reformation than their forebears.
Truly a Reformation is required in Scotland today that the Reformation of 1560 may be remembered in a gracious and honest manner, free from hypocrisy and formality. This “reformation” we all need to be wrought in our hearts by the Spirit of Truth.
Our Church will endeavour to call to remembrance some of the outstanding aspects of the 1560 Reformation, especially when the Synod meets in Edinburgh, on Tuesday, the 17th day of this month of May, and some days thereafter. A number of Papers bearing on the 1560 Reformation prepared by Ministers of the Church, will be read at the Synod, the Lord willing.
“I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old: Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done.” (Psalm 78, V 2-4).
A Warning Letter from John Knox.
This year, 1960, the Quarter-Centenary of the Scottish Reformation of 1560, is being celebrated in Scotland by those professing to be interested in this momentous event in the history of our land. John Knox, as readers are aware, was the central and outstanding champion of this movement for drastic reformation in doctrine, worship and practice in the Church. Years before 1560, he had to leave his native land and reside in England, and was also for a time in London, as an exile. And in 1553, he left for France. After he departed from London he wrote a letter to his friends in London and England—a letter to the Faithful in London etc. Thomas McCrie, D.D., in introducing this letter in his Life of John Knox, refers to it in the following appropriate words—”The reader of this letter cannot fail to be struck with the animated strain, when he reflects that it proceeded from a forlorn exile, in a strange country, without a single acquaintance, and ignorant where he would find a place of abode, or the means of subsistence. As a specimen of elevated piety, and the most fervid eloquence, I cannot refrain from quoting the conclusion of the letter; in which he (John Knox) addresses their consciences, their hopes, their fears, and adjures them, by all that is sacred, and all that is dear to them, as men, as parents, and as Christians, not to start back from their good profession, and plunge themselves and their posterity into the gulf of ignorance and idolatry.” So much for McCrie’s opinion of Knox’s letter.
Now for the letter itself as follows: —
“Shall we, after so many graces that God has offered in our days, for pleasure, or for vain threatening of them whom our heart knoweth and our mouths have confessed to be odious idolaters, altogether without resistance turn back to our vomit and damnable idolatry, to the perdition of us and our posterity? O horrible to be heard! Shall God’s holy precepts work no greater obedience in us? Shall nature no otherwise molify our hearts? Shall not fartherly pity overcome this cruelties? I speak to you, O natural fathers! Behold your children with the eye of mercy, and consider the end of their creation. Cruelty it were to save yourselves, and damn them. But, O! More than cruelty, and madness that can not be expressed if, for the pleasure of a moment, ye deprive yourselves and your posterity of that eternal joy that is ordained for them that continue in confession of Christ’s name to the end. If natural life, fatherly affection, reverence of God, fear of torment, or yet hope of life, move you, then will ye ganestand that abominable idol; which, if ye do not, then, alas! the sun is gone down, and the light is quite lost, the trumpet is ceased, and idolatry is placed in quietness and rest. But if God shall strengthen you (as unfeignedly I pray that His Majesty may), then is there but one dark cloud overspread the sun for one moment, which shortly shall vanish, so that the beams after shall be sevenfold more bright and amiable nor they were before. Your patience and constancy shall be a louder trumpet to your posterity than were the voices of the prophets that instruct you; and so is not the trumpet ceased so long as any boldly resisteth idolatry. And, therefore, for the tender mercies of God, arm yourselves to stand with Christ in this His short battle.
“Let it be known to your posterity that ye were Christians, and no idolaters; Had ye learned Christ in time of rest, and boldly professed Him in time of trouble. The precepts, think ye, are sharp and hard to be observed; and yet again I affirm that compared with the plagues that shall assuredly fall upon obstinate idolaters, they shall be easy and light. For avoiding of idolatry ye may perchance be compelled to leave your native country and realm, but obeyers of idolatry without end shall be compelled to burn in hell; for avoiding idolatry your substance shall be spoiled, but for obeying idolatry heavenly riches shall be lost; for avoiding idolatry ye may fall into the hands of earthly tyrants, but obeyers, maintainers, and consenters to idolatry shall escape the hands of the living God; for avoiding of idolatry your children shall be deprived of father, friends, riches and of rest, but by obeying idolatry they shall be left without God, without the knowledge of His Word, and without help of His Kingdom. Consider, dear brethren, that how much more dolorous and fearful it is to be tormented in hell than to suffer trouble in earth, to be deprived of heavenly joy than to be robbed of transitory riches, to fall in the hands of the living God than to obey man’s vain and uncertain displeasure, to leave our children destitute of God than to leave them unprovided before the world,—so much more fearful it is to obey idolatry, or by dissembling to consent to the same, than by avoiding and flying from the abomination, to suffer what inconvenience may follow thereupon.
“Ye fear corporal death. If nature admitted any man to live for ever, than had your fear some appearance of reason. But if corporal death be common to all, why will ye jeopard to lose eternal life, to escape that which neither rich nor poor, neither wise nor ignorant, proud of stomach nor feeble of courage, and finally, no earthly creature, by no craft nor wit of man, did ever avoid. If any escaped the ugly face and horrible fear of death, it was they that boldly confessed Christ before men.—Why ought the way of life to be so fearful by reason of any pain, considering that a great number of our brethren has past before us, by like dangers as we fear. A stout and prudent mariner, in time of tempest, seeing but one or two ships, or like vessels to his, pass throughout any danger, and win a sure harbour, will have good hope, by the like wind, to do the same. Shall ye be more fearful to win life eternal, than the natural man is to save the corporal life? Has not the most part of the Saints of God from the beginning entered into their rest, by torment and trouble? And yet what complaints find we in their mouths, except it be the lamenting of their persecutors? Did God comfort them? and shall His Majesty despise us, if, in fighting against iniquity, we will follow their footsteps? He will not.”
Scotland today surely needs the warnings and admonitions which Knox addressed to his friends in London and England, and the spirit of which he brought back with him to his native Scotland and to the work of Reformation later on. The leading Churchmen of Scotland today, on the protestant and presbyterian side, include a goodly number of ecclesiastics who have no heart or open attachment to the basic principles and scriptural work of the Reformation of 1560. This they have made evident in recent years by word and deed. Although there be but a remnant in this land of the Reformers, who truly desire by the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ to follow in their footsteps as they followed Christ and His truth most pure, let us seek to be numbered among this remnant by the grace of God.
Many are being bewitched by Christmas and Easter ceremonies, by a cry for union with the Anglican Church, and much propaganda favourable to the Roman Catholic Church with its characteristic idolatry. All this, to the simple minded and those who are not so simple, tends to drown the voice of John Knox and other reformers speaking from the past.