By Rev. John Colquhoun, Glendale.
In the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland last May a proposal was made and carried that committees of the Church should consider whether the Moderator, when in Rome, should visit the Pope. Even those of us who long ago lost faith in the Church of Scotland, if ever we had faith in it, were astounded. At the previous General Assembly, the sitting of which was graced by the Queen, the Quater-centenary of the Reformation in Scotland was celebrated, accompanied by an empty show of pomp and pageantry which is altogether alien to the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. The half-hearted way in which the Reformation itself was spoken of and the manner in which the disinterested integrity of such men as John Knox was belittled, manifested unquestionably that another generation had risen “who knew not Joseph.” This was only what was expected by some of us who, for years, realised that the Church of Scotland was honeycombed with Jesuits, but things that have come to light since then show clearly that the canker has spread further than ever we imagined. It has now been revealed that about forty ministers and elders of the Church of Scotland held a secret conclave last April with a Roman Catholic Abbot and a Romanist Professor of Heythrop College, Oxfordshire, in the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Edinburgh. We know that those office-bearers have denied that it was “secret” but say that it was “private.” This is only a Jesuitical quirk which will deceive only the simple. As the meeting was intended to be secret, although news of it leaked out, so the subjects of discussion are kept secret except that in a general way it is said that it was church unity. It may be observed, in this connection, that what will not bear the light of day in discussions between these two parties whose outward professions are diametrically opposed can augur no good for the Protestant Cause, especially when the one party is dogmatically and uncompromisingly adhering to Roman Catholic dogma, and the other less than half-heartedly Protestant, as the length they have travelled on the downgrade of infidelity clearly proves.
The Subordinate Standards of the Church of the Reformation in Scotland clearly prove that, if adhered to, such a meeting could never take place. In the First Book of Discipline we read, “As we require Christ Jesus to be truly preached, and his holy sacraments rightly ministered; so we cannot cease to require idolatry, with all monuments and places of the same, as abbeys, monasteries, frieries, nunneries, chapels, chanteries, cathedral churches, chanonries, colleges, other than presently are parish churches or schools, to be utterly suppressed in all bounds and places of this realm, except only palaces, mansions, and dwelling-places adjacent thereto, with orchards and yards of the same. As also we desire that idolatry may be removed from the presence of all persons of what estate or condition that ever they be, within this realm. For let your honours assuredly be persuaded, that where idolatry is maintained or permitted, where it may be suppressed, that there shall God’s wrath reign, not only upon the blind and obstinate idolaters, but also the negligent sufferers of the same; especially if God have armed their hands with power to suppress such abomination. By idolatry we understand, the Mass, invocation of saints, adoration of images, and the keeping and retaining of the same: And finally, all honouring of God not contained in his holy Word.” First Book of Discipline, Chapter III. Those who framed the Westminster Confession of Faith which the Church of Scotland accepted on 27th August, 1647, and the Scottish Parliament on 7th February, 1649, held the same views, as we read, “There is no other head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ: nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, which exalteth himself in the church against Christ, and all that is called God.” Confession of Faith, Chapter xxv: sect. 6. The justly renowned Dr. McCrie says of the Roman Catholic Church: “It may be safely said that there is not one of its erroneous tenets, or its superstitious practices, which was not either originally contrived, or afterwards accommodated, to advance and support some practical abuse; to aggrandise the ecclesiastical order, secure to them immunity from civil jurisdiction, sanctify their encroachments upon secular authorities, vindicate their usurpations upon the consciences of men, cherish implicit obedience to the decisions of the Church, and extinguish free inquiry and liberal science.” Life of John Knox, Centenary ed. p.12.
The Church of Rome claims to be semper idem, that is, always the same, therefore, what it was in the past must remain true of it as long as it will exist. There can be no change in its dogma, that “ignorance is the mother of devotion,” and in these countries where it has the ascendancy this is clearly proved by the high rate of illiteracy prevailing. The persecuting policy which it carried on at the Reformation must be its policy today wherever it can get the power, and the unanswerable question with which we are confronted is, How can such a tolerant Church, as the Church of Scotland claims to be, agree to its Moderator paying a visit to the head of the system which rejoiced in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, perpetrated the horrors of the Inquisition, and left the bones of God’s martyred saints to bleach upon the Alpine hills, there to cry for the vengeance of Heaven? Has that Church forgotten the civil and religious liberties bestowed upon Scotland at the Reformation, and the rivers of blood shed in defence of these liberties then, and at subsequent periods in the history of our native land? One may well ask the question in view of recent happenings, Is the Church of Scotland in the grip of a powerful army of Jesuits who are bent on undoing the glorious work of the Reformation? If so, it is time for the members and adherents of that Church to consider the words of Holy Writ, “Shake thyself from the dust, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord, Ye have sold yourselves for nought.” Isaiah lii: 2, 3.
As the Confession of Faith has been not only approved by the General Assembly but has also been ratified by the Scottish Parliament in 1649 and 1690 “as the public and avowed Confession of the Church of Scotland, with the proofs from the Scripture,” any communication with the See of Rome of which antichrist, and the son of perdition, is the head, is not only a gross violation of their ordination vows on the part of its office-bearers, but it is a serious departure from the position ratified by the State, and, therefore, the present Church of Scotland cannot truthfully claim to be the church of the Reformation in Scotland as set up in 1560, and again confirmed in 1690, after the glorious Revolution when a Popish tyrant was hurled from the Throne of Britain. True it is that the position of the Church of Scotland in its relation to the State is altered, for, although it has secured to itself, through certain Acts of Parliament, the emoluments of the State, it is left to the Church for the time being to declare what is the substance of the Reformed Faith. It is no exaggeration to say that this opens a wide door for declaring Popish doctrines to be of the substance of the Reformed faith. We have an example of this in the Declaratory Act of 1892 when, by that Act, the time-honoured Calvinism of the Confession of Faith was diluted so that in the creed of the Free Church and subsequently the Church of Scotland, rank Arminianism was declared to be the substance of the Reformed Faith.
Such conduct on the part of office-bearers in the Church of Scotland is highly dishonouring to the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is Head of the Church, and it will not escape His righteous indignation for He says, “Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed” (I. Sam. ii: 30). That this applies to the Lord Jesus is abundantly clear from His teaching in the days of His humiliation, for He requires “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (John v: 23). That the leaders of the Church of Scotland, in holding communion with the Man of Sin, have seriously provoked the Lord, is very evident to any who will reflect on such a step as they have taken, and no matter how highly esteemed they may be among their fellows for their gifts and acquirements, the Word of the Lord must be fulfilled, “He poureth contempt upon princes, and causeth them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way” (Ps. cvii: 40).
The question may well be asked in this connection, What is the position of the present Free Church with reference to the secret and public approaches of the Church of Scotland to the Papacy. Some years ago a majority of the members of its General Assembly turned down a request that there would be no exchange of pulpits between the ministers of the Free Church and those of the Church of Scotland. These exchanges have been going on so that, if there are no Jesuits among the Free Church ministers themselves, they cannot be sure that they have not been admitting Jesuits to their pulpits, with the inevitable result that their poor congregations may be polluted with doctrines, stated as subtly as only a Jesuit can state them.
In conclusion, we may propose the question, What ought the Church of Scotland to do in this crisis? The number of ministers and elders who attended the secret conclave in the Edinburgh convent is stated to be forty, but who can say how many more would have embraced the opportunity if it were possible for them? We would like to believe that there are yet influential ministers and elders in the Church of Scotland who are faithful Protestants, and who appreciate what the Reformation has done for Scotland. Let such band together and say to those who would lead Scotland again into that Babylonish captivity from which we were delivered at the Reformation, “She shall not be defiled, ye shall not see your desire upon Zion.” If they will not repent and turn from their evil ways, let the discipline of God’s Word be exercised upon them so that they would be prevented from pursuing their evil course within the Church. Scotland entered into a priceless heritage at the time of the Reformation, and a great part of the reason for her battles and divisions in the Church was that men arose within the Church who lightly esteemed that heritage and endeavoured to fix upon it excrescences of the flesh according to their own whims, and thus frame a religion which would satisfy the carnal mind, of which we read that it “is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. viii: 7).