By Rev. John Colquhoun, Glendale, Skye
In these days when Ecumenism is advocated so widely in the professing Church it would be well for us to examine the true nature of the church unity which is being advocated. We are told over and over again that the many divisions in the professing
church is sin. As far back as 1937, Dr. William Temple, Archbishop of York and afterwards of Canterbury, when presiding over a Conference on church unity, spoke of church divisions as sin, and this would indicate that, in his mind at least, even the Reformation was a sin. This seems to be the foundation of all the efforts of the World Council of Churches to unite all Churches in one visible organisation, with, as far as present appearances go, the Pope as its head. It is in order to support this Ecumenical Movement that the world has witnessed such degrading scenes as Dr. Craig, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1962, paying a visit to the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury paying a similar visit, and the Queen of Great Britain, dressed in black and veiled, being received in audience by the Pope. In view of these matters the questions may be asked, Has the Papacy changed? or Have the reasons why we separated from the Church of Rome been taken away? Those, in the Church of Scotland who were so keen on union with the Episcopal Church, maintain that we should look to the future, but never look back, or dwell on what took place already. This would mean that we would have to forget the struggles of the Church of Scotland against Prelacy, and all that it stood for, and, of course, would mean that we were to deny to ourselves the benefit of judging as to the nature of that which we were to unite with, and resign all our thinking into the hands of such as arrogated to themselves a monopoly of thinking for us. Apart from its blatant arrogance this is most unreasonable, for God has endowed men in general with the faculty of reason and He holds man responsible for what He has given him. It is the duty of everyone in this country, or in any other country, to make themselves conversant with the contendings of their church, and we especially in Scotland when men did not hold their lives too dear to lay down in order to preserve the privileges which God had given them.
We are, however, in the meantime, writing a sketch of the life of the Rev. John Blackader, who lived at a period in the history of the Church of Scotland, which shows clearly the persecutions of that Prelacy with which modern churchmen are seeking to unite, but which was so abominable in the eyes of our forefathers that they justly called it “a rotten limb of antichrist.” According to the Martyrs’ Memorial in the Greyfriars Churchyard, Edinburgh, “During the twenty-eight years of persecution in Scotland, above 18,000 people, according to calculation, suffered death, or the utmost hardships and extremities.” Their only crime was that they contended faithfully for the faith which was delivered to the saints.
Rev. John Blackader was born in December, 1615, but the place of his birth is uncertain. Of Mr Blackader’s early life very little is known, but he himself left a Memorial of his life, which, however, does not begin till his ordination at Troquer. His maternal grandfather was the Rev. William Strang, minister of Kirkliston and afterwards of Irvine, and was the father of Principal Strang of Glasgow University, to which office he was elected in 1626. It was in this University that Mr Blackader studied, and it is probable that he studied divinity there under the direct superintendence of his maternal uncle, for up to 1640 the Principal of the University filled the Theological Chair also. We have no records extant as to his proficiency, but judging from the system of study which was then carried on, he must have been well qualified, as far as training was concerned, for the work of the ministry. During his divinity course all the prelections were dictated in Latin: “Weekly thesis were written, and verbal disputations transacted in the same language.” Dr. Strang himself is known to have been profoundly conversant with Eastern philology, and under him the Hebrew, Syriac, and other cognate dialects were cultivated with the highest success. We read that he was equally attentive to the morals as to the professional attainments of his scholars.
About ten years before Mr Blackader was born, King James I made an attack on the Church’s privileges of calling her own General Assemblies, by altering the date of the General Assembly which the Church appointed to meet in Aberdeen in July, 1604, and leaving the meeting of the next Assembly to July, 1605 to meet at Aberdeen, and finally adjourned it to an uncertain day. Some who had been commissioned by their Presbyteries met on the day appointed by the king, but did no more than constitute the Assembly and continue the diet for the preservation of their privilege. However, the king’s Commissioner discharged the meeting under pain of rebellion. This was the forerunner of great troubles to those who took part in the meeting, some of them being kept prisoners in Blackness, others in Dumbarton and Stirling. Some of these were afterwards banished to the most remote parts of the kingdom. Following this in 1610 an Assembly was called by the king in Glasgow, and as it was mostly composed of those who were favourable to the king’s designs, the Aberdeen Assembly was condemned, the calling of Assemblies was declared to be the prerogative of the crown, the ordination of ministers was to be consummated by a Bishop, the Bishops presided at all Synod and Assembly meetings, and every minister, at his admission, was to swear obedience to His Majesty in all matters temporal and spiritual. On account of the number of gold angel-
pieces which were distributed as bribes at this Assembly, it was popularly referred to as “The Angelic Assembly.” In 1618 an Assembly was appointed by the king to meet at Perth, where those who were known to be favourable to Episcopacy were commissioned by him. It was at this Assembly that the infamous Five Articles of Perth were passed. These were, kneeling at the Sacrament of the Supper, the celebration of five holy days, private baptism, the private administration of the Lord’s Supper, and confirmation.
Though Episcopacy was in the ascendancy during Mr Blackader’s student days, it is not very likely that he ever came under its influence or conformed to its ceremonies, for the people of Scotland never took kindly to it, and in spite of orders from the Court and the tyranny of fawning sycophants, the people generally remained Presbyterian at heart. This was clearly manifested in 1637 when King Charles I, with the evil counsel of Laud, endeavoured to force the Service Book on them. What took place in St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh, was but an indication of their attitude to what Samuel Rutherford described as “tooth-less and spirit-less talk.” This was further shown by the alacrity with which the National Covenant was signed, first in Greyfriars Church, and then throughout the whole country. At the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, prelacy was abolished, and all former enactments in its favour were repealed, and the whole fabric which James I and Charles I reared up was “demolished and razed to its foundation. The Presbyterian form of church government was re-modelled according to its pure and primitive form: its several judicatories were constituted anew in their regular gradation of supreme and subordinate courts: it had obtained the Royal sanction as the national religion in the Scottish Parliament in 1641.” Blackader’s Memoirs, p.24.
In his student days in Glasgow, Mr Blackader would have seen a great deal of opposition to Episcopacy in the University. Many students who were ready for license, obtained license from ministers who constituted themselves in Presbyteries, without the consent or knowledge of the Bishops, and several were licensed in Ireland, a place which had proved, at this time, an asylum for Presbyterian ministers, at the time of persecution. In the University there were many regents and students who testified their aversion to the prelatic ritual, by withdrawing from religious ordinances, because they could not submit to the posture of kneeling, enjoined by the Articles of Perth, to be observed at the administration of the Lord’s Supper. All these things were brought to an end by the Glasgow Assembly of 1638, so that when Mr Blackader was ordained at Troqueer in 1652 Presby-
terianism was established as the government of the Church of Scotland, and the galling yoke of Prelacy was removed.
Before Mr Blackader was settled in Troqueer the Church of Scotland was rent in two by the fierce disputes between the Resolutioners and the Protesters, but so acceptable was he that the most cordial harmony prevailed at his election. In his congregation, however, he found the Cause of Christ very low. The people were very much given to profanity and vice, and, at the very beginning he had to exercise a strict discipline, for even the elders had lapsed into the vices of the times. This made it necessary to eliminate from the Kirk Session those whose lives did not accord with their profession. In his Sabbath and week-day preaching he chose texts which were best suited for the instruction, re proving, and guiding of his people. Here he laboured for nine years, and during that time his parish underwent a complete change. Instead of profanity and vice the people became sober and the worship of God was conducted in most families so that there was hardly a family which did not possess a Bible, and many became eminent and consistent Christians.
However, with the Restoration of King Charles II matters rapidly changed. Although he had sworn the National Covenant he soon forgot his obligations, and his intentions with regard to ecclesiastical government in Scotland were soon known. Unsteadfast and perfidious, like the rest of the Stuart dynasty, he soon turned his back on those who were largely instrumental in placing him on the throne, and for many years the Lord’s people were persecuted even unto death. Presbytery was overthrown and hated prelacy was put in its place. When these matters began to take shape, Mr Blackader was at his post, instructing his people in the Scriptural form of church government, and thus became odious to the innovating party. His troubles from now onward increased, so that when it became evident that he would have to leave his charge, he thought himself called upon to warn his people against countenancing the ministry of those who should be introduced by the Bishops. On the last Sabbath of October, 1662, he preached his farewell sermon. On this Sabbath more than three hundred and fifty parish churches were closed in the south and west of Scotland.
After leaving Troqueer Mr Blackader went to stay in Glencairn, a distance of ten miles from his parish church. Here he continued to preach to large numbers until he was denounced “as a person guilty of dangerous and unlawful practices, leavening the people with disaffection, and alienating the hearts of the lieges from His Majesty’s Government.” Rather than risk being apprehended, he took his journey to Edinburgh where there was more likelihood
of concealment than in the country. Here he remained for a considerable time, taking part with other outed ministers at private meetings where a few of the Lord’s people gathered. It was during his stay in Edinburgh that he preached at a conventicle at Beath-hill above Dunfermline on 18th June, 1670, which greatly roused the ire of those in authority, but encouraged the godly throughout the land. During the next three years of his life he spent the time preaching here and there, sometimes alone, and at other times with Welsh, Riddel, Cargil, and others. About the year 1677 the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper began to be celebrated in the open fields, and Mr Blackader took his fair share of the work and the risk with which it was attended. Some years before this he was outlawed, and a reward offered to any who would apprehend him. This caused him to live at times on the Borders and at other times to lurk about Edinburgh in disguise, and when he went abroad to preach he always rode with a body-guard of horse to protect him. When that which is known as the third Indulgence was given, Mr Blackader still continued to preach in the fields, sometimes to congregations as many as three thousand. The Indulgence was of no use to him, and was but short-lived in any case. None were permitted to preach at house-meetings without license from the Council, and field-meetings were a capital offence. “No minister was to be settled in his former parish, lest the people, under pretence of indissoluble relation, should totally abandon their orthodox and orderly pastor settled by law.” Here we have an example of the tender mercies of that Episcopacy with which the present Church of Scotland is seeking to unite.
In 1680 Mr Blackader went to Holland, his eldest son commencing to study medicine at the University of Leyden. After visiting the Hague, Amsterdam, and other cities, he stayed for fifteen weeks at Rotterdam, preaching every Sabbath. What a relief it must have been for him during this time, preaching the pure gospel without fear of being disturbed. Here he was instrumental in bringing harmony between two opposing sections of the Scottish settlers in Holland. Shortly after his return to Scotland he visited his old parish of Troqueer, where he preached to a large concourse of people from Annandale, Galloway, Nithsdale, and almost the whole town of Dumfries. His last public preaching was in East Lothian, where he preached on a hill opposite the Bass Rock. On the following Tuesday he was arrested in his own house in Edinburgh, and imprisoned. He was sentenced to captivity on the Bass Rock and was brought there on 7th April, 1681.
After more than four years on the Bass, Mr Blackader’s health broke down, but, after a petition from his friends to allow him to come to his own house in Edinburgh, the only mitigation of his confinement was to allow him to go into captivity in the “Tolbooth of Haddington or Dunbar as he shall choose.” In response to a second petition the Council gave him liberty to confine himself to the town of Edinburgh, but before this liberty could be effected, he gained a more glorious liberty. He died on the Bass and was buried in the churchyard of North Berwick. Truly Mr Blackader died a martyr’s death at the hands of that prelacy which shed so much of the blood of Christ’s witnesses in Scotland. Alas! that the contendings of these brave men of the Covenant should be so far forgotten in our day as to present the sad spectacle of their descendants manifesting that they are all too ready to embrace that prelacy which was viewed by their ancestors with so much abhorrence.
“POWER WITHOUT GLORY” *
The author of this book is the Professor of Systematic Theology in Glasgow University. At the time of issuing the book, he was also Moderator of the Presbytery of Glasgow. Professor Henderson’s theology is suspect, as his liking for Barth and Tillich make evident, but his position in the Church of Scotland and his knowledge of the various movements within that body, give his statements in this book an authority which his opponents have found difficult to gainsay.
Professor Henderson is very critical of the concept of the one church as a single external organisation. He feels that in order to gain this, the supporters of the Ecumenical Movement have not scrupled to use power politics, and to adopt language in which to express their achievements and aims which renders it very difficult for the ordinary reader to understand exactly what is happening. Even a theologian like Doctor Charles Davis, who left the Roman Catholic Church, states, “As for paper documents, I sometimes think there is need for a new science of Vaticanology in order to discover which pressure-groups have succeeded in getting their way, and to interpret in the light of the current Roman background, the more cryptic references to opinions vaguely reprobated.” In like manner, the views and decisions of ecumenical groups are stated to be the “Mind of the Holy Spirit,” or “The Will of God for the generation,” without any demonstration or proof of these particular claims. Similarly, when Roman Catholics now
* Power Without Glory. A study in ecumenical politics, by Ian Henderson. 30/-.
call Protestants “Separated Brethren,” instead of “Heretics,” this is hailed as a welcome “change of atmosphere,” while in reality it means nothing but the use of a particular kind of language. The “change of atmosphere,” between the spider and the fly had sad consequences for the fly!
Dr Henderson gives a brief account of the Ecumenical Movement which need not detain us here. It will be sufficient to say that he rightly stresses the immense influence of the Anglican Communion, with its false doctrine of Apostolic Succession and its emphasis on the claims of Episcopacy. He further points out that the World Council of Churches, which was formed in Amsterdam in 1948, has committed itself to a ruthless and inveterate attack on denominations. Denominationalism is regarded as disobedience and sin, and is alleged to be an expression of disunity. But no inquiry is made as to where divine truth lies in these denominations, most of which came into existence professing to conserve the truth or some part of it. This is one of the worst features of the Ecumenical Movement. It is a loud call to people to be disloyal to their denominations, not because of errors contained therein, but in the interest of a one World Wide Church. This conception of a World Wide Church, therefore, means the obliteration of denominations, and must inevitably lead to the persecution of those who refuse to comply. This spirit operates in the Roman Catholic Church in places where she has the necessary political power. Those who do not conform to the one church are due for extinction. When the deeply-cherished aim of the Ecumenicals to unite the World Council of Churches with the Church of Rome is attained, the dissenting bodies must face the problem of religious persecution. If the present movements in Britain are successful, Dr. Henderson expects to find himself without a Church and deprived of the sacraments.
We may pass by Dr. Henderson’s interpretations of the events of the First and Second Reforms and of the Disruption. The present writer does not agree with many of his views. Of much greater interest is his account of the Ecumenical Movement within the Church of Scotland, of which he has specialist knowledge. He states, “For the Church of Scotland, with its million odd members, to submit to the terms of the Scottish Episcopal Church with its 56,000 members, is what the Ecumenical party in the Church of Scotland wish.” How did this almost incredible situation arise, and how did the 1967 General Assembly allow it to continue, by repudiating the efforts made to secure that all negotiations with the episcopal body would conserve the constitution of the Church of Scotland?
Dr Henderson attributes a great deal to the success of Anglican Imperialism. His view is that the diplomacy of the Anglicans is far superior in political skill and ecclesiastical management to that of other communions, and that they have the undoubted advantage of some well-defined aims. Basically, their primary aim is the extinction of all Protestant (i.e. non-episcopally-ordained) ministers. This is done or is to be done in one of two ways. The South India method secures the strangling of all Protestant ministers at birth, by the simple expedient of securing the presence and operation of an Anglican-consecrated bishop at their ordination. These ministers are thus episcopally ordained. The ministers in such a church who have not been episcopally ordained after this manner are left to die off in the process of time. The alternative method is called the North India plan, in which non-anglican ministers are ordained or re-ordained by Anglican bishops at an inauguration service. By either of these methods, bishops become essential factors of the Church in the ordination of ministers, contrary to the practice of the Word of God which requires “the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery” for proper ordination in ordinary circumstances.
The Power struggle by Anglican Imperialism has also a timetable for the extinction of Protestant churches. First come the churches in the former English colonies and in England itself. These do not present great difficulty in view of the numerical strength of anglicans in these countries. America and Europe are different problems. In the former, the Anglicans are a marked minority, while they simply do not exist in the latter. “It is therefore clear that in the anglican power drive Scotland and Canada have an important position. They represent the soft under-belly of Protestantism.”
The contempt of the Anglicans for the Presbyterian Church of Scotland was clearly shown in the part given to the Moderator of the General Assembly in the Coronation of 1953. The Moderator on this occasion was Dr Pitt-Watson, one of the ablest leaders of the Ecumenical party and a signatory to the notorious Bishops Report. The part allotted to him by Archbishop Fisher was pathetic in its brevity. He had to say a few words and hand a Bible to the Queen and, during this performance he, as the representative of the Church of Scotland, knelt in a place of worship, but did not kneel to God. At the Communion service, the elements of bread and wine were deliberately with-held from him by the English Archbishop. Dr Fisher took good care to see that when he asked Dr Pitt-Watson to take part in the Coronation, he was carefully excluded from communion because he was a Presbyterian. Most of the details of this humiliating
incident were kept secret by the Anglicans and their ecumenical fellow-travellers in the Church of Scotland.
Professor Henderson deals in detail with what he calls the “Holland House Affair.” His factual account of the events which led to the formation of what was called the “Grey Document,” with its proposal for episcopal ordination of all future Church of Scotland ministers, together with a Binding Covenant to unite with the Scottish Episcopal Church under bishops in 15 years time, is a sad revelation of the tortuous methods adopted by ecumenicals to get their own way at all costs. This scheme was shattered, however, by the Grey Document being put into the hands of the Scottish Daily Express, whose immediate exposure of the proposals “impaled the ecumenical party on the horns of an exceedingly painful dilemma.” They had either to proceed with the scheme or to put the Covenant into cold storage for a more convenient occasion. The latter course was decided to be the more advantageous and was acted on. There is little doubt but that the exposure of the Express prevented an attempt being made to put the former plan through the General Assembly of 1966.
The success of the Express in this connection not only made it the object of attack by Church of Scotland ecumenicals, but also attracted abuse from bishops in the Church of England. The obvious disappointment of the Church of England clergy in the failure of their latest take-over bid is seen in their willingness to launch abusive attacks without supplying concrete evidence for the statements made by them. Both the Bishops of Peterborough and of Bristol felt it necessary to speak out. The latter spoke during the Convocation of Canterbury and blamed the Express for the rejection of the Craig Bishops Report, going on to say, “The Scottish Edition of a popular daily newspaper vitiated all discussion, and still does by shrill vituperation and gross distortion.” The impudence of these English ecclesiastics apparently knows no bounds, as Dr Henderson quite convincingly proves that the distortion of events certainly does not lie on the Express but elsewhere.
Dr Henderson goes on to show from the Tirrell Case, the contempt in which the Scottish Episcopal Church holds the Sacraments and ministry of the Church of Scotland, and concludes with the following forecast of the next attempt to effect union with the episcopals under the unscriptural rule of bishops.” The chances of an anglican take-over bid getting through the Presbyteries are rather less than its chance of getting through the Assembly. If it succeeds in gaining a majority in the Assembly and among the Presbyteries, an appeal will almost certainly be made to the civil courts. The Presbyterian constitution of the
Church of Scotland is written into the legislation of the Treaty of Union, which has some claim to be considered as the constitutional law of Scotland.” This forecast merely confirms what we have already stated in our recent article on Revisionism in the Church.
The dangers inherent in the ecumenical movement, which the Free Presbyterian Church has been witnessing against, are now at our very door-step. Through instruction in the doctrine, worship and government of the Church is needed at all times but never more than at the present, while prayer at the Throne of Grace must constantly be offered up seeking that the Lord would overthrow the determined schemes of the promoters of a false and unscriptural Church unity.
D. MacLean.
A MINISTER’S SPIRITUAL EXERCISE
Your fellow-soldier,
WILLIAM HILL.