Lecture given by Rev. D. MacLean, Glasgow, in St. Jude’s Hall on 2nd January, 1967
(Continued from page 161)
Now there is one thing I would like to mention under this heading of the testimony of Jesus, and that is, of course, church government. This is a very important matter—very important indeed. The form of church government which is set forth in the Word of God is that form which we call Presbyterianism. That form of church government contains first of all two types of office-bearer: (i) the elder, and (ii) the deacon. The deacon, as we know, and we need not mention very much more about that, is an office-bearer who was appointed in apostolic days to attend to the temporal needs of the cause of Christ, to relieve the elderhood from the necessity of attending to these temporal needs, so that they might devote themselves to meditation and prayer and preaching the Word of God. That is the function of the deacon. That is what he is there for. Now the office of the elder is divided into two functions, and the first function is that of ruling elder and the second function is that of teaching elder. The Scripture makes it plain that the teaching elder is also a ruling elder. We read in connection with them, “Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially they who labour in the word and doctrine.” Now the elderhood from its ruling point of view is composed of ministers and elders, ruling together according to the Word of God. There are one or two points that need some clarification in connection with those men who are appointed to rule. In the case of the minister he is called by the congregation. He is set and inducted by a presbytery over a congregation. That is his position. The position of the elders is that they are elected by the communicants in the congregation to their office. The minister and elders, met in kirk session, having a rule over a congregation, are the ruling body of that congregation. The principle is, they are to rule according to the Word of God. And as long as they rule according to the Word of God, they cannot be interfered with. You see when we elect persons to parliament, in a democracy such as we have, if we are not pleased with what they do, then when an election crops up we can put them out, because they are there according to the will of the people. That is the fundamental principle of democracy, so called. But when you come to the church, it is not the will of the people but the will of God described in His Word that the rulers have to look to, and that the rulers have to carry out; and the function of the people is to “obey them that have the rule over you,” when they rule according to divine truth, when they do what in their view is for the good of the congregation. I think it is very important that this should be emphasised again and again, because a great deal of trouble has been caused in our Church and in other churches by not understanding this. When Church courts make decisions and do these in a way that I am going to explain in a moment, they are doing that and acting in that way according to the testimony of Christ, and the rule lies in their hands. They are responsible to Christ for carrying out their duties in connection with the cause of Christ in this world, and their rule is to be the Word of God. Now with regard to the people the Scripture teaches this, “Obey them that have the rule over you,” and gives a mark concerning those who have the rule that should make it as clear as the sun in the sky to the people as to what principle moves the rulers of the Church. “Obey them that have the rule over you,” and this is the reason, “for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief.” Now, that shows that the joy and grief that the rulers of the church have is joy and grief at the throne of grace, where they complain to the Lord with regard to the disobedience of those who do not conform to the rule of the Church of God in this world. It is not very difficult to discover, who are the people who are watching for souls, who are concerned, really concerned, with the welfare of souls that are going to death and eternity, and who discharge their ministry conscious of the fact that they have to account to Christ before the “great white throne.”
The Order of Deaconesses
In connection with this rule, as you know, in other churches there has arisen a most sad and deplorable state of affairs and that is this: there has been an invasion by women into the rule in the Church and into office in the Church. That is a very serious thing whatever people may think of it. There is in the Church of Scotland and other churches what is called an order of deaconesses. Now I defy anyone to prove from the Word of God that there should be such an order. We are told about the elders, what their qualifications are to be, and what their duties are. We are told about deacons, what their qualifications are, what their duties are. It is very, very strange that if there was to be an order of deaconesses in the apostolic church that we never heard of it. That is confirmed by the fact that by the express declaration of “the testimony of our Lord” and of “me His prisoner,” of the Apostle Paul, women are excluded from rule and from teaching in the Church of God. The Apostle says, as you remember, in his first epistle to Timothy, “I suffer not.” He is not giving his opinion. He is speaking according to the mind of the Spirit of God, and according to Christ’s mind as the Head of the Church. “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” Both teaching and ruling are excluded as far as women are concerned. Now the reason for that has nothing to do with the view that the Apostle Paul had of women, nor has it anything to do with the view that others may have had of women at that time in the history of the world. It is amazing that men who call themselves scholars can be advocating this opinion and writing it in books, and demonstrating their own crass ignorance of what the Bible says. The Apostle Paul tells us why women are excluded from teaching. “For,” he says, “Adam was first formed, then Eve.” They are excluded because of creation. They are excluded because of the nature of creation. They are excluded because it was in the nature of creation that the woman would be a help to the man, not a leader, not a teacher, but a help to the man, and a help suitable to the man, and that in the service of God. Therefore the Apostle says, “For Adam was first formed.” Because this is the very nature of creation, apart from the Church at all, that “Adam was first formed, then Eve,” women are excluded from the rule and teaching in the Church. And the second reason is this: that “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Now what does that mean? Well, it means this. When the serpent came to Eve, and Satan through the serpent attacked man, that he attacked man through the woman, and he attacked him through the woman in this way, by making the woman take the lead. She took the lead in sin. She was deceived “in the transgression,” he says here. “Adam was not deceived,” but she was deceived, and the root of her being deceived was that she took the lead. She took the rule, and when she did so she fell, and she brought Adam down with her. To have women entering into the eldership of the Church of Scotland, and eventually into the ministry of the Church of Scotland, is nothing but the work of the devil, and it is the work of the devil to destroy that Church. I know very well what people say, that women are pious, women are zealous, women are this and women are the next thing. Very well, let them exercise their piety and their zeal in other directions, but let them keep away from the rule of the Church and away from the teaching office in the Church. You will find, and it would be very easy for me to demonstrate even from the history of our own Church, that when women begin to interfere in the rule of the Church, and set themselves above kirk sessions and ministers, there is nothing in it but the work of the devil. The Word of God makes that perfectly plain, and it is a principle in our Church, and it is a principle that will be observed in our Church, let people say what they will. There is to be no trifling with regard to this particular matter. Women are not going to rule in the Church of God. That is a principle that we stand for, and a principle that we are going to stand for, and going to continue to stand for, because, as I said, when the woman took the lead at the beginning, she fell into sin, and Adam fell also, although that did not excuse him. But because of that incident, and very much more bound up with it, women are excluded both from the office of rule and the office of teaching in the Church, and it would be their wisdom to remember that, and their wisdom to keep their own place in the Church of God.
Presbyterian Rule Structure
Then, in the Presbyterian rule, there is the rule of a kirk session in a congregation, and presbyteries over a certain number of congregations in the locality, and a Synod or a General Assembly over the whole Church. Now this rule involves that there is a parity in the teaching elders. The teaching elder, by virtue of his calling, preaches and administers the sacraments. I may here remark that the Scripture teaches us that the bishop and the elder are one and the same office, and that in connection with the teaching elder, all ministers with regard to office are equal. Therefore, when ministers are ordained, they are ordained in a presbytery. They are ordained by “the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.” They are not ordained by the laying on of hands of a bishop who is above his brother ministers. Such an office does not exist in the Church of God at all, and it only came into the Church after apostolic times. When it did come in, it found its final form in the “antichrist,” “the son of perdition,” the Pope of Rome. But let us remember with regard to teaching elders as far as their office and status are concerned, they are equal. They are equal in authority, they are equal in the exercises of their offices: to preach, to administer the ordinances, to act with their brother elders in kirk sessions and presbyteries and synods, and if there is a large enough Church, in a General Assembly. There is no question of bishops, or of people taking authority that does not belong to themselves and ruling over God’s heritage, and exercising a lordly type of authority.
Discipline
That brings me to the question of discipline. The courts of the Church are there for the protection of the Word of God, for the protection of the preaching of God’s Word, for the protection of the ordinances of grace, for the protection of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. That is what they are there for, and they are to exercise their rule and authority according to the Word of God, and do it together according to the Word of God. In that connection I must notice this and stress this. When a person is disciplined by a church court, whether it is a session, or a presbytery, or a synod, the discipline of the church is ministerial. That is to say, it is to help the person to come back to repentance. One of the things I wish people would understand is this. If a person is disciplined, the intention of the Church, and the practice of the Church is that that discipline would be of such a nature that through the blessing of the Lord the person would be brought to repentance. That is the first principle. If the person does not repent, then he is excluded. That is the second principle. It is not like the discipline of the Army or the Navy or the Air Force which is lordly. The discipline of the Army and the Navy was discipline which told a person to do a thing, and if he did not do it, he was punished. Whether he repented or not did not come into it. But when the Church takes to do with an offender, and finds the offender guilty, the discipline is ministerial, intended to help the person back to repentance. Now it does not help the person to repent, if he finds out after he has been disciplined, that there are people and office-bearers in the Church who are taking his side, or her side. A great deal of damage is done by that kind of thing. If a person is disciplined by the Church, the Word of God is clear. We are not to cut them off, but we ought to make it perfectly plain that they are under the discipline of the Church. When you get people secretly sympathising with people who have been disciplined in the Church, that is a vitiation of Presbyterianism, and it is not Christian conduct. The aim of discipline is to bring the person, under a sense of shame and confession of their sins, to repent before the Lord, and in view of their repentance to come back, and when they come back, though they would be a prodigal son or a prodigal daughter, they will find the Church of God willing to welcome them on the ground of their repentance. That is important.
Passing Down the Testimony
I must pass on now from the testimony of Jesus to say a few words in regard to its being passed down. You know that after apostolic times there was a great falling away. The first three or four centuries after the apostolic church was set up, there was a great decay. Decay of life, decay of doctrine, and decay of church government. It was during that time that the question of bishops rose up, and then the Bishop of Rome seized an opportunity to raise himself to be the chief bishop over other bishops. Not only were there bishops over ordinary ministers, but now he was the chief bishop over all the bishops in the Christian world. At least he claimed that, and during that time the Church sank into the misery and darkness of what is called the Dark Ages—until the Reformation came. Now the Reformation was a return to the Word of God. It was a Reformation that cleansed the Church from errors in doctrine, errors in worship and errors in government. There was no country in which that light shone more clearly than in this land of yours and mine—Scotland. John Knox could stand with Calvin and Luther and Zwingli and all, for piety, for faithfulness to Christ, for his grasp of the Word of God; and those who assisted him were also men of piety. The light of the gospel, and that is what we confine ourselves to, shone in Scotland as clearly, if not more clearly, than it did in any part of Christendom. Now during that period of decline that I’ve referred to, from the apostolic ages down, many heresies came into the Church. There was Arianism, which denied the Eternal Sonship of Christ, and the Person of the Holy Spirit; there was Pelagianism, which denied the corruption of man, and so on. From time to time the Lord raised up men like Athanasius and Augustine and so on, to defend the doctrines of truth, and the result was that a series of creeds began to develop in the Church. These creeds were expressions of the true view of the Scripture, and of the doctrines of Scripture, against which others were contending. When the Reformation came, the Church saw the necessity of having a creed. In 1560, we had the Scots Confession, which was mostly written by John Knox. The intention of the creed was to give an expression of the Church’s view of the doctrines of God’s Word referred to in the creed. They were set down there. This was the Church’s view in contradistinction to the heresies and errors that had arisen, and consequently those who were office-bearers in the Church—ministers, elders, and deacons—were required to acknowledge that this creed or this confession was a confession of their faith, and only in respect of doing that could they hold their position in the Church. Then in 1647, as you remember, the Scots Confession was replaced by the Westminster Confession of Faith, which was the clearest exposition of the doctrines of Christianity the world has ever seen since apostolic times. There is no question whatsoever about that. Those who are enemies to the Westminster Confession of Faith are enemies to Christianity, and to the Bible, because the Westminster Confession of Faith is based upon the Word of God. Therefore, the Church in Scotland, in handing on its testimony, the testimony of an inspired Bible, was also handing on the testimony of the creed of the Westminster Confession of Faith. The form of Church government, as I have mentioned already, was Presbyterianism. That was handed down through the generations. When we come to 1843, when the Church of Scotland Free separated from the State Church, this had nothing whatever to do with the doctrines of Christianity concerning salvation. It had to do with the interference of the State in the duties of the courts of the Church. The State was prepared to put ministers in congregations whom the courts of the Church did not want there. That was an interference with the spiritual jurisdiction of the courts of the Church, and therefore the Church of Scotland Free, that is, free from State control, separated from the Established Church in 1843, which event is called the Disruption. If you ask the question, Where was the true Church of Scotland, where was the Church of Rutherford and Henderson, where was the Church of Knox and Melville, in 1843, the answer, I think, would be that it was in the Free Church of 1843. The spiritual jurisdiction of the Church involving the Headship of Christ had been maintained and sustained in that historic event of 1843, called the Disruption. When this Church was formed, as you know, there were eminent men of God in it, like Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Duncan, and others with whom you are familiar. But it is one of the ironies of Church History that in this land of ours, in Scotland, where we enjoyed so much of the light of the Reformation and enjoyed so much of the light of the gospel, that after 1843 there came into the Free Church ministers who were not men of God, who did not love the Confession of Faith and who wished to change it. There is one point I would like to make clear about this. This movement in Scotland was not confined to Scotland. Some people like to give the impression, you know, about the Free Presbyterian Church, that it is some little offshoot that is of no importance. It is not mentioned in modern history book nowadays. The movement towards weakening the Westminster Confession of Faith, and weakening the testimony of Jesus in the Westminster Confession of Faith, was a world-wide movement. There was in the Presbyterian Church in England at that very time in that century a movement to consider their relationship to the Confession of Faith. In Australia they had a Declaratory Act, in New Zealand the Presbyterian Church had a Declaratory Act, and in the U.S.A. after the turn of the century, the Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. had a Declaratory Act too. This movement leading up to the Declaratory Act of 1892 was a world-wide movement. Rather than change the Westminster Confession of Faith, these Churches all adopted the same device, to publish an Act Declaratory, an Act that declared and set forth the Church’s views of certain sections of the Westminster Confession of Faith. That Act Declaratory, or Declaratory Act, was of this nature—the explanation it gave of the Church’s view of the Westminster Confession of Faith, was not the view of the men who wrote the Confession. It was, in other words, a new creed. Now when the Free Church in 1892 passed the Declaratory Act into a binding law and constitution in that Church, it ceased from that moment to be the Church of Scotland Free. It became the Church of Scotland Free plus the Declaratory Act. It became the Church of Scotland Free, or Free Church of Scotland, with a changed creed, and therefore it ceased to be the Free Church of Scotland of 1843. In other words, it ceased to pass on to the “generations yet to come” the testimony of Jesus, and of Paul, His prisoner, and the testimony of the Reformers in this land of ours, and the Westminster Confession of Faith with its body of doctrine. It ceased to do that in 1892. Because there was a party in the Free Church called the Constitutionalists Party, who were fighting, according to what they said themselves, for the Constitution, and because they said that they were going to try to get the Declaratory Act of 1892 repealed in 1893, those who were against the Declaratory Act waited till 1893 to see what the result would be. The late Rev. Finlay Macleod, Dornoch, told me on one occasion that Rev. Neil Cameron said to him that he had felt great darkness in his mind when he was under conviction of sin, that he had felt great darkness in his mind with regard to many temptations, but that he never felt such darkness in his mind as he felt between May 1892 and May 1893. And why? Because Christ did not have a Church in Scotland at that time, during that year. The Free Church was gone. It had passed the Declaratory Act. Its testimony was now the testimony of the Declaratory Act, not the testimony of the Lord, and not the testimony of the Reformers. It was a new testimony altogether. Between May 1892 and May 1893, Mr Cameron felt to be the darkest year in the history of his life. Here was a man who knew and understood what the testimony of the Church of God was. He did not just have a sentimental attachment to it. He felt it in his own soul. Until 1893, when Rev. D. MacFarlane put down his Protest and separated from the Declaratory Act Church to retain the Church that had been forsaken in 1892, there was no relief for Mr Cameron’s mind, and that was true of Godly men and women throughout the length and breadth of this land. Church historians may ignore them, but the God of Heaven did not ignore them, neither will He forsake those who are of the same mind as they were. When Mr MacFarlane, in 1893, came forward and made his Protest, he meant by this, a Protest on behalf of a testimony. Mr MacFarlane’s Protest in the General Assembly of 1893 in the Declaratory Act Free Church was just this: it was a stand on behalf of the testimony of the Reformed Church of Scotland and of the Free Church of 1843. It was on behalf of “the testimony of our Lord,” of Paul, of Isaiah, and Jeremiah, as surely as anything else that was ever done in this world. That Protest was on behalf of testimony, that Protest of Mr MacFarlane’s, conserved for this land and conserved for you and for me in the Free Presbyterian Church, “the testimony of our Lord” and “of me His prisoner,” the testimony of the Reformers, and the testimony of the leaders of the Disruption. When in 1893 you look for the Church of Scotland Reformed, you go to the Established Church and you will not find it there, you go to the then Free Church and you will not find it there as they have the Declaratory Act. You come to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and that is where you would find it then, and that is where you will find it today, let people say what they like, inside, or outside the Church. That testimony was conserved, and let me make this quite plain, that when Mr MacFarlane left, and Mr MacDonald went with him together with Mr Cameron and Mr Sinclair and the other Godly men and Godly women, they left to set up and to retain the Church of Scotland Free, the principles of the Reformed Church of Scotland and “the testimony of our Lord” and “of me His prisoner,” as Paul says here. When we left the Declaratory Act Free Church, we left every one of them behind, not only Dr. Rainy and his party, but the Constitutionalist party as well. Although certain of the Constitutionalist party left in 1900 to form what they now call the Free Church, we left them behind in 1893, and we never saw any reason to come any nearer since that date. Let people remember this in connection with the Free Church. When the leaders of the present Free Church decided to remain and not join with the United Free Church, they maintained that they had always held to the constitution, and that constitutes a historical deadlock between us and the present Free Church. There is no use saying, “Oh, we both sing psalms, and we both do this and that and the next thing.” There are far more important principles involved than mere outward signs—far more. Furthermore, the spirit of the testimony of the Church must be a spirit of cleaving to “the testimony of our Lord” and “of me His prisoner,” as Paul says here. That is what we seek to do, and that is what is to be passed down through the generations.
The Pure Church
Now I should like to mention this. A great deal is said about us wanting to have a pure Church as though we meant by this a Church pure in membership consisting of the regenerate only. That is not a principle of Presbyterianism. It arises from a complete misunderstanding of what we mean when we are talking about a pure Church. When we are talking about a pure Church, we are not talking about the membership of the Church. We are talking about the doctrine of the Church, about the worship of the Church, and about the government of the Church. We say that they should be pure, we say that they should be founded upon the Word of God, and we say that unless they are founded upon the Word of God, then you do not have what you can even call a Church that is consistent with the Word of God in doctrine, worship and practice. Certainly, if the doctrine is pure, and the worship is pure, and the practice is pure, we expect that the standard of communicants among Free Presbyterians will be commensurate with the privileges that they enjoy. People should not be living below their privileges in their lives, and in their walk, and in their conversation. They should not be doing so. We know very well, for Christ has told us, that there are wheat and tares in the Church. The Gospel net brings in not only good fish but bad fish, and it is for every man and woman in the Church who is professing grace to make sure that they themselves are on the right foundation. As long as their walk and life and conversation are consistent, then we are not to pull up people, although we would think that they were tares. You see the disciples knew that there were tares, but as long as their walk and life and conversation were consistent, then there was to be no pulling up of tares, just because of the personal opinion of certain of His servants. They were to be left there until the harvest, and Christ will deal with them then. But do not let us confuse the issue. We do hold to the purity of the Church with regard to its doctrine, its worship, and its practice. We hold to that with all our heart and mind.
Movements Outside Our Church
That brings me to notice this, the movements that have taken place outside our Church. For instance, in the Church of Scotland, which interests us because it professes to be the national Church here as you know, the Declaratory Act led to breaches being made in doctrine, and you cannot go into a Church of Scotland now and be sure that you will hear the Gospel at all. You will have difficulty in finding a place where you will hear the glorious Gospel of Christ, as far as the Church of Scotland is concerned. That doctrinal decline led to a decline with regard to love of Presbyterianism, and some in the Church of Scotland, as you know, are trying to do their best to get bishops into the Church. Why? They want bishops to effect union with the Scottish Episcopal Church. Why anyone wants to join with that Church, of course, baffles me. It never had a revival in all its days. Then through that union they will join the Church of England, and of course the Church of England is going to join with the Church of Rome. That is plain. Anybody can see that. But it is essential that Presbyterianism goes out, and that is why there have been so many attacks recently on Presbyterianism. Professor Reid of Aberdeen University says this, that no Presbyterian now holds to the divine right of presbytery. That is not true. We hold to it. He may not, but we do. Anyone who reads Witherow’s “Apostolic Church” knows how these principles are founded upon the Word of God. But the whole idea is to move away from true Presbyterianism in the Church of Scotland in order to have bishops, then join the Church of England, and then join the Church of Rome. You see we are going right back into the Dark Ages. In sub-apostolic times there was a doctrinal decline, the abolishment of presbytery, the raising up of bishops, and then the Pope, “the son of perdition” and the “antichrist” appeared. At the Reformation he was given a grievous wound, and he has lain under that grievous wound until now; and now those Godless, graceless, Christless men who are in the ministry of the Church of Scotland and the Church of England are wanting the Churches back under the Pope, and they are determined to go right back into the Dark Ages.
Conclusion
Now, we read here, and I must come to a conclusion, “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.” Why should we be ashamed of it? Ashamed of the inspired and infallible Word of God; ashamed of the glorious Son of the Everlasting Father, the Saviour Who is able to save to the very uttermost all “that come unto God by Him;” ashamed of the work of the Holy Spirit Who will make the souls of God’s people shine in everlasting glory with the image of Christ; ashamed of the preaching of the everlasting Gospel, the true preaching of it, that warns sinners and deals with their understandings, deals with their consciences and deals with their souls; ashamed of the proper worship of God enjoyed by His people in which they have tasted and seen that God is good! Surely we should not be ashamed of it, we ought to be prepared to endure “the afflictions of the gospel.” Afflictions there are, and afflictions there will be; and we can be quite assured of this, that once these movements for unity get under way we are next to be dealt with. There are no approaches made to us with regard to union; we are to be dispensed with. Let there be no doubt whatever about that. Therefore it is essential for young men and young women to take an interest in the position and standing of their Church; and I want to say this with regard to this particular point, that never, not in memory, and I do not think in the memory of any living person, has there been so many young men and young women professing Christ as at the present time in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It is a welcome sign, and some of us welcome it very much indeed. But what we are anxious about is, that these young people should not just be coming and going to and from Church, nor that they should just be living according to the Word of God in their walk and life and conversation, but it is absolutely necessary for them that they be well-instructed, that they have the “sound mind,” well-instructed in the Word of God, well-instructed in the principles of the Free Presbyterian Church, in order to defend these principles. There is no doubt that they, and not the older people, will bear the brunt of doing this, although I would like, speaking for myself, to be with them and to share with them their difficulties when the time comes. In the meantime, you young men and young women must be solidly informed and solidly grounded in the principles for which we stand. Do not be taken aside by gossips and ignorant people: pay no attention to such. You stick to the principles of the Church, and not to sentiment. The Free Presbyterian Church will have enough to meet with in enduring afflictions for its testimony, and it requires that all young men and young women, especially those who have grace, be not content merely with reading books on devotion, merely with coming and going to the means of grace, merely with enjoying fellowship with one another (we do not grudge that to them at all), but they must be sound and well-grounded in the principles on which we stand as a Church, or else they will be swept away when the time of trial comes. That is what we have here. “According to the power of God.” This is what is going to secure the soul. “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear.” Others may fear. Others may be afraid, and when the time of trial comes, perhaps some of the people who have most to say now will be found to be lacking in the necessary courage and discernment and standing when the time comes. “For God,” says the Apostle, “hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power,” strength, “and of love,” love to Christ, love to His cause, love to His people, love to souls, “and of a sound mind”—well-informed, well-instructed, well-grounded, enlightened by the Spirit of Love, so that the sinner understands and receives “with meekness the engrafted Word which is able to save” his soul. It was the view of many who came out at its beginning, that the Free Presbyterian Church would continue to stand, and it will do so, as long as it retains its principles, and as long as it retains in its midst men and women, ministers and elders, deacons and communicants, who not only understand the power of God in their spiritual experience bringing them from “darkness into His marvellous light,” and understand the principles for which we stand, but who love them, and who embrace them, and who are prepared to deny themselves, and to suffer if need be, in connection with them. This is what we should be looking for. While there may be sufferings and there may be trials, let us remember that the Lord is able to turn “the shadow of death” into the light of morning. He is able to do that and He is able to give life to our congregations and able to give a reviving “in the midst of the years,” in wrath to remember mercy. This is what we should be praying for, and this is what we should be seeking, and we believe that God’s people are doing that, who are truly God’s people, and who truly love the Free Presbyterian Church and its testimony, because they believe it is the testimony of Jesus, and of Paul, and of the rest of the people of God. This is what they are concerned with, seeking the welfare of Zion. “Let them that love thee . . . have prosperity.” They that love the prosperity of Zion the Lord will bless them, and there is a union to one another, a union at the throne of grace, pleading for the coming of the Holy Spirit to awaken the dead and revive the living. That will secure to the Free Presbyterian Church an increase in numbers, and an increase in solid, well-informed stable Christians, whose walk and conversation, both in their private lives and in their outward lives, is in accordance with the Word of God, and evidencing that Christ is precious to them, and that the language of their soul is:— “Whom have I in the heavens high But Thee, O Lord, alone? And in the earth whom I desire Besides Thee there is none.” May He bless His word.