By Rev. John Colquhoun, Glendale, Skye
(Continued from page 216)
We may now consider how the carved work has fared in the Church which adopted the Declaratory Act in 1892. As we have already noticed, the carved work in the Free Church was considerably marred by the introduction of uninspired hymns and instrumental music into the worship of the sanctuary, but these were not made a part of the constitution as they were not passed through the Barrier Act of 1697. Had this taken place it would have constituted a sufficient ground of separation on the part of those who were opposed to them. It was different in the case of the Declaratory Act for it had been sent down to the Presbyteries under the Barrier Act, and the majority of the Presbyteries having approved of it, it became a “binding law and constitution” of the Church, binding upon men what the conscience of some could not tolerate. When all hope of rescinding the Act of 1892 was gone, there arose the need of separation in order that the original constitution of the Free Church, and men’s relationship to it would be preserved, and handed down to generations yet unborn.
Those who adopted the Declaratory Act, including those who dissented from it and remained in the Church, were bound by it, whether willing or unwilling. The result was that the down-grade in that Church was greatly accelerated. Heresies were preached unashamedly, without let or hindrance, and even in the congregations of ministers who professed to be conservative, during Communion seasons and on other occasions, these heresies were preached in the hearing of these ministers and they could have no recourse to the Courts of the Church as the offenders were protected by the Declaratory Act. Probationers declaring publicly, before their ordination, that they were taking office under the shelter of the relief afforded by the Declaratory Act had to be ordained, even when the majority, if not all, of the ministers of the Presbytery were dissentients from that Act. In the Colleges the future ministers of the Church were inoculated with the poison the Act of 1892 made lawful, with the result that throughout the whole country men ceased, not only to hear, but to know the gospel in its purity. Practices inconsistent with the gospel were introduced into the most of congregations till these congregations began to vie with places of amusements, and with the merchants stall, in order to keep the people and to collect money in order to support what they were pleased to call “the church.” This brought retribution in its trail for men recognised that they could get better value for their money, according to their own estimation, in the theatre, in the dance hall, and the commercial establishments of the country, with the result that churches became empty, those who patronised them having turned away, fully convinced that religion was a sham. In their desperation ministers and elders had again to resort to man-made church unions with a view to reduce the church buildings, fill those that were to be retained, and make the machinery of the Church more effective. After many years of negotiations the result was the union of the Established Church and the United Free Church of Scotland in 1929 under the name of the Church of Scotland. This, however, did not lessen the number of denominations in Scotland as there was a hard core of Voluntaryism in the United Free Church, taken over from the United Presbyterian Church, to whom any State connection was anathema. These formed the United Free Church Continuing.
This again brings before us the application of axes and hammers to what remained of the carved work in the Established Church. The Established Church, with all its dead Moderatism, had left to it at the Disruption, the Establishment Principle in profession, though with them it developed into a base Erastianism, and an unqualified subscription to the Confession of Faith, on the part of its office-bearers. The Patronage Act had been rescinded in 1874, and ministers were called to congregations by the free vote of the people, which would have been a great advantage and would tend towards church union, had everything else been favourable. The abolition of the Patronage Act was not smiled upon by the leaders of the Free Church. Although Dr Rainy knew well all the harm that Patronage had done, he did all he could privately to prevent it being abolished. It is now well-known that he went to London to persuade Mr Gladstone to oppose the abolition of Patronage, and equally well-known that on an occasion, subsequent to that visit, that influential politician rose in the House of Commons to denounce the Patronage Abolition Bill, declaring that the intention of those who sponsored the Bill was to rob the Free Church of many of her ministers and people, once the Bill was passed.
There was even at this early stage, a modernistic trend appearing in the Established Church. The dead formalism of Moderatism failed to appreciate the inner meaning of the Subordinate Standards, and thus, among the ministers, a generation grew up who did not receive “the things of the Spirit of God,” with the result that they were quite prepared to embrace anything for which “advanced learning” was claimed. In 1905 the leaders of the Establishment, taking advantage of the happenings subsequent to the decision of the House of Lords in the Free Church Case, succeeded in getting a clause inserted in the Churches (Scotland) Bill, enabling the Established Church to change its Formula. This was but the fore-runner of other Acts which played an important part in breaking down what remained of the carved work in the Established Church. These Acts were, first, the Act of 1921 anent spiritual freedom. The freedom sought after, however, was freedom to alter the doctrines of the Church, for it introduced what the Free Church claimed to have already, that is, that it was to be left to the Church for the time being to declare what entered into the substance of the Reformed Faith. The second Act was that of 1925, which by a piece of jesuitical management, enabled the Church of Scotland to retain the emoluments, dependent on a State connection, while they could alter the creed of the Church in a way that would satisfy the most ardent Voluntary in the United Free Church. The Union of 1929, if it can be dignified by that name, took place amongst many bickerings and tremblings, on the part of the Union leaders. There was always the fear that someone might say something that would upset all their plans. For years after 1929 one could see the farce which it was in the spectacle of two congregations in many parishes, and close to each other, under the one minister, ministering on Sabbath morning in the one building, and in the evening in the other building, and hardly one member in the one congregation among the other congregation. The Union, having taken place, it was but the fore-runner of other attempts at Union, and these attempts show the quick steps with which the Church of Scotland travelled on the down-grade.
In 1932 we find ministers of the Church of Scotland fraternising with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Episcopal dignitaries and, though they disclaimed any intention of Union, yet it was clear that it was the beginning of these negotiations which nearly turned the Church of Scotland into an Episcopal Church of Scotland later. When the “Bishops Report,” as it was called, appeared, it was declared that it was with the view of discovering the face of the true Church of Christ in the land, but, in an endeavour to do so, we were significantly counselled not to look to the past. Those who gave this advice had good reason to do so. It was Episcopal Bishops, as the tools of despotic kings, who did most to mar the fair face of the Church of Christ in Scotland, and when they could not do it by Scripture or reason, in their endeavours they had recourse to the brutal atrocities of Claverhouse, Dalziel, and others; the foul dungeons of Blackness and Dunottar, the horrors of transportations to the plantations of Jamaica, and to the excruciating tortures of the boot and the thumbscrews. Truly those who could countenance a union with such a system as our forefathers called “a rotten limb of anti-christ,” manifest an inexcusable ignorance of Scottish Church history, and seemed ready to part with our blood-bought principles for the worthless bauble of a bishop’s crozier. Though they did not succeed at the time, they do not mean to give over. Recently there was a Conference held in Durham between Presbyterians and Episcopalians which, according to report, seemed to indicate a very “amicable spirit.” At the Conference about a hundred churchmen were present, representing the Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of England, and the Episcopal Church in Scotland, and they were in close consultation for three days. In common with other conferences of this nature, which have taken place, it is maintained that church union is not the immediate object, but merely “to get to know each other and to see where the differences really lie.” This explanation, however, should not be taken at its face value, but should be treated with extreme caution when one considers that previous church unions arose out of similar conferences, and that men, when they begin on the down-grade, are always too ready to throw away the fundamentals of religion for what, after all, is but “a mess of pottage,” and to go to greater lengths than they ever dreamed they would go. As the Episcopalian policy is to concede nothing, the only rational conclusion that one can come to is that all the concessions were on the part of the Presbyterians. Time, however, may reveal what these concessions were, but any concessions on the part of Presbyterians to the Prelatical Church will be another blow to the carved work which was once the glory of the Church of Scotland.
That little or nothing of the carved work of the Reformation is now left to the Church of Scotland is clear from the fact that her ministers fraternise in private conferences with priests of the Church of Rome. In the Spring of 1961 one such conference, perhaps not the first, was held so secretly that news of it did not leak out until a considerable time after it took place, and what took place there is still a closely guarded secret. Following this a more official conference was held in Dowanhill Convent, Glasgow, between representatives of the Glasgow Presbytery of the Church of Scotland and high officials of the Church of Rome, and was presided over by the Abbot of Nunraw. The Press does not say whether or not the proceedings were opened by prayer, but the Abbot’s opening words were, “I want to emphasise that this is not a Romeward movement, but a Christward movement. What we are seeking is the truth.” Truly these are good words if they could be divorced from their background. That background, however, is the history of the Church of Rome from the beginning of its apostacy to the present time. Where, it may be asked, in all its history did it show any regard for the truth? and its motto being still semper eadem, it cannot now be said to have any regard for the truth. In any report, which we have seen, of these discussions, we failed to have seen any reference on either side of the conference to the Bible as the truth of God. Benedict and Francois Maurice were quoted, and neither of them gave a very high place to intelligence. The latter is quoted as saying, “Intelligence is but an insignificant thing on the surface of our nature; deep down we are emotional creatures.” This, of course, is quite in line with the Romish dogma that “ignorance is the mother of devotion,” and the truth of God is not what plays on the emotions, but what, in the hand of the Holy Spirit, takes to do with the conscience. Another speaker, on the Romish side, said, in reference to the Second Vatican Council, that the first step, the immediate work, was what the Pope had called, “putting our house in order.” He explained this by saying that he did not mean that they were in a state of disorder, but that the organisation of the Church (presumably the Romish Church) was not geared to the world-saving task that lay before it. How few Protestants today realise that this gearing of the Roman Catholic Church is nothing more or less than the swallowing up of all other Churches, and that the Papacy would rule supreme over the whole world. This has been the aim of the Vatican all along, and its organisation can be traced behind every political move of any consequence in our own land and foreign lands. A notable instance of it is to be found in the efforts made to force Britain into the European Common Market, and the separation of her Colonies from her.
All who hold the Cause of Christ dear to them were astounded when, at the General Assembly of 1961, the proposal was made that the Moderator should pay a “courtesy visit” to the Pope, and such a proposal was lauded up to the skies as the quintessence of Christian charity. No doubt this was hailed in Romanist circles as a great step towards the gratifying of the Roman Church’s ambition to rule the world. With reference to it a Lecturer to a Summer School for priests in Maynooth College said, “More and more our separated brethren will perceive that they need the successor of St. Peter and will come to him in gradual, perhaps almost imperceptible steps, courtesy visits merging into consultative visits, and these into acceptance of a primacy of precedence in direction and guidance.” A Romanist publication, referring to the matter, says, “The Reformation Communions do not have full living relations with the glorified Lord, because they do not receive the nurture from the whole tradition of the Church and from the sacraments.” This would mean that Protestants must accept the Romanist way of approach and, thereby, abandon those glorious truths which the Reformers proclaimed, and by which God revived His Church, and which He acknowledged in the conversion of a countless number from the darkness of a state of nature to the light and liberty which is in Christ Jesus, truths because of which the Church of Rome shed the blood of a noble army of martyrs in Scotland and in other parts of the world, and for the proclaiming of which she follows with the sword of persecution, to this day, Christ’s witnesses wherever she holds power.
The proposed visit, in due time, took place, and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland had a thirty-eight minute audience with the Pope, which was marked, according to the Vatican newspaper Observatore Romano, “by a spirit of extreme cordiality.” In an exchange of gifts the Pope presented Dr. Craig with several Papal medals. It is not irrelevant to ask if, among these medals, there was the one struck in honour of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. It is reported that the Pope told Dr. Craig that “peace was the great necessity of the modern world, but it must be a peace that included liberty and truth.” Such a statement reminds one of the reply of Jehu to Joram, “what peace, so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel and her witchcrafts are so many?” If the Church of Scotland is still a Christian Church why should her ministers have anything to do with the head of a Church which has the blasphemous sacrifice of the Mass by which she denies the finality and all-sufficiency of Christ’s atoning work completed on Calvary, and has burned the Scriptures publicly times without number, and still does that? One may ask, why was it that there was no great outcry against this visit throughout the length and breadth of Scotland? The reason is that the people of Scotland have, over the years that are passed, swallowed the dope which was largely dealt out at the following General Assembly, and which was given support to by the Queen’s Lord High Commissioner, the Earl of Mansfield, when he said, “I know full well there are some in our Church—possibly some among you were—who felt uneasy about the meeting between our last Moderator and the Pope. I am convinced that they need have no qualms at all.” Now we see the sad spectacle of the Church of Scotland with her carved work broken down, and, as if her leaders were determined that the last vestiges of it should be wholly obliterated, a proposal was made that the Westminster Confession should be re-written. When will the people of Scotland awaken to the solemn and serious fact that the Church calling herself the Church of Scotland is not the Church of their ancestors, but a heterogenous conglomeration sheltering all the heresies which men care to proclaim, and accepting all the forms of worship which will accord most with the carnal mind of which we read that it is “enmity against God.”
(To be continued).