One hundred years ago this month, on 25th May, 1893, Rev Donald MacFarlane, minister at Raasay, rose in the Assembly of the Disruption Free Church and tabled his protest against the Declaratory Act which had been passed by that Assembly in 1893. By this action he separated himself from that Church in order to maintain inviolate the testimony of the Disruption Free Church of 1843, and of the Reformed Church in Scotland which had been handed down from Reformation times. It is proper that we should take note of what was done in 1893 as we owe what we now possess of the doctrine, worship, discipline and government of the true Church of God to the courage and strength given to those who, in a dark day, stood on the side of truth and against all error, whatever it might cost them.
We have reason to acknowledge, at such a time as this, what the Lord did for us then and what He has done for us until now. It is not to man that the glory is due, and men like Rev Donald MacFarlane and Rev Donald MacDonald would be the last to take any glory to themselves in it. They would acknowledge with all their heart that it was the Lord’s doing, and that it was wondrous in their eyes. We have no doubt that these men marvelled that the Lord condescended to use such weak instruments, as they knew themselves to be, for the glory of His Name, and for the preservation of His Cause and Kingdom in a day of blasphemy and rebuke. They would say with the Psalmist —
Not unto us, Lord, not to us,
but do thou glory take
Unto thy name, ev’n for thy truth,
and for thy mercy’s sake Psalm 115: 1
Knowing these things, it should humble us in the dust that the Lord was pleased to hand on to us to preserve for us. We ought to recognise our utter unworthiness of the least of the Lord’s favours and blessings. Yet He has given to us, not only the least of His blessings, but has loaded us with His benefits. The doctrines of God’s Word are still proclaimed in our midst — law and gospel, and this is no mean blessing in the light of the great apostasies which have taken place in the visible church in our day. We still have the worship of God in its purity in our midst, unadulterated with instrumental music and uninspired hymns, as are found in so many Churches in the land. We have the ordinances of God’s house, the preaching of the Gospel, the singing of His praises, prayer and the sacraments of the New Testament preserved to us. We have the discipline and government of the Church of God still left with us, though largely neglected by most branches of the visible church in this and other lands. Taking into account all these things, we cannot but marvel at the Lord’s goodness to us. Surely it is true of us as a people, as it was of Israel of old —
To any nation never he
such favour did afford;
For they his judgments have not known
O do ye praise the Lord. Psalm 147: 20
As we have reason to praise the name of the Lord for His goodness, so we have reason to acknowledge His longsuffering and forbearance with us as a people, notwithstanding our many sins and backslidings. We ought to be found in the dust confessing our sins to the Lord. How sadly have we requited Him for all the favours which He has bestowed upon us. Living in the midst of a godless age in which a spirit of ungodliness and worldliness prevails, how much of the prevailing spirit of the age we have contracted. How greatly has the witness of professing believers declined when compared with other days. How little of the spirit of Lot when he dwelt in Sodom is found in those living in the Sodom of the present day. Of him it was said that God “delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds).” 2 Peter 2: 7,8. We have ever to keep before our mind that “to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required.” Luke 12: 48. We have received much as a people in the kindness of the Lord. How will it fare with us if we do not value these benefits as we ought and do not profit from them!
For the continuance of the blessings which the Lord has graciously bestowed upon us, it is to the Lord we must look. It is folly to think that we can preserve these for ourselves and our posterity through our own power. Such pride and presumption on our part would be the quickest way to be deprived of them. We must be wholly dependent on the Lord for this, and all the more so as we see the day growing darker and the clouds of divine judgment threatening to overtake us as a nation, as we go on in the ways of sin and in rejection of God. Only the Lord can deliver us as a nation from the dangers which threaten us on every hand. Only the Lord can preserve us as a Church and preserve in our midst those blessings which have been handed down to us from those who went before. Only the Lord can enable us to pass on to the generation following the testimony which we have received. Let us put no trust in man. Man is fickle and may at any time abandon what he once professed to hold dear. Recent events in our history as a Church ought to have sealed conviction of this on our hearts and minds. Even men who were valiant on the side of truth in their day turned back in the day of testing. If, then, this witness which belongs to us at present, is to be carried on into the twenty-first century, let us look to the One who has done mighty things for us in the past, in order that He may do mighty things for us in the days that are to come.