Published by The James Begg Society. Large booklet, 24 pages, 90p, or 60p per copy for ten or more. Obtainable from The Free Presbyterian Bookroom, 133 Woodlands Road, Glasgow G3 6LE.
THIS Catechism on Praise, by a pastor of what used to be the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, in Boston, USA, was first published in 1849, and was commended by various reputable Christian periodicals of the day. We also heartily recommend it.
It has three sections or “chapters” Chapter I Praise; the Nature and Duty of it (which contains six questions); Chapter II The Matter of Praise (35 questions); and Chapter III The Manner of Praise (23 questions). Both the questions and answers are clear and should leave the unprejudiced reader in no doubt that exclusive psalmody is God’s requirement for praising Him, and that the use of instrumental music in the public worship of God has no sanction whatsoever from the Scriptures. An appendix by William Romaine forcefully defends the use of the Psalms for praising God, and denounces the “sacrilege” of replacing “a chief part” of God’s Word by the compositions of “our hymnmongers”.
In the next edition it would be helpful if the publishers, (1) numbered the questions consecutively, (rather than 1 to 6, then 1 to 35, and then 1 to 23); (2) gave the Scripture proofs in full in small type; (3) printed the abbreviations for the Books of the Bible in the conventional form rather than all in capital letters; and (4) omitted the quotation from Burns’ The Cottar’s Saturday Night. Despite the sympathetic picture of family worship in that poem, Burns strongly disliked Calvinism and scoffed at the truly godly.
We hope that this welcome Catechism on Praise will bring many to understand and accept the divine requirement of exclusive Psalmody. In the ongoing debate on purity of worship it is good to read material which presents the Scriptural and Reformed view of this important subject. We wish it a wide circulation. □
Protestant View
Who is the Antichrist?
IT is useful to keep in mind that the term ‘antichrist’, from the Greek term ‘antichristos’, means ‘instead of Christ’, and indicates one who assumes a likeness to Christ and takes His place. Of course, the term ‘antichrist’ can also mean ‘against Christ’. Combining the two meanings, we may say that the Antichrist is that person or system which, while appearing to be like Christ and taking His place, is opposed to Him.
Therefore the answer to the question, Who is the Antichrist? must take these meanings into account, as does the following answer by Dr. J. A. Wylie.
“The materials for a right decision on the question before us lie close at hand. The Apostle John, speaking of the great apostasy to arise in Christendom, calls it the ‘Antichrist’. And the Pope has taken to himself, as the name that best describes his office, the title ‘Vicar of Christ’. All we shall ask as the basis of our argument are these two accepted facts, namely that John styles the apostasy ‘the Antichrist’, and that the head of the Roman system styles himself ‘Christ’s Vicar’. The Papacy holds in this title the key of its meaning. We shall make use of that key in unlocking its mystery and true character. The Papacy cannot complain when we adopt this line of interpretation. We do nothing more than use the key it has put into our hands.
“The Apostle John, we have said, speaking of the apostasy, the coming of which he predicts, styles it the ‘Antichrist’. And we have also said that the Papacy, speaking through its representative and head, calls itself the ‘Vicar of Christ’. The first term, ‘Antichrist’, is a Greek word, the second, ‘Vicar’, is an English word, but the two are one in reality, for both words have the same meaning. ‘Antichrist’ translated into English is ‘Vice-Christ’, or ‘Vicar of Christ’; and ‘Vicar of Christ’ rendered into Greek is ‘Antichrist’—Antichristos. If we can establish this—and the ordinary use of the word by those to whom the Greek was a vernacular is decisive on the point—we shall have no difficulty in showing that this is the meaning of the word ‘Antichrist’—even a Vice-Christ. And if so, then every time the Pope claims to be the Vicar of Christ, he pleads at the bar of the world that he is the Antichrist. . .
“Let it be noted that if ‘Antichrist’ signifies a ‘Vice-Christ’, that is, one who comes in the room of Christ, then deception, dissimulation or counterfeit, must be an essential element in his character. In whatever persons or systems this fundamental characteristic is lacking, there we fail to find the Antichrist, whatever may be their general opposition to Christ and to Christianity, or whatever other features of the Antichrist they may bear. They may have every other characteristic by which prophecy has described this noted adversary of Christ and His gospel, yet, lacking this fundamental one, counterfeit, their claim to this pre-eminently evil distinction of being the Antichrist cannot be admitted.
“This enables us to dismiss at once a host of antichrists which have been conjured up by persons who have drawn upon their imagination, rather than followed any sound principle of prophetic interpretation. The cause of the Papacy is served by the false glosses and mistaken interpretations of Scripture which interpose a pseudo-antichrist betwixt it and prophecy, which unfolds against it so black a record, and suspends above it so terrible a doom. . . .
“We must trace the parallelism between the two systems, Christianity and Popery, and between their respective chiefs, Christ and the Pope, along the entire line of their career. In this parallelism lies the essence of Antichristianism. It is this counterfeit, so exact and complete, which has misled the world into the belief that this [that is, Roman Catholicism] is Christianity, to the waste of ages not a few, the unsettling and overthrow of kingdoms, the stunting of understanding, and the loss of millions of immortal souls.”
The above piece is from Wylie’s The Papacy is the Antichrist – A Demonstration. Wylie goes on to show that because the Antichrist, in essence, is a counterfeit Christ and apes Christianity, then Atheism or Communism can never be said to be the Antichrist. As Scripture teaches and as Wylie demonstrates, the Papacy is indeed the Antichrist. □