A Treatise of Christian Love, by Hugh Binning, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, paperback, 106 pages, £3.75, available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
Binning begins by showing how sin has substituted self-love for “the law of love, the principal fundamental law of our creation – love to God, founded on our essential dependence on God and subordination to Him; and love to man, grounded upon that communion and interest in one image of God”. Jesus Christ by His redemptive work has restored and made more glorious what sin destroyed. “The bond of creation was great, but the tie of redemption is greater,” so that what was an old commandment is really new.
He sees the excellence of Christian love in that God is its pattern, and Christ its rare example for our imitation. He writes of the motive we have for love, the command of our Lord that we love and the way that love “is the sweet result of the united force of all graces” and “should be the moderator of all our actions toward men”. He then provides a brief but telling exposition of Paul’s commendation of charity in 1 Corinthians 13.
After further discussion of the motives to Christian love – the love of God in Christ, our own unworthiness of being loved and yet desire for it, the objects to be loved considered in their relation to God, and the excellent nature of this grace – Binning turns his attention to Christian love in practice. He particularly illustrates the truth that “in relation to comfortable fellowship one with another in this world, this is above all, and the crown or cream of other graces”. In closing, he develops the theme that “humility is the root of charity, and meekness the fruit of both,” in the course of which he exposes the evil nature and consequences of pride and discusses how it may be humbled.
The publishers have appended three sermons on Romans 8:14, 15, taken from Binning’s The Sinner’s Sanctuary. These concentrate on the privilege of adoption and the related privilege of fervent, reverent and confident prayer, of which the Spirit of adoption is “the chief principle”. His concern is to help the Lord’s people to enter into greater enjoyment of the fact that “the life of Christianity, taken in itself, is the most pleasant and joyful life that can be, exempted from those fears and cares, those sorrows and anxieties, that all other lives are subject to”. He wishes to “vindicate Christianity itself, and not impute these things to it which are the infirmities and faults of its followers, who do not make the use of it that they should, and of which it is itself capable”. Many will find this last section at least as helpful as the first.
Hugh Binning was an Ayrshire man who went through deep spiritual exercises in boyhood, graduated at 19 and died of consumption at 26 in 1653. He was briefly Professor of Philosophy in Glasgow and almost equally briefly minister of Govan. There were giants in the pulpits of his day, such as Blair, Dickson, Durham and Rutherford. Binning was a scholar of the first rank whose preaching was warmly evangelical. He adopted a simpler form of preaching than was then common and Durham said that there was no speaking after him. James Hamilton says that he “laid his fine philosophy and precocious scholarship and classic taste at the feet of Jesus”. On the conservative side in the Church disputes of the day, he took seriously the blessedness of the peacemakers, as this little volume illustrates. He greatly impressed Cromwell in debate with the Independents, so that he confessed that his only answer was his sword. On his deathbed he said that “to a dying man one line of the Bible is worth more than all human learning”. A memorial stone, inscribed with words of Patrick Gillespie, included the statement that, when Binning died, “he changed his country but not his company, because when on earth he walked with God”. We welcome this introduction to Binning and would like to see more by and about him in print.
(Rev) H M Cartwright
Protestant View
President Bush’s Audience with the Pope
One would think that recent events would have caused President Bush to think twice before visiting the Pope. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Roman Catholic priests in America have been exposed as sodomites and paedophiles, and this has led, in turn, to the resignation of a prominent Cardinal. The Pope is the head of the very system which bred such iniquitous men and gave them scope to live for so long in the practice of these unnatural and abominable sins. But not only did the President visit him, he bestowed on him the Presidential Medal of Freedom! This honour was conferred on the Pope, we are told, for “years of fighting for freedom and for his important moral voice.” In the light of the history of the so-called “Holy See”, we find these words hollow and totally inappropriate, but they resonate with the President’s own obsequious remarks when presenting the medal. Strong indeed is the delusion when such deference is paid to “the man of sin and son of perdition” by the head of the most powerful state on earth! Papal words and actions clearly indicate that the “Holy See” regards itself as being even more powerful. The Pope still claims to be Christ’s vicar on earth, and this embraces – even if it is not proclaimed in banner headlines – absolute sovereignty and the right to exercise temporal, as well as spiritual, authority over all nations. We get more than a whiff of this when the Pope refers to “the continuing situation of grave unrest in the Middle East” and informs the President: “You are very familiar with the unequivocal position of the Holy See in this regard, expressed in numerous documents, through direct and indirect contacts, and in the many diplomatic efforts which have been made since you visited me. . . . It is the evident desire of everyone that this situation now be normalised as quickly as possible with the active participation of the international community and, in particular, the United Nations Organisation, in order to ensure a speedy return of Iraq’s sovereignty.”
Is it merely coincidental that the United Nations has now unanimously adopted a resolution which seems to meet the Pope’s demands? This is what the head of the Vatican state, 104 acres in area – a mere dot on the map of the Italian peninsula – said to the President of the United States of America: “Our thoughts also turn today to the 20 years in which the Holy See and the United States have enjoyed formal diplomatic relations, established in 1984 under President Reagan. These relations have promoted mutual understanding on great issues of common interest and practical co-operation in different areas. I send my regards to President Reagan.” In the Lord’s inscrutable providence, President Reagan was summoned to the eternal world while President Bush was still in Europe and the papal regards were never to reach him while still in time.
Why, we ask, do politicians feel it so important to curry the favour of the Pope? The answer is obvious. It has to do with votes. President Bush has an election looming, and his opponent is a professing Roman Catholic, while he – outwardly at least – is not. It is reported that President Bush was so eager for a meeting with Pope John Paul II that he flew overnight to Rome to cram in a visit before the pontiff – who said he couldn’t rearrange his schedule – left town the next day. Bush did this although it was anticipated that he would be greeted by “thousands of angry anti-war protesters and maybe get his knuckles rapped by the Pope over the war in Iraq”. That indeed was, more or less, the outcome. The same report continues: “‘[Roman] Catholics are the key’, says Deal Hudson, editor of Crisis magazine and a Bush campaign adviser. ‘If we lose any of the Catholic vote, we’ll lose the election.’ And to an unprecedented degree, the White House and a network of conservative Catholics have been working hard to get several million American Catholics to vote Republican.”
The Pope is reported to have uttered the words, ‘God bless America’, when he received the Presidential Medal of Honour. It remains to be seen what the consequences of this will be for the United States, but we know from the Bible and from numerous historical sources that the “blessing” of this usurper of Christ’s kingly prerogatives cannot possibly profit the individual or state upon which it is bestowed. The mind of the Lord is clearly revealed: “Them that honour Me I will honour, and they that despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.”
JM
Notes and Comments
Going Beyond Abortion?
A Government adviser on genetics has pointed in the direction of extending current abortion practice by suggesting it might be acceptable to destroy children with “defects” soon after they are born. Professor John Harris, who holds a chair in bioethics at Manchester University and is a member of the Human Genetics Commission, has said that he does not see any distinction between aborting a fully-grown unborn baby at 40 weeks and killing a child after it had been born. He was reported also to have said that he did not believe that killing a child was always inexcusable. He would not, however, explain which defects or problems might be grounds for ending a baby’s life, or how old a child might and yet be destroyed.
The views of Professor Harris are appalling, yet he is right in failing to see a moral distinction between killing an unborn child and one who has begun an independent existence. The fact is that abortion is wrong, except in the relatively few cases where the life of the mother is at risk. Sadly, most people have no objection to taking away the life of an unborn child. It is tragic that the medical profession is so heavily involved in this barbaric practice. One moment doctors may be performing heroics to save the life of a vulnerable child who is wanted by its parents, which is altogether admirable, and the next moment they may be taking away the life of an unborn child who, sadly, is unwanted.
To kill a baby, however young, is wrong; it is murder. Thankfully, one imagines that most people would agree, even in this generation which is drifting so rapidly away from God’s standard for human behaviour. And most people will accept that to kill a baby, however handicapped, is murder. But it should be equally obvious that to kill an unborn child also is murder. What a difference it would make to society in Britain and elsewhere if there was a proper regard to the authority of God’s law!
Buddhism
A recent addition to the representatives of false religion invited to address the Scottish Parliament was the Dalai Lama – leader of the Tibetan brand of Buddhism and winner of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize. Buddhism is often presented popularly as a way to reduce stress by the practice of “meditation”. Some are attracted to it by the notion that it does not require commitment to a code of beliefs and is a way of making people good to themselves and to others, thus promoting peace internally and in human relations. During the past 25 years or so, the number of registered Buddhists in Scotland has risen to over 6500.
Buddhism emerged from Brahminism, the highest of the Hindu castes, in the sixth century BC. Its aim is to escape from suffering by eliminating desire, which is seen as the cause of suffering, and eventually to escape from individual existence and secure “Nirvana” – non-identity, or incorporation in “the universal life” or “ultimate principle” as “the dewdrop slips into the shining sea”. One is repeatedly reincarnated until one is granted this outcome through meditation and endeavours to conform to the ethical demands of Buddha. The Buddhism of Tibet developed an extensive monastic and ritualistic organisation, with the Dalai Lama at its head, a supposed reincarnation of the Buddha. It also incorporated elements of animism, denying that any object is lifeless. Classical Buddhism is atheistic but frequently the images and relics of Buddha and others significant in Buddhist mythology are worshipped, as one would expect from Romans 1:18ff.
Buddhism is no harmless eccentricity. It is one of the most pervasive expressions of the state of mind described in Psalm 14:1: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God”. It cannot be countenanced without repudiating in its entirety the revelation which God has given in His Word. It is based on the denial of the truth concerning such fundamental matters as God, human personality and accountability, sin as transgression of God’s law, salvation through the atonement wrought by Christ and the regenerating grace of God the Holy Spirit, and eternal self-conscious existence in either heaven or hell. It is not a solution to the problems of humanity but a means of closing minds to the true nature of the human predicament and to the remedy provided in the gospel.
It is sad beyond words that such delusions should take hold of so many in this land which was once so enlightened and, in particular, that they should have bases in those Border areas where people once lived and suffered and died to preserve the pure gospel of the grace of God. The reception of a Buddhist leader to lead the Scottish Parliament in reflecting upon religious matters is yet further evidence of how utterly given over our parliamentarians are to spiritual darkness, having practically cut themselves adrift from the Biblical basis of true religion and morality and government. We can only look to the Lord: “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising” (Is 60:2,3). HMC
“Man Is Good”
On a wall surrounding the memorial at the burial place of the late President Reagan some words of his are inscribed: “I have in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth in each and every life.”
It is a fundamental tenet of multitudes who profess the Christian faith that man is basically good, although it flies in the face of the facts and deprives the Christian revelation of its meaning. God’s dealings with His people – and their dealings with Him – proceed on the basis that “there is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Rom 3:10-12). The fact that man is not good accounts for the existence of the magistracy, of which Mr Reagan was the chief representative in the USA (Rom 13). More significantly, it is this alone that gives meaning to grace, redemption and regeneration, the great distinctives without which Christianity degenerates into a moral code which cannot change man’s character or rectify his relation with God. As long as man thinks that he is good he will have no appreciation of the meaning of Christianity and no sense of his real need of Christ.
The sad fact is that sin has deprived human life of the purpose which gives it genuine worth, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever” (Shorter Catechism, answer 1), and only grace can restore him to this purpose. But we do believe, with Mr Reagan, that what is right will always eventually triumph – though in many cases wrongs will be put right only at the judgement seat of Christ, and many will learn there for the first time what is right.
HMC
Ecumenism in Edinburgh
In view of the fact that the Associated Presbyterian Churches claim to be the true Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland under another name, we think it in order to point out just how absurd this claim is. In Edinburgh, for instance, the following intimations appear on the APC notice board:
“Catch the Wave International Night in the Usher Hall on 12th June with the Doulos Crew and the Exile Band.”
“Joint Morning Service with Viewforth Church of Scotland on the 13th June. We then join them and Barclay Church of Scotland for a BBQ after the service at Vogrie Country Park. (That means that there will not be a Morning service in the APC congregation.) We hope to have an evening service at the usual time.”
Does anyone seriously believe that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland would engage in such ecumenical services and activities on any day of the week, far less on the Lord’s Day? Sadly, the APC minister, who seems to think that these activities are honouring to God and will further the cause of Christ, continues to occupy the Edinburgh manse without permission, and in spite of the fact that the title deeds plainly show that the property belongs to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. How he, or the Church to which he belongs, can justify this is quite simply beyond our understanding. JM