Commemorating the Scottish Reformation
We are glad to note that during September and October 2010 the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, is marking the four-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the Scottish Reformation with a display, accessible free of charge, of books and manuscripts associated with the Reformation. It includes The Confession of the Faith and Doctrine Believed and Professed by the Protestants of Scotland, the work of “six Johns” led by John Knox, and adopted in 1560 by the then Estates or Parliament of Scotland as expressive of the biblical faith to be henceforth upheld in the nation. Other interesting exhibits include the Bassendyne Bible, a Scottish 1579 reprint of the Geneva Bible, the first complete Bible published in Scotland. There is also a copy of Knox’s First Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (condemned by many and read by few), in which his view of what he regarded as the normally unnatural sovereignty of women was no doubt coloured by the four persecuting Roman Catholic female monarchs then most prominent in Britain and Europe. Also highlighted is a copy of the pre-Reformation Gude and Godlie Ballatis, poems in vernacular Scots which popularised basic Protestant doctrines.
Dr Anette Hagan, senior curator of rare book collections at the Library acknowledges the Reformation to be “one of the most important events” in Scottish history, specifying that “it marked a switch in international alliances away from Catholic France and towards Protestant England, enabling the Union of the Crowns in 1603”. Dr Hagan adds that it “established Calvinism as one of the dominant influences of Scottish life, leading to centuries of hellfire sermons – but also to a society with a strong sense of social responsibility and the highest rate of literacy in Europe”. Dr Hagan falls from her doubtless high academic standards when she makes the popular but fallacious identification of Calvinism with hell-fire preaching.
“Hell-fire preaching” – in the crude sense of the term, to frighten people into financial contributions – characterised the greedy monks, friars and priests of the Church from which the Reformation delivered Scotland. By the confession of its own sixteenth-century hierarchy, its product was certainly not a “strong sense of social responsibility” nor “the highest rate of literacy in Europe”, even among the clergy. Calvinism promoted these and many other benefits in addition to the fundamental benefit of bringing multitudes into the spiritual and moral liberty wherewith Christ makes His people free, and into a life whose “chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever”. This was done by preaching and teaching which included the solemn and biblically-proportionate declaration, much needed today, of the reality of hell as the end to which every Christless and ungodly life leads, and it included much more.
Calvinism, as those who read the still-currently-available Confession of 1560, rather than merely admire it in a showcase, will be aware, embraces the whole range of Biblical teaching and has as one of its fundamental principles the absolute supremacy of Scripture for doctrine, worship and practice. The Preface to the Confession requests “that if any man will note in our Confession any chapter or sentence contrary to God’s Holy Word, that it would please him of his gentleness and for Christian charity’s sake to inform us of it in writing; and we, upon our honour, do promise him that by God’s grace we shall give him satisfaction from the mouth of God, that is, from Holy Scripture, or else we shall alter whatever he can prove to be wrong”. Calvinism is the product of that approach.
B B Warfield makes the bold but justifiable claim that “he who believes in God without reserve, and is determined that God shall be God to him in all his thinking, feeling, willing – in the entire compass of his life activities, intellectual, moral, spiritual, throughout all his individual, social, religious relations – is, by force of that strictest of all logic which presides over the outworking of principles into thought and life, by the very necessity of the case, a Calvinist”.
This was the Calvinism of the Scots Confession, the Calvinism established in Scotland by the Reformation and which made our nation what it was. It is sadly obvious where departure from biblical Calvinism and its religious, moral and social implications has brought our nation. It is indicative of our low state that the four-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the Scottish Reformation should be marked, and marred, by the State in the welcome proposed (at the time of writing) to be given to the head and embodiment of the system from which the Reformation delivered our land – a visit which, incidentally, is at much expense to the taxpayer and inconvenience to the citizen.
It says much for the ignorance, arrogance and insensitivity of the Roman hierarchy, who often complain about how their feelings are hurt by such matters as the Protestant Succession, that they have arranged a welcome party for the Pope consisting of actors representing significant figures in Scotland’s religious history, including John Knox. Sadly they are encouraged in their delusion by the representatives of the prevailing party in the national Church who are involved in a day conference on November 3 under the auspices of the Joint Commission on Doctrine (Church of Scotland and Roman Catholic), which will have speakers from both bodies and will be followed by a service in St Giles’. The title of the Conference is The Scottish Reformation – Marking the Legacy, Imagining the Future. Appropriately it is to be held in the Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh.
Thomas Manton (1620-1677) warned his hearers in words which are as relevant today: “When you come to discern the difference between the blessed yoke of Christ and the iron yoke of Antichrist, it will be too late for a remedy to repent of your error”.
HMC
Complaints Against Abortion Advertisement Rejected
In May a television advertisement, by the abortion service provider Marie Stopes International (MSI), offered women advice if they thought they were pregnant and were “not sure what to do”. Only six adverts have ever attracted more complaints; the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) received 1054 official complaints, 3300 signed petition postcards and 327 telephone calls. Most of them complained that the advertisement was misleading, offensive and promoted abortion.
Nevertheless, the ASA recently rejected the complaints and pronounced that the advert could not be deemed offensive because it did not advocate abortion or even mention it, or point viewers in that direction. They also stated that “they did not feel that the ad was likely to cause serious or widespread offence against generally-accepted moral, social or cultural standards”.
The reality, as the ASA is no doubt aware, is that abortion is MSI’s core service, and that MSI is the leading abortion provider not just in the UK, but worldwide. It charges up to £1750 for an abortion (female employees of MSI are offered free abortions as an employment benefit). Last year it terminated more than 60 000 of the nation’s unwanted pregnancies and had an income of almost £100 million.
Pro-abortionists may be happy that the influence of Christianity has waned and that abortion rates have increased. But let them note carefully that social abortion continues to be horrific wickedness which contravenes God’s Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”.
NMR
Increase in STIs
The Health Protection Agency reports that in 2009 new diagnoses of STIs (sexually transmitted infections) in the UK totalled 482 696. This is 12 000 more new cases than in 2008. The figure is astonishingly high, given the population of Britain, and it shows how immoral and reckless our nation has become. Information about the dangers of STIs is widely available, and so too is the means of preventing these infections, even for those who wish to persist in immorality. Yet the number of infected people continues to rise; a testimony to the power of sin and to the folly in the human heart.
Unwilling to recognise this truth, our rulers have nothing to suggest but “improved sex education”. But it is evident that so-called “sex education” is making the problem worse, not better. Children are being taught certain physical facts, some of which they would learn from the Bible if they were reading it, but instead of being instructed in the rights and wrongs of relations between the sexes, they are increasingly encouraged to behave immorally, provided they proceed “safely”. The result is that they do behave immorally, at an ever younger age and ever more promiscuously. This downward spiral is not likely to end until our rulers are prepared to affirm that fornication, adultery and sodomy are wrong. Meanwhile the victims of these diseases have something worse to fear than infertility, and that is that God will punish them in hell. “Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge” (Heb 13:4).
DWBS
Inappropriate Dress
At the end of the last school session Robert Kelly, rector of Berwickshire High School, called the girls together to warn them against dressing “provocatively”. He told them that, by wearing short skirts to school, some of them were encouraging boys to have “inappropriate thoughts”. Amazingly his plain words have led to some parents calling for his resignation. But, thankfully, both the Scottish Borders Council and their Director of Education have supported Mr Kelly’s efforts to enforce the school dress code and about 80 pupils have signed a petition backing his stance.
A columnist in The Herald, commenting on the subject, quotes a retired teacher who lays some of the blame on staff. “I saw young teachers”, she states, “wearing low tops, leaning across children’s desks. With that example, what can you expect?” It is good that some attempt is being made to promote standards of decency in schools. It is, of course, a much wider problem. But women, not least those within the Church, do have a responsibility to ensure that their necklines are high enough and their hemlines low enough to avoid encouraging men to think inappropriate thoughts.