Rev D W B Somerset
For those who love the “old paths”, the reports of the Free Church Assembly make sad reading. Various attempts were made to reconsider or to reverse the decision of the Plenary Assembly in November 2010 which allowed the use of hymns and musical instruments in public worship, but these were all defeated. It does not appear that any of the votes were close.
The final outcome was an Act permitting “candidates for office, at the time of licensing, ordination or induction, [to] intimate to the relevant Church Court their own personal conviction with regard to sung praise and instrumental music in public worship”. This means that those of conservative persuasion, in taking the ordination vows, will at least not be avowing their approval and support for hymns and musical instruments. We doubt, however, that they will find peace as they watch their denomination’s inexorable progress towards universal hymns and musical instruments, and whatever defections lie beyond.
The parallels between the declension in the present Free Church and in the pre-1900 Free Church are uncanny, and if these similarities continue then we can expect soon to see a loss of Calvinism, a Declaratory Act, and a weakness on the inspiration of Scripture. The subsequent path of the United Free Church and the Church of Scotland was to full-blown liberalism, to the ordination of women, and now at last to sodomites in the pulpit. The Free Church might be nearer to these things than many realise. One can only think that the Lord, in allowing her to go down this route a second time, is intending to make abundantly clear to Scottish Presbyterianism the dangers of backsliding and worldliness. The fatal step is the first one: “Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom” (Gen 13:12).