Thomas Watson
1. What is the difference between the moral law and the gospel? (1) The law requires that we worship God as our Creator; the gospel that we worship Him in and through Christ. God in Christ is propitious; out of Christ we may see God’s power, justice and holiness; in Him we see His mercy displayed.
(2) The moral law requires obedience, but gives no strength (as Pharaoh required brick, but gave no straw), but the gospel gives strength; it bestows faith on the elect; it sweetens the law; it makes us serve God with delight.
2. What use is the moral law to us? It is a mirror to show us our sins, so that, seeing our perdition and misery, we may be forced to flee to Christ to satisfy for former guilt and to save from future wrath. “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” (Gal 3:24).
3. Is the moral law still in force to believers? Is it not abolished to them? In some sense it is abolished to believers. (1) In respect of justification. They
1An extract, slightly edited, from Watson’s The Ten Commandments.
are not justified by their obedience to the moral law. Believers are to make great use of the moral law, but they must trust only to Christ’s righteousness for justification; as Noah’s dove made use of her wings to fly, but trusted to the ark for safety. If the moral law could justify, what need was there of Christ’s dying?
(2) The moral law is abolished to believers in respect of its curse. They are freed from its curse and condemnatory power. “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Gal 3:13).
Protestant View
Shrine of Bishop Chad in Lichfield Cathedral
In the year 672 Bishop Chad, of Lichfield in Staffordshire, died and was buried in Lichfield Cathedral. He was made a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, and his grave became a focal point for pilgrims seeking that he would make intercession for them. In 1538 the shrine was dismantled on the orders of Henry VIII and the bones were destroyed or buried in an unknown location. However, a box of bone fragments survived and was probably hawked around the diocese. This box was rescued and removed to a place of safety; in 1839 it found a resting place in the newly built Roman Catholic Cathedral in Birmingham, which was dedicated in honour of St Chad. Recently this box of relics was gifted by the RC archdiocese of Birmingham to the Anglican Lichfield Cathedral and has been placed in a prominent shrine created for it within the building.
At a service on November 7, the Roman Archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley, said that “his relics will become a focus for prayer in this beautiful, restored shrine, inspired by his witness and strengthened by his prayers interceding for our two diocesan families”. Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of the Diocese of Lichfield, embraced these sentiments and responded, “Our remembering of Chad, and particularly our grateful reception of this precious relic of his mortal body, must also point us to the future . . . it is right that a part of Chad’s mortal remains should be brought back here to the place where once they were laid. It is good that today we join together not only as Anglicans and Roman Catholics but as brothers and sisters of other churches too.”
Why would Anglicans accept such a grotesque gift and go further by setting up a new “altar shrine” for the veneration of these scraps of bones? To countenance this blasphemous nonsense is extraordinary and shameful. Article 22 of the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion states, “The
Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond [foolish] thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God”.
FRD
St Margaret Declaration
This agreement of “friendship” with the Roman Catholic Church, which was approved last May by the Church of Scotland General Assembly, has now been formally signed by the Moderator of the Assembly, Rev Iain Greenshields, and by Leo Cushley, Archbishop of St Andrews. The other signatory was Princess Anne. The ceremony took place in Dunfermline Abbey on “St Margaret’s Day”, November 16. The Abbey is the burial place of Queen Margaret, the eleventh-century queen who did more than any other individual to increase the influence of Romanism in mediaeval Scotland.
The declaration was condemned by the Synod in May and has already been the subject of a note in The Free Presbyterian Magazine. We will not therefore offer any further criticism of its contents here other than to say that it marks a further degree of declension on the part of the national Church. By opening the door to further accommodation with antichristian Romanism, the Church of Scotland is responsible for thickening the appalling darkness which shrouds the Scottish people in spiritual death. The Church of Scotland is walking in the light of its own kindling, and the end for multitudes who are deceived by its false witness will be to lie down in sorrow (Is 50:11). This is the result of departing from the Biblical principles of the Reformation. Though stating that union would not take place at present, Archbishop Cushley remarked that barriers to unity between the two Churches will be removed “in God’s good time”.
A motion was previously agreed in the Scottish Parliament which commended the agreement and complimented the two bodies for “refusing to be bound by the past”. It is sad to read that Murdo Fraser MSP – who grew up in the Free Presbyterian Church – was a signatory of the motion.
AWM