The Bulwark Magazine of the Scottish Reformation Society
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The Bulwark Magazine of the Scottish Reformation Society JULY - SEPT 2017 // £2 July - September 2017 1 The Bulwark PROBLEMS CONFRONTING THE CHURCH Magazine of the Scottish Reformation Society The Magdalen Chapel 41 Cowgate, Edinburgh, EH1 1JR Tel: 0131 220 1450 9 Email: [email protected] www.scottishreformationsociety.org Registered charity: SC007755 Chairman Committee Members NEGLECT OF CHURCH HISTORY » Rev Dr S James Millar » Rev Maurice Roberts Vice-Chairman » Rev Kenneth Macdonald AND FORGETFULNESS OF GOD’S » Mr Allan McCulloch » Rev Alasdair Macleod Secretary MERCIES IN THE PAST » Rev Douglas Somerset » Mr Matthew Vogan Treasurer » Rev Andrew Coghill John J Murray This is the final article in a series by Mr Murray on “Problems confronting the Church”. CO-OPERATION OBJECTS OF THE SOCIETY In pursuance of its objects, the Society may co- (a) To propagate the evangelical Protestant faith operate with Churches and with other Societies and those principles held in common by those Churches and organisations adhering to The Triune God is the ultimate and the the Church and of the world, regarded as whose objects are in harmony with its own. the Reformation; eternal reality. He is the Creator and a whole, is but the evolution of the eternal sustainer of the whole universe and all purpose of that God who ‘worketh all Magazine Editor: Rev Douglas Somerset (b) To diffuse sound and Scriptural teaching on things therein. He is an intelligent, personal things after the purpose of his own will’. All literary contributions, books for review and the distinctive tenets of Protestantism and Being who has foreordained whatsoever Deep in the secrets of his own breast is hid papers, should be sent to: Roman Catholicism; comes to pass. The Westminster Shorter the united plan, from which the pattern is The Magdalen Chapel (c) To carry on missionary work among Catechism asks the question: “How gradually unfolded on the tangled web of 41 Cowgate, Edinburgh adherents of the latter faith with a view to does God execute his decrees?”, and human affairs. As that decree is one, so EH1 1JR winning them to the doctrines of grace and to the answer given is: “God executes his history is a unit.” [email protected] the fellowship of the true Gospel; decrees in the works of creation and providence.” What about redemption? It is Although the Bible (and history) begins with The views expressed in articles are those of (d) To produce and distribute evangelistic, included in the works of providence. The creation yet it is clear from the whole of the contributor and may not necessarily reflect religious and other literature in connection with Larger Catechism’s definition of providence Scripture that it is a Book about redemption. those of the Editor or the Committee of the the promotion of the Protestant religion; is: “God’s works of providence are his most This is brought out in the writings of the Society. Scriptural references are from the A.V. (e) To promote the associating together of men holy, wise, and powerful preserving and great New England theologian, Jonathan except where stated otherwise. and women, and especially young people, governing all his creatures; ordering them, Edwards. One of his greatest works, for systematic Bible Study and holding of and all their actions, to his own glory.” When A History of the Work of Redemption, Unattributed material is by the Editor. meetings for the above specified purposes. R.L. Dabney was installed as Professor of confirms this point. The grand purpose Ecclesiastical History in Virginia in 1854, he in all that God does is “His own glory”: DESIGNED & PRINTED BY: said in his inaugural address on “Uses and “For of him, and through him, and to him, www.peppercollective.com Tel: 028 9851 2233 Results of Church History”: “The history of are all things: to whom be glory for ever. 2 The Bulwark July - September 2017 3 Amen” (Rom 11:36). Edwards says: “God “They forgat God their saviour, which had created the world to glorify himself; but it done great things in Egypt; wondrous was principally that he might glorify himself works in the land of Ham, and terrible in his disposal of the world, or in the use he things by the Red Sea” (Ps 106:21-22). intended to make of it, in his providence” (quoted from “Miscellanies” in God’s Grand When we come to the New Testament, we Design by S.M. Lucas). The work that God have the revelation of the great Redeemer intended to make of creation was the work that was promised so long before. He began of redemption. Redemption is the grand to manifest forth his glory by mighty acts design of God; creation is but the stage and deeds (Jn 2:11). After he ascended on on which that drama plays. This is the high and sent his Holy Spirit, such works golden thread that runs through and binds were continued by the apostles, as is made together the whole of history. clear by Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles: “The former treatise have I made, I. BIBLICAL HISTORY O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both The revelation of that golden thread began to do and to teach” (Acts 1:1). It was Christ with the promise made after the Fall that the who continued to work through his inspired Robert Lewis Dabney Rev Hugh Cartwright Seed of the woman would bruise the head apostles. But the mighty works of God did of the serpent (Gen 3:15). The prospect not cease with Acts, chapter 28. And after of the reformers and martyrs began to be the emergence of Higher Criticism and of the coming of the promised Messiah the age of the apostles, the people of God recorded so that the mighty acts of God the Darwinian theory of Evolution, there governs the history of the Old Testament. still had the promise of the ascended Lord could be remembered. Leaders such as was a shift from a God-centredness to a God chooses an individual, Abraham, and that he would be with his Church to the end Luther and Calvin found their spiritual man-centredness. The new discoveries in then a nation, Israel, through whom his of the ages (Matt 28:20). They also had the and theological links with the writings science and medicine meant an increasing purposes are unfolded. God’s mighty acts record of the God’s mighty works in the of Augustine. They, as it were, stood on attitude of self-reliance. The spirit of the are declared and recorded. They are to be Old Testament. Paul told the believers in his shoulders and connected again with age entered the Church. The Bible was remembered by his chosen people. When Corinth to pay close attention to the various that golden thread that runs through no longer regarded as infallible. The liberal the Children of Israel were passing through historical incidents in the history of Israel: history. Accounts of God’s mighty acts in teaching that “Christianity is a life, not a the Jordan on their way to the Promised “Now all these things happened unto them deliverance from darkness and superstition doctrine” took hold. By the end of the Land, they were instructed by Joshua to for examples; and they are written for our were recorded in biographies and diaries nineteenth century and the beginning of pick up twelve stones from the river and admonition, upon whom the ends of the and in composite works such as, in the twentieth, God’s mighty works were make them into a memorial. In later years, world are come” (1 Cor 10:11). England, The Acts and Monuments of John being forgotten. Church history became when children were to look at them and Foxe and, in Scotland, through John Knox’s much neglected. What had happened to ask their fathers: “What mean ye by these II. CHURCH HISTORY History of the Reformation. The reformers the Church in the past seemed increasingly stones?” (Joshua 5:6), they were to be told By the end of the first century, Christianity and Puritans kept warning their hearers not irrelevant. Mankind was moving forward to what God did for his people. However, we had spread far from its starting point to forget God’s mercies in delivering them a new age of prosperity. find that the people of Israel were guilty in Jerusalem. In the centuries following from the darkness of Romanism, and to be of forgetting God’s mighty works. After we have little recorded history except thankful for such deliverances. Such was the lack of appreciation of our the generation of Joshua, we are told what comes through the various Church heritage that at the time of the First World that “there rose another generation after controversies and the writings related to III. HOW THE CHANGE OF ATTITUDE War, Puritan books were often thrown out for them, which knew not the Lord, nor yet them. There is not much on record about CAME ABOUT salvage. It has been said that £12 a ton was the works he had done for Israel” (Judges the true Church in what is known as “the Such an attitude continued, in varying the going price for such unwanted books. 2:10). Indeed we find throughout the Old Dark Ages”. However, when God turned the degrees, for the next almost three Dr Lloyd-Jones was wont to comment in Testament how Israel are being chided for captivity of the Church and light broke in at centuries, but a change came about in the his day that such was the ignorance of their forgetfulness of God and his mercies: the Protestant Reformation, the testimonies latter half of the nineteenth century.