The Signs of the Times, vol. 10

October 23, 1884

“How to Honor the Reformers” The Signs of the Times 10, 40, p. 626.

IN the Independent of October 9, 1884, Rev. David Macrae, of Dundee, Scotland, gives an excellent article on “The Scottish Covenanters, and How to Honor Them,” in which he tells some wholesome truth to those “who claim to be the Covenanters successors,” which is as closely applicable to those who profess to be the successors of Luther, or Wesley, or any other of the Reformers, as it is to be the would-be successors of the Covenanters. With much more that is good, he says:— SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.1

“Some people seem to think that the more rightly they adhere to the Covenanters’ doctrinal views, the more honor they do to the Covenanters themselves, and the more entitled they are to be regarded as their successors. But in point of fact, such people are doing discredit to the spirit of the Covenants, while adhering to the letter, and, under the impression that they are honoring the Covenanters, are doing them the greatest injustice. For, to adhere to the theological dogmas and political tenants of the Covenanters, in the form in which they held them, is to make the monstrous assumption that, if the Covenanters had lived till our time, they would never have got beyond the point where they stood in the seventeenth century. It is to assume that, after two hundred years of prayer for more light, they would never have got any, or, getting it, would have refused to receive it. It is to assume that they would have studied the Bible for two centuries, and never have learned anything more of its character, its purpose, and its meaning than they did. It is to assume that they would have watched the operations of God’s providence, and witnessed the struggle and the development of Christianity for two hundred years, without learning anything more of God’s ways, or of man’s duty, then they did it first. Such a supposition is far from complementary. Truth remains the same, but not man’s knowledge of it. The motions of the planets are the same now as in Ptolemy’s time; but Ptolemy’s view of their motion was a mistaken view. His system had to give way before a fuller knowledge of the facts. There is a similar change and progress in theology; not in the facts on which a true theology is based, but in man’s knowledge in interpretation of these facts.... SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.2

“Those, therefore, who are the true successors of the Covenanters, are not those who stand where the Covenanters stood two hundred years ago, but those who, advancing in the lines which the Covenanters struggle to keep open, stand now where the Covenanters themselves would have stood had they enjoyed the advantage of two centuries more of thought, and research, and Christian experience, such as the Christian commonwealth has had since their time.... SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.3

“The mistake of those who claim especially to be the Covenanters’ successors is that they cleave to the Covenanters’ errors, and allow the living principles by which these errors would have been rectified, to escape.... SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.4

“There is much, indeed, that our Christian churches of to-day have yet to learn from the Covenanters of two hundred years ago. Had they more of the Covenanters’ loyalty to truth, we should not see so many doctrines maintained in the creed professed, which are no longer believed. We should not see churches professing to be Protestant the, paying two antiquated confessions of faith, and catechisms, the same homage which Catholics paid to the pope, only more shameful because less sincere. SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.5

“With such trust in the truth and fearless loyalty to conviction as the Covenanters had, we should see in the church is more men dealing with arrogance and error as Luther did when he nailed his theses to the church door at Wittenberg; as Cameron and Cargill did, when, with life at stake, they affixed their declaration to the marke, cross at Sanquhar, two hundred years ago. We should see the churches themselves entering more boldly upon the path of progress in reform, which such men kept open, and striving to do for this generation, with its new ones, what the Scottish Covenanters did so nobly for theirs.” SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.6

We are glad of these words from such a source, for we see the spirit which they reproof, so persistently manifested in the churches of the present day, whenever the claims of the fourth commandment are presented. They act as though what the Reformers did not hold and practice must be rejected as, prime facie, false, and as though all that was ever to be learned of doctrine and progress in Bible truth, had been learned by the Reformers, and that the churches as their true successors are therefore the repositories of all truth, and the utmost limit of Christian progress; and that what ever arises that differs from what they believe, must be heresy just because it so differs. But as Dr. Macrae says, such are not the successors of the Reformers, but they are rather the successors of those who persecuted them. SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.7

It has ever been so. The Lutherans were ready to pour out their furious invectives against Melanchthon, only because, after Luther’s death, he made some advance; and there stand the Lutherans yet, just where Luther left them, and where the advancing truth left them, and they still profess to be the true successors of Luther, and seek to honor him, by seeing no more in the noonday of the nineteenth century then Luther saw in the dimness and mist of the early dawn of the sixteenth. It would be only to repeat the same story, to tell of the other reformers in churches which have successively arisen, each of them persecuted in its turn by the one which had gone before; all, after becoming established and popular, resisting vigorously any advance in the knowledge of religious truth; all seeking to honor the leaders in their reform, by knowing no more truth than they did, and treating as heretics all who urge upon the attention of the people any Bible truth, however plainly expressed, which the leaders of their particular reform did not see. Yet all these reformers, Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingle, Calvin, Arminius, and the Wesleys, were without exception heretics each in his time; but each one was a reformer. The reformer is always a heretic. He is always counted as an enthusiast, and very often a fanatic. Such is the heritage, in his day, of every reformer, and such he must expect to be counted, if he will do the work of a reformer. In the very nature of things it must be so. For He goes squarely against the established customs and order of things. He cries out against the popular ideas and practices of the day. And human nature is not going to be disturbed in its popularity, its pleasures, and its pleasant dreams, and take it all calmly. The waters of that immense stream are not going to be turned from their accustomed channel without resistance. SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.8

Nevertheless, knowing all this, and expecting it all, in knowing also the truth and the virtue of the principle which he advocates, the reformer as he really is, but heretic as he is held, out of pure love of the principal, urges it always, everywhere, and against all opposition, until finally he achieves its success, and compels its recognition. Just then the reform encounters its greatest danger, the discussion of which we reserve for another occasion. SITI October 23, 1884, page 626.9

ALONZO T. JONES.