The Rationale and Remedy for Worldly Worship

One of the big things that the churches focus on is ministry to children and is something they do continually and to children of all ages.

Now you would think that when young people reach a certain age they would "leave childish things behind them." But sadly that is not the case, especially in 'evangelical' churches. The big drive in these churches is to cater for the needs of the young people and children.

The problem arises when teenagers and young adults never grow up - and their needs have to be catered for. And if they don't get what they want, their childish and adolescence ways come to the fore, and they throw their toys out of their prams and huff. Some even threaten to leave the church and go to where their childish ways are catered for. For them it's a win-win situation for there are any number of 'churches' that cater for childish ways and childish people of all ages.

So what does the church leadership do? They find out what will 'hold' those in the congregations who have adolescent tantrums, and then give them what they want. Hence, the pre-occupation with worldly worship of the holy God within the evangelical churches.

Many local church leaders have told me, "You must keep the young people." This is their explanation for and justification of their adoption of worldly worship. An evanmgelical minister told me that “if it is OK to beat drums for King William, it’s also OK to beat drums for King Jesus.” That was the extent of this man’s doctrine of worship! The Bible is no longer sufficient as “the only infallible rule” how we are to worship and serve the Lord. The Protestant 'rule of faith' has in practice been abandoned decades ago, yet those who have abandoned it still claim to be protestant evangelicals. How utterly incongruous!

I wonder if these people ever really met with God. I wonder if they have times of deafening silence and stillness in the Lord's holy and searching presence. I wonder just how well they know the Lord and take seriously what He has revealed to them in His Word.

These questions go through my mind constantly. When I raise these issues, I am treated with contempt. They think of me as being "an old fuddy duddy." They tell me that the church has to move with the times. They want the church to be relevant to the contemporary world. So what do they do? They work to make the church so like the world that you would be hard pressed to distinguish it from the world at times.

When our youngest son was converted to Christ almost six years ago, he told me, in relation to the kind of worship that went on in the church we attended, that before he was converted he went to night clubs; now that he is a Christian, he does not want to go to more night clubs. The church we then attended was the next best thing to an evangelical night club.

What is the solution to the worldliness that has not just crept into the church, but has been deliberately brought into the church by evangelicals and others? The answer is a return to the principles of worship enshrined in the teaching of the greatest revival of true religion since the days of the apostles - the Protestant Reformation in sixteenth century Europe. Discover what the reformers discovered from Scripture and compare that with what obtained in the pre-reformation churches. There, you had all kinds of childishness, religious entertainment involving magic shows where the priests took a piece of ordinary bread and actually turned it into the body of Christ which was then given to the faithful to eat (is that cannibalism?), endless meaningless rituals to keep the people interested, teaching to keep them from straying into the wrong paths, complicated services of worship, a refusal of biblical simplicity, etc.

This all had to go and Christian worship was re-introduced into the re-formed churches in all its simplicity and biblical dignity. I would call on church leaders to re-visit the teaching and practice of the reformation, and set about reforming their churches in line with the teaching and practice of the Word of God.

Caveat: it will be very costly for those biblically-driven ministers who attempt this reform within the evangelical churches today. Be prepared for dismissal. Reformation is costly business.

AMYRALDIAN ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE 2013

  Norwich Reformed Church

A REFUGE FOR THE GUILTY RACE*

Amyraldian Features in Welsh Calvinism

AMYRALDIAN ASSOCIATION

Affirming Calvin’s Authentic Biblical Christianity

NINTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Attleborough Baptist Church

Norfolk

11-12 APRIL 2013

*derived from words by William Williams, Pantycelyn

THE THINKING BEHIND THE THEME

Building on the discoveries of previous conferences, we extend our investigations to Wales, this year being the tercentenary of the birth of the eminent Calvinistic Methodist preacher Daniel Rowland (1713-90). At its most basic, our conference seeks to highlight the theme shared by this year’s Banner of Truth Ministers’ Conference: ‘The Gospel: What it is and Why it matters’. However, despite our appeal to Banner publications, most brethren at Leicester are unlikely to share our stance. Since the Bible makes it clear that the Gospel of Christ has a global reach (Matt. 28: 19; Mk. 16: 15; Jn.3: 16), no member of the human race is to be denied the message of mercy, even though many reject it. True, only a portion of humanity will be saved—God’s elect. It is equally true that the provision and offer of pardon are universal. Otherwise there is no ‘Good News for every creature’. Hence our Saviour’s atoning death has a ‘double reference’: to all mankind in general and to the believing elect in particular. This ‘duality’ is basic to the Amyraldian view of the Gospel.  

WHAT ARE ‘AMYRALDIAN FEATURES’?

During his heresy trial at the National Synod of Alençon (1637), Moïse Amyraut declared that ‘Jesus Christ died for all men sufficiently, but for the elect only effectually: and that consequentially his intention was to die for all men in respect of the sufficiency of his satisfaction, but for the elect only in respect of its quickening and saving virtue and efficacy; which is to say, that Christ’s will was that the sacrifice of his cross should be of an infinite price and value, and most abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world; yet nevertheless the efficacy of his death appertains only unto the elect;...for this was the most free counsel and gracious purpose both of God the Father, in giving his Son for the salvation of mankind, and of the Lord Jesus Christ, in suffering the pains of death, that the efficacy thereof should particularly belong unto all the elect, and to them only…’ (John Quick, Synodicon in Gallia Reformata, 1692, ii. 354).

It is our conviction that, contrary to ‘received wisdom’, these ‘Amyraldian features’ were present in Welsh Calvinism, especially among the Calvinistic Methodists. The distinguished author Dr Eifion Evans helps set the scene for us. The North Wales Methodist leader, Thomas Jones of Denbigh’s ‘great contribution lay in steering the Methodism of the [19th] century safely between the rocks of Arminianism and High Calvinism...both Thomas Jones and Thomas Charles [Bala] were following in the tradition of Rowland and Williams’ (Daniel Rowland and the Great Evangelical Awakening in Wales, Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985, 339).

‘High Calvinism’ is properly defined as the theology of Theodore Beza, the Westminster Confession and John Owen, as distinct from the original teaching of John Calvin which Amyraut claimed to reaffirm as ‘authentic Calvinism’. Losing Calvin’s biblical balance, ‘High Calvinism’ was the prelude to the antinomian hypercalvinism which blighted Wales for a while, as it did England and elsewhere. In short, the Owenite ‘limited atonement’ teaching created evangelistic and pastoral havoc, as it still does.

This year’s conference examines the theological, devotional and practical significance of the following summary:

The Methodist Fathers were never, at first, Hyper-Calvinists,...The doctrine that was undoubtedly believed among them was that of the Articles of the Established Church, and in agreement with these they preached Jesus Christ as a sufficient Saviour for the whole world, inviting all to him. One need only read the journal of Howell Harris, the sermons of Daniel Rowland, and the hymns of William Williams, to see that they laid down no limits to the value of the Saviour's sacrifice. But just as one extreme always produces the opposite, many of the Calvinists, in the warmth of their zeal against the Wesleyans, claimed that there was no universal aspect to the call of the gospel; that the elect alone were to be called… 

John Morgan Jones & William Morgan, tr. John Aaron, The Calvinistic Methodist Fathers of Wales (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2008), ii. 605.                   (ACC)

A Presbyterian Republic?

I came across this interesting paper this morning, a paper that emanated from the Scottish Covenanters and proposed the setting up of a republic in these islands and get rid of the monarchy.

I would be very pleased to hear your views on the contents of this historic paper.

 The Queensferry Paper.

 The Queensferry Paper was so called  because it was discovered in the pocket of a Covenanter, Henry Hall of Haughshead, when he was seized at South Queensferry on 4 June 1680. Hall was in the company of Donald Cargill when they were discovered and an attempt made to arrest them. Cargill made good his escape but Hall subsequently died from his wounds. The document is thought to have been a manifesto intended to be taken by Hall to Holland where dissident Scots  could consider a new Presbyterian system for Scotland.

 Smellie in Men of the Covenant calls the paper “the most advanced of all the Covenanting manifestos “. It was a bond strong in its affirmations and denials; made a solemn confession of faith and frankly disavowed sinful rulers. It further made a declaration in favour of a republic. The document was the first formal statement of the dissident group that became known known as the Cameronians, MacMillanites and Reformed Presbyterians. A document of some 6,000 words it is much longer and definitive than the Declaration at Sanquhar which was made shortly after on 22 June 1680.

 The substance of the document given in Hewisons The Covenanters, ( the lengthy full text is in Johnson`s Treasury)  was :

 1. To covenant with and swear acknowledgement of the Trinity and to own the Old and New Testaments to be the rule of faith.

2. To advance God`s kingdom, free the church from Prelacy and Erastianism, and remove those who had forfeited authority.

3. To uphold the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, with her standards, polity, and worship, as an independent government.

4. To overthrow the kingdom of darkness, ie Popery, Prelacy and Erastianism.

5. To discard the royal family and set up a republic.

6. To decline hearing the indulged clergy.

7. To refuse the ministerial function unless duly called and ordained.

8. To defend their worship and liberties, to view assailants as declarers of war, to destroy those assaulting, and not to injure any `but those that have injured us`.[i]

 The fifth article recites the reasons for rejecting rule by a single person (the monarchy) and declares:

We do declare that we shall set up over ourselves, and over what the Lord shall give us power of, government and governors according to the Word of God, and especially that Word, Exodus xviii.21:`Moreover, though shalt  provide out of all the people, able men, such as fear God , men of truth, hating covetousness, and place such over them; to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundred, rulers of fifties , and rulers of tens.`  That we shall no more commit the government of  ourselves, and the making of laws for us, to any one single person, or lineal successor, we not being by God, as the Jews were, bound to one single family; and this kind of government by a single person being most liable to inconveniences, and aptest to degenerate into tyranny, as sad and long experience hath taught us.

Marriage Again

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No Place Like Rome?

With the process going on to elect a new pope, it is highly advantageous in this ecumenical age to inform ourselves of just how far Rome is from the Christian Church.  This is a man-made religion that has no warrant in the Scriptures, and as the years go by, the deeper her iniquity becomes.

Read these lines again, as supplied by Dr Alan C Clifford, Minister of Norwich Reformed Church.

NO PLACE LIKE ROME? 

Alan C. Clifford

PREPARING FOR

THE QUINCENTENARY OF THE

GLORIOUS PROTESTANT REFORMATION

(1517-2017)

Avoiding Rome’s predictable lies and her inevitable ecumenical deception in the run-up to this event,
we unashamedly issue the following statement:

1. The Pope’s religion is not the Christianity of Jesus Christ.
2. The Pope’s church is not the true Church of Jesus Christ.
So, since the Pope may be identified as ‘antichrist’ (as many Continental and British theologians have cogently argued in past centuries), conversion to the Roman Catholic Church is a retrograde and tragic step. While the apostate condition of many Protestant Churches (including the ‘feminized’ and ‘sodomized’ Church of England) gives sufficient cause for disillusionment, the Roman option cannot provide a safe or satisfying spiritual home. As affirmed in the doctrinal declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), Rome claimed to be the only ‘correct’ church. In a more recent decree (2007), we are told that ‘Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century’ cannot be ‘called Churches in the proper sense’. However, Rome’s claim could not be more invalid. The proof is as follows:

I The doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church are utterly inconsistent with the plain teaching of the New Testament. The finality of Christ’s unique sacrifice and His priestly intercession (see Hebrews 9: 28; 10: 11-12) rule out the sacrifice of the mass and a human priesthood. The theory of transubstantiation is an absurd philosophical fiction and utterly detrimental to the simple symbolism of the Lord’s Supper - a
memorial of our Saviour’s once-for-all sacrifice. Thus His blood shedding is remembered not repeated, on a
table not an altar (hence ministers are pastors not priests); His real presence is spiritual, not physical, in the
hearts of His people and not in the bread and wine.

II Justification by faith in Christ’s merit alone (see Romans 5: 1-9) and direct access to Him as sole Mediator (see Matthew 11: 28; 1 Timothy 2: 5) rule out the false, idolatrous and pretentious teaching that Mary is Mediatrix, a ‘female mediator’ through whom we approach our Saviour. Calling our Lord’s mother ‘Queen of Heaven’ has turned her into a goddess! The idea that the merits of the faithful are a necessary contribution to their salvation undermines the all-sufficiency of Christ’s merit. Rome’s traditional mistake in making sanctification a part of justification arises from her reliance on the Latin justificare instead of the Greek dikaioo. While the former verb means ‘to make righteous’, the latter means ‘to declare righteous’ by the remission of sins through faith in the blood of Christ (see Romans 4: 5-8; 5: 1, 9). Our pardon is provided by Christ’s sacrificial righteousness alone, imputed to all who trust in Him.
While good works are a necessary and certain fruit of saving faith (see Galatians 5: 6; Ephesians 2: 8-10), their imperfection rules them out from justifying us. Our persons and our performances alike always require
pardon. That said, Christian sainthood is the present status of true though imperfect believers (see Ephesians
1: 1-2) not that of dead believers canonised by the Church of Rome.

III Thus purgatory and prayers for the dead (including requiem masses) have no apostolic warrant. Those who die ‘in Christ’ have no need of our prayers. Those who die otherwise cannot be helped by them.
Besides corrupting Baptism and the Holy Communion, Rome arrogantly added five more supposed sacraments to those commanded by Christ. Her realignment of the Ten Commandments - combining the first two and dividing the tenth - obscure in summary form God’s prohibition of the idolatry of such popular graven images as crucifixes and statues of Mary. Venerating the bones of the saints and other relics breeds superstition. Other distortions of divine truth are no less serious. The Pope’s title ‘Holy Father’ is a blasphemous insult to God the Father (see John 17: 11). His claim to be the ‘vicar of Christ’ is a further insult to the Holy Spirit, Christ’s true representative on earth (see John 14: 16-17). The political claims of a highly fallible Papacy conflict with Christ's words that His kingdom ‘is not of this world’ (John 18: 36). Rome’s entire governmental structure-- pope, cardinals, archbishops, etc--has more in common with ancient imperial Rome than the apostolic Presbyterian order of the New Testament.

Rome’s growing ambition to dominate Europe as in the days of the Holy Roman Empire is a re-emerging tyranny to be resisted by individual Christians and national governments alike. Ever since the Reformation, the Papacy has always been opposed to the independence of the United Kingdom. Her arrogance is at odds with Christ’s liberating truth (see John 8: 32, 36; Galatians 5: 1).

IV In addition to theological objections, the track record of Roman Catholicism does not commend itself. For violent and bloody persecution, no organization can compete with Rome. Since the true Church of Christ is ‘persecuted’ rather than ‘persecutor’, this one consideration alone makes Rome’s claim to
‘correctness’ null and void (see John 15: 20-1; 2 Timothy 3:12). Besides the burnings of the sixteenth-century British reformers, the dreadful cruelties inflicted on the ancient Waldensians, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Protestants and others (including Jews, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox) have never been truly repented of-- since the doctrine directing these atrocities remains in tact. Indeed, under another name--The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Inquisition still exists.

Current persecution of Protestants in Central and South America shows no change in Rome’s methods where she has a free hand. The intrigue and corrupting influence of the Jesuits knows no parallel. Vatican complicity in the rise of Hitler and the Nazi holocaust is well attested. The evils of the confessional and the ‘unholy wedlock’ of supposedly celibate priests refute Rome’s sanctimonious image. While marital failure among protestant pastors is to be lamented, is it any wonder that paedophilia and HIV are rife among sexually-frustrated and homosexual Roman priests?

V Considering the post-reformation dogmas of Mary’s immaculate conception (1854), papal
infallibility (1870) and the Assumption of Mary (1950), the Church of Rome is even more apostate
than she was in Luther and Calvin’s day. Thus any form of ecumenism on Rome’s terms is nothing but
satanic delusion (see 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-12). Especially in the wake of Dominus Iesus, when naïve and gullible evangelicals, charismatics and others try to persuade us that ‘Rome is changing’, ask them which of her antibiblical dogmas has Rome renounced? Indeed, the late Dr D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was right to say that “The Roman Catholic Church is the devil’s greatest masterpiece.” May all God’s people understand the
‘signs of the times’ and cease not ‘contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3). Amen!

Dr Alan C. Clifford,
Pastor, Norwich Reformed Church
www.nrchurch.co.nr

Marriage Really Matters

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John Jones - Reformed Pastor par excellence

Dr Alan C. Clifford wrote this excellent piece:

Although John Jones had been preaching for several years, and had become famous throughout Wales and beyond, he had not received full ordination at this time. However, this occurred in the Bala Association in June 1829, when five others were ordained with him. At the close of the ordination service, John Elias delivered the charge. In the same Association, in the evening of the last day, John Jones preached on the words, ‘The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the mul titude of isles be glad thereof. Clouds and darkness are round about Him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne’ (Psalm 97: 1-2). He was aware of the deep and solemn importance of ordination to the full calling of the Christian ministry. ‘His own sensitive spirit was deeply moved’, wrote Owen Jones, ‘and his sermon that night was delivered with great power. The Revd John Hughes, Wrexham, preached after him. In speaking of the event, Mr Hughes said, “It would have been disheartening even for John Elias to rise up after him”’.

Ever since the first ordinations of 1811, the Calvinistic Methodists were aware of the high privileges and responsibilities of an ordained  ministry. Freed at last from the shackles of Anglicanism, they were able to develop, establish and express a truly Reformed view of the Church. From a Continental perspective, the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists were truly ‘The Reformed Churches of Wales’, later known as the Presbyterians of Wales - without denying that other branches of Welsh Nonconformity share some characteristics of Reformed churchmanship. The Confession of 1823 outlined the ethos and duties of the people of God, which John Jones and his brethren promised solemnly to uphold, teach and maintain: 

Christ the head of the church, has instituted ordinances, means of grace, and an order of worship, to be used in the church by all his people, - in private, in the family, and in the congregation. Through these ordinances, God gives grace, and nourishes and increases the grace given. They are the ordinances of preaching, reading and hearing the word, prayer, praise, mutual instruction, conversation [cydymddyddan], the exercise of every part of church discipline, and the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

Whatever biblical reservations John Jones entertained about the ‘Owenite’ features of Article 18 ‘Of Redemption’, he was fully committed to Article 37.  In his high views of the sacraments, he was neither Baptist nor Anglican. Furthermore, ‘he was anxious to keep these high in the estimation of the people’.

Regarding baptism, John Jones’s own family experience - as a son of godly parents and now a father of a growing family - was a constant reminder of God’s covenant mercies. Owen Jones creates a beautiful picture of John Jones’s understanding of the ordinance of covenant baptism:

And whenever the Sacrament of Baptism or of the Lord’s Supper was administered by him, he always performed the duty with the solemnity that was due to the occasion. In the case of the Sacrament of Baptism, he would deliver an appropriate address upon the duties which parents owe to their children, upon the profession of Christ made through baptism, the importance of bringing up the young in the church; at other times he would speak of the meaning of the Sacrament, and of the great change that was signified by it. Some of these addresses were very thrilling, and his prayers were always fervent for the blessing of God upon the parents and the children.

Owen Jones’s account of John Jones’s celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a narrative of exquisite rapture, and deserves to be quoted in full:

His administration of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was more impressive still. This is done in Wales generally at the close of the service. After prayer and consecration the minister goes round the members with the bread and wine; and while doing so he speaks words appropriate to the occasion. Mr John Jones always took some special point in connection with the death of Christ: His love, His humiliation, His self-denial and obedience to the will of God; the sufficiency of His sacrifice, the cleansing through His blood, &c.; and he dwelt upon it, and expressed his thoughts until gradually he became warmed by the subject; his ideas flowed as from a fountain; his mind was thrilled; those emotions passed from him to the congregation; the people became absorbed in the same great subject; and they forgot themselves at last, and seemed lost in a sea of gladness and Divine joy. We have heard it said that his addresses at the Communion table were at times so fervent, so glowing, so heavenly, that the people could hardly venture from a feeling of awe and reverence to take the elements from his hand. 

A uniquely-glorious experience of such heavenly joy was felt when John Jones was preaching at the Tabernacle, Bangor one Lord’s Day evening in the early summer of 1835. Again, Owen Jones paints the wonderful picture:

The service commenced at six o’clock. The sermon was not over till half past eight. Nevertheless, the people were not tired; under the spell of his oratory time was forgotten. On this occasion there was a Communion service to be at the close. The sermon itself was impressive; and the congregation had been worked up to a high pitch of emotion. It was felt at the Communion table that the service went on with great ease. The preacher was in a most elevated mood, and grace was evidently being poured into his lips, and a live coal from the altar of the sanctuary had touched them; so that they glowed with peculiar eloquence that evening. The preacher had gone round the large chapel with the bread, and was now returning for the wine. He took the cups in his hands, and held them up with the wine in them, and with his sweet voice he said, “Do you see, my friends, how the wine begins to redden?” These words, with those beautiful notes of his, ran electrically through the multitude. The tears rushed to the eyes of many, as if to see what was the cause of such a shock, and they gave vent to their emotions in words; and probably there was not a man who did not feel that moment something creeping shudderingly over him. After a while there was perfect silence again, and he went on speaking upon the “precious blood of Christ.” The time had gone; no one thought of looking upon the clock. Their minds had been absorbed. It was after ten o’ clock when he commenced praying in order to close the meeting. He said, “Indeed, Lord, we would have praised Thee to-night, only that it has gone late. Blessed be God, because we have hopes of going into a country where there will be no record of time to disturb our worship; and because we can hope for the day when we shall never become tired of the house of God.” Before he had gone any farther, the feelings of the people became too warm again; and their voices drowned the voice of the preacher; and there they remained till it was eleven o’clock.

Such were the amazing labours of the Revd John Jones, Talsarn. For all the joys of heaven poured out in such abundance, his Lord’s day travels denied him any rest. He often had to preach in three places, many miles apart, each service concluding with the Lord’s Supper and sometimes a baptism. Clearly his ordination as a minister of the Gospel had a profound influence upon him. His biographer appropriately describes this period in the preacher’s career: ‘He consecrated his energies, his talents, and his genius more than ever to the great cause of Christ. And though his toil was incessant and his labours excessive, yet he was employed with the work he delighted to be in; and he enjoyed times of most thorough refreshing and happiness. His ministry advanced in power, and his popularity became greater still’.