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AN ANSWER TO FOUR LECTURES DELIVERED IN ENNISKILLEN CATHEDRAL BY THE BISHOP OF CLOGHER RICHARD HANSON

by

REV. IVAN FOSTER

Minister of Lisbellaw Free Presbyterian Church

Published as a booklet in 1970

 

The rage of the Bishop against the rock of Holy Scripture

Chapter II

The Bishop’s Yardstick

Before we consider the conclusions (or should we say confusions) the Bishop comes to, we would do well to consider the principles by which he made his judgments. We quote from his first lecture. ‘Next, I want to give an account of the criteria (standard by which he will decided what is good and what is bad) which I am going to use in these lectures…The first pole is the faith of the individual believer and of the Church…The other criterion which I shall use is… the verdict of historical and theological scholarship.’ The Bishop then is guided by what is acceptable to the Church today and what is acceptable to the theological scholars of today and yesterday. But does it not matter what the Bible says we should believe? NOT TO THE BISHOP. You see, we (in this new and changed world of the Bishop’s making) are going to be given from the Bible that which has first of all passed the test of the theologians of ecumenism. In other words the Bishop would place us in the yoke of bondage which Luther and an enlightened Europe cast off at the Reformation. THE BISHOP WOULD HAVE US ACCEPT THE POPISH DOCTRINE OF SUBMISSION TO THE CHURCH AND NOT TO THE WORD OF GOD ON MATTERS OF FAITH AND PRACTICE. The cry of Fermanagh Protestants to the Bishop and his fellow-Romanisers is a long and loud ‘NO POPERY’!

Broken vow

Dr. Hanson swore at his ordination that his standard of faith was the Word of God. He has only recently changed his mind, because he swore the oath in the spring of 1970. Such is the hypocrisy and dishonesty of ecumenists. God’s Word says, ‘To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.’ (Isaiah 8:20.) The Bishop has put the cart before the horse. We do not judge the Bible by the scholars, but the scholars by the Bible. It is God’s Word by which we judge the words of men. (more…)

Much has been said by way of condemnation by both church men and politicians with regard to the recent riots in Belfast and in some other areas.

It would appear that the very serious public disorder was sparked off by a murderous Sudanese migrant, who appears to have unlawfully entered Northern Ireland from the Irish Republic. He travelled from the north African country to Paris and then on to Dublin, before catching a bus to Belfast in February 2023.

The border between that separates the Republic from this part of the United Kingdom is exceedingly ‘porous’! It is now acknowledged that the knife-attack suspect Hadi Alodid, was granted asylum under a ‘fast-track’ scheme.

Hadi Alodid attacked a local man, a Mr Stephen Ogilvie, in North Belfast with a knife and caused him serious injuries. The victim has been reported as suffering serious injuries  in the attack and being blinded in one eye. It appears that the migrant was attempting to ‘behead’ his victim!

Had it not been for the intervention of some bystanders and the beating the attacker off from his victim, it seems likely that the local man would have been murdered.

Treacherous policy

The lack of border security, a deliberate policy on the part of the British Government in London, which is bent on pushing Northern Ireland into a ‘United Ireland’ under Dublin, played a large part in causing the riots.

But the root cause goes deeper.

Mr Jim Allister, party leader of ‘Traditional Unionist Values’,  referring to the attack in Parliament said: ‘What I want to know, and what I know that my constituents want to hear, is what will be done to stop the importation of an alien culture that thinks it is appropriate to try to behead someone within the United Kingdom.” (Read report here). (more…)

On Wednesday evening in Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church prayer meeting, the minister, Rev Samuel Fitton brought a challenging word to us all from Haggai chapter 1.

That message may be listened to with profit by accessing the church website on Facebook.

As a preacher, it is impossible for me to look at a passage of God’s Word without seeing an application of it to the circumstances that prevail around us.

1. Please notice that the call for a ‘considering of their ways’ was directed to the leaders of the work of God in that day.

“In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying,” verse 1.

These men, the governor of Judah and the high priest, had for some seventeen or eighteen years been presiding over a ‘dying work and witness’!

Doubtless, both attended to some duties attached to their offices. I cannot but think that Joshua, the high priest never missed a service, but all that time the work of God was dying under their hands!

2. They had to have the careless ways of the people drawn to their attention by the Lord!

“Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built,” verse 2.

The leaders were blind and deaf and indifferent to the spirit that presided amongst the people. The neglect of God’s house was surely most obvious! It surely could not have gone on for some ‘seventeen or eighteen years after the proclamation of Cyrus for the Jews to return to their own land’ as has been pointed out by the learned, Bishop Ussher. And yet the leaders did nothing! (more…)