WHEN that unhappy woman, Mary Queen of Scots, came to the scaffold for her execution, she was approached, with all the respect due to her rank, by Dr. Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, who hoped to minister to her that gospel of which every sinner, high and low, has need. She interrupted him abruptly, however, declaring herself a “Catholic,” and determined to die such.
“Repent of your sins,” said the dean; “settle your faith in Christ, by Him be saved.”
Could sounder or more scriptural advice have been given? But mark this deceived bigot’s reply; “Trouble not yourself further, Mr. Dean,” she answered; “I am settled in my own faith, for which I mean to shed my blood.”
“I am sorry, madam,” said Lord Shrewsbury, “to see you so addicted to popery.”
“The image of Christ you hold in your hand will not profit you if He be not engraved in your heart,” said another, Kent.
To these faithful admonitions she made no reply, but turned her back on Fletcher to kneel in prayer to her “saints” and the “Virgin.”
She went to her death trusting in a lie, and refusing the gospel of God brought to her by faithful men, thus judging herself unworthy of eternal life.
The dean exhorted her to repentance and faith in Christ. This is precisely what the apostle Paul everywhere testified to men (see Acts 20:2121Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21)). And the queen’s reply, “I am settled in my own faith,” witnesses that this is not what she considered they Catholic faith, for which she falsely declared she was shedding her blood (for her execution took place for purely political reasons).
How many, even now, declare as plainly, when they speak of “their own faith,” that it is not the faith of the gospel which they possess. Salvation does not come to sinners because of any traditional “faith” to which they may cling.
There is but one saving faith known to Scripture— “the common faith,” the “faith of God’s elect” (Titus 1:1-41Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness; 2In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; 3But hath in due times manifested his word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God our Saviour; 4To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour. (Titus 1:1‑4)).
This is simple faith, or dependence on Jesus Christ as a personal and all-sufficient Saviour; and it is the only faith which will avail any man—Romanist or Protestant.
Faith of any other kind or character is called by the inspired writer, James, “dead,” and the religion of its possessor he declares to be vain.
Thus far we have seen the Scottish queen deceived; we shall now behold her deceiving. Describing the execution, Froude says: “The head hung by a shred of skin (after the executioner’s blow), which he divided without drawing the ax. At once a metamorphosis was witnessed, strange as was ever wrought by the wand of fabled enchantment. The coif fell off, and the false plaits. The illusion vanished. The lady who had knelt before the block was in the maturity of grace and loveliness. The executioner, when he raised the head, as usual, to show it to the crowd, exposed the features of a grizzled, wrinkled old woman.”
And, reader, a greater metamorphosis will occur when the stroke of death descends upon the religious deceiver, who externally appears so lovely in his life, but within is full of rottenness and moral hideousness. The illusion may be continued until the end; but when death ushers the soul into that eternity where shams cannot abide, and where all is real, all the false adornings of devotion to “church,” zeal for the many and varied inventions of a Christless religion, will drop off as when a fig tree is shaken by a mighty wind; and you, yes, YOU, if a mere professor of religion, if not born again, if unconverted, will stand exposed, and your soul held up in righteous derision, that men and angels may behold its true character.
Oh! be not deceived, and think not to deceive God! Whatever you are, be real; and know that “Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:66For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (Romans 5:6)); —that “whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)). Stand before God self-exposed, yet believing, now; then you will never need be exposed before Him, unbelieving, in a lost eternity.
C. K.