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■^
PRESBYTERIANISM
A LECTURE
BY
REV. DR. LANGTRY.
" STARTLINC ARRAIGNMh:NT."— 6^/o/;^.
?Ioronto :
TiMMs i^i Co., Printers. 13 Adei.aipe Streht East,
1893.
PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS.
'•^u^*'
.V ;-,
Vl '
PRESBYTERIANISM
I
A LECTURE
BY
REV. DR. LAINGTRY.
" Startling AkkAi(jNMKNT."-~67o^,..
^Toronto :
TiMMs & Co., Printkrs, 13 Adelaide Street East,
.1893.
PRICE FIFTEEN CENTS.
L3
f
PRESBYTERIANISM.
A LECTURE BY THE REV. DR. LANfiTRY, DELIVERED IN
ST. GEORGE'S HALL, TORONTO,
APRIL 25, 1892.
Dr. Langtry was greeted with applause as he rose to speak
He said : —
The lecture which I am about to deliver was written several
months ago. It is not necessary to detail the circumstances
which led to the postponement from time to time of its
delivery. It was called forth by the following circumstances, and
is wholly of an apologetic character. At the meeting of the
Provincial Synod, held in Montreal in September last, it was
proposed by a delegate to send a deputation bearing fraternal
greetings and congratulations to the Pan-Presbytcrian Council,
then in session in Toronto. In the brief discussion which this'
proposal called forth I said, in effect, that while I had the highest
regard and affection for Presbyterians as individuals, I yet could
not honestly join in the proposed congratulations on the success
of Presbyterianism. In my conviction Presbyterianism had
separated from the Apostolic Church, and had forfeited the
apostolic ministry ; and that, as a system, I was not glad of its
success, and could not say so. I therefore moved that the
Prolocutor be instructed to assure the President of the Pan-
Presbyterian Council, of our hearty good will, and of our con-
tinued earnest desire for the corporate union of" all who profess
and call themselves Christians." This resolution was accepted
in lieu of that originally submitted, and was unanimously
adopted. For this statement and action my name has been
heralded over the continent, as an appalling illustration of
monstrous bigotry and mediaeval narrow-mindedness. It was
asserted and repeated ad nauseam that I had come upon the
stage five hundred years too late, as I was evidently an inborn
Inquisitor, who would rejoice in the racking and roasting of
Presbyterians and Methodists. One worthy Christian is not
unwilling to play the roie of Inquisitor upon me, and urges that
such men as Dr. Langtry is, ought to be driven out of the
country, and not allowed to live among civilized men. Every few
days, for months after the events above described, some kind
friend used to send me a Newspaper from some part of Canada
or the United States, even from far away California, giving a
fresh and exaggerated account of my intolerant bigotry. Now
a bigot is defined to be one who cleaves to a oarty or an opinion
when there is no reason to justify him, or in the face of reasons
which ought to lead every sensible man to an opposite con-
clusion.
I have hope that I shall be able to show in this lecture that
there are reasons, which if they are not thought sufficient to
justify, what is called, my bigotry will at least be accepted as
sufficient to account for it, in one who has had the misfortune to
be born narrow-minded, or in other words, to be under th-
inexorable rule of the logical faculty.
PRESBYTERIANISM.
The term Presbyterian was applied to those Christians who
maintained that there is only one order of ministers in the
Christian Church, the order of Presbyters. Ruling elders are
not regarded as a distinct order, but only as invested with
certain functions ; while the Deacons are regarded as laymen, who
are concerned chiefly with the temporalities of the church.
Bishop and Presbyter or Elder are held to be only different
names for the same office. Presbyterianism as thus defined
embraces over 300 Denominations — separated from, and acting
independently of each other — holding in some particulars
divergent and conflicting doctrines — but agreeing with one
another at least on the one point of church government.
Seventy-nine of these Denominations were represented by dele-
gates at the Pan- Presbyterian conference lately held in Toronto.
They did not meet as one body or for the purpose of uniting in
5
one, but as' a confederation of Denominations. They met to
confer on various practical questions of common interest.
None of these Denominations trace their origin and present
organization farther back than the early years of the sixteenth
century. They do, indeed, claim to find precedent and authority
for their theory and action in the Church of the first days. But
they do not claim to have any organic connection with the
Presbyterian churches or congregations, which they assume to
have existed in the apostolic times. As organized Societies or
Denominations they began to be within the last 360 j^ears. So
that there is an undisputed space of twelve hundred years at
least, during which there was no Presbyterian Church in the
world. And so far as any positive evidence goes, there is a
spac6 of over fifteen hundred years, after the resurrection of
Christ, during which there was no Presbyterian Church. For
Hooker's challenge to the Presbyterians of his day, "to find out
one Church on the face of the earth that hath been ordered by
your discipline or hath not been ordered by ours, that is to say
by Episcopal regimen, since the time that the blessed apostles
were here conversant," remains unanswered to this hour and will
so remain. No instance of a Presbyterian Church existing in
the world before the year 1541 has been adduced, or after the
diligent and painful searcH extending over 350 years can be
found.
Before the Reformation movement began, the abuses and cor-
ruptions of the Church had become so great and so scandalous
that for 200 years the whole West had been crying aloud for a
Reformation. The Popes themselves proclaimed the notorious fact
that " Rome itself was the seat and source of corruption, and the
Popes its authors and disseminators. Pope Adrian VI., had it
openly proclaimed at the Diet of Neuremburg, 1522, that " every-
thing in the Church had been perverted, and a disease had
spread from the head to the members, from the Popes to the
re.st of the Rulers of the Church." Cardinal Caraffa, afterwards
Paul IV., joined in a memorial to Pope Paul III., in which it is
declared that " the theory invented by sycophants of the Pope's
absolute dominion over the whole Church is the source of all this
corruption."
6
No Leader, however, arose to voice the almost universal
sentiment until Luther, scandalized by the shameful sale of
indulgences by Tetzcl, started the movement in Germany.
Almost at the same time the Indijjfnation of Ulric Zwinglius
of Zurich was aroused to invcij^h ajjainst the same abuses in
Switzerland. At first Hugh, Hishop of Constance, approved of
his course and sanctioned his opposition to the prevailing abuses
in the Church. Hut Zwinglius, probably the most popular
and powerful preacher among the reformers, in his headlong
zeal attacked not only abuses but the established doctrines and
apostolic usages of the Church, so that the Jiishop and
authorities of the Church found it necessary to acquit themselves
of all responsibility for what he might do or teach. The Senate,
however, fiercely .espoused his cause, and usurping ecclcciastical
authority, summoned the Bishops to appear before them and
answer the doctrines of Zwinglius. The Bishops protested
against this assumption, and against the Senate's right to judge
in matters spiritual. The Senate, however, disregarded their
protest, and issued a decree in favour of Zwinglius. The ancient
Church, as represented by her Bishops and a majority of the
people, continued her ministrations as before. Zwinglius and
his followers seceded, and formed themselves into what they
called the Reformed Church. This, however, was not strictly
Presbyterian. Zwinglius taught that the Church and State were
all one, and that the magistrate could appoint the ministers of
religion without ajiy ordination or ecclesiastical interference.
The source probably of the opinion which our own Cranmer
held for a brief space about the power of the King to make valid
ministers without ordination.
Zwinglius was killed in battle in I53i> and his followers con-
tinued as a sort of Department of State, until John Calvin, the
French Reformer, driven from his own country, came to
Geneva in 1536. He stoutly opposed the State control, and in
1541 was elected to the Headship of the Reformed Church,
which he proceeded to organize according to a plan which he
had himself devised. Ae was also elected to the Headship of the
secular Government of the Canton, and in a little while he
became civil and ecclesiastical Dictator of the Republic. Calvin,
who was a Frenchman by birth, and a lawyer by profession, was
never ordained. He was a man of giant intellect, and over-
mastermg confidence in his own judgment, powers and learning.
It IS snnply amazing the power he exercised over his own and
succeeding ages. It is only in our own day that the thought or
the Protestant world has shaken off his domination. Before he
was 27 years of age he had formulated with unfaltering logical
precision the appalling doctrinal system which has ever since
borne his name.
He persuaded himself that he had discovered a new and
positively Divine Church polity. The passage he fixed upon as
settling this was Eph. iv., 1 1 : " And He gave some Apostles,
and some Prophets, and some Evangelists and some Pastors
and Teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the
ministry." In this passage Calvin persuaded himself that he
had discovered the long-forgotten charter of the Christian
Church, which the keen eyes of students for fifteen hundred
years had overlooked, which Saints and Fathers and Schoolmen
had all missed. • It did not very much stagger this Lay Dictator
of the Genevan State Church, that he had to blot out the three
first-mentioned offices and combine the other two in one, and
that there was no mention at all in the passage of Presbyters,
Ruling Elders or Lay Deacons. He thought he had found
authority for these unnamed offices in other parts of
Scripture. He seems to have, devised this new theory of the
ministry before he fled from Paris ; for, on his way to Geneva, he,
being only a layman, celebrated a Communion at Noyon, after a
plan of his own devising. This is said to have been the first
Protestant communion ever celebrated. It was certainly the
first communion ever celebrated by a Layman. Like his plan
for the ministry it became the model for Presbyterian com-
munion services ever since.
The church established by Calvin in 1541, though not
calling itself Presbyterian, but the Reformed Church, was
Presbyterian in form, and was the mother and mistress of all the
Presbyterian churches of the present day. It was not, you
will observe, produced by reforming the errors and correcting
the abuses of the old historic Church, but by setting the old
8
aside and substituting a wholly new organization and society
for it.
My first reason, then, for not being able to rejoice at the
success of Presbyterianism is that Presbyterian ism revolutionized
the Church and
DEFEATED THE REFORMATION.
It was a radical Revolution, not a Reformation. It com-
pletely changed the constituted order of the Church. It intro-
duced a new doctrinal basis, a new mode of worship and new
tests of membership. It imparted a new, intolerant and furious
spirit into the Reformation movement, and so, it terrified and
drove away the sober-minded and learned men who were ready
to join it.
Luther, who initiated the movement, was a man of passionate
temper and unbridled tongue, but by his side was the grave,
learned, self-restrained Melancthon, who imparted much of his
own moderation and restraint to the Lutheran reform wave as it
first swept over Europe. This, however, was speedily followed
by the Calvinistic wave. And this was ever5'where marked by
fierce, bitter, uncompromising, iconoclastic temper which seemed
eager not to reform abuses but to sweep away the old Church,
the old doctrines, the old traditions, the old customs, made
venerable by the devotion of centuries — in a word, to pull down
the old Church, with its historic, connection with apostolic times,
and to build a new church with a new ministry out of the shreds
and fragments of the ruin they bad wrought.
The American Historian Motley, who was not a Churchman, in
his most instructive and masterly History of the Dutch Repub-
lic, after describing the moderation and forbearing temper of the
Lutheranism, which was at first embraced by William the
Silent and the Dutch people, gives us this account of the effect
of the Calvinism which was shortly afterwards embraced both by
Prince and people : — " Ambrose Wille, a man who had studied
theology at the feet of Calvin, was the leading spirit. He was
joined by many monks who had renounced their vows, many of
them men of renown as preachers. With these were mixed men
of lowly station and but little education, hatters, curriers, dyers
and the like. Outdoor meetings, attended by thousands of the
Z'trz ', r"" 'V' '''^'' °' nei/bouZd of ev ;
c,ty and the wildest enthusiasm was awakened. The sect to
"now :°: Netf t 7"'"'""=" ''^'°"^'=<' -■' """ °f civ -^
"ow, tne Netherlands nossesspH a» o„t„ j-
„f L I , (ju.-ist-b.seo an extraordmarv numher
of churches and monasteriVs xi,.: ■• "umoer
claboraf« ^„ monasteries. Their e-xquisite architecture and
elaborate decoration were the pride and glory of the land
of the Batavian School. All were peopled with statues and
were profusely adorned. But now, under' the instiglt o of "e
Revolutionary Preachers, there raged a storm by which all thlse
A^rittT" "'''"°""'- "''^'^'^ ^ P™"-"- - town c Jed
Art must forever weep over this bereavement. Antwerp was
the central point of these transactions. There was moTe vvealth
and magnificence in the great cathedral of that city than Tn anv
church o northern Europe. The tower was 500 feet high and the
exp^tTon':?tf Vh""-- ^-'"-"^-'^ internally itlas at
expression of the Christian principles of devotion, an edifice in
which mortals were led to worship the unseen Being n the
realms above." On the day of its destruction an infuria ed
throng filled the cathedral. From whom, Motley says, ■' n tead
PairrLs" (>■: — Vespers) rose the fierce music of a
a general attack Some were armed with axes, some with
bludgeons, some with sledge hammers, others brought ladders
pulleys, ropes, and levers. Every statue was hurled f om 1^'
painted window shivered to atoms, every ancient monument
shattered, every sculptured decoration, however inaccessiWe in
appearance, hurled to the ground. Indefatigably, audac I'ousll
n"el°T4srr""'^' "'f P-'--'"-' .strength'-and niS-'
ness, t..ese furious iconclasts clambered up the dizzy heights
shriekmg and chattering like malignant .pes as they tore off n
tr umph the slowly matured fruits of centuries of art In a space
of time wonderfully brief, they had accomplished their tasl
The noblest and richest temple of the Netherlands was a wreck "
The u,y that wrought this ruin soon extended itself to other
10
In Scotland the Calvanistic wave manifested the very same
characteristics.
The movement which culminated in the establishment of
Presbyterianism in Scotland began, as Hume tells us, by many
of the English Preachers, who were terrified by the severity of
Mary's government, taking shelter in Scotland, where they found
more protection and a milder administration under the Queen
Regeot. These Refugees propagated their own convictions, and
filled the land with a just horror against the cruelties of the
bigoted Roman Catholics. As the Queen Regent, though
governing the kingdom with moderate and prudent councils,
was a Roman Catholic, certain leaders of the Reformers, the
Earl of Argyle, his son, Lord Lome, the Earls of Morton and
Glencairn, Erskine and others, observing the danger to which they
were exposed, entered into a bond or association and called
themselves the Congregation of the Lord, in contradistinction to
the existing Church, which they denominated the Congregation of
Satan. The unwise conduct of the authorities both in Church
and State, greatly exasperated these Reformers and increased
their numbers. When the irritation was at its worst, John
Knox arrived from Geneva, where he had spent some years in
banishment, and where he had imbibed, from his commerce with
Calvin, the highest fanaticism of his sect, augumented by the
native ferocity of his own character. He had been invited back by
the leaders of the Reformation, and mounting the pulpit at Perth,
he declaimed with his usual vehemence against the Idolatry and
other abuses of the Church of Rome. The audience, aroused to
a disposition for any furious enterprise, followed the example of
their Dutch co-religionists, "broke the images in pieces, tore the
pictures from the walls, overthrew the altars, scattered about
the sacred vessels, and left no implement of idolatrous worship,
as they termed it, entire or undefaced. They then proceeded,
with additional numbers and augumented rage, to the Monasteries
of the Grey and Black Friars, which they pillaged in a brief
space. In a little while nothing but the walls of these edifices
were left standing. The congregation now gave themselves up
to the furious zeal of Knox, and commited like depredations on
Churches and Monasteries throughout the land. Every
XI.
It
s^av^1l*',i" ^".".''"^-^'«' the exception of that of Glasgow,
saved by the sp.nted conduct of the citizens, and that of
Orkney, saved by its distance from the scene of violence-wrs
no only d,3„,„.,,, ,„^ ^^^p,^^^,^ ^^^^ and de royed
Be ng now masters of the kingdom, they called a Parliament
1 his Parliament rati6ed a Confession of Faith agreeable to the
that even attendance at it should be chastised with confiscation
ir r"the™^'"'1 """f'"^"' "" '"^ '-' offence tr
T"u "^'Z'^™"''' ='"d. loss of life for the third. The
Presbytermn form of worship was established, leaving at first
some shadow of authority to certain ecclesias;ics whL they
called Superintendents." '^
The ringleader in all the violent mea<!iirp. r.ftu,t .•
Inhn Kr,^^ .1 u 1. J . '"• measures of that time was
John Knox. He had acquired uncontrolled authority in the
congregation and in civil affairs. He triumphed in the contume!
ous usage of the young, helpless, hapless Queen of Scots. He
b rr i:^'^ °' '^^ '^^ ^^^^■-'- ^■"' '"ough she endeavoured
b/ the mos gracious condescension to win his fav6r, all her insin-
u,.tions could gain nothing on his obdurate heart. She promTsed
him access to her whenever he desired it, and she evenTsked
him 1 he found her blameable in anything, to reprehend her
freely in private rather than vilify her in the pulpit before fhe
whole people; but he plainly told her that it was not his business
to apply to every individual, nor had he leisure for thacc!
pation. His political principles were full of sedition, and his
theological views full of rage and bigotry-both of Uich he
communicated to the people whom he swayed." These state
ments Ihave quotedfrom Hume, who makes them ontheautho ty
of Knox and Keith. Hume was brought up a Presbvterbn
hough he afterwards became an UnbelLer.^he Tame rev""
Kitionary and destructive spirit characterised the c'vin st^
dTove XZT' ■" " ^"'='" °'" """'"P'- '" Switzerland
drove the Bishops into exile. In Germany, under the leadership
of ,?;r. ? ""T"'"' '' P'""^^^ '"e land into the horro !
of the thirty-years- war, which, if Gustavus Adolphus had not
swept down upon the everywhere victorious Papal arm es und^
12
Wallenstein, would certainly have issued in the destruction
of Protestantism in the land of its birth. In Holland it very
nearly wrecked the noble defence of the Silent William and his
heroic; people against the invading armies of Inquisitioral Spain.
In England it issued in the murder of the King and the suppres-
sion of the Church. In Scotland the ancient Church was crushed,
and a new institution substituted for it.
Now, here is a great fact : " The Reformation," says Dr.
Dollingcr, and no one was ever more competent to speak than
he, *' was a movement so deeply rooted in the needs of the age,
and sprang so inevitably from the ecclesiastical conditions of the
centuries immediately preceding it, that it could not have been
deferred for another fifty years. And when it began in a little
while — about 30 years — it had swept out of the Roman obedience
three-fourths of the entire population of Western Europe. In
1557 the Venetian ambassador Bodiero reported that seven-
tenths of the German nation had become Lutheran, and that two-
tenths belonged to the Reformed and Anabaptists, while only
one-tenth remained Catholic. The greater part of Austria and
Bohemia was Protestant, and in Bavaria the nobility and the
Emperor Maximilian II., though nominally Catholic, were of the
same religion."
The one fourth that remained was powerfully attracted and
was being constantly drained by a stream of converts. No
council or synod assembled to check the spreading defection, and
the Popes for forty years never opened their lips to utter one
word of guidance to a generarion driven hither and thither by
the surging sea that was raging around them. The end was
near, and had moderation been observed the Roman Church
would have had to reform herself or the one- fourth would soon
have followed the three-fourths. But in less than fifty years this
condition of things was exactly reversed. Three-fourths of the
population of Europe had returned to the Roman obedience and
only one-fourth remained Protestant. Now, how was this
brought about ? Chiefly through the Revolutionary violence —
the internal divisions of Protestants and the litigious spirit of
their Divines, which produced disgust and such painful uncer-
tainty among the people that many of them came to look upon
k
f
13
the rigid system of authority and uniformity of the Roman
Church as better far than this chaos and strife. So utterly dis-
heartening and perplexing was this disputing and violence .^hat
Erasmus, the most learned and moderate man of that age, ex-
claimed, "This new Gospel, founded upon the doctrine of abso-
lute decrees, has produced a new generation,— impudent, hypo-
critical people, who are revilcrs. liars, deceivers; who do not
agree among themselves and are very uneasy to others; who are
seditious, furious, given to cavilling, and with whom I am so
much dissatisfied that if I knew any town where none of them
were I would go thither and choose to live in it." Hume (Vol. 4
p. 42) says of the preachers of the new religion, " They affected
a furious zeal for religion, morose manners, a vulgar and familiar
and yet mysterious cant, while the people were ^infected with a
dismal Fanaticism." Macaulay says (Vol. i., p. 129) the tests of
real godliness which the Puritans set up when they had their
own way were "the sad colored-dress, the sour look, the
straight hair, the nasal whine, the speech interspersed with
quaint texts; the abhorence of comedies, cards and hawking."
"The sincere Puritans were swallowed up in a multitude of the
worst sort of worldly men, who talked about sweet experiences
and comfortable texts of Scripture, and yet lived many of them in
the constant practice of fraud, rapacity and secret debauchery."
And Melancthon, whose last days were spent in hopeless
protests against the evils around him, as he lay upon his death-
bed, said, "For two reasons I desiro to leave this life. First
that I may enjoy the sight that I long for, of the Son of God'
and of the Church in Heaven. Next, that I may be set free
from the monstrous and implacable hatreds of the theologians"
This same revolutionary violence and implacable hatred
characterized the whole Calvinistic Presbyterian formative
period. Manyofyouhave sccnin the shattered windows, plastered-
over paintings and decapitated and mutilated statues of the
English cathedrals, to say nothing of the ruined shrines, abidin-
proofs of this spirit of violence. **
My first point, then, is that I cannot rejoice in the success and
perpetuation of a system which defeated the Reformation and
Restoration to its pristine glory of the whole Catholic Church,
^11
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'4
and which by its traditional prejudices and hatreds and
unreasonableness, has repelled the Urireformed from even
thinking of or reconsidering their position.
MAN-MADE CHURCH.
My second point is, that I cannot rejoice in the success of
Presbyterian ism because it supplies the first instance of a man-
made church. The historical order in Scotland was as follows :
In 1555 Knox took the lead of the Revolutionary Reformers
He abolished ordination. The first Book of Discipline was
practically his. It decreed (see page 508, Knox History) :
" Other ceremony than the public approbation of the people and
declaration of the chief minister that the person there pre-
sented is appointed to serve the church we cannot approve, for
albeit the apostles used imposition of hands, yet, seeing the
miracle is ceased, the using of the ceremony wc judge not
necessary." This continued to be the use for eighteen years,
and during that time there was no ordination, Presbyterian
or Episcopal. Then Melville persuaded them to adopt the
Geneva form of ordination, but the ordainers were not them-
selves ordained. On this point Dr. Littledale writes : " There
is no evidence, and no probability that any evidence exists, that
the present Presbyterian Pastorate in Scotland has even
Presbyterian orders. For Knox abolished the imposition of
hands at ordination. This lasted for eighteen years, and there
is no evidence that when imposition of hands was reintroduced
that the old, rnercly elected pastors, were thus ordained, or that
any other than they undertook to ordain the new ministers.
And as the Priests who turned Presbyterian when the Scottish
Church was again overthrown in the civil war, were kept in the
background and not suffered to ordain, nothing was effected by
their agency. Not a single Presbyterian minister in modern
Scotland can produce even probable evidence that he can trace
back his order to a genuine presbyter."
Mozley gives this account of the way in which the Calvin-
istic preachers were appointed and acted in England. " The
fanatical Preachers overran the land like locusts, and spread
their doctrines with the zeal and license of preaching Friars,
f
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f
n
There were quiet, intellectual specimens, like Baxter, who
despised their brethren, but the rank and file were a vul-ar
disorderly crew They abounded and sprang up with'
luxuriant and prolific impetus all over the Church. Many
became preachers without any ordination or any authority. Like
the Scotch Covenanters and Cameronians pictured in Scott's
'Old Mortality,' they were a frenzied, froward, rude, and
undisciplined mass, full of angry enthusiasm."
Scottish Presbyterianism is of Erastian origin, the creation'
of an Act of Parliament. The Bishops and ecclesiastical
authorities generally opposed the movement. The civil
authority was appealed to, and the Parliament of 1560 by its
own authority, published " The Confession of Faith, professed
and believed in by the Protestants within the realm of Scotland."
On December 20, of the same year, these Protestants held their
first general assembly, and began operations as an organized
Denomination, being as yet only a small part of the community,
and in opposition to the Church and clergy of the ancient Church
ot Scotland. The wave, however, went on swelling, and sweep-
ing all before it. The Bishops of Oakney, Caithness and Argyle
joined the movement. Other Bishoprics became vacant by
death. As the law then stood it was only Bishops who could
draw the Episcopal revenues, only Abbots who could lift the
rents of the abbey lands, and " as many of the lords of the con-
gregation hungered and thirsted more after the corn fields of the
monks than after righteousness, the Archbishopricks, Bishop-
ricks and Abbacies were continued. They were, however, filled
up without any regular or canonical consecrations, and it was
everywhere whispered that the patrons had bargained with the
presentees that a portion of the Episcopal revenues was to be
handed over to them. This led to their being stigmatized as
Tulchan bishops— they were only stuffed calves set up to
make the cow give her milk," (Dr. John Cunningham S. Giles'
Lecture, page 163).
This Tulchan episcopacy continued till 1610, when, under
the influence of James L, three persons, Spottiswood, Lamb and
Hamilton, went to London, and were consecrated Bishops. On
their return they consecrated the men who were in possession of
4
.v.-
i6
the sees, and so the Church in Scotland, which had all along
continued Episcopal in name and in outward form, now became
such again in reality.
Andrew Melville returned from a ten years' residence in
Geneva in 1574. He added great vigour and zeal to those who
preferred a Presbyterian form of church government. His
party continued to increase, till in 1637 they drove those of the
Episcopal clergy who would not submit to Presbyterian rule out
of their places in the Church. But the establishment of
Presbyterian ism at this period was no act of the Church. The
clergy of Scotland, Hume says, were not the leaders. On the
contrary, the Laity, apprehending a spirit of moderation in that
order, resolved to domineer entirely in the assembly. They
meant to abolish Episcopacy, and as preparatory they caused to
be solemnly read in the churches an accusation against the
Bishops, as guilty, all of them, of heresy, simony, bribery, perjury
cheating, incest, adultery, fornication, common swearing,'
drunkenness, gaming, breach of the Sabbath, and every other
crime that could be thought of.
The General Assembly, which met at Glasgow, Nov. 17, 1638,
and which was the highest ecclesiastical authority in the land,
consisted by law of the King's Commissioner, the Bishops, the
Inferior Clergy and the Lay Delegates. The Bishops protested
against the assembly on the ground of the illegality of the
election of the Deputies; and refused to attend. The Marquis
of Hamilton, as King's Commissioner, had the legal right to
dissolve the assembly and did so on the 2Qth of November
1638.
After this dissolution of the assembly— in the absence of the
Bishops and Ecclesiastical Authorities— Episcopacy was
abolished, and Presbyterianism set up. Then followed the
Rebellion and the Commonwealth.
On the restoration of Charles H., 1660, the Episcopal clergy
that survived were brought back to their places in Scotland ''as
well as in England. On the 15th December, 1661, four persons
were consecrated for the Scottish Archiepiscopal sees. On their
return they filled up by consecration the other sees, as before,
in 1637. Sydserf, of Galloway, was the only Scotch Bishop
i
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i
17
that survived the rebellion and remained faithful to the Church.
The Earl of Glencairn has left it on record that the Eiiisco-
palians were six to one of the Presbyterians in Scotland at that
time. This small remnant continued, however, as a sect, in
opposition to the Church.
The act which has led to the Presbyterians being called
the Church of Scotland is of later date. When William of
Orange came to the throne, in 1668, the Hishops and
clergy generally, according to the notions of that time, felt
themselves bound by their oaths of allegiance to support
Prince Charlie as legitimate heir to the crown, when James II.
abdicated. It is on record that Compton, Bishop of London,
stated to Rose, Bishop of Edinburgh, that William was
satisfied that the great body of the nobility and gentry of
Scotland were for Episcopacy, and that he had directed him to
say that if the Episcopalians of Scotland would undertake to
serve him he would support the Church and order and throw off
the Presbyterians. (Letherby's History of the Non-Jurors, p. 416.)
They refused, and William, by an order published October 19,
1689, took the Revenues of the Scotch Bishops and put them
into his pocket. Ever since that time they have been paid into
the royal exchequer. An act passed in the Scotch Parliament
through the King's influence on the 24th of April, 1690, gave
the Presbyterian seceders the possession and control of the
Church edifices and property ; and on the 7th of June following
the " Westminster Confession of Faith " was declared by the
same authority to be the allowed and established confession of
faith in Scotland, and the Presbyterian church government and
discipline established, ratified and confirmed.
The Bishops and Clergy refused compliance, and continued
their ministrations as belore, as far as the tyranny of the laws
and Presbyterian intolerance made it possible. A large number
of the people adhered to them, and the historical continuity and
identity of the Church in Scotland was not affected by its
disestablishment. Nor could the establishment of a Sect, under
a title which belonged to the Church make it to be what 't was
not before — the Church of Scotland.
■ •
i8
1 have thou{;[ht it well to {jfivc this brief sketch of the rise and
progress of Presbyterianism, because it brings out the fact, first
that it furnishes the first instance of a mnu-nutde chifrch. Our
lilessed Lord came into the world not merely to preach a (jospel
or set .'HI example, or offer an atonement, but to establish a King-
dom, to found a Church. That Church, lie declared, Me would
build upon a rock. The rock upon which He did build it was,
St. I'aul tells us, Himself, " He is the one only foundation, the
chief Corner-stone." The whole building rests upon I lim, grows
out of Him, lives in Him, is one with Him — His body. He ap-
pointed its officers, gave its laws, prescribed its ordinances of
initiation and continuance, orgamzed it as a visible outward
society, animated by an inner hidden life ; made it a Divine In-
.stitution ; made its officers His representatives ; invested them
with His authority ; promised to be with them to the end of the
world and sent them forth to convert the nations. Starting from
Jerusalem it spread from city to city, from land to land, till it
reached the limits of the then known world — everywhere one and
the same Church, living mi union and communion ; its ordained
and em[)ovvered ministry the depository of its authority; the
organ of its extension, who, by admitting men into it, extended
it from place to place and from age to age. In one place and
another it fell into heresy, superstition and worldlincss, but never
until Zwinglius and Calvin arose did any man dare to set aside
this Christ-commissioned ministry, to overturn this Divine in-
stitution and substitute another institution, which had no organic
coiuiection with, and had received no authority from, this historic
institution or its rulers; but, separating from the one and setting
aside the other, set up a wholly new society which, after a while,
they called a church. This was the fruitful mother of what are
called the churches of the divided and distracted Christendom
of to-day. It has been held, logically enough, that if these Re-
formers had a right to found a new church, having no organic
connection with and deriving no authority from the old historic
Church of the ages, because its founders did not approve of the
doctrines and practices that were current at the time, then
those that did not approve of their doctrines and practices had
just the same right to separate from them and form new churches,
-;
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,
I
19
possessing all the rights and privileges of those who first separ-
ated. They did not intend this at first. When, however, they
found what they had done, they were compelled to invent a new
theory to justify their action ; and it is now generally main-
tained "That a church is a community, voluntarily associated on
the foundations of revealed truth for religious purposes." The
Rev. Dr. McLaren of this city says :—" That in the New Testa-
ment Believers are required to associate themselves for Christian
fellowship, mutual watch and care, and the extension of the
kingdom of Christ, and these Societies thus formed are spoken
of as churches." Me says further (page 21 of his Lecture on the
Unity of the Church) " that these Associations are to be deter-
mined by linguistic, national, geographical and political consider-
ations." I challenged the Doctor three years ago to produce the
New Testament authority for these statements. It is needless
to say that they have not yet been published, and it would not
help his cause if they could be : it would only serve to show
that he is in open conflict with the Originators of the Presby-
terian system, who, as I shall presently show, believed in the
Divine authority of the one only Presbyterian regimen, and who
inflicted the severest penalties, when they had the power, on any
one who dared to follow Dr. McLaren's prescription and organize
churches on any national or political basis. This was abundantly
illustrated in the burning of Servctus by Calvin, in the cruelties
inflicted by Presbyterians on Churchmen in Scotland, on Inde-
pendents in England and by Puritans on Quakers, Churchmen,
and all who differed from them in New England.
When the Church was supressed in England, and Prcs-
byterianism established in its stead, the Congregationalisms
petitioned for toleration. The reply of the Presbyterians, as
stated in Collier's Church History (Vol. viii., pp. 297-302), is
" That toleration, such as the Independents asked for, could not
be granted, as it would be licensing perpetual division in the
Church — that the request supposes the lawfulness of gathering
churches out of true churches — in countenance of which there is
not the example in all Holy Scripture ; that, if the Church
requires that which is evil of any member, he must forbear
compliance, but yet without separation. The same ground of
20
separation ini^rht be plead by any erroneous conscien* v what-
i-'vcr. and thus by the same equity and parity of rcasoni.Rr the
(^•hmch would be broken into as many subdivisions as there arc
cliMerent scruples in the minds of men," etc., etc.
Such was tlie langua^^e of the men who composetl the VVest-
mmster Confession. They evidently did not know of Dr
McLaren's political, ^geographical, linguistic and national basis."
nut prmciples once accepted have the power of logical con-
s<.stency, and so the old principle of authority has been aban-
doned, a.ul the right of men to originate a new church wher-
ever they disagree with the doctrines or feel agrievcd by the
d.sc.phneofthe old has been conceded along the whole line of
Separatists. The result has been the endless multii)lication of
^^ects, each new Denomination claiming for itself all the ri'vlits
powers and privileges of the old, until, in Kngland alone,"264
Uenommations were registered in 1890. One who has investi-
k^ated the matter says there are at least 328 churches in western
Lhnstendom. Our Lord founded but one ■ declared that there
was but mc ; prayed that His followers might be one. It is true
that this s^'stem of endless division has been showing hopeful
symptoms of healing itself, and many beneficial re-unions have
already been brought about. The weakness, however, of all this is
that these re-unions have been based upon grounds of exped-
lency, and not upon a hearty repudiation of this church-makincT
power as residing in any but the great Head of the Church • and
so one cannot but fear that under the strain of new conflicts that
are emergmg, and which are more radical than any that have been
new churches will be multiplied and new heresies protected.
There must be a confession of the sin of schism, and a
repudiation of the right of any man or set of men to invade the
alone Prerogative of Him whose Body the Church is, or we can
have no assurance of the spirit of unity progressing and prevail-
ing and remaining. And so, again, I say, I cannot rejoice at the
extension and perpetuation of a .system which had this illegi-
timate origin, and which now maintains a theory of the Church
which ju.stifies endless division, overthrows all authority and
makes the Church of Christ no more a Divine Institution than
the Salvation Army or a Benefit Club.
2t
TIIR DOCTRINAL SYSTEM.
Hut there is another ground for my inability to rejoice in Trcs-
bytcrian prosperity. I mean its Doctrinal System. That system is,
in my juclijment. simple Fatalism. It declares (i) " God from all
eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will,
freely and unchan«reably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.'-
Aj^ain," By the decree of God for the manifestation of I lis -lory
some men and anpels are predestinated unto everlastiiifr life and
others foreordained to everlasting death. These angels and men
thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and un-
changeably designed and their number is so certain and definite
that it cannot be either increased or diminished."
"Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life God
hath chosen in Christ unto His own glory, out of His mere free
grace without any foresight of faith or good works or persever-
ance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature as
conditions or causes moving Him thereto, and all to the praise of
- His glorious grace." " Neither are any other redeemed by Christ
effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified and saved but the
Elect only." " The rest of mankind God was pleased . . . for
the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures to pass by
and ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sins, to the
praise of His glorious justice." (Chap HI., Confession of l<aith.)
Again, (Chap. X.) "All those whom God hath predestinated unto
life, and those only He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted
time, effectually to call." " This effectual call is of God's free and
special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man,
who is altogether passive therein. Elect infants, dying in
infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit.
. . . Others not elected . . . cannot be saved."
The whole Confession of Faith is based upon and permeated
by this doctrine. I make no comments upon the meaning of
these statements. I will give it to you in the language of the
Originator and Progagators of this .system. Calvin says:
" Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, by which He
hath determined in Him.self what He would have to become of
every individual of mankind, for they are not all created with a
22
similar destiny ; but eternal life is foreordained for some and
eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore being
created for one or other of these ends we say he is predes-
tinated either to life or death." Zanchius, the S'viss Reformer
declares that « The Reprobate are bound by the ordinance of
God under the necessity of sinning," and Bcza, his countryman,
" that God hath predestinated not only unto damnation but also
unto the causes of it, whomsoever He saw meet." And Calvin
again says of God's designs in relation to sinners, " He directs
His voice to them, but it is that they may become more deaf; He
kmdics a light, but it is that they may be more blind ;' He
publishes His doctrine, but it is that they may be made more
besotted ; He applies a remedy, but it is that they may not be
healed." And Peter Martyr, another Confrere, says, "God
supplies wicked men with opportunities of sinning, and inclines
their hearts thereto ; He blinds, deceives and seduces th^m. He
by His working on their hearts, bends and stirs them up to
evil." And John Knox says, " The reprobate are not only left
by God's suffering, but are compelled to sin by His power"
Toplady, a Church of England Calvinist, among other awful
utterances, says, "The sentence of God which rejects the
reprobates is so fixed and immutable that it is impossible that
they should be saved though they have performed all the works
of the saints, and therefore it is not true that those who perish
through their own fault might have been saved through grace, i^
they had not ceased laboring for saving grace." This, according
to the exposition of its Originators and advocates is the doctrinal
system which the Presbyterian church, and, I believe also, the
Baptist and Congregational churches in all their subdivisions arc
pledged to believe in and propagate. It directly contradicts
these Scriptural statements :
The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto
a// men. »
As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemna-
tion, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came Jipon ah
menxxnio justification of all life ; the love of Christ constraineth us
because, we thus judge that if one died>/- all, then were all dead.
23
We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the
suffering of death, crowned with glory, and honour, that He by the grace
of God should taste death for every man.
The Lord is long suffering toward us, and not willing that any
should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
The time of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth
all men everywhere to repent.
This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who
will have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
There is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the
man Jesus Christ, who gave Himself a ransom >/- a// to be testified in
due time.
It contradicts the Scriptures. Itdishonors God. And I cannot
but fear that it has contributed greatly to the unbelief of the
world, by presenting such a picture of Him, in whom it asks men
to believe, that many minds could not receive them. And if it be
said, as it often is, Prcsbyteriansm has dropped all those dread-
ful doctrines now, and the ministers do not teach it, I can only
say I am glad of it ; but surely Presbyterian doctrine without
Calvinism is very like a pail without a bottom.
But someone is saying, " tu qmque " you too are bound to be-
lieve this doctrine. Your X Vllth Article teaches it. I have only
time now to say in reply, that the XVI Ith Article, as has been
historically proved by Archbishop Laurence, is not Calvinistic,
but Melancthonian in its origin, Melancthon did not believe in or
intend to teach the doctrine of Calvin. Secondly, the terms, re-
demption, predestination and election have to most minds taken
on a different meaning since the promulgation of the Calvinistic
system. Thirdly, the XVI Ith is obviously obscure ; so obscure
that bothCalvinists and anti-Calvinists have claimed it as express-
ing their views. Now the legal rule of interpretation is that -what
is obscure in any document is to be explained by what is plain,
and the Church of England in her XXX 1st Article expressly
contradicts Limited Redemption and Particular Election, the
foundation doctrines of the Calvinistic system, and teaches that
" the offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption,
propitiation and satisfaction for a// the sins of the whole world,''
words exactly repeated in the Prayer of Consecration in the
Communion Office. Again, she instructs every child to say, " I
24
believe in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all man-
kind. And in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me and all the
Elect people of God," i.e. every baptised child is one of the Elect
in the Church's sense.
ITS TENDENCY.
But there is another reai^on why I have felt myself unable to
express gratitude at the success and permanence of Presbytcrian-
ism as a system, and that is its tendency. Thinking men are
soon brought face to face with this question, a question which
is being forced upon all of us by the discussions that are now
emerging. What is the ultimate ground upon which the
Christian Faith rests? You i*nswer at once, the Bible, the Word
of God, and if you mean that the Bible contains all things that
are necessary to be believed to salvation your answer is right.
But there is an antecedent question : How do you know that the
Bible is the Bible ? That the books that are in it now are the
books given by inspiration and nothing more ? Then how can
you know, seeing people differ so widely on that subject, what
the Bible means? What are the essential doctrines it contains ?
The only answer I am persuaded that will bear examination is
just this : We know both the one and the other by the testimony
of the Church, and you can know in no other way. The Chuich
has borne her unfaltering testimony to the Bible as the Word of
God. She puts it into your hands as God's Word, and on her
testimony you receive it as such. She has told you and has
testified through the ages in her constitution, her creeds, her
traditional usages, her liturgies, her offices, her councils and the
consentient writings of her teachers, what the truth is which the
Scriptures enfold.
Presbyterian ism began by pulling away that foundation stone,
and by asserting (Sec. iv., c. I. of the Confession) " The authority
of Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed,
dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church." It
thus threw every man back upon himself, upon what he might
take to be the inward witness of the Spirit, both as to the
authority and meaning of the Bible. Consistently with this
position it has persistently disparaged Creeds and Councils and
Fathers — the whole outward testimony of the Church — has taught
25
men that each individual can find out truth for himself, without
reference to that testimony, and that, collectively at least, men
have a right to subvert both the constitution and doctrinal basis
of the Church. Infinite variety of views and ever-changing con-
clusions as to what the truth is, has been the legitimate outcome
of this position until in our day an ever increasing number of
followers of these Teachers have deliberately proclaimed their
rejection ab initio, of whatever is supernatural in religion.
The miracles, the ministry, the sacraments, the Church are
set aside as not having any supernatural authority or
significance. There is no stable foundation to rest
upon, and so the development soon began. One, who
was himself a Presbyterian minister, for the greater part
of his life, has told us "that of 260 congregations established
in London in the days of Cromwell 240 arc now (185 1) openly
Unitarian. Of the whole venerable synod of Geneva but one
solitary pastor was even suspected (185 1) of believing in the
divinity of Christ." And "the glorious Church of the Huguenots,
and the Vaudois, a Church planted in the learning and
eloquence of Farel and Veret and Beza and Calvin, and which
endured at the hands of bloody Louis, and the pcrfidnous Charles
as fierce a persecution as ever fell on any people— what has
become of it? It, too, has fallen into the most awful
departures from the faith," and has become a helpess and despised
thing, the derision alike of Ultramontane and Unbelieving
France. " Of the 600 Protestant clergy in the Gallic Kingdom
there were not found ten, in 1855, who dared to affirm that Jesus
Christ was God manifest in the flesh." " In Switzerland," he
says, " the Unitarianism for which Calvin burnt Servctus, has
long been preached in trumpet tones in the very cathedral from
which Calvin hurled anathemas against him." Such were the
results of the Presbyterian rejection of the Church's testimony
forty years ago. What is the condition of things now ? Some-
what improved, no doubt. And yet Dr. Christ licb, perhaps the
foremost and most learned of the Defenders of the Ancient
Faith, says, " Wherever you go, whether into the lecture room
of the learned professor, or into the council chamber of the
municipality, or the barracks of the soldier, or the workshop of
26
the mechanic, or into whatever place of public or social resort
everywhere you hear the same tale, that the old Faith has
become obsolete. Only fools or ignorant persons even profess
to believe in it any more." And the results are. everywhere
apparent ; no new churches are being built, and no old ones
repaired. Only five persons in a hundred, taking ..he whole of
Germany, ever go to church, and in the capital only one person
in a hundred. Everywhere religion is contemned and shoved
aside, and the clergy, in spite of the vast learning and great
ability of many of them, are utterly unable to stay the spreading
deluge," Prof G. H. Shodde, in a late number of T//e Homiletic
Monthly, says, " Theoretically the German scholar disregards
the standpoint of former generations and of the schools of
thought." That is, he rejects the testimony and pays no heed
to the Faith once for all delivered to the saints. " The recogni-
tion of his scholarship depends upon his being able to evolve
new truth or to correct old errors. A man who reproduces the
old doctrines does not rank as a scholar. The faculty of
theology in the Universities is wholly unconnected with and
uncontrolled by any church, it is just one department of the
ttniversitas literariinn^ a free and independent science like
history and geology." And so, he says, " there is not a single
Protestant theological teacher in Germany to-day who does not
reject the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and who does
not maintain the Exillic date of Daniel and the most of the
Psalms. There is an ever-widening gulf between the Theology
of the Professor and the Theology of the Church." I am afraid
matters have improved but little, if at all, among the Protestants
of France. In Switzerland, I was told, the week before last, by
the son of a Protestant Pastor, that the Orthodox are minished
and brought so low that they hardly count at all in the religious
sentiment of the land. A leading writer in one of the foremost
English papers lately stated that the Presbyterianism of Scotland
was moth-eaten with unbelief. Mr. Spurgeon denounced the
whole Baptist denomination of England as moving rapidly on
the down grade to apostasy. And what a spectacle does this
Sect-rent western world present of the effects of Presbyterian
revolution and rejection in the sixteenth century of the testi-
mony of the ages ? »
Every village with half a dozen or more little places of wor
ship, separated from one another in belief, in worship, in neigh-
bourly intercourse, and in charity. The teaching of the
Christian Faith banished from the schools ; all reverence and
dignity dying out of the worshipping assemblies, and all author-
ity from the speculative utterances of the pulpits ; men not know-
ing, amid the jargon of contradicting tongues, what to believe or
think. Until we are told that not less than four-fifths of the
rising generation of the population of the United States, is
standing aloof in puzzled uncertainty or in undisguised contempt
from all the churches that abound in their land. If they call
thcm.sclvcs Chri.stians at all, they are Christians unattached. And
even among those who continue in the Denomination of their
fathers, the departure from what was held to be orthodox and
essential a few years ago is radical and revolutionary. The 25th
Art. sec. 2, of the Westminster Confession, defines the visible
Church as follows: "The visible church is also Catholic, or uni-
versal, under the gospel, . . . consists of all those throughout
the world that profess the true religion, together with their
children, and is the kingdom of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the house
and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility
of .salvation." But Dr. A. A. Hodge, who perhaps has done
more than any other man to mould and formulate Presbyterian
doctrine on this Continent, says: "You see that organization
cannot be of the essence of the church. I tell you the infinite
majority of the spiritual church come into existence from out-
side of all organizations Organization, while of assistance,
is not essential to the church " the direct contradiction of the
statements of the Confession that ordinarily there is no possi-
bility of salvation outside the vi.sible church. Again, the West-
minster Confession teaches (Art. 30, sees, i and 2) the jure
divifw theory of church govcrrmcnt and the right of Exco-
munication and Absolution, as pertaining to the ministers,
who have this Divine authority, and to none others. It says :
*' The Lord Jesus Christ as Head and king of His church, hath
therein appointed a government in the hands of church officers,
distinct from the civil magistrate ; (2.) To those cflficcrs the keys
of the kingdom of heaven are committed, by virtue whereof they
28
have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut the
kingdom against the impenitent, both by the word and censures,
and to open it unto penitent sinners by the ministry of the
gospel, and by Absolution from censures, as occasion shall
require." The Provincial Assembly of London, consisting for
the most part of the same persons as the Westminster Assembly,
in an official document, signed by the Moderator and clerks, and
entitled, " Jus Divinum Regiminin Ecclesiastici" asserts : " The
seat of this authority is not the civil magistrate, as the Erastians
contend," (and the Parliament of that day claimed) " nor the
ca;tus fidelitiin^oxhoAy oiih^ people, but Christ's own officers,
which he hath created, jure divino, in His church." Dr. A. A.
Hodge says : " Christ never intended to impose upon the church
any particular form of organization ; the church exists inde-
pendently of any organization." (Page 304-5.) This sentiment is
re-echoed on every side of us to-day, but it is the direct contra-
diction of \\\&jure divino claim of the Confession. And as to the
statements about absolution, they are clean forgotten, so that
even leading" Divines in Toronto, who had subscribed to their
truth, did not know that they were in the Confession.
As to the Sacraments, the Confession teaches that they are
not merely " holy signs," but are also seals of the covenant of
grace ; they not merely represent Christ and " His benefits, but
they confirm our interest in Him." They not only exhibit grace,
but they confer grace; and so Cornelius Burgess, the vice-
president of the Westminster Assembly, wrote a book entitled
" Baptismal regeneration of elect infants," and the Westminster
Directory instructs the minister at the Lord's table to say, " Take
ye, eat ye, this is the body of Christ which is broken for you,
do this in remembrance of Him." "The doctrine of baptismal
regeneration and of the real presence of Christ at the Lord's
table," writes Dr. Briggs, "are as truly in the Westminster
standard as they are in the Book of Common Prayer of the
Church of England." Presbyterians have not only drifted away
from this doctrine, but now denounce it as Popery (see Prof.
Scrimger, in a late number of The Presbyterian Review). And
this tendency to rationalize and rid itself of all that is super-
natural is affecting not only the ministry and the Sacraments,
29
but all the Doctrines of the Gospel and is supplanting in popu-
lar teaching the stern Orthodoxy of former days by an emascu-
lated Plymouthism.
But now some one is saying, and yet you are the man who has
been pleading for union with a system of which you believe all this.
I answer, "Never!" It would be for me a moral impossibility to
accept any basis of union which imposed all this upon the Church
of the future. And in all arguments for union I have always
assumed that we can only hope to reach that blessed result by
laying aside these Denominational peculiarities as essentials, by
standing upon the Scriptures as the foundation of truth, accept-
ing the creeds of the Undivided Church as a sufficient initial
statement, of doctrine, by restoring where it has been lost
the historical continuity of the Church, and by being bound
together in the one great family of God by the Sacrament of
Initiation and by the Sacrament of the Indwelling of Christ.
And I cannot but think that there are many burdened
consciences that would be greatly relieved by any reorganization
that would set them free from the philosophical fatalism of the
1 6th century.
The writer has been charged with quoting Motley unfairly
because he did not also quote what Motley says in extenuation
and apology for acts here described. He did not however go to
Motley for opinions but for facts ; and surely the mere effort to
mitigate the facts he so graphically narrates only makes them
the more pertinent to the purpose for which they are transcribed.