Lb937 J OUR \ UNITED CHURCH. / yl Discourse preached in Cote Street Presbyterian CImrrh, « Montreal, 6n.tlie evening of Sabbath the 20th June, 1875, (the Sabbath after the Union), b/j the former ' Pastor, Rev. R. F. Burns, X).T).,now of Fort Massey Church, Halifax, N.S. , .it. < PTJB LI 81 1 10 1 ) 1 '» Y S I ' VIC I V I . i 1 1^( I \ • K8T.) rK'fMI'KI) liV A. A. StKVKNSt)\. No, .'[5 Si, -JNMFS SiKKKI. < -S 7 5 pi »i»«»»»»«»'||< n i >ii ) »> ^ in » » > n >ii>i«|i|i|)ii m ii>.» » »»i |i" > » p n ^ tf .ontrcul ; PrINTKD HV a. .\. SiKVKNSON, No. ^415 Si [.AMI:.-! SlKKK .1 . . . • < • • • . •• . . i' .* • • • ...... . .' J • i .1 » . * * • • . « . « «• . « » • • *.•'■• fcx 0*/ (37 h PREFATORY SUlE. The accompanying Discourse was prepared in haste and without the remotest idea ol' publi(;ati()n. It is placed at the disposal of my lormer charge in delerence to the urgent wishes ol attached IViends. My in ability, from this ), ol" (ho two great divisions ol' the Presby- terian Family in America, known as the Old and New Schools. The Eastern and Western sections of our Dominion have already each witnessed two Unions. In 1840, "the United Synod ol' Upper Canada" (form- ed in 1H18 of Ministers from the Associate Church of Scotland and the North of Ireland), joined the Synod of thc Church of Scotland. On the 6th June, 1861, the Canada Presbyterian Church was formed in Montreal, the result of a Union between the Presbyterian Church of Canada, the offspring of the disruption in 1 844, and the United Presbyterian Synod which was planted in 1832 by three ministers, — Robertson, Proudfoot and Christie, who were designated to Canada by the United Asso- ciate Synod of Scotland. In the Presbyterian Unions of British North America, Nova Scotia has borne an honorable part. It has led the way. The first there, preceded by three years the first of the Scottish Unions, The Union ^of 1817, in New Scotland, foreshadowed that of 1820 in Old Scotland; between the same bodies, whose wranglings over thc Burgess oath had been for a lamentation. In 1769, the birth year of Wellington and Napoleon, 10 years after the conquest ol Quebec, two worthy members of the Burgher Synod, David Smith and David Cock, said " Here are we, send us " to the Ma- cedonian cry wafted across t he waters from that their distant and destitute colony. Years after, the Anti- Burgher Synod received a similar appeal, which touch- ingly besought them " in the bowels of our Lord Jesus Christ and for His sake, for the advancement of His 9 cause, and Iht' halvulioii ol prociou.s souls in the wil- (l('rn<»ss, <() scud vvilli .ill couvcnicnl speed, ii uiiuistcr to labour in word and doctrino." James Mc(Jre<>or. then "the only preacher under their inspection,' Wi>s at once set apart to the work. With heautiiul simplicity and humility, yet with characteristic resoluteness ol purpose, says the youth who was destined to be the Apostle of Nova Scotia : ' I was thunderstruck. 1 never till then uu^t with an event to deprive me wholly of a niiiht's sleep. I resolved to i^o," For many years, these two sections oi the Presby- terian Family, worked apart, till in 1817, "after (we are told) nnu-h consultation and prayer" they came togethei', thus heading' the long catalo*];ue oi' Unions, during- the nigh <»0 years, since, wh(Mi the Lord ol love has been so signally gathering into one the dispersiul of our Israel. Nova vScotia's second Presbyterian Union took place in 18H0, the year before the last Union in Montreal, and between th«^ sami' [parlies. And now, within the same royal city — the commercial metropolis of the Dominion, after an interval of fourteen years, our Can adian Presbyterianism so long divided, has become one. The negociations commenced at the first (reneral Assembly of the Canada Pres])yterian Church, held in Toronto, in June 1870 During these five years there has been, as before the first Union of 1817, "much con- sultation and prayer." " For the divisions of Ueuben there have been great searchings of hean." Clouds have, at times, darkened the horizon. But the breath of prayer and the wind of the spirit have blown them away. Churches that met in the fierce conflict have been folded in a fraternal embrace. Outpourings of the spirit in different quarters have caused increasing 10 en(l<\'ivours to koep tho unity ol iho spirit in tho bond 01 Peace Br(»thren that had lallen out by the way are beftinniiiij^ to present the seemly spectacle ol breth- ren dwelling' tog-ether in unity. Let gratitude warm our hearts to-night lor the remarkable answers that have been given to the many prayers offered tor the Peace of our Jerusalem. For our brethren and companion's sakes who may still have their misconceptions and misgivings, their difficulties and doubts respecting the question of duty, let us now say " nevertheless, whereunto we have al- ready attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing."' III. For the increase of number!^, of rfsoHrres, of $frenij;'th, of ahih'tf/ to do flu work of the Lord with en- larged efficiency, which the Union will bring, "be ye thankful." Our condition separately stood thus : In the Canada Presbyterian Church 8 Colleges, 10 Presbyteries, 388 Ministers, <»50 Congregations, 7H vacancies, 50,702 Communicants. In the Church of Scotland in Canada, 2 Colleges, 11 Presbyteries, 141 Ministers, 17 vacan- cies, 170 Congregations, 17,247 Communicants, In the Presbyterian Church of the Ijower Provinces are 1 College, 10 Presbyteries, 124 Ministers, 13H Con- gregations and 18,(182 Communicants. In the Church of Scotland in the Lower Provinces, are 6 Presbyteries, 31 Ministers, 41 Congregations and 4,622 Communi- cants. Our United Church will thus have a total of ii Col- leges. 46 Presbyteries, nigh 650 Ministers, or 800 in- cluding Preachers and Student Missionaries, over 1.100 Congregations, and 100,000 Communicants. In many of our Congregations, especially the Highland ones, the roll of membership affords but an inadeqi.ate idea .11 of our iniml)ers. Tho ronsus tesi is, all fhinizs ,*ousi- flerod, the most roliahlo : aocordincj to th»' last takon. that of 1871, there are in the Dominion, of Baptists, 287,453; Congreg-ationalists, 21,829; Uoman Catholics, 1,402,040; Wesleyan and New Connexion Methodists, 410,970; other Methodists. 156,092; Church of En- gland, 404,049 ; Presbyterians, deducting 20,000 for the dozen American Congregations and other Presbyterians that may not enter the Union, (a deduction rather in excess of the reality,) the sum total of our United Church will be about 000,000, making it thus consi- derably the largest Prot<'stant denomination in the Dominion liut God forbid that we should be vain of mere numbers. Remembering the tests to which Gideon and his host were subjected, they may reveal weakness rather than strength. It has been well said that churches should be irri Pres- byterian Synods, 1,180 Presbyteries, 20,133 Churches, 18,774 Ministers, and a population of 34,351,877. Tak- ing in the Lutherans that come so close to us in many things, there would be added a population of 20,579,708, making lifty-Iive millions in all, the larger half of the 107 millions of Protestants in the world. Be ye thankful then for this, that ye are linked to a great and good company. The Pan Presbyterian Con- iederation that is to convene next year or the follow- ing, will reveal our belonging to the largest division 15 ol the Protestant family, and thus be a practical refuta- tion of the notion entertained by not a fe\\% that Pres- byterianism is a plant indigenous to the Scottish soil, and cannot thxive when transplanted elsewhere. Many shall then come from the east and the west and the iiorth and the south, to attest its capability of growth and expansion on every soil, beneath every sky. Again, let the caveat be thrown in, not to think oi ourselves more highly than we ought to think, because of our honourable ancestry and numerous relations. If w^e compare ourselves with ourselves, or measure ourselves by ourp< v^es, we are not wise. V. Let us show our gratitude to Him who hath done the great things for us w^hereof we are glad, by consi- dering one another to provoke unto love and to good works, and by coming up together to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Our Union should secure for us a better division of our held, a more equable distribution ot our forces. Some posts are over manned, while others are neglected. Our petty rivalries have perpetuated weak and strug- gling interests, to the neglect of fields that are white already to harvest. Our Union should w^ork in the direction of re-adjustment and re-enforcement. New vigor should be infused into our Home Mission opera- tions. Those portions of our church that have been as yet, little better than "playing at" foreign missions, should shake themselves trom the dust and put on their strength. Our Union should be accompanied by an increaoe of christian liberality and personal effort and spiritual power. Some object or objects should be selected in whose behalf a memorial thanksgiving fund should be raised. If the mercies of God so abundantly showered on us do not influence us to present our bodies anew 16 on His altar ;i livino- sacrilice, our lip expressions of thai.kluliK's's will be a mockory and a sham. Oh ! let us set' to it that there rest not on our re-constructed church th(» curse of " Meroz." " Grreat (rod of Love " hold back the curse of "Meroz" from our church, which fed to fullness on the bread of heaven, slee])s o'er the cup of blessings, and forgets to gather up the fragments of the feast, for famished, suppliant heathen ! The call to our church seems already sounding clear as that which woke the stillness of Shiloh's shrine, it finds expression thus ; "spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes for thou shalt break-forth on the right hand and the left." May we hold ourselves at the Lord's beck and bid- ding with all the ardor and alacrity of the boy prophet crying tremblingly yet trustfully, " here am I, for thou didst call me," " speak, Lord, thy servant heareth." 1 will hear not what policy or interest or inclination may dictate, but " what God the Lord will speak." Be ours the Mizpeh memorial I when we have so many Ebene- zers dotting the pathway of our retrospect, and casting their shadows before to gild the Horizon of our iuture. To the conquest of this fair land for Him who claims it as His own, let us march forth as a united company. Let us commence our new history by throwing our- selves more earnestly than ever into the missionary cause. We are living in a grand and av ful time. There were never as many christians as to-day. Nor were there ever as many Bibles. A single Society has cir- culated more copies in a year than existed in the entire world in 1804, when that Society was formed. In 1792, but one Missionary Society, now they are counted by the score. Then, but one or two Mission- aries, and no native Preachery ; now, 2000 European and American Missionaries, and hundreds of Natives 17 telliiiji' to (ho povislnim i/iillioiis Iho fsiory ol" Jesus and His lovo. Tlu'ii no oonvorts at all, now lens ol" thousands jrathering round the cross, Tlten, Cl-'i 2s Hd, the tiny rill of Chri^tiiui Liberality, now a pushing stream ol Millions ol' Dollars, on whose bosom blessings untold are being borne to many lands. Then, the liiver ol Life was boomed and barred, and the (rospel Ship freighted with the true Bread, held oil' from th(^ fam- ishing, like the scene outside Derry nigh two centuries ago — now the tide has risen, and over every boom and barrier, the heaven-sent vessel is being gloriously carried, and the famine, not of bread nor of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord, is being graciously supplied. In Asia, amongst (i(H), 000,000 in its eastern, w^estern and southern sections, 70 years since, strangers alike to the message and the messenger, the Word of CJod is not bound, and tlnjre are seen the feet of them that bring the good tidings, Ethiopia stretches out her hands unto God. Whereas darkness covered that land and gross darkness her people. Her borders are girt with a luminous fringe, and even, amid the Egyptian gloom of the interior 'the morning light, is breaking — the darkness disappears.'' The Isles wait for (rod's law. and form the crossnm stones for the stately steppin^s of Zion's King, as with sword girt on Mis thigh, he marches forth to (;on(|uer the Nations. The wall, whose circuit of 1,500 miles environs China, and syml)olized the obstacles to the entrance and dillusion of the (lospcl among her 400,- 000,000, has been scaled, if not overthrown. Turkey and Persia, the Jaehin and IJoaz in the Temple of the false prophet, totter, to their tall. The Continent of Eu- rope witnesses the overt uriiing of thrones and the ui> heaving ot dvnasties, — the ; ^ctkings among the nations 18 that hHrbin«(uls arrive in ] eace," The General Assemblies ol" earth will lade into in- significance when we come " to the (renoral Assembly of the Church of the Firstborn whose names are writ- ten in Heaven." What a surpassingly glorious meet- ing" will that be ! Our Assemblies here will seem to have no glory, by reason of that glory which excelleth. At the close of the Franco-Prussian war, the trium- phant victors came to Berlin lor a reception oi welcome. As each regiment approached the city gate from the Thiergarten, it was halted by a choir, demanding by what right it would enter the city. The regiment replied in a song, recounting the battles it had fought and the victories it had won. — Then there broke from the ad- miring Choristers the Joyous acclaim : " Enter ye the city." And so the next came up, recounting its deeds, and so another and another was challenged and wel- comed. They marched up the Linden between rows of captured cannon; and with the banners they had borne and the banners they had taken, they saluted the statute of grand old Frederick, — the creator of Prussia. — So, when the warfare of earth shall have been accomplished, and the kingdom of Christ assured, the phalanxes ot His cihurch shall go up to the City with songs and tokens of victory. — We belong now to dif- ferent regiments. We vary a little in our colours, like the soldiers from the diversified Principalities of wiiich the now consolidated Fatherland is made up. But we even now feel as they, thai we have one cause, one 20 Captiiiu, one glorious Emperor, who has ouHIm vesture iuid on His thi«ijh a name written, Kini»- oi Kintisand Lord ot Lords. " ihui army ol' the livinj^ (Jod, At HIh coiniiiaiid we bow, I 'art ol' the host liave oross'd the flood. And part are crossiu;/; now." As we tarry in the enemy's <;ountry, the " es/irit de ntrps''' runs througli the ranks Our commander's mes- sag-es — "Love the broliierhood ;" "Let brotherly love continue," — we are trying lo carry out better than once. No morn stealing- a march on one another. No more pouring shot, hot and heavy, into each other's lines. No more standing ai)art, but "shoulder to shoulder." Not lace to i'ace, to conllict, but back to back, to con- spire, lorming one solid square, in front oi' a common Ibe. We visit one another's camps. We sing and talk beside each other's pickets. Our mutual inter- changes become more frequent and fraternal. Rest- ing thu^ on our arms, we have been refreshed. The Banner over us has been love. We have foretasted the sweetness of the Upper 13an([ueling House, where the same broad Banner will be our canopy, and a blissful Eternity be spent in recounting the struggles of the wilderness, and enjoying the rest that remaineth to the people of God. And ye too, celestial immortals, have mingled in our me«»tings, and have found an increase to your joy, in seeing us " walk in love." •' Kveii now by faith, we join our hands With you that went before, And ureet your blood-besprinkled bands, ( )n the eternal sliore." We hail the day wdien the armies of the faithful shall win tin' entire world for Him whose right it is. "By 21 little unci little" are they now driving out the " armies of the aliens." The plac«^s where Satan's seat is, are beiny uradually st us." Calvinian or Calvinistic, men call them, but they are more properly Pauliiiiaii or Biblican. tor it was the province ol" thai marvellous Frenchman, (deemed by his contemporaries, at the age of 22, the most learned man in lilurope, and ol whose writings it is said, a thousand editions were circulated during' his life-time) systematically to arrange, and logically and luminously to expound, those cardinal doctrines which form the staple of the Pauline The- ology. These doctrines have had graven on them, at sundry times and in divers manners, the seal of divine approval. They have received the sanction of " the goodly fellowship of the Apostles and the noble army of martyrs." In their favour, G-od's hidden ones wit- nessed a good confession. The Reformers before the Reformation testitied of these, and as for the '* Giants of those days " themselves, they preached none other G-ospel. Calvin but removed the rubbish that had gathered round the true foundation : he but brought out in illuminated characters those portions of the pre- cious parchments which superstition had distorted and dimmed. To these blessed doctrines we declare in terms of this Resolution our " unabated loyalty." And so, with reference to our beautiful Church polity. Its principles we believe to be founded on the Word of God, where the Jewish Svnagogue with its bench of Elders is presented to us as the model of ihe New Testament Church. Its grand outlines are observable among those Christian communities which were freest Irom the leaven of that mystery of iniquity which even in Apostolic times did already work. These principles were held by the refugees' from the ten bloody perse- cutions of the old Jiomaii Empire. Vigilantius and his lollowers who nobly protested against the growing corruptions of the Church, in the fourth century, held them. The Paulicians of the seventh century held them and lied to the frowning fastnesses of the Alps to escape the wrath of the adherents of the Hierarchy. They were the principles of the Original Church in Knuland, lor, when Augustine the monk was sent thither from Rome, he found Churches planted which had existed since the iirst century, and which, it is be- lieved, were planted by Paul when " he took his jour- ney into Spain." The first form which Christianity assumed in Ireland was Presbyterianism. Succat, — afterwards called Patricius {^^i. Patrick), a Scotchman, planted 365 Churches, to each of which he assigned a Bishop or Presbyter with a bench of Elders for the Government of the Church. The Culdees, whose The- ological Seminary at lona was the source whence the religion of Jesus circulated throughout Scotland, were Presbyterians. Columba, the Irishman who paid back to Scotland the debt which his then favoured isle owed to Patrick the Scotchman, sowed, in concert with twelve Pre8])yters, the seeds of Presbyterianism in that land which is now its head-quarters. — Among our honored fathers we rank "God's slaughter'd saints — Wliose bones lie scattered On the Alpine Mountains cold." The Israel of the Alps in whom was fulfilled the Patmos seer's vision of the woman fleeing into the wilderness to escape the Papal dragon, preserved, amid the smiling valleys of Piedmont and the rugged gran- deur of those e\ 3} lasting hills which stood as watchful sentinels over their poa(;efui hoi.'ii&s, pros'^n'ed in their 26 primitive purity, those " time-hallowed principles " which are dear to the hearts of all Presbyterians — till the myrmidons of the Papacy came down like wolves on the fold, and they were killed all the day long, and accounted as sheep for t' laughter. The Covenanters oi ocutland and the North of Ire- land showed themselves heirs to the Waldenses of the Cottian Alps. They were tortured, not accepting de- liverance. There's many a lowly cairn and mossgrown stone and blood-dyed hillock in the dear old land, that form the mute though meet memorials of the " great wrestlings" of that "Cloud of "Witnesses." Be worthy sons of such worthy sires. Buy the truth and sell it not. Barter not away privileges wrung from the grasp of crowned and mitred tyranny at such a price, fc^et a high price on principles which have made so many lives sul)lime and so many deaths glorious. « * / I I r f * * i