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Opposing pages with varying colouration or discolourations are filmed twice to ensure the best possible image / Les pages s'opposant ayant des colorations variables ou des decol- orations sont filmees deux fols afin d'obtenir la meilleur image possible. ax 26X 7 n 12X 16X 20X 2«X 28X 33X Th« copy tilmad h«ra Nm bMfi rapreduead tfiankt ta tha ganaroaitv of: National Library of Canada L'aiamplaira film* fut rapreduit grica * la gtntretit* da: Blbllothe.B>., FROM WHOSE LIPS I LEARNED AND IN WHOSE LIFE I BEHELD THE BEAUTY AND POWER OF CALVINISM, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. CONTENTS I. The Cried Formilateu h II. The Crked Tested bv its Fruits 43 III. The Creed Tested by its Fruits — Cm W. 119 IV. The Creed Illustrated 157 V. The Creed Catholic 189 PREFACE This is not another essay on " The Five Points." Such treatises have their place and value, but they present our system, and only the anti-Arminian part of it at that, in its bones. They furnish no adequate con- ception of that divinely vital and exuber- ant Calvinism, the creator of the modern world, the mother of heroes, saints and martyrs in number without number, which history, judging the tree by its fruits, crowns as the greatest creed of Christen- dom. This historic iaith of the Presbyterian Church has in recent years been assailed with the most searching criticism, the most merciless caricature, the most vivid and eloquent abuse. That in this and every other conflict it will come off more than conqueror, we have no shadow of doubt. But these assaults have not been without effect. The popular style in which they have been urged, the air of supercilious and vii PREFACE triumphant certitude by which they have been characterized, the prominence and universal currency given them by the secu- lar press, have produced among the Pres- byterian rank and file, who have neither time nor facilities for special investigation, a vague but widespread feeling of uneasi- ness and apprehension. For them this book is written; to answer their questions, to fortify their faith, to arm them with facts. It will be of possible •service to all who desire a general knowl- edge of the nature, history and sanctions of the Presbyterian creed. The author even ventures to hope that some of our ministers may find here material with which to build "P and defend the walls of our beloved -^lon. The reader who illustrates the persever- ance o the saints by perusing this book to Its close will be able, I trust, to answer that question which for neariy four cen- times has contributed so greatly to the S dead ?''"'''''*'"' '''''''' " ^' C^'-"- The Author. CSEENSBORO, N. C, April, igoi. I THE CREED FORMULATED "Prme all things; hold fast that which is good: I Thess. 5: 21. THE CREED FORMULATED The Presbyterian Church has been the Th, martyr martyr Church of history. Though sword '-''''"■'''• and fagot are laid aside, she maintains her martyr pre-eminence uy continuing to elicit a peculiar hostility. In popular novels, sensational sermons, and the secular press she is made the target of attack. As an acute observer has truly said, "Every heresy in doctrine or morals works itself first or last into a frenzy against Calvinism." The persistence of these attacks renders T/unirdo/ it important that Presbyterians should in- '•*' '"^'■ form themselves of the scriptural warrant and splendid history ' of that great system 'We love you for your glorious history.' II Greet- THE CREED FORMULATED Ottr cretd aiiti Calvin of doctrine held by their Church, that they may be able to vindicate God's truth against error and give a reason for the faith that is in them. While we are not the only ecclesiastical body that holds this system, yet none will deny that friends and foes alike award to the Presbyterian Oiurch, as its wreath of thorns, or its diadem of glory, the distinction of being the world's historic and leading representative of the creed of Calvinism. In this coronation we rejoice, and we would gladly attribute it to the purity in which we hold this " faith once de- livered to the saints ", and the unflinching fidelity with which in every age we have been ready to champion and to die for it. Our doctrinal system is known as Cal- vinism, not because it originated with Cal- vin; it originated with God; but because Calvin, after Paul and possibly Augus- tine, was its ablest expounder. Misled by the name, our critics have long been in ing of the Methodist Ecumenical Conference to tlic Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, 1892. THK CRKKI) lOk.NK l.ATKO '" habit of quoting as part of oiir faitli any and every view held by Calvin. Calvin's beliefs, however, fonn no part of o-.'.r creed except in so far as they are incorporated in our Standards, which were framed nearly a century after Calvin's death. The doctrinal Standards of our Church Our ,Ik,- are three: the Westminster Shorter Cate- "■'""' •^'"'"' arjs. chism, the Westminster Larger Catechisn^ and the Westminster Confession of Faith. They are not three creeds. They are three statements, varying in form, fulness, and purpose, of one and the same creed. Each is complete in itself. Each contains all the essential truths of Scripture. Each is a complete epitome of the Calvinistic system. Whoever intelligently accepts the teachings of the Shorter Catechism is a true Calvin- ist. Should he extend his studies to the Larger Catechism and the Confession of Faith he would find in them the s^.me svsteni of doctrine with which the briefer statements of the Shorter Catechism had already acquainted him. THE CRKF.n FORMULATED TAiSLnJ. Her doctrinal system the Presbyterian ardt ana „, •' «««* »i,M- '-""'■'=" accentuates. She is pronouncedly tirsAif. and pre-eminently a doctrinal thurch. Yet the acceptance of her Standards she never requires of any applicant for admis- sion to her fold. Her only condition of church membership is a credible profession of faith in Christ. Calvinisiic and Armin- ian believers in Christ she welcomes with equal heartiness. Her door of entrance is wide as the gate of heaven. But of her office-bearers she requires doctrinal soundness. The question asked them at ordination is, " Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of our Church as con- taining the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures?" This formula of subscription is liberal. It binds only to " all the essential and necessary articles."' "The use of the words ' system of doctrine ' in the terms of subscription precludes the Thi SIhhJ- ards dttti Ofiifbriir- en. ' Adopting Act of 1729. J4 THE CREED FORMULATED idea of the necessary acceptance of every statement in the Standards by the sub- scribers, but involves the acceptance of so much as is vital to the system as a whole." * Our doctrinal formularies are known as Name and the Westminster Standards because the fa- "'" mous Assembly of divines that framed them held their sessions in England's great Ab- bey of Westminster. Their labors ex- tended over five and a half years, during which time they held nearly twelve hun- dred sessions. They met in 1643, T: a period in the world's histc.y when the human intellect, for reasons known to scholars, appears to have reached the zenith of its power. The era of the Westminster Assembly was the era of Shakespeare,' whose work stands matchless among the creations of the human imagination. It 'Southern General Assembly's answer to overture of inquiry. Minutes of 1898, p. 2r3. ' Collier datef the close of the Elizabethan Era at T659, Saintsbury and Thomas Arnold at 1660. >5 THE CREED FORMULATED Per Sonne h was the era of the translators of the Eng- lish Bible, whose version remains the un- approachable model of the world's prose. It was the era of Francis Bacon, the author of the most epoch-making work in the his- tory of human philosophy. In its own realm of theology, the work of the West- minster divines, for comprehensive grasp of Scripture truth, for clearness, compact- ness, and power of statement, is worthy a place beside these three other products of the human intellect at its flood-tide. The Westminster Assembly was a repre- sentative body, called by the English Par- liament, made up of one hundred and twenty-one divines, eleven lords, twenty commoners, from all the counties of Eng- land and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, with seven Commissioners from Scotland. Many of them jeopardized their livings by accepting tne Parliament's appointment, and after the Restoration cheerfully sacrificed their earthly all for conscience' sake. It was an elect assem- i6 THE CREED FORMLLAIEn bly. On every side were men conspicuous for learning, eloquence, and piety; profes- sors not only of the sacred but also of the secular sciences; Deans, Masters, and Heads of Colleges, Vice-Chancellors in the great Universities. Their Moderator was Dr. Twisse, scholar and theologian of con- tinental fame, whose ruling passion may be inferred from his death-bed utterance, " Now, at length, I shall have leisure to follow my studies to all eternity." Nor were they scholars and theologians alone. Amongst them were thinkers of va- rious type — orators, statesmen, hymnists, saints, men in every way qualified to voice the deepest religious convictions and em- body in symbols and institutions the intense life of that marvellous spiritual revival which produced "statesmen like Hamp- den, soldiers like Cromwell, poets like Mil- ton, preachers like Howe, theologians like Owen, dreamers like Bunyan, hymnists like Watts, commentators like Henry, saints like Baxter." 17 THE CREED FORMULATED " A cloud of Milton, though not a member of the As- witmssis." sembly, pronounced it a " select assembly ", "of so much piety and wisdom", a "learned and memorable synod ", in which " piety, learning, and prudence were housed ". The fam ras saint and scholar, Richard Baxter, author of " The Saints' Everlast- ing Rest ", had every reason to be impartial. He wrote: "The divines there congregated were men of eminent learning, godliness, ministerial abilities, and fidelity; and being not worthy to be one of them myself, I may the more freely speak the truth, which I know, even in the face of malice and envy, that as far as I am able to judge by the in- formation of all history of that kind, and by any other evidences left us, the Christian world, since the days of the Apostles, had never a synod of more excellent divines." Philip SchafJ, the great church historian, pronounces the above a " just tribute " to the Westminster Assembly, and says: " Whether we look at the extent or ability of its labors, or its influence upon future i8 THE CREED FORMULATED generations, it stands first among Protes- tant Councils." The celebrated Dean Stanley, of the Eng- lish Episcopal Church, declares that of all Protestant Confessions the Westminster Confession " exhibits far more depth of theological insight than any other ". The late Dr. Curry, the eminent editor of the " Methodist Advocate " of New York, in an editorial on Creeds, calls " the West- minster Confession the ablest, clearest, and most comprehensive system of Christian doctrine ever framed — a wonderful monu- ment of the intellectual greatness of its framers ". The Assembly had to assist them in their Sactgreund. work all the creeds of past ages, from the Apostles' Creed, formed in the early cen- turies, down to the noble Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation period. The great Reformers, coming with fresh and eager eyes to the study of the newly opened Bible, and taking that alone as their rule of faith, were all Calvinists in theol- 19 THE CREED FORMULATED ogy. For the same reason the people and Church of England were Calvinistic. " The Bible ", says the historian Green, " was, as yet, the one book which was familiar to every Englishman, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened to their force and beauty, kindled a startling enthusiasm. The whole moral efTect which is produced nowadays by the religious newspaper, the tract, the essay, the missionary report, the sermon, was then produced by the Bible alone; and its effect in this way, however dispassion- ately we examine it, was simply amazing. The whole nation became a church. The problems of life and death, whose question- ings found no answer in the higher minds of Shakespeare' ? day. pressed for an answer not only from noble and scholar, but from farmer and shopkeeper in the age that fol- lowed him. The answer they found was al- most of necessity a Calvinistic answer."* * " Hist. Eng. People "(American Publiiherf' Cor- poration), vol. 111. p. 405. 30 THE CRKED KORMUI.ATED The work before the Assembly, there- Tk. A,s.,n. fore, was not the creation of a new system, "•'''' '"'*• but the formulation of doctrines already famiHar, precious, and baptized in the blood of a hundred thousand martyrs. Its task was to give to the accepted Bible system of truth a complete, impregnable state- ment, to serve as a bulwark against error, as a basis of ecclesiastical fellowship and co-operation, and as a safe and efifective in- strument for the religious instruction of the people of God and their children. The popular notion that the Westmin- Ethkai ster Standards consist of dry abstract dog- f"'"^' mas, with little or no bearing upon life and duty, is a mistake. Their ethical quality is prominent and all-pervading. With them, as with the Bible, truth is in or- der to godliness. Nearly one half of the Confession and more than one half of both Catechism deal directly with the practical '■ duty which God requires of man ". That God's holy law covers every part and parti- cle of our lives, and that to Him we must THE CREED FORMULATED spiritual vitttUty. forever be accountable for our obedience or disobedience thereto, rolls like a sublime and conscience-stirring music through all the work of the Westminster divines. No other creed in existence has an article or chapter on the Divine Law comparable to that of the Confession, and nowhere else in Christian symbolism can be found such an unfolding of the heart-searching claims of that law as is given in the exposition by the two Catechisms of the Ten Command- ments. Whoever would understand the believ- er's relation to Christ and the various stages of genuine Christian experience will find in chapters xi to xviii of the Confes- sion a presentation of that great theme unmatched by any other creed in Christen- dom, compact yet complete, profound yet crystallinely clear, constituting the true doctrine of the Christian life as held sub- stantially by evangelical Chr-'stendom and the subject-matter of the best evangelical preaching of this and every preceding age. THE CREED FORMULATED No reference is made 'n our Standards to any antagonistic opinion held by any evangelical communion. Their tone is irenic. They were born, not of contro- versy, but of consecration. Framed " when the church was still under the happy influ- ence of a marvellous revival, when the Word of God was felt as a living, quicken- ing, transforming power, and preached not as a tradition, but as the very power and wisdom of God"; and "by men of ripe scholarship and devoted piety, who have remained our models of earnest preaching and our guides in practical godliness, even unto this day ",' they read as if every para- graph had been written in the conscious- ness of God's presence. Strikingly unlike many modern milk-and-water treatises on religion they undoubtedly are. Their pri- mary appeal is not to the emotions but to the intellect. Their chief purpose is to de- fine truth, not to apply it. Their proper •■'Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines." Introduction, p. Ixxv. 23 First char' act eristic. Thorough' ness. The Cate- chisms. THE CREED FORMUI.ATEn function is not tliat of a sermon or a prayer, but of a test, a testimony, a text-book. Yet so packed and throbbing are they with the vital truths of God's Word, such stress they place on personal union to Christ as the ex- planation of our being made i.:.rtakers of the benefits ot redemption, such space and prominence they give to the claims ot God's moral law, that they are admirably fitted to be, as for two hundred and fifty years they have been, the spiritual food of stal- wart souls, the nurse of a s- ^remely mas- sive and masculine type of piety. There are three things which, in addition to their character, genius, and learning, must ever commend the Westminster As- sembly to our confidence. First, the care and thoroughness with which they performed their work. Consider, for example, the labor ex- pended upon the Catechisms. Catechism- making was no new work to the members of that Assembly. Theirs was an age exer- cised and trained beyond any previous or »4 THE CREKD FORMULATED succeeding age in the construction of doc- trinal manuals. For a hundred years Luther, Calvin, Ursinus, and a score more of the brightest intellects of the Reforma- tion had been devoting their best energies to the production of catechisms for the in- struction of the people. Fourteen of the members of the As.sembly were themselves authors of excellent and widely useful cate- chisms. All the ripe fruits and long train- ing, therefore, of the most catechetical cen- tury in the world's history the Assembly had as a basis and preparation for its work. Early in the sessions of the Assembly a strivint committee of known proficients in such "/"''■'"''-''"• \\X)rk was appointed to begin the undertak- '""*■ ing. They made their report, but it was not accepted by the Assembly. New mem- bers were added to the committee. After much deliberation a second report was sub- mitted. Still the .Assembly was not satis- fied. The committee was again changed. .After ' ,ig labor a third report was pre- sented. For three months the Assembly 25 THE CREED FORMULATED Thi Wist. minster vs, other Catt' ehisms. had this catechism under review and dis- cussion. It was approved almost to the end, when again the Assembly became dis- satisfied and determined to make a fourth effort to secure something still nearer per- fect. The committee was reconstituted with a large addition of new members, and was instructed to prepare two catechisms, one larger for advanced students, and an- other " more easie and short for new be- ginners ". But spite of past labors nearly two years more of alternate report and re- vision were required before the last of the catechisms was completed to the satisfac- tion of the Assembly. The Larger was completed first. The Shorter was not only the last of the Catechisms, it was the last finished work of the Assembly. In it the Westminster divines achieved their great- est triumph. It is the consummate flower of all their labors. Thus for five years committees of the Assembly, and the Assembly itself, labored upon these two little books, subjecting 26 THE CREED FORMULATED every sentence, every word to the most minute and searching scrutiny. It is not too much CO say that there is probably not another catechism in the world on which one tenth of the time and labor and ability and learning was expended that were em- ployed in the production of these two with which God has so highly blessed our Church. They are the work not of one man, as Luther's and Calvin's; nor of two men, as the Heidelberg Catechism was; nor of four, as was the Catechism of the Church of Rome; but they are the product of five years of the most earnest and careful de- liberations of the whole Westminster As- sembly.* Equal thought and care were bestowed ^*' mirror upon the Confession. Ever^ statement, '■'^ '^"■'^'"'''■ every alteration suggested, was examined through years of concentrated study tii'. the entire Assembly was of one mind and fully agreed as to both doctrine and expression. • ■' Nature »nd Value of the Caiechl»m»." Strick- ler. THE CREED FORMULATED Second cl.ar' aitiristic. Prayerful- nut. Mare light, Lord! All that training the most complete and thorough, learning the most profoimd and extensive, intellect the most acute and searching, co-operation the most wide and helpful, labor the most intense and pro- tracted, could do to make our Standards the perfect mirror of Scripture truth, was done. A second leading characteristic of the Westminster Assembly was their prayerful dependence upon Cod for light and guid- ance. Two traditions have come down to us, which, while of disputed authenticity, yet represent truly the spirit of prayer that per- vaded the Assembly. On one occasior the famous John Sel- den, an encyclopedic scholar and brilliant orator, addressed the Assembly to prove that excommunication was a function not of the spiritual but of the civil authority. It was a vital question involving the spirit- ual independence of the Church. The issue turned on the interpretation of Matt. i8 : a8 THE CREED FORMULATED 15-17. Selden's speech was subtle and powerful. It displayed a vast acquaintance with patristic and rabbinical lore. At its close the Assembly seemed to hesitate. The saintly Samuel Rutherford, who was a member, turned to George Gillespie, the youngest man in the body, and said, " Rise, George; rise up, man. and defend the right of the Lord Jesus to govern by His own laws the Church He has purchased with His blood." Thus adjured, Gillespie arose, and delivered a speech whose effect per- haps has never Iieen surpassed. S2lden's argument he utterly annihilated, proving by seven distinct lines of reasoning, all purely scriptural, that the passage in Mat- thew was not civil but spiritual in its im- port. At the conclusion of his argument Selden exclaimed, " That young man by his single speech has swept away the labors of ten years of my life." While Selden was speaking a friend had observed Gillespie apparently making notes upon the paper before him. When examined the notes »9 THE CREED FORMULATED Gddl" proved to be only this prayer: " More light, Lord! More light, Lord! " According to a familiar tradition, the Shorter Catechism's incomparable defini- tion of God was literally born of prayer. To that great question, " What is God?" the Catechism Committee had found them- selves unable to construct a satisfactory answer. The question had been referred to the Committee of the Whole. They, too, had failed. Then one of the mem- bers was called on to lead in special prayer for divine enlightenment. Rising, he thus began: " O God, Who art a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in Thy being, wisdom, power, holiness, jus- tice, goodness, and truth." When this matchless invocation fell upon their ears the Assembly felt at once that it was God's own answer, given in prayer and to prayer, descriptive of Himself. Wttmngin Not only did the Assembly both as a body and as individuals habitually look to God for special guidance in sperial diffi- 3° THE CVi.CL 1-OPMULATED culties, not o. iv were t' e daily sessions opened and closed with prayer, but regu- larly every month throughout the five and a half years of its labors all business was suspended that an entire day might be given to fasting and prayer. It seems al- most incredible to us that they should have remained in continuous devotional worship from morning till evening, wrestling with God often for two hours together in un- broken supplication; but in those times when all the interests of Christ's Kingdom seemed to be at stake, men realized their need of Divine help, and when once at the throne of grace knew not how to come away till the blessing was obtained. It is probably not an exaggeration to say with Dr. C. A. Briggs that " such a band of preaching and praying ministers as gath- ered in the Westminster Assembly the world had never seen before." No body of men ever felt more profoundly their de- pendence upon God, or sought more ear- nestly and habitually the guidance of His Spirit. 3» i' '■ its deep and dominant sense of duty and re- sponsibility. The Ever-Blessed is the Ever- ' " Confession of Faith ", Chap. V, section i. •Said Thomas Carlyle in speaking against modern materialism: "The older I grow-and I now stand upon the brinlt of eternity— the more comes baclt to me the first sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes : ' What is the chief end of man ? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.' " 45 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The Calvin- ist program. Present God, under Whose eye, in Whose fellowship, for Whose glory, and subject to Whose review, the whole of human life is to be lived. " Calvinism ", says Prof. Fiske of Harvard, " leaves the individual man alone in the presence of his God." " Beyond all example, it intensifies man's in- dividuality. In a clear and overpowering light it shows his responsibility to God, and his relations to eternity. Its aim is not sen- sation, but conviction. Feeling or no feel- ing, at the soul's unspeakable peril, God's commands must be obeyed; God's will must be done. Not, is it pleasant, or pop- ular, or profitable; but, is it right? Is it what God would have me do? This is Cal- vinism's first question. " Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." • This is the Calvinistic program, illustrated in Paul, saying with his heart in his voice, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me '"The Beginnings of New England' • I Cor. 10 ; 31. 46 p. 5»- THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS to do? "; in Calvin, of whom Jules Michelet says, " He felt and lived like a man before whom the whole earth disapjiears, and who tunes his last psalm, his whole eye fixed upon the eye of God "; in Knox, of whom Carlyle says, " The fixed centre of all his thoughts and actions was to do the will of God and tremble at nothing "; in the Puri- tans, whose diligence in searching the Scrip- tures, Green says, " sprang from their ear- nestness to discover a Divine will which in all things, great or small, they might im- plicitly obey", in whom Taine tells us " conscience only spoke " and in whose eyes " God and duty were but one "; in the Calvinists in general, whose "system", says Henry Ward Beecher, has " no equal in in- tensifying to the last degree ideas of moral excellence and purity ", and whose supe- riority to men of other creeds, says James Russell Lowell, lies " in the prevalent sense of duty, in high ideals, in inflexible prin- ciples, in living " "As evtr In theli great Taikmaster's eye.' " 47 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Ot/vinism and tin. From its supreme exaltation of God springs logically and scripturally Calvin- ism's doctrine of sin and grace. In proportion as God is great and glori- ous Calvinism recognizes the sin of man to be heinous ;and fatal. Its enormity and ill desert are beyond man's calculation or conception.' It is recreancy to his supreme ' " Recently > diitinguiihed preacher of the Metho- diit Church remarked to me that he thought the doc- trine of entire sanctlficatlon as taught by its recent advocates bore a much closer affinity to Calvinism than to Arminianism. ' How do you account for the fact ', I asked, ' that it spread so readily among the Methodist churches, and can get no foothOi_ in Presbyterian churches?' He replied that he had tried to explain thr fact and had been unable. Whereupon I suggested that if the people were once indoctrinated with the Calvlnistic idea of the utterly loathsome and deadly nature of sin, they could never be convinced that it was possible to get rid of it by any such easy and sudden process as that offered by the holiness brethren. He admitted that this was probably the true explanation. Undoubtedly Calvin- nism brands sin with a deeper Infamy than any other school of theology. By as much as it emphasizes the hatefulness of sin, by so much does it emphasize the love of God, of which sinners are the object." (Reed, "The Gospel as Taught by Calvin", p. 139.) 48 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS relation. It is rebellion against the right- ful authority of the Greatest and Best of beings. It is self-separation and estrange- ment from the Source of Truth and Life. I mpenitent man is guilty, lost, " dead in trespasses and sins ". Left to himself his condition is one of hopeless condemnation and misery. Thus Calvinism drags down all pride and carnal security and prostrates man at the foot of the cross, a suppliant for mercy. In answer to his suppliant cry,' it reveals Calvinism a salvation which is all of grace,' the free "'"'£'■<•"■ We supplement Dr. Reed't explanation with the remark that people who have been rightly taught in childhood " what Is required " and " what is forbid- den " in the Decalogue will ever after be slow to be- lieve that any "mere man, since the fall, is able per- fectly in this life to keep the commandments of God." ■ •• Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Rom. to : 13. •"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves ; It is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should boast ; for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Eph, a : 8, 9, to. 49 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS gift of God's love and mercy in Christ." In His hands are all its blessings placed, the Spirit of life, pardon and justifying right- eousness, sanctifying, establishing, com- forting, glorifying grace, resurrection, and eternal life, and from those pierced hands are all received. From first to last salva- tion is " of the Lord ", of Whom, and through Whom, and to Whom are all things, that His may be the glory ever- more. No inch of ground is left for human boasting." The sinner does not save him- self. It is God that saves him with a salva- tion free,'* present,'' complete," and ever- lasting." He embraces the sinner in the 1° •■ God, who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but accord- ing to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 3 Tim. i : 9. ""Where is boasting then? It is excluded." Rom. 3 : 27. " " The gift of God is eternal life." Rom. 6 : 33. " " He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." John 6 : 47. '* " Ye are complete in Him." Col. 1 : 10. ""I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish." John 10 : 38. SO THB CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS arms of unchanging love." He secures him by the bonds of an everlasting covenant." He gives him an inalienable place in the family of God.'» He sets before him an unclouded prospect of final victory and eternal joy.'» He guarantees that all things shall work together for his good.="> ""For I am periuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to sepa- rate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom. 8 : 38, 39. " " The mountains shall depart and the hills be re- moved, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." Is. 54 : 10. " " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." i Jno. 3 : j. " " An Inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto sal- vation ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice." i Pet. i : 4, 5, 6. ""We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose ; for whom He did tinate to be conformed to the i mage of His Son, that He might be the first- THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS He shows him his name in the Book of Life, and reveals to him that he was chosen in Christ be.'jre the foundation of the world that he should be holy and without blame before Him in love.'* Upon his mind there breaks the amazing truth that before crea- tion's dawn, before the morning stars sang together, or ever the sons of God shouted for joy, away back " in the beginning ", God had a thought of him, and that thought was love.*' Before He found a place for the universe in His hand, He had found a place for him in His 'heart.'* born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He jnstU fied, them He also glorified." Rom. 8 : 28-30. " " He hath chosen us in Christ before the founda- tion of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated uf unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself." Eph. i : 4, 5. ""But we are bound to give (hanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salva- tion through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." 2 Thess. 2 : 13. " " Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Thus, while Calvinism abases man as a •• Mun iha« sinner, it glorifies him in Christ as a be- '""i«""--" liever, lifts him to inconceivable exaltation, commands the universe for him. His feet plucked from the horrible pit and planted on the Eternal Rock, his heart thrilled with an adoring gratitude, his soul conscious of a Divine love that will never forsake him and a Divine energy that in him and through him is working out eternal pur- poses of good,*^ he is girded with invinci- ble strength. In a nobler sense than Na- poleon ever dreamed, he knows himself to be a " man of destiny ". Alone among men he may be, but only more consciously allied with God. Danger may meet him. but without God's permission it cannot touch him. Death may threaten, but he is im- mortal till his work is done. Feeble his strength and fruitless his eflForts may ap- pear, but put forth in accordance with therefore with loving Itindness have I drawn thee," Jer. 31 : 3- "" It ia God which worlieth in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Phil, a : 13. 53 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Untqualltd array of martyrs. God's command they are the predestined nieans to the predestined end. Hence to his work and warfare he goes forth shielded by a panoply more invulnerable, and nerved by a courage more unconquerable, than any other faith could bestow. 2. The actual fruits of Calvinism, as set forth in history, are precisely what we should expect from the character of its doc- trines. Calvinism has nerved more men and women to die for Christ, with thanksgiving in their hearts and psalms upon their lips, than any other creed. Its unequalled array of martyrs is one of its crowns of glory. As the Methodist Conference said, in its address to the Presbyterian Alliance of 1896: " Your Church has furnished the memorable and inspiriting spectacle, not simply o' 1 solitary heroic soul here and there, but of generations of faithful souls ready for the sake of Christ and His truth to go cheerfully to prison and to death. This rare honor you rightly esteem as the 54 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS most precious part of your priceless herit- age." In those centuries, when spiritual tyranny was numbering its victims by the hundreds of thousands; when in England, Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, France, men had to recant their faith or seal their testimony with their blood, nearly all the martyrs were Calvinists. Says a careful writer: " There is no other system of re- ligion in the world which has such a glori- ous array of martyrs to the faith. Almost every man and woman who walked to the flames rather than deny the faith or leave a stain on conscience was the devout fol- lower, not only and first of all :he Son of God, but also of that minister oi God who made Geneva the light of Europe, John Calvin." "^ The heroic moral energy inspired by Cal- " TUngt vinism has been the admiration of hi ,to- "'"'"' "f"" nans. Motley, the famous historian of the Dutch Rei-ablic, himself allied in no way with Calvinism, declares that " the doctrine "McFetridge, "Calviniim in History" 55 p. 113. THE CRKED TESTED IIY ITS FRUITS of predestination, the consciousness of be- ing cliosen soldiers of Christ, inspireil the Puritans (Calvinists) who founded the com- monwealths of England, of Holland, and of America, with a contempt of toil, clanger, and death, which enabled them to accom- plish things almost supernatural." '" Its effect he describes as " that sublime enthu- siasm which on either side the ocean ever confronted tyranny with dauntless front, and welcomed death on battlefield, scaf- fold or rack with perfect composure." " '•Highiii John Morley, the eminent English au- gorii! of 'jj^^jj. jjjij Statesman, being the adherent of tcitnce." no religious creed, cannot be suspected of theological bias. " Calvinism ", he says, " has inspired incomparable energy, con- centration, resolution." " It has exalted its votaries to a pitch of heroic moral energj- that has never been surpassed." " They have exhibited an active courage, a resolute endurance, a cheerful self-restraint, an «x- ""The United Netherlands", vol. iv. p. 54'- 'M. S6 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS lilting self-sacrifice, that men count aniontf tile liighest glories of the human con- science." '" The late James Anthony Froude was one /■,,„„... of England's most gifted historians and men of letters. He occupied the Chair of History at Oxford, England's greatest uni- versity. The ignorant attacks upon Calvin- ism which have been the fashion in recent years excited in him the scholar's just im- patience. Against the inferences and mis- representations of prejudice he set the ver- dict of history. From partisan logic he ap- pealed to facts. Himself not theologically committed in any way as regards Calvin- ism, his impartiality is as far above suspi- cion as his ability and learning are beyond question. ^^ " I am going to ask you ", says Froude. Th.afp,ai "to consider, if Calvinism be, as we are"/""^"- told, fatal to morality, how it came to pass that the first symptom of its operation, ""Oliver Cromwell", Tkt Cmlury Magaiine, De. cember, 1899. 57 THE CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS wherever it established itself, was to oblit- erate the distinction between sins and crimes, and to make the moral law the rule of life for States as well as persons? I shall ask you, again, why, if it be a creed of in- tellectual servitude, it was able to inspire and maintain the bravest efforts ever made to break the yoke of unjust authority? When all else has failed; when patriotism has covered its face, and human courage has broken down; when intellect has yielded, as Gibbon says, ' with a smile or a sigh ', content to philosophize in the closet or abroad worship with the vulgar; when emotion, and sentiment, and tender imaginative piety have become the hand- maids of superstition, and have dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that there is any difference between lies and truth, the slavish form of belief called Calvinism, in one or other of its many forms, has borne ever an inflexible front to illusion and men- dacity, and has preferred rather to be ground to powder like flint than to bend 58 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS before violence or melt under enervating temptation," '"' " The Calvinists ", says Froude, " ab- horred, as no body of men ever more ab- horred, all conscious mendacity, all impur- ity, all moral wrong of every kind so far as they could recognize it. Whatever exists at this moment in England and Scotland of conscientious fear of doing evil is the rem- nant of the convictions which were branded by the Calvinists into the people's hearts."'" As illustrating the type of character pro- tj,^, ,f duced by Calvinism, Froude names Will- ci'racitr. iam the Silent, Luther," Knox, Andrew Melville, the Regent Murray, Coligny, Cromwell, Milton, Bunyan. " These were men ", he says, " p>ossessed of all the quali- ties which give nobility and grandeur to human nature — men whose life was as up- right as their intellect was commanding " " Short Studtet on Great Subjects ", p. 13. "Id., p. 50. " Luther's doctrine of Divine Grace, Sovereigntjr, and Predestination was thoroughly Calvinistic. 59 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Hiitory vs^ Jiction. Prejudice vs, fact. and their public aims untainted with selfish- ness; unalterably just where duty required them to be stern, but with the tenderness of a woman in their hearts; frank, true, cheer- ful, humorous, as unlike sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, and able in some way to sound the keynote to which every brave and faithful heart in Europe in- stinctively vibrated." ^^ With these deliberate statements of Ox- ford's great Professor of History, compare the representations of those popular pro- fessional story-tellers, whose only weapon is caricature, and in whose novels the Cal- vinistic characters are nearly all oddities, cranks, fanatics, fools, or savages. For the enlightenment of the critics of Calvinism, Froude adds, " Grapes do not grow on bramble-bushes. Illustrious na- tures do not form themselves on narrow and cruel theories. Where we find a heroic life appearing as the uniform fruit of a par- ticular mode of opinion, it is childish to ' Short Studies on Gre«t Subject! ' 60 p. 14. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS argue in the face of fact that the result ought to have been diflferent." '^ As a complement to the masculine illis- G,/r.«,v,v trations cited by Froude of the Calvinstic ^''""'•"*<'<"/- character, we quote the following from Dr. L. P. Bowen: •' Calvinism has moulded God's own type of womanhood; worth without vanity, self-sacrifice without self- righteousness, zealous service without im- modesty, strong convictions without ef- frontery, human loveliness heightened and softened by heavenly-mindedness." " The world has never known ", says an able modem scholar, " a higher type of robust and sturdy manhood, nor a gentler, purer, or more lovable womanhood, than have prevailed among those peoples who have imbibed the principles of the Calvinistic creed, with its commingled elements of granitic strength and stability, and of su- preme, because Divine, tenderness and grace." '* ""Short Studiei on Great Subjects", p. 14, "Wilson's "Theology of Modern Literature ", p. 61 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS " Tht ttst moiib." "JlfoHumen- tat matbU", To the unequalled excellence of the Cal- vinistic typie of character, the Encyclopaedia Britannica" bears unwilling witness. In its prejudiced article on " Predestination " it " feels bound in justice to make this re- mark ", that Calvinists have been " the highest honor of their own ages and the best models for imitation for every succeed- ing age." Said Henry Ward Beecher, in one of the sermons of his prime: " Men may talk as much as they please against the Calvinists and Puritans and Presbyterians, but you will find when they want to make an investment they have no objection to Calvinism or Puritanism or Presbyte- rianism. They know that where these systems prevail, where the doctrine of men's obligation to God and man is taught and practiced, there their capital may be safely invested." " They tell us ", he continues, " that Calvinism plies men " Early edition, quoted in Smyth'i ' Republicanism", p. 310. 63 Ecclesiaitical THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS with faammer and with chisel. It does; and the result is monumental marble. Other systems leave men soft and dirty; Calvin- ism makes them of white marble, to endure forever." The vast knowledge and piercing insight •• NcbUst in of Thomas Carlyle none will dispute. His'*"*"'"'''" mature conclusion, after a lifetime of his- torical and biographical study, was that " Calvinism had produced in all countries in which it really dominated a definite type of character and conception of morals which was the noblest that had yet ap- peared in the world." " A review of the peoples and communities whose character Calvinism has moulded will attest the truth of Carlyle's conclusion. IN ENGLAND. Consider that noble body of English Cal- Tke English vinists w'hose insistence upon a purer form ""'""'• of worship and a purer life won for them "W. H. Lecky'i " The Map of Life' 63 1900, p. $!• THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The Puritan consnentt. the nickname, Puritans, " perhaps the most remarkable body of men ", says Macaulay, " which the world has ever produced." " Out of their " impassioned Calvinism ", as Taine describes their faith, sprang their adoring love and reverence for God. Sov- ereign in right and in fact He was to them. "To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him ", says Macaulay, " was with them the great end of existence." '* "This was all their care. To stand approved in sight of God, tho' worlds Judged them perverse." " Their theory of life ", says Bayne, " was that man's chief end is not to amuse or to be amused, not to create or experience sen- sation, but to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." '» They were men of " celestial purpose, of hallowed imagination, of faith in the Unseen, the Eternal, the Divine." Unsympathetic and prejudiced as Taine " Essay on Milton. "Id. ""English Puritanism." 64 Introduction, p. 6$. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS is, a skeptic in religion, though a genius in letters and the greatest historian of Eng- lish literature, he cannot but wonder at the elevation and energy of the Puritan conscience. " Strict in every duty ", he de- scribes it, " attentive to the least require- ments; disdaining the equivocations of worldly morality, inexhaustible in patience, courage, sacrifice ; enthroning purity on the domestic hearth, truth in the tribunal, probity in the counting-house, and labor in the workshop." *" In his " History of the English People ", Green marks vrith admi- ration their " implicit obedience to the Di- vine will alone ", their " moral grandeur ", their " manly purity ". Army life is notoriously a school of vice, m Puritan It is the crucial test of morals and religion. "'''">'• But the Puritan army has been the wonder of the world as well for its moral purity as its invincible valor. Says Taine, " a perfect Christian made a perfect soldier." Through all that army breathed the martyr spirit of " " Hi«t. Eng. Literature " (Alden), vol. i. p. 473. 6S THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS their creed. Of their own accord they put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England. Oliver Cromwell, their leader, Goldwin Smith pronounces " the greatest single force ever directed to a moral purpose ". " Upon the solid rock of Calvinistic faith ", says Morley, " Crom- well had established himself." " Upon the same rock his soldiers had planted them- selves. The result was an army whose equal for purity and heroism the world has never seen. ia"mfn" ie. " ^' "*''.^'' '"""'^ "' ^^^^ Macaulay, " either jtr-mf." ' in the British Islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by diffi- culties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard 'Cromwell", Tie Ctnttiry Magatitie, December, I899. 66 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS the day of battle as a day of certain tri- umph, and marched against the most re- nowned battalions of Europe with disdain- ful confidence. Even the banished Cava- liers felt an emotion of national pride when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable by the ablest of the Marshals of France." " "But that which chiefly distinguished C/iiV/rfij the army of Cromwell from other armies ", ''""''"• says Macaulay, " was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizens and the honor of woman were held sacred. No servant giil " " Hist. Eng.", vol. i. p. 119. 67 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths." " Says Taine : " They raised the national morality, as they had saved the national liberty." " "^Triidwiik But a sterner test than that of war awaited the Calvinistic warriors, and a yet nobler proof they were to give of the un- rivalled strength of a Calvinistic manhood. The Protectorate having come to an end, the army was dissolved. The old veterans were turned loose to shift for themselves amid the myriad temptations of that seven- teenth century England, where beggary was a recognized and popular profession, where the police machinery even of the metrop- olis was "utterly contemptible"," and where theft and robbery oflfered to every able-bodied man a safe and easy means of support. But though disbanded suddenly, and without resources, "they did not "" HUt. Enf.", vol. I. p. 119. *• " Hist. Eng. Literature " (Alden), vol. i. p. 41a. " Macaulay'i " Hist. Eng ", vol. i. p. jv). 68 THE CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUns bring ", says Taine, " a single recruit to the vagabonds and bandits." *• " Fifty thou- sand veterans ", says Macaulay, " accus- tomed to thi profession of arms, were at once thrown on the world: and experience seemed to warrant the belief that this change would produce much misery and crime, that the discharged veterans would be seen begging in every street, or that they would be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result followed. In a few •■ Omii^ months there remained not a trace that the -'"'■''' "' most formidable army in th; world had just ^° been absorbed into the mass of the com- munity. The Royalists themselves con- fessed that in every department of honest industry the discarded warriors prospered beyond other men, that none was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and that if a baker, a mason, or a wagoner attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all proba- bility one of Oliver's old soldiers." *' ""Hist. Eng. Literature" (Alden), vol. i. p. 411. ""Hilt. Eng.", vol. I. p. 147. 69 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Historiial iifiH»nstra* tion. ** ImsHma' bit obligah tuiti." The above remarkable narrative, which from first to last we have sketched as far as possible in the very words of eminent and trustworthy authors, is a striking demon- stration from history of the supreme char- acter-making power of Calvinism. The picture here presented of the character of the Puritans is in accord with the latest his- torical investigations. Of the two admir- able lives of Cromwell issued in 1900, the able reviewer of The Independent says: " In both authors the Puritan character stands out towering above the age that gave it birth, and an inspiration and an ideal to all ages that follow after." " But in producing the Puritans, Calvin- ism has not only proved its power, it has laid the modern world under what Macau- lay rightly terms " inestimable obliga- tions ".*' Those English Calvinists did not labor and die for themselves alone. They * Tie /ml■• among the historic.i'. wnePr- ni AiiuTn.a; " It is not too mucli to sa> that in tlie sev- enteenth century the entire poiiti .i' future of mankind was staked upoii ilii. qiauions that were at issue in England. Had it not been for the Puritans, political liberty would probably have disappeared from the world. If ever there were men who laid down their lives in the cause of all mankind, it was those grim old Ironsides, whose watch-words were texts of Holy Writ, whose battle-cries were hymns of praise."" Since the Genevan reformer was " incon- testably the father of the English Puri- tans ",'* no man can deny the justice of Fiske's conclusion that " it would be hard to overrate the debt which mankind owe to Calvin ". ""The Beginnings of New England", pp. 37, 51. ** Dyer'i " Modern Europe ", vol. 11. p. 130. 71 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Anglo-Saxon ProlistatU- Tki Chris- tian Home. But political liberty is only a part of our Puritan heritage. Says Bancroft: " That the English people became Protestant is due to the Puritans."" The significance of this fact is beyond computation. English Protestantism, with its open Bible, its spir- itual and intellectual freedom, meant the Protestantism not only of the American colonies, but of that virile and multiplying race which for three centuries has been carrying the Anglo-Saxcn language, re- ligion, and institutions into all the world. As the Puritans saved England to Protes- tantism, so the Calvinists in general saved Protestantism to the world. "Whatever was the cause ", says Froude, " the Calvin- ists were the only fighting Protestants. It was they whose faith gave them courage to stand up for the Reformation, and but for them the Reformation would have been crushed." A third " inestimable obligation " we should never forget. Says Green: " Home, •* " Hist. U. S.", vol. I. p. 289. 72 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS as we conceive it now, was the creation of the Puritan." »' In an age when woman was the slave, the idol, or the toy of man; when adultery was a jest and indecency a fashion; when even in the domestic circle the worst vices were practiced, then it was that Calvinism, by its moral purity, its sanctification of the marriage covenant as the symbol of the believer's relation to Christ, its belief in the sublime possibilities of every individual, woman and child as well as man, created out of a corrupt society that shrine of affection, that school of vir- tue, that radiant centre of every holy influ- ence, the Christian Home. Of such beneficent and lasting products Summary. cf Puritanism, Lowell might well have been thinking when he declared that " the em- bodiment in human institutions of truths uttered by the Son of man eighteen cen- turies ago was to be mainly the work of Puritan thought and Puritan self-devo- ""Hist. Eng. People", vol. ill. p. 414. 73 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Calvinism and Chris- tian civiliza tioH, A bright and bloody (hapttr. tion." " Surely it should stop the mouths of the detractors of Calvinism to remember that from men of that creed we inherit, as the fruit of their blood and toil, their prayers and teachings, our civil liberty, our Protestant faith, our Christian homes. The thoughtful reader, noting that these three blessings lie at the root of all that is best and greatest in the modem world, may be startled at the implied claim that our present Christian civilization is but the fruitage of Calvinism. Yet it is even so. The historian Green, of the Episcopal Church of England, states both the fact and its explanation when he deliberately de- clares: " It is in Calvinism that the modern world strikes its roots; for it was Calvinism that first revealed the worth and dignity of man." " IN HOLLAND. Another glorious chapter in the history of Calvinism and humanity, though written " " Lowell's Prose Works ", vol. n. p. 2. **" Hist. Eng. People ", vol. in. p. ii(. 74 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS in blood, is the record of the long struggle of the Hollanders for civil and religious freedom against the gigantic power of Spain. For eighty years the strongest na- tion in the world labored with all its might to crush well-nigh the smallest, and failed. Says Douglas Campbell, in his massive and masterly work on " The Puritan in Hol- land, England, and America ": " The Puri- tans of Holland battled for their liberties during four fifths of a century, facing not alone the bravest and best-trained soldiers of the age, but flames, the gibbet, flood, siege, pestilence, and famine. Every atroc- ity that religious fanaticism could invent, every horror that ever followed in the train of war, swept over and desolated their land." °° Holland was made a spectacle to all nations by her sufferings, and surpassed all other Christian communities in the num- ber and steadfastness of her martyi s."' The "Vol. I. p. 133. •'"The Universal Cyclopedia", Article um". 75 ' Calvin- ^PIMMSF A thrilling example. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Duke of Alva boasted that within the short space of five years he had delivered 18,600 heretics to the executioner. " The scaf- fold ", says Motley, " had its daily victims, but did not make a single convert. There were men who dared and suffered as much as men can dare and suffer in this world, and for the noblest cause that can inspire humanity." His pages picture to us " the heroism with which men took each other by the hand and walked into the flames, or with which women sang a song of triumph while the grave-digger was shovelling the earth upon their living faces." In the siege of Leyden we have a thrilling example of their sufferings and heroism. Three months after the commencement of the siege the food-supply was exhausted. A fearful famine began to rage. For seven weeks the inhabitants had no bread to eat and multitudes perished of hunger. On the heels of the famine came the plague or black death, which carried off a third part 76 THE CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS of the citizens. The apparently doomed survivors subsisted on dogs and cats. To the summons to surrender, they replied: " As long as you hear the mew of a cat or the bark of a dog you may know that the -•ity holds out. And when all have perished but ourselves, we will devour our left arms, retaining our right to defend our women, our liberty, and our religion against the for- eign tyrant." When at last relief came they were almost starved to death. They could scarcely drag themselves along. Yet all to a man staggered or crawled as best they could to the house of prayer. There on their knees they gave thanks to God. But when they tried to utter their gratitude in psalms of praise they were almost voiceless, for there was no strength left in them, and the tones of their song died away in grate- ful sobbing and weeping. In that awful and protracted struggle, "/» /}« which Campbell pronounces " a war un- '"""■" paralleled in the history of arms ", the Dutch patriots had their feet planted on 77 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS IVilliam tht Silent. that rock on which Cromwell and his Iron- aides in the next century established them- selves— " the solid rock of Calvinistic faith ". " Calvinism '*, says Bancroft, him- self ecclesiastically allied in no way with that faith, " inspired Holland with a heroic enthusiasm ". None but " zealous Calvin- ists ", as Camfrfsell calls them, could have suflfered and endured and fought »nd wrought as they did. ' In the moral war- fare for freedom ", says Bancroft, " their creed was a part of their army and their most faithful ally in the Wattle." "" This it was. as Motley has already told us. that " inspired them with a contempt for toil, dinger, and death which enabled them to accomplish things almost supernatural." The illustrious Dutch leader, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, though reared in another faith, was forced by the intensity of his trials and the immensity of his re- sponsibilities to flee to Calvinism for rest and refuge. In its great Scripture doc- •• " Hist. U. S.", vol. I. p. 464. 78 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS trines of the Divine Sovereignty and Gov- ernment his suffering soul found peace and strength. He became a devout Calvinist; and " from this time forth ", says Motley, " he began calmly to rely upon God's Providence in all the emergencies of his eventful life." •• The Calvinistic conscience was as much CaivinisUc in evidence among the Dutch as among the '"'^'^"'• English Puritans. Says an Italian con- temporary, "They hold adultery in hor- ror." "They dispensed exact justice", says Campbell, " to poor and rich alike, cared for the unfortunate, and frowned on idle- ness and vice." " No one ever questioned their integrity. Public honesty is of later growth than that of individuals, men in a body often performing acts which singly they would condemn; but even here Hol- land has no superior in history. Through- out her long war with Spain, the national credit stood unimpaired. The towns, when " Rife of Dutch Republic", vol. I. p. dgg. 79 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Kiiults. Cimpl-rfl't statetnent. besieg'cd, issued bonds which often were sold a> large discount, and men were foun'! 'ho, as in later times among our- selves, urged that the purchasers should only receive the money they had paid. No such counsels, however, prevailed in a sin- gle instance. The debts of the towns, like those of the State, were invariably paid in full." •» Of the results to civilization and human- ity of that momentous conflict, which, in the strength of their creed, the Dutch Cal- vinists fought and won, we shall submit three brief summaries, each by an acknowl- edged master of historical learning. Says Campbell : " Out from this war of eighty years' duration emerged a republic, for two centuries the greatest in the world, a republic which was the instructor of the world in art, and whose corner-stone was religious toleration for all mankind." " " " The Puritan in Holland, England and Amer- ica", vol. I. pp. 87, 171. •' " Id., p. 133. 80 n\\i THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The above solid historical fact effectually a thtcy ix- disposes of the theory that Calvinism makes Z''^'^- men haters of art or persecutors of their fellows Whatever share Calvinists have had in the mistakes and superstitions of their age and race cannot be charged to their theological tenets. The Calvinistic zeal of the Dutch is beyond question, yet they burned no witches, they led the world in art, and before William Penn was born, taught and practiced the widest religious toleration. " In freedom of conscience ", says Bancroft, " they were the light of the world." '* The true father of modern re- ligious liberty was the immortal Dutch Cal- vinist, William the Silent. Motley's deliberate verdict is as follows: Motin's " Few strides more gigantic have been «"-'/«•'. taken in the march of humanity than those by which a parcel of outlying provinces in the north of Europe exchanged slavery to a foreign despotism and ro the Holy In- quisition for the position of a self-govern- «»•■ Hist. u. S.", vol. X. p. 58. 81 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Bttncroft'x tstimattt A not her dem- onstration. ing commonwealth, in the front rank of contemporary powers, and in many respects the foremost of the world. It is impossible to calculate the amount of benefit rendered to civilization by the examfrie of the Dutch Republic." •• The following is Bancroft's estimate of what Calvinistic Holland has done for the world: " Of all the branches of the Ger- manic family that nation has endured the most and wrought the most in favor of lib- erty of conscience, liberty of commerce, and liberty in the State. For three generations the best interests of mankind were aban- doned to its keeping; and to uphold the highest objects of spiritual life, its mer- chants, land holders, and traders so teemed with heroes and martyrs that they tired out brute fores, and tyranny, and death itself, and from war educed life and hope for com- ing ages." ** Here, then, from history, we have an- " " The United KetherUndi ", vol. iv. p. S49 ••"Hist. U. S.", vol. X. p. 58. 8a THE CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS other demonstration of the unequalled en- ergizing and ennobling power of Calvin- ism. Above all the other doctrinal systems known to man, history crowns Calvinism as the creed of saints and heroes. To its Divine vitality and fruitfulness the modem world owes a debt of gratitude, which slowly in recent years it is beginning to recognize, but can never pay. IN FRANCE. In France the Calvinists were called tmi Hks-'- Huguenots. The character of the Hugue- "'"■ nots the world knows. Their moral purity and heroism, whether persecuted at home or exiled abroad, has been the wonder of both friend and foe. " Their history ", says the Encyclopsedia Britannica,'* " is a stand- ing marvel, illustrating the abiding power of strong religious convictions ". " The account of their endurance ", it declares, " is amongst the most remarkable and he- roic records of religious history." Accord- "Art. " Huguenots." 83 MiaOCOPY nSOlUTION TBT CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 112 I3.« ""' 1.8 im IIIIIU III I A APPLIED I^A^GE Inc ^^^ 1653 East Mam Street S'.S ftocnester. New York 14609 USA "-Sg Cie) *82 - 0300 - Phone ^~ (716) 288 - 5989 - Fax THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ing to the great historian Lecky, himself a cold-blooded rationalist, the Huguenots were " the most solid, the most modest, the most virtuous, the most generally enlight- ened element in the French nation."'" The furious persecution that raged against them, of which the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a part and a sample, de- stroyed or exiled hundreds of thousands of Huguenots. The loss to France was irrep- arable. " It prepared the way ", says Lecky, " for the inevitable degradation of the national character and removed the last serious bulwark that might have broken the force of that torrent of skepticism and vice, which, a century later, laid prostrate in merited ruin, Jjoth the altar and the throne." "Looking back", says an able writer, "at their sufferings, at the purity, self-denial, honesty, and industry of their lives, and at the devotion with which they adhered to re- ligious duty and the worship of God, we ** " Eng. Hilt. Eighteenth Centnry' 264, 165. rol. I. pp. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS cannot fail to regard them as amongst the truest, greatest, and worthiest heroes of their age. In France they were the only men who were willing to die rather than forsake the worship of God according to the Scriptures and conscience." " To be " honest as a Huguenot " became ••mmst „< a proverb, signalizing the highest reach of Hugum^i: integrity. This quality, which is essential in the merchant who deals with foreigners whom he never sees, so characterized the business transactions of the Huguenots that the foreign trade of the country fell al- most entirely into their hands.** The eminent English writer, Samuel Eloquent Smiles, known to thousands of Americans ' as the author of " Self Help ", states that while the Huguenots were stigmatized in the contemporary literature of their ene- mies as " heretics ", " atheists ", " blasphe- mers ", " monsters vomited forth of hell ", not one vrord is to be found in these writ- . silence. " " Calvinism in History ", p. uj. " Smiles' " The Huguenots ", p. 134. 8S THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Tht trie known by its fruits. ings in impeachment of their morality and integrity. " The silence of their enemies on this point ", says Smiles, " is perhaps the most eloquent testimony in their fa- vor." «» In a foot-note, Smiles makes a comment which is of especial interest coming from a man so distinguished for accuracy and sound judgment, and who, so far as we can learn, was committed in no way to the cause of Calvinism. " What the Puritan v/as in England ", he says, " and the Cove- nanter in Scotland, that the Huguenot was in France; and that the system of Calvin should have developed precisely the same kind of men in these three several coun- tries affords a remarkable illustration of the power of religious training in the for- mation of character." "> Puritans, Hugue- nots, Covenanters! What a record and roll- call! What other creed in Christendom can show such a marvellous fruitage of purity "Smiles' "The Huguenots' " Id., p. 134, note. 86 p. 134. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS and heroism as these historic names repre- sent? What made the Huguenots to differ from the rest of French Christendom? They were of the same country, the same race, the same natural traits and pecuHarities, oftentimes of the same household. What made the diflference? Let history answer: " the system of Calvin ". Near the middle of the seventeenth ctn- j„„,,„-, tury a Roman Catholic Bishop and teacher ^"xustin. of theology, named Jansen, published an exposition of the works of St. Augustine, the greatest of the Church fathers. Auo-us- tine's doctrines of sin, sovereignty, re- destination, and free grace, were the same as those taught eleven centuries later by Calvin, and four centuries earlier, as we be- lieve, by Paul. To quote a common say- ing, Paul begat Augustine, and Augustine begat Calvin. Jansen's book was prohibited by a decree of the Inquisition, and condemned as heret- 87 THE CRKED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The Pori A'oyai Cul- viniiti. Renan'i tes- timony. ical by the Pope. But it found its way into many hands. Especially at Port Royal, a Koman Catholic community and religious retreat not far from Paris, it was ardently studied and its doctrines warmly embraced. Immediately Port Royal became a theo- logical storm-centre, the object of Jesuit hate and intrigue. After years of vicissi- tude and trial it was at last suppressed by the Papal power, but not till Calvinism had borne its characteristic fruit, and made Port Royal the synonym to succeeding ages of purity and intelligence. Ernest Renan, the well-known author, scholar, scientist, and Member of the French Academy, was himself a ration-alist, yet he calls St. Cyran, the Jansemst leader of the Port Royal school of thought, " the Calvin who took in hand the cause of God, to restore the faith of St. Paul and Augus- tine ". " This school ", he says, " was un- equalled in the greatness of the characters it formed. Nowhere else have been seen so many brave and loyal spirits devoted ab- 88 I THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS solutely to their ideal of righteousness. Port Royal rises in the midst of the seven- teenth century like a triumphal column, a temple to manliness and truth." " I-V NEW ENGLAND. The Sterling character and worth of the ta, jv,u Calvm,sts who settled New England has ^-^/-^ " become a proverb. Puritans they were in ^'"■•"'"■ fact as well as name. They reared their children to fear God, obey their parents, speak the truth, and practice industry and temperance. "One might dwell there from year to year ", said a contemporary wnter. " and not see a drunkard, or hear an oath, or meet a beggar". The conse- quence was universal health. The average duration of life in New England as com- pared with Europe was doubled. Of all who were born into the world more than two in ten, full four in nineteen, attained the age of seventy. Of those who lived be- yond ninety the proportion as compared "" Studies in Rellslous Hiitorr andCritlclna- PP- 414. 4*5. ^'"uaw , ri ' m THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Failings vs. virtuis. with European tables of longevity was still more remarkable." Their religion was their life. It governed all their thoughts and relations. Beasts as well as men felt its influence. Cruelty to animals was a civil offense. In the human- ity of their criminal laws they were two cen- turies ahead of their times.'^ In all their records Bancroft could find no example of divorce, an evidence of that Calvinistic conscience which, as Taine has told us, "enthroned purity on the domestic hearth". The mistakes and failings which they shared in common with *heir age are as nothing in comparison witn their virtues. " Their transient persecutions in Amer- ica ", says Bancroft, " were in self-defense, and were no moie than a train of mists hovering of an autumn morning over the channel of a fine river that diffused fresh- ness and fertility wherever it wound." '* The Puritans of New England are a char- " •• Hist. u. S.", vol. I. p. 467. 'Id., p. 465. ' Id. , p. 464. 90 THE CREED TESTED I!Y ITS FRUITS acteristic example of the Calvinistic spirit Caivim^m of intelligence and free inquiry. " Of all '"''f"" '"• contemporary sects ", says Bancroft, " they '""^" were the most free from credulity." " The Pilgrim Fathers he pronounces " Calvinists in their faith according to the straitest sys- tem ", and says of them, " they renounced all attachment to human authority and te- served an entire and perpetual liberty of forming their principles and practice from the light that inquiry might shed upon their minds."" In this they ijut obeyed the impulse of their creed and the example of their spiritual father, Calvin, whom the same author describes as " pushing free in- quiry to its utmost verge, and yet valuing inquiry solely as the means of arriving at fixed conclusions." " It was in Calvinistic Holland, according to Smiles, that freedom of inquiry found its chief European cen- tre." " •' Hist. U. S.", vol. I. p. 463. '•Id., p. 300. " " Miscellanies ", p. 407. "" The Huguenots ", p. 177. 91 iHttUtituul iuperiarity. THE CRFED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS In his famous and profound work on the " History of Civilization ", Buckle, himself the ailherent of no religious creed, remarks upon " the inquisitive spirit which has al- ways accompanied Calvinism." " " The professors of Calvinism ", he says, " arr more likely to acquire habits of independ- ent thinking than those of Arminianism." "> This would seem a safe inference from an admitted historical fact which Buckle thus states; " The most profound thinkers have been on the Calvinistic side; and it is inter- esting to observe that this superiority of thought on the part of the Calvinists ex- isted from the beginning." " We quote in this connection the acknowledgment of an able and distinguished leader of American Methodism. Says Dr. Curry: "We con- cede to the Calvinistic churches the honor of having aP long directed the best think- ing of the couu.ry." "Vol. I. p. 614. »Id.. p. 613. " Id., p. 613, note. 92 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS This historic and habitual -superiority ^,„„. of Calvinists ui the reahn of intellect is nof'-i-ed. accident. It is the fruit oi their creed Even Ralph Waldo Emerson admits and admires the "mental concentration and force •• mspired by Calvinism, and lauds the effect upon •■ character and intellect " of its "determination of thought on the eternal world ". Calvinism possesses the mind with themes the most vital and majestic, " which soar into the immeasurable blue and open to though celestial gates ". It gives foun- dation, consecration, inspiration to human thought by its sublime doctrine of unity, stability, and order of all things in God. The history of things heavenly and earthly, spiritual and material, past, pres- ent, and to come, is a great whole in which the Divine Will fulfils itself in its wisdom power, and goodness, all thin^ coming from God and returning to Him in the maj- esty of an imperial plan, formed before the foundation of the world, vhose unfolding IS Universal Providence, and whose goal 93 Mul ittlii/y ing and itimu/a/iHg. THK C RKEI) TKSTKI) BY ITS I KUITS and consunimntiuii is that " One far of divine event To which the whole creation movci." In this great and ennohhng conception which takes us hchind all tiiat is phenom- enal and bids us look at the eternities be- fore and after our little day, every |>roblem in theology, science, and ])hilosopliy finds its appropriate place, and to man's think- ing faculty presents its inspirit g challenge. Intellectually, Cahnism is i;t once the most satisfying and the most stinsulating of creeds. It grapples with every difficulty. " It goes to the very root ", says Morley, " of man's relations with the scheme of universal things." *= Matthew Arnold, England's most acute and cultured critic of life and literature, has truly said that while " Arminianism, in the practical man's fashion, is apt to scrape the surface of things only ", the Calvinist's " serious- ness, force, and fervency " are begotten of •"'Oliver Cromwell", December CetUury, iSqt. 94 THE CREKI) IKSIKI) BY ITS FRUITS " Calvinism's |)cri)etiiai conversance with deep things and with the Uihle.""^ The b. • lievcr m tiie Calvinistic system is no child playing witn sandlieaps on tiie seashore. He walks among hills and niomitains. The themes of thoMjjht around Iiim tower up- ward, Alps on Alps. His mental stature rises with his surroundini^ ,. He becomes a thoughtful being, communing with sub- liinities. To its characteristic elevation of thonght "io/Vy.' and life, writers of all shades of theol ical opinion bear unconscious witness in their use of the word " lofty " or its equivalent in connection with Calvinism. Numberless illustrations might be given. One of the latest is Theodore Roosevelt, in whose re- cent " Life of Cromwell " even the cursory reader must have noticed the recurrence of such expressions as " lofty creed ", " lofty Presbyterianism", "lofty souls", "loftiness of aim ", and the like, descriptive of the Calvinistic faith and spirit. ""St. Paul and Protestantism"; pp. si, 26. 95 II i THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS I iHtetligtnct and educa- tion. The elevation of the entire man sought and wrought by Calvinism is both cause and effect of the stress it has ever laid ui-on intelligence and education. Holding that man's chief end is to glorify God, it seeks the development and training of the whole manhood, intellectual as well as spiritual, as faculty for the attainment of this di- vinely appointed end. It is natural, there- fore, that Calvinism's greatest expounder should have been also the greatest educa- tional benefactor of the modern world. " We boast ", says Bancroft, " of our com- mon schools; Calvin was the father of jwp- ular education, the inventor of the system of free schools." ** "' Wherever Calvinism gained dominion ", he says again, '' it in- voked intelligence for the people and in every parish planted the common school."" " It dreads no skeptic's puny hands, While near the school the church-spire stands; Nor (ears the blinded bigot's rule While near the church-spire stands the school." ■•-Miscellanies", p. 406. » " Hist. U. S.", vol. II. p. 463- 96 THE CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS To the heroic survivors of the memora- t>., ,. , / ble s.ege of Leyden. William the Silent of- ^1^::."^ fered as a reward of their patriotism a re- duction of taxes or the estabhshment of a school of learning. They chose the latter. That was the origin of the University of Leyden, renowned throughout the whole world, whose three-hundredth anniversary twenty-five years ago was celebrated with befitting solemnities. It stands a monu- ment of that Calvinistic love of learning which, putting mind above money, has in- spired countless generations of God-fearing Calvinists to pinch themselves to the bone to educate their children. " That any be- ing with capacity for knowledge should die ignorant, this I call a tragedy." In this thrilling dictum of Carlyle, giving the word knowledge its highest reach and noblest purpose, throbs the heart of Calvinism. IN SCOTLAND. The best possible place to study the ef- fects of a particular system of religion is a 97 ;1 'J THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The bttt studying ground. The Scotch before Cal- vinism, "Thelatt shall be first." country in which for generations that sys- tem has had full sway and a free hand. To know the practical fruits of Roman Cathol- icism we should examine some country like Spain or Brazil, where for centuries Ro- manism has been the one religion, unhelped and unhindered by other systems. There is one land in which Calvinism has long been practically the one religion. That land is Scotland. When Calvinism reached the Scotch peo- ple, they were vassals of the Romish church, priest-ridden, ignorant, wretched, degraded in body, mind, and morals. Buckle describes them as " filthy in their persons and in their homes ", " poor and miserable ", " excessively ignorant and ex- cessively superstitious ", " with superstition engrained into their characters." ** Marvellous was the transformation when the great doctrines learned by Knox from the Bible in Scotland and more thor- oughly at Geneva while sitting at the feet ** " Hist, of Civilization ", vol. ii. pp. 140, 145, IS3. 98 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS of Calvin, flashed in upon their minds. It W's hke the sun rising at midnight. Says C-'yIe: " This that Knox did for his na- tio.. we may really call a resurrection as from death." " John Knox ", says Froude. was the one man without whom Scotland as the modern world has known it, would have had no existence."" Knox made Calvmism the religion of Scotland, and Cal- vm,sm made Scotland the moral standard or the world. It is certainly a significant fact that m that country where there is the most of Calvinism there should be the least of cnme ; that of all the peoples of the world to-day that nation which is confessedly the most moral is also the most thoroughly Calvmistic; that in that land where Calvin- ism has had supremest sway individual and national morality has reached its loftiest level. Henry M. Stanley, the famous explorer, sia.UyS IS one of the shrewdest judges of men that '""" -y.. this generation has produced. His insight ' Hist. Kr vol. 99 P' 4I4. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS into character and acuteness of observation were the means again and again of saving his own life and that of his men amid the wilds of heathenism. His travels have brought him into close personal contact with missionaries of every church and na- tionality. Though no Scotchman himself. Stanley pronounces Scotch missionaries the best and most successful in the world; and their superiority he attributes to that supreme devotion to duty taught them in their Calvinistic homes." "s^riinai Stanley's testimony to the pre-eminent coHjuercrs of , , , . . . lit mcrui: P^^er and success of the missionaries trained by Calvinism reminds us of a similar tribute by the great historian D'Aubigne. " Luther "', he says, " trans- formed princes into heroes of the faith ; the reformation of Calvin was addressed par- ticularly to the people, among whom it raised up martyrs until the time came when Tor an exquisite and inspiring picture, drawn from life, of a Scotcli Calvinistic tiome, see appen- dix to this chapter. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS it was to send forth the spiritual conquero-s of the world. For three centuries it has been producing in the social condition of the nations that have received it, transfor- mations unknown to former times. And still at this very day, and now perhaps more than ever, it imparts to the men who accept 't a spirit of power which makes them chosen instruments fitted to propagate truth, morality, and civilization to the ends of the earth." *» Another significant fact. Scotland leads ,„,„i,„„ „ the world not only i„ the average morality, /^'wX. but also in the average intelligence of its people. This was to have been expected. Calvinism, as we have seen, elevates the whole man. The study of its comprehen- sive and logical system of doctrine is itself an unsurpassed mental discipline and stim- ulus. " The eflFect of familiarity with the Snorter Catechism upon the intellectual character of the Scottish peasantry ", says " " Reformation in the Time of Calvin • preface, p. ». loi 1' I 1- ' i . vol. I,, THK CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS Morley, " is one of the accepted common- places of history." "o " In every branch of knowledge ", says Buckle, " this once poor and ignorant people produced original and successful thinkers. What makes this the more remarkable is its complete contrast to their former state." °' Says Prof. Fiske: " One need not fear contradiction in say- ing that no other people in modern times, in proportion to their numbers, have achieved so much in all departments of hu- man activity as the people of Scotland have achieved. It would be superfluous to men- tion the pre-eminence of Scotland in the industrial arts, or to recount the glorious names in philosophy, in history, in poetry and romance, and in every department of science which have made Scotland illustri- ous for all future time.""" Prof. Fiske pro- ceeds to remark upon the patent fact that "" Oliver Cromwell ", Cmlury Magaiine, February, 1900. •* " Hijt. of Civilization ", vol. n. p. 253. " " Beginnings of New England ", p. 152. loz THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRCITt, '••this magnificent intellectual fruition ' is the outcome of " Calvinistic orthodoxy" Here then is a matter of profoun.l sig- ^„„„.„,„. mficance. that that land whose previous degradation was notorious, and which for three centuries has been of all lands the most mtensely and exclusively Calvinistic to-day surpasses every other nation on the g obe m both the intellectual and the moral glory of its people. America has never produced a man of Lc.rirs wider mformation, or more varied and brill- '"""'"'y- lant gifts, than James Russell Lowell the renowned diplomat, essayist, and poet Lowell's connection from childhood was with a religious body not Calvinistic; yet he says: " If the Calvinistic churches are to be judged by the results of their teaching upon character and conduct, as seen in Scotland and New England, then the^e churches are entitled to the highest praise. For the superiority is not solely in morality and mtelligence, but in the prevalent sense of duty, in high ideals and inflexible THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Jiiview and conelHtion. ciples, and, in short, in the consciousness of the spiritual world that is an eternal nou/ with believers. After due allowance made for time-servers and hypocrites, I think there are among the Calvinists more godly men, pach living ' As ever in his great Task- master's eye ', than in any other branch of the Christian C?hurch." *^ We have not space to pursue this branch of our subject further, though we have but dipped into it here and there. We have endeavored to try Calvinism by Christ's own test of fruitfulness, of practical results. We have examined its workings in many countries and amid conditions the most di- verse and adverse. We have conducted the investigation under the guidance, not of Calvinistic partisans, but of authors and observers of worldwide reputation for ability and learning, whose preposses- sions in almost every case would nat- urally be rather against than for Calvin- " Quoted by the Rtformcd Church Messmgtr, 1896, from a published sketch of Lowell. 104 I in: CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS isin. The conclusion to which they lead us represents the impartial verdict of history. That conclusion is, that as a character builder, as a purifying, energizing, uplifting force in the life of men and nations, Calvin- ism stands supreme among the religious systems of the world. And further, since truth is in order to godliness, and the tree is to be judged by its fru.t, we have here the historical demonstration that the Calvinis- tic is the truest creed of Christendom. This tree, to adapt another's eloquent The Meat. paragraph," may have, to prejudiced eyes, a rough bark, a gnarled stem, and boughs twisted often into knotted shapes of un- graceful strength. But, remember, it is not a willow-wand of yesterday. These boughs have wrestled with the storms of a thousand years; this stem has been wreathed with the red lightning and scarred by the thunderbolt: and all over its rough rind are the marks of the battle-axe " Dr. T. V. Moore's " Power and Claims of a Cal- vmistic Literature ". p. 35. lOS THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS and the bullet. This old oak has not the pliant grace and silky softness of a green- house plant, hut it has a majesty above grace, and s grandeur beyond beauty. It- riots may be strangely contorted, but some of them are rich with the blood of glorious battle-fields, some of them are clasped around the stakes of martyrs; some of them hidden in solitary cells and lonely libraries, where deep thinkers have mused and prayed, as in some apocalyptic Patmos; and its great tap-root runs back, until it twines in living and loving embrace around the cross of Calvary. Its boughs may be gnarled, but they hang clad with all that is richest and strongest in the civilization and Christianity of human history. APPENDIX. A Scotch Presbyterian Home. We have never heard or read a sermon on family religion which impressed us more deeply than the following simple narra- tive of the religious home-life of an humble 1 06 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Scotch family. It is taken from the first chapter of the AutoI,iography of John G 1 aton, missionary to the New Hebrides- ■' '^"'l =*o began in his early life that blessed custom of Family Prayer, morning and evenmg. which my father practised probably wuhom one single omission till he lay on his deathbed, seventv-seven vears of age; when, even to the last day of hi's life a portion of Scripture was rea.i. an.l his voice was heard softly joining in the Psalm and his l.ps breathed the morning and even- •ng Prayer, falling in ,weet benediction on the heads of all his children, far away niany of them over all the earth, but ail nieetmg him there at the Throne of Grace None of us can remember that anv day ever passed unhallowed thus; no hurry for market, no rush to business, no arrival of friends or guests, no trouble or sorrow no joy or excitement, ever prevented at least our kneeling around the familv altar, while the high priest led our prayers to God and ofifered himself and his children there.' 107 rilK {REED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS " And blessed to others, as well as to ourselves, was the light of such example! I have heard that, in long after years, the worst woman in the village of Torthorwald, then leading an immoral life, but since changed by the grace of God, was known to declare, that the only thing that kept her from despair and from the hdl of the sui- cide was when in the dark winter nights she crept close up underneath my father's window, and heard him pleading in family worship that God would convert ' the sin- ner from the error of wicked ways and polish him as a jewel for the Redeemer's crown.' ' I felt ', .said she, ' that I was a bur- den on that good man's heart, and I knew that God would not disappoint him. That thought kept me out of hell, and at last led me to the only Saviour.' " Each of us. from very early days, con- sidered it no penalty, but a great joy. to go with our father to the church- the four miles were a treat to our young spirits, the company by the way was a fre h incite- io8 THK CRKEI) TKSTKI) HV ITS FKflTS ment. and occasionally some of the wo„- «lers of city life rewar.le.l our esger eves A few other pious men an,l women of the I'cst evanRelical ty,,e went fro,,, the same pansh to one or other favourite minister at Dumfnes.-an.l when these (Jo.I-fearinc peasants • forKathere.l ' in the wav to „r from the house of God, we youngsters had sometimes rare glimpses of what Christian talk may be and ought to be. 1 hey went to the church, full of beautiful expectancy of spirit-their souls were on the outlook tor God; they returned from the church ready and even anxious to exchange ideas as' to what they had heard and receivcl of the th.ngsoflife. I have to bear my testimony that religion was presented to us with a peat deal of intellectual freshness, and that «t did not repel us hut kindled our spiritual mterest. The talks which we heard were however, genuine; not the make-believe of religious conversation, but the sincere oMt- come of their own personalities That Perhap.. makes all the diflference betvixt 109 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS talk that attracts and talk that drives away. " We had, too, special Bible Readings on the Lord's Day evening, — mother and chil- dren and visitors reading in turns, with fresh and interesting question, answer and exposition, all tending to impress us with the infinite grace of a God of love and mercy in the great gift of His dear Son Jesus, our Saviour. The Shorter Cate- chism was gone through regularly, each answering the question asked, till the whole had been explained, and its foundation in Scripture shown by the proof-texts ad- duced. It has been an amazing thing to me, occasionally to meet with men who blamed this ' catechizing ' for giving them a distaste to religion; every one in all our circle thinks and feels exactly the opposite. It laid the solid rock-foundation of our re- ligious life. After-years have given to these questions and their answers a deeper or a modified meaning, but none of us have ever once even dreamed of wishing that we had no THE CREED TESTED BY ITS fRUTS been otherwise trained. Of course, if the parents are not devout, sincere, and affe onatef, he .hole affair o„ both sides s taskwork, or worse, hypocritical and false -resu ts n,ust be very different indeed-' Uh, I can remember those happy Sabbath venmgs; no blinds drawn, and shutters p to keep out the sun from us. as some scan da,ous.y affirm; but a holy, happy, entirely human ay. for a Christian fatl J, mothe, and ch.Idren to spend. How mv fathe would parade across and across our flag- floor, telhng over the substance of the da/s jrnons to our dear mother, who, because of the great distance and because of her "'any living 'encumbrances', got very sel- dom mdeed to the church, but gladly em- braced every chance, when there was pros- pect or promise of a 'lift' either way rom some friendly gig! How he would en- t.ce us to help him to recall some idea or other rewardmg us when we got the length of takmg notes' and reading them over on our return; how he would turn the talk ever THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS so naturally to some Bible story, or some martyr reminiscence, or some happy allu- sion to the ' Pilgrim's Progress'! And then it was quite a contest, which of us would get reading aloud, while all the rest list- ened, and father added here and there a happy thought, or illustration, or anecdote. "Others must write and say what they will, and as they feel ; but so must I. There were eleven of us brought up in a home like that; and never one of the eleven, boy or girl, man or woman, has been heard, or ever mW be heard, saying that Sabbath was dull or wearisome for us, or suggesting that we have heard of or seen any way more likely than that for making the day of the Lord bright and blessed alike for parents and for children. But God help the homes where th^se things are done by force and not by love! TTie very discipline through which our father passed us was a kind of religion in itself. If anything really serious required to be punished, he retired f^rst to his closet for prayer, and we boys got to understand THE CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS that he was laying the whole matter before God; and that was the severest part of the punishment for me to bear. I could have defied any amount of mere penalty, but this spoke to my conscience as a message from God. We loved him all the more, when we saw how much it cost him to punish us; and, in truth, he had never very much of that kind of work to do upon any one of all the eleven— we were ruled by love far more than by fear. " Our home consisted of a ' but ' and a 'ben' and a 'mid-room', or chamber, called the ' closet '. The one end was my moth- er's domain, and served all the purposes of dining-room and kitchen and parlor, be- sides containing two large wooden erec- tions, called by our Scotch peasantry 'box-beds'; not holes in the wall, as in cities, but grand, big, airy beds, adorned with many-coloured counterpanes, and hung with natty curtains, .showing the skill of the mistress of the house. The other end was my father's workshop, filled with >i3 THE CRKED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS five or six ' stocking frames ', whirring with the constant action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and producing right genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and Dumfries. The ' closet ' was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table, and a chair, with a diminutive win- dow shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the Sanctuary of that cottage home. Thither daily, and oftentimes a day, generally after each meal, we saw our fa- ther retire, and ' shut to the door '; and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sa- cred to be talked about) that prayers were being poured out there for us, as of old by the High Priest wthin the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pa- thetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb tlie holy colloquy. The outside world might not know, hut we knew, whence 114 THE CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS came that happy light as of a new-born smile that always was dawning on my fa- ther's face: it was a reflection from the Di- vine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never, in temple or cathe- dral, on mountain or in glen, can 1 hope to leel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles. Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanct- uary clor,et, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, 'He walked with God, why may not I? ' " His happy partner, ' Wee Jen ', died in 1865, and he himself in 1868, having reached his seventy-se enth year,— an alto- gether beautiful and noble episode of hu- man existence having been enacted, amid THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS the humblest surroundings of a Scottish peasant's home, through the influence of their united love by the grace of God; and in this world, or in any world, all their chil- dren will rise up at mention of their names and call them blessed." Ii6 Ill THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS (CONTINUED) Hi " Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."— \otin 8:32. I III THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS (Cotitinued) AMERICA'S DEBT TO CALVINISM. If the average American citizen were n , , asked, who was the founder of Amedc'^/.^^::":' the true author of our giant Republic, he might be puzzled to answer. We can im- agine his amazement at hearing the answer given to this question by the famous Ger- man historian. Ranke. one of the pro- foundest scholars of modern times. Says Ranke, "John Calvin was the virtual founaer of Ame-xa." If this be true, eveiy American should know It. Let us see. At the time of ihe Revolution the esti- mated population of our country was "9 TFTP. CREED TESTED BV ITS FRUITS Early mall rial a/ our XtfuHic. 3,000.000. Of this number 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Puritan English, while over 400,000 were of Dutch, German Reformed, and Hugue- not descent." TTiat is to say, two thirds of our Revolutionary forefathers were trained in the school of Calvin. Since these two thirds included the New England colonists and the Scotch-Irish immigrants, pro- nounced by the learned author of " Amer- ican Christianity " " the two most master- ful races on the continent ",* " the two streams", as Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus says, " apparently most effective and important in the creation of great things, intellectual and spiritual, in our American life "? their preponderance in influence was even more marked than in numbers. 'W. H. Roberts, "Proceedings Seventh General Council, 1899'*, p. 94. '"Hist, of American Christianity", by Leonard Woolsey Bacon (1900), p. 29a. ' TJif Ai. -rican Monthly Krvitw of Riviews, February, 1901, p. 167. form toX the ?.^P"''"^-»"d which Caivin they learned .heJre/tlr'f "" world learned them So hT'^' teaches. ^° '"s'ory Says Bancroft: " Calv;«;, »'o"a.7; it taught as a D """ '■'^°'"- "^ """"""" natural e.uahtT^fra?:':^,;-'^^^^^^^ 7' tendency of Calvinism • ;;'"T "e emment Oxford scholar -T .''• all distinctions of rant ^ ''"'^^ superiority wh ch r st '" '=''™^ "^ calexpedLcy-/"'ca7"''°^''°"''- t-ally democratic - says BucT- ''l''""" t^O'ofCivilization "A ,"'''' '^"■ republican religion •- it . 'T'"'"'^ '"d Tocqueville. one of' th k? "' '^ ^' ; "Hist, of CmIi„,io„ ",,„,, „ „ 121 THE CREED TESTED BY I'lS FRUITS Efficl of Cat- viniiiic teaching iltustrated. writers of the century. " Calvinism op- posed ", says Bancroft, " hereditary mon- archy, aristocracy, and bondage." ' John Richard Green, the author of the greatest history of the Enghsh people yet written, belonged to the Anglican church. Yet he says: " It is in Calvinism that the modern world strikes its roots; for it was Calvinism that first revealed the worth and dignity of man. Called of God, and heir of heaven, the trader at his counter and the digger in his field suddenly rose into equality with the noble and the king."' " In that mighty elevation of the masses ", he says again, " which was embodied in the Calvinist doctrines of election and grace, lay the germs of the modern principles of human equality." " The fruits of such a teaching ", con- tinues Green, " soon showed themselves in a new attitude of the people. ' Here ', said Melville, over the grave of John Knox, '" Hist. U. S.", vol. II. p. 464. ' " Hist, of Eng. People ", vol. III. p. 114. 122 THK CREED TESTE.) UV lis ERI-its 'I'ere lies one who never feared the face of ™n ; and if ScotlanrI still reverences the -emory of the reforn.er. it is because at '•at grave her peasant and her trader earned to look in the face of nobles and Kings and not be ashanie.i ■." " To the ef feet of these "doctrines of election and grace tanght by Knox, Fronde also testi- fies say.ng: •• His was the voice which taught the peasant of the Lothians that he Oolvvth the proudest peer or ;,relate that l>ad trampled on his forefathers. He it was that raised the poor Commons of his conn try . . . into men whom neither king, no- ble nor priest could force ag,in to submit to tyranny." '» The learned author nf "Ti,» tt . , Static, ^T "°^ °t the Jnited".s-«r-» /,„■/.« States as a Nafon " makes the following " aX-' e oquent acknowledgment of the relation of the Calvm.st.c theology to liberty It >nsp,res a resolute, almost defiant, freedom .V;"J"°'^"?''"P''".vol.,n.p.446 ""Hist. EnK.". vol. V „ „. *^ ** ■ . vol. X. p. 457. "3 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS in those who deem themselves the subjects of Gkid's electing grace: in all things they are more than conquerors through the con- fidence that nothing shall be able to sepa- rate them from the love of God. No doctrine of the dignity of human nature, of the rights of man, of national liberty, of social equality, can create such a resolve for the freedom of the soul as this personal conviction of God's favoring and protect- ing sovereignty. He who has this faith feels he is compassed about with everlast- ing love, guided with everlasting strength; his will is the tempered steel that no fire can melt, no force can break. Such faith is freedom; and this spiritual freedom is the source and strength of all other free- dom." " Prof. Fiske of Harvard, himself not ec- clesiastically allied in any way with Calvin- ism, affirms that "The promulgation of Calvin's theology was one of the longest steps that mankind have taken toward per- " p, 30, quoted by McFetrldge. "4 THE CREED TESTr;, ^y ITS FRUITS sonal freedom." •■ if vat ^ . ■• • >. sav^ '• fif . • . r, ,igion ", he says fit to ,nsp,a n... .,hr, ,vere to be called upon to fight for freedom.- i. Calvinism ". says Froude, '"has in- P.red and maintained the bravest effoU ::i:t^.r^---^-^eofuS:: sLt . '""^^°'d- Not only in Scotland as we have seen, but also in eL! and and Holland it had challenged and conquered tyranny. To the PuritL. dl Clares Hume, a hater of Calvinism, England "on- Says Motley, not ecclesiastically committed himself to Calvinism: "The att^ that saved England to constit.! t.onaI hberty was fought and won by Cal- v.n.sts." Of Holland the same eminent h.stonan says: "The Reformation had " .. J^^ ''!«''""'"8S of New England- „„ ,8 .„ H.5t. Eng.', vol. V. p. ,34. '^ ^ "5 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Churth government. entered the Netherlands by the Walloon (Calvinistic) gate. The earliest and most eloquent preachers, the most impassioned converts, the sublimest martyrs, had lived, preached, fought, suffered, and died with the precepts of Calvin in their heart-. The fire which had consumed the last ves- tige of royal and sacerdotal despotism throughout the independent republic had been lighted by the hands of Calvinists." '" The makers, therefore, of free Holland, free England, free Scotbnd. were earlier pupils in the same school that moulded the makers of free America. As might have been expected, Calvin- ism's revolutionary principles of liberty and equality found expression in a system of church government equally revolutionary. The people of Christ, it taught, were to be governed and ministered to, not by the ap- pointees of any one man or set of men placed over them, but by pastors and offi- cers elected by themselves. i» "The United Netherlands", vol. III. p. lao. 126 THE CREED TESTED BV its kRUITS With the principle and right of seif-jrov- s„...r ern„,ent en^bclied i„ this p,a„, „.•,":;::: A.^enca at least, are now happily fa„,i,iar. ""'^"■ Three and a half centuries ago it „as so "ovel and revolutionary as to shake the cent!r'"'' '°''"' '"'' ''"^'°"' '''•"■''^ '° ''^ " For all the past of time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals. Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact." "The right exercised by each congrega- t.on of electmg its own ministers was in k- jel. says Bancroft, "a moral revolution. Rehgion was now with ,he people, not over thepeoj^e."" Sir James Stephen, the eminent English statesman and jurist, for ten years Professor of Modern History in tL^rVt' °' Cambridge, a member h.mse f of the Anglican Church, in speak- ing of the ecclesiastical organization ef- fected by the General Synod of France, '"Hist. U. S.", voli "7 p. 462. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUI'^S which met May 25th, 1559, says; •' A great social revolution had thus been effected. Within the centre of the French monarchy, Calvin and his disciples had established a spiritual republic, and had solemnly recoj;- nized as the basis of it four principles — each germinant of results of the highest im- portance to the political commonwealth. These principles were, first, that the will of the people was the one legitimate source of the power of their rulers; secondly, that power was most proi>erly delegated by the people to their rulers, by means of elec- tions, in which every adult man might exer- cise the right of suffrage; thirdly, that in ecclesiastical government, the clergy and laity were entitled to an equal and co-ordi- nate authority; and, fourthly, that between the Church and State, no alliance, or mu- tual dependence, or other definite relation, necessarily or properly existed." " Cal- vin's church organization Green calls " a Christian republic ", " a Christian state in " "Lectures on the Hist, of France", p. 415. 128 THE CRKED TESTED By ITS kklTTS Jhich the true sovereign was not Pope or B..hop but the Christian man -a ^ °' By .ts coronation of the individual man . as sovere en Calvin-. • . ■*"^''' "/ not onlv Tfi .u °''&^"'^a"on clashed '^^ •noL. ; °"'^ ^''»'' the rule of Pope and Bishon ""'-'''• it:td^V'r'^^'^"'^-'*-^^--°^^' and! r !! "'' ''"^"^ '^^'' dominated and darkened the world for ages. ■ "'^'"'J'"^'"" «"« Geneva. I ascribe to that five years in (Ge- neva an influence which has clianyed the face of the world. I seem to myself to trace to it, as an influence on the English char- acter, a new theology, new politics. a.K.thet tone of character, the opening of another era of time and liberty. I seem to mvscif to trace to it the great civil war in Kng- land, the republican constitution framed in the cabin of the MayHoiver, the theol.jgy of Jonathan Edwards, the battle of Bunker Hill, the Independence of America." -"» The contusions of the famous Spanish Ca^uUrS scholar, orator, and statesman, Emilio '""""'">'■ Castelar, at one time Professor of History in the University of Madrid, are of special interest and value. As a Roman Catholic, he hated Calvin and Calvinism. He says: " It was necessary for the republican move- ment of America that there should come a morality more austere than Luther's the morality of Calvin, and a Church more dem- * " Works of Rufus Choatc ", vol. i. p. 378. ^3S THE CREF.I) TKSTED BY ITS FRUITS SaHcroft's testimony. ocratic than the German, the Church o( Geneva. The Anglo-Saxon democracy has for its only lineage a book of a primitive so- ciety — the Bible, it is the product of a severe theology learned by the few Chris- tian fugitives in the gloomy cities of Hoi- land and of Switzerland, where the morose shade of Calvin still wanders. . . . And it remains serenely in its grandeur, forming the most dignified, most moral, most en- lightened and richest jwrtion of the human race." ■'" One feels like asking Castelar how a fountain so bitter could send forth such sweet waters. Says Bancroft: "The light of Calvin's genius shattered the mask of darkness which Superstition had held for centuries before the brow of Religion. Calvinism in- spired its converts to cross the Atlantic and sail away from the traditions of the Church, from hereditary power, from the sover- eignty of earthly kings, and from alt do- minion but that of the Bible and such as *• Harptr's Monthly, June and July, 187a. 136 •illK CRtKD TKSThD BY ITS FKLITS arose from natural reason and equity He that ^vill not honor the memory and respect the mriuencc of Calvin knows but httle of the origm of American liberty. " " Not only did Calvinisn. imbue its con- /,.,;„,,, verts wuh the spirit of liberty, it gave them -'-'^ practical training in the rights and duties of '"""■ reemen Each Calvinistic congregation havmg largely an independent life of its own. and conducting its own affairs through oftcers of its own election, constituted, as F.ske affirms, "one of the most effective schools that has ever existed for training men m local self-government." »=< The influence of the doctrines of Calvin- c->,«.,4 >sm upon character we have seen in a for-~-.«/ nier chapter. How powerfully also its '""'^'''■'• m*thod of church government, especially in '""• .ts fully developed Presbyterian form, tends to foster in the individual that high and self-respecting type of manhood which alone gives success and permanence to free .".'■"'''"""'" "-PP- 406, 407. Ihe Beginnings of New England", p. jo. '37 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Illustratien. institutions is matter of history and obser- vation. For example, an English writer, of Epis- copalian sympathies, Mr. Richard Heath, testifies to the excellent effect of the Pres- byterian system where it has crossed the Scottish border and established itself in the northern shires of England: " The North- umbrian peasant is fargely influenced by a form of Christianity that not only recog- nizes that he is a man, but that, without ceasing to be a laboring man, tending the sheep or following the plow, he can be chosen, and is chosen, and found worthy to be an elder of the church." He goes on to speak of " the superior educative power of the Presbyterian to the Church of England system, as seen in the higher form of man- hood and womanhood of the people under its control. The reason is clear: the one is a democratic religion, the other the most aristocratic in the world." '* " " American Church History ", vol. VI. p. 493 (1900). 138 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Should any member of a Presbvterip,. / .■ ■. church fppi fi,ot ■ • ■ ^'"Dyteriaii /«•""'" popular self-government are secured by "the " "'""•" Presbyterian system of graded represent- ative assemblies, with executive, legislati^e, and judical functions, all distinct, yet all working together as component parts of a well-ordered whole, has won the admira- tion of thinking men of all creeds. Testi- mony from a remarkable source is that of the late able and distinguished Roman York :.T."'t'°'' ""^"^ °f N^- ^ork. Though It IS my privilege" he wrote, "to regard the authority exercised '39 roB THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS by the General Assembly as usurpation, still I must say, with every man acquainted with the mode in which it is organized, that for the purposes of popular and political gov- ernment its structure is little inferior to that of Congress itself. It acts on the principle of a radiating centre, and is without an equal or a rival among the other denomi- nations of the country." ^* The striking similarity between the con- ftitution of the Presbyterian Church and that of the United States has excited much wonderinof comment. The Hon. W. C. Preston of South Carolina wrote: "Cer- tainly it was the most remarkable and sin- gular coincidence that the constitution of the Presbyterian Church should bear such a close and striking resemblance to the po- litical constitution of our country." " The exfhna- XJpon this " most remarkable and singu- lar coincidence " a few facts from history Amazing " coimi' dence^" " Quoted in " Presbyterians and the Revolution", p. 38. * "Scotcli and Irish Seeds", p 346, 140 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS may shed light. In Green's " History of the English People " we read, the reader re- membering that kirk is Scotch for church- • The moral power which Knox created was to express itself through the ecclesias- tical forms which had been devised by the genius of Calvin.- The new force of pop- ular opm.on was concentrated and formu- lated m an ordered system of Kirk-Sessions and Presbyteries and provincial Synods while chosen delegates formed the General Assembly of the Kirk. In this organiza- tion of her churches Scotland saw herself for the first time the possessor of a really representative system, of a popular govern- ment. Not only did Presbyterianism bind Scotland together, as .t had never been bound before, by its administrative organ- ■zat.on. but it called the people at large to a voice, and, as it turned out. a decisive voice, in the administration of affairs. No 141 fr THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS church constitution has proved in practice so democratic as that of Scotland. Its in- fluence in raising the nation at large to a consciousness of its power was shown by the change which passed from the moment of its estabhshment over the face of Scotch history." '' rhi national That was two ccnturies before the modii. iuhievement of .American independence. ■ V hen, therefore, the fathers of our Repub- lic sat down to frame a system of represent- ative popular government, their task was not so difficult as some have imagined. They had a model to work by. As Chief Justice Tilghman says: "The framers of the Constitution of the United States bor- rowed very much of the form of our Repub- lic from the Constitution of the Presbyte- rian Church of Scotland." Summary. We See then that Calvinism furnished the foundation principles of our Republic; it supplied the best and largest part of the early material of our Republic; it served as " " Hist, of Eng. People ", vol. in. p. 447. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRU[TS the invaluable training school of our Re- public; it furnished the model for the im- mortal constitution of our Republic. It re- mains to show the leading part that Calvin- ism took in securing the national independ- ence that guaranteed the life of our Re- public. The briefest statement will here sufSce. -^ j..,,,,. ine facts are undisputed. They are '"■"""'"•'"■ summed up in two sentences by Bancroft- "'"'•" "The Revolution of 1776, as far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the prmciples which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvin- .sts, and the (Scotch-Irish) Presbyterians of Ulster." 38 As late as August, 1775. Thomas Jeffer- TJ..jirsi son said: " I would rather be in depend- '"""■'" ence on Great Britain, properly limited. ^'"'""'^ "Quoled by wr. H. Roberts. "Proceeding -» Seventh Gener.l Council, ,899", p. ,|7'^""'"'"f» «' »43 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS than on any nation on earth, or than on tw nation." Washington said in May, 1776: " When I took command of this army (June, 1775) / abhorred the idea of indepetid- encc" "The first voice raised in Amer- ica ", says Bancroft, " to destroy all con- nection with Great Britain came from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians."'" The first Declaration of Independence, certainly the first body of resolutions to that eflfect, was sent forth by the Mecklenburg Assembly, in session at Charlotte, North Carolina, composed of twenty-seven stanch Calvin- ists, of whom nine were Presbyterian ruhng elders and one a Presbyterian preacher. ThtdtcHin% When, twelve months later, Jefferson's Declaration was submitted to the Conti- nental Congress, and that body hesitated and wavered, Dr. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian preacher, the only clergyman in the Congress, the only minister of Jesus Christ whose name is graven on the pedes- tal of a civic statue on the American soil, arose and gave the deciding voice. " There ••"Hist. U. S.", vol. .V. p. 77- 144 voict m Congrtss. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS is a tide ", he said, " in the affairs of men We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in this house Though these gray hairs must soon de- scend to the sepulchre. I would infinitely rather that they descend thither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country " John W.therspoon was a lineal descendant of John Knox. Witherspoon's spirit was shared by the ■■ r, p whole body of American Presbyterians '.-- bo intense, universal, and aggressive was ^""'"'"•" their zeal for liberty that the struggle of the colonists for independence was spoken of >n England as "The Presbyterian Rebel- hon . An ardent colonial devotee of King George wrote home: " 1 fix all the blame of these extraordinary proceedings upon the Presbyterians. They have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and MS h i THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarch.al spmt ^vhich has always distinguished them every- where '• *" Whi . news of " these extraor- dinary proceedings" reached England, Horace Walpole said in the English Parlia- ment. " Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson ". „, *.«». ./ When war's thunders and lightnings be- ,H..trui,U. „an to roll and flash, the Presbytenans breasted the storm. •' The members of that Church ", says the author of the sixth vol- ume of '-American Church History , " bore the brunt of the struggle for inde- pendence from the Hudson to the Savan- nah." " Their military enthusiasm was like that of one of their own preachers, who, when the patriots' wadding gave out in a fight close by his church, rushed into the building,-but let Bret Harte tell the story: » " Presbyterians and the Revolutioti », p. 4* " p. 69- 146 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS They were left in the lurch For the want of more wadding. He ran to the church, Broke the door, stripped the pews, and daihed out in the road With hii arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load At their feet. Then above all the shouting and shots Rang his voice : • Put Walts into 'em ; boys, give 'em Watts." " And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. You may dig anywhere, and you'll turn up a ball But not always a hero like this; and that's all." At Kings Mountain, where " the aspect vut.ry of of the war was changed and Cornwallis left "" ^'•"■t" no choice but to retreat ",« all six of the ' ' colonels in command were Presbyterian elders, and their troops were mustered from Presbyterian settlements. When we re- member that Generals Morgan and Pick- ens, who won the equally pivotal battle of the Cowpens, were also Presbyterian eld- ers, and that after his surrender at Sara- toga, Burgoyne said to Morgan concerning " •• BancroffsHist. U. S.", vol. x. p. 340. M7 Cuttihism. THE CREED TESTED" BY ITS FRUITS his Scotch-Irish riflemen: " Sir. you have the finest regiment in the world " ; when we remember that " more than one half of the officers and soldiers of the American army were Presbyterians," ^•' we can understand the statement of Dr. Elliott, editor of the Western organ of the Methodist Church, that "in achieving the liberties of the United States the Presbyterians of every class were foremost ", and appreciate Dr. Hodge's remark that the Shorter Cate- chism fought through successfully the war of American Independence. Educati.n. Had we space we could show how our boasted common-school system is indebted for its existence to that stream of influence which flowed from the Geneva of Calvin." through Scotland *■■ and Holland, to Amer- » "Westminster Anniversary Addresses ". p. 30- " See Chap. I ; ■>• 96' , " •• Knox returned from Geneva fully impressed with the conviction that the education of the masses 148 IHF. CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ica. ami how for the first two hundred years of our history almost every college and seminary of learning, and almost every academy and common school was built and sustained by Calvinists. Says Gen. John Eaton, LL.D., Ex-United States Commis- sioner of Education: - The Presbyterians by universal consent stand for intelligence." We could show what an immeasurable in- Tk. fluence the Presbyterian Church has ex-'""' erted upon the national character through '''"' the superlative emphasis it has ever placed upon those two sacred institutions on which depend the purity and the perma- nence of our nation's life, the Sabbath and the Family. As Dr. Landrum, an eminent Baptist minister, said recently at At'o-a: " It is the conservator of the most valut ,le principles. It has the soundest scholarship. All denominations look to Presbyterianism for a wise leadership in all that pertains to i» the s.rong«t bulwark of Prote.tantism .„d the ■and, Eng. and Am.", vol. ;,. p, ,9. note. 149 Sail a: Bntmltnte. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS the preservation of the Lord's Day. and to the preservation of the Family." We could show how pre-eminently great and rich have been the streams of benevo- lence by which the Presbyterian Church has blessed our own and other countries through its unequalled power to develop in its members the character-elements that command success and the con.secration that makes that success tributary to the service of God and our fellow men. On this pomt the Rev. Robt. M. Patterson. D.D., LL.D.. says, concerning the American Presbyte- rian Church: •' The simple fact is, that, ab- solutely and relatively, Presbyterians stand far in advance of any other denomination. About half of all the moneys raised by all the churches of the land for benevolent work is raised by them." *" ""American Presbyterianlsni " (1895). P- "»■ " Benevolent work " does not include the moneys raised by each individual church (or it. own con- gregational purposes. In a certain pure sense of fhafword these may be regarded a. selfish rather than benevolent contributions. 150 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS We could show from history how nearly /vt.i,,/, r all the far-spreading continental refomia- "''*""• tions and revivals of religion, which from time to time have blessed not only Americ.i but Christendom, have been of Calvinistic origin, after the type of that first great Christian revival in Jerusalem under Peter, whose preaching embodied such bold Cal- vmism as " Him, being delivered by the de- terminate counsel and fore-knowledge of God, ye have taken and l.y wicked hands have crucified and slain." (Acts 2: 23.) We could show how incalculable has xa,i,„,/ been the service rendered the nation by the '""/"•"»/>. Presbyterian Church through its peculiar ability to develop moral and intellectual manhood, and thus fit men for responsibil- ity and leadership. Prof. Baldwin of the Yale Law School pronounces the Presby- terian "the most American Church", and Mr. Gladstone says she develops a "genuine individuality; the love of law combined with the love of freedom." The power and prominence of Presbyterians in '5' w THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS civic and national life is so out of propor- tion to their numbers that the secular press has made it a matter of sharp and wonder- ing comment. In calling the roll of the great men of this nation," says Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, " the number of Presby- terian presidents, of legislators and jurists, of authors and editors, teachers and mer- chants, has been vastly disproportionate to the membership of the Church."*' The Presbyterian precedence he justly describes as " this unique pre-eminence." Ambassa- dor Bayard recently declared that Presby- terianism stands for the best element of American greatness. Mr. Moody, whose shrewd views of men were only matched by his unexampled opportunities for ob- servation, said of the Presbyterian Church : " That Church has the brains of the United States."** To such expert testimony to the moral and intellectual pre-eminence of Presbyterians may be added the state- *"* " Westminster .Anniversary Addresses ", p. 254. " Id., p. 314. THE CREKD TESTED I)V its ERUITS ment, made some years ago by the greatest religious weekly of the world, that while the Presbyterian Church was not the larg- est, few would deny it the name of the leading religious denomination of America The above facts of history and observa- tion we have set forth, not to stimulate Je- nominational vanity, but to fill us with grat- itude to God for that past history and that present eminence which should be to every one of us '• A vantage-ground for nobleness "; above all to kindle in our hearts a holy en- thusiasm for that Divine system of truth which, under God, has been the foremost factor in the making of America and the modern world. '53 IV THE CREED ILLUSTRATED m •• As for you ye thought etiil against me, iut Goa meant it unto good." — Gen. 50: 20. IV THE CREED ILLUSTRATED We shall illustrate Calvinism and the Calvinistic point of view by a brief discus- sion of the twin doctrines of Predestination and Providence. God is Sovereign. He reigns Supreme Prtdi.iimi. in fact as well as in right. This universe to "'"" ""'' Him is not a surprise, a defeat, a failure, but ^''"^''""'• a development of His eternal purpose. That purpose is Predestination. That de- velopment is Providence. The one is the all-wise predetermined plan in the mind of God; the other is the all-powerful execution of that plan in the administration of the uni- verse. Says an able commentator and divine: " Calvinism, tho' it is often represented 'S7 THK CRKEU ILLUSTRATED Mtthcd ef Divine gov- ernment. God has a\ plan. as a mere system of doctrine or of ab- stract dogmas having no practical bear- ing, is, in fact, a system of government — a method and form in which the Divine pKDwer is put forth in the administration of the af- fairs of the universe. It is based on the idea that God rules; that He has a plan; that the plan is fixed and certain; that it does not depend on the fluctuations o£ the human will, on the caprice of the human heart, or on the contingencies and uncer- tainties of undetermined events in human aflfairs. It supposes that God is supreme; that He has authority; that He has a right to exercise dominion; that for the good of the universe that right should be exercised, and that infinite power is put forth only in accordance with a plan." To suppose that God ever acts without a plan, in a purposeless, random way, is an impossible conception of the Divine charac- ter. How does even a wise man act? He first determines upon the end he desires to attain, and then upon the best means of at- 158 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED taining it. Before the architect begins his edifice, he makes his drawings and forms his plans, even to the minutest details of con- struction. In the architect's brain the building stands complete in all its parts be- fore a stone is laid. So with the merchant, the lawyer, the farmer, and all rational and intelligent men. Their activity is along the line of previously formed purposes, the ful- filment, so far as their finite capacities will allow, of preconceived plans. Our com- mon sense, therefore, teaches us that in His government of this world which He has made, God is sure to have His own definite purposes in view, and His own definite plans by which He will secure their fulfil- ment. It is also evident that these Divine pnr- c^d'. fia» poses and plans must include not some but ""-'"•i'-ac- all events, " whatsoever comes to pass ",' " otherwise there would be some things com- ing to pass which He had not designed or expected or counted on— which is incredi- ' Shorter Catechism, Question 7. •S9 in^. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED ble, and which might defeat the purposes He had formed in reference to other things — which is equally incredible. The control of the greater must include the control of the less, for not only are great things made up of little things, but history shows how the veriest trifles are continually proving the pivots on which momentous events revolve. The per- sistence of a spider nerved a despairing man to fresh exertions which shaped a nation's future. The God Who predestinated the course of Scottish history must have planned and presided over the movements of the tiny insect that saved Robert Bruce from despair. God is no absentee Deity, sitting outside the universe and seeing only the events that lift themselves like peaks above the common level. He is ' everywhere present ",* " upholding, directing, dispos- ing, and governing all creatures, actions, and things, f'-om the greatest even to the ' Larger Catechism, Question 7. 160 THE CRKKD II.I.IstkatkD universe are least."' The affairs of the controlled and guided, how? " According to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." ■* His all-embracing purpose or " decrees ", says the Catechism, " He executeth in the works of creation and providence." '' That is to say, Providence is God's execution of His decrees; in other words, it is simply God's universal and certain fulfilment of His predetermined purposes. ^ While illustrations of this truth crowd the siory oj Scriptures, there is one inspired biography >"'/'»• which holds and will ever hold the gaze of mankind, because in that life above any other recorded in history the presiding mind of God and the guiding hand of God are not only felt, but distinctly traceable. The story of Joseph is a picture in miniature of the Divine method of government painted for us by the hand of inspiration. Here we ' " Confession o( Faith ♦ Eph. I : II. » Shorter Catechism, Question 8. 161 Chap. V. section i. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED have Fcreordinatjon made familiar, and Providence made palpable. /iimirathn. In the 42d chapter of Genesis we see the ten sons of Jacob, driven by stress of bitter famine into a foreign country, and there prostrating themselves before their un- known brother, the all-powerful governor of the land, and dependent upon him for the means of life. Was this pre-eminence of Joseph over his brethren a mere accident of fortune? Did it just happen so? On the contrary, it was distinctly foretold by God to Joseph's family twenty-two years before through those two prophetic dreams of the eleven sheaves and the eleven stars that did him obeisance. It was simply the ful- filment of God's predetermined purpose, a fulfilment not through miracles, but through the orderly march of His Provi- dence. riiHsiraiUn. In the 37th chapter we see the lad Joseph in the hands of his murderous brothers and begging with tears for his life. They re- fuse. They determine to kill him outright 162 THE CREKU ILI.LSTRATED at once. At Reuben's suggestion they change their minds and decide to starve him to death in a pit. Reuben disappears, intending to return when his brethren have Sfone and rescue Joseph and restore him to his father. In his absence a merchant cara- van passes by on its way to Egypt. They change their minds again and at Judah's suggestion determine to sell him as a slave to these traders. This they do and Joseph is carried oflf to Egypt. Was the result of all these purposes and cross-purposes and changes of purpose accidental? Not so. That result was foreordained of God to ful- fil a merciful purpose of His. As Joseph said twenty-two years later to his penitent brothers: " It was not you that sent me hither but God, for God did send me before you to preserve life, to preserve you a pos- terity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance." « Thus Joseph's go- ing to Egypt, though apparently fortui- * Gen. i; : 5, 7. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED tous. was but the fulfilment of a Divine pur- pose, a fulfilment not through miracle, but through the natural workings of Provi- dence. ///«,/«/,•«.. In the 46th chapter we see Joseph send- ing wagons for his father's household, and the whole family, with all their wives and little ones, moving down into Egypt and settling in the land of Goshen. This re- moval to Egypt is the culmination of an extended series of events, most of which appear entirely fortuitous. Jacob's parti- ality to Joseph leads to his brethren's ha- tred; their hatred leads to his being sold to Potiphar in Egypt; the wickedness of Pot- iphars wife leads to his imprisonment; his imprisonment leads to his acquaintance with the royal butler; this acquaintance leads to his presentation to Pharaoh; his service to Pharaoh leads to his exaltation over all Egypt to prepare for the famine; the famine drives his brethren down into Egypt to seek food from the hand of his power; his power enables him to transport 164 THK CRKKU IMX'STRATKD the entire family to Egypt and give them a home in the richest part of the land. We see, then, that the settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt was tht i •uilt of a long and complicated chain c even -. which a hundred chances '.i ,.,'i.t lune broken at a hundred p(.i (< lu >vh;i|e. forming to human eyes wlia; \.c .if" :ic customed to call a fortuitous con iiiTencc of circumstances. But was lli .ic ni > thing fortuitous? Nay, verily. Ever, link of that chain was forged by the hand of God Himself to bring about that very result, and that result was the fulfilment of a Di- vine purpose which God had revealed to Abraham two centuries before, the pur- pose, viz.. to make Egypt the training school of His chosen people. Long before any of the present actors were in existence, before a child was born to Abraham, God had said to him: " Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years, and 165 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Foreordino' tion anJ fataiism. also that nation whom they shall serve will 1 judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance." ' So we see that these intricate happenings that issued in the migration to Egypt were but the or- derly fulfilment by Providence of God's predetermined purpose. The above Scripture narrative is but an inspired illustration of how God governs the world always and everywhere. The God of Providence is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. The doctrine of our Standards is not that " whatever must be, must be ' 1 ut that whatever God has decreed and purposed shall be. The one expression attributes the course of events to a blind mechanical ne- cessity, the other to the intelligent purpose of a personal God. The one is fatalism, the other Foreordination, Predestination, Providence. The Bible does not say " whatever must be, must be ". It says: < Gen. 15 : 13, 14. 166 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED " That that is determined shall be done." * It says again: "The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, ' Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have pur- posed, so shall it stand.' " ° It reveals to us the glorious truth that our human lives and our sensitive human hearts are held, not in the iron cog-wheels of a vast and pitiless Fate, not in the whirling loom of a crazy Chance, but in the almighty hands of an in- finitely good and wise God. How God can be sovereign and yet man /ar(or,/i«„- be free, how God as Supreme Ruler can de- """ "'"if'" cree events beforehand and bring them to '^' pass exactly as decreed without interfering with the freedom of the human agent, is a question man cannot answer. But God can. God knows how to govern the nat- ural world by fixed laws, the brute creation according to their instincts, and human be- ings agreeably to their natures. By the Di- vine decree " neither is violence offered to ' D»n. II : 36. * II. 14 : 34. 167 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." '" And the perfect harmony between Foreordination and free agency which we cannot explain in our theories we can plainly see in God's practice. iiiusiritiim. For example. Jacob's preference for Jo- seph, the wise and good child of his beloved Rachel, above the ten coarse and brutal sons of Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah. was the nat- ural prompting both of his judgment and his heart. Here is free agency; but here also is Foreordination; for this partiality. as the result showed, was the first step in the fulfilment of God's plan for saving thou- sands of human lives. Illustration. Joseph's brethren hate him and sell him into slavery, seeking to carry out the free and unconstrained impulses of their jealous and wicked hearts ; and the Lshniaelite mer- chants are naturally delighted to secure a young and handsome slave for a mere trifle. '" " Confession of Faith ", Chap. Ill, section i. l68 THE CRKED ILLUSTRATED Here is free agency, attested in the con- science-smitten cry: " We are verily guilty concerning our brother"; but here also is I'^oreordination ; for these people, while free agents, were also so entirely God's agents that the Scripture says it was God that ■ sent Joseph into Egypt to preserve life ". Potiphar's wife was free in seeking to ///«x/r«/,™. carry out first her lustful and then her re- vengeful impulses toward Joseph; the royal butler was free in carrying out his courtier- like impulses toward Pharaoh; Pharaoh was free in carrying out his humane and statesmanlike impulses toward his famine- threatened nation; Joseph was free in carrying out his filial impulses in sending for his beloved father. Here in each case was the most unquestionable free agency; but here also was the most unquestionable Foreordination; for the result of it all was the exact fulfilment of a purpose which God had revealed to Abraham two centuries be- fore, that not Canaan but fertile and civil- 169 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED ized Egypt should be the nursery of the chosen people. iiiusiratim. In the Mediterranean the vessel carrying Paul to Caesar at Rome is caught in a vio- lent storm and driven helpless and half- sinking before the unceasing fury of the tempest. God says to Paul; " Fear not; thou must be brought before Caesar, and behold I have given thee all them that sail with thee."" Here is the Divine decree, — All shall be saved. Shortly after, as the sailors are secretly preparing to escape in the boat from the doomed ship, Paul says to the centurion and soldiers: " Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." '^ Here is free agency and the efficiency of second causes, liberty in the midst of certainty, a human will that can. The soldiers cut the boat adrift; the vessel is wrecked, but all escape safe to land. Here are two undeniable facts: " All shall be saved"; "Except these abide in the " Acts 27 : 24. " Acts 27 : 31. 170 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED ship, ye cannot be saved." Here are two co-operating factors, Divine Predestination and hiuman free agency. It was God's pur- pose to save all lives on the ship. It was Paul's purpose to use the human means within his reach. God has a purpose and is at work. Paul has a purpose and is at work. And the result of the forces corre- lated anv. co-working is the saving of all on board, the exact fulfilment of the Divine decree." In that dread yet glorious drama of hu- iiiusiraiicn. man sin and redeeming love which culmi- nated on Calvary, we see the human actors moving on the stage influenced by human motives, exercising their freedom of will, and responsible for what with " wicked hands " they do. Caiphas. Judas, the priests, Herod, Pilate, all act according to the self-promptings of their various na- tures. We hear their consultations, their agreements, and disagreements. We see " Pitzcr's " Predestinaiion, God's Working Pl«n of His Universe ", p. la. 'M'Xik^ THE CREED ILLUSTRATED their stratagems, their plans, their changes of plan. Human forces — pride, bigotry, curiosity, envy, covetousness, and malice — are in fullest, freest, most abandoned play. Yet every stCj. and every act of every actor had not only been preordained, but pre- dicted, and the judgment of the Holy Ghost is given in these solemn words: " Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of Cod. ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." '* " For of a truth against Thy holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, to do zvhatsocvcr Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before (Re- vised Version, foreordained) to be done." " '• 7'/if secrri God's Foreordiuation, therefore, we can- ■tiingsMoHg j^Qj doubt. Neither can we doubt the fore- uttto the Lorti mrGcd." ordained freedom of the moral creature. This freedom is asserted or assumed on " Acts 1 : 23. " Acts 4 : 27, 28. 172 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED every page of Scripture. It is emphatically declared in our Standards. It is loudly pro- claimed by the universal consciousness of mankind. Here are two impregnable facts: God's Predestination and man's eternally predestinated freedom. Thougli the prob- lem of their reconciliation is insoluble to our finite sin-beclouded minds, ignorant as we probably are of some of the essentials of the problem, and incapable as we undeni- ably are of appreciating the significance of the Infinite Factor involved, yet it is, clear from Scripture and history that the prob- lem presents no difficulty to God. Reason, religion, and philosophy alike require us to accept both facts, denying neither, abating the force of neither. " holding to the Divine efficiency without flinching, making our faith stout and masculine with it; holding equally to human accountability, making our faith elastic and agile with it ": and as to the harmony between them, we may leave it and leave it cheerfully, till we stand on higher summits in a clearer light. •73 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Providence and tin. Sinful nets included in God's plaU' Overhung with a mystery impenetrable as yet to human eyes is the relation of the Divine Providence to human sin. Our Standards arc careful to guard the charac- ter of God from iny aspersion in view of the dread myster >t evil. They teach that God cannot be tt ,'pted with evil, neither tempt- eth He any man. They refer sin imme- diately to the ■■ freedom and power to do that which is good ",'" originally given to man as a moral creature. Of all sinful acts whatsoever, they aftirni with emphasis that " the sinfulness thereof procecdeth only from the creature and not from God, Who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or ap- prover of sin." " That sinful acts, however, are included in God"s plan is a truth abundantly evident in Scripture. " Saul took a sword and fell upon it." " '* "Confession of Faith ", Chap. IX, section 2. " Id., Chap, V, section 4. *■• X Chron. 10: 4. «74 THE CREED II.LLSTRATED It was his own wicked act. Yet it fulfilled a Divine purpose revealed years before con- cerning David; it executed Divine justice; Scripture speaks of it as the punitive act of God Himself. " So Saul died for his trans- gressions which he committed against the Lord. And he inquired not of the Lord; therefore He lew him and returned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse." '» The act of his brethren in selling Joseph into Egypt was an evil act. Yet it fomied an integral part of Gods plan. It was in- tended to produce the most beneficial re- sults. " As for you ", said Joseph to his brethren, " ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive." "* There never was a more evil act than that of those who " slew tlie Lord. And left their memories a world*s curse.'" " By wicked hands ", says the Scripture. He was crucified and slain. Yet it was " by " I Chron. lo : 13. " Gen. 50 : 20. '75 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED tht tarth rtjoitt.* the determinate counsel and foreknowl- edge of God ". Supremely wicked was the conspiracy that contrived His death, yet the conspira- tors " were gathered together to do what- soever Thy hand and Tliy counsel deter- mined before to be done ". 'Tki Lord Did we believe that so potent and fearful "kfllriA ' * thing as sin had broken into the originally holy order of the universe in defiance of God's purpose, and is rioting in defiance of His power, we might well surrender our- selves to terror and despair. Unspeakably comforting and strengthening is the Scrip- tural teaching of our Standards " that be- neath all this wild tossing and lashing of " "Confession of Faith ", Chap. V, section 4. " The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permis: ton, but such as hath joined with it a m.;s, wise aid powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a mani- fold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the crea- ture", etc., etc. 176 THE CREKD ILLUSTRATED evil purposes and agencies there lies, in mighty and controlling embrace, a Divine purpose that governs them all. Over sin as over all else, God reigns Supreme. His Sovereign Providence " extendeth to the first fall and all other sins of angels and men ", so that these are as truly parts and developments of His Providence as are the movements of the stars or the activities of unfallen spirits in heaven itself." Having chosen, for reasons most wise and holy though unrevealed to us, to admit sin. He hath joined to this bare permission a " most wise and powerful bounding " of all sin, so that it can never overleap the lines which He has prescribed for its imprisonment, and such an " ordering and governing " of it, as will secure " His own holy ends ", and manifest in the final consummation not only His " almighty Power " but His " un- searchable Wisdom" and His "infinite Goodness ". "Morris's "Theology of the Westminster Sym- bols ", p. 223. 177 MICROCOTY RESOIUTION TBI CHART (ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No, 2) _^ /-IPPLIED IM^GE In Z^^ ^^^^ Eiast Mom Street B^S Rochestef. New lork !*609 USA ■■^g (?16) 482 - OJOO - Phone ^= (7'6) 28B - 5989 - Fo, THE CREED ILLUSTRATED stated. Grand truth Thus \ve rise to the height of that sub- grandiy jj^^g^ eternal, all-comprehending decree and plan of God, to fulfil which " He doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all crea- tures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wfise and holy Providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, good- ness, and mercy." '"' Upon the material universe this mighty Transfigures nature. Glorifies his- tory and human life. doctrine sheds a transfiguring radiance. It consecrates every branch of physical science. The student of nature in tracing out her laws and processes feels with Kep- ler that he is " thinking the thoughts of God after Him ". From this faith there falls a yet greater glory upon the history and life of man. It invests them with a Divine significance. It relates them to the eternities past and to come. The obscurest task in life is en- » "Confession of Faith", Chap. V, section 1. 178 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED iiobled by the thought that it is a thread in the warp and woof of that Divine purpose at which we are ever weaving in the cease- less loom of time. It is a doctrine unspeakably precious to Most com- the Christian heart amid the storms and /■"•'"'/■■ darkness of this earthly pilgrimage — to know that every trial, every burden, every bereavement, every sorrow has been fore- seen and foreappointed by a wisdom that cannot err and by a love that cannot change, "That rvery cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love." Instinctively in its sorrow the heart clings to this faith, feeling that in fatherly kind- ness the affliction was foreordained, for rea- sons wise though unknown, and saying in trust, though it be in tears, not, " It is chance; it is ill-fortune", but "It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good ". "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to '79 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Most rnir- gising. them who are the called according to His purpose." " And this blessed purpose of good the next verse declares: " For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." The most comforting and ennobling is also the most energizing of faiths. That its grim caricature, fatalism, has developed in human hearts an energy at once subUme and appalling is one of the commonplaces of history.^'* The early and overwhelming onrush of Mohammedanism, which swept the East and all but overthrew the West, was due to its devotees' conviction that in their conquests they were but executing the decrees of Allah. Attila the Hun was up- borne in his terrible and destructive course by his belief that he was the appointed " Scourge of God ". The energy and au- dacity which enabled Napoleon to attempt and achieve apparent impossibilities was " Rom. 8 : 38. , ^ , . . .• « T. V. Moore's " Power and Claims of a Calvinistic Literature ", p. 10. 180 THE CRKED ILLUSTRATEO nourished by the secret conviction that he was " the man of destiny ". Fatalism has begotten a race of Titans. Their energy has been superhuman, because they have beheved themselves the instruments of a superhuman power. If the grim caricature of this doctrine has breathed such energy, the doctrine itself must inspire a yet loftier, for all that is en- ergizing in it remains with added force when for a blind fate, or a fatalistic deity, we substitute a wise, decreeing God. Let me but feel that in every commanded duty, in every needed reform, I am but -orking out an eternal purpose of Jehov;. : let me but hear behind me, m every battle for right, the tramp of the Infinite Reserves; and I am lifted above the fear of man or the possibility of final failure. I am in- spired with a Divine strength and confi- dence. So in former chapters we have seen how in the long struggle for human ad- vancement, civil and religious, wherever th Tge of battle has rolled fiercest and i8i THE CREED ILLUSTRATED fastest and the day of toil has hung hottest and heaviest, there always have been found the holders of this faith. Rooted m the Divine Word, this doctrine has borne through all the ages heroes and martyrs innumerable. Against them, as against Joseph, have been used all the weapons that rage and hate could devise. But in dungeons, in dens and caves of the earth, on battle-field, rack, and scaffold, they were more tha.i conquerors. For they knew with a victorious confidence, that not Satan, or chance, or fate, bat God was Sov- ereign; that even the wrath and wicked- ness of men were but carrying -.ut His eter- nal purpose; and that the day was surely coming when to all these hostile agencies they could say. as Joseph said to his breth- ren: " As for you. ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good." APPENDIX It may interest our readers to learn that the Calvinistic view of nature and life, 182 THE CkEED ILLUSTRATED which was derived exclusively from the Scriptures, is in striking harmony with modern scientific philosophy and with the ascertained facts of history and observa- tion. Regarding the grounds of the Divine choice, Matthew Arnold, the trained stu- dent of life and history, whose sympathies were not with Calvinism, frankly says: " In rebutting the Arminian theory the Calvin- ists are in accordance with historical truth and with the real march of human affairs." ' The historian Froude. himself held by no trammels of sect or party, unhesitatingly aflfirms that " Calvinism is nearer to the facts, facts which no casuistry can e.xplain away." * With a different nomenclature, and a different idea of the truth of super- naturalism, the foremost modern scientific philosophers hold the Calvinistic world- view. Mr. Froude cites as example^ John Stuart Mill and Mr. Buckle. With equal appositeness he might have named Mr. 'St. Paul and Protestantism", p. ?t. ' Short Studies on Great Subjectc ", pp. ii, It.' 183 THK tlU;i;i) ll.l.rsTKAIKD Herbert Spencer, Mr. Lecky. Prof. Huxley, aii'l many more. Sadly a.s tlie.se may di- verge on the question of tiod's rational will and free personality, e.xtremely as their necessitarian metaphysics may conflict with the true doctrine of His Providence and grace, their impression of the co-ordinated facts of observation is thoroughly Calvin- istic. We submit upon this point the compact yet luminous statement of the celebrated Dr. Abraham Kuyper, Professor in the University of Amsterdam, Member of the States General of Ho.iand, and one of the profoundest of living- thinkers. " It is a fact ",'' he says, ' that the more thorough development of science in our age has al- most unanimously decided in favor of Ca - vinism with regard to tlio antithesis between the unity and stability of God's decree, which Calv.'nism professes, and the super- ficiality and 'ooseness, which the Armin- ians preferred. The systems of the great ^ "Lectures on Calvinism", p. I4g. 184 THK ( RKF.n II.M.STRATKI) modern pliilosopliers are almost to one in favor of unity and stability. Biici• 196 THE CREED CATHOLIC jcan Tract Society, and the American Sun- ^m,nca» day School Union are our three national ^""'^"•"f religious enterprises, the importance olZmoi.^' whose work, and the utterly unsectarian character of whose management and aims, commend them equally to all Christians. One of the leading executive officers of one of these Societies, himself not a Presbyte- rian, said that if the Presbyterian Church should withdraxv its contributions and co- operation from any or all of these Societies, their great work would thereby be ended." The above facts and figures illustrate tht nobly practical nature of the catholicity of the Presbyterian Church. She issues no formal declarations concerning unity, " For love hath better deeds than words to grace it." She simply practices that catholic Christian bigheartedness which her Bible and her Standards teach. Her catholic spirit of love finds beautiful Catkciicphu expression in the administration of heT'""*'''^^- magnificent philanthropies. In the North- ' Hays' " Presbyterians", p. 353, »97 THE CREED CATHOLIC em Presbyterian Church alone there are more than a dozen Presbyterian Hospitals, Homes, Orphanages, and the like, for the care of the needy and the relief of the suf- fering. They are completely equipped, and the inmates of the hospitals enjoy the bene- fits of the highest medical skill and the best attendance which money can command. These nob'e institutions represent an out- lay of millions on millions of Presbyterian money, but they are Presbyterian only in their support and management, not in the objects which they seek to relieve. Their arms are stretched forth to receive and bless all, without regard to name or creed. In one of these hospitals, seventy-four in every hundred of the inmates came from the Methodists, the Catholics, and the Lutherans, while only eight were Presby- terians. The Jews, Unitarians, and Friends helped to make up the rest.'' The catholicity of the Presbyterian Church appears in her one condition of ' Hays' " Presbyterians", p. 35a. 198 THE CREED CATHOLIC church membership. She demands nothing omc tmJi. whatever for admission to her fold except """ "/ a confession, uncontradicted by the life, of L"/*i/." "" faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The appli- cant Is not asked to subscribe to our Standards or assent to our theology. He is not required to be a Calvinist, but only to be a Christian. He is not examined as to his orthodoxy, but only as to his " faith in and obedience unto Christ." ' He may have imperfect notions about the Trinity and the Atonement; he may question in- fant baptism, election, and final persever- ance; but if he trusts and obeys Christ as his personal Saviour and Lord, the door of the Presbyterian Church is open to him, and all the privileges of her communion are his. When churches prescribe conditions of membership other than the simple condi- tions of salvation, they are guilty of the un- scriptural incongruity of making it harder to get into the Church than into Heaven. • " Confession of Faith ", Chap. XXVIII. sec, 4. 199 THE CREED CATHOLIC Magnifiis tkt tsstntialt. To such ecclesiastical tyranny and exdu- siveness the Presbyterian Church stands in utter contrast. Her Standards declare that as simple faith in Christ makes us members of God's family,* so " those who have made a profession of faith in Christ are entitled to all the rights and privileges of the Church." '" Thus with a broad and beau- tiful catholicity the gates of our Presbyte- rian Zion are flung wide as the gates of Heaven for all the children of God. The Presbyterian Church is catholic in its embrace and emphasis of those great essentials of the Christian religion which form the common faith of evangelical Christendom. The central facts of redemp- tion, which are at once the heart and the life of the Christian system, to wit, that Jesus Christ is very God and very man, God manifest in the flesh, the one only power unto salvation from sin and endless death • " Ye are all the children of God bjr faith in Jesui Chrlft." Gal. 3 : 36. H' " Book of Church Order", Chap. Ill, sec. 3. zoo THE CREED CATHOLIC by atoning expiatory sacrifice, through faith alone, these, with the other fundamen- tal doctrines believed by all Christian com- munions throughout the world, are held by the Presbyterian Church with a grasp that none can loosen and preached with a power that none can dispute. In her Standards and her pulpits they receive, as they de- serve, the supreme emphasis and honor. Even those articles of her creed which Tht Pmiy some suppose distinctive are more catholic '"'•'""*' than denominational. In her practice of in- [It/j. " fant baptism she is in harmony with nine tenths of Christendom. In her mode of baptism she stands again with the over- whelming majority of Christendom. In her doctrine of election, predestination, and final perseverance she is in line with the majority of the historic creeds of the evan- gelical world. It is hardly too much to say that if, from all the authoritative articles of belief of the various churches, one were to make a choice, selecting only such beliefs as are held by the whole or the largest aoi THK CREED CATHOLIC Dr.Briggs iiuotld. part of evangelical Christendom, the elect and catholic creed so formed would corrc- bpoiiil, almost tloctrine for doctrine, with the creed of Presbyterians. Says Ur. Charles A. Briggs: " Presby- terianism is pre-eminently Christian."" " The Presbyterian Church has the true apostolic succession in striving after the apostolic faith in its purity, integrity, and fulness." '- " Presbyterianism is a real Christianity which rejects everything that is not a product of the Christianity of Jesus Christ. It appropriates everything m every age of the Church which bears the impress of Christ and which repre- sents the power of His Spirit." '* " The Presbyterian churches adhere to all the doctrinal achievements of the ancient church — the catholic doctrines of the Trinity, the Person of Christ, and the " " Amerlcaa Presbyterianiim ", p. 5. » Id., p. 8. «*Id., p. u- *oa ;ct rc- he jy- ' 11 •ue ;he ltd eal tiat of ing ars re- :he the ent the the THE CREED CATHOLIC office of the Holy Spirit. They do not adopt the peculiarities of the Greek or the Roman or any other branch of the Chris- tian Church, whether in doctrine or prac- tice; for these peculiarities are not cath- olic. Presbyterianism is truest to catholic- ity in that it insists upon those things which are truly catholic, and declines to mingle with them those things which are not catholic." '* "Presbyterianism", declares the same ■• r*,,,,.. writer, " belongs to the modern age of the '"' '■''•"•' world, but it is not a departure from the ^^f ' '^ "" Christianity of the ancient and med-'^jval church. It is rather the culmination of the development of Christianity from the times of the apostles until the present day. It comprehends the genuine Christianity of all ages. It conserves all the achievements of the Christian Church. It leads the van of the advancing host of God. It makes 'American Presbyterianism", p. ij. THE CREED CATHOLIC Liberal in tion-t'ssen- tials. Steady progress towards the realization of the ideal of Christianity in the golden age of the Messiah." " The stress laid by the Presbyterian Church upon the essentials of religion is the secret of her liberality in non-essentials. The vestments of the minister, the attitude of the worshipper, the precise order and form of worship, and the like, she leaves to the Christian common sense of the individ- ual church. Regarding such matters she may advise or recommend. She never leg- islates. She is ever mindful of her Lord's prayer, " Sanctify them through Thy tnith ". An exaggerated illustration of the Presby- terian indifTerence to things about which we have no commandment from the Lord is the exclamation of a noble old Scotch elder when Lounded on the burning ques- tion whether or not his minister should wear a gown: '• Let him attend to his own wardrobe; he may preach in his shirt- 's "American Presbyterianism ", p. 5- 204 THE CREED CATHOLIC sleeves for aught I care, if he only preaches sound doctrine." Our Presbyterian polity, or form olOurf„!i.y church government, whence comes the de- '"■'f'-"-'- nominational name we bear,'" is derived from Scripture. The famous .Anglican scholar and prelate, Bishop Lightfoot, can- didly declares: " It is a fact now generally recognized by theologians of all shades of opinion that, in the language of the New Testament, the same ofificer in the church is called indiflferently bishop or elder or presbyter."" Says Prof. Heron of Bel- fast: " It is a simple historical fact, of deep significance, that wherever the Reforma- tion had free course, wherever it was per- mitted to shape itself spontaneously after Scripture, and without external interfer- ence, it assumed a Presbyterian form." Among the young Protestant Churches of native growth to-day, which are struggling '• We are Presbyterians, because our churches are governed by presbyters (or elders or biihops). Every elder is a bishop according to the New Testament. " Com. on Philippians. THE CREED CATHOLIC into life amid the Romanism of Southern Europe, the Mohammedanism of Western Asia, the superstitions of Brazil, or the heathenism of Japan, the same tendency is seen, the same process is going on.'* As soon as the initial stage of Congregation- alism is outgrown, there begins the group- ing into Presbyteries, the natural and scrip- tural flowering into the complete Presbyte- rian form. Unequaitti. That the Presbyterian is the best church polity, as the London Spectator unhesi- tatingly affirms, would appear not only from its scriptural origin, but also from the fact that its principles of popular repre- sentative government have been adopted by all the most enlightened nations of the earth. Groviingfy While the scripturalness and excellence univirsai. ^f ^^^ ecclesiastical polity are familiar themes, few properly recognize its grow- ingly catholic and universal character. The Presbyterian polity is rapidly leaven- " Ogilvte's " The Presbyterian Churches", p. 158. 206 THE CREED CATHOLIC ing all the Protestant chiirclies. It is work- ing visibly in every sister denomination. Only the repressing hand of the State in Germany to-day prevents the Lutheran Churc'- from adopting a Presbyterian con- stitution. The Lutherans of America have adopted synodical government as the best suited to their needs, and have associated the representatives of the people with their pastors in their local and national councils. The earlier Anglican prelacy has given way in America to a distinctly Presbyterian type of Episcopal government. The Eng- lish Episcopal Church has adopted synod- ical rule in all her colonial branches, where in her synods layman and cleric meet to- gether with the Bishop as permanent Mod- erator." The Methodists have been obliged to modify their clerical government by the admission of lay members to their conferences. Modern Congregationalism is a manifest compromise between the In- dependent and the Presbyterian way. Even "Ogilvie, p. i6l. 307 THE CREED CATHOLIC *'Pretf>y- tirian in sudstance.* the Baptists, who have been the stanch- est representatives of Independency, have come to intrust the real management of de- nominational affairs to local and national associations, the former treating churches which walk disorderly as liable to the disci- pline of exclusion from the association.*" The abo*e are some of the approxima- tions on the part of the sister Protestant churches to methods formerly peculiar to Presbyterianism. The able author of the sixth volume of " American Church His- tory " states that " As a whole the Protes- tantism of America has become Presbyte- rian in substance, though not in name." *' When comes that day for which many are longing and praying when the churches of Protestant Christendom shall abandon their isolation and unite in one mighty Evangelical Federation, there can be little doubt that its form, and the chief factor in its formation, will alike be Presbyterian. " "American Church History", vol. vi. p. 285. " Id., p. 385. 208 THE CREKD CATHOLIC The catholic and ecumenical character of x.,mi,r of Presbyterianism is proved and pictured xn"'^ '"•■">" ■ the numerical vastness of her constituency. Her adherents are variously estimated at from twenty-five to forty millions." Rev. W. W. Moore, D.D., LL.D., says: •' The Presbyterian Church is the largest Protes- tant church in the world to-day." Rev. R. P. Kerr, D.D., the historian of Presbyte- rianism, pronounces it " by far the largest Protestant ch-irch on the globe ". Rev Moses D. Hoge, D.D., LL.D., nomen clarum et vcnerabik, said from his pulpit: "The largest Protestant family in the world is the Presbyterian." It is inspiring to remind ourselves that -Bey,/.!. ours IS a historic church. Our present'"""'"^ millions are the children and successors oCZ:':-" millions upon millions more, seated nov. in /""''' "'■•'■ the galleries of " H-'story's vast Coliseum " '"""""' "" linn, n r xr^ " ."'""^'^ '^ twen.y.five m\\.Promis,,: ^.on.. Dr. J. N. Ogilvle's twen.y-cight millions, Dr. W. A. Campbells thirty-one millions, Dr. James Mr. Cosh s thirty-four millions. Dr. R. P. Kerr's thirty- five mtlhon.. Dr. W. P. Breeds forty millions. 209 THE CREED CATHOLIC tier above tier, generation upon genera- tion, of those who through ages of toil, trial, and triumph, " subdued k.ngdonis, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens ". When we remember that as Presbyterians we stand on soil drenched with the blood, baptized with the tears, and eloquent of the achieve- ments of saints and heroes in number with- out number, surely our hearts should cry out, in language sacred as familiar: " JVe cannot dedicate, ive cannot consecrate, icc cannot hallow this ground. The brave men who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to their unfinished work." " In the mem- ory of their mighty acts ", says Dr. W. M. Paxton, " we should train our children. The historian Sallust tells us that the Ro- man mothers trained their children in the 210 THE CREED CATHOLIC presence of the busts anu statues of their ancestors. In like manner we should train our children and our rising ministry, as it were, in the presence of their forefathers, in all the memories of our past history, and urge them, as the Roman mothers did, never to be satisfied whilst the virtues and victories of the past were more numerous or more glorious than those of the pres- ent." More catholic and imposing even than Wcii-.vidc the Presbyterian numbers is the worldwide '•'"/"•'•• range of the Presbyterian empire. While the adherents of other Protestant com- munions are more or less massed in single countries, the Lutherans in Germany, the Episcopalians in England, the Methodists and Baptists in the United States, the line of the Presbyterian Church is gone out through all the earth. She thrives this hour in more continents, among a greater num- ber of nations and peoples and languages, than any other evangelical church in the world. As her witnesses in continental Eu- THE CREED CATHOLIC ** Go yt into all the world " rope, she has the historic Preshytcrian Re- formed churches of Austria. Bohemia, Gahcia, Moravia, of Hungary, BelRium, France. Germany, of Italy. Greece, the Netherlands, of Russia and Switzerland and Spain. She is rooted and fruitful in Africa, in Australia, in Asia, in Great Britain, in North America, in South America, in the West Indies, in New Zealand, in Malane- sia, — the people of this faith and order gird the eartii. Presbyterianism possesses a power of adaptation unparalleled b\ any other system. It holds in steadfast array a great part of the intelligence and moral vigor of the Christian world, and from its abounding spiritual life are going forth the mighty forces of Christian missions into all the heathen world. On every continent, on the islands of the sea, on the soil of every non-Christian faith, Presbyterianism has planted her standards. Eager to break the bread of life to the per- ishing, and reveal to the restless darkened millions " that Light whose dawning THK CREED CATHOLIC maketh all things new ■. she has gone out, as her Master bade, through tlie lands near at liand. on and on, unto the uttermost parts of the earth. No other church in America has ex- ^,w«.«,, tended its banners and (lung out its line oi'-fx'^'-v' battle as the American Presbyterian Church "'" °^ lias done.^' In tins respect at least the /v««^,.„.,„ belief of Dr. C. .\. Hriggs seems justified, '""• that ■• American I'resbytcrianism is in ad- vance of all other Christian denominations in the realization of the ideal of Christi- anity." " The missionary heralds of our Pan-American J 'rcsbytcrianism alone, which is but a branch of the Catholic Presbyterian Church, are scattered from British Colum- bia to Yucatan: they are in Central Amer- ica, and in Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana, and Brazil; they are on the African coast from Liberia to the Ogowe, and in the heart of the great Congo Basin; they are strong in Syria and Persia, and side by "' Robl. E. Speer. ""American Pretbycerianii »'3 p. xiii. THE CREED CATHOLIC side in India our separate columns are ad- vancing under one Captain; we are pro- claiming glad tidings in Siam and Laos, in Hainan and the Philippines, in Cuba and Formosa; we have long since " partitioned China ", not for political spoil, but for her own salvation; our united forces are teach- ing the Hermit Nation that as no man, so no nation, liveth to itself; we have pro- claimed to the Sunrise Kingdom the Sun of Righteousness, whose rising shall know no setting. Our strategic points are taken, our stations occupied, our watch-towers girdle the globe.'"' T»t mihok. With a past rich in glorious achievement and a present marked by worldwide ex- tension and triumphing missionary en- thusiasm, the future of the Presbyterian Church is radiant with promise. Who can doubt that through historic development, through centuries of special experience, th )ugh stern battles with relentless ene- " Report of Com. on For. Missioiu, Weitern Sec- tion, to Seventh General Council. 214 THE CREED CATHOLIC mies as well as through the silent sweeter nurture of His love, God has constituted our Prcsbyterianism one of His elect agencies in the fultilment of that gracious Purpose which incliulcs not ourselves only, but the whole world? May He thrill us with the consciousness of our Divine com- mission and endowment. May He give us grace, with an humble reliance on His en- abling Spirit, to do our part in that great and blessed work, whose aim is the uni- versal enthronement of our common Lord, and whose end is nothing less than the re- generation of humanity. "S INDEX Alva, 76 America, Calvin and founding of, 119, 132-136; Calvimim and colonial elements of. lao- Calviniim and republican principles oU 121, m, |,6- 130; Calvinism the training school oft no, 137; national oinseitutlon modelled after Presbyterian, 140- 141 ; sum- mary of Calvinism's contribu. tionsto, 142; the Revolution a Presbyterian measure, 141- 148; work and influence of Ptes. Church in, 148-152 American Bible Society, 196 American S. S. Union, 197 American Tract Soc., 197 Anglo-Saxondom, its Protestant- ism due to Puritans, 72; Cal. vin's iuHiicnce upon, 131 Apostolic Succi>sion, 202 Aristotle, 33 ■^'I'gfi''*"'"^ 9», 94. 183, 184, Arnold, Matthew, cited. 94. 183 Arnold, Thomas, cited, 15 Assenibly, see General Ass., or Westminster Ass. Attila, igo Augustine, 13, 87 Bacon, Francis, 16, 33 "7 Bacon, Dr. Uonard W l»ey cited, ijo ' Baldwin, Prof., cited, ici Bancroft, cited, 72, 78, 81 82 90, 91. 96, 121, 122, ,27, ,i' 130,136,143,144 "' Baptism, not repeated, 192: in. fant, 201 ; mcKle. 201 Baptist approaimation to Preii. byterianism, 208 Baptist Association, cited, 16 Baxter. 17; cited, 18 Bayin' Ambassador, cited, 152 Bayne, Peter, ,iled, 64 Ueeclier, II. W., cited, 47, 62 Hencvolencc, 150 Bible-readings, no Bishop, in New Test, usage, 205 BookofCh. Order, cited; iqo Bowen. Dr. L. P., cited, 61 Breed. Dr. W. P., cited, ,46, 209 Bnggs, Dr. C. A., cited, 31, 202 „ »3. "3 Bruce. Robert, 160 Buckle, .ilod. 92, 98. 102, 121, i»3, 1.S5 Bunker Hill, 135 Bunyan, 17, 59 Calvin, not originator of Ca|. vinism, 12: C. and Pres. creed, >3; JiiJ C;iicchisms, 25- and Scrii^tiirc, 33; and God, 47; INDEX and martyrs, 55, 126; and Eng. PuriUns, 71; debt of mankind to, 71, 130; C. and Augustine, 87; and St. Cyran, 88; and free inquiry, 91; and popular education, 96, 148; and Knox, 98, 130; and Luther, 100, 135; and America, 119, 132-136; and popular government, 128-130; influ- ence of, 131 Calvinism, assailed, preface, 11; inadequately represented l,y the Five Poil ts, preface; is it dead ? preface ; hated by heresy, n; Pres. Church its chief representative, 12; ori- gin of name, 12; Bible iU sole standard of doctrine, 33 ; true secret of unpopularity, 35 ; C. and revision of Confes- sion, 37, 38; tested by its fruits, 43-153; Keynote of, 44; C. and God, 44; and duty, 45; program of, 46; C. and sin, 48; and grace, 49; array of mar- tyrs, 54; heroic moral energy, 55-58; appeals to facts, 57; type of character, 59, 61; cre- ated English Puritanism, 63- 74; saved the Reformation, 72; created modern Christian civil- iiation, 74; C. and art, 81; and religious toleration, 81; and persecution, 81; in Hol- land, 75-83; in France, 83-88; at Port Royal, 87, 88; in New England, 89, 90; C. and free inquiry, 91 ; intellectual supe- riority, 92; how explained, 93; most satisfying and stimulat- ing, 94; "lofty," 95; C. and education, 96, 97, 148; in Scotland, 98-103; C. and mil. sions, 100, 101 ; in home life, 106-116; in America, 119- 153; C. and revolutionary fore- fathers, 120; C. and human rights, 121; a democratic relig- ion, 121, 122; C. and liberty, 123-126, 132-137; C.'s coro- nation of individual man as •overeign, 128, 129; opened new era, 129; school of self- government, 137 ; summary of contributions to American Republic, 142; C. and revivals, 150; illustrated in Predestina- tion and Providence, 157-182 ; confirmed by Science and phi- losophy, 182-186; catholicity of, 189-215 Campbell, W. A., cited, 209 Caricature, favorite anti-Calvin- istic weapon, 60 Campbell, Douglas, cited, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80 Campbell, W. A., cited, 209 Carlyle, cited, 45, 47, 63, 97, 99 Castelar, cited, 135 Catechisms, Westminster (see Shorter, Larger), creed com- plete in each, 13; predomi- nantly ethical, 2 1 ; their exposi- tion of Decalogue, 33; labor bestowed upon, 24-27; ". other catechisms, 37; no revi- sion of pitwosed, 39 Catechizing, DenefiU ot 1 10 Catholicity, of Presbyterian- ism, shown in Standard!, 190: in fraternal recognition of other chu.ches, 191-193; in support of uniectariaa icsti- 318 lIJDEX tulionj, 193-197 i:. philan- thropy, 198; in c>.icl.tioi. of membership, 199; in emDi;ii.c and emphasis of Christian es. sentials, 200-203; in liberality in non-essentials, 204; ingrow- ing Presbylerianizatioii oil'rot- estant Christendom, 206-208; in number of adherents, 209; in worldwide distribution, 211,' 212. Choate, Rufits, cited, 134 Church-going, 108 Coligny, 59. Collier, cited, 15 Common-school system, Calvin inventor of, 96, 148. Communion of saints, 190 Confession of Faith, subscrip. tion to, 14; ethic-.l quality, 21; evangelical richness, 22; labor bestowed upon. 27 ; revision ?'• 37-39; teaching concerning infants dying in infancy, 39; catholic spirit of, 190 ; cited, 32, 45, 160, 168, 174, 176, «78, 190, 191, 199 Congregationalism, 206; approx- imation to Presbyterianism, 207 Constitution of U. S. its model, 14a Covenanters, 86, 143 Cowpena, battle of, 147 Curry, Dr., cited, 19, 92 Creed, purpose and function, 21, »3 Cromwell, 17, 59, 66 Cyclopedia, Universal, cited, 7? Cyr«n, St., 88 D'Aubigni, cited, loi, 132 IVscartet, 33 Ue TtKqueville, cited, 121 I)oyk-, J. A., cited, 121 Dutch Calvinists, see Holland. Duty and Calvinism, 45, 100 Dyer, cited, 71 Eaton, Gen. John, ciliil, 149 Education, 96, 97, 14S Edwards, Jonathan, 135 EUUrship, Presbyterian, 138, 147, 195. 205 Election and grace, practical effects of. 56. 122-124 Elliott, cited, 148 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, cited. 93 Encyclopedia Britannic.i, cited. 62. 83 England, Calvinism in, 20. 5(), 63-74 ; liberties of, won by Calvinists, 125. 134 Episcopal, Protestant, approxi. mation to Presbyterianism, 207 Family, the, and Presbyterian, ism, 149 Family Religion, the family altar, 107; religious conversa- tion, 109 ; Scripture and cate- chism, no; happy Sabb.ith- keeping, 108-112; parental discipline, 112; the home Sanc- tuary, 114 Fatalism aiid foreordination, i60. 180 Fisher, Prof. Gta F., cited, 33, 44- 102 Fislte, Prof. John, cited, 46, 71, '25. «37 Foreordination and fatalism, 166, and free - agency, 167-173 ; illustrated, 161-175 France, Calvinism in, 83-88 219 INDEX Free-agency and foreordination illustrated, 167-173; both to be believed, 172, 173 Froude, cited, 43, 57, 58, 59, 60, 72, 99, us, 183 General Aisembly, Southern, cited, 15; Northern on rerision of Confession, 37, 38; Southern and revision, 38; Archbishop Hughes on, 139 Genera, 55, 130, 131, 135, 136 German Refbrmeil Church, 120, 212 Gibbon, 58 Gillespie, George, 29 Gladstone, cited, 151 "God's silly people," 194 Green, J. R., cited, 20, 47, 65, 73, 74, 122, 128, 129, 141 Gunsaulus, F. W., cited, 120 Hampden, 17 Harrison, Benjamin, cited, 189 Harte, Bret, cited, 147 Hays, Dr. Geo. P., cited, 195, 197, 198 Heath, Richard, cited, 138 Heidelberg catechism, 27 Henry, Matthew, 17 Heresy, hostile to Calvinism, II Heron, Prof., cited, 205 Hillis, Dr. N. D., cited, 152 >Iistory vs. fiction, 60 Hodge, Prof. A. A., cited, 148 Hoge, Dr. M. D., cited, 209 Holland, Calvinists of, their suf- ferings and heroism, 75-77; by what inspired, 78 ; leader, 78 J morality, 79 ; achieve- ments, 80-82; intellectual free- dom, 91 1 contributions to America, uo, 143 Home, the Christian, created by the Puritan, 73; a Scotch Ptia. byterian, 106-116 Hospitals. Presbyterian, 198 Howe, John, 17 Hughes, Archbishop, cited, 139 Huguenots, character, 83-86; product of Calvinism, 86 ; in America, 120, 143 Hume, cited, 125 Huxley, cited, 184 Independent, The, cited, 70 Infants dying in infancy, 39 Ironsides, 71 James, King, cited, 129 Janseii, 87 Jefferson, Thomas, cited, 143 Ji'seph, story of, illustration of Predestination and Providence, 161-175 Kepler, 178 Kerr, Dr. R. P., cited, 209 King's Mountain, battle of, 147 Knox, chief aim, 47; character, 59; pupil of Calvin, 98, 130; creator of Scotland, 99 ; effect of his teaching, 122, 123 Kuyper, Prof. Abraham, 184 Latidrum, Dr., cited, 149 Larger Catechism, completed be- fore Shorter, 26; cited, 160 Law of Gud, Confession's chapter on, 22 I^adcrsliip, national, 151 Lecky, cited, 63, 84, 184 l^yden, siege of, 76; University of, 97 Liberty, civil, saved to the aae INDEX world by Puritans, 71 ; fruit of Calrinism, 122-137 I.i^ht£x)t, Bishop, cited, 205 Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 210 Loinbroso, cited, 185 Ijinijevity, Puritan, 89 lord's Prayer, and Calvinism, 45 l/iwell, J. R., cited, 47, 73, 104 l-uther, 25, 27, 59, 135 I-utheran approximation to Prcs- byterianism, 207 Lycurgus, 130 M.acaulay, cited, 64, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 Mayflower, 135 McCosh, James, cited, 209 McFetridge, N. .S., cited. 55, 85 Mecklenburg Assembly, 144 Melville, Andrew, 59, 122 Methodist approximation to Presbyterianism, 207 Methodist Ecumenical Confer- ence, cited, 12 ; Conference Wesleyan. cited, 36; Confer- ence, cited, 54 Michelet, Jules, cited, 47 Mill, John Stuart, ci,ed, 183 Milton. 17; cited, 18; 59 Missions, American Presbyterian, 213; and Calvinism, 100, loi Mitchell, Dr. A. F., cited, 23 Mohammedans, 180 Moody, D. I.., cited, 152, 194 Moore, Dr. T. V., cited, 105, 1 80 Moore, Dr. W. W., cited, 209 Morgan, Gen., 147 Morley, John, cited, 56, 66, 94, 102 Morris, Dr. E. D., cited, 177 Motley, cited, 55, 76, 78, 79, 81, ia6, ijj, 134 Murray, Regent, 59 Napoleon, 53, 80 New England Puritans, ckarac. tcr, 89, 90 ; example of Cal- vinistic spirit of free inquiry, 91 Novelists vs. historiar,, 60 Ogilvie, J. N., cited, 2o6, 207, 209 Ordination, doctrinal require- ments at, 14; not repeated by Presbyterian Church, 192 Owen, John, 17 Paton, John G,, 107 Patterson, Dr. R. M., cited, 150 Paxton, Dr. W. M., quoted, 210 Penn, William, 81 Pickens, Gen., 147 Pilgrim Fathers, 91 Pilgrim's Progress, 112 Pitzer, Dr. A. W,, 171 Plato, 33 Polity, Presbyterian (see under Presbyterian Church). Port Royal, 88 Predestination, in Encydopc. dia Britannica. 62; illustrated, 162-176 ; P. and Providence, 157; and common sense, 158, 159 ; and fatalism, 166 ; and free-agency, 167-173; practical effects of, 56, 178-182 (see Foreordination, Providence). Presbyterian Church, name, 205 ; the martyr church, 11, 54 ; leading representative of Calvinism. l2;doctrinal church, 14 ; condition of membership, 14. 199; of ordination, 14; Scripture's champion and mar- 331 INDEX tyr, 36; confessional revision in. 37-39 ; polity of, origin, 205 ; excellence, 139, 206; in- fluence upm character, 137, 138; upon other churches, 206- 208; served as national trtin- iii;^ school, 137 ; furnished nnxiel for national constitution, 1^0-142; P. C. and Anwrican Independence. 143-148 ; and (.-(lucatiun, 138, 148; and Sab- bath and Family, 149 ; and U.I. 'Volence, 150; and national leadership, 151 ; catholicity uf, 189-215; historic church, 209- ::ii; number of adherents, 209; worldwide rai^^e, 211; power of adaptation, 212; missionary aggressiveness, 212, 213 ; out- look, 214 PrL'ston, Hon. \V. C, cited, 140 Prime, Dr. S. I., cited, 196 PkoviDENCE, and William the Silent, 79 ; presupposes Pre- destination, 157-159 ; all-em- bracing, 159, 160; illustrated in Joseph's life, 161-165; P. and fatalism, 167 ; and free- agency, 167-172 ; and sin, 173-177 ; practical effects of doctrine, 1 77-182 Puritans, founders of common- wealths, 56; by what inspired, 56 ; in England, name and character, 47, 64, 65, 70; spir- itual father, 71; Puritan army, 66-69; our Puritan heritage: liberty, 71; Protestantism, 72; the Christian home, 73; in America, 89, 90, 120, 143 kanke, dted, 119 •• Rc'ocllion," "The Presbyie- rian," 145 Reed, Dr. R. C, cited, 48 Reformation, the Protestant, led by Calvtnisls. 19 ; fougl;t through by Calvinists, 72 Refiirnied Churches of Europe, 212 Religion in the home, see Family Religion. Renan, Ernest, cited, 88 Revision uf Confession, in North- ern Church, 37, 38; in South- ern Church, 38 ; not a question of orthodoxy, 39 Revivals, and Calvinism, 150 Revolution, of 1776, "a Presby- terian measure," 143-148 Roberts, Dr. W. H. . cited, 120, 205 Romanism, its catechism 27; where b^st studied, q8 Roosevelt, Theodore, cited, 95 Rutherford, Samuel, 29 Sabbath, in the home, lio-ll?.; Presbyterian emphasis upon, 149 Saintsbury, cited, 15 Sanctificatitm, entire, 48 Schaff, cited, 18, 131, 134 Scotch-Irish, numbers at Revo- lution, 120 ; part in Revolu* tion, 143. 144, 148 Scotland, Ca'.vinism in, 59; where effects of Calvinism best stud- ied. q8 ; the Scotch before Knox, 98; the transformation, 99; Scctch missionaries, 100; moral md intellectual pre- eminence, 103; religious home life, 106-116; S. and Pre*. Church government^ 14Z INDEX Sclden, John, 38 Shakespeare, 15 Shorter Catechism, Assem- bly's last and best work, 26; definition of God, lo ; first question strikes keynote of Calvinism, 45 ; laltguard against eircr, 49 ; <-ffect on Scottish peasantry, loi : in the home, no; i,, the Revolu- tion, 148, cited, 45, 159, 161 Smiles, Samuel, cited, 85, 86, 91 Smith, Goldwin, cited, 66 Solon, 130 Sovereignty, Divine, 44; and William the Silent, 78; illus- trated, 157-182 Spectator, London, cited, 206 Speer, R. E., cited, 213 Spencer, Herbert, cited, 184 Standards, sec Westminster Standards. Stanley, Dean, cited, iq Stanley, Henry M., cited, 100 Stephen, Sir James, cited, 128 Stricklcr, Dr. G. B., cited, 27 Subscription formula, 14 Taine, cited, 47, 65. 68. 69. 153 Ten Commandments, catechisms' exposition of, 22. 49 Thompson, Dr. R. E. cited, 146, 208 Tilghman.ChiefJusticc. cited, 142 Twisse, Dr. William, 17 Unintu, 35 Walpole, Horace, cited, 146 Washington, GiorRc, cited, 144 Watts, Isaac, 17 Westminster Assembly, name and era, 15; personnel, 16; estimates of, 18, 19; back- ground, 19; task, 21; first characteristic, thoroughiicj-s. 24-28; advantages and tr.uu. '"S> *4> 25 J stconil characit r- istic, prajcrfulness, 28 31; third charactt-ristic, loyally to Scripture, 32-36 Westmin.ster Standards, doc- trinal, 13; anrl church mem. bership, 14; and office-liearers, 14; formula of subscription to, 14; name and era of formula- lion, 15; ethical quality, 21; spiritual vitality, 22; use and function. 21. 23; labor and prayer bellowed upon, 24-3 1 ; scripturalness. 32-3O; and phi- losophy. 33; hard sayings in, 34; why assaulted, 35, 30; Calvinism of. unimpaired by past or proposed revision, 37, 38. (See Catechisms, Shorter, Larger; Confession.) William the Silent and Calvin- ism, 78; father of religious liberty. 81 Wilson. Dr. S. Law, cited, 61 W'therspoon, Dr. John, 144 Young Men's Chriitian Associa- tion, 195 M3