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SENT TO

//O

THE

CREED OF PRESBYTERIANS

Rbv. EGBERT WATSON SMITH, D.U.

WITH

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Rev. WILLIAM C/».iiN, D.D.

PRINCIPAL OF KNOX COLLBGB, TOkONTO

POOLE - STEWART, LIMITED

PUBLISHERS

TORONTO, CANADA

175784

THE BAKER fc TAVLOR CO.

Enleml according to Act of the Parliament ot
Canada, In the year one thousand nine hundred and
two. by Poole-St«wa»t, Limit«d, at the Departmeat
of Acrlcultura.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

TO
THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER,

Obe Kev. 3. teittB Smitb, JS>.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.

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.

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."

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.

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' <l

THE CREED FORMULATED

Third char-
aiteriitii,
Loyalty to
Scripture.

The Bitlt
and nothing
tut the Bibli.

The third most striking characterirtic of
the Westminster Assembly was thei/r loyalty
to Scripture.

The first topic of which the Confession of
Faith treats is the Divine inspiration, au-
thority, and sufficiency of the Word of God.
In its forefront stands this declaration:
" The Supreme Judge, by which all contro-
versies of religion are to be determined,
and all decrees of councils, opinions of
ancient writers, doctrines of men, and pri-
vate spirits, are lo be examined, and in
whose sentence we are to rest, can be no
other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the
Scripture." '

Every member was required to take the
following vow, which was read afresh every
Monday morning that its solemn influence
might be constantly felt: " I do seriously
promise and vow, in the presence of Al-
mighty God, that in this Assembly whereof
I am a member, I will maintain nothing in

' Cbap. I, lection lo.
3'

THE CREED FORMULATED

point of doctrine but what 1 believe to be
most agreeable to the Word of God."

One of the cardinal regulations of the
Assembly was in these words: " What any
man undertakes to prove as necessary, lie
shall make good out of Scripture."

The Westminster divines were consum- The ^lami-
mate masters of philosophy. They were '"■''' '"''
familiar with the great schools of human
thought from Plato and Aristotle down
to Bacon and Descartes. But in framing
these Standards their one and only aim
was to express the mind of Scripture.
In their whole system of doctrine no tinge
of human phiiosophy is apparent. Says
Dr. Fisher of Yale University: " One
prime characteristic of Calvin's system is
the steadfast consistent adoption of the
Bible as the sole standard of doctrine."'
So in our Standards there is not a para-
graph which aiifords a hint of what philo-
sophical school the Assembly favored.
Even those questions where Scripture and

' The Reformation '
3J

p. 199.

THE CREED FORMULATED

Tht Un-
changing
Foundation

philosophy intermingle were determined
by the Assembly always and exclusively on
biblical grounds.

And herein appears the Divine wisdom
by which they were guided. Human phi-
losophies are ever changing. A sysiem
founded upon them must soon appear to
totter, and to need amendment or recon-
struction. " But the Word of God liveth
and abideth forever." The structure which
is built exclusively upon this i.,, like
it, permanent. " In this ", declares a great
Presbyterian theologian, " we find the chief
glory and value of our Standards." *" For
this reason they will need radical change
only when the Bible needs it.

ofth, fvorj ^'^^''^ ^""^ ^^'"'^ ^^y'^S^ in our Standards
■ because there are hard sayings in the Bible.
Some doctrines for which the Presbyterian
Church stands are among the " hard things
to be understood " of \/hich " our beloved
brother Paul wrote ". " This is a hard say-
ing, who can hear it? " So said m.nny in
"" Memorial of Westminster Assembly ", p. 94.
34

The flffenst

THE CREED FORMULATED

Christ's day of Christ's teaching. They
were offended. Thsy walked no more with
Him. Like many in our own day, they de-
manded d religion " more Christian than
Christianity and more ChristHke than
Christ ". Just so the unflinching scriptural-
ness of our creed, its faithful mirroring of
the mind of Christ revealed by His Spirit in
His Word, is the reason why it never has
been, is not, and never will be popular with
the rationalistic and unregenerate world.
" The natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God." " The offense of the
Word is as undying as the offense of the
Cross.

Every statement of essential Calvinistic cni,y dam-
doctrine in our Standards the Bible sub- '"''""""'
stantiates by equally bold and bald state-
ments of its own. Yet th*- former is the
chosen object of attack. The reason is
plain. In a Christian land, where the Scrip-
tures are widely reverenced, it is cheaper
and safer to assault the Presbyterian Stand-

" I Cor. 2 : 14.

mariyr.

THE CREED FORMULATED

ards than to assault the Bible. Hence it
is that the Presbyterian Church has always
sustained the brunt of the fight for the in-
tegrity of God's truth. " We gratefully ac-
knowledge ", said the Wesleyan Methodist
Conference in its address to the Presbyte-
rian Alliance, " the faithful and unfaltering
testimony which your Church has borne
throughout her entire history on behalf of
the divine inspiration and authority of the
Word of God." Said the Baptist Associa-
tion in its greeting to the same body: " The
Presbyterian Church has been the magnifi-
cent defender of the Word of God through-
out the ages." Above all others, she has
borne, bears now, and will continue to bear,
on her name the odium, and upon her per-
son the blows, provoked by and aimed
against the Word of God. Humbly yet
proudly she can say to her Lord, " The re-
proaches of them that reproached Thee fell
on me."
Tht prcpcsei Let no Presbyterian be alarmed over the
rtmstcn. proposed revision of the Confession of

THE CREED FORMULATED

Faith. In regard to marriage with a de-
ceased wife's sister and the duties of civil
magistrates the Confession has already-
been twice revised. But neither the past
nor the proposed revision has impaired or
will impair in any way the integrity of our
Calvinistic system of doctrine.

The Revision Committee appointed 'mi„th,jv^orn.
1890 by the Northern Presbyterian Church"'" Chunk.
brought in after two years' deliberation
a report recommending twenty-eight
changes in the Confession. These pro-
posed changes, most of them very slight,
involved no reconstruction of the Confes-
sional system of doctrine. This the pro-
posed revision would not have changed;
just as the Revised Version of the Scrip-
tures has not changed the doctrinal sys-
tem contained in the Authorized Version,
which, by the way, is only thirty-six years
older than our Confession.

The Northern General Assembly in the
spring of 1900 appointed a large commit-
tee to consider again the question of re-
37

THE CREED FORMULATED

In the South
em Church'

vision and report to the Assembly of 1901.
Seven months later this Committee, hav-
ing thoroughly examined the answers
made by the Presbyteries at their fall meet-
ings to the General Assembly's inquiry
touching their attitude toward the question
of revision, reported that while the returns
clearly indicated that the Church desired
some change in its creedal statement,
either by revision, or supplemental state-
ment, or both, yet " the returns indicate
plainly that no change is desired which
would in any way impair the integrity of
the system of doctrine contained in the
Confession of Faith."

The last Southern General Assembly was
opposed to any change whatever in the
Confession. It directed, however, that in
future editions the following statement be
(M-inted as a foot-note to chap, x, para-
graph 3: " The language of the Confession
cannot by any fair interpretation be con-
strued as teaching that any of those who
die in infancy are lost." Whether the or-
38

THE CREED FORMULATED

dering by an Assembly of foot-notes to the
Confession be a constitutional and wise
procedure, future Assemblies will decide.
As regards, however, the teaching of the
Confession concerning the salvation of in-
fants dying in infancy, the proposed foot-
note clearly expresses the unanimous judg-
ment of the highest court of the Presbyte-
rian Church.

Amid this revisionai agitation the reader mt a ques-
should never lose sight of the fact that the ^^''« "/"'■"*''•
Confession is only one of our Standards.
The Shorter Catechism, to say nothing of
the Larger, is as soundly Calvinistic as the
Confession, yet no revision of the Cate-
chisms has ever been proposed or thought
of. The question at issue, therefore, is not
a question of orthodoxy, and no Presbyte-
rian need be alarmed for the integrity of
that historic and Scriptural system on
which and for which his Church has stood
from the beginning, and will surely stand
to the end.

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS
FRUITS

" By Heir fruits yt shall know /*/«."— Matt. ^ :

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS
FRUITS

We propose now to submit the doctrinal rkiJuUivt
system incorporated in. though far older""'
than, the Westminster Standards, to a sim-
ple yet decisive test, a test endorsed by
the common sense of mankind and the au-
thority of Christ, the test of practical results.
In his celebrated essay on Calvinism
Froude says: " The practical eflfect of a be-
lief is the real test of its soundness." ' In
His Sermon on the Mount our Lord de-
clares, "Ye shall know them by their fruits."
As a fruit-bearer, as a character-builder, as
a purifying and uplifting force in the life
of men and nations, how does Calvinism

' Short Studies on Great Subjectt '
43

, p. II.

Calvinism
anj Cod.

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS

rank with other doctrinal systems? We re-
ply, it stands foremost of them all.

I. The superior moral power of Calvin-
ism we should infer, even without the aid
of history, from the inherent character and
tendency of its teaching.

It is a system distinguished superem-
inently by its exaltation of God. " A pro-
found sense of the exaltation of God ", says
Dr. George P. Fisher of Yale, " is the key-
note of Calvinism." = The glory of the
Lord God Almighty is its unifying all-per-
vading principle, the blazing sun and cen-
tre of the system. Not bare sovereignty,
arbitrary will, naked power, but a personal
God of grace, the God revealed in Christ,
is the God of Calvinism. It adores Him as
the Absolute and Ever-Blessed Sovereign,
infinitely worthy of love, wors'hip, and obe-
dience, " Who doth uphold, direct, dispose,
and govern all creatures, actions, and
things, from the greatest even to the least,

•"The Reformation", p. loi.

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS

to the praise of the glory of His wisdom,
power, justice, goodness, and mercy."'
The keynote of the whole system is struck
in the first question of the Shorter Cate-
chism: " What is the chief end of man?
Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to
enjoy Him forever." •* " Hallowed be Thy
name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be
done", is the threefold petition which
expresses the heart of Calvinism. As
one has said, " In all place, in all time,
from eternity to eternity, Calvinism sees
God."

From its absorbed and adoring view of cv,/r,„,v«
God comes Calvinism's conscientiousness, ""'' ''"'>'■
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.' "

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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<fendeHl, Nov. 15, 1900, p. 1748.
** Eisay on Milton.

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS

stood in the breach for a!' ;iu ■'ceding gen-
erations.

Says Prof. John Fi-i;p, ihe prot )u.:o»st /f««a«
philosopher as he is th- hnen lite.;io ri.st ''*"■'■>■•
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.

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(.

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".

' 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.

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.

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.

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

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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.

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

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 ,

' 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.

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.

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

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.

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 .

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)

" Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
make you free."— \otin 8:32.

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. '^ ^

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'"^'"" «"«<i in .hat august sunrise
Her beautiful bold brow."

"Presbytery agreeth as well with mon

archy ".declared despotic King Jams ^as"
God and the devil " The rJ
tpm "n Calvinistic sys-

tem, the monarchs of that dav " c

Bancroft, "with one consenrand^i'th"^
-nctive judgment feared as repuhh" an".
T'. As a vast and consecrated de-

n.o racy ", says Green, " it stood i. con-
■•-t wuh the whole social and politTcal
framework of the European nations '-It

H'«.E„g. People ".vol.,,,, p,„,

129

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS

Benefaclor

marked the opening of a new chapter in the
history of humanity.

J — Had Calvin done nothing more than to

of mankind. ^^^^ government of the people, by the
people, for the people, a startling and tri-
umphant reality in the earth, he would have
deserved well of mankind. Says Bancroft,
" More truly benevolent to the human race
thr.n Solon, more self-denying than Ly-
curgus, the genius of Calvin infused endur-
ing elements into the institutions of Geneva
and made it for the modem world the im-
pregnable fortress of popular liberty, the
fertile seedplot of demociacy." ^'

The city of Geneva, in Switzerland, on
the shores of Lake Geneva, called also
Lake Leman, was the home of Calvin.
Here he had his church, which Knox, who
came to Geneva, like ten thousand other
Bible students from all parts of Europe, to
sit an admiring pupil at Calvin's feet, pro-
nouaced " the most perfect school of Christ

Calvin's
home.

' Miscellanies ", p. 4<*-
130

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS fRUIJS
that ever was since the days of the Apos-

From Geneva his influence radiated into /„^„,„..,
every corner of Christendom. "Calvin's
true home", as Schafif says, "was the
Church of God. He broke throtigh all na-
tional hmitations. There was scarcely a
monarch or statesman or scholar of his age
with whom he did not come in contact
Every people of Europe was represented
among h.s disciples. Hz helped to shape
the rehgmus character of churches and na-
tions yet unborn. The Huguenots of
France, the Protestants of Holland and
Belgium, the Puritans and Independents of
England and New England, the Presbyte-
rians of Scotland and throughout the
world, yea, we may say. the whole Anglo-
Saxon race, in its prevailing religious char-
acter and institutions, bear the impress of
his genius, and show the power and tenacity
of his doctrines and principles of govem-
iiient."" ^

'" " Creedt of Ch

ristendom ", vol. r. p.
131

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS

Calvinism Those revolutionary principles of repub-
""''*'"""• Wczn liberty and self-government, taught
and embodied in the system of Calvin, were
brought to America, and in this new land
where they have borne so mighty a harvest
were planted, by whose hands? — the hands
of Calvinists. The vital relation of Calvin
and Calvinism to the founding and free in-
stitutions of America, however strange in
some ears the statement of Ranke may
have sounded, is recognized and affirmed
by historians of all lands and creeds.
D'AuHgn/'t Says D'Aubigne. whose " History of the
iiiiimeny. Reformation " is a classic: " Calvin was the
founder of the greatest of republics. The
pilgrims who left their country in the reign
of James I., and, landing on the barren soil
of New England, founded populous and
mighty colonies, were his sons, his direct
and legitimate sons; and that American na-
tion which we have seen growing so rapidly
boasts as its father the humble Reformer on
the shores of Lake Leman." ='

" " Reformation in the Time of Calvin ", vol. i. p. 5.
132

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS

Tale' hoTr" ''""'' '"''' ^"" '"^^-i-- —
iame holding no religious faith himself '""«-.■

yet declares of the Calvinists: " These men
are the true heroes of England. They

founded England, in spite of the corruption
of the Stuarts, by the exercise of duty, by

the practice of justice, by obstinate toil, by
vindication of right, by resistance to op-
pression, by the conquest of liberty, by the
repression of vice. They founded Scot-
and; they founded the United States; at
his day they are, by their descendants
fcHinding Australia and colonizing the

Says Motley: " In England the seeds of m..,,
itberty, wrapped up in Calvinism and '""•'"'".^•
hoarded through many trying years, were
at last destined to float over land and sea
and to bear largest harvests of temperate
freedom for great commonwealths that
were still unborn."^' "The Calvinists

" "English Literature", vol. ii n .„ ,,.
by McFetridge). ^' ■»" <" 'I""""'

» " The United Netherlands ", vol. „i. p. ,„.
'33

THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS

ttstimony

ChMtt's
ttstimony.

founded the commonwealths of England, of
Holland, and of America." " " To Calvin-
ists ", he says again, " more than to any
other class of men, the political liberties
of England, Holland, and America are
due." "

Says Philip Schaff, the Origen of the
modern world: " The principles of the Re-
public of the United States can be traced
thro' the inlerv --uing link of Puritanism to
Calvinism, which, with all its theological
rigor, has been the chief educator of manly
characters and promoter of constitutional
freedom in modern times." '*

Says Rufus Choate, the great American
lawyer, in his oration on " The Age of the
Pilgrims, Our Heroic Period": "In the
reign of Mary, from 1553 to 1558, a thou-
sand learned Englishmen fled from the
stake at home to the happier states of con-
tinental Protestantism. Of these, great

«• " The United Netherlands", vol. IV. p. 548.

" Id., p. 547-

" " Creeds of Christendom ", p. 219.

»34

THE CREED TESTED BV ITS M<l||s

numbers— I know not liow many— came i.>
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 /«</,!„«'„„/

cnurch feel that mjustice has been done him "^'•" -/'•
by the Session, through misapprehension^"'""^-
or through any local or personal prejudice
he can appeal, if he will, to the Presbytery'
and thence, if he will, to the Synod, and

thence. ,f he will, to the General Assembly.
The nghts of the youngest, poorest, hum-
fa est member are thus safeguarded to the
uttermost.

The well-nigh perfect manner in which " w-.vw
justice, freedom, order, and all the ends of "" ">•""'"
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

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'

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

THE CREED ILLUSTRATED

•• As for you ye thought etiil against me, iut Goa
meant it unto good." — Gen. 50: 20.

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

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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<le's • His-
tory of the Civilization in Kngland' has suc-
ceeded ill provinj^ the firm order of tilings
in human life with astonishing, almost
mathematical, demonstrative force. Lom-
broso, and his entire school of criminaUsts.
place themselves on record in this respect
as moving on Calvinistic lines. And the
latest hypothesis, that the laws of heredity
and variation, which control the whole or-
ganization of nature, admit of no exception
in the domain of human life, has already
been accepted as • the common creed ' by
all evolutionists. Though I abstain at pres-
ent from any criticism either of these philo-
sophical .systems or of these naturalistic
hypotheses, so much at least is very clearly
demonstrated by them, that the entire de-
velopment of science in our age presup-
poses a cosmos, which does not fall a prey
to the freaks of chance, but exists and de-
velops from one principle, according to a
firm order, aiming at one fixed plan. This
.85

THE CREED ILLUSTRATED

is a claim which is, as it clearly appears,
diametrically opposed to Arminianism. and
in complete harmony with Calvinistic be-
lief. I hat there is one Supreme will in God,
the cause of all existing things, subjecting
them to fixed ordinances and directing
them towards a pre-established plan. As a
Calvinist looks upon God's decree as the
foundation and origin of the natural laws,
in the same manner also he finds in it the
firm foundation and the origin of every
moral and spiritual law; both these, the nat-
ural as well as the spiritual laws, forming
together one high order, which exists ac-
cording to God's command, and wherein
God's counsel will be accomplished in the
consummation of His eternal, all-embrac-
ing r'an."

i86

THE CREED CATHOl'?

•• h.mieavoring 'o ketp the unity of the Spirit in
lilt bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of your calling: one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Gad and Father of
a//."— Eph. 4:3-5.

THE CREED CATHOLIC

The catholicity of -esbyterianisiii.' its
liberality of thought and feeling, its free-
dom from sectarian narrowness and big-
otry, is one of its crowning characteristics.
Benjamin Harrison, that noble g itleman,
statesman and Christian, whose ueath our
whole country still mourns, said with truth:
"There is no body of Christians in the
world that opens its arms wider or more
lovingly to all who love the Master than
the Presbyterian Church. "

The catholicity of Presbyterianism is no our stan^.
mere sentiment. It is not a thing of indi- "'•'''""'»''/<'•.
vidual profession or platform declamation.
It is rooted in our creed. It is proclaimed

' The words " catholicity " and "catholic •, as used
by the author in this chapter, have „o reference to
the Church of Ronie.

189

THE CREED CATHOLIC

in our Standards. It is embodied in our
doctrine of the Church. "The visible
Church ", says our Confession, " consists of
all those throughout the world who profess
the true religion together with their chil-
dren." • Thus formally and publicly do we
repudiate the name of " the " church and
claim only to bt a church of Jesus Christ.
Not only do our Standards contain no de-
nunciation of the antagonistic views of sis-
ter evangelical churches, they are said to
be the only church Standards in existence
which make explicit and authoritative
recognition of other evangelical churches
as "true branches of the Church of
Jesus Christ." " To the " Communion of
Saints ", our Confession devotes an entire
chapter. We are there taught that our
" holy fellowship and communion " in each
other's gifts and graces, in worship and mu-
tual service of love, " is to be extended

' "Confession of Faith", Chap. XXV, sec. 2.
"•Book of Church Order", Chap. 11, sec. ii.
par. ii.

IIJO

THE CREED CATHOLIC

unto all those who in every place call upon
the name of the Lord Jesus." ^

The catholicity of our Standards finds Re<ogniti0u
beautiful expression in the Presbyterian '-f ""'"'

, , ,, . chttrcltti.

attitude toward all s-.ster evangelical
churches. While a branch of evangelical
Christendom unchurches all sister denomi-
nations, such action is abhorrent to Pres-
byterian feeling and unknown to Presbyte-
rian practice. Members and ministers of
other evangelical churches we treat as in
all respects true members and ministers
equally with ourselves of the Church of
Christ.

While several of these churches decline
giving letters of dismission from their own
to other communions, we make no distinc-
tion. We dismiss members to Baptist,
Episcopal, or other Christian congrega-
tions, in precisely the same form, and with
the same aflfectionate confidence, as though
we were transferring them to churches of
our own name.

» " Confession of Faith ", Chap. XXVI, sec. J.
191

THE CREED CATHOLIC

Some evangelical denominations deny
the validity of ordinances performed by sis-
ter churches, and when a minister or a
member would come to them from a sister
denomination, the one must be re-ordained,
the other re-baptized. Such denial is ut-
terly contrary to the Presbyterian spirit
and usage. We never repeat the rite. The
ordinance of a sister church we accept as
no less valid than if performed by ourselves.
While from many evangelical pulpits the
ministers of sister churches are shut out, or
from co-officiation in sacred ceremonies,
such exclusion is never practiced by us. It
is alien to the Presbyterian heart and habit.
We are as free and cordial in asking Epis-
copal, Baptist, or other evangelical minis-
ters, to occupy our pulpits, or assist us
officially in administering the Lord's
Supper, as in asking our own pastors.

We unchurch no true Christian. We re-
ject no ministerial ordination. We repu-
diate no administered scriptural sacrament
of a sister church. Returning good for

iq2

THE CREED CATHOLIC

evil, we recognize our high-church fellow
clergyman as a true minister of Christ, and
our immersionist brother as having been
validly baptized. We respond with all our
hearts to the " Amen " of the Methodists;
we join with our brethren in any psalmody
that puts the crown upon the brow of
Jesus; and most lovingly do we invite our
fellow Christians of every name and denom-
ination to partake with us of the emblems
of His broken body and His shed blood.
We have no prejudice, no peculiarity, no
crotchet of any kind, to restrict our Chris-
tian sympathies and dig a chasm between
us and other servants of our Master. Our
catholicity is wide as evangelical Christen-
dom. When the day of union dawns upon
the militant forces of our common Lord,
and His prayer is answered " that tliey all
may be one ", it will be largely due under
God to the teaching and the example of the
Presbyterian Church.

The catholic breadth of her Christian
sympathy is seen in her liberal support
'93

Support of

uniictarian

instilutiem.

THE CREED CATHOLIC

Of interdenominational and undenomina-
tional religious enterprises and institutions
of all kinds. Wherever the common cause
of Christ calls for the sacrifice of sectanan
inte ests and the submergence of sectarian
differences, the Presbyterian Church is ever
i^rst to respond, with greatest gifts and
largest labors. She stands with hand out-
stretched and purse open for every needy
worthy cause that bears the name of Chris-
tian Her members have been called
" God's silly people " from the self-forget-
ful generosity with which they have lav-
ished the tim^ and means often sorely
needed by their own church upon those
great outside enterprises whose sole claim
is the common Christian good and whose
sole appeal is to the catholic Christian
heart The statement of D. L. Moody is
well known, that if he needed one hundred
thousand dollars for some worthy unde-
nominational religious enterprise, he would
naturally expect to secure eighty thousand
of it from the Presbyterians. In the great
194

THE CREED CATHOLIC

interdenominational societies and associa-
tions, and in those private or public chari-
ties sustained by the ^ifts of good people of
all Christian names, figures show that Pres-
byterians usually do and give not only more
than any other denomination, but often
more than all the others combined.

In a western city the Young Men's k„„„^ ,,,,„.,
Christian Association was seeking funds to ^'"■istian
secure a new building. After sixty thou- '*"°""''"••
sand dollars had been given by one Presby-
terian, a general committee of one hundred
was appointed, representing all denomina-
tions. That number proving too large for
eflfective work, a special canvassing com-
mittee of five was selected, taken from the
leading business men, and limited to those
who would contribute at least five thou-
sand dollars. Four of these so appointed
were found to be Presbyterian elders.
The Young Men's Christian Association
Secretary said that this was about the pro-
portion in other cities.*

* Hays' •' Presbyterians ", p. 354.
^91

THE CREED CATHOLIC

^mnu.n The American Bible Society is one of the

BiH' sedtiy. ^^^^^^^ unsectarian institutions in the
world. Its beneficent work eternity alone
can measure and reveal. Dr. S. Irensus
Prime, the genial and famous author and
editor, was corresponding secretary of the
Society. A few years before his death he
made a careful examination of the receipts
of the New York City Bible Auxiliary. He
found that for the preceding fifty years the
contributions to the Society from the Pres-
byterian churches were five times greater
than the sum total from all the other
churches combined, and for the preceding
seven years were six times greater. Dr.
Prime adds that " an analysis of the sources
of contributions to the Bible cause in any
other city or part of the country, out of
New England, will show that the Presby-
terian Church contributes to this great na-
tional Society in about the same propor-
tion.""
The American Bible Society, the Amer-

» " First General Pre»byteri»n Council ", p. ?<>•
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

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