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