ite Iwslwlmatt ISTew Series, "Vol. IV, 13. gramau ||mligtmau + THURSDAY, MARCH 28,1867. THE CONFESSION AS A BASIS OF RE-FNION. LIMITATIONS AND CONDITIONS SUPPOSED, While it must unquestionably be admitted that the Westminster Confession .is.the only basis on -which the branches of the Presbyte rian church are likely to re-unite, it need not and ought not to be forgotten that this is by no means the only Calvin is tic symbol dn existence, nor yet the oply one recognized in this country. That very.orthodox Calvin istic body,, the - Eoformed Patch Church, knows nothing as,a church/ of the West minster confession, is Entirely British in its origin, but finds its Calvinism best re presented in the Heidelberg. Catechism and the decisions of the famous Synod of Dort. Another decidedly Calvinjstic formula is the Thirty-nine Articles of tlio Protestant Epis copal church. Besides those, there is the Basle Confession, the ijrst and the second Helvetic (Swiss); the Formula Consensus Hel vetia; the Confession of the Reformed Church of Prance.; the Canons of the Synod of Dort; all of which,,with others not named originated in Europe. In this country we have had the Savoy Confession, the Cam bridge Platform —both of which, however, defer to the Westminster in doctrine—the Boston Confession) and the Saybrook Plat form. , It must , not therefore be concluded that all Calvinism is comprised in the Westmin ster Confession, or that all ,phases of doctri nal opinion which are. not plainly contained in- any of its/sections are on that account without the nange ,of the Cajvinistic system. If for example,.any one should deny that the doctrine of the Extent of the Atonement, as taught in Mr. , Barnes’. sermon, published in our columns last week, can be fairly de duced from the Westminister Confession, we have only to turn to the Heidelberg Cate chism, which Professor/ Shedd, in his His tory of Doctrine, ii. 473, praises as onev of the best of the many systems of Christian doctrine that were constructed in the Refor mation, and which he teils us, was approved by the highly , Calvinistic Synod of Dort, where we shall find it declared that Christ “ sustained ,in body and soul the wrath of God against the sins.of all mankind.” Other diversities, for example, upon Supralapsa rianism and Infralapsarianism may be traced in these different Confessions. And of one thing we may be certain, that not all of Cal vinistio wisdom -was embodied in the West minster Assembly, nor did it all die with them. ~ Wo however freely concede the excellence of the Westminster Confession among com pends of Calvinistic .Doctrine. As the pro duct of Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Theolo gians, it is better adapted to the wants of the American Presbyterian Church than any of the products of the Belgic, Teutonic or Latin mind. It has been the seed of. by far the most vigorous and exten sive growth that Presbyterianism has ever had. It has been the theological text book for the training of nearly one seventh of the population of this country. There is porhaps, not a single minister in any branch, of the; Presbyterian Church ,of America, .that believes any other production could be advantageously substituted for it. Certainly we do not. Undoubtedly it is the Only basis, on which it is worth while to speak of union between the two branches now agitating the matter. We cordially ac cept it as such. And it is within the limits of this instru ment, and hot of any other, that our branch grants, and In reijurn asks a reasonable amount of latitude; We do not now, as a church; and never have received this or any other human production' ipsissima verba— word for word. Wo contend now,, as we al ways have done, for a fair measure of liber ty in the interpretation of its terms; for exemption from a hard and Jewish bondage to the letter of a human composition; for a broader exegesis than that which makes a man an offender for a word; for the right of one half of the Church to its own honest and reasonable opinion ■of the meaning and re lations of the parts, of the Confession on doubtful and minor.maitters, equally with the other half; for‘the right,.which also involves the duty, .of discriminating between what is plain Biblical fact, .and what is mere human theory of the fact in the Confession, and of • ,<llmA ""' Wjuijsr paying a proportionately diverse regard to each. Further: any branch of the Presbyterian, Church claimingtobe historically connected with and succeedingto, the original American, organization of 1729, must not only allow the ordinary laws of interpretation to be ap plied to its standards; but must concede a difference between essentials and non-essen tials, in the very body and contents of the standards themselves. Those standards must be viewed as a system, the broad distinctive features of which, no fair-minded person need have any difficulty in making out, and in adopting which exanimo he becomes a Cal vinist, as distinguished from Arininian, Pe lagian, and Semi-Pelagian, even though he openly nonconcurs in such parts as are not essential'to the Calvinistic system. It is dnly necessary to repeat the language of the Adopting Act; already so often quoted in these columns, to justify this claim: lan guage which our cotemporaries of the other branch rarely find .occasion to show to their readers; in which our standards are recog nized as being, “in all the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of Christian doctrine.” And Synods and Presbyteries are expressly allowed to judge whether,the doctrinal scru ples or even mistakes of candidates are “ about articles not necessary in doctrine, worship and government.” Such language, if it means any thing, means that differences of opinion were expected to prevail, in eases where the meaning of the standards, is per fectly plain; differences which all saw to be with the teachings of the Confession itself; “scruples,” says the Act, “ about articles, as not essential and necessary,” not questions as to the meaning of the articles. The first qualification, therefore, with which we accept the Confession of Faith as a basis of re-union is one which the simplest rules of common sense prescribe, viz: that liberty of interpretation which men, confi ding in each other's Christian honor, allow of the loss important parts 'of 'the written terms of the agreement between them. The second, qualification, however, is one for which We are indebted to Providence him self, in his special direction and control of the Presbyterian Church, in its development •in the new wbrld. For while Calvinism has included different shades of thought and opinion, yet there has been a marvelous uniformity'in its standards, and a steady and powerful pressure' towards uniformity of opinion; until the rise ;of the American 'Church, when, for the first time in the whole history of tho Presbyterian Church, the dis tinctiqn between essentials and non-essen tials in the Calvinistic creed was proclaimed upon the solemn occasion of the adoption of that creed, as the 1 basis of a new Presbyte rian organization. These two qualifications of the Westminster Confession we claim as the ‘ basis of Union; one the gift of common sense, and the other the gift of Providence in History; one, the ordinary liberty of in terpretation, the other the distinction be tween essentials and non-essentials in the contents of the Confession itself. Our branch of the Church has always held the Confes sion with these qualifications, and we are very much mistaken if they are going to abandon-them, or quietly suffer them to be ignored or discredited in any transactions looking to Reunion. But is not all this very latitudinavian, very alarming? In an age when so many at tempts are being made and so many influ ences are at work to dilute orthodoxy and to break down all creeds, is not this a s-ivins: way to the prevailing undermining current ? Is.not this admitting enemies of the faith into the very stronghold of sound doctrine in the Evangelical Church ? Where is it to end ? Is it not like making an opening at both ends of the bag and picking it up at the middle ? How shall .we maintain a pure faith and a sound church with,such a qualified adoption of the standards as this? We might answer that extreme rigor in the construc tion of the standards is no infallible safe guard against grievous error. , The ipsissima verba theory is not a cherub sword that will protect the Eden of ultra theologians from the desecration of unbelief. Where could such an Eden be found, if not in Geneva, the home of Calvin; if not in Holland, the seat ofthe famous Synod of Dort ? And yet the witnesses for a pure faith in the Reformed Churches of those countries are so few that a child might write them, and the church or ganizations,’once so stringent for orthodoxy, PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, MARCH 28,1867. are wholly given over to the ■ loosest forms of rationalism. Especially is ’ this the case in Holland, where there is scarcely a show of opposition to the rationalizing tendency; in Geneva some life remain’s. Justly, too, may we point to the phenomenon of TJnita rianism in this country, as, In part, a reac tion from the extreme rigor of the Calvinis tic creed of the early Puritans. A far sounder mode of preserving and perpetuating a living orthodox church is to allow verge and play to the speculative faculty within safe and well-defined limits, to give it all the sea-room/ that may be granted within the compass of Orthodoxy, and never to undertake to jiind conscience and intellect to every word or proposition of a human formula, as if it were the only per fect, the only conceivable oij admissible ex pression of Scripture truth. JTt is nailing a delicate organism to a hard, bruel, senseless, crqss; it is trying to build a [spiritual house by rough joiner-work; it is hacking, and mangling to make every thing and every body fit a J Procrustes bed. If is a system of salvation by repression, and sooner or later, it . must fail. Human nature/ will revolt against it/ - ' / , Nevertheless, there is such a thing, as a latitudinarian and inadmissible mode of treating the standards of a Church, with which we have no sympathy, and from which our Church, as we shall hereafter show, is. entirely clear. THE SUNDAY CAR BILL DEFEATED. Again by the mercy of God, aiidin answer to the prayers of His people; we are deliv ered from the'plots of the enemies of the Sabbath in our city. On Wednesday of last week, the State Senate, by t)ie close vote of 14 to : 12, rejected the bill Submitting the question of the running of the Sunday cars to the vote of the citizens. - he strength of the Sabbath-breaking party Sn the Senate has increased by five, as’ compared with 'the vote 1 on similar year ago; while of the score or more whb’ could not be persuaded to come out and vote openly in favor of submitting a divine institution to the will of a city mob, six or eight, must have absented themselves from the Senate chamber, and fourteen at their posts, Baved the State from the everlasting disgrace of enacting, such a measure. Prominent among them, was Senator .Lowrip of Allegheny, whose speech against the bill was one of the most telling arguments, in its way, against the whole scheme of the Sabbath breakers of our city, that has any where ap peared. Every weapon of sarcasm or of ridicule in the armory of the American po litical speaker was unhesitatingly wielded by the Senator. The home truths which he in no mincing phrases told these enemies of public morals, and their professedly religious supporters, were a fair volley of hot shot in their ranks. Interesting extracts will be found on another page. The remarks of Speaker Hall went to the very heart of the subject. He took ground which only a few Weeks ago was argued and defended in these columns, and which must have had great weight on the floor ofthe Senate Chamber, from the lips of the Speaker. “Mr. Hall,” says the Report, “asserted, as a lawyer, that the observance of the Sabbath was part of the common law of England and the United States. It was not local in its application, and could not be decided upon by citizens at a local election. The bill be fore the Senate was unconstitutional.” The speech of the Rev. Senator Audley Browne, of Lawrence Co., if at all properly reported, was, to say the least, quite inex plicable considering the source from which it came. Mr. Browne is understood to have complained that the Philadelphia city coun cils, themselves, did not legislate on such matters, without bringing them to Harris burg, and constraining the country members to violate their consciences by voting for them; in which remarks a grave error and a grave charge were involved. The error was no thing less than the concession to the city of the right, in and by itself, to nullify the fundamental laws of the State to which it belongs, without even consulting the remain ing portions of the Commonwealth. "We wero not prepared for this expression of wil lingness, on the part ©f the sounder mem bers from the country, to abandon the Christian people and institutions of a city, to the arbitrary will of a majority composed, the Senator well knows, of what elements. To hear such a declaration from one of the very pillars of good order in our Legislature pained us more than we can describe. And for a Covenanter, in whose veins may flow some of the same blood which was shed by Claverhouse and his dragoons in the per son of John Brown —for such a man, to talk about himself or any one being compelled to violate his conscience in voting, or in any other conceivable way, is so extraordinary as to demand explanation either of the re porter or of Mr Browne himself. . The following is the vote in detail: For the bill: Bigham (Allegheny,) Burnett (Monroe.) Connell, Donovan, ■ McCandless, and Ridgway (Philadelphia,) Davis (Berks,) Jackson (Sullivan,) James (Bucks,) Randall (Schuylkill,) Schall, (Lehigh) Searight (Fay ette.) The following voted against the bill: —Biilingfelt (Lancaster,) Browne (Law rence,)Brown (Mercer ,)Graham(Allegheny,) Haines (Perry,) Landon. (Bradford,) Lowry (Erie,) McConaughy (Adams,) Royer (Mont gomery,) Stutzman (Somerset,) Taylor (Beaver,) Walls (Union,) White (Indiana,) and Speaker Hall (Blair.) Senator Worthington whose vote would have been given in the negative, was detained from his place by sickness. As for the repre sentation from our own city, every Senator, and as we have already stated, every member of the House but one, voted for the bill. We shall have something to say of these precious guardians of the morals of our city in our next issue. After this defeat, we know not what new device may be under consideration by the pertinacious enemies of the good order of our city; but we are inclined to believe that they are at the end of their resources. In any event, we think nothing less than a ma jority of two-thirds of both houses would en sure their triumph over all obstacles; and no two-thirds are they likely to get. We rejoice to believe that the glory of our city as the one great Sabbath-keeping city of the globe is destined to that William Penn’s sagacious, benevolent provisions for “the ease of creation” will be perpetuated in the city which ,he founded; and that the rule of corrupt legislators and unprincipled and infidel demagogues in the State, is shortened by the narrow escape we have made from their mischievous and irreligious schemes. MEETING FOR HOME MISSIONS. As was announced last week, a meeting in behalf of Home Missions was held in the Lecture Room of Calvary Church on Monday evening. There was a fair attendance. The chair was occupied by Judge Strong. After prayer by Dr. Butler, a statement was made by the Secretary, Dr. Kendall, show ing the great extentof the field andneeds of the committee. Over four hundred mis sionaries were in commission,, and the com mittee must have $20,000 in the next forty days, if they would close the year, free of debt. Judge Strong followed in a. very earnest and forcible appeal. After- which remarks were made by Dr. Butler, Messrs. Adair, Robbins, Eva, and Mears, Gerald F. Dale, S. H. Perkins, and W. G. Warden, Esqs. The following resolution, offered by Mr. Mears was unanimously adopted. After which the meeting was dismissed with the benediction by Rev. B. B. Hotchkin. Resolved, That the meeting is under obligation to th e Secretary for his deeply i nteresting statement ofthe work of the Committee; that we declare our approval of the policy of the committee in going forward in faith in God, and looking to the churches for the means; and that we are determined to do our part in carrying on the work and in meeting the exist ing deficiencies in the treasury. DEATH OF DR. LIVINGSTONE. At length this intrepid adventurer, who seemed hitherto to bear a charmed life, has fallen a victim to the murderous passions of the tribes whose elevation has beeu the ob ject of his labors. Sad as is his death, and great as are the services he might yet have performed, there are few lives so glorious with achievements for science, for humani ty, for Christian Missions, so ennobled with sublime purpose and tameless energy as that of Dr. David Livingstone. He perished about the 25th of last October,-in an attempt thoroughly to elucidate the problem of the connection of the great lake system of Cen tral Africa. The U. S. Consul at Zanzibar, Mr. E. D. Ropes, tells us- all which can be known of the tragedy, which, he says, oc curred somewhere to- the west of Lake iSTyassa. We shall give his letter next week Revolutionary Measures Suggested;— The Philadelphia Press feels-as-mighc be ex pected, very sore' over its defeat on. the Sun day Car Bill, and makes a suggestion which Grenesee Evangelist, TSTo. 1088. shows what a peaceable and law-abiding spi rit animates the anti-Sabbath party. It says:— “ There are several clergymen in both bodies [the Senate and the House,] and we are glad to see them there; * * *„* * This clerical influence defeated this wise, salutary, and Christian [!!!] measure, but the remedy lies with the twenty-one city members. Xiet no bill pass until the Sunday car bill becomes a law. The people of Phila delphia expect this/’ OUR WASHINGTON LETTER. The President now counts his vetoes by the dozen. He will have no chance to in crease the number before the recess of Con gress, unless his clear and unbiased mind de tects some “ injustice to white men” in Sena tor "Wilson’s bill regulating the municipal election of Washington, or Senator Harlan’s bill providing a better school system for the District. Twelve times has he made issue with the representatives of the people in de fense of his policy, and three times out of every four haß he been defeated. The peo ple themselves, in a popular election have morally impeached him, but these lessons of experience have made no perceptible im pression upon him. This tough specimen of Tennessee whinstone so effectually resists the strokes of State and Congressional picks and ordinary blasting materials, that the Butler-Logan-Ashley party strongly advo cate a charge of impeachment nitro-glycerine. They are confident this will hoist him from the Presidential chair and retire him to pri vate life, a la Fitz John Porter, where his dogged persistency might be of some practi cal benefit to the country in reclaiming the Government’s wild lands. The Young Men’s Christian Association of this city, have called a convention of the churches of the District of Columbia and ad joining counties, to meet at their rooms on Tuesday and Wednesday of the present week. There are ten subjects selected for consideration, embracing, “ The import ance of Day Effort;” “Home Missions;” “ The Sabbath School ;’ r - “ The'sphere of the Young Men’s Christian Association “ The best way to relieve the necessities of the Poor;” “ The Christian’s duty in connection with temperance,” &c., &c. Any one of these questions is enough to employ the time of such a convention two days. If they can debate and decide them all in that short pe riod they will furnish the world a model for despatch. The Association has never been so flourishing or so active as now. Major General O. O. Howard was chosen President at its annual meeting a few days ago. He never makes any office he holds a sinecure, but endeavors to fill all its requirements. It is surprising how many engagements he meets, and yet he never seems hurried. Hh accomplishes this by methodizing his labors and economizing his time. Hot a sand in his hour-glass runs to waste. In this re spect, at least, he is worthy of imitation. Sec. Browning, last week presented this Association with over three hundred vol umes of Government documents, some of them very valuable. The Howard University dedicated its buildings at the head of Seventh Street, on Saturday last. This University was incor porated by the last Congress. The act pro vides for seven departments;—English, Nor mal, Collegiate, Theological, Law, Medical and.Agrieultural. Dr. Boynton, Chaplain of the House of Eepresentatives will be the President. The trustees, though not many of them known to fame, are all earnest work ers and sueh men as a new enterprise needs to insure it success. A large number of ap plications for membership have already been received from colored men in various parts of the United States. Collector Smythe of New York, is to be the subject of impeachment. The Presiden tial household seems to be unfortunately con nected with the affair. This drama promises to find its heroine there. It is hoped the in vestigation will lead to the reorganization of the Customs service. The country loses by the present system, at least, forty per cent of its rightful revenue. The Brench system has often been urged for adoption, and is now growing in favor. It is as rigid as our military and entirely removed from politics. Men enter as privates, at small sala ries, and rise by application and honesty. The Customs General of France was twenty eight years in rising from the rank of pri vate to his present position. Abuses will abound and investigations be ordered so long as our present imperfect system continues.
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