But the Moderator enters into detail. The office-bearers, he tells us, of the church were elected by the people. There is some difficulty in uniting many statements connected with scriptural questions, because traditional habits have set aside every trace of scriptural ideas or ways. For instance: are preachers (ministers, so called, now) teachers, or office-bearers? They are generally thought so, but these were assuredly not chosen by the people. The Holy Ghost distributed to every man severally as He would. They were not chosen by the people. Prophets were not chosen by the people. There were certain prophets in the church at Antioch. Again we read, “As every man has received the gift, let him so minister the same, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” When the Lord ascended up on high, He gave gifts to men—pastors, and teachers, and evangelists. Then these were not chosen by the people. If they had five talents or two talents, their business was to trade with them: they were evil and slothful servants if they did not. This was regulated in the assembly by rules which provided for order. In the unity of the body, having gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, we are to minister according to it and wait on it. (Rom. 12) If Apollos taught at Ephesus, he taught also at Corinth; he was that member in the body. If an evangelist went forth, even a woman was to test him by doctrine. Diotrephes indeed did not like this vagabond ministry; but Gaius did, and did it faithfully in John's judgment. They that were scattered abroad in the persecution after Stephen's death went everywhere preaching the word, and we read (Acts 11) the hand of the Lord was with them. So deacons who served well purchased a good degree and great boldness in Jesus Christ, as we see in the case of Stephen and of Philip.
In the matter of the ministry of the word the desire of the people is negatived by the whole testimony of the New Testament, both in the assembly and to the world. Women were to keep silence; not more than two or three were to speak, and not together but by course; but it was by the distribution of the Holy Ghost they had them all, and not by the desire of the people. If it be said that these were extraordinary gifts—which is not true of Eph. 4, leaving aside apostles and prophets who were the foundation—but if they were, do not let us talk of scripture and primitive apostolic practice; because then the whole fabric of scriptural and primitive practice is gone. And a clergy chosen by the people has been substituted for it without any gifts of the Holy Ghost at all. If not then, as far as the ministry of the word goes, choice by the people is not the scriptural mode, but gift and choice by Christ and the Holy Ghost.
This is a very serious question, because the whole action of the Holy Ghost in ministry is dependent on it. God may act in spite of man's false principles, but it is a serious thing to have such as are a denial of God's way of acting. At any rate the ministry of the word is not by the choice and election of the people, if the expression office-bearers is to include them. If it does not then the Moderator is leaving out all that is most important in real service and in our similarity to apostolic practice.
But the omissions go farther. He does not venture to speak of elders. This is curious in speaking of office bearers, but then he flies at higher game. The apostles were chosen by the people! This is a curious statement. There were twelve apostles. Eleven, we all know, were chosen by the Lord: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” With these, at any rate, the people had nothing to do. So that for a warrant for primitive practice, the Moderator is on rather a narrow basis here. Further, after the Holy Ghost came, such a course never was pursued at all. This, I dare say, may be of little weight with Moderators; but those who know that the Paraclete was to guide and lead the Church when come, so that we are to act under what He has given, will feel this of some importance; the rather as we have an apostle called afterward who tells us he was neither of men nor by man. So that the election of an apostle is confined to an act which took place between the Lord's presence, and the Holy Ghost's presence, when neither were there and never happened before or after: never when the Lord was there, never when the Holy Ghost was there; on the contrary, it is negatived in both cases by the history. None was chosen to replace James; and Paul, we all know, was directly called of God and utterly rejected such a principle. And I must add it is not true even as to Matthias. They drew lots, after praying the Lord to show whether of the twain He had chosen, and the lot fell on Matthias. To make this warrant for universal choice by the Church after the Holy Ghost has been given, after another way of having apostles has been manifested, and no idea of replacing an apostle hinted at, when one was subsequently put to death, is a proof that people have very little (I would humbly say, nothing) to say for the people's choosing office-bearers. They are not going to choose apostles now I suppose. Why not, if this be the warrant for following primitive practice?
But there is another striking evidence from scripture on this point. Paul knows no apostles till after Christ was exalted and by His only gift. I do not mean that he denied Christ's choice of the twelve of course, but he knows no such apostles in the Church. Christ ascended up on high and gave some apostles. There is the divine account of the origin of apostles in the Church of Christ. Christ gave some apostles. Who was to choose them? So “God has set in the Church, first, apostles,” &c. This was the Spirit distributing to every man severally as He wills. I confine myself to actual proofs; but any one accustomed to the difference of Jewish and Christian order, and the change made by the coming of the Holy Ghost on the exaltation of Christ, would at once do justice to an argument drawn from the drawing lots for an apostle. Indeed it does seem strange to read or hear of such arguments in the Christian church. But I suppose we must be surprised at nothing.
The Moderator jumps from this very high ground clean over elders, of which I will speak just now, and lights on the case of deacons, whose election by the people I do not contest, though in terms it is not stated; but the seven were practically such, and the principle of their choice only confirms the evidence of the falseness of the general statement. The apostles would not leave the word of the Lord to serve tables. The people literally ministered of their means to the common wants. The apostles would not have their ministry hindered or interrupted by questions of money and servile, however gracious, care; and they make the multitude choose those who are to minister what the multitude had given. But when the gift was a spiritual gift from Christ, Christ had chosen the person to minister, and they had nothing to choose: the choice was made, the responsibility there. Perfect freedom for the workman to get another to go with him, to go alone if called, or to refuse to go on another's work. We find all these cases in scripture. Silas abode at Antioch, Paul gets others to go with him. Apollos, graciously, I believe, would not go to Corinth when Paul graciously wished him. The people chose office-bearers for money matters and tables, but for nothing else. The case arose with Paul also. Money was to go from the assemblies for the poor at Jerusalem. Paul requires them to choose persons to accompany him, providing things honest in the sight of men. (2 Cor. 8)
Dr. Steel tells us bishops and elders are the same. Quite true. Scripture shows it as plainly as possibly can be. And they were the important office-bearers of the Church. But is it not singular that no attempt is made to show that they were chosen by the people? We have seen that the ministers of the word were not. Scripture contradicts it in every page. It flowed from gifts, extraordinary or ordinary so-called, which were the effect of Christ's choice, and imposed an obligation, the responsibility being regulated by scripture. The elders or bishops took care of (as their names imply, were overseers of) the flock of God; some being ministers of the word, others not; but choice by the people of these true office-bearers, the Moderator does not attempt to prove, not even definitely to assert. It was wise. Scripture states the contrary. The apostles chose elders for them in necessity. (Acts 14:23.) We learn by this passage that elders were local office-bearers. Gifts were in the body at large, as 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4, Rom. 12, and other passages show. So also he left Titus in Crete to establish elders in every city—needless surely if the people were to choose them. There is no trace of the election of elders by the people; there is proof of the contrary.
The next point is—Ordination to the office of the ministry was an act of the presbytery. Let us examine this.
To quote Acts 6 is really too bad. “This was preferred,” it is said, “by the apostles themselves when they were all together at Jerusalem.” I honestly do not understand what this means. Of presbytery, there is not one word; of the ministry, if it means ministry of the word, not a hint: the apostles would not give up the ministry of the word and so set others to serve tables, and they, the apostles, not the presbytery or elders (they are distinguished, Acts 15), laid their hands upon them. One must be dreadfully hard up to quote this as an ordination to the ministry by the presbytery, seeing neither is mentioned.
The next case is Paul at Antioch. (Acts 13) Here prophets are together, and the Holy Ghost says, “Separate me Barnabas and Paul to the work to which I have called them” —no popular choice of office—bearers, at any rate; and these prophets, not the presbytery, of which there is not a word, laid their hands on them, not to ordain, them, but to commend them to the grace of God for the work which they thereupon fulfilled. (Acts 14:2626And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. (Acts 14:26).) Paul had had hands laid on him before and received the Holy Ghost. (Acts 9:1717And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. (Acts 9:17).) But this was no presbytery either. At Antioch, which happened afterward, Paul and Barnabas are sent forth (not ordained) by the Holy Ghost, recommended by the praying prophets to the grace of God. If this be ordination, it is ordination of apostles by laymen.
The only case approaching to such an ordination, though far enough from it, is 1 Tim. 4:1414Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. (1 Timothy 4:14). But the element first noticed is wholly overlooked by these ecclesiastical systems. The gift was in Timothy by prophecy; he was to stir it up. The elder hood accompanied this with their moral recognition; but the ministry, we are certain, was no way conferred on him by it. It was by prophecy with (or accompanied by) the laying on of their hands. But, further, we know that he had received the gift by the laying on of the apostle's hands. (2 Tim. 1:66Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands. (2 Timothy 1:6).) If there was any ordination, it was episcopal; the presbytery were only μετά (an accompanying circumstance); the gift of ministry was conferred by the apostle. The pretension to imitate this now, as Episcopalians do, by and for unconverted men, is too serious a thing to enter on now by the by. As far as any evidence of laying hands on office-bearers goes, it is of the same character. It is to Timothy it is said, “Lay hands suddenly on no man;” while in Paul's address to the elders at Miletus, there is no hint of ordaining elders for the continuation of the polity of the Church.
As to ordination to ministry, it is a mere fable. There is no such thought in scripture. They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. He who had received a talent was bound to trade with it. As every man had received the gift, they were to minister the same as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. The Holy Ghost distributed to every man severally as He would, and only two or three were to speak, so that they might all prophesy one by one, and all might learn, and all be comforted. They were not indeed to be many masters (teachers); but such a direction could have no place with a fixed ministry of one chosen by the people. Women were to keep silence—were not suffered to teach: a prohibition useless, again, if there were simply fixed teachers. I have referred to the two short epistles of John which confirm in the strongest way the same truth.
Ordination to ministry, meaning thereby the ministry of the word, is an utterly unscriptural thing. Hands were laid on deacons, or, what was equivalent to them, the servers of tables. The laying on of hands was the universal sign of commending to God or conferring blessing: the sick were cured by it; the Holy Ghost was given by it; men were commended to the grace of God by it. And, though it is never so said, I do not therefore doubt that hands were laid on elders, and that 1 Tim. 5:2222Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins: keep thyself pure. (1 Timothy 5:22) includes them, though not referring to such exclusively. The conferring the gift of the Holy Ghost is (save a special case of the direct interference of the Lord) confined to the apostles; the choosing and establishing elders is the part of the apostles or their delegate as Titus, and of no one else in scripture.
I add, the churches are wanting now, over which they could be named, nor could any pretension to such a place officially be justified, unless it could be said “over which the Holy Ghost hath appointed you overseers.” Membership of a church, it cannot be too pressingly insisted on, is a thing unknown to scripture. All who have the Spirit are members of Christ.
Setting apart men to sacred office (that is, an official clergy, depositaries by ordination of the title to minister the word) is unknown to scripture and contradicted by it.
The next case is an appeal from the decision of a congregation to an assembly of apostles and elders as the office-bearers of the church. This is as unfounded as all the rest. In personal matters such an appeal, instead of being “allowed to members of the church,” is positively denied to members of the scriptural congregation. If the congregation or assembly were not heard, he was to be as a heathen man and a publican—appeal, that is, precluded. But Acts 15 is referred to. Here was a question, not of members of a congregation, but one affecting the whole standing and unity of the Church of God: was it to be circumcised or not, brought down to Judaism or be the Church of God, in which is neither Jew nor Greek? In fact the question was whether there was to be a Church of God at all. Paul and Barnabas discussed with these false teachers: the church came to no decision at all. God permitted the Apostle Paul not to succeed then in putting it down, I do not doubt, in order that the Jewish part of the church might decide the question, that unity might be fully preserved, and, what I may call, the Jewish apostolate settle the question. At any rate, there was no decision and no appeal. Paul was unable to put down the false teachers. The local assembly decided nothing. The apostles and elders came together to consider the matter. It was no gathering of delegates or official assembly. The apostles and elders came together to consider it, and with them, it appears, all the brethren; at any rate, they take part in the letter and sending of Judas and Silas. But it was the local church of Jerusalem and nothing else. Could a local church or even what is called a church court say, It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, and band the whole Church of God with apostolic authority, by the decrees (the δὀγματα) which they issue? Does the Moderator think that the assembly which he presided over could bind the whole Church of God by its decrees with apostolic authority, and say, on a question affecting the whole Church of God, It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us? If they say, No, we only pretend to govern our own church, then their church is not the Church of God, and the General Assembly of the Presbyterians bears not the smallest analogy to the meeting of the apostles to deliberate on what footing the common Christianity of the saints was to be founded. Indeed the Moderator gets on dangerous ground here, and ground which would effectually guard every sober mind against Presbyterian ideas of their courts and judicatories.
“Apostolic dicta [we are told] pronounced by inspired lips, did not settle the controversies of the early Church.” But apostolic dicta by inspired lips are the word of God.
“If any one be spiritual,” says the apostle, “let him acknowledge that the things which I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.” It is rather strong language to say that apostolic dicta from inspired lips could not finally settle a controversy, but that a church-representative judicatory, a General Assembly of Scotland or New South Wales could. If this be not so, the whole statement is idle talk.
But whom did the apostle represent? For we read in the Moderator's discourse, the government of the church was representative. Is that the true character of apostolic authority in virtue of which they made decrees binding on the Church? They represented the Lord who had given them authority. They exercised it from the beginning. They started with it as given by the Lord, and what they bound was bound in heaven. Was that because they represented the Church as derived from the Lord? They had it when there was no such assembly to represent. To say it was an assembly of bishops or elders is quite false, unless apostolic authority goes for nothing. Supreme power is in Christ and in Christ only. He is Son over the house. He conferred it on the apostles. He has promised indeed to be with His people in every way in which they serve Him; but John would make listening to apostles a test of truth. “He that is of God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” Yea, where the two or three are gathered together, there He is, and from the authority there exercised in its place there is no appeal. (Matt. 18) The language of the Moderator is very dangerous and unscriptural.
Further, it is a mere Scottish prejudice to call Christ “King of the Church.” The leaders of that system may have meant very well; but it is wholly unscriptural. Scripture never speaks of Him as King of the Church. The Church has a much higher place. It is His body and His bride. Nay, when He takes His great power and reigns, we shall reign with Him. He is on His Father's throne now; when He sits on His own, those who overcome will sit there with Him. It is a wholly false and unscriptural dogma, derogatory to the glory and truth of the Church, and to the value of Christ's death and love, to make Christ King of the Church.
A gradation of judicatories is a miserable fable contradicted formally by Matt. 18 and attempted to be confirmed by the utmost (and that a very dangerous) perversion of Acts 15
As to all elders not having gift to minister in word and doctrine, it is true. Still as a rule they were if possible to be apt to teach.
Thus far I have discussed the Moderator's statements, the common ground of Presbyterianism; but there are important points left out. The Presbyterian body, as did all the Reformers, profess sacramental regeneration. I have often heard this pooh-poohed, for self-esteem is not lacking to Presbyterianism; but there is not a doubt of it. The difference between their doctrine and the Anglican and Lutheran on the subject is, that both the latter hold that the efficacy of baptism takes effect in all the baptized, but that then the participator may be lost after all—a strange result when both profess to believe in electing grace. But that is not our subject now. The Presbyterian holds that the effectual saving grace of baptism applies only to the elect. The consequences of patching this Romanist heretical error on certain essential truths are various. The effect with Presbyterians is, that they hold that the effect of baptismal grace may be produced at forty years' distance of time from the celebration of the rite.
There is no telling what theological teaching may bring the mind into making God out of a piece of flour and eternal life out of a bowl of water! Charge me not with irreverence. The irreverence is in those who invent such superstitions. The expression of “making God” is the commonest and usual expression for transubstantiation; and conferring eternal life by a little water is discussed in Luther's Catechism and taught in the English one, of course in the Roman, and, as I shall now show, in the Presbyterian. “A sacrament is a holy ordinance, instituted by Christ, wherein, by sensible signs, Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed and applied to believers.” Thus the benefits of the new covenant are applied by the sacrament. In the Confession of Faith it is limited to the elect, and that in a very definite way. “Yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it, or that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated. The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet by the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's will, in His appointed time.” Nothing can be plainer than that. By the right use of this ordinance the grace promised is conferred by the Holy Ghost when God sees fit “in His appointed time.” Nothing can be more definite, precise, and positive.
I pass over, in the Moderator's discourse, the self-applause as to catholicity; but I turn for a moment to the declaration of its being effectual to secure unity of doctrine. The Moderator confines it, it is true, to Anglo-Saxon Presbyterians; for, religion goes by nations now, not by grace. It is wise to do so; because German, Swiss, and French Presbyterianism have fallen into gross infidelity, as every one knows, whatever partial reaction may have set in in a very few places. But even among Anglo-Saxons it really is a fiction. In England the mass of them have been Socinian, as I have already noticed, and a large body of them, as every one knows in Ireland, Arians. Not only so: the Australian Moderator boasts of 6000 clergymen in the States who (of course making allowance for individual exceptions) have unity of doctrine and form one body. Did the Moderator ever hear of Old school and New school Presbyterians, two entirely distinct bodies, one holding to the doctrine of the Westminster Confession as to high Calvinist doctrine, the other Arminian? Civilities have passed between them lately in hopes of a reunion, but there at present it remains. Other divisions, in the old world, not in doctrine, are notorious. I cannot say whether Old school or New school be the most numerous body at this moment. One thing is certain, that Anglo-Saxon Presbyterians have not unity of doctrine and are separate bodies because of diversity in it.
Does the Moderator soberly believe that intelligent unity of doctrine obtains in all Anglo-Saxon Presbyterian churches on this statement: “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death?” I delight in the sovereignty of God; but surely I could find a good many Anglo-Saxon Presbyterians and ministers too who do not believe in reprobation. I doubt that all hold the imputation of Adam's guilt. I find very many doctrines in the Confession that no Anglo-Saxon could intelligently hold; but it would involve a controversy on doctrine beyond the limits of this paper and be a kind of attack on the Confession which is not my object.
But I will notice one point which I do not see how any intelligent Christian could accept: “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.” Again. “God gave to Adam a law, a covenant of works, by which He bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it; and endued him with power and ability to keep it. This law after his fall continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and as such was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments and written on two tables.” All this is a fable and a mischievous fable. And I notice it because it is the foundation of the whole religious system to which it belongs.
The Trinity, the divinity and humanity of Christ, the atonement, fundamental facts or doctrines of the gospel, are believed in by Romanists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, by all who have any right to the name of Christian. 'It is when you come to apply these truths to man's relation with God, to sin, the convincing man of it, the means of removing it, the application of the remedy, and the relation of man to God, whether under law or gospel, that divergence in doctrine commences. The Romanist makes sacraments the means of life, and, together with good works, of forgiveness and justification. The latter point Protestantism, unless often the Wesleyans and formalists, has escaped from. Anglicans teach sacramental forgiveness and regeneration, and in the Puseyite phase are as near popery as dishonest people dare. Presbyterians hold, as we have seen, salvation and regeneration by sacraments. It is the opposition to the truth in these things which is now making up the public testimony of Protestants: some turning back to the anti-Christian principles of Romanism; some running loose into infidelity. Disgusted with the corruptions of Popery, finding no rest in the narrow and powerless systems of Protestantism, and having no faith in the word of God, such are cast upon the hopeless and desolating folly of their own minds. This quarrel I have not with the Presbyterians, and I thank God for it. I thank God for every public stay He may allow to subsist against the current of Popery and infidelity. But they have formed such a system of theoretic doctrine without the word, and a system which keeps souls in the greatest bondage, and so falsifies our true relationship with God, that it is impossible for one who really bows to the word, and stands fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free, to accept its teachings. It may answer in some respects to new countries for another reason. There is some order, yet it is democratic, although in the United States Methodists and Baptists are far ahead of them in numbers. In old countries it is in as great disruption as Anglicanism, or fallen into universal infidelity; but with all this I have nothing to do. My business is with souls and with the word of God. And I take this point, of the giving of the law to Adam, as at the root of their system. It is a very mischievous fable.
Where is a trace of promise of life to Adam and his posterity if they exactly kept the law? It is a pure invention, falsifying Adam's real position and relationship with God, in order to propitiate the law of the ten commandments. There is not a tittle of scripture for it. Adam, having life, was tested by a positive well-known commandment of not eating the forbidden fruit; and the perfectness of this consisted in the point that there was no intrinsic moral question in it. It was a test of simple obedience to a sinless being, with a threat of death (for life he had). A promise of life to Adam on keeping a moral law, which supposed the knowledge of good and evil, is a mischievous fable, and denies the whole position of Adam, who was innocent. There would have been no harm in eating that fruit more than another, unless it had been forbidden. And, as I have said, this test of obedience was the only true one for an innocent being, not, as is alleged, a righteous and holy one (both which terms suppose the knowledge of good and evil, delighting in one and abhorring the other). Adam acquired the knowledge of good and evil by his disobedience: “The man is become as one of us, knowing good and evil.” But this by the by. What I insist on is, there was no promise of life, which supposed he had it not; but a threat of death, which supposed him to be alive, but alive innocent, with no knowledge of good and evil.
And when you come to details, just see, I must say, the nonsense of this system which Presbyterians accept by tradition. This law, we are told, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai “in ten commandments and written on two tables.” Think of bidding Adam to honor his father and his mother, and that his days might be long in the land Jehovah his God gave him! Think of his being forbidden to steal—nay, what is more material, not to lust or covet! Cannot these doctors see that the law supposes sin to be there in the prohibition of it, and that, unless in the case of knowing parents, which could not possibly apply to Adam, all the commandments without exception are prohibitions of sin; or refer, as the fourth, to the labor which came in as the present punishment of sin? All this is not a mere mistake of interpretation, or an imperfect way of putting things (of which I should have much to say on the Confession of Faith, and to which we are all liable); but it is grave and fundamental error on man's original relationship with God, and on the true state of our actual relationships too. The basis of the entire system of moral relationship with God in Presbyterianism is false; and it has tainted the whole evangelical system everywhere. I believe it had its origin in the Reformation, or rather in reformed popery; but it has on this point been formalized in Presbyterianism as it has been nowhere else; and I defy anyone to give the smallest atom of scripture, or (if he knows what sin and innocence mean) of common sense either. It is a theological system without a scriptural basis, and absurd upon the face of it (assuming Adam's innocence, that is, believing the scriptural statement).
This is strong language to me as to the famous Confession of Faith; but the times are serious. We want the truth. We want the solid basis of scripture, of the word of God, for what we hold. Nothing else will stand in these days. Men may deny that word; but then we know what we have to do with. Men may set up conventional systems; but then Popery is the strongest and will prevail, or infidel disgust throw up all, and (as I believe) devour at the end Popery itself. But my business now is with the truth. Thank God, many Presbyterians love the Lord, and their traditional errors are partially dissolved in the power of grace, though, I believe, their system affects and injures their Christianity. Still every saint will cordially recognize every one in whom grace is. At any rate, that is what pleases God and is the true bond of comfort to the saint; but our question now is with a system of doctrine injurious to the saints we do love. In many parts I do not believe the Confession of Faith is really held by those who maintain it as in the doctrine of absolute reprobation.
Indeed it notoriously is not. They may talk about mysterious and deep truths when we bow. I have no objection to bowing to God on such points—it becomes us. But they do not believe what is stated in the Confession of Faith—I mean a vast number do not. And I affirm that what they do believe, the promise of life to Adam by keeping the ten commandments, is an absurd and unscriptural folly, and one which subverts his and our relations to God, fatally modifying the truth of the gospel when it is preached.
I have done. My object has not been to attack the Confession of Faith, nor the Moderator, but to discuss some great principles which interest every Christian individually and the whole Church of God as such.
My appeal is to the word of God, aided, as we all must be to use it to profit, by the grace and Spirit of God. And I cannot but think that the traditional teaching of the Presbyterians as to doctrine and polity will be found utterly wanting when compared with the word. If any Presbyterian should read this paper, I ask a patient comparison with the word of God. They are used to come to the scriptures full of the Confession of Faith and the longer and shorter catechisms. It is generally the first glory of their system that they are religiously brought up and carefully instructed in doctrine. But there is the danger accompanying this valuable care that they bring a complete system, already formed in the mind, to the study of the word of God. This is a great man— “Ille bone legit,” says Hilary as to scripture, “qui non affert sed refert sensum.”
I might have made a host of objections, but it was not my object. But no one can complain if great and vital principles, such as the question on what ground Adam stood before God, and the like, are examined in the light of scripture.
J. N. D.
(Concluded from page 96)