صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

PRESBYTERIAN

AMEN

CTAME

CONSUME

BATUR

MESSENGER.

THE great thing in the Church is Christ,-the eternal deity of Christ, the blood of Christ, the Spirit of Christ, the presence of Christ among us. The great thing is Christ, but there is also advantage in a certain government of the Church. I am a Presbyterian, not only of situation, but of conviction and choice. Our Presbyterian way is the good middle way between Episcopacy on the one side, and Congregationalism on the other. We combine the two great principles that must be maintained in the Church-Order and Liberty: the order of government, and the liberty of the people.-MERLE D'AUBIGNE.

[blocks in formation]

THE WORKING MAN'S DAY.

PAGE

PAGE

433

Letter from Edinburgh

440

Ireland's Evil Condition

PAGE 444

[ocr errors]

ib.

434

435

Schemes of the Church-College Fund ............
Synod Fund.-Home Mission Fund
Regent-square Association

ib.

MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.

ib.

........

ib. 436

PRESBYTERIES' Proceedings.

ib. Lyons-India-Cape of Good Hope......
Australia-Synod of Eastern Australia-Australia
Felix...

ib.

445

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

MAN was not made for unceasing labour. Neither his body nor his mind can stand it. We do not need the testimony of physiologists and medical men to prove to us the necessity for periodical repose from labour, and the pernicious results flowing from the absence of it. Experience teaches us that man can no more go on smoothly for months and years without the rest of the Sabbath, than he can go on day by day without sleep by night. Some persons may be able to hold on for a few days by taking only occasional repose, as others may for years by occasional times of relaxation; but the tone of the constitution, both of body and mind, will be far best kept up in the way provided by the God of our nature, by taking regular sleep every night, and regular rest every Sabbath. When the curse came upon this earth on account of sin, the Lord, mercifully remembering man's frame, suffered not the curse to fall on that seventh day which he had blessed and sanctified. For that day, at least, the sentence was repealed, which doomed man to toil in the sweat of his brow till he returned to the ground. Six days he was to labour, but to rest on the seventh.

Those who, in the providence of God, are placed above the necessity of hard personal labour, cannot enter into the gracious beneficence of this enactment. The Sabbath is specially the poor man's privilege, the working man's day. Is it not a sublime spectacle, this Sabbath in England! More than four millions of working men over the land secured in one day's rest out of every seven! they and their families guaranteed a maintenance on that day, without the toil and care of the rest of the week, and left free to recruit their bodies by rest, and to refresh and purify their spirits

at the fountains of Heavenly Truth! Blessed is he who seeks to enlarge the privileges of the working classes in this hallowed day! Cursed is he who in any way tries to remove this old landmark of God's merciful ways to the children of men!

During the French Revolution the Sabbath was abolished for a time, and one day in ten was appointed as a national holyday. But it was soon found that the public health and the commercial prosperity of the country were alike being injured, and the ancient and divinely appointed day of rest was publicly resumed.

We could easily prove, by statistical facts, that with nations, as with individuals, the proceeds of work during any lengthened period would be greater from six days of the week than from the whole seven; that by due observance of the Sabbath the amount of human labour would be greatly economized, and the average length of human life throughout the country materially increased; and that by the better economy and application of labour, by the diminution of crime and its concomitant expenses, by the improvement of public health and morals, a vast annual expenditure would be saved; or, in other words, a vast revenue added to the treasury of the country. Verily, even in a commercial view, "in keeping of this commandment there is great reward."

Voltaire, toward the end of his life, remarked to some of his infidel associates, that all their labour must be lost, and that it was utterly vain to try to put down Christianity so long as there was the Sabbath; so long as every seventh day men were compelled, more or less, to have their thoughts turned to the things of religion. Truly, therefore, even its enemies being judges, the Lord's-day may be reckoned one of the chief bulwarks of the social as well as religious constitution of this land.

THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE.

THERE is to be a general meeting of the Seven Divisional Committees of the British Organization of the Alliance held (D.V.) at Edinburgh, the 10th June, and on succeeding days. Among other important business to be then transacted, the following are included:— The completion of the constitution of the organization; the appointment of official secretaries; the general direction of the organization; and the receiving of Interim Reports on various matters referred from the last aggregate meeting at Birmingham.

That the Alliance has been the means of much good no one will deny. But that it has hitherto failed in effecting the high ends which, from the very beginning, it might have reached, is equally obvious. It has not stepped forward to occupy the noble field which in the providence of God was opening out before it. Many difficulties there are no doubt to contend with. But there is on this account all the more need for effort being made to bring the design up to the high aim of which it is worthy. We have much hope from this meeting in Edinburgh. It was a great misfortune that at the previous meeting of the aggregate Committee, when the constitution of the British section of the Alliance began to be formed, there were none of the brethren from Scotland present; not at least a single man of mark or influence. We have great respect for the evangelical brethren of the Anglican Church, and the English Congregationalists, who had the chief management of that meeting, but we say frankly, that it is to the Presbyterians of this country, and especially to the Presbyterians of Scotland, that we look for the wisdom and the vigour that may yet animate the inert frame of the Evangelical Alliance. Neither

HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH IN ENGLAND.

(Continued from page 420.)

the English Churchmen nor the English In-
dependents have had that training to act in
concert and discipline, which the Presbyterian
Churches have enjoyed in their Church courts
and their free assemblies. The English The Hampton Court Conference.-Bearings
clergy too are trammelled by the bonds of
of Prelacy and Presbytery on Royal Su-
their ecclesiastical system; and the Dissenters premacy and Religious Liberty.—The land-
of this country have been too much involved
ing of the Pilgrim Fathers in America.
in political agitation to have the weight ON the first day of the Conference, when the
necessary for taking the lead in this great representatives of the prelatic party were
undertaking. We trust, therefore, that the alone present, the King, who was attended by
Presbyterians of Scotland will be able yet to the Lords of the Council and a numerous
rally the scattering forces of the Alliance, and body of courtiers, addressed the bishops and
to form something like a strong front of Pro- deans at great length on the condition of the
testant and Evangelical feeling in this land. Anglican Church. On several points he said
Anything that has yet been projected by that he desired some explanations, as for
the Alliance can have caused no uneasiness instance on the rite of confirmation, the ab-
or alarm to the Romanists or other enemies solution of the Church, and baptism privately
of the truth. Contrast with our condition and by lay persons. To these and other
the well-organized and concentrated power of questions the dignitaries of the Church an-
Rome their correspondence kept up through-swered with meekness and reverence, compli-
out all parts of the world-and the vast menting his Majesty on his theological learn-
agencies for collecting and spreading informa- ing and polemical powers, and venturing with
tion and influence; and this with nothing of great deference to present their views before
the power and wealth or ability which the him. And when at the end of the Con-
united Protestants of England could at ference the King still thought that some
once command for organizing an antagonist matters required amendment, "the bishops
on their knees craved with great earnestness
that nothing might be altered, lest Popish
recusants, punished by penal statutes for
their disobedience, and the Puritans, punished
by deprivation from their callings and livings
for nonconformity, should say they had just
cause to insult upon them, as men who had
travailed to bind them to that which by their
Own mouths now
was confessed to be
erroneous." On this day, it is said by Dr.
Andrews, Dean of the Chapel, "his Majesty
did wonderfully play the Puritan." He how
ever dismissed the assembly with great cour-
tesy and marks of favour toward the bishops.

force.

Without referring to any of the past proceedings of the Alliance, on which there may be much difference of opinion among our readers, we earnestly hope that wise and vigorous measures may be adopted at the Edinburgh meeting. Much will depend on the appointment of the official secretaries and the acting directors of the organization. In Cromwell's proposed "Protestant Council," which we hold to be the noblest model of what the Alliance ought to be and to do, he intended that the active management should be in the hands of seven councillors, along with four secretaries for managing the correspondence with four different provinces of Christendom. The acting direction of the Alliance ought at all events to be small, that thereby there may be more unity and vigour in what they do. It will be a pity if men are appointed out of deference to distinguished names, or from conventional etiquette, or the mere desire of having each sectional denomination of the Christian Church represented. There is needed also some medium of active correspondence and an organ of central influence, very different from the paper called "Evangelical Christendom." But we cannot enter into details, especially as we doubt not that some new measures will be propounded at this meeting. We long to see some master spirits taking part in the proceedings of the Alliance. There has been manifested in previous meetings a great amount of brotherly kindness and love, but this is not all that these troublous times demand in the servants of Christ; and we fervently pray that God may give to the members of the Alliance "the spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind," and a greater measure of that wisdom, which the children of this world in their generation

know so well how to turn to account.

On the second day the four Presbyterians were also admitted to the Conference. Two bishops and six or eight deans were present. The King, with his nobles and Privy Counsellors around him as before, desired now to hear what objections were made to the Established Church. Dr. Raynolds, Professor of Divinity at Oxford, in the name of his brethren, briefly stated the points in which the Puritans desired to see further reformation, and, in consequence of which, their consciences being aggrieved, they were unable to conform to the Establishment. During Dr. Raynold's address, the Bishop of London, Dr. Bancroft, no longer able to contain himself, falling on his knees, begged the King to stop his mouth, according to an ancient canon, that schismatics are not to be heard against their bishops. The King said that the Doctor must not be interrupted, but that replies might be given to what he had objected. Accordingly a discussion ensued on various matters, both of doctrine and discipline, wherein the Puritans differed from the Church party. Towards the end of the conversation, Dr. Raynolds having pleaded for the freedom of the Church to determine things indifferent, and having desired that the clergy with the bishops should have frequent meetings in

Synod and Assembly,-the King broke into a violent passion, and said he saw that the Puritans were aiming at a Scots Presbytery, of which he had already seen enough, and if they were in place here, "I know,” he said, "what would become of my supremacy, for no bishop, no king.” On asking Dr. Raynolds whether he had anything else to offer, and the reply being in the negative, the King, rising from his chair said, "If this be all your party have to say, I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of this land, or else do worse." Thus ended the second day of the Conference.

On the third day, the bishops and deans were first summoned, and the King required to be satisfied as to the High Commission and various matters touching the Royal Prerogative. The Nonconformist brethren were at the close called in, not to confer, but only to hear the decisions which had been come to. Mr. Chadderton and Mr. Knewstubbs, of Cambridge, kneeling before his Majesty, humbly begged that these things might not be enforced on godly ministers, who could not conform; but the King rudely interrupting them, replied, "This is the Scots way, but I will have none of this arguing: therefore let them conform, and that quickly too, or they shall hear of it; the bishops will give them some time, but if any are of an obstinate and turbulent spirit I will have them enforced to conformity."

Seeing that any further discussion was hopeless, Raynolds offered, "if his Majesty would give them leave, to deliver in writing full answers to all the things which any prelate had propounded, all which they meanwhile averred to be vain and groundless." But this being refused, the meeting was broken up.

Thus ended the "Mock Conference of Hampton Court." The Puritans had been insulted and ridiculed, and no fair play given to them in the discussion, such as it was; while the King, siding with the prelates, had been both judge and party in that cause where he professed to be only umpire. Yet the King had the impudence to publish a proclamation throughout the kingdom on the 5th March, in which he said, "that though the doctrine and discipline of the Established Church were unexceptionable, and agreeable to primitive antiquity, nevertheless he had given way to a Conference, to hear the exceptions of the Nonconformists, which he had found to be very slender; but that some few explanations of passages had been yielded to for their satisfaction; therefore now he requires and enjoins all his subjects to conform to it, as the only public form established in this realm, and admonishes them not to expect any further alteration, for that his resolutions were absolutely settled.”

Before we leave this Conference,

we must

present in contrast to it a meeting which King James had with the Presbyterians of Scotland in his early days, the memory of which may have the more deeply impressed his vain and despotic mind with delight, at the obsequious

of Presbytery.

Leaving, for the present, other internal affairs of England's ecclesiastical history, it is worthy of being noted, that during this reign, the first emigrants went to settle in America, in order to find there the freedom and toleration no longer to be enjoyed at home. Many had previously taken refuge in Holland, and other parts of the Continent. Mr. Robinson of Leyden, who is by some counted the founder of English Independency, encouraged many of his congregation to go to America, of whom the first body of emigrants was chiefly formed.

They were followed, as we shall see, by many others from England, Independents as well as Presbyterians, who, amidst great difficulties and hardships, laid the foundation of the Protestant States of North America. They went forth in times of darkness, weeping over the state of their native land, but bearing the precious seed of God's Word, which has since borne so abundantly the fruits of Divine truth, and of civil and religious freedom.

ness and servility of the Prelatists. In 1596, | Prelacy, and the manly, free, independence
a deputation of the Presbyterian clergy
in Scotland, waited on the King at Falkland
Palace in Fife, to remonstrate against the
recalling of the Popish Lords, who had been
engaged in the Spanish plot in 1593. James
Melvill, as being a mild and moderate man,
was the spokesman; but he was interrupted
by the King, who violently accused them of
seditious assemblies, and disturbing the peace
of the country. This roused the spirit of
Andrew Melville, who was a noble and fearless
man, and addressing the King, he said," Sir,
we will always humbly reverence your Majesty
in public; but, since we have this occasion
to be with your Majesty in private, and since
you are brought into extreme danger, both
of your life and crown, and along with you
the country and the Church of God are like
to get wreck for not telling you the truth and
giving you faithful counsel, we must dis-
charge our duty, or else be traitors, both to
Christ and you. Therefore, Sir, as diverse
times before I have told you, so now again
I must tell you, there are two kings and two
kingdoms in Scotland; there is King James,
the head of this commonwealth, and there is
Christ Jesus, the King of the Church, whose
subject James the Sixth is, and of whose
kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a
head, but a member. We will yield to you
your place, and give you all due obedience;
but, again, I say, you are not the head of
the Church: you cannot give us that eternal
life which we seek for, even in this world,
and you cannot deprive us of it. Permit us
then, freely to meet in the name of Christ,
and to attend to the interests of that Church
of which you are a chief member. Sir, when
you were in your swaddling clothes, Christ
Jesus reigned freely in this land in spite of
all his enemies; his officers and ministers

(To be continued.)

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM
FATHERS IN NEW ENGLAND.

*

rock-bound and perilous, sheeted with ice
"It is a lowering winter's day; on a coast
and snow, hovers a small vessel, worn and
weary, like a bird with wet plumage, driven
in a storm from its nest and timidly seeking

shelter. It is the Mayflower thrown on the
bosom of winter. The very sea is freezing;
the earth is as still as the grave, covered with
snow, and as hard with frost as iron; there is
no sign of a human habitation; the deep
forests have lost their foliage, and rise over
the land like a shadowy congregation of
skeletons. Yet there is a band of human
beings on board that weather-beaten vessel,

[blocks in formation]

The ocean eagle soar'd,

From his nest by the white wave's foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd-
This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there
Away from their childhood's land?
There was woman's fearless eye

Lit by her deep love's truth,
There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?-

Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas? the spoils of war!-
They sought a faith's pure shrine !
Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod,
They left unstain'd what there they found-
Freedom to worship God! MRS. HEMANS.

THE ENGLISH PRESBYTERIANS IN
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

MY DEAR SIR,-I am glad that by abridging provincial details more room is left in the "Messenger" for general intelligence, and for original papers bearing on the interests of Presbyterial order and evangelical truth. I have of the Presbyterian Church in England. It read with interest your articles on the History gives me pleasure to transmit to you a copy of "The History of the Church of Scotland during the Commonwealth," by my friend and

To the Editor of the English Presbyterian Messenger.

convened for the ruling and welfare of his and they have come to this savage coast to brother, Mr. Beattie. You will find it well

Church, which was ever for your welfare, when these same enemies were seeking your destruction. And now, when there is more than extreme necessity for the continuance

spend the rest of their lives and to die there.
Eight thousand miles they have struggled
across the ocean, from a land of plenty and
comfort, from their own beloved country,
from their homes, firesides, friends, in the

written, and the facts given with great candour and impartiality.

I am aware that the sentiments I have ex

pressed in the "Sketches of Scottish Church History," regarding the English Presbyterians

of that duty, will you hinder and dishearten winter, in the wilderness, to gather around of the seventeenth century, differ from those

when

you

emperors did ?"

Christ's servants and your most faithful
an altar to God! what does it all mean? It
subjects, quarrelling them for their convening, marks to a noble mind the invaluable bless-
own.
should rather commend and edness of FREEDOM TO WORSHIP GOD! It
countenance them, as the godly kings and means, that religious oppression is worse to
bear, more hard, more intolerable to a gene-
conscience, than the war of the elements, than
rous mind, more insufferable to an upright
peril and nakedness, than cold and hunger,
than dens and caves of the earth, than disease
and the loss of friends, and the tomahawks of
savage enemies! These men have fled from
religious oppression; the hand of
attempted to grasp and bind the conscience;
and conscience and an undying religious faith
have borne these men into the wilderness
to worship God as freely as the air that
breathes God's praises."-Cheever's Lectures
on the Life and Times of Bunyan.

Contrast this honest and manly bearing, with the scene of sycophancy and servility at Hampton Court! where the Bishop of London falling on his knees, said, "I protest my heart melteth for joy, that Almighty God of his singular mercy hath given us such a King, as since Christ's time has not been." And the aged Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, was so transported as to cry out, "Undoubtedly, your Majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's Spirit!"

While there is something to be ascribed to the personal character of the individuals who took part on these two occasions, we think too, that there is much to be laid to the spirit and tendency of the two systems contrasted; the servile, courtly system of

THE breaking waves dash'd high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches toss'd.

power

has

*The first settlers in New England are thus named by their descendants, who annually celebrate the day of their

landing on the rock of Plymouth.-Dec. 20, 1620.

66

found in most of our histories of that period. I regret to find they differ a little from your Among the names of those of other intolerant with the Presbyterians," why omit parties mentioned in your note as equally Dr. John Owen? of whom Dr. Jenkyn has said, "What Baxter was to the theology of formity!" a sentence which though pure fudge the commonwealth, Owen was to its nonconin one sense is true in another, for Owen was as little of a Nonconformist as Baxter was of a theologian. Most certainly Dr. Jenkyn, found himself located within the "sixteen had he lived in Owen's days, would have fundamentals" of that sound divine, and debarred all benefit of toleration; for Owen was liker a Presbyterian than an Independent of these degenerate times, and Arminianism, in all its phases, lay beyond the pale of his forbearance. We must not give up our Presbyterian fathers to the vague charge of intolerance without making any distinction...

The interest which I take in this subject must plead my apolgy for the long statement I make of my views. You may make what

use of it you please. Believe me, my dear Sir, very sincerely yours, THOMAS M'CRIE.

Edinburgh, May 19, 1847.

Mr. M'Crie's very valuable and acceptable defence of the English Presbyterians of the seventeenth century from the vague charges of intolerance, we reserve for insertion in the Historical Sketch of the Presbyterian Church, which we are giving in the "Messenger." We shall have occasion in the course of that history to refer to some of the absurd and unfounded statements made by the leading Independents of the present day in regard to the Nonconformists of the seventeenth century, of whom they attempt to claim to be the descendants. This sentence of Dr. Jenkyn is a specimen of the loose ideas held by the present generation of Independents. Baxter the type of sound theology! and Owen the type of English nonconformity! If toleration be the characteristic of the Nonconformists of that age, we shall have occasion to show how little of it would have been granted by Owen, or even by great old Noll himself, to the chief part of the Dissenters of the present day. How differently are these things now viewed by Presbyterians and Independents! While the learned principal of one of the English Congregational Colleges holds up Baxter as the model of doctrinal divinity, and the stiff severe spirit of John Owen as the beau ideal of ecclesiastical politics, we remember how our venerable master, Dr. Chalmers, (now Principal of the Free Presbyterian College,) in his lectures at Edinburgh University, far more justly estimated the characters of such men; and how, while he could praise the moderation and liberality and heavenly-mindedness of Richard Baxter, he held up to our admiration the depth and doctrinal soundness of John Owen, saying of him that he was "the Prince of the Puritan Divines of England," "Theologorum facile princeps." The state of English Congregational Dissent is rotten, and especially as to doctrine, degenerate; and therefore it is that above all we are anxious for the revival of the Presbyterian cause, with its sound orthodoxy and its scriptural polity, so as to make some front of opposition, and lift up the standard of the truth against the popery and latitudinarianism that are coming in as a flood.

DR. KEITH AND MR. ELLIOTT.

The Signs of the Times, Edition 8th; to which is added, an Examination of Mr. Elliott's Theory of the First

Six Seals, and of the Death of the Witnesses, &c. By ALEX. KEITH, D.D., Author of the "Evidences of Prophecy." Edinburgh: W. Whyte and Co.

We do not need to make any reference to a work of so established a name as the "Signs of the Times," in the extended circulation of which we greatly rejoice. In the present edition, besides other new matter, there is a full examination of some of the theories propounded in the "Hora Apocalyptica" by the Rev. Mr. Elliott, which occupies about 250 pages, or nearly half of the first volume. That Mr. Elliott's theories deserve so much of Dr. Keith's time and space may well be doubted; nevertheless, we are glad that the matter has been taken up in its present shape, because the association with such a work as the "Signs of the Times" will procure access and give currency to arguments which might otherwise be passed over as pertaining to trivial controversy.

One of the most hopeless features of the present state of ecclesiastical affairs in England is the ignorance in which the Anglican Clergy are held as to any events

We quote this with no ill-feeling to Mr. Elliott, who is said to be a very pious and learned Minister of the Evangelical section of the English Church; but to show how the advocacy of a bad cause entails blindness and prejudice, and leads to shifts from which the generous and candid defenders of truth would instinctively revolt. It is the way of this world that men always dislike and abuse those by whose actings their own conduct is in any way rebuked. Hence, the soreness felt by many in England on account of the position of the Free Church of Scotland. Hence, Mr. Elliott's going out of his way to attack Mr. James Hamilton of London, and Dr. Candlish of Edinburgh. Hence, the bitterness of the writers in the "London Record" against their evangelical brethren in the North. Will they make any admission as to the decisive way in which Dr. Keith has disposed of the arguments in the "Hora Apocalyptica ?" We trust that our readers will circulate among their Episcopalian friends as much ecclesiastical information as possible, seeing that they are kept in darkness by the organs of their own Church.

taking place out of the circle of their own restrained by the firm but gentle hand section of the Catholic Church. Recent of four successive emperors.' How Mr. E, events in Scotland and Switzerland, especially did quote of these five' instead of four, the sacrifices made by sound Churchmen as Gibbon wrote, it is not in the author's in these countries, who have refused to subject power to know; and looking to His example the Church of Christ to political control who said, 'I judge no man,' it is not his have caused some uneasiness in some of the province to judge. But every watchman, English Clergy, whose unfaithfulness is the moment he sees danger, is bound to tell rebuked by the position of the Free it." (P. xviii.) Church. To remove this uneasiness, the "London Record," and other organs of the Evangelical party of the English Church, have frequently attacked and misrepresented the principles and actings of the Free Church of Scotland, and have studiously excluded from their columns every reply to these unfair attacks. When Mr. Elliott's book came out, it was received with a great shout of approbation by a part of the Anglican Church. Especially that portion where the principles of the Free Church are aspersed, and where the authority of the civil power in things ecclesiastical is asserted, was gladly hailed. Mr. Elliott attempts to prove, that the ascension of the slain witnesses into the apocalyptic heaven was fulfilled, when Henry VIII. took the English Church under his high protection and patronage! and he proves the right of the civil magistrate to interfere in things spiritual from the passage in Revelation (xi. 1, 2), where the angel gave to St. John a reed, like unto a rod. A rod, argues Mr. Elliott, is the emblem of authority, and this vision was fulfilled when the elector John of Saxony, and other Protestant Princes, arose and remodelled the Christian Church. We have already referred in the "Messenger" to the masterly way in which Dr. Candlish, of Edinburgh, disposes of the argument from the paßdos. Dr. Keith meets the reasonings of Mr. Elliott by denying that there is any reference in the passage to a rod, as the emblem of authority, at all. "There was not both a reed and a rod, but a reed only," and the whole passage relates to measurement of the temple, not to ruling over it. (P. ccxxix.) Even if Mr. Elliott's theories and interpretations were of greater value than they are, he has shewn himself altogether unworthy of trust, as an investigator of truth. The misquotations and misrepresentations which Dr. Keith and Dr. Candlish have deemed it necessary to expose, might well make Mr. Elliott's friends ashamed of his carelessness and want of candour, to say the least of it.

LADY HEWLEY'S CHARITIES. To the Editor of the English Presbyterian Messenger.

SIR,-Eleven years have elapsed since the orthodox Presbyterians in the north of England appeared in the Court of Chancery to claim the management of the Trust of Lady Hewley's Charities; and ten years have passed since the Master in Chancery expressed his decided opinion that Lady. Hewley must be considered to have been a Presbyterian, and announced his decision that the Presbyterians should have the nomination of four Grand and four Sub-Trustees, and that the InTrustees of each class. This was regarded as dependent Relators should nominate three a decision with which the Independents ought to have been satisfied, as it admitted them, through courtesy, to participation in a Presbyterian Trust to which they had no right to What weight can be given to a Commenta- pretend. But nothing short of superiority will tor on the Scripture of Truth, and an satisfy them. They appealed to the Viceexpositor of prophecy, of whom the venerable Chancellor, who justly confirmed the Master's Dr. Keith is compelled to speak as follows:decree. Still they refuse to submit to his Honour's determination. For the last four "Such are Mr. Elliott's statements, and his first quotations from Gibbon. But let the trouble, and at great expense, to bring the years they have been preparing, with much reader whose mind is unbiassed by any matter again before the Court. I rejoice that system, turn to Gibbon's own pages, and he it is to be submitted to a British Judge, who will find not only that there has been some will not be misled by partial statements, and transposition of the sentences, but something if the decision be again given against the Inelse, which it is painful to witness or describe. dependent Relators, it is to be hoped they will He will there see six quotations, there in their not be rewarded for their obstinacy by the original order and import, &c." (P. xvi.) allowance of costs from a charitable fund "But graver matter follows. The reader which they have so long prevented from being may have marked not only a different applica-deepened my conviction that their claims are applied to its proper objects. Time has only tion of the same terms, but something altogether unfounded, and that the Presby worse even than broken sentences with an terians have engaged in a righteous cause. altered meaning. Five emperors, as will And I am happy to be able to add that Lord afterwards be seen, are essential to Mr. Elliott's Henley, the Master in Chancery to whom the hypothesis; and thus, (in both editions, in case was referred, is reported to have said, the second with a reference to the page,) he when he gave his decision, that, in his opinion, quotes the following words as Gibbon's, if Lady Hewley herself had been Judge, she The armies were restrained by the firm but that is, she would have excluded the Indepenwould have gone further than he had done, gentle hand of these five successive emperors.' dent Relators altogether. Truth demands, and charity dare not here forbid to turn, however painfully, to Gibbon, and to read his own words as they stand in his Own pages. 'The armies were

stances, that the facts of the case should be As it is most desirable, in present_circum made public, I enclose extracts from the last affidavit of the Presbyterians, dated Decem

ber 1, 1836, copied from a pamphlet entitled,
"Lady Hewley's Charities, the Third Act." I
cannot answer for the correctness of the
printed copy, but the enclosed extracts are
very closely transcribed from that copy, PP.
167, 174, excepting that in some instances,
for the sake of brevity, the substance of a
paragraph is given, but not in the words of
the Deponents.
H. T.

EXTRACTS FROM AFFIDAVIT. Deponents will now give a summary view of the grounds on which they contend that the Relators (Independents) are not entitled in law or equity to be intrusted with the management of this valuable Presbyterian property; and that if this property be allowed to fall into their hands the design of the benevolent foundress will be defeated.

1. They (the Independents) are not free from the taint of heresy upon those doctrines, a belief in which has been declared by the Vice-Chancellor's judgment, confirmed by a decree of Lord Lyndhurst, to be an essential qualification in a Trustee of this fund.

2. The Relators reject subscriptions to articles or Confessions of Faith, and consequently afford no security for their own soundness in any article, or for the soundness in the faith of those to whom this charity might be extended under this

trust.

3. The Relators are not Presbyterians, but belong to a different family, which has always been distinguished from Presbyterians, and in many instances violently opposed to them; and said relators can in no sense be regarded as the successors or representatives of the old Presbyterians, with whom Lady Hewley was connected. 4. The Independents of the present day are a modern race, and not the representatives of the Independents of the end of the seventeenth and the commencement of the eighteenth centuries.

1. Deponents say that the religious body to which the relators belong is not free from the taint of heresy upon the doctrines of the Trinity, of the Divinity of Christ, of original sin, and of the atonement. In the declaration of faith published by the Congregational Union in 1833, of which Union Mr. Wilson, of Highbury, and Mr. Hadfield, of Manchester, were members in 1833, there is no profession made of faith in the doctrines of the Trinity, Divinity, and Incarnation of Christ, and original sin, as expressed in the Westminster Confession. DECLARATION OF FAITH ADOPTED BY THE CONGREGATIONAL UNION, 1833.

III. They (the Independents) believe that God is revealed in the Scriptures, as the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit, and that to each

are attributed the same Divine properties and perfections. The doctrine of the Divine existence as above stated they cordially believe without attempting fully to explain.

WESTMINSTER CONFESSION.

II. 3.

In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons of one substance, power, and eternity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the

Holy Ghost. The Father is

of none, neither begotten nor
proceeding. The Son is
eternally begotten of the

Father. The Holy Ghost
eternally proceeding from
the Father and the Son.

Any person acquainted with the controversy on the subject of the Trinity, will discern at once that the third article of the declaration of 1833 is exceedingly vague and unsatisfactory; and that it may be adopted by persons who would not sign the orthodox doctrine as stated in terms which admit of no evasion, in the Westminster Confession, and in the Articles of the Church of England. The distinct personality of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is not asserted or professed; and the article may be signed by those Unitarians who regard these names as denoting merely the love, the wisdom, and the power of God respectively, to each of which the same divine perfections of eternity, infinity, and unchangeableness are attributed. This vagueness of expression, this reluctance to make a full and explicit declaration of faith, in words which admit of no evasion, in a document so important, can be accounted for only by the supposition, that many ministers of the Independent connexion entertain incorrect or heretical views respecting the great doctrino of the Trinity; and the unavoidable consequence is, that persons connected with that body are altogether disqualified for being Trustees of Lady Hewley's Charity.

The same conclusion follows from the want of precision in the article respecting the Divinity of Christ, the ninth article of said declaration. It is not asserted that the Son is of the same substance

with the Father, which is the doctrine of the
Assembly at Westminster, (see Shorter Cate-
chism, question 6th,) but only that "our Lord
Jesus Christ is equal with the Father," without
this is the very point upon which the Arians differ
specifying in what the equality consists. Now
from the orthodox. Arians acknowledge and
with the Father. The celebrated Arian, Samuel
contend that the Son is in many respects equal
Clarke, would have had no objection to sign this
article of the Independent declaration of faith.
In addition to this it must not be omitted that the

terms Divinity of Christ, atonement, original sin,
are not to be found in this declaration of faith;
yet these are the very terms in which Lord Lynd-
hurst expresses the doctrines which every Trustee
of Lady Hewley's Charity must believe and
profess.

This accusation of the Independent body to
which the Relators belong, as being not free from
the taint of heresy, is confirmed by the sentiments
of a respectable clergyman of the Church of Eng-
land, quoted in the "Christian Guardian." "The
chilling influence of one or other of these delu-
sions (Socinianism or Rationalism), appears to have
damped, if not to have distorted, the Confession of
Faith proposed to the Independents, by the Con-
gregational Union of June, 1833, as may be seen
in its studiously avoiding the word Trinity, and
the word Persons, when attempting to define the
Scripture doctrine of the nature of God, and of
Christ; and in other instances." (See "Reasons for
reviving Convocations, &c." By John Kemp-
thorne, B.D., Rector of St. Michael's, Gloucester.)
The charge of unsoundness in the faith against
the Independents is further confirmed by Robert
Haldane, Esq., of Edinburgh, who, as Deponents
have been informed, accuses the Rev. Moses
Stuart, an Independent Professor at Andover,
U.S., of denying the orthodox doctrine of the
imputation of the guilt of Adam's first sin to his
posterity, in a work on the Epistle to the
Romans, which has been recently introduced to
the notice of English Independents, in highly
recommendatory prefaces, by Dr. J. Pye Smith,
Theological Tutor at Homerton, and Dr. Ebenezer
Henderson, Theological Tutor in Mr. Thomas Wil-
son's College at Highbury.

These are points of the first importance, since alleged unsoundness upon these points, was the very ground of the removal of the late Trustees; and unless the Relators can prove that the body to which they belong, that of the Independents, is perfectly free from the taint of heresy upon these points, they are utterly disqualified, according to the Vice-Chancellor's judgment, for being appointed Trustees of Lady Hewley's Charity.

terian Petitioners."

To this grave charge of refusing to give satisfactory evidence of soundness in the faith, and of using vague expressions which may be understood in a heterodox sense, and of giving full liberty of conscience to use them in any sense:-to this grave charge so fully established-Mr. Wilson* gives no answer. He says merely, "that the Relators do not think it at all necessary or proper for them to notice or resent the charge of heresy brought against them by the two sects of Scotch PresbyHe evidently evades the charge; he does not dare to meet it. He knows and dreads the effects which an investigation upon these subjects would produce upon the Independent connexion. His evasion is an admission of the truth of the charge. What can afford clearer evidence of disaffection to the doctrines mentioned by Lord Lyndhurst, than declining to make an open, full, explicit confession of them in words that will admit of no evasion, in the words of the Articles of the Church of England, or of the Westminster Confession? Deponents insist that the charge shall not be passed over; orthodoxy in these points being fundamental in this cause. None can pretend to claim the management of the Charity, or benefit from it, who do not give satisfaction as to their orthodoxy upon the points done by those who give full liberty of conscience stated by Lord Lyndhurst, and this cannot be to receive or reject these doctrines at pleasure. But this liberty is secured to all the members of the Congregational Union, by the last clause of the fifth preliminary note to the declaration of 1833,"reserving to every one the most perfect liberty of conscience." Mr. Wilson speaks of the well-known orthodox religious sentiments of the Independents. Deponents contend that there is no evidence of their orthodoxy, and suspect that orthodoxy than really exists among them. Mr. they have credit for a greater proportion of

in the Court of Chancery, October, 1836.
* One of the Independent Relators who filed an affidavit

Wilson appeals to the anxiety, labour, and expense to which the Relators submitted in conducting the suit against the Unitarians. This is an evidence of their wish to obtain possession of the property of the faith. The question still occurs, if they are sound old Presbyterians, but not of their soundness in the in the faith, why do they not profess it? rejects all human creeds, confessions, or articles of II. The body to which the Relators belong faith. In an advertisement prefixed to the aforesaid declaration of faith of 1833, and signed by the Secretaries of the Congregational Union, it is said that on Friday, May 10, 1833, "it (this declaration) was presented by that Committee, in its revised state, to the general meeting, and unanimously adopted as the declaration of the Congregational body, with the distinct understanding, that it is not intended as a test or creed for subscription ;" and-in the preliminary note there is a protestation "against subscription to any human formularies." They acknowledge no confession of faith but the Scriptures.

cinians, Unitarians, Antinomians, Presbyterians, All sects, Lutherans, Calvinists, Arians, Soand Baptists, profess to receive the Scriptures as the only foundation of their faith; but with this difference, that Lutherans, Calvinists, and (orthowhich they understand the Scriptures upon those dox) Presbyterians, express in creeds the sense in doctrines by which they are distinguished from others. The Presbyterians of Lady Hewley's time declared their adherence to the doctrines of the Westminster Confession, as is stated by Calamy and Williams. It was not till they laid aside the use of creeds and confessions that Unitarianism made much progress among them.

that their body has remained sound upon the The Independent Relators will urge in answer, doctrine of the Trinity, although they refuse subscription. But from the vague expressions of their declaration of faith, there is reason to conclude that many of their body are not sound in their views of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is also of importance to notice upon this point, that the Independents of the commencement of the eighteenth century, insisted upon subscription to the doctrine of the Trinity, not generally as expressed in Scripture, but as expressed in their minster and Savoy Confessions, and that to this own form of words, or as expressed in the Westcircumstance is to be ascribed the continued orthodoxy, for many years afterwards, of their ministers and congregations on the doctrine of the Trinity. But modern Independents, having laid aside this barrier against error, afford no security for the orthodoxy of their denomination at the present time, or pledge for the future. The admission of error is exemplified in the history of the Congregational or Independent, Churches in New England which have become almost entirely Unitarian, while the Presbyterian Churches have retained their soundness in the faith.

The design of these details is to prove that since the Independents, like the Unitarians, profess to reject all creeds or confessions in human language, exhibiting the sense in which they understand the Scriptures, respecting the great doctrines of the Divinity of Christ, Original Sin, and the Atonement, specified in Lord Lyndhurst's decree, they

the Independent Relators-are as much disqualified as Unitarians are for being Trustees of an orthodox Presbyterian charity.

(To be Continued.)

SCIENCE AND LITERATURE.-Such pursuits will not do for a man's main business, and they must be used in subordination to a clearly perceived Christian end, and looked upon as of most subordinate value, or else they become at last as fatal as absolute idleness. In fact, the house is spiritually empty, so long as the pearl of great price is not all the decorations of earthly knowledge.there, although it may be hung with Dr. Arnold, May 7, 1827.

THE WORLD'S PLEASURE.-I think the men of this world like children in a dangersport with the white foam of the waves thereous storm in the sea, that play and make of coming in to sink and drown them; so are men making fool's sport with the white pleasures of a stormy world, that will sink them. -Samuel Rutherford.

GRACE makes a heart-memory even where there is no good head-memory.-Boston.

« السابقةمتابعة »