That knew not defect, and dreamed not of would fight for the monarchy itself, they done; The comforts that cheer us not coming to stay." Presbyterianism in England; its Claims on the Sister Churches of Scotland and Ireland; two papers reprinted from the "Banner of Ulster." By the Rev. JOHN DODD, of Newry. With a Prefatory Letter to the Rev. Dr. DILL. Belfast: M'Comb. THE full title which we print at length, explains the nature and object of Mr. Dodd's pamphlet. While we are grateful to him for the warm interest he takes in our prosperity as a Church in England, we confess our inability to adopt in a sanguine manner the whole of his proposals. But we want more men amongst us of the ardour and hopefulness of Mr. Dodd, and it gives us much pleasure to lay before our readers the following passage from his pamphlet, which was written in the close of 1858. would have no such king as he was! "And English Puritanism, of the true Presbyterian type, consolidated our constitution, and in such a trial as the world never witnessed, won the battle of our civil and religious liberties. No extravagant, disjointed sect was it, but a mighty phalanx of mighty men, of whom the world was not worthy, and whose principles that world can hardly retain, after being wrought out and bequeathed to it! For the authority of law,' says Lord Macaulay, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, and for the happiness of our homes, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at His pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William Prince of Orange.' The design of the Long Parlia ment was largely completed in 1688. Thus is the character of our reforming fathers of the Church of England vindicated. And we accept the tribute of the historian to their principles and memories. As the sun of heaven takes the mists and clouds that have obscured him through the day, and converts them into a golden couch upon which he sinks into glory in the West, so have these men of God done with the calumnies of this life as they passed away into a brighter and better world. "Thy way to God commit-Him trust- And He thy brightness shall bring forth Thanks, noble Baron, for the vindication of an ancestry whose faith thou hast forsaken! They did establish our civil freedom; and if men had been as anxious about their souls as about their bodiesas tenacious of spiritual rights as of tem"England has been the battle-ground of poral ones-they would have established British Presbyterianism. The 'pith of the religious liberty of the people too. the old Puritans' was put forth on behalf Alas! the man who fights to the death for of the reasonable and Scriptural influence his civil freedom, too often gives the keepof the people in the Church as well as for ing of his soul and all its concerns into the their power in the State. The power of hands of the highest bidder for it: and the people in the civil courts, in opposition that is the reason why ecclesiastical tyranto hereditary despots, and the rights of the nies remain untouched, when political ones people in ecclesiastical courts, in opposi- are smitten to the ground. Men do not tion to irresponsible prelates-these were know, and will not learn, that true liberty the two pillars, standing on the same rock, begins in the Church, and that he alone is indissolubly grappled together, and mu- the freeman whom THE TRUTH makes free. tually defending each other, on which the In our own day, how stupidly do Neapo early Puritans began to build the temple litans, Italians, and Frenchmen, contend of the English Reformation. Constitu- for civil liberty, and yet grovel in the dust tionalism in the State, and Presbyterianism before spiritual despots. The freedom of in the Church, were cognate principles. the soul is the soul of freedom.' The springing from the same source, and gathering around them the same devoted supporters. 'No bishop, no king,' said James I., when he felt the rising power of our covenanted and Puritan forefathers, and when he saw that, although they primitive Puritans saw the relation of the two pillars. We speak of the civil one and the religious one. The one they built by their labours, and cemented with their blood. Of the melancholy effects of their failure, from no fault of theirs, in rearing the other "Thus do British Protestants of the Presbyterian type claim affinity with the first Reformers of the Church of England. Had these men not been crushed by the most revolting tyrannies, they would undoubtedly have formed their Church-government after the model of the French Reformed, the Swiss, the Dutch, and the Scotch Churches. in their church, we have seen a little. We once flourished, so has Presbyterianism are destined, I fear, to see a great deal been overthrown in England, by the foulest more. The Puseyism of England is the persecution in the first place, and by judgment of God for the treatment of its fatal error in the second. Long and nobly Puritanism, and the country's sin is now did the Puritans stand up for their faith mirrored in its suffering! and their firesides;' and when at last they fell under trials that would have crushed any people (and but for the merciful interposition of God in the advent of William Prince of Orange, would soon, in all likelihood, have crushed Scotland itself), they fell like a wave of old ocean, exhausted by the very effort to heave our liberties ashore! English Presbyterianism absolutely lost its own life in giving life to the liberty of the country. We accept the dispensation of God regarding it; but we do not cease to believe in its adaptation to England any more than in the adaptation of Protestantism to sunny France, or of Christianity itself to the plains of Asia Minor. "And thus the true origin of English Presbyterianism is to be found, according to Dr. M'Crie, not in Dissent, but in the carly Church of England itself.' We claim the fathers of the Anglican Church as our fathers, her martyred bishops as our bishops. The Confession of Faith which we subscribe, the catechisms which we teach our children, the discipline which we exercise, and the very metre Psalms which we sing in public worship, we owe to the ordained Clergy of the Church of England. We are the legitimate representatives of her early Reformers, who, but for the coercion of the civil power, would have fashioned her polity according to the pattern in the mount of God's Word, instead of yielding to king-craft at home, and imitating Popish hierarchies abroad; and we, as they did, "look not for the demolition, but the REFORMATION of the Church of England!" "How did Presbyterianism come to be so extinguished in England? what would be the consequence if it had triumphed? and what is the present duty of its friends throughout the United Kingdom? "II. What would have been the consequence to the nation if the primitive Puritanism of England had triumphed? Oh, we would then have had no unnatural rebellion against the throne. No Marston Moor or Naseby would have been fought. No royal, wretched victim would have been offered up at Whitehall! Roundheads and Cavaliers would never have met in mortal conflict. The principles of the early Puritans would have prevented all, and yet secured the object sought. Even after being defeated for the time, by the extravagance of injudicious friends, these principles have been strong enough to achieve mighty things in the land. Driven from England for a time, they laid the foundation of the great Republic of the West. Returning upon the old country, they have forced its greatness upon it. They are revolutionising the world, and a "I. How has it come to pass that Pres-terror to every tyranny upon it. Oh, from byterianism, after claiming the homage of what horrible atrocities would the early the early English Reformers prepon triumph of these principles have saved the derating for a long time in the English country; and how useless it was to oppose Parliament, and being at one time, so far them, for they have triumphed at the last! as the declaration of the government of the They are now, at least in one respect, the day could effect it, established as the na- dominant principles of the land that persetional Church-how was it so effectually cuted them! suppressed in the country? Let me an- "Then, as regards the Church. Why, if swer this question in the Irish fashion by the first contests of our English Reformers asking another-How was Protestantism in had been successful, no 'Popish dregs,' as the sixteenth century all but extinguished Knox calls them, would ever have troubled in France? The massacre of St. Bartho- the Protestantism of England. Thoroughly lomew, the revocation of the Edict of eradicated as these 'dregs' were in ScotNantes, the confiscations, imprisonments, land, no Puseyism would ever have apbutcheries, and banishments that charac- peared among the ministry; no 'priests,' terised that bloody period, tell. The or altars,' or 'confessions,' would ever leaders of the people were cut off, and weakness and errors were then necessarily felt among the members. Then, as Protestantism almost perished in France, and as Christianity itself has been extinguished where the Seven Churches of Asia Minor have been seen in the churches; no desertion, by hundreds, of the clergy and aristocracy would ever have been boasted of by the Church of Rome. Oh, for the Protestantism of the early Puritans! But they were excluded from the ministry of the Church of England; and Puseyites, by-to be consolidated into a General Assembly thousands, are now allowed to remain, of the land, holding the same faith, subeating the bread of a Protestant Church, and doing the work of a Popish one! Such would not have been the case under the regimen of the old Puritans. It would have been the Protestantism of Scotland seen in England, without a desertion, and without a shadow of turning! “III. What is the duty of British Presbyterians to the representatives of the early English Church? It consists, we conceive, in three things. In the first place, to promole a union among the different Presbyterian Churches in England. This is the want of wants. Until this be accomplished, nothing great or national can be attempted. I would as soon expect a few non-commisioned officers and lance-corporals, with out leaders and without unity of action, to fight the armies of the Czar, as a number of dissociated and rival congregations to accomplish anything great for the Protestantism or evangelisation of England. Let the different Churches which have their representatives in that land be implored to consider this, to leave ecclesiastical jealousies and national peculiarities at home, and to stand up for the idea of the Westminster Assembly-a grand IMPERIAL PRESBYTERIANISM, not for Ulster, or for North Britain, but for the United Kingdom! Why should there not be a General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in England, seizing at once the large garrison and commercial capitals of the country, and by a powerful central press at London influencing the educational and social questions of the day? And now, when Presbyterianism is united in Ireland; when it is gathering itself into unity and power in Canada and Australia; when the loud cry of the world is for the pure Protestantism, the vigorous evangelism, the civil and religious liberties which it gives is it only at the head-quarters of the world's power that our Church is to be without power? Look what might be effected in England. "There are in reality, at the time, four Synods in England mitting to the same discipline, and, in all essentials of Christianity, already one! Add to this, that there are hundreds of little Dissenting interests of various kinds, worn out by their jealousies and contentions, which would at once be associated; and who then can doubt but that our constitutional Presbyterianism, holding the balance between Democracy on the one hand, and Prelacy on the other, would be able to unfurl its banner throughout the length and breadth of the land. Oh, that God would raise up some great man for this great work! "(2.) The English Presbyterian Church should be helped at present to occupy the great cities of the land. Cardinal Wiseman leads the way in ecclesiastical tactics and general diplomacy. The 'silly people' of a purer faith would do well to follow his example. He sees the importance of occupying England. I have lately seen-last autumn in the North of England, and a few months since in the South of Englandwhat may be done by ourselves in this respect, and cordially subscribe to the statement of an experienced brother minister, that there is not a town of 10,000 inha bitants in all England in which we might not plant a church to-morrow.' Bristol is already occupied by our brethren of the United Presbyterian Church. Plymouth will soon be an important citadel for the west country. Southampton is radiating its influence not to the south only, but to the utmost extremities of our colonies. Portsmouth is admirably occupied, and will soon be the garrison church of the South of England; while Brighton is fast recovering its position, and holding out hopes of great prosperity. There wants nothing but righthearted Missionary men, and we may occupy the country from Land's End to the Tweed. Some, indeed, say that Pres byterianism is not the system for England. We could understand this if they said Irishism was not the system, and Scotchism was not the system, for England; for England has beaten both Ireland and Scot land, and in manners, language, civic polity, and military power, beats them still; but, 20 to say that England, where Presbyterianism 100 was so nobly defended at the first-where its exact counterpart in the State is so deeply 65 cherished still-and where the people this present moment are so absolutely demanding the balance of power which it gives-to say that England is not the land for constitu tional Church-government is simply a libel upon England, as well as upon our Church! The land of the Puritans is still the land for te Puritan faith and the Puritan 885 polity; and let the Presbyterian Churches 700 of Scotland and Ireland help now in demonstrating that it is so. the Romish system are good in theory, though in practice they may be dangerous. "(3.) A closer fraternal intercourse In the first place, the Scottish, like the should be established betwixt the Presby- Romish creed, is a logical unity, perfect in terian Churches of Ireland and Scotland, all its parts, and hanging together by a and the Presbyterian Church in England. rigid necessity. You cannot accept this We must regard the Presbyterian Church part of it and refuse that. The theological in England as one, even if its different sec- scheme is complete in itself. It is true tions do not allow us to style them so. that the humility of science would avoid There should be an exchange, not of the presumption of too much dogmatism speeches merely once a year, but of pulpits, in theology, too rigid a formula of the of visits, of deputations. Oh, surely it Divine. Yet the desire for systematized would be a fair outlay of Missionary money knowledge is not wrong, and the system and of Missionary labour, to organise con- adopted by the Scotch has the merit of gregations, and, I might almost say, Presby- being elastic. That system is known as teries, in the South of England at present, Calvinism, and Mr. Buckle has exhibited where, without any new language to be the Calvinism of the Scottish Kirk at its learned, or any hostile tribes or Govern- worst. The beauty of the Calvinistic sysments to be braved, or unhealthy climates tem is, that it embraces the two contradicto be risked, or delay or expense to be en- tory truths of predestination and free-will; countered, we might erect again not only the result of which is, that though theo the primitive Puritanism of our reforming retically the high Calvinism of the Covefathers, but what is of infinitely more value, nanters is identical with the low Calvinism after all, than any form of Church-govern- of the present, practically there is coninent-the gracious kingdom of our Lord siderable opposition between the two. The and Saviour Jesus Christ. Now is the Covenanters, of whose superstitions Mr. time when we are all but invited by our Buckle has so much to say, professed the Evangelical brethren of some of the dissent-two doctrines, but they put free-will in ing communions (and in whose Christian the background, and harped upon the excellence we can so thoroughly rejoice), sovereignty of the Divine decrees. The now is the time to show unto them a more excellent way' of Church polity, and one which, while holding their own faith, prevents the tyranny of any, and secures the liberty of all!" THE POPERY OF SCOTTISH PRESBYTERIANISM. MR. BUCKLE and his reviewer in the Times have discovered that, in two points at least, "the Scottish Church bears resemblance to the Romish system." The following extract from the Times is worth perusal : "Our author (Buckle) is on much safer ground when he turns from examining the means by which the Scottish Reformation was produced, to examine the nature of the change that was effected. As, in spite of our monarchical and aristocratic institutions, we believe that there is more political liberty in England than is to be found across the Atlantic under a purely republican form of government, so Mr. Buckle is correct in saying that there was and is more of the spirit of Popery in the Scottish Kirk than in the English Church, which has never shown the same extreme aversion to Popish forms. He makes this statement in general terms; but he might have pointed out that the two most important features in which the Scottish resembles Scottish clergy in our day equally subscribe to the double doctrine, but they say very little about Divine election, and lay due stress on human freedom. While the system, therefore, which now prevails is nominally one with that which Mr. Buckle has described with much liveliness as leading, in the seventeenth century, to the most extraordinary superstition, it is in reality different. That many superstitions still remain is too true; but when our author talks of the Scotch now-a-days keeping a fast rigidly, and gloating over the perdition of the human race, he is very wide of the mark. He has overlooked the fact that the doctrine of reprobation is not necessarily involved in that of predestination, which is, indeed, quite consistent with a belief in the universal redemption of mankind. Therefore it is not correct to say that the Scotch theology of this century, because it repeats the phrases and adopts the forms of the seventeenth century theology, is identical with it. There has been a great advance. The science and literature of last century have had a marked influence. The form remains, but the spirit, though bad enough, has been wonderfully changed. The mad Calvinism of the seventeenth century has been followed by the rational Calvinism of the nineteenth, and that, let us hope, will before long give place to something wider and better. The other point in which the Scottish bears resemblance to the Romish system, "It has never been fully recognised that the Scotch have been peculiarly susceptible of eloquence, and cultivate it incessantly. When the Englishman goes to church it is generally to pray; when the Scotchman goes it is chiefly to hear the sermon. In the olden time, a sermon of three or four hours' length was considered no more oppressive in its prolixity than one of Mr. Gladstone's budget speeches; and to this day most clergymen are expected to inflict at least an hour's declamation upon their audiences. Now, these sermons are nearly all genuine efforts of oratory,-that is to say, they are hardly ever read; they are very seldom written out beforehand. The English_clergyman stands up in the pulpit and reads an essay. The Scottish clergyman gets up to speak offhand; he improvises, he becomes inspired. From the days of John Knox, who was so excited as he preached, that, in the words of the chroni cler, he was like to 'ding the pulpit into blads,' to the time of that later worthy who, as the old woman said, 'had sic a power o' watter in him that he grat and he spat and he swat,' the Scotch have culti Mr. Buckle has entirely ignored, although it furnishes the true key to that mystery of mysteries, the paradox, which has puzzled him so much. The organisation of the Kirk is perfect and potent as the organisation of the Popedom. In every parish there is the minister, with his little senate of lay elders and deacons, called the Kirk-Session, who rule the congregation from week to week. Every month the Presbytery meets -being an assembly of the ministers, with a certain proportion of laymen, from a cluster of parishes. Every quarter the Presbyteries of a county meet in Synods; and every year there is a General Assembly of the whole Kirk, which is made up of ministers and elders elected by all the Presbyteries in the kingdom. The system of selfgovernment is the most complete that can be imagined, and, based as it is on public opinion, amply expressed in long discussions and elaborate voting, it is almost irresistible. In scores of conclaves, great and small, doctrines are discussed over and over again; from thousands of pulpits, and in tens of thousands of little prayer-meetings, the prevalent opinion is diffused, and in turn re-acts on Assembly, Synod, Presby-vated this power of extempore speaking, tery, and Kirk-Session. It is a mechanism and have ranked it higher than any literary of prodigious power for the diffusion of qualifications in a minister of the Gospel. opinion, and for the stamping out of heresy. Not only in the pulpits,-the same power All the parts of it act and re-act upon each is found in full activity in the universities, other with peculiar sensitiveness. There is where the system of teaching is professonothing like it in England. There is noth-rial-that is to say, oratorical, and where ing like it anywhere, save in the Catholic the formal teaching of the class-room is Church, where the organisation is equally supplemented by the informal teaching of potent, though on different principles. Mr. Buckle tells us that, on account of its prejudices and superstitions, the Scotch Kirk has come to be a byword and a reproach among educated men. If it be so, it is but fair to add that much of this reproach is due to the marvellous organisation of the Kirk, which has given an importance and an authority to views and practices that are common enough in England, though not maintained and enforced by societies adequately organised. We know south of the Tweed what a Protestant Association or an Anti-Corn Law League can effect. That, and infinitely more, the Scotch Kirk has been able to do by its organised system of preaching and debate. an extraordinary crop of debating societies. It is in this preference of oral to written communication,—this magnifying the worth of eloquence over that of books,-that we find a clue to much of the deficiency in Scottish literature during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In this preference, also, we see the source of a vast popular power. The machinery of the Kirk, its officials, its assemblies, and its elections, were highly organised, and would have been potent enough, however brought into play. The force that impelled the whole was eloquence, which is ever the most potent of powers, and which exerted its strength upon a people peculiarly open to its influence." Presbyterian Church in England. THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE. day, the 8th of October next, at six o'clock p.m., when the opening lecture will be delivered by the Rev. Dr. McCrie. The lecture will be of a popular character, and all friends are invited to attend. |