<^^ J^OF P^//,/ '^ BX 9183 .355 1901 c.l Smith, Egbert W. 1862-1944 The creed of Presbyterians li copy JL u THE APR 25 1914 CREED OF PRESBYTERIANS BY Rev. EGBERT WATSON SMITH, D.D. (THIRTY-NINTH THOUSAND.) NEW YORK THE BAKER AND TAYLOR COMPANY 33-37 East Seventeenth Street Union Square, North mit!), 5B.55., FROM WHOSE LIPS I LEARNED AND IN WHOSE LIFE I BEHELB THE BEAUTY AND POWER OF CALVINISM, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. CONTENTS PAGV I. The Creed Formulated ll n. The Creed Tested bv its Fruits 43 III. The Creed Tested by its Fruits — Contd. 119 IV. The Creed Illustrated 157 V. The Creed Catholic 189 PREFACE This is not another essay on " The Five Points." Such treatises have their place and value, but they present our system, and only the anti-Arminian part of it at that, in its bones. They furnish no adequate con- ception of that divinely vital and exuber- ant Calvinism, the creator of the modern world, the mother of heroes, saints and martyrs in number without number, which history, judging the tree by its fruits, crowns as the greatest creed of Christen- dom. This historic faith of the Presbyterian Church has in recent years been assailed with the most searching criticism, the most merciless caricature, the most vivid and eloquent abuse. That in this and every other conflict it will come off more than conqueror, we have no shadow of doubt. But these assaults have not been without effect. The popular style in which they have been urged, the air of supercilious and vii PREFACE criumphant certitude by which they have been characterized, the prominence and universal currency given them by the secu- lar press, have produced among the Pres- byterian rank and file, vv^ho have neither time nor facilities for special investigation, a vague but v^idespread feeling of uneasi- ness and apprehension. For them this book is v^ritten; to answer their questions, to fortify their faith, to arm them with facts. It will be of possible service to all who desire a general knowl- edge of the nature, history and sanctions of the Presbyterian creed. The author even ventures to hope that some of our ministers may find here material with which to build up and defend the walls of our beloved Zion. The reader who illustrates the persever- ance of the saints by perusing this book to its close, will be able, I trust, to answer that question which for nearly four cen- turies has contributed so greatly to the gayety of ecclesiastical debate, " Is Calvin- ism dead? " The Author. Greensboro, N. C, April, 1901. viii I THE CREED FORMULATED Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.' I Thess. 5: 21. THE CREED FORMULATED The Presbyterian Church has been the The martyr martyr Church of history. Though sword ^^^^<^'^- ana fagot are laid aside, she maintains her martyr pre-eminence by continuing to elicit a peculiar hostility. In popular novels, sensational sermons, and the secular press she is made the target of attack. As an acute observer has truly said, " Every v heresy in doctrine or morals works itself first or last into a frenzy against Calvinism.'* The persistence of these attacks renders The need of it important that Presbyterians should in- ^^^ '^^''"''• form themselves of the scriptural warrant and splendid history ^ of that great system ^ " We love you for your glorious history." Greet- II THE CREED FORMULATED of doctrine held by their Church, that they may be able to vindicate God's truth against error and give a reason for the faith that is in them. While we are not the only ecclesiastical body that holds this system, yet none will deny that friends and foes alike award to the Presbyterian Church, as its wreath of thorns, or its diadem of glory, the distinction of being the world's historic and leading representative of the creed of Calvinism. In this coronation we rejoice, and we would gladly attribute it to the purity in which we hold this " faith once de- livered to the saints ", and the unflinching fidelity with which in every age we have been ready to champion and to die for it. Our creed Q^j. doctrinal systcm is known as Cal- and Calvin . . vmism, not because it origmated with Cal- vin; it originated with God; but because Calvin, after Paul and possibly Augus- tine, was its ablest expounder. Misled by the name, our critics have long been in ing of the Methodist Ecumenical Conference to the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, 1892. J2 THE CREED FORMULATED the habit of quoting as part of our faith any and every view held by Calvin. Calvin's beliefs, however, form no part of our creed except in so far as they are incorporated in our Standards, which were framed nearly a century after Calvin's death. The doctrinal Standards of our Chtirch our doc- are three: the Westminster Shorter Cate- ^''^'"''^ '^'^^''^' ards. chism, the Westminster Larger Catechism, and the Westminster Confession of Faith. They are not three creeds. They are three statements, varying in form, fulness, and purpose, of one and the same creed. Each is complete in itself. Each contains all the essential truths of Scripture. Each is a complete epitome of the Calvinistic system. Whoever intelligently accepts the teachings of the Shorter Catechism is a true Calvin- ist. Should he extend his studies to the Larger Catechism and the Confession of Faith he would find in them, the same svstem of doctrine with which the briefer statements of the Shorter Catechism had already acquainted him. 13 THE CREED FORMULATED The Stand- ards and Church metn- bership. The Stand- ards and Office-bear- ers, Her doctrinal system the Presbyterian Church accentuates. She is pronouncedly and pre-eminently a doctrinal church. Yet the acceptance of her Standards she never requires of any applicant for admis- sion to her fold. Her only condition of church membership is a credible profession of faith in Christ. Calvinistic and Armin- ian believers in Christ she welcomes with equal heartiness. Her door of entrance is wide as the gate of heaven. But of her ofhce-bearers she requires doctrinal soundness. The question asked them at ordination is, " Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and the Catechisms of our Church as con- taining the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures? " This formula of subscription is liberal. It binds only to " all the essential and necessary articles." ^ " The use of the words ' system of doctrine ' in the terms of subscription precludes the Adopting Act of 1729. 14 THE CREED FORMULATED idea of the necessary acceptance of every statement in the Standards by the sub- scribers, but involves the acceptance of so much as is vital to the system as a v^hole." 2 Our doctrinal formularies are known as Name and the Westminster Standards because the fa- '^^ *nous Assembly of divines that framed them held their sessions in England's great Ab- bey of Westminster. Their labors ex- tended over five and a half years, during which time they held nearly twelve hun- dred sessions. They met in 1643, at a period in the world's history when the human intellect, for reasons known to scholars, appears to have reached the zenith of its power. The era of the Westminster Assembly was the era of Shakespeare,^ whose work stands matchless among the creations of the human imagination. It ^Southern General Assembly's answer to overture of inquiry. Minutes of 1898, p. 223. ^ Collier dates the close of the Elizabethan Era at 1659, Saintsbury and Thomas Arnold at 1660. 15 THE CREED FORMULATED was the era of the translators of the Eng- lish Bible, whose version remains the un- approachable model of the world's prose. It was the era of Francis Bacon, the author of the most epoch-making work in the his- tory of human philosophy. In its own realm of theology, the work of the West- minster divines, for comprehensive grasp of Scripture truth, for clearness, compact- ness, and power of statem.ent, is worthy a place beside these three other products of the human intellect at its flood-tide. Personnel, Xhc Westminster Assembly was a repre- sentative body, called by the English Par- liament, made up of one hundred and twenty-one divines, eleven lords, twenty commoners, from all the counties of Eng- land and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, with seven Commissioners from Scotland. Many of them jeopardized their livings by accepting the Parliament's appointment, and after the Restoration cheerfully sacrificed their earthly all for conscience' sake. It was an elect assem- i6 THE CREED FORMULATED bly. On every side were men conspicuous for learning, eloquence, and piety; profes- sors not only of the sacred but also of the secular sciences; Deans, Masters, and Heads of Colleges, Vice-Chancellors in the f great Universities. Their Moderator was Dr. Twisse, scholar and theologian of con- tinental fame, whose ruling passion may be inferred from his death-bed utterance, " Now, at length, I shall have leisure to follow my studies to all eternity." Nor were they scholars and theologians ^ alone. Amongst them were thinkers of va- rious type — orators, statesmen, hymnists, saints, men in every way qualified to voice the deepest religious convictions and em- body in symbols and institutions the intense life of that marvellous spiritual revival which produced " statesmen like Hamp- den, soldiers like Cromwell, poets like Mil- ton, preachers like Howe, theologians like Owen, dreamers like Bunyan, hymnists like - Watts, commentators like Henry, saints like Baxter." I? THE CREED FORMULATED '*A cloud of Milton, though not a member of the As- wiinessesr sembly, pronounced it a " select assembly ", "of so much piety and wisdom", a "learned and memorable synod ", in which " piety, learning, and prudence were housed ". The famous saint and scholar, Richard Baxter, author of " The Saints' Everlast- ing Rest ", had every reason to be impartial. He wrote: "The divines there congregated were men of eminent learning, godliness, ministerial abilities, and fidelity; and being not worthy to be one of them myself, I may the more freely speak the truth, which I know, even in the face of malice and envy, that as far as I am able to judge by the in- formation of all history of that kind, and by any other evidences left us, the Christian world, since the days of the Apostles, had never a synod of more excellent divines." Philip Schaff, the great church historian, pronounces the above a " just tribute " to the Westminster Assembly, and says: " Whether we look at the extent or ability of its labors, or its influence upon future i8 THE CREED FORMULATED generations, it stands first among Protes- tant Councils." The celebrated Dean Stanley, of the Eng- lish Episcopal Church, declares that of all Protestant Confessions the Westminster Confession " exhibits far more depth of theological insight than any other ". The late Dr. Curry, the eminent editor of the " Methodist Advocate " of New York, in an editorial on Creeds, calls '' the West- minster Confession the ablest, clearest, and most comprehensive system of Christian doctrine ever framed — a wonderful monu- ment of the intellectual greatness of its framers ". The Assembly had to assist them in their Background. work all the creeds of past ages, from the Apostles' Creed, formed in the early cen- turies, down to the noble Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation period. The great Reformers, coming with fresh and eager eyes to the study of the newly opened Bible, and taking that alone as their rule of faith, were all Calvinists in theol- IQ THE CREED FORMULATED ogy. For the same reason the people and Church of England were Calvinistic. *' The Bible ", says the historian Green, " was, as yet, the one book which was familiar to every Englishman, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened to their force and beauty, kindled a startling enthusiasm. The whole moral efifect which is produced nowadays by the religious newspaper, the tract, the essay, the missionary report, the sermon, was then produced by the Bible alone; and its effect in this way, however dispassion- ately we examine it, was simply amazing. The whole nation became a church. The problems of life and death, whose question- ings found no answer in the higher minds of Shakespeare's day, pressed for an answer not only from noble and scholar, but from farmer and shopkeeper in the age that fol- lowed him. The answer they found was al- most of necessity a Calvinistic answer." * * " Hist. Eng. People " (American Publishers' Cor- poration), vol. III. p. 405. 20 THE CREED FORMULATED The work before the Assembly, there- The Assem- fore, was not the creation of a new system, ^^^'^ ^'"'^'" but the formulation of doctrines already familiar, precious, and baptized in the blood of a hundred thousand martyrs. Its task was to give to the accepted Bible system of truth a complete, impregnable state- ment, to serve as a bulwark against error, as a basis of ecclesiastical fellowship and co-operation, and as a safe and effective in- strument for the religious instruction of the people of God and their children. The popular notion that the Westmin- Ethical ster Standards consist of dry abstract dog- ^"'^^^^y- mas, with little or no bearing upon life and duty, is a mistake. Their ethical quality is prominent and all-pervading. With them, as with the Bible, truth is in or- der to godliness. Nearly one half of the Confession and more than one half of both Catechisms deal directly with the practical " duty which God requires of man ". That God's holy law covers every part and parti- cle of our lives, and that to Him we must 21 THE CREED FORMULATED forever be accountable for our obedience or disobedience thereto, rolls like a sublime and conscience-stirring music through all the work of the Westminster divines. No other creed in existence has an article or chapter on the Divine Law comparable to that of the Confession, and nowhere else in Christian symbolism can be found such an unfolding of the heart-searching claims of that law as is given in the exposition by the two Catechisms of the Ten Command- ments. spiritual Whoever would understand the believ- er's relation to Christ and the various stages of genuine Christian experience will find in chapters xi to xviii of the Confes- sion a presentation of that great theme unmatched by any other creed in Christen- dom, compact yet complete, profound yet crystallinely clear, constituting the true doctrine of the Christian life as held sub- stantially by evangelical Christendom and the subject-matter of the best evangelical preaching of this and every preceding age. 22 vitality. THE CREED FORMULATED No reference is made in our Standards to any antagonistic opinion held by any evangelical communion. Their tone is irenic. They were born, not of contro- versy, but of consecration. Framed '' when the church was still under the happy influ- ence of a marvellous revival, when the Word of God was felt as a living, quicken- ing, transforming power, and preached not as a tradition, but as the very power and wisdom of God"; and "by men of ripe scholarship and devoted piety, who have remained our models of earnest preaching and our guides in practical godliness, even unto this day ",^ they read as if every para- graph had been written in the conscious- ness of God's presence. Strikingly unlike many modern milk-and-water treatises on religion they undoubtedly are. Their pri- m.ary appeal is not to the emotions but to the intellect. Their chief purpose Is to de- fine truth, not to apply it. Their proper *" Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines." Introduction, p. Ixxv. 23 THE CREED FORMULATED function is not that of a sermon or a prayer, but of a test, a testimony, a text-book. Yet so packed and throbbing are they with the vital truths of God's Word, such stress they place on personal union to Christ as the ex- planation of our being made partakers of the benefits of redemption, such space and prominence they give to the claims of God's moral law, that they are admirably fitted to be, as for two hundred and fifty years they have been, the spiritual food of stal- wart souls, the nurse of a supremely mas- sive and masculine type of piety. There are three things which, in addition to their character, genius, and learning, must ever commend the Westminster As- sembly to our confidence. First, the care and thoroughness with which they performed their work. Consider, for example, the labor ex- pended upon the Catechisms. Catechism- making was no new work to the members of that Assembly. Theirs was an age exer- cised and trained beyond any previous or 24 THE CREED FORMULATED succeeding age in the construction of doc- trinal manuals. For a hundred years Luther, Calvin, Ursinus, and a score more of the brightest intellects of the Reforma- tion had been devoting their best energies to the production of catechisms for the in- struction of the people. Fourteen of the members of the Assembly were themselves authors of excellent and widely useful cate- chisms. All the ripe fruits and long train- ing, therefore, of the most catechetical cen- tury in the world's history the Assembly had as a basis and preparation for its work. Early in the sessions of the Assembly a striving committee of known proficients in such *^ft'^pe^'-f'^<' tion. work was appomted to begin the undertak- ing. They made their report, but it was not accepted by the Assembly. New mem- bers were added to the committee. After much deliberation a second report was sub- mitted. Still the Assembly was not satis- fied. The committee was again changed. After long labor a third report was pre- sented. For three months the Assembly 25 THE CREED FORMULATED had this catechism under review and dis- cussion. It was approved almost to the end, when again the Assembly became dis- satisfied and determined to make a fourth effort to secure something still nearer per- fect. The committee was reconstituted with a large addition of new members, and was instructed to prepare two catechisms, one larger for advanced students, and an- other '' more easie and short for new be- ginners ". But spite of past labors nearly two years more of alternate report and re- vision were required before the last of the catechisms was completed to the satisfac- tion of the Assembly. The Larger was completed first. The Shorter was not only the last of the Catechisms, it was the last finished work of the Assembly. In it the Westminster divines achieved their great- est triumph. It is the consummate flower of all their labors. The West' Thus for fivc years committees of the minster vs. Assembly, and the Assembly itself, labored other Gate- •' "^ . . chisms. Upon these two little books, subiectmg 26 THE CREED FORMULATED every sentence, every word to the most minute and searching scrutiny. It is not too much to say that there is probably not another catechism in the world on which one tenth of the time and labor and ability and learning was expended that were em- ployed in the production of these two with which God has so highly blessed our Church. They are the work not of one man, as Luther's and Calvin's; nor of two men, as the Heidelberg Catechism was; nor of four, as was the Catechism of the Church of Rome; but they are the product of five years of the most earnest and careful de- liberations of the whole Westminster As- sembly.^ Equal thought and care were bestowed The viirror upon the Confession. Every statement, ^-^ every alteration suggested, was examined through years of concentrated study till the entire Assembly was of one mind and fully agreed as to both doctrine and expression. * ' Nature and Value of the Catechisms.'' Strick- ler. 27 THE CREED FORMULATED All that training the most complete and thorough, learning the most profound and extensive, intellect the most acute and searching, co-operation the most wide and helpful, labor the most intense and pro- tracted, could do to make our Standards the perfect mirror of Scripture truth, was done. Second char- j\ sccoud leading characteristic of the "prrirflii- Westminster Assembly was their prayerful ness. dependence upon God for light and guid- ance. Two traditions have come down to us, w'hich, while of disputed authenticity, yet represent truly the spirit of prayer that per- vaded the Assembly. More light, On one occasion the famous John Sel- den, an encyclopedic scholar and brilliant orator, addressed the Assembly to prove that excommunication was a function not of the spiritual but of the civil authority. It was a vital question involving the spirit- ual independence of the Church. The issue turned on the interpretation of Matt. i8 : 28 Lord THE CREED FORMULATED 15-17. Seidell's speech was subtle and powerful. It displayed a vast acquaintance with patristic and rabbinical lore. At its close the Assembly seemed to hesitate. The saintly Samuel Rutherford, who was a member, turned to George Gillespie, the youngest man in the body, and said, " Rise, George; rise up, man, and defend the right of the Lord Jesus to govern by His own laws the Church He has purchased with His blood." Thus adjured, Gillespie arose, and delivered a speech whose effect per- haps has never been surpassed. Selden's argument he utterly annihilated, proving by seven distinct lines of reasoning, all purely scriptural, that the passage in Mat- thew was not civil but spiritual in its im- port. At the conclusion of his argument Selden exclaimed, '' That young man by his single 'speech has swept away the labors of ten years of my life." While Selden was speaking a friend had observed Gillespie apparently making notes upon the paper before him. When examined the notes 29 THE CREED FORMULATED proved to be only this prayer: " More light, Lord! More light, Lord!" 'l^^^f^^ According to a familiar tradition, the Shorter Catechism's incomparable defini- tion of God was literally born of prayer. To that great question, " What is God? " the Catechism Committee had found them- selves unable to construct a satisfactory answer. The question had been referred to the Committee of the Whole. They, too, had failed. Then one of the mem- bers was called on to lead in special prayer for divine enlightenment. Rising, he thus began: '' O God, Who art a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in Thy being, wisdom, power, holiness, jus- tice, goodness, and truth." When this matchless invocation fell upon their ears the Assembly felt at once that it was God's own answer, given in prayer and to prayer, descriptive of Himself. Wrestling in Not ouly did the Assembly both as a praver. body and as individuals habitually look to God for special guidance in special diffi- 30 THE CREED FORMULATED culties, not only were the daily sessions opened and closed with prayer, but regu- larly every month throughout the five and a half years of its labors all business was suspended that an entire day might be given to fasting and prayer. It seems al- most incredible to us that they should have remained in continuous devotional worship from morning till evening, wrestling with God often for two hours together in un- broken supplication; but in those times when all the interests of Christ's Kingdom seemed to be at stake, men realized their need of Divine help, and when once at the throne of grace knew not how to come away till the blessing was obtained. It is probably not an exaggeration to say with Dr. C. A. Briggs that " such a band of preaching and praying ministers as gath- ered in the Westminster Assembly the world had never seen before." No body of men ever felt more profoundly their de- pendence upon God, or sought more ear- nestly and habitually the guidance of His Spirit. 31 THE CREED FORMULATED Third char- The third most striking characteristic of ^L^lT'^to ^^^ Westminster Assembly was their loyalty Scripture, to Scnpture. The Bible The first topic of which the Confession of ^b\^h n't! -^^^^^ treats is the Divine inspiration, au- thority, and sufficiency of the Word of God. In its forefront stands this declaration: " The Supreme Judge, by which all contro- versies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and pri- vate spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture." '^ Every member was required to take the following vow, which was read afresh every Monday morning that its solemn influence might be constantly felt: '' I do seriously promise and vow, in the presence of Al- mighty God, that in this Assembly whereof I am a member, I will maintain nothing in ' Chap. I, section lo. 32 THE CREED FORMULATED point of doctrine but what I believe to be most agreeable to the Word of God." One of the cardinal regulations of the Assembly was in these words: '' What any man undertakes to prove as necessary, he shall make good out of Scripture." The Westminster divines were consum- The stand- mate masters of philosophy. They were '^'^'°'*^ philosophy. familiar with the great schools of human thought from Plato and Aristotle down to Bacon and Descartes. But in framing these Standards their one and only aim was to express the mind of Scripture. In their whole system- of doctrine no tinge of human philosophy is apparent. Says Dr. Fisher of Yale University: *' One prime characteristic of Calvin's system is the steadfast consistent adoption of the BiWe as the sole standard of doctrine." • So in our Standards there is not a para- graph which affords a hint of what philo- sophical school the Assembly favored. Even those questions where Scripture and ""The Reformation", p. 199. 33 THE CREED FORMULATED philosophy intermingle were determined by the Assembly always and exclusively on biblical grounds. The Un- And herein appears the Divine wisdom "undlfion ^y which they were guided. Human phi- losophies are ever changing. A system founded upon them must soon appear to totter, and to need amendment or recon- struction. " But the Word of God liveth and abideth forever." The structure which is built exclusively upon this is, like it, permanent. '' In this ", declares a great Presbyterian theologian, '' we find the chief glory and value of our Standards." ^^ For this reason they will need radical change only when the Bible needs it. The offense There are hard sayings in our Standards because there are hard sayings in the Bible. Some doctrines for which the Presbyterian Church stands are among the '^ hard things to be understood " of which '' our beloved brother Paul wrote ". " This is a hard say- ing, who can hear it? " So said many in *°" Memorial of Westminster Assembly ", p. 94. 34 THE CREED FORMULATED Christ's day of Christ's teaching. They were offended. They walked no more with Him. Like many in our own day, they de- manded a religion " more Christian than Christianity and more Christlike than Christ ". Just so the unflinching scriptural- ness of our creed, its faithful mirroring of the mind of Christ revealed by His Spirit in His Word, is the reason why it never has been, is not, and never will be popular with the rationalistic and unregenerate world. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." ^^ The offense of the Word is as undying as the offense of the Cross. Every statement of essential Calvinistic chief cham doctrine in our Standards the Bible ^yx)^- pion and vtariyr, stantiates by equally bold and bald state- ments of its own. Yet the former is the chosen object of attack. The reason is plain. In a Christian land, where the Scrip- tures are widely reverenced, it is cheaper rmd safer to assault the Presbyterian Stand- " I Cor. 2 : 14. 35 THE CREED FORMULATED ards than to assault the Bible. Hence it is that the Presbyterian Church has always sustained the brunt of the fight for the in- tegrity of God's truth. " We gratefully ac- knowledge ", said the Wesleyan Methodist Conference in its address to the Presbyte- rian Alliance, " the faithful and unfaltering testimony which your Church has borne throughout her entire history on behalf of the divine inspiration and authority of the Word of God." Said the Baptist Associa- tion in its greeting to the same body: *' The Presbyterian Church has been the magnifi- cent defender of the Word of God through- out the ages." Above all others, she has borne, bears now, and will continue to bear, on her name the odium, and upon her per- son the blows, provoked by and aimed against the Word of God. Humbly yet proudly she can say to her Lord, " The re- proaches of them that reproached Thee fell on me." The proposed j^^^ ^q Presbytcrian be alarmed over tfie proposed revision of the Confession of 36 revtstct THE CREED FORMULATED Faith. In regard to marriage with a de- ceased wife's sister and the duties of civil magistrates the Confession has already- been twice revised. But neither the past nor the proposed revision has impaired or will impair in any way the integrity of our Calvinistic system of doctrine. The Revision Committee appointed \mn the North- 1890 by the Northern Presbyterian Church''''^ Church. brought in after two years' deliberation a report recommending twenty-eight changes in the Confession. These pro- posed changes, most of them very slight, involved no reconstruction of the Confes- sional system of doctrine. This the pro- posed revision would not have changed; just as the Revised Version of the Scrip- tures has not changed the doctrinal sys- tem contained in the Authorized Version, which, by the way, is only thirty-six years older than our Confession. The Northern General Assembly in the spring of 1900 appointed a large commit- tee to consider again the question of re- 37 THE CREED FORMULATED vision and report to the Assembly of 1901. Seven months later this Committee, hav- ing thoroughly examined the answers made by the Presbyteries at their fall meet- ings to the General Assembly's inquiry touching their attitude toward the question of revision, reported that while the 'returns clearly indicated that the Church desired some change in its creedal statement, either by revision, or supplemental state- ment, or both, yet '' the returns indicate plainly that no change is desired which would in any way impair the integrity of the system of doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith." In the South- The last Southern General Assembly was opposed to any change whatever in the Confession. It directed, however, that in future editions the following statement be printed as a foot-note to chap, x, para- graph 3: '' The language of the Confession cannot by any fair interpretation be con- strued as teaching that any of those who die in infancy are lost." Whether the or- 38 THE CREED FORMULATED dering by an Assembly of foot-notes to the Confession be a constitutional and wise procedure, future Assemblies will decide. As regards, however, the teaching of the Confession concerning the salvation of in- fants dying in infancy, the proposed foot- note clearly expresses the unanimous judg- ment of the highest court of the Presbyte- rian Church. Amid this revisional agitation the reader Not a gues- should never lose sight of the fact that the ^^'^'^ of ortho^ doxy. Confession is only one of our Standards. The Shorter Catechism, to say nothing of the Larger, is as soundly Calvinistic as the Confession, yet no revision of the Cate- chisms has ever been proposed or thought of. The question at issue, therefore, is not a question of orthodoxy, and no Presbyte- rian need be alarmed for the integrity of that historic and Scriptural system on which and for which his Church has stood from the beginning, and will surely stand to the end. 39 II THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS '■'■By their fruits ye shall know them." — Matt. 7 : 20. II THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS We propose now to submit the doctrinal The decisive system incorporated in, though far older *^^^' than, the Westminster Standards, to a sim- ple yet decisive test, a test endorsed by the common sense of mankind and the au- thority of Christ, the test of practical results. In his celebrated essay on Calvinism Froude says: " The practical effect of a be- lief is the real test of its soundness." ^ In His Sermon on the Mount our Lord de- clares, " Ye shall know them by their fruits." As a fruit-bearer, as a character-builder, as a purifying and uplifting force in the life of men and nations, how does Calvinism * " Short .studies on Great Subjects ", p. II. 43 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS rank with other doctrinal systems? We re- ply, it stands foremost of them all. I. The superior moral power of Calvin- ism we should infer, even without the aid of history, from the inherent character and tendency of its teaching. It is a system distinguished superem- inently by its exaltation of God. " A pro- found sense of the exaltation of God ", says Dr. George P. Fisher of Yale, '' is the key- note of Calvinism." ^ The glory of the Lord God Almighty is its unifying all-per- vading principle, the blazing sun and cen- tre of the system. Not bare sovereignty, arbitrary will, naked power, but a personal God of grace, the God revealed in Christ, is the God of Calvinism. It adores Him as the Absolute and Ever-Blessed Sovereign, infinitely worthy of love, worship, and obe- dience, " Who doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, "• The Reformation", p. 20i. 44 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy." ' The keynote of the whole system is struck in the first question of the Shorter Cate- chism: "What is the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever." ^ *' Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done ", is the threefold petition which expresses the heart of Calvinism. As one has said, " In all place, in all time, from eternity to eternity, Calvinism sees God." From its absorbed and adoring view of Caivinisv. God comes Calvinism's conscientiousness, ^^^ ^^^^^ its deep and dominant sense of duty and re- sponsibility. The Ever-Blessed is the Ever- ' " Confession of Faith ", Chap. V, section i. *Said Thomas Carlyle in speaking against modern materialism: "The older I grow — and I now stand upon the brink of eternity — the more comes back to me the first sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes : ' What is the chief, end of man ? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.' " 45 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Present God, under Whose eye, in Whose fellowship, for Whose glory, and subject to Whose review, the whole of human life is to be lived. *' Calvinism ", says Prof. Fiske of Harvard, " leaves the individual man alone in the presence of his God." ^ Beyond all example, it intensifies man's in- dividuality. In a clear and overpowering light it shows his responsibility to God, and his relations to eternity. Its aim is not sen- sation, but conviction. Feeling or no feel- ing, at the soul's unspeakable peril, God's commands must be obeyed; God's will must be done. Not, is it pleasant, or pop- ular, or profitable; but, is it right? Is it what God would have me do? This is Cal- vinism's first question. " Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." ^ This is the Calvinistic program, illustrated in Paul, saying with his heart in his voice, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me *" The Beginnings of New England", p. 58. ®I Cor. 10:31. 46 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS to do? "; in Calvin, of whom Jules Michelet says, " He felt and lived like a man before whom the whole earth disappears, and who tunes his last psalm, his whole eye fixed upon the eye of God "; in Knox, of whom Carlyle says, '' The fixed centre of all his thoughts and actions was to do the will of God and tremble at nothing "; in the Puri- tans, whose diligence in searching the Scrip- tures, Green says, " sprang from their ear- nestness to discover a Divine will which in all things, great or small, they might im- plicitly obey ", in whom Taine tells us " conscience only spoke " and in whose eyes '' God and duty were but one "; in the Calvinists in general, whose ''system", says Henry Ward Beecher, has '' no equal in in- tensifying to the last degree ideas of moral excellence and purity ", and whose supe- riority to men of other creeds, says James Russell Lowell, lies " in the prevalent sense of duty, in high ideals, in inflexible prin- ciples, in living " 'As ever in theii great Taskmaster's eye.' " 47 a nd sin. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS From its supreme exaltation of God springs logically and scripturally Calvin- ism's doctrine of sin and grace. Calvinism In proportion as God is great and glori- ous Calvinism recognizes the sin of man to be heinous and fatal. Its enormity and ill desert are beyond man's calculation or conception.*^ It is recreancy to his supreme *** Recently a distinguished preacher of the Metho- dist Church remarked to me that he thought the doc- trine of entire sanctification as taught by its recent advocates bore a much closer affinity to Calvinism than to Arminianism. ' How do you account for the fact*, I asked, 'that it spread so readily among the Methodist churches, and can get no foothold in Presbyterian churches?' He replied that he had tried to explain the fact and had been unable. Whereupon I suggested that if the people were once indoctrinated with the Calvinistic idea of the utterly loathsome and deadlj' nature of sin, they could never be convinced that it was possible to get rid of it by any such easy and sudden process as that offered by the holiness brethren. He admitted that this was probably the true explanation. Undoubtedly Calvin- nism brands sin with a deeper infamy than any other school of theology. By as much as it emphasizes the hatefulness of sin, by so much does it emphasize the love of God, of which sinners are the object." (Reed, "The Gospel as Taught by Calvin", p. 129.) 48 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS relation. It is rebellion against the right- ful authority of the Greatest and Best of beings. It is self-separation and estrange- ment from the Source of Truth and Life. Impenitent man is guilty, lost, '' dead in trespasses and sins ". Left to himself his condition is one of hopeless condemnation and misery. Thus Calvinism drags down all pride and carnal security and prostrates man at the foot of the cross, a suppliant for mercy. In answer to his suppliant cry,^ it reveals Calvinism a salvation which is all of grace,^ the free ^''^^''''<^'- We supplement Dr. Reed's explanation with the remark that people who have been rightly taught in childhood "what is required " and "what is forbid- den " in the Decalogue will ever after be slow to be- lieve that any " mere man. since the fall, is able per- fectly in this life to keep the commandments of God." • *' Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Rom. 10:13. •" For by grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God : not of works, lest any man should boast ; for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Eph. 2 : 8, 9, 10. 49 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS gift of God's love and mercy in Christ.^ ^ In His hands are all its blessings placed, the Spirit of life, pardon and justifying right- eousness, sanctifying, establishing, com- forting, glorifying grace, resurrection, and eternal life, and from those pierced hands are all received. From first to last salva- tion is " of the Lord ", of Whom, and through Whom, and to Whom are all things, that His may be the glory ever- more. No inch of ground is left for human boasting.^^ The sinner does not save him- self. It is God that saves him with a salva- tion free,^^ present,^^ complete,^^ and ever- lasting.^^ He embraces the sinner in the ^° " God, who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but accord- ing to His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 2 Tim. i : 9. ""Where is boasting then? It is excluded." RDm. 3: 27. 12 " The gift of God is eternal life." Rom. 6 : 23. '="* He that believeth on Me hath everlasting life." John 6 : 47. " " Ye are complete in Him." Col. 2 : 10. i5««i give unto them eternal life and they shalJ never perish." John 10 : 28. 50 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS arms of unchanging love.^^ He secures him by the bonds of an everlasting covenant.^^ He gives him an inaHenable place in the family of God.^^ He sets before him an unclouded prospect of final victory and eternal joy.^^ He guarantees that all things shall work together for his good.^^ ^*"For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to sepa- rate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom. 8 : 38, 39. " " The mountains shall depart and the hills be re- moved, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." Is. 54 : 10. ^^ " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what wc shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." i Jno. 3 : 2. ^* " An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto sal- vation ready to be revealed in the last time, wherein ye greatly rejoice." i Pet. i : 4, 5, 6. ^•^"We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose ; for whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first- 51 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS He shows him his name in the Book of Life, and reveals to him that he was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world that he should be holy and without blame before Him in love.^^ Upon his mind there breaks the amazing truth that before crea- tion's dawn, before the morning stars sang together, or ever the sons of God shouted for joy, away back " in the beginning ", God had a thought of him, and that thought was love.^^ Before He found a place for the universe in His hand, He had found a place for him in His heart.^^ born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He also justified, and whom He justi- fied, them He also glorified." Rom. 8 : 28-30. " " He hath chosen us in Christ before the founda- tion of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself." Eph. 1:4, 5. ^ " But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salva- tion through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." 2 Thess. 2 : 13. ' *' Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, 52 lueror. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Thus, while Calvinism abases man as a " More than sinner, it glorifies him in Christ as a be- '^'''^^^ liever, lifts him to inconceivable exaltation, commands the universe for him. His feet plucked from the horrible pit and planted on the Eternal Rock, his heart thrilled with an adoring gratitude, his soul conscious of a Divine love that will never forsake him and a Divine energy that in him and through him is working out eternal pur- poses of good,^^ he is girded with invinci- ble strength. In a nobler sense than Na- poleon ever dreamed, he knows himself to be a " man of destiny ". Alone among men he may be, but only more consciously allied with God. Danger may meet him, but without God's permission it cannot touch him. Death may threaten, but he is im- mortal till his work is done. Feeble his strength and fruitless his efiforts may ap- pear, but put forth in accordance with therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee," Jer. 3T : 3- 2*" [t is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." Phil. 2 : 13. 53 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS God's command they are the predestmed means to the predestined end. Hence to his work and warfare he goes forth shielded by a panoply more invulnerable, and nerved by a courag-e more unconquerable, than any other faith could bestow. 2. The actual fruits of Calvinism, as set forth in history, are precisely - what we should expect from the character of its doc- trines. Unequalled Calviuism has nerved more men and ml'ri'rs womcu to die for Christ, with thanksgiving in their hearts and psalms upon their lips, than any other creed. Its unequalled array of martyrs is one of its crowns of glory. As the Methodist Conference said, in its address to the Presbyterian Alliance of 1896: " Your Church has furnished the memorable and inspiriting spectacle, not simply of a solitary heroic soul here and there, but of generations of faithful souls ready for the sake of Christ and His truth to go cheerfully to prison and to death. This rare honor you rightly esteem as the 54 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS most precious part of your priceless herit- age." In those centuries, when spiritual tyranny was numbering its victims by the hundreds of thousands; when in England, Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, France, men had to recant their faith or seal their testimony with their blood, nearly all the martyrs were Calvinists. Says a careful writer: " There is no other system of re- ligion in the world which has such a glori- ous array of martyrs to the faith. Almost every man and woman who walked to the flames rather than deny the faith or leave a stain on conscience was the devout fol- lower, not only and first of all of the Son of God, but also of that minister of God who made Geneva the light of Europe, John Calvin." 25 The heroic moral energy inspired by Cal- " Things vinism has been the admiration of histo- "" "'f'^ "[f^^' natural, rians. Motley, the famous historian of the Dutch Republic, himself allied in no way with Calvinism, declares that " the doctrine ^^McFetridge, "Calvinism in History", p. 113. 55 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS of predestination, the consciousness of be- ing chosen soldiers of Christ, inspired the Puritans (Calvinists) who founded the com- monwealths of England, of Holland, and of America, with a contempt of toil, danger, and death, which enabled them to accom- plish things almost supernatural." ^^ Its effect he describes as " that sublime enthu- siasm which on either side the ocean ever confronted tyranny with dauntless front, and welcomed death on battlefield, scaf- fold or rack with perfect composure." ^^ *' Highest John Morlcy, the eminent English au- g fines 9j e ^^^^ ^^^ Statesman, being: the adherent of human con- ' ^ science:' no religious creed, cannot be suspected of theological bias. " Calvinism ", he says, " has inspired incomparable energy, con- centration, resolution." " It has exalted its votaries to a pitch of heroic moral energy that has never been surpassed." " They have exhibited an active courage, a resolute endurance, a cheerful self-restraint, an ex* ''^"The United Netherlands", vol. IV, p. 54*» 5^ THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ulting- self-sacrifice, that men count among the highest glories of the human con- science." ^^ The late James Anthony Froude was one Fr0ude, of England's most gifted historians and men of letters. He occupied the Chair of History at Oxford, England's greatest uni- versity. The ignorant attacks upon Calvin- ism which have been the fashion in recent years excited in him. the scholar's just im- patience. Against the inferences and mis- representations of prejudice he set the ver- dict of history. From partisan logic he ap- pealed to facts. Himself not theologically committed in any way as regards Calvin- ism, his impartiality is as far above suspi- cion as his ability and learning are beyond question. ** I am going to ask you ", says Froude, The appeal "to consider, if Calvinism be, as we are ^'^Z'*''^"^* told, fatal to morality, how it came to pass that the first symptom of its operation, 28 "Oliver Cromwell", The Century Magazine, De- cember, 1899. 57 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS wherever it established itself, was to oblit- erate the distinction between sins and crimes, and to make the moral law the rule of life for States as well as persons? I shall ask you, again, why, if it be a creed of in- tellectual servitude, it was able to inspire and maintain the bravest efiforts ever made to break the yoke of unjust authority? When all else has failed; when patriotism has covered its face, and human courage has broken down; when intellect has yielded, as Gibbon says, ' with a smile or a sigh ', content to philosophize in the closet or abroad worship with the vulgar; when emotion, and sentiment, and tender imaginative piety have become the hand- maids of superstition, and have dreamt themselves into forgetfulness that there is any difiference between lies and truth, the slavish form of belief called Calvinism, in one or other of its many forms, has borne ever an inflexible front to illusion and men- dacity, and has preferred rather to be ground to powder like flint than to bend 58 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS before violence or melt under enervating temptation." ^^ " The Calvinists ", says Froude, " ab- horred, as no body of men ever more ab- horred, all conscious mendacity, all impur ity, all moral wrong of every kind so far as they could recognize it. Whatever exists at this moment in England and Scotland of conscientious fear of doing evil is the rem- " nant of the convictions which were branded by the Calvinists into the people's hearts." ^^ As illustrating the type of character pro- r^^p^ of duced by Calvinism, Froude names Will- <:haracter iam the Silent, Luther,^^ Knox, Andrew Melville, the Regent Murray, CoHgny, Cromwell, Milton, Bunyan. '' These were men ", he says, " possessed of all the quali- ties which give nobility and grandeur to human nature — men whose life was as up- right as their intellect was commanding "*' Short Studies on Great Subjects", p. 13. »«Id..p. 50. '^ Luther's doctrine of Divine Grace, Sovereignty, and Predestination was thoroughly Calvinistic. 59 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS and their public aims untainted with selfish- ness; unalterably just where duty required' them to be stern, but with the tenderness of a woman in their hearts; frank, true, cheer- ful, humorous, as unlike sour fanatics as it is possible to imagine any one, and able in some way to sound the keynote to which every brave and faithful heart in Europe in- stinctively vibrated." ^^ '{istory vs. With thcsc deliberate statements of Ox- fiaion. ford's great Professor of History, compare the representations of those popular pro- fessional story-tellers, whose only weapon is caricature, and in whose novels the Cal- vinistic characters are nearly all oddities, cranks, fanatics, fools, or savages. Prejudice vs. Yov the enlightenment of the critics of Calvinism, Froude adds, " Grapes do not grow on bramble-bushes. Illustrious na- tures do not form themselves on narrow and cruel theories. Where we find a heroic life appearing as the uniform fruit of a par- ticular mode of opinion, it is childish to '2 ♦* Short Studies on Great Subjects ", p. 14. 60 fact. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS argue in the face of fact that the result ought to have been different." ^^ As a complement to the masculine illus- Caivinistu trations cited by Froude of the Calvinistic '^"^'^^hood. character, we quote the following from Dr. L. P. Bowen: " Calvinism has moulded God's own type of womanhood; worth without vanity, self-sacrifice without self- righteousness, zealous service without im- modesty, strong convictions without ef- frontery, human loveliness heig'htened and softened by heavenly-mindedness." " The world has never known ", says an able modern scholar, '' a higher type of robust and sturdy manhood, nor a gentler, purer, or more lovable womanhood, than have prevailed among those peoples who have imbibed the principles of the Calvinistic creed, with its commingled elements of granitic strength and stability, and of su- preme, because Divine, tenderness and grace." ^4 '"'Short Studies on Great Subjects", p. 14. "Wilson's "Theology of Modern Literature *', p. 278. 61 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The best To the Unequalled excellence of the Cal- vinistic type of character, the Encyclopaedia Britannica^^ bears unwilling witness. In its prejudiced article on '.' Predestination " it '' feels bound in justice to make this re- mark ", th^t Calvinists have been " the highest honor of their own ages and the best models for imitation for every succeed- ing age." *\Monumeny Said Henry Ward Beecher, in one of tal ina>ble'\ ., r i • • n -\ ir the sermons of his pnme: Men may talk as much as they please against the Calvinists and Puritans and Presbyterians, but you will find when they want to make an investment they have no objection to Calvinism or Puritanism or Presbyte- rianism. They know that where these systems prevail, where the doctrine of men's obligation to God and man is taught and practiced, there their capital may be safely invested;" '' They tell us ", he continues, " that Calvinism plies men '* Early edition, quoted in Smyth's " Ecclesiastical Republicanism", p. 310. 62 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS with hammer and with chisel. It does; and the result is monumental marble. Other systems leave men soft and dirty; Calvin- ism makes them of white marble, to endure forever." The vast knowledge and piercing insight '' Noblest ic. , of Thomas Carlyle none will dispute. His ^^' ^^^''^^•" mature conclusion, after a lifetime of his- torical and biographical study, was that " Calvinism had produced in all countries in which it really dominated a definite type of character and conception of morals which was the noblest that had yet ap- peared in the world." ^^ A review of the peoples and communities whose character Calvinism has moulded will attest the truth of Carlyle's conclusion. IN ENGLAND. Consider that noble body of English Cal- The English vmists w'hose msistence upon a purer torm of worship and a purer life won for them ^W. H. Lecky's " The Map of Life", 1900,. p. 51. 63 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS th€ nickname, Puritans, " perhaps the most remarkable body of men ", says Macaulay, *' which the world has ever produced." ^^ Out of their " impassioned Calvinism ", as Taine describes their faith, sprang their adoring love and reverence for God. Sov- ereign in right and in fact He was to them. ** To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him '*, says Macaulay, '' was with them the great end of existence." ^^ " This was all their care, To stand approved in sight of God, tho' worlds Judged them perverse." " Their theory of life ", says Bayne, " was that man's chief end is not to amuse or to be amused, not to create or experience sen- sation, but to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." ^^ They were men of " celestial purpose, of hallowed imagination, of faith in the Unseen, the Eternal, the Divine." Tke Puritan Unsympathetic and prejudiced as Taine consdeme. '■^ Essay on Milton. '•Id. ••" English Puritanism." Introduction, p. 65. 64 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS is, a skeptic in religion, though a genius in letters and the greatest historian of Eng- lish literature, he cannot but wonder at the elevation and energy of the Puritan conscience. " Strict in every duty ", he de- scribes it, '' attentive to the least require- ments; disdaining the equivocations of worldly morality, inexhaustible in patience, courage, sacrifice; enthroning purity on the domestic hearth, truth in the tribunal, probity in the counting-hous^, and labor in the workshop." ^^ In his " History of the English People ", Green marks with admi- ration their " implicit obedience to the Di- vine will alone ", their " moral grandeur ", their " manly purity ". Army life is notoriously a school of vice, r/ir Puritan It is the crucial test of morals and religion, '^^^y- But the Puritan army has been the wonder of the world as well for its moral purity as its invincible valor. Says Taine, '' a perfect Christian made a perfect soldier." Through all that army breathed the martyr spirit of **** Hist. Eng. Literature" (Alden), vol. i. p. 473. 6s THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS their creed. Of their own accord they put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England. Oliver Cromwell, their leader, Goldwin Smith pronounces " the greatest single force ever directed to a moral purpose ". " Upon the solid rock of Calvinistic faith ", says Morley, '' Crom- well had established himself." ^^ Upon the same rock his soldiers had planted them- selves. The result was an army whose equal for purity and heroism the world has never seen. ''Quit you ''ix never found", says Macaulay, "either strons^ " ' ^^ ^^^ British Islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by diffi- culties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to them. They at length came to regard *i" Cromwell", The Century Magazine, December, 1899. 66 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS the day of battle as a day of certain tri- umph, and marched against the most re- nowned battaHons of Europe with disdain- ful confidence. Even the banished Cava- liers felt an emotion of national pride when they saw a brigade of their countrymen, outnumbered by foes and abandoned by friends, drive before it in headlong rout the finest infantry of Spain, and force a passage into a counterscarp which had just been pronounced impregnable by the ablest of the Marshals of France." ^^ '' But that which chiefly distinguished Chief dis- the army of Cromwell from other armies ", ^^^'^^^°^' says Macaulay, " was the austere morality and the fear of God which pervaded all ranks. It is acknowledged by the most zealous Royalists that, in that singular camp, no oath was heard, no drunkenness or gambling was seen, and that, during the long dominion of the soldiery, the property of the peaceable citizens and the honor of woman were held sacred. No servant girl ** " Hist. Eng.", vol. i. p. 119. 67 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS lUUilS complained of the rough gallantry of the redcoats. Not an ounce of plate was taken from the shops of the goldsmiths." ^^ Says Taine: " They raised the national morality, as they had saved the national liberty." *^ Tried with gut 3. stcmer test than that of war awaited the Calvinistic warriors, and a yet nobler proof they were to give of the un- rivalled strength of a Calvinistic manhood. The Protectorate having come to an end, the army was dissolved. The old veterans were turned loose to shift for themselves amid the myriad temptations of that seven- teenth century England, where beggary was a recognized and popular profession, where the poHce machinery even of the metrop- olis was " utterly contemptible ",^^ and where theft and robbery offered to every able-bodied man a safe and easy means of support. But though disbanded suddenly, and without resources, " they did not *"' H>«5t. Eng.", vol. I. p. 119. **'• Hist. Eng. Litftrat'jre" (Alden). vol. i. p. 482. **Macaulay's " Hist. Eng", vol. I. p. 32f- 68 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUH^ bring ", says Taine, '' a single recruit to the vagabonds and bandits." *^ '' Fifty thou- sand veterans ", says Macaulay, '' accus- tomed to the profession of arms, were at once thrown on the world: and experience seemed to warrant the belief that this change would produce much misery and crime, that the discharged veterans would be seen begging in every street, or that they would be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result followed. In a few " Coming months there remained not a trace that the -^^^^^ ^^ gold," most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed into the mass of the com- munity. The Royalists themselves con- fessed that in every department of honest industry the discarded warriors prospered beyond other men, that none was charged with any theft or robbery, that none was heard to ask an alms, and that if a baker, a mason, or a wagoner attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all proba- bility one of Oliver's old soldiers." *^ ^*"Hist. Eng. Literature" (Alden), vol. i. p. 482. *'" Hist. Eng.", vol. i. p. 147. 69 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Historical demonstra- tion. " Imstiraa- ble obliga- tions.^' The above remarkable narrative, which from first to last we have sketched as far as possible in the very words of eminent and trustworthy authors, is a striking demon- stration from history of the supreme char- acter-making power of Calvinism. The picture here presented of the character of the Puritans is in accord with the latest his- torical investigations. Of the two admir- able lives of Cromwell issued in 1900, the able reviewer of The Independent says: '' In both authors the Puritan character stands out towering above the age that gave it birth, and an inspiration and an ideal to all ages that follow after." ^^ But in producing the Puritans, Calvin- ism has not only proved its power, it has laid the modern world under what Macau- lay rightly terms " inestimable obliga- tions ".^^ Those English Calvinists did not labor and die for themselves alone. They ** The Independent, Nov. 15, 1900, p. 2748. *• Essay on Milton. 70 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS stood in the breach for all succeeding gen- erations. Says Prof. John Fiske, the profoundest Human philosopher as he is the finest literary artist ^^^'^^y* among the historical writers of America: " It is not too much to say that in the sev- enteenth century the entire political future of mankind was staked upon the questions that were at issue in England. Had it not been for the Puritans, political liberty would probably have disappeared from the world. If ever there were men who laid down their lives in the cause of all mankind, it was those grim old Ironsides, whose watch-words were texts of Holy Writ, whose battle-cries were hymns of praise."^^ Since the Genevan reformer was *' incon- testably the father of the English Puri- tans ",^^ no man can deny the justice of Fiske's conclusion that '' it would be hard to overrate the debt which mankind owe to Calvin ". ^ " The Beginnings of New England ", pp. 37, 51. " Dyer's " Modern Europe ", vol. 11. p. 130. 71 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Anglo-Saxon Protestant- ism, But political liberty is only a part of our Puritan heritage. Says Bancroft: "That the English people became Protestant is due to the Puritans." ^^ The significance of this fact is beyond computation. English Protestantism, with its open Bible, its spir- itual and intellectual freedom, meant the Protestantism not only of the American colonies, but of that virile and multiplying race which for three centuries has been carrying the Anglo-Saxon language, re- ligion, and institutions into all the world. As the Puritans saved England to Protes- tantism, so the Calvinists in general saved Protestantism to the world. " Whatever was the cause ", says Froude, " the Calvin- ists were the only fighting Protestants. It was they whose faith gave them courage to stand up for the Reformation, and but for them the Reformation would have been crushed." A third " inestimable obligation " we should never forget. Says Green: " Home, " " Hist. U. S.", vol. T. p. 289. 72 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS as we conceive it now, was the creation of the Puritan." ^^ In an age when woman was the slave, the idol, or the toy of man; when adultery was a jest and indecency a fashion; when even in the domestic circle the worst vices were practiced, then it was that Calvinism, by its moral purity, its sanctification of the marriage covenant as the symbol of the behever's relation to Christ, its belief in the sublime possibilities of every individual, woman and child as well as man, created out of a corrupt society that shrine of affection, that school of vir- tue, that radiant centre of every holy influ- ence, the Christian Home. Of such beneficent and lasting products Surnrfiaiy, of Puritanism, Lowell might well have been thinking when he declared that " the em- bodiment in human institutions of truths uttered by the Son of man eighteen cen- turies ago was to be mainly the work of Puritan thought and Puritan self-devo- *"' Hist. Eng. People", vol. in. p. 414. 73 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS tion." ^^ Surely it should stop the mouths of the detractors of Calvinism to remember that from men of that creed we inherit, as the fruit of their blood and toil, their prayers and teachings, our civil liberty, our Protestant faith, our Christian homes. Calvinism The thoughtful reader, noting that these tian civi'iiza- ^^^^^ blcssiugs He at the root of all that is Hon, best and greatest in the modern world, may be startled at the implied claim that our present Christian civilization is but the fruitage of Calvinism. Yet it is even so. The historian Green, of the Episcopal Church of England, states both the fact and its explanation when he deliberately de- clares: " It is in Calvinism that the modern world strikes its roots; for it was Calvinism that first revealed the worth and dignity of IN HOLLAND. A bright Another glorious chapter in the history ^" "" ^ of Calvinism and humanity, though written ** " Lowell's Prose Works ", vol. ii. p. 2. ^" Hist. Eng. People ", vol. iii. p. 114. 74 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS in blood, is the record of the long struggle of the Hollanders for civil and religious freedom against the gigantic power of Spain. For eighty years the strongest na- tion in the world labored with all its might to crush well-nigh the smallest, and failed. Says Douglas Campbell, in his massive and masterly work on " The Puritan in Hol- land, England, and America ": " The Puri- tans of Holland battled for their liberties during four fifths of a century, facing not alone the bravest and best-trained soldiers of the age, but flames, the gibbet, flood, siege, pestilence, and famine. Every atroc- ity that religious fanaticism could invent, every horror that ever followed in the train of war, swept over and desolated their land." ^^ Holland was made a spectacle to all nations by her sufferings, and surpassed all other Christian communities in the num- ber and steadfastness of her martyrs.^^ The " Vol. I. p. 133. ""The Universal Cyclopedia ", Article "Calvin- ism ". 75 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Duke of Alva boasted that within the short space of five years he had dehvered 18,600 heretics to the executioner. '' The scaf- fold ", says Motley, " had its daily victims, but did not make a single convert. . . , There were men who dared and suffered as much as men can dare and suffer in this world, and for the noblest cause that can inspire humanity." His pages picture to us '' the heroism with which men took each other by the hand and walked into the flames, or with which women sang a song of triumph while the grave-digger was shovelling the earth upon their living faces." In the siege of Leyden we have a thrilling example of their sufferings and heroism. Three months after the commencement of the siege the food-supply was exhausted. A fearful famine began to rage. For seven weeks the inhabitants had no bread to eat and multitudes perished of hunger. On the heels of the famine came the plague or black death, which carried of? a third part 76 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS of the citizens. The apparently doomed survivors subsisted on dogs and cats. To the summons to surrender, they rephed: " As long as you hear the mew of a cat or the bark of a dog you may know that the city holds out. And when all have perished but ourselves, we will devour our left arms, retaining our right to defend our women, our liberty, and our religion against the for- eign tyrant." When at last relief came they were almost starved to death. They could scarcely drag themselves along. Yet all to a man staggered or crawled as best they could to the house of prayer. There on their knees they gave thanks to God. But when they tried to utter their gratitude in psalms of praise they were almost voiceless, for there was no strength left in them, and the tones of their song died away in grate- ful sobbing and weeping. In that awful and protracted struggle, "/« z^/?/: which Campbell pronounces '' a war un- ^^"''- ' paralleled in the history of arms ", the Dutch patriots had their feet planted on 77 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS that rock on which Cromwell and his Iron- sides in the next century established them- selves — " the solid rock of Calvinistic faith ". " Calvinism ", says Bancroft, him- self ecclesiastically allied in no way with that faith, " inspired Holland with a heroic enthusiasm ". None but '' zealous Calvin- ists ", as Campbell calls them, could have suffered and endured and fought and wrought as they did. " In the moral war- fare for freedom ", says Bancroft, " their creed was a part of their army and their most faithful ally in the battle." ^« This it was, as Motley has already told us, that *' inspired them with a contempt for toil, danger, and death which enabled them to accomplish things almost supernatural." The illustrious Dutch leader, William the Silent, Prince of Orange, though reared in another faith, was forced by the intensity of his trials and the immensity of his re- sponsibilities to flee to Calvinism for rest and refuge. In its great Scripture doc- w " Hist. U. S.", vol. I. p. 464. 78 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS trines of the Divine Sovereignty and Gov- ernment his suffering soul found peace and strength. He became a devout Calvinist; and '' from this time forth ", says Motley, *' he began calmly to rely upon God's Providence in all the emergencies of his eventful life." ^» The Calvinistic conscience was as much Caivinistu in evidence among the Dutch as among the ^^^'^^^^'^^ English Puritans. Says an Italian con- temporary, " They hold adultery in hor- ror." ''They dispensed exact justice", says Campbell, '' to poor and rich alike, cared for the unfortunate, and frowned on idle- ness and vice." " No one ever questioned their integrity. Public honesty is of later growth than that of individuals, men in a body often performing acts which singly they would condemn; but even here Hol- land has no superior in history. Through- out her long war with Spain, the national credit stood unimpaired. The towns, when •• •* Rise of Dutch Republic ", vol. i. p. 699, 79 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Results, QintphelVs statement. besieged, issued bonds which often were sold at a large discount, and men were found who, as in later times among our- selves, urged that the purchasers should only receive the money they had paid. No such counsels, however, prevailed in a sin- gle instance. The debts of the towns, like those of the State, were invariably paid in full." «^ Of the results to civilization and human- ity of that momentous conflict, which, in the strength of their creed, the Dutch Cal- vinists fought and won, we shall submit three brief summaries, each by an acknowl- edged master of historical learning. Says Campbell: " Out from this war of eighty years' duration emerged a republic, for two centuries the greatest in the world, a republic which was the instructor of the world in art, and whose corner-stone was religious toleration for all mankind." ^^ •®"The Puritan in Holland, England and Amer- ica", vol. I. pp. 87, 171. "•'Id., p. 133. 80 THE CREED TESlED BY ITS FRUITS The above solid historical fact effectually a theory tr disposes of the theory that Calvinism makes P^^^^'^- men haters of art or persecutors of their fellows. Whatever share Calvinists have had in the mistakes and superstitions of their age and race cannot be charged to their theological tenets. The Calvinistic zeal of the Dutch is beyond question, yet they burned no witches, they led the world in art, and before William Penn was born, taught and practiced the widest rehgious toleration. " In freedom of conscience ", says Bancroft, *' they were the light of the world." ®2 The true father of modern re- ligious liberty was the immortal Dutch Cal- vinist, William the Silent. Motley's deliberate verdict is as folio ws : 3/#//2 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS other demonstration of the unequalled en- ergizing and ennobling power of Calvin- ism. Above all the other doctrinal systems known to man, history crowns Calvinism as the creed of saints and heroes. To its Divine vitality and fruitfulness the modern world owes a debt of gratitude, which slowly in recent years it is beginning to recognize, but can never pay. IN FRANCE. In France the Calvinists were called The Hugue- Huguenots. The character of the Hugue- ^''^^' nots the world knows. Their moral purity and heroism, whether persecuted at home or exiled abroad, has been the wonder of both friend and foe. " Their history ", says the Encyclopaedia Britannica,^^ " is a stand- ing marvel, illustrating the abiding power of strong religious convictions ". '' The account of their endurance ", it declares, " is amongst the most remarkable and he- roic records of religious history." Accord- «*Art. " Huguenots." 83 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUFlo ing to the great historian Lecky, himself a cold-blooded rationalist, the Huguenots were " the most solid, the most modest, the most virtuous, the most generally enlight- ened element in the French nation." *^ The furious persecution that raged against them, of which the massacre of St. Bartholomew was a part and a sample, de- stroyed or exiled hundreds of thousands of Huguenots. The loss to France was irrep- arable. '' It prepared the way ", says Lecky, " for the inevitable degradation of the national character and removed the last serious bulwark that might have broken the force of that torrent of skepticism and vice, which, a century later, laid prostrate in merited ruin, both the altar and the throne." "Looking back", says an able writer, "at their sufferings, at the purity, self-denial, honesty, and industry of their lives, and at the devotion with which they adhered to re- ligious duty and the worship of God, we •« *• Eng. Hist. Eighteenth Century ", vol. i. pp, 264. 265. 84 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS cannot fail to regard them as amongst the truest, greatest, and worthiest heroes of their age. In France they were the only men who were willing to die rather than forsake the worship of God according to the Scriptures and conscience." ^^ To be '' honest as a Huguenot " became ''Honest as i 2l proverb, signalizing the highest reach of ^^s^'^ot^'' integrity. This quality, which is essential in the merchant who deals with foreigners whom he never sees, so characterized the business transactions of the Huguenots that the foreign trade of the country fell al- most entirely into their hands.*^ The eminent English writer, Samuel Eloquent Smiles, known to thousands of Americans as the author of " Self Help ", states that while the Huguenots were stigmatized in the contemporary literature of their ene- mies as " heretics ", " atheists ", " blasphe- mers ", " monsters vomited forth of hell *', not one word is to be found in these writ- *' " Calvinism in History", p. 122. •* Smiles' " The Huguenots ", p. I34„ 85 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ings in impeachment of their morality and integrity. " The silence of their enemies on this point ", says Smiles, '' is perhaps the most eloquent testimony in their fa- vor." «9 The tree i^ a foot-note, Smiles makes a comment known by , . , . ^ • i • • r its fruits which IS oi espccial mterest commg from a man so distinguished for accuracy and sound judgment, and who, so far as we can learn, was committed in no way to the cause of Calvinism. " What the Puritan was in England ", he says, '' and the Cove- nanter in Scotland, that the Huguenot was in France; and that the system of Calvin should have developed precisely the same kind of men in these three several coun- tries afifords a remarkable illustration of the power of religious training in the for- mation of character." ^^ Puritans, Hugue- nots, Covenanters! What a record and roll- ^:all! What other creed in Christendom can show such a marvellous fruitage of purity •® Smiles' ** The Huguenots '% p. 134. '®Id., p. 134, note. 86 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS and heroism as these historic names repre- sent? What made the Huguenots to differ from the rest of French Christendom? They were of the same country, the same race, the same natural traits and pecuharities, oftentimes of the same household. What made the difference? Let history answer: " the system of Calvin ". Near the middle of the seventeenth ctn- jansen's tury a Roman CathoUc Bishop and teacher ^^^"•^^^''^^^ of theology, named Jansen, published an exposition of the works of St. Augustine, the gre'atest of the Church fathers. Augus- tine's doctrines of sin, sovereignty, pre- destination, and free grace, were the same as those taught eleven centuries later by Calvin, and four centuries earlier, as we be- lieve, by Paul. To quote a common say- ing, Paul begat Augustine, and Augustine begat Calvin. Jansen's book was prohibited by a decree of the Inquisition, and condemned as heret- S7 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The Port ical by the Pope. But it found its way into iTnilts'"'' ^^"^ ^^"^^- Especially at Port Royal, a Roman Catholic community and religious retreat not far from Paris, it was ardently studied and its doctrines warmly embraced. Immediately Port Royal became a theo- logical storm-centre, the object of Jesuit hate and intrigue. After years of vicissi- tude and trial it was at last suppressed by the Papal power, but not till Calvinism had borne its characteristic fruit, and made Port Royal the synonym to succeeding ages of purity and intelligence. Kenan's tes- Ernest Renan, the well-known author, scholar, scientist, and Member of the French Academy, was himself a rationalist, yet he calls St. Cyran, the Jansenist leader of the Port Royal school of thought, '' the Calvin who took in hand the cause of God, to restore the faith of St. Paul and Augus- tine ". " This school ", he says, " was un- equalled in the greatness of the characters it formed. Nowhere else have been seen so many brave and loyal spirits devoted ab- 88 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS solutely to their ideal of righteousness. Port Royal rises in the midst of the seven- teenth century like a triumphal column, a temple to manliness and truth." '^^ IN NEW ENGLAND. The sterling character and worth of the ta^ ^r^„ Calvinists who settled New England has ^^gi^'^^'^ become a proverb. Puritans they were in fact as well as name. They reared their children to fear God, obey their parents, . speak the truth, and practice industry and temperance. " One might dwell there from year to year ", said a contemporary writer, " and not see a drunkard, or hear ar oath, or meet a beggar ". The conse- quence was universal health. The average duration of life in New England as com- pared with Europe v/as doubled. Of all who were born into the world more than two in ten, full four in nineteen, attained the age of seventy. Of those who lived be- yond ninety the proportion as compared " •• Studies in Religious History and Criticism •*„ pp. 424, 425. 89 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS with European tables of longevity was still more remarkable.'^^ Their religion was their life. It governed all their thoughts and relations. Beasts as well as men felt its influence. Cruelty to animals was a civil offense. In the human- ity of their criminal laws they were two cen- turies ahead of their times. '^^ In all their records Bancroft could find no example of divorce, an evidence of that Calvinistic conscience which, as Taine has told us, ''enthroned purity on the domestic hearth". The mistakes and failings which they shared in common with their age are as nothing in comparison with their virtues. " Their transient persecutions in Amer- ica ", says Bancroft, " were in self-defense, and were no more than a train of mists hovering of an autumn morning over the channel of a fine river that diffused fresh- ness and fertility wherever it wound." ^* The Puritans of New England are a char- " " Hist. u. S.", vol. I. p. 467. 73 Id., p. 465. '* Id., p. 464. 90 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS acteristic example of the Calvinistic spirit Calvinism of intelligence and free inquiry. '' Of all ""'"^ ^'''' '"^ ° qutry. contemporary sects ", says Bancroft, " they were the most free from credulity." "^^ The Pilgrim Fathers he pronounces " Calvinists in their faith according to the straitest sys- tem ", and says of them, " they renounced all attachment to human authority and re- served an entire and perpetual liberty of forming their principles and practice from the light that inquiry might shed upon their minds." "^^ In this they but obeyed the impulse of their creed and the example of their spiritual father, Calvin, whom the same author describes as '' pushing free in- quiry to its utmost verge, and yet valuing inquiry solely as the means of arriving at fixed conclusions." '^"^ It was in Calvinistic Holland, according to Smiles, that freedom of inquiry found its chief European cen- trejs '5 "Hist. U. S.", vol. I. p. 463. ''^ Id., p. 300. '^ " Miscellanies ", p. 407. '^''The Huguenots", p. 177. 91 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS In his famous and profound work on the '' History of CiviUzation ", Buckle, himself the adherent of no religious creed, remarks upon " the inquisitive spirit which has al- ways accompanied Calvinism." '^^ " The professors of Calvinism ", he says, " ar" more likely to acquire habits of independ- ent thinking than those of Arminianism." ^^ This would seem a safe inference from an admitted historical fact which Buckle thus states: '' The most profound thinkers have been on the Calvinistic side; and it is inter- esting to observe that this superiority of thought on the part of the Calvinists ex- isted from the beginning." ^^ We quote in this connection the acknowledgment of an able and distinguished leader of American Methodism. Says Dr. Curry: "We con- cede to the Calvinistic churches the honor of 'having all along directed the best think- ing of the country." "Vol. I. p. 614. wid.. p. 613. ^Md., p. 613, note. 92 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS This historic and habitual superiority j^fa^ ^x- of Calvinists in the realm of intellect is noP^^^*^'^' accident. It is the fruit of their creed. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson admits and admires the " mental concentration and force " inspired by Calvinism, and lauds the effect upon " character and intellect " of its " determination of thought on the eternal world ". Calvinism possesses the mind with themes the most vital and majestic, " which soar into the immeasurable blue and open to thought celestial gates ". It gives foun- dation, consecration, inspiration to human thought by its sublime doctrine of the unity, stability, and order of all things in God. The history of things heavenly and earthly, spiritual and material, past, pres- ent, and to come, is a great whole in which the Divine Will fulfils itself in its wisdom, power, and goodness, all things coming from God and returning to Him in the maj- esty of an imperial plan, formed before the foundation of the world, whose unfolding is Universal Providence, and whose goal 93 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS and consummation is that " One far-off divine event To which the whole creation moves." Most satisfy- j^ this great and ennobling- conception stimulating which takcs us behind all that is phenom- enal and bids us look at the eternities be- fore and after our little day, every problem in theology, science, and philosophy finds its appropriate place, and to man's think- ing faculty presents its inspiring challenge. Intellectually, Calvinism is at once the most satisfying and the most stimulating of creeds. It grapples with every difficulty. " It goes to the very root ", says Morley, *' of man's relations with the scheme of universal things." ^" •Matthew Arnold, England's most acute and cultured critic of life and literature, has truly said that while " Arminianism, in the practical man's fashion, is apt to scrape the surface of things only ", the Calvinist's '' serious- ness, force, and fervency " are begotten of ^ " Oliver Cromwell ", December Century, 1899. 94 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ** Calvinism's perpetual conversance with deep things and with the Bible." ^^ The be- Hever in the Calvinistic system is no child playing with sandheaps on the seashore. He walks among hills and mountains. The themes of thought around him tower up- ward, Alps on Alps. His mental stature rises with his surroundings. He becomes a thoughtful being, communing with sub- limities. To its characteristic elevation of thought '•/#//> and life, writers of all shades of theological opinion bear unconscious witness in their use of the word '' lofty " or its equivalent in connection with Calvinism. Numberless illastrations might be given. One of the latest is Theodore Roosevelt, in whose re- cent " Life of Cromwell " even the cursory reader must have noticed the recurrence of such expressions as '' lofty creed ", " lofty Presbyterianism", "lofty souls", "loftiness of aim ", and the like, descriptive of the Calvinistic faith and spirit. •"'St. Paul and Protestantism", pp. 2i, 26. 95 THE CREED TESTED BY TFS FRUITS. The elevation of the entire man sought and wrought by Calvinism is both cause and effect of the stress it has ever laid upon intelligence and education. Holding that man's chief end is to glorify God, it seeks the development and training of the whole manhood, intellectual as well as spiritual, as faculty for the attainment of this di- vinely appointed end. It is natural, there- fore, that Calvinism's greatest expounder should have been also the greatest educa- tional benefactor of the modern world. *' We boast ", says Bancroft, '' of our com- mon schools; Calvin was the father of pop- ular education, the inventor of the system of free schools." ^^ *' Wherever Calvinism gained dominion ", he says again, " it in- voked intelligence for the people and in every parish planted the common school."®** " It dreads no skeptic's puny hands, While near the school the church-spire stands; Nor fears the blinded bigot's rule While near the church-spire stands the school." ^ ** Miscellanies ", p, 406. W"Hist. U. S.", vol. II. p. 463. 96 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS To the heroic survivors of the memora- The heart of ble siege of Leyden, William the Silent of- Calvinism, fered as a reward of their patriotism a re- duction of taxes or the establishment of a school of learning. They chose the latter. That was the origin of the University of Leyden, renowned throughout the whole world, whose three-hundredth anniversary twenty-five years ago was celebrated with befitting solemnities. It stands a monu- ment of that Calvinistic love of learning which, putting mind above money, has in- spired countless generations of God-fearing Calvinists to pinch themselves to the bone to educate their children. " That any be- ing with capacity for knowledge should die ignorant, this I call a tragedy." In this thrilling dictum of Carlyle, giving the word knowledge its highest reach and noblest purpose, throbs the heart of Calvinism. IN SCOTLAND. The best possible place to study the ef- fects of a particular system of religion is a 97 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The best studying ground. The Scotch before Cal- vinism. ' The last shall be first:' country in which for generations that sys- tem has had full sway and a free hand. To know the practical fruits of Roman Cathol- icism we should examine some country like Spain or Brazil, where for centuries Ro- manism has been the one religion, unhelped and unhindered by other systems. There is one land in which Calvinism has long been practically the one religion. That land is Scotland. When Calvinism reached the Scotch peo- ple, they were vassals of the Romish church, priest-ridden, ignorant, wretched, degraded in body, mind, and morals. Buckle describes them as " filthy in their persons and in their homes ", " poor and miserable ", " excessively ignorant and ex- cessively superstitious ", '' with superstition engrained into their characters." ^® Marvellous was the transformation when the great doctrines learned by Knox from the Bible in Scotland and more thor- oughly at Geneva while sitting at the feet ^ " Hist, of Civilization ", vol. ii. pp. 140, 145. I53. 98 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS of Calvin, flashed in upon their minds. It was like the sun rising at midnight. Says Carlyle: " This that Knox did for his na- tion we may really call a resurrection as from death." '' John Knox ", says Froude, " was the one man without whom Scotland as the modern world has known it, would have had no existence." ^"^ Knox made Calvinism the religion of Scotland, and Cal- vinism made Scotland the moral standard for the world. It is certainly a significant fact that in that country where there is the most of Calvinism there should be the least of crime; that of all the peoples of the world to-day that nation which is confessedly the most moral is also the most thoroughly Calvinistic; that in that land where Calvin- ism has had supremest sway individual and national morality has reached its loftiest level. Henry M. Stanley, the famous explorer, Stanleys is one of the shrewdest judges of men that ^^^^^f^^ony. this generation has produced. His insight 8' " Hist. Eng.", vol. x. p. 454. 99 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS into character and acuteness of observation were the means again and again of saving his own life and that of his men amid the wilds of heathenism. His travels have brought him into close personal contact with missionaries of every church and na- tionality. TJiough no Scotchman himself, Stanley pronounces Scotch missionaries the best and most successful in the world; and their superiority he attributes to that supreme devotion to duty taught them in their Calvinistic homes. ^^ '^Syiritrtai Stanley's testimony to the pre-eminent conqiuro's of ^^^^ and success of the missionaries the •asorld. ^ trained by Calvinism reminds us of a similar tribute by the great historian D'Aubigne. '' Luther ", he says, " trans- formed princes into heroes of the faith; the reformation of Calvin was addressed par- ticularly to the people, among whom it raised up martyrs until the time came when ®^ For an exquisite and inspiring picture, drawn from life, of a Scotch Calvinistic home, see appen- dix to this chapter. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS it was to send forth the spiritual conquerors of the world. For three centuries it has been producing in the social condition of the nations that have received it, transfor- mations unknown to former times. And still at this very day, and now perhaps more than ever, it imparts to the men who accept it a spirit of power which makes them chosen instruments fitted to propagate truth, morality, and civilization to the ends of the earth." ^^ Another significant fact. Scotland leads intellectual the world not only in the average morality, Z''^"' but also in the average intelligence of its people. This was to have been expected. Calvinism, as we have seen, elevates the w^hole man. The study of its comprehen- sive and logical system of doctrine is itself an unsurpassed mental discipline and stim- ulus. " The efifect of familiarity with the Shorter Catechism upon the intellectual character of the Scottish peasantry ", says •'"Reformation in the Time of Calvin ", vol. I., preface, p. x. lOI -eminence* THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Morley, " is one of the accepted common- places of history." ^^ " In every branch of knowledge ", says Buckle, " this once poor and ignorant people produced original and successful thinkers. What makes this the more remarkable is its complete contrast to their former state." ^^ Says Prof. Fiske: " One need not fear contradiction in say- ing that no other people in modern times, in proportion to their numbers, have achieved so much in all departments of hu- man activity as the people of Scotland have achieved. It would be superfluous to men- tion the pre-eminence of Scotland in the industrial arts, or to recount the glorious names in philosophy, in history, in poetry and romance, and in every department of science which have made Scotland illustri- ous for all future time."^^ Prof. Fiske pro- ceeds to remark upon the patent fact that •" " Oliver Cromwell ", Century Magazine^ February, 1900. *^ " Hist, of Civilization ", vol. 11. p. 253. •^ " Beginnings of New England ", p. 152. 102 IHE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS '' this magnificent intellectual fruition " is the outcome of '' Calvinistic orthodoxy." Here then is a matter of profound sig- Summation. nificance, that that land whose previous degradation was notorious, and which for three centuries has been of all lands the most intensely and exclusively Calvinistic, to-day surpasses every other nation on the globe in both the intellectual and the moral glory of its people. America has never produced a man of Lowell's wider information, or more varied and brill- '^ ^^°^y* iant gifts, than James Russell Lowell, the renowned diplomat, essayist, and poet. Lowell's connection from childhood was with a religious body not Calvinistic; yet he says: '' If the Calvinistic churches are to be judged by the results of their teaching upon character and conduct, as seen in Scotland and New England, then these' churches are entitled to the highest praise. For the superiority is not solely in morality and intelligence, but in the prevalent sense of duty, in high ideals and inflexible prin- 103 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ciples, and, in short, in the consciousness of the spiritual world that is an eternal now with believers. After due allowance made for time-servers and hypocrites, I think there are among the Calvinists more godly men, each living ' As ever in his great Task- master's eye ', than in any other branch of the Christian Church." ^^ Review and We havc uot spacc to pursuc this branch of our subject further, though we have but dipped into it here and there. We have endeavored to try Calvinism by Christ's own test of fruitfulness, of practical results. We have examined its workings in many countries and amid conditions the most di- verse and adverse. We have conducted the investigation under the guidance, not of Calvinistic partisans, but of authors and observers of worldwide reputation for ability and learning, whose preposses- sions in almost every case would nat- urally be rather against than for Calvin- *' Quoted by the Reformed Church Messenger, 1896, from a published sketch of Lowell. 104 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ism. The conclusion to which they lead us represents the impartial verdict of history. That conclusion is, that as a character builder, as a purifying, energizing, uplifting force in the life of men and nations, Calvin- ism stands supreme among the religious systems of the world. And further, since truth is in order to godliness, and the tree is to be judged by its fruit, we have here the historical demonstration that the Calvinis- tic is the truest creed of Christendom. This tree, to adapt another's eloquent TAe o/d oak paragraph,^'* may have, to prejudiced eyes, a rough bark, a gnarled stem, and boughs twisted often into knotted shapes of un- graceful strength. But, remember, it is not a willow-wand of yesterday. These boughs have wrestled with the storms of a thousand years; this stem has been wreathed with the red lightning and scarred by the thunderbolt; and all over its rough rind are the marks of the battle-axe '* Dr. T. V. Moore's " Power and Claims of a Cal- vinistic Literature", p. 35. 105 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS and the bullet. This old oak has not the pliant grace and silky softness of a green- house plant, but it has a majesty above grace, and a grandeur beyond beauty. Its roots may be strangely contorted, but some of them are rich with the blood of glorious battle-fields, some of them are clasped around the stakes of martyrs; some of them hidden in solitary cells and lonely libraries, where deep thinkers have mused and prayed, as in some apocalyptic Patmos; and its great tap-root runs back, until it twines in living and loving embrace around the cross of Calvary. Its boughs may be gnarled, but they hang clad with all that is richest and strongest in the civilization and Christianity of human history. APPENDIX. A Scotch Presbyterian Home, We have never heard or read a sermon on family religion which impressed us more deeply than the following simple narra- tive of the reHgious home-life of an humble 1 06 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Scotch family. It is taken from the first chapter of the Autobiography of John G. Paton, missionary to the New Hebrides: '' And so began in his early life that blessed custom of Family Prayer, morning and evening, which my father practised probably without one single omission till he lay on his deathbed, seventy-seven years of age; when, even to the last day of his life, a portion of Scripture was read, and his voice was heard softly joining in the Psalm, and his lips breathed the morning and even- ing Prayer, falling in sweet benediction on the heads of all his children, far away many of them over all the earth, but all meeting him there at the Throne of Grace. None of us can remember that any day ever passed unhallowed thus; no hurry for market, no rush to business, no arrival of friends or guests, no trouble or sorrow, no joy or excitement, ever prevented at least our kneeling around the family altar, while the high priest led our prayers to God, and offered himself and his children there. 107 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS " And blessed to others, as well as to ourselves, was the light of such example! I have heard that, in long after years, the worst woman in the village of Torthorwald, then leading an immoral life, but since changed by the grace of God. was known to declare, that the only thing that kept her from despair and from the hell of the sui- cide was when in the dark winter nights s'he crept close up underneath my father's window, and heard him pleading in family worship that God would convert ' the sin- ner from the error of wicked ways and poHsh him as a jewel for the Redeemer's crown.' ' I felt ', said she, ' that I was a bur- den on that good man's heart, and I knew that God would not disappoint him. That thought kept me out of hell, and at last led me to the only Saviour.' " Each of us, from very early days, con- sidered it no penalty, but a great joy, to go with our father to the church; the four miles were a treat to our young spirits, the company by the way was a fresh incite- io8 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ment, and occasionally some of the won- ders of city life rewarded our eager eyes. A few other pious men and women of the best evangelical type went from the same parish to one or other favourite minister at Dumfries, — and when these God-fearing peasants ' forgathered ' in the way to or from the house of God, we youngsters had sometimes rare glimpses of what Christian talk may be and ought to be. They went to the church, full of beautiful expectancy of spirit — their souls were on the outlook for God; they returned from the church, ready and even anxious to exchange ideas as to what they had heard and received of the things of life. I have to bear my testimony that religion was presented to us with a great dealof intellectual freshness, and that it did not repel us but kindled our spiritual interest. The talks which we heard were, however, genuine; not the make-believe of religious conversation, but the sincere out- come of their own personalities. That, perhaps, makes all the difference betwixt 109 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS talk that attracts and talk that drives away. " We had, too, special Bible Readings on the Lord's Day evening, — mother and chil- dren and visitors reading in turns, with fresh and interesting question, answer and exposition, all tending to impress us with the infinite grace of a God of love and mercy in the great gift of His dear Son Jesus, our Saviour. The Shorter Cate- chism was gone through regularly, each answering the question asked, till the whole had been explained, and its foundation in Scripture shown by the proof-texts ad- duced. It has been an amazing thing to me, occasionally to meet with men who blamed this ' catechizing ' for giving them a distaste to religion; every one in all our circle thinks and feels exactly the opposite. It laid the solid rock-foundation of our re- ligious life. After-years have given to these questions and their answers a deeper or a modified meaning, but none of us have ever once even dreamed of wishing that we had no THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS been otherwise trained. Of course, if the parents are not devout, sincere, and afifcc- tionate, — if the whole affair on both sides is taskwork, or worse, hypocritical and false, — results must be very different indeed! "Oh, I can remember those happy Sabbath evenings; no blinds drawn, and shutters up, to keep out the sun from us, as some scan- dalously affirm; but a holy, happy, entirely human day, for a Christian father, mother, and children to spend. How my father would parade across and across our flag- floor, telling over the substance of the day's sermons to our dear mother, who, because of the great distance and because of her many living 'encumbrances ', got very sel- dom indeed to the church, but gladly em- braced every chance, when there was pros- pect or promise of a ' lift ' either way from some friendly gig! How he would en- tice us to help him to recall some idea or other, rewarding us when we got the length of 'taking notes' and reading them over on our return; how he would turn the talk ev«r III THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS so naturally to some Bible story, or some martyr reminiscence, or some happy allu- sion to the ' Pilgrim's Progress'! And then it was quite a contest, which of us would get reading aloud, while all the rest Hst- ened, and father added here and there a happy thought, or illustration, or anecdote. "Others must write and say what they will, and as they feel; but so must I. There were eleven of us brought up in a home like that; and never one of the eleven, boy or girl, man or woman, has been heard, or ever will be heard, saying that Sabbath was dull or wearisome for us, or suggesting that we have heard of or seen any way more likely than that for making the day of the Lord bright and blessed alike for parents and for children. But God help the homes where these things are done by force and not by love! The very discipline through which our father passed us was a kind of religion in itself. If anything really serious required to be punished, he retired firs* to his closet for prayer, and we boys got to understand 112 TiiiE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS that he was laying the whole matter before God; and that was the severest part of the punishment for me to bear. I could have defied any amount of mere penalty, but this spoke to my conscience as a message from God. We loved him all the more, when we saw how much it cost him to punish us; and, in truth, he had never very much of that kind of work to do upon any one of all the eleven — we were ruled by love far more than by fear. " Our home consisted of a * but ' and a *ben' and a 'mid-room', or chamber, called the ' closet '. The one end was my moth- er's domain, and served all the purposes of dining-room and kitchen and parlor, be- sides containing two large wooden erec- tions, called by our Scotch peasantry * box-beds'; not holes in the wall, as in cities, but grand, big, airy beds, adorned with many-coloured counterpanes, and hung with natty curtains, showing the skill of the mistress of the house. The other end was my father's workshop, filled with "J THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS five or six ' stocking frames ', whirring with the constant action of five or six pairs of busy hands and feet, and producing right genuine hosiery for the merchants at Hawick and Dumfries. The ' closet ' was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table, and a chair, with a diminutive win- dow shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the Sanctuary of that cottage home. Thither daily, and oftentimes a day, generally after each meal, we saw our fa- ther retire, and ' shut to the door ' ; and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sa- cred to be talked about) that prayers were being poured out there for us, as of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pa- thetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy. The outside world might not know, but we knew, whence "4 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS came that happy light as of a new-bom smile that always was dawning on my fa- ther's face: it was a reflection from the Di- vine Presence, in the consciousness of which he lived. Never, in temple or cathe- dral, on mountain or in glen, can I hope to feel that the Lord God is more near, more visibly walking and talking with men, than under that humble cottage roof of thatch and oaken wattles. Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanct- uary closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, * He walked with God, why may not I? ' " His happy partner, * Wee Jen ', died in 1865, and he himself in 1868, having reached his seventy-seventh year, — an alto- gether beautiful and noble episode of hu- man existence having been enacted, amid 115 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS the humblest surroundings of a Scottish peasant's home, through the influence of their united love by the grace of God; and in this world, or in any world, all their chil- dren will rise up at mention of their names and call them blessed." ii6 I HI THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS (CONTINUED) " IV shall kno'w th<- truth, atut the truth sha/l viakc- you free." ]iy\\\\ 8 : 32. Ill THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS (Continued) America's deht to Calvinism. If the average American citizen were jVir foumfrr asked, who was the founder of America, ^/^"^'''^"• the true author of our giant Republic, he might be puzzled to answer. We can im- agine his amazement at hearing the answer given to this question by the famous Cicr- man historian, Ranke, one of the pro- foundest scholars of modern times. Says Ranke, *\T<^hn Calvin was the virtual founder of America." If this be true, every American should know it. Let us see. At the time of the Revolution the esti- mated population of our country was 119 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Early mate- 3,ooo,cxx). Of this number 900,000 were of rial of our Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin, 600,000 were Republic, ^ ' Puritan English, while over 400,000 were of Dutch, German Reformed, and Hugue- not descent.^ That is to say, two thirds of our Revolutionary forefathers were trained in the school of Calvin. Since these two thirds included the New England colonists an'd the Scotch-Irish immigrants, pro- nounced by the learned author of '' Amer- ican Christianity " '' the two most master- ful races on the continent ",^ " the two streams ", as Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus says, " apparently most effective and important in the creation of great things, intellectual and spiritual, in our American life ",^ their preponderance in influence was even more marked than in numbers. *W. H. Roberts, "Proceedings Seventh General Council, 1899", p. 94. '"Hist, of American Christianity", by Leonard Woolsey Bacon (1900), p. 292. 3 The American Monthly Review of Reviews, February, jgoi, p. 167. 199 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Where learned they those immortal prin- Calvinism ciples of the rights of man, of human lib- '^'^^ '^"''^^'^ ^ *^ rights. erty, equality, and self-government, on which they based our Republic, and which form to-day the distinctive glory of our American civilization? In the school of Calvin they learned them. There the mod- ern world learned them. So history teaches. Says Bancroft: " Calvinism was revolu- ^ democratic tionary; it taught as a Divine revelation the ^^^^s^^^^- natural equality of man." '' It is the essen- tial tendency of Calvinism ", says Doyle, the eminent Oxford scholar, '' to destroy all distinctions of rank, and all claims to superiority which rest on wealth or politi- cal expediency." * '' Calvinism is essen- tially democratic ",^ says Buckle in his His- tory of Civilization. " A democratic and republican religion ",^ it is called by De Tocqueville, one of the ablest political * " The English in America ", by J. A. Doyle, M.A., p. 9. '"Hist, of Civilization ", vol i. p. 669. ^" Democracy", vol. i. p. 384. 121 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS writers of the century. " Calvinism op- posed ", says Bancroft, " hereditary mon- archy, aristocracy, and bondage." '' John Richard Green, the author of the greatest history of the EngHsh people yet written, belonged to the Anglican church. Yet he says: " It is in Calvinism that the modern world strikes its roots; for it was Calvinism that first revealed the worth and dignity of man. Called of God, and heir of heaven, the trader at his counter and the digger in his field suddenly rose into equality with the noble and the king."^ " In that mighty elevation of the masses ", he says again, " which was embodied in the Calvinist doctrines of election and grace, lay the germs of the modern principles of human equality." Eject of Cai- " The fruits of such a teaching ", con- , ,. tinues Green, '' soon showed themselves in teaching ' illustrated. 3. new attitude of the people. ' Here ', said Melville, over the grave of John Knox, ^"Hist. U. S.", vol. II. p. 464. ® '* Hist, of Eng. People ", vol. ill. p. I14. 122 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ' here lies one who never feared the face of man'; and if Scotland still reverences the memory of the reformer, it is because at that grave her peasant and her trader learned to look in the face of nobles and kings and ' not be ashamed '." ^ To the ef- fect of these " doctrines of election and grace " taught by Knox, Froude also testi- fies, saying: '' His was the voice which taught the peasant of the Lothians that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of God with the proudest peer or prelate that had trampled on his forefathers. He it was that raised the poor Commons of his coun- try . . . into men whom neither king, no- ble, nor priest could force again to submit to tyranny." ^^ The learned author of ''The United *' Szic/i /a? fn States as a Nation" makes the following" ^''"'''''"^•" eloquent acknowledgment of the relation of the Calvinistic theology to liberty: It "inspires a resolute, almost defiant, freedom •"Hist of Eng. People", vol. iii. p. 446. "'•Hist. Eng.", vol. x. p. 457. 123 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS in those who deem themselves the subjects of God's electing grace: in all things they are more than conquerors throug'h the con- fidence that nothing shall be able to sepa- rate them from the love of God. No doctrine of the dignity of human nature, of the rights of man, of national liberty, of social equality, can create such a resolve for the freedom of the soul as this personal conviction of God's favoring and protect- ing sovereignty. He who has this faith feels he is compassed about with everlast- ing love, guided with everlasting strength; his will is the tempered steel that no fire can melt, no force can break. Such faith is freedom; and this spiritual freedom is the source and strength of all other free- dom." 11 Prof. Fiske of Harvard, himself not ec- clesiastically allied in any way with Calvin- ism, affirms that '' The promulgation of Calvin's theology was one of the longest steps that mankind have taken toward per- ^' p. 30, quoted by McFetridge. 124 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS sonal freedom." '' It was a religion ", he says, '' fit to inspire men who were to be called upon to fight for freedom." ^^ '' Calvinism ", says Froude, '' has in- spired and maintained the bravest efforts ever made to break the yoke of unjust authority." ^^ Before proving its power in the new Previous world, Calvinism had fought and won the '''■''"'^^^'"'^'^^^' fight for freedom in the old. Not only in Scotland, as we have seen, but also in Eng- land and Holland it had challenged and conquered tyranny. To the Puritans, de- clares Hume, a hater cf Calvinism, England owes " the whole freedom of her constitu- tion." ^^ Says Motley, not ecclesiastically committed himself to Calvinism: "The battle that saved England to constitu- tional liberty was fought and won by Cal- vinists." Of Holland the same eminent historian says: "The Reformation had ^"^ "The Beginnings of New England", pp. 58, 59, *' "Short Studies on Great Subjects", p. 13. ** " Hist. Eng.", vol. v. p. 134. 125 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS entered the Netherlands by the Walloon (Calvinistic) gate. The earliest and most eloquent preachers, the most impassioned converts, the sublimest martyrs, had lived, preached, fought, suffered, and died with the precepts of Calvin in their heart-- The fire which had consumed the last ves- tige of royal and sacerdotal despotism throughout the independent republic had been lighted by the hands of Calvinists." ^^ The makers, therefore, of free Holland, free England, free Scotland, were earlier pupils in the same school that moulded the makers of free America. Church As might have been expected, Calvin- ism's revolutionary principles of liberty and equality found expression in a system of church government equally revolutionary. The people of Christ, it taught, were to be governed and ministered to, not by the ap- pointees of any one man or set of men placed over them, but by pastors and offi- cers elected by themselves. ^* "The United Netherlands", vol. in. p. 120. 126 government. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS With the. principle and right of self-gov- Revoiuti9n- ernment embodied in this plan, we, in ^''->; '■^^"^^^■'' anism. America at least, are now happily familiar. Three and a half centuries ago it was so novel and revolutionary as to shake the whole civil, social, and religious world to its centre. " For all the past of time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact." '' The right exercised by each congrega- tion of electing its own ministers was in it- self *', says Bancroft, " a moral revolution. Religion was now with the people, not over the people." ^^ Sir James Stephen, the eminent English statesman and jurist, for ten years Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, a member himself of the Anglican Church, in speak- ing of the ecclesiastical organization ef- fected by the General Synod of France, "••Hist. U. S.", vol I. p. 462. 127 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS which met May 25th, 1559, says: " A great social revolution had thus been effected. Within the centre of the French monarchy, Calvin and his disciples had established a spiritual republic, and had solemnly recog- nized as the basis of it four principles — each germinant of results of the highest im- portance to the political commonwealth. These principles were, first, that the will of the people was the one legitimate source of the power of their rulers; secondly, that power was most properly delegated by the people to their rulers, by means of elec- tions, in which every adult man might exer- cise the right of suffrage; thirdly, that in ecclesiastical government, the clergy and laity were entitled to an equal and co-ordi- nate authority; and, fourthly, that between the Church and State, no alliance, or mu- tual dependence, or other definite relation, necessarily or properly existed." ^^ Cal- vin's church organization Green calls " a Christian republic ", " a Christian state in " "Lectures on the Hist, of France", p. 415, 128 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS which the true sovereign was not Pope or Bishop but the Christian man." ^^ By its coronation of the individual man Birth of as sovereign, Calvin's organization clashed '^^ niodern wofld, not only with the rule of Pope and Bishop, but with all those despotic and aristocratic ideas and customs which had dominated and darkened the world for ages. "And Freedom reared in that august sunrise Her beautiful bold brow." " Presbytery agreeth as well with mon- archy ", declared despotic King James, " as God and the devil." The Calvinistic sys- tem, '' the monarchs of that day ", says Bancroft, *' with one consent and with in- stinctive judgment feared as republican- ism." ^^ '' As a vast and consecrated de- mocracy ", says Green, '' it stood in con- trast with the whole social and political framework of the European nations." ^^ It ""Hist. Eng. People", vol. III. p. 113. 19 "Hist. U. S.", vol. II. p. 461. 20 «• Hist. Eng. People ", vol. iii. p. 114, 129 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS marked the opening of a new chapter in the history of humanity. Benefactor Had Calvin done nothing more than to of mankind. , , , , , , make government of the people, by the people, for the people, a startHng and tri- umphant reality in the earth, he would have deserved well of mankind. Says Bancroft, " More truly benevolent to the human race than Solon, more self-denying than Ly- curgus, the genius of Calvin infused endur- ing elements into the institutions of Geneva and made it for the modern world the im- pregnable fortress of popular liberty, the fertile seedplot of democracy." ^^ Calvin s The city of Geneva, in Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva, called also Lake Leman, was the home of Calvin. Here he had his church, which Knox, who came to Geneva, like ten thousand other Bible students from all parts of Europe, to sit an admiring pupil at Calvin's feet, pro- nourced " the most perfect school of Christ » •♦Miscellanies ", p. 406. 130 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS that ever was since the days of the Apos- tles." From Geneva his influence radiated into influence. every corner of Christendom. '' Calvin's true home ", as Schaff says, " was the Church of God. He broke through all na- tional limitations. There was scarcely a monarch or statesman or scholar of his age with whom he did not come in contact. Every people of Europe was represented among his disciples. He helped to shape the religious character of churches and na- tions yet unborn. The Huguenots of France, the Protestants of Holland and Belgium, the Puritans and Independents of England and New England, the Presbyte- rians of Scotland and throughout the world, yea, we may say, the whole Anglo- Saxon race, in its prevailing religious char- acter and institutions, bear the impress of his genius, and show the power and tenacity of his doctrines and principles of govern- ment." 22 ^' " Creeds of Christendom ", vol. i. p. 444. 131 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Calvinism Thosc revolutionary principles of rcpub- vierica. jj^^j^ liberty and self-government, taught and embodied in the system of Calvin, were brought to America, and in this new land where they have borne so mighty a harvest were planted, by whose hands? — the hands of Calvinists. The vital relation of Calvin and Calvinism to the founding and free in- stitutions of America, however strange in some ears the statement of Ranke may have sounded, is recognized and affirmed by historians of all lands and creeds. D'Aubignrs Says D'Aubigne, whose " History of the testimony. Reformation " is a classic: '' Calvin was the founder of the greatest of republics. The pilgrims who left their country in the reign of James I., and, landing on the barren soil of New England, founded populous and mighty colonies, were his sons, his direct and legitimate sons; and that American na- tion w'hich we have seen growing so rapidly boasts as its father the humble Reformer on the shores of Lake Leman." ^^ ** '• Reformation in the Time of Calvin ", vol. I. p. 5. 132 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS The famous French critic and historian, Taine's Taine, holding no religious faith himself/^-"^''''^"-^ yet declares of the Calvinists: '' These men are the true heroes of England. They founded England, in spite of the corruption of the Stuarts, by the exercise of duty, by the practice of justice, by obstinate toil, by vindication of right, by resistance to op- pression, by the conquest of liberty, by the repression of vice. They founded Scot- land; they founded the United States; at this day they are, by their descendants, founding Australia and colonizing the world." 24 Says Motley: '' In England the seeds of Motuys liberty, wrapped up in Calvinism and ^^•^^*^'^'^^" hoarded through many trying years, were at last destined to float over land and sea, and to bear largest harvests of temperate freedom for great commonwealths that were still unborn." ^^ '' The Calvinists ** " English Literature ", vol. ii. p. 472 (as quoted by McFetridge). 2* "The UnJ»-2d Netherlands", vol. iii. p. 121. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS founded the commonwealths of England, of Holland, and of America." ^^ " To Calvin- ists ", he says again, '' more than to any other class of men, the political liberties of England, Holland, and America are due." 27 Says Philip Schafif, the Origen of the modern world: " The principles of the Re- public of the United States can be traced thro' the intervening link of Puritanism to Calvinism, which, with all its theological rigor, has been the chief educator of manly characters and promoter of constitutional freedom in modern times." ^^ Says Rufus Choate, the great American lawyer, in his oration on " The Age of the Pilgrims, Our Heroic Period": *' In the reign of Mary, from 1553 to 1558, a thou- sand learned Englishmen fled from the stake at home to the happier states of con- tinental Protestantism. Of these, great "^ "The United Netherlands", vol. iv. p. 548. " Id., p. 547. ^ *' Creeds of Christendom ", p. 219. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS numbers — I know not how many — came to Geneva. I ascribe to that five years in Ge- neva an influence which has changed the face of the world. I seem to myself to trace to it, as an influence on the English char- acter, a new theology, new politics, another tone of character, the opening of another era of time and liberty. I seem to myself to trace to it the great civil war in Eng- land, the republican constitution framed in the cabin of the Mayflower, the theology of Jonathan Edwards, the battle of Bunker Hill, the Independence of America." ^^ The conclusions of the famous Spanish Casteiars scholar, orator, and statesman, Emilio ^^^^^^^^y- Castelar, at one time Professor of History in the University of Madrid, are of special interest and value. As a Roman Catholic, he hated Calvin and Calvinism. He says: " It was necessary for the republican move- ment of America that there should come a morality more austere than Luther's, the morality of Calvin, and a Church more dem- ^ "Works of Rufus ChoaU,", vol. i. p. 378. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ocratic than the German, the Church of Geneva. The Anglo-Saxon democracy has for its only lineage a book of a primitive so- ciety — the Bible. It is the product of a severe theology learned by the few Chris- tian fugitives in the gloomy cities of Hol- land and of Switzerland, where the morose shade of Calvin still wanders. . . . And it remains serenely in its grandeur, forming the most dignified, most moral, most en- lightened and richest portion of the human race." ^^ One feels like asking Castelar how a fountain so bitter could send forth such sweet waters. Says Bancroft: "The light of Calvin's genius shattered the mask of darkness which Superstition had held for centuries before the brow of Religion. Calvinism in- spired its converts to cross the Atlantic and sail away from the traditions of the Church, from hereditary power, from the sover- eignty of earthly kings, and from all do- minion but that of the Bible and such as *• Harper's Monthly, June and July, 1872. 136 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS arose from natural reason and equity. He that will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but Uttle of the origin of American liberty." ^^ Not only did Calvinism imbue its con- invaluable verts with the spirit of liberty, it srave them ^*''^^**^^i . . school. practical training in the rights and duties of freemen. Each Calvinistic congregation having largely an independent life of its own, and conducting its own affairs through officers of its own election, constituted, as Fiske affirms, '' one of the most effective schools that has ever existed for training men in local self-government." ^^ The influence of the doctrines of Calvin- church ism upon character we have seen in a {qx-^S'^'^'^'^"'^^^*^^ . and char- mer chapter. How powerfully also its^^^^^^ method of church government, especially in its fully developed Presbyterian form, tends to foster in the individual that high and self-respecting type of manhood which alone gives success and permanence to free '* ** Miscellanies ", pp. 406, 407. •' **Thc Beginnings of New England", p. 59. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS institutions is matter of history and obser- vation. Illustration. Pgr example, an English writer, of Epis- copalian sympathies, Mr. Richard Heath, testifies to the excellent effect of the Pres- byterian system where it has crossed the Scottish border and established itself in the northern shires of England: " The North- umbrian peasant is largely influenced by a form of Christianity that not only recog- nizes that he is a man, but that, without ceasing to be a laboring man, tending the sheep or following the plow, he can be chosen, and is chosen, and found worthy to be an elder of the church." He goes on to speak of " the superior educative power of the Presbyterian to the Church of England system, as seen in the higher form of man- hood and womanhood of the people under its control. The reason is clear: the one is a democratic religion, the other the most aristocratic in the world." ^^ ^ ** American Church History *', vol. vi. p. 293 (1900). 138 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS Should any member of a Presbyterian individual church feel that injustice has been done him ''^^^'^' '''^'' guarded. by the Session, through misapprehension or through any local or personal prejudice, he can appeal, if he will, to the Presbytery, and thence, if he will, to the Synod, and thence, if he will, to the General Assembly. The rights of the youngest, poorest, hum- blest member are thus safeguarded to the uttermost. The well-nigh perfect manner in which " without justice, freedom, order, and all the ends of '^^W^vair ^ popular self-government are secured by the Presbyterian system of graded represent- ative assemblies, with executive, legislative, and judicial functions, all distinct, yet all working together as component parts of a well-ordered whole, has won the admira- tion of thinking men of all creeds. Testi- mony from a remarkable source is that of the late able and distinguished Roman Catholic, Archbishop Hughes of New York: "Though it is my privilege", he wrote, " to regard the authority exercised 139 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS by the General Assembly as usurpation, still I must say, with every man acquainted with the mode in which it is organized, that for the purposes of popular and political gov- ernment its structure is little inferior to that of Congress itself. It acts on the principle of a radiating centre, and is without an equal or a rival among the other denomi- nations of the country." ^^ Amazing jj^g Striking similarity between the con- dence," ftitution of the Presbyterian Church and that of the United States has excited much wondering comment. The Hon. W. C. Preston of South Carolina wrote: " Cer- tainly it was the most remarkable and sin- gular coincidence that the constitution of the Presbyterian Church should bear such a close and striking resemblance to the po- litical constitution of our country." ^^ The expiana- Upou this '' most remarkable and singu- lar coincidence " a few facts from history ^ Quoted in '* Presbyterians and the Revolution", p. 28. ** " Scotch and Irish Seeds ", p. 346. 140 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS may shed lig'ht. In Green's " History of the English People " we read, the reader re- membering that kirk is Scotch for church: *' The moral power which Knox created was to express itself through the ecclesias- tical forms which had been devised by the genius of Calvin.^^ The new force of pop- ular opinion was concentrated and formu- lated in an ordered system of Kirk-Sessions and Presbyteries and provincial Synods, while chosen delegates formed the General Assembly of the Kirk. In this organiza- tion of her churches Scotland saw herself for the first time the possessor of a really representative system, of a popular govern- ment. Not only did Presbyterianism bind Scotland together, as it had never been bound before, by its administrative organ- ization, but it called the people at large to a voice, and, as it turned out, a decisive voice, in the administration of affairs. No ^ More accurately, " which had been developed by the genius of Calrin from the principles laid down in Scripture." 141 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS church constitution has proved in practice so democratic as that of Scotland. Its in- fluence in raising the nation at large to a consciousness of its power was shown by the change which passed from the moment of its estabHshment over the face of Scotch history." ^7 The national That was two ccnturics before the ^° ^ ' achievement of American independence. When, therefore, the fathers of our Repub- lic sat down to frame a system of represent- ative popular government, their task was not so difficult as some have imagined. They had a model to work by. As Chief Justice Tilghman says: ''The framers of the Constitution of the United States bor- rowed very much of the form of our Repub- lic from the Constitution of the Presbyte- rian Church of Scotland." Summary. '\Ye scc then that Calvinism furnished the foundation principles of our Republic; it supplied the best and largest part of the early material of our Republic; it served as ^ *• Hist, of Eng. People ", vol. in. p. 447. 142 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS the invaluable training school of our Re- public; it furnished the model for the im- mortal constitution of our Republic. It re- mains to show the leading part that Calvin- ism took in securing the national independ- ence that guaranteed the life of our Re- public. The briefest statement will here sufifice. '* a Presby- The facts are undisputed. They are ''^'**'""''**' ure, summed up in two sentences by Bancroft: " The Revolution of 1776, as far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural outgrowth of the principles which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons, the English Puritans, the Scotch Covenanters, the French Huguenots, the Dutch Calvin- ists, and the (Scotch-Irish) Presbyterians of Ulster." 38 As late as August, 1775, Thomas Jeffer- The first son said : " I would rather be in depend- '"'^.^" *.'* ence on Great Britain, properly limited, ^ Quoted by W. H. Roberts, •• Proceedings of Seventh General Council, 1899", p. 95, 143 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS than on any nation on earth, or than on no nation.'' Washington said in May, 1776: " When I took command of this army (June, 1775) / abhorred the idea of independ- ence.'' " The first voice raised in Amer- ica ", says Bancroft, " to destroy all con- nection with Great Britain came from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." ^^ The first Declaration of Independence, certainly the first body of resolutions to that effect, was sent forth by the Mecklenburg Assembly, in session at Charlotte, North Carolina, composed of twenty-seven stanch Calvin- ists, of whom nine' were Presbyterian ruling elders and one a Presbyterian preacher. The decidinz When, twelve months later, Jefferson's r^^^Zr Declaration was submitted to the Conti- nental Congress, and that body hesitated and wavered. Dr. John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian preacher, the only clergyman in the Congress, the only minister of Jesus Christ whose name is graven on the pedes- tal of a civic statue on the American soil, arose and gave the deciding voice. '* There "••Hist. U. S.", vol. X. p. 77. X44 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS is a tide ", he said, '' in the affairs of men. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in this house. Though these gray hairs must soon de- scend to the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather that they descend thither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country." John Witherspoon was a lineal descendant of John Knox. Witherspoon's spirit was shared by the** The Pres- whole body of American Presbyterians, h^^^^^** ^ ^ ^ Rebellion:* So mtense, universal, and aggressive was their zeal for liberty that the struggle of the colonists for independence was spoken of in England as '' The Presbyterian Rebel- lion ". An ardent colonial devotee of King George wrote home: '' I fix all the blame of these extraordinary proceedings upon the Presbyterians. They have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and M5 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchial spirit which has always distinguished them every- where." ^^ When news of " these extraor- dinary proceedings " reached England, Horace Walpole said in the English Parlia- ment, " Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson ". i^ke brunt of When war's thunders and lightnings be- ihe struggle. ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^j^^ ^^^ Prcsbyterians breasted the storm. '' The members of that Church ", says the author of the sixth vol- ume of " American Church History ", "bore the brunt of the struggle for inde- pendence from the Hudson to the Savan- nah." *^ Their military enthusiasm was like that of one of their own preachers, who, when the patriots' wadding gave out in a fight close by his church, rushed into the building, — but let Bret Harte tell the story: *• " Presbyterians and the Revol«titio«'', p. 49. « p. 69. 146 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS They were left in the lurch For the want of more wadding. He ra» to the church, Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out in the road With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down his load At their feet. Then above all the shouting and shots Rang his voice : ' Put Watts into 'em ; boys, give 'em Watts.' "And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers blow Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. You may dig anywhere, and you'll turn up a ball. But not always a hero like this; and that's all." At King-s Mountain, where " the aspect Victory of of the war was changed and Cornwallis left ^^'^ ^^orur Catechism. no choice but to retreat ,*^ all six of the colonels in command save one were Presby- terian elders, and their troops were mustered from Presbyterian settlements. When we remember that Generals Morgan and Pick- ens, who won the equally pivotal battle of the Cowpens, were also Presbyterian eld- ers, and that after his surrender at Sara- toga, Burgoyne said to Morgan concerning *' *' Bancroft's Hist. U. S.", vol. x. p. 340. 147 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS his Scotch-Irish riflemen: '' Sir, you have the finest regiment in the world "; when we remember that '' more than one half of the of^cers and soldiers of the American army- were Presbyterians," ^^ we can understand the statement of Dr. Elliott, editor of the Western organ of the Methodist Church, that " in achieving the liberties of the United States the Presbyterians of every class were foremost ", and appreciate Dr. Hodge's remark that the Shorter Cate- chism fought through successfully the war of American Independence. Had we space we could show how our boasted common-school system is indebted for its existence to that stream of influence which flowed from the Geneva of Calvin,^* through Scotland *^ and Holland, to Amer- ^ "Westminster Anniversary Addresses", p. 30. ^* See Chap. II. p. 96. ** " Knox returned from Geneva fully impressed with the conviction that the education of the masses 148 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ica, and how for the first two hundred years of our history almost every college and seminary of learning, and almost every academy and common school was built and sustained by Calvinists. Says Gen. John Eaton, LL.D., Ex-United States Commis- sioner of Education: "The Presbyterians by universal consent stand for intelligence." We could show what an immeasurable in- The Sabbath fluence the Presbyterian Church has ex- ""'^ ^^' . Family » erted upon the national character through the superlative emphasis it has ever placed upon those two sacred institutions on which depend the purity and the perma- nence of our nation's life, the Sabbath and the Family. As Dr. Landrum, an eminent Baptist minister, said recently at Atlanta: *' It is the conservator of the most valuable principles. It has the soundest scholarship. All denominations look to Presbyterianism for a wise leadership in all that pertains to is the strongest bulwark of Protestantism and the surest foundation of a state." *' The Puritan in Hol- land, Eng. and Am.", vol. ii. p. 19, note. 149 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS the preservation of the Lord's Day, and to the preservation of the Family." Benevolence. We could show.how pre-eminently great and rich have been the streams of benevo- lence by which the Presbyterian Church has blessed our own and other countries through its unequalled power to develop in its members the character-elements that command success and the consecration that makes that success tributary to the service of God and our fellow men. On this point the Rev. Robt. M. Patterson, D.D., LL.D., says, concerning the American Presbyte- rian Church: '' The simple fact is, that, ab- solutely and relatively, Presbyterians stand far in advance of any other denomination. About half of all the moneys raised by all the churches of the land for benevolent work is raised by them." ^^ *• " American Presbyterianism *' (1895), p. 120. ** Benevolent work " does not include the moneys raised by each individual church for its own con- gregational purposes. In a certain pure sense of that word these may be regarded as selfish rather than benevolent contributions. THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS We could show from history how nearly Revivals of all the far-spreading continental reforma- ^' ^^^^*^' tions and revivals of religion, which from time to time have blessed not only America but Christendom, have been of Calvinistic origin, after the type of that first great Christian revival in Jerusalem under Peter, whose preaching embodied such bold Cal- vinism as " Him, being delivered by the de- terminate counsel and fore-knowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." (Acts 2: 23.) We could show how incalculable has National been the service rendered the nation by the ^^"■^erskip. Presbyterian Church through its peculiar ability to develop moral and intellectual manhood, and thus fit men for responsibil- ity and leadership. Prof. Baldwin of the Yale Law School pronounces the Presby- terian " the most American Church ", and Mr. Gladstone says she develops a "genuine individuality; the love of law combined with the love of freedom." The power and prominence of Presbyterians in 151 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS civic and national life is so out of propor- tion to their numbers that the secular press has made it a matter of sharp and wonder- ing comment. " In calling the roll of the great men of this nation," says Dr. Newell Dwight HilHs, '' the number of Presby- terian presidents, of legislators and jurists, of authors and editors, teachers and mer- chants, has been vastly disproportionate to the membership of the Church." ^"^ The Presbyterian precedence he justly describes as " this unique pre-eminence." Ambassa- dor Bayard recently declared that Presby- terianism stands for the best element of American greatness. Mr. Moody, v^hose shrewd views of men were only matched by his unexampled opportunities for ob- servation, said of the Presbyterian Church: " That Church has the brains of the United States."*^ To such expert testiniony to the moral and intellectual pre-eminence of Presbyterians may be added the state- *' "Westminster Anniversary Addresses**, p. 254. *• Id., p. 314. 152 THE CREED TESTED BY ITS FRUITS ment, made some years ago by the greatest religious weekly of the world, that while the Presbyterian Church was not the larg- est, few w^ould deny it the name of the leading religious denomination of America. The above facts of history and observa- tion we have set forth, not to stimulate de- nominational vanity, but to fill us with grat- itude to God for that past history and that present eminence which should be to every one of us "A vantage-ground for nobleness"; above all to kindle in our hearts a holy en- thusiasm for that Divine system of truth, which, under God, has been the foremost factor in the making of America and the modern world. '53 IV THE CREED ILLUSTRATED *^ As for you ye ihonghi evil against me, but Goa meant it tinto good." — Gen. 50: 20. IV THE CREED ILLUSTRATED We shall illustrate Calvinism and the Calvinistic point of view by a brief discus- sion of the twin doctrines of Predestination and Providence. God is Sovereign. He reigns Supreme Predestina- in fact as well as in right. This universe to ^^'^'^ ""^^ . . Providence^ Him IS not a surprise, a defeat, a failure, but a development of His eternal purpose. That purpose is Predestination. That de- velopment is Providence. The one is the all-wise predetermined plan in the mind of God; the other is the all-powerful execution of that plan in the administration of the uni- verse. Says an able commentator and divine: " Calvinism, tho' it is often represented 157 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Method §f Divine gov- ernment. God has a plan. as a mere system of doctrine or of ab- stract dogmas having no practical bear- ing, is, in fact, a system of government — a method and form in which the Divine power is put forth in the administration of the af- fairs of the universe. It is based on the idea that God rules; that He has a plan; that the plan is fixed and certain; that it does not depend on the fluctuations of the human will, on the caprice of the human heart, or on the contingencies and uncer- tainties of undetermined events in human affairs. It supposes that God is supreme; that He has authority; that He has a right to exercise dominion; that for the good of the universe that right should be exercised, and that infinite power is put forth only in accordance with a plan." To suppose that God ever acts without a plan, in a purposeless, random way, is an impossible conception of the Divine charac- ter. How does even a wise man act? He first determines upon the end he desires to attain, and then upon the best means of at- 158 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED taining it. Before the architect begins his edifice, he makes his drawings and forms his plans, even to the minutest details of con- struction. In the architect's brain ^the building stands complete in all its parts be- fore a stone is laid. So with the merchant, the lawyer, the farmer, and all rational and intelligent men. Their activity is along the line of previously formed purposes, the ful- filment, so far as their finite capacities will allow, of preconceived plans. Our com- mon sense, therefore, teaches us that in His government of this world w^hich He has made, God is sure to have His own definite purposes in view, and His own definite plans by which He will secure their fulfil- ment. It is also evident that these Divine pur- God's plan poses and plans must include not some but (^■^^•^"'■^^<^<=- all events, " whatsoever comes to pass ",^ otherwise there would be some things com- ing to pass which He had not designed or expected or counted on — which is incredi- * Shorter Catechism, Question 7. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED ble, and which mig'ht defeat the purposes He had formed in reference to other things — which is equally incredible. The control of the greater must include the control of the less, for not only are great things made up of little things, but history shows how the veriest trifles are continually proving the pivots on which momentous events revolve. The per- sistence of a spider nerved a despairing man to fresh exertions which shaped a nation's future. The God Who predestinated the course of Scottish history must have planned and presided over the movements of the tiny insect that saved Robert Bruce from despair. God is no absentee Deity, sitting outside the universe and seeing only the events that lift themselves like peaks above the common level. He is '' everywhere present ",2' " upholding, directing, dispos- ing, and governing all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the ^ Larger Catechism, Question 7. 160 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED least." ^ The affairs of the universe are controlled and guided, how? " According to the purpose of Him Who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will." * His all-embracing purpose or '' decrees ", says the Catechism, '' He executeth in the works of creation and providence." ^ That is to say, Providence is God's execution of His decrees; in other words, it is simply God's universal and certain fulfilment of His predetermined purposes. While illustrations of this truth crowd the story oj Scriptures, there is one inspired biography -^^^^■^'^• which holds and will ever hold the gaze of mankind, because in that life above any other recorded in history the presiding mind of God and the guiding hand of God are not only felt, but distinctly traceable. The story of Joseph is a picture in miniature of the Divine method of government painted for us by the hand of inspiration. Here we ^ "Confession of Faith", Chap. V, section r. *Eph. I : II. ^ Shorter Catechism, Question 8. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED have Foreordination made familiar, and Providence made palpable. Illustration. In the 42d chapter of Genesis we see the ten sons of Jacob, driven by stress of bitter famine into a foreign country, and there prostrating themselves before their un- known brother, the all-powerful governor of the land, and dependent upon him for the means of life. Was this pre-eminence of Joseph over his brethren a mere accident of fortune? Did it just happen so? On the contrary, it was distinctly foretold by God to Joseph's family twenty-two years before through those two prophetic dreams of the eleven sheaves and the eleven stars that did him obeisance. It was simply the ful- filment of God's, predetermined purpose, a fulfilment not through miracles, but through the orderly march of His Provi- dence. Illustration, In the 37th chapter we see the lad Joseph in the hands of his murderous brothers and begging with tears for his life. They re- fuse. They determine to kill him outright 162 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED at once. At Reuben's suggestion they change their minds and decide to starve him to death in a pit. Reuben disappears, intending to return when his brethren have gone and rescue Joseph and restore him to his father. In his absence a merchant cara- van passes by on its w^ay to Egypt. They change their minds again and at Judah's suggestion determine to sell him as a slave to these traders. This they do and Joseph is carried off to Egypt. Was the result of all these purposes and cross-purposes and changes of purpose accidental? Not so. That result was foreordained of God to ful- fil a merciful purpose of His. As Joseph said twenty-two years later to his penitent brothers: '' It was not you that sent me hither but God, for God did send me before you to preserve life, to preserve you a pos- terity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance." ^ Thus Joseph's go- ing to Egypt, though apparently fortui- * Gen. 45 : 5. 7. 163 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED tous, was but the fulfilment of a Divine pur- pose, a fulfilment not through miracle, but through the natural workings of Provi- dence. Illustration. In the 46th chapter we see Joseph send- ing wagons for his father's household, and the whole family, with all their wives and little ones, moving down into Egypt and settling in the land of Goshen. This re- moval to Egypt is the culmination of an extended series of events, most of which appear entirely fortuitous. Jacob's parti- ality to Joseph leads to his brethren's ha- tred; their hatred leads to his being sold to Potiphar in Egypt; the wickedness of Pot- iphar's wife leads to his imprisonment; his imprisonment leads to his acquaintance with the royal butler; this acquaintance leads to his presentation to Pharaoh; his service to Pharaoh leads to his exaltation over all Egypt to prepare for the famine; the famine drives his brethren down into Egypt to seek food from the hand of his power; his power enables him to transport 164 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED the entire family to Egypt and give them a home in the richest part of the land. We see, then, that the settlement of Jacob's family in Egypt was the result of a long and complicated chain of events, which a hundred chances might have broken at a hundred points, the whole forming to human eyes what we are ac- customed to call a fortuitous concurrence of circumstances. But was there anything fortuitous? Nay, verily. Every link of that chain was forged by the hand of God Himself to bring about that very result, and that result was the fulfilment of a Di- vine purpose which God had revealed to Abraham two centuries before, the pur- pose, viz., to make Egypt the training school of His chosen people. Long before any of the present actors were in existence, before a child was born to Abraham, God had said to him: " Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years, and 165 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Foreordina- tion and fatalism. also that nation whom they shall serve will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance." ^ So we see that these intricate happenings that issued in the migration to Egypt were but the or- derly fulfilment by Providence of God's predetermined purpose. The above Scripture narrative is but an inspired illustration of how God governs the world always and everywhere. The God of Providence is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. The doctrine of our Standards is not that *' whatever must be, must be ", but that whatever God has decreed and purposed shall be. The one expression attributes the course of events to a bUnd mechanical ne- cessity, the other to the inteUigent purpose of a personal God. The one is fatalism, the other Foreordination, Predestination, Providence. The Bible does not say "whatever must be, must be". It says: ' Gen. 15 : 13, 14. 166 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED " That that is determined shall be done." ^ It says again: ''The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, ' Surely as I have thought^ so shall it come to pass; and as I have pur- posed, so shall it stand.' " ^ It reveals to us the glorious truth that our human hves and our sensitive human hearts are held, not in the iron cog-whee-s of a vast and pitiless Fate, not in the whirling loom of a crazy Chance, but in the almighty hands of an in- finitely good and wise God. How God can be sovereign and yet man i^oreordina- be free, how God as Supreme Ruler can de- ^^'^^^ and free agency, cree events beforehand and bring them to pass exactly as decreed without interfering with the freedom of the human agent, is a question man cannot answer. But God can. God knows how to govern the nat- ural world by fixed laws, the brute creation according to their instincts, and human be- ings agreeably to their natures. By the Di- vine decree " neither is violence offered to ® Dan. II : 36. • Is. 14 : 24. 167 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." ^^ And the perfect harmony between Foreordination and free agency which we cannot explain in our theories we can plainly see in God's practice. Illustration. For example, Jacob's preference for Jo- seph, the wise and good child of his beloved Rachel, above the ten coarse and brutal sons of Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah, was the nat- ural prompting both of his judgment and his heart. Here is free agency; but here also is Foreordination; for this partiality, as the result showed, was the first step in the fulfilment of God's plan for saving thou- sands of human lives. Illustration. Joseph's brethren hate him and sell him into slavery, seeking to carry out the free and unconstrained impulses of their jealous and wicked hearts; and the Ishmaelite mer- chants are naturally delighted to secure a young and handsome slave for a mere trifle. " "Confession of Faith", Chap. Ill, section i. l68 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Here is free agency, attested in the con- science-smitten cry: " We are verily guilty concerning our brother"; but here also is Foreordination; for these people, while free agents, were also so entirely God's agents that the Scripture says it was God that " sent Joseph into Egypt to preserve life ". Potiphar's wife was free in seeking to iiiustratioyi carry out first her lustful and then her re- vengeful impulses toward Joseph; the royal butler was free in carrying out his courtier- like impulses toward Pharaoh; Pharaoh was free in carrying out his humane and statesmanlike impulses toward his famine- threatened nation; Joseph was free in carrying out his filial impulses in sending for his beloved father. Here in each case was the most unquestionable free agency; but here also was the most unquestionable Foreordination; for the result of it all was the exact fulfilment of a purpose which God had revealed to Abraham two centuries be- fore, that not Canaan but fertile and civil- 169 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED ized Egypt should be the nursery of the chosen people. niustration. In the Mediterranean the vessel carrying Paul to Caesar at Rome is caught in a vio- lent storm and driven helpless and half- sinking before the unceasing fury of the tempest. God says to Paul: " Fear not; thou must be brought before Caesar, and behold I have given thee all them that sail with thee."^^ Here is the Divine decree, — All shall be saved. Shortly after, as the sailors are secretly preparing to escape in the boat from the doomed ship, Paul says to the centurion and soldiers: *' Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." ^^ Here is free agency and the efficiency of second causes, liberty in the midst of certainty, a human will that can. The soldiers cut the boat adrift; the vessel is wrecked, but all escape safe to land. Here are two undeniable facts: " All shall be saved"; "Except these abide in the " Acts 27 : 24. " Acts 27 : 31. 170 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED ship, ye cannot be saved." Here are two co-operating factors, Divine Predestination and human free agency. It was God's pur- pose to save all lives on the ship. It was Paul's purpose to use the human means within his reach. God has a purpose and is at work. Paul has a purpose and is at work. And the result of the forces corre- lated and co-working is the saving of all on board, the exact fulfilment of the Divine decree.^^ In that dread yet glorious drama of hu- illustration, man sin and redeeming love which culmi- nated on Calvary, we see the human actors moving on the stage influenced by human motives, exercising their freedom of will, and responsible for what with '' wicked hands " they do. Caiphas, Judas, the priests, Herod, Pilate, all act according to the self-promptings of their various na- tures. We hear their consultations, their agreements, and disagreements. We see " Pitzer's " Predestination, God's Working Plan of His Universe ", p. 12. 171 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED their stratagems, their plans, their changes of plan. Human forces — pride, bigotry, curiosity, envy, covetousness, and malice — are in fullest, freest, most abandoned play. Yet every step and every act of every actor had not only been preordained, but pre- dicted, and the judgment of the Holy Ghost is given in these solemn words: " Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknozvledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." ^* " For of a truth against Thy holy Child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before (Re- vised Version, foreordained) to be done.'' ^* •• T^g secret God's ForeordinatioH, therefore, we can- things belong ^^^ ^oubt. Neither can we doubt the fore- unto the Lord our God." ordained freedom of the moral creature. This freedom is asserted or assumed on ^* Acts 2 : 23. ^* Acts 4 : 27, 28. 172 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED every page of Scripture. It is emphatically declared in our Standards. It is loudly pro- claimed by the universal consciousness of mankind. Here are two impregnable facts: God's Predestination Lud man's eternally predestinated freedom. Though the prob- lem of their reconciliation is insoluble to our finite sin-beclouded minds, ignorant as we probably are of some of the essentials of the problem, and incapable as we undeni- ably are of appreciating the significance of the Infinite Factor involved, yet it is clear from Scripture and history that the prob- lem presents no difficulty to God. Reason, religion, and philosophy alike require us to accept both facts, denying neither, abating the force of neither, '' holding to the Divine efficiency without ffinching, making our faith stout and masculine with it; holding equally to human accountability, making cur faith elastic and agile with it "; and as to the harmony between them, we may leave it and leave it cheerfully, till we stand on higher summits in a clearer light. 173 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED providence Overhung with a m3^stery impenetrable as yet to human eyes is the relation of the Divine Providence to human sin. Our Standards are careful to guard the charac- ter of God from any aspersion in view of the dread mystery of evil. They teach that God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempt- eth He any man. They refer sin imme- diately to the " freedom and power to do that which is good 'V^ originally given to man as a moral creature. Of all sinful acts whatsoever, they affirm with emphasis that " the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature and not from God, Who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or ap- prover of sin." ^^ sinftii acts That sinful acts, however, are included in God's plan is a truth abundantly evident in Scripture. " Saul took a sword and fell upon it." ^^ ** "Confession of Faith", Chap. IX, section 2. ^'' Id., Chap. V, section 4. ^^ I Chron. 10 : 4. 174 included in God 's plan. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED It was his own wicked act. Yet it fulfilled a Divine purpose revealed years before con- cerning David; it executed Divine justice; Scripture speaks of it as the punitive act of God Himself. '' So Saul died for his trans- gressions which he committed against the Lord. And he inquired not of the Lord; therefore He slew him and returned the kingdom unto David the son of Jesse." ^^ The act of his brethren in selling Joseph into Egypt was an evil act. Yet it formed an integral part of God's plan. It was in- tended to produce the most beneficial re- sults. " As for you ", said Joseph to his brethren, '' ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive." ^^ There never was a more evil act than that of those who " slew the Lord, And left their memories a world's curse." " By wicked hands ", says the Scripture, He was crucified and slain. Yet it was " by ^' I Chron. lo : 13. ^ Gen. 50 : 20. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED the determinate counsel and foreknowl- edge of God ". Supremely wicked was the conspiracy that contrived His death, yet the conspira- tors " were gathered together to do what- soever Thy hand and Thy counsel deter- mined before to be done ". **T^g Lord Did we believe that so potent and fearful \'h^^^^ til ^ ^ thing as sin had broken into the originally rejoue." holy Order of the universe in defiance of God's purpose, and is rioting in defiance of His power, we might well surrender our- selves to terror and despair. Unspeakably comforting and strengthening is the Scrip- tural teaching of our Standards ^^ that be- neath all this wild tossing and lashing of ^^ " Confession of Faith ", Chap. V, section 4. " The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a mani- fold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the crea- ture", etc., etc. 176 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED evil purposes and agencies there lies, in mighty and controlling embrace, a Divine purpose that governs them all. Over sin as over all else, God reigns Supreme. His Sovereign Providence " extendeth to the first fall and all other sins of angels and men ", so that these are as truly parts and developments of His Providence as are the movements of the stars or the activities of unfallen spirits in heaven itself.^^ Having chosen, for reasons most wise and holy though unrevealed to us, to admit sin, He hath joined to this bare permission a '' most wise and powerful bounding " of all sin, so that it can never overleap the lines which He has prescribed for its imprisonment, and such an " ordering and governing " of it, as will secure '' His own holy ends ", and manifest in the final consummation not only His " almighty Power " but His " un- searchable Wisdom " and His " infinite Goodness '*. ^2 Morris's "Theology of the Westminster Sym- Dols ", p. 223. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Grand truth Thus wc rise to the height of that sub- ^T^t d^ Ume, eternal, all-comprehending decree and plan of God, to fulfil which '' He doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all crea- tures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most v^ise and holy Providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, good- ness, and mercy." ^^ Transfigures Upou the material universe this mighty doctrine sheds a transfiguring radiance. It consecrates every branch of physical science. The student of nature in tracing out her laws and processes feels with Kep- ler that he is* " thinking the thoughts of God after Him ". Glorifies his- From this faith there falls a yet greater Zunc^ lifg fe^o^y upon the history and life of man. It invests them with a Divine significance. It relates them to the eternities past and to come. The obscurest task in life is en- ^^ "Confession of Faith ", Chap. V, section i. 178 ill man life. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED nobled by the thought that it is a thread in the warp and woof of that Divine purpose at which we are ever weaving in the cease- less loom of time. It is a doctrine unspeakably precious to Most con the Christian heart amid the storms and M^^^s- darkness of this earthly pilgrimage — to know that every trial, every burden, every bereavement, every sorrow has been fore- seen and foreappointed by a wisdom that cannot err and by a love that cannot change, "That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love." Instinctively in its sorrow the heart clings to this faith, feeling that in fatherly kind- ness the affliction was foreordained, for rea- sons wise though unknown, and saying in trust, though it be in tears, not, " It is chance; it is ill-fortune", but ''It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth Him good ". ''For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to 179 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED them who are the called according to His purpose." ^^ And this blessed purpose of good the next verse declares: " For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son." Most ener- The most Comforting and ennobling is gizmg. ^^^ ^^^ most energizing of faiths. That its grim caricature, fatalism, has developed in human hearts an energy at once subHme and appalling is one of the commonplaces of history.2^ The early and overwhelming onrush of Mohammedanism, which swept the East and all but. overthrew the West, was due to its devotees' conviction that in their conquests they were but executing the decrees of Allah. Attila the Hun was up- borne in his terrible and destructive course by his belief that he was the appointed *' Scourge of God ". The energy and au- dacity which enabled Napoleon to attempt and achieve apparent impossibilities was 2* Rom. 8 : 28. 2* T. V. Moore's " Power and Claims of a Calvinistic Literature ", p. 10. 180 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED nourished by the secret conviction that he was ^' the man of destiny ". FataHsm has begotten a race of Titans. Their energy has been superhuman, because they have believed themselves the instruments of a superhuman power. If the grim caricature of this doctrine has breathed such energy, the doctrine itself must inspire a yet loftier, for all that is en- ergizing in it remains with added force when for a blind fate, or a fatalistic deity, we substitute a wise, decreeing God. Let me but feel that in every commanded duty, in every needed reform, I am but working out an eternal purpose of Jehovah; let me but hear behind me, in every battle for right, the tramp of the Infinite Reserves; and I am lifted above the fear of man or the possibility of final failure. I am in- spired with a Divine strength and confi- dence. So in former chapters we have seen how in the long struggle for human ad- vancement, civil and religious, wherever the surge of battle has rolled fiercest and i8i THE CREED ILLUSTRATED fastest and the day of toil has hung hottest and heaviest, there always have been found the holders of this faith. Rooted in the Divine Word, this doctrine has borne through all the ages heroes and martyrs innumerable. Against them, as against Joseph, have been used all the weapons that rage and Late could devise. But in dungeons, in dens and caves of the earth, on battle-field, rack, and scaffold, they were more thaxi conquerors. For they knew with a victorious confidence, that not Satan, or chance, or fate, but God was Sov- ereign; that even the wrath and wicked- ness of men were but carrying out His eter- nal purpose; and that the day was surely coming when to all these hostile agencies they could say, as Joseph said to his breth-' ren: " As for you, ye thought evil against me but God meant it unto good/' APPENDIX It may interest our readers to learn that the Calvinistic view of nature and life, 182 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED which was derived exclusively from the Scriptures, is in striking harmony with modern scientific philosophy and with the ascertained facts of history and observa- tion. Regarding the grounds of the Divine choice, Matthew Arnold, the trained stu- dent of life and history, whose sympathies were not with Calvinism, frankly says: *'In rebutting the Arminian theory the Calvin- ists are in accordance with historical truth and with the real march of human affairs." ^ The historian Froude, himself held by no trammels of sect or party, unhesitatingly afifirms that " Calvinism is nearer to the facts, facts which no casuistry can explain away." ^ With a different nomenclature, and a different idea of the truth of super- naturalism, the foremost modern scientific philosophers hold the Calvinistic world- view. Mr. Froude cites as examples John Stuart Mill and Mr. Buckle. With equal appositeness he might have named Mr. * "St. Paul and Protestantism", p. 21. reat ; 183 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED Herbert Spencer, Mr. Lecky, Prof. Huxley, and many more. Sadly as these may di- verge on the question of God's rational will and free personality, extremely as their necessitarian metaphysics may conflict with the true doctrine of His Providence and grace, their impression of the co-ordinated facts of observation is thoroughly Calvin- istic. We submit upon this point the compact yet luminous statement of the celebrated Dr. Abraham Kuyper, Professor in the University of Amsterdam, Member of the States General of Holland, and one of the profoundest of living thinkers. " It is a fact ",^ he says, " that the more thorough development of science in our age has al- most unanimously decided in favor of Cal- vinism with regard to the antithesis between the unity and stability of God's decree, which Calv.'nism professes, and the super- ficiality and ^ooseness, which the Armin- ians preferred. The systems of the great • " Lectures on Calvinism", p. 149. THE CREED ILLUSTRATED modern philosophers are almost to one in favor of unity and stability. Buckle's ' His- tory of the Civilization in England' has suc- ceeded in proving the firm order of things in human life with astonishing, almost mathematical, demonstrative force. Lom- broso, and his entire school of criminalists, place themselves on record in this respect as moving on Calvinistic lines. And the latest hypothesis, that the laws of heredity and variation, which control the whole or- ganization of nature, admit of no exception in the domain of human life, has already been accepted as ' the common creed ' by all evolutionists. Though I abstain at pres- ent from any criticism either of these philo- sophical systems or of these naturalistic hypotheses, so much at least is very clearly demonstrated by them, that the entire de- velopment of science in our age presup- poses a cosmos, which does not fall a prey to the freaks of chance, but exists and de- velops from one principle, according to a firm order, aiming at one fixed plan. This 185 THE CREED ILLUSTRATED is a claim which is, as it clearly appears, diametrically opposed to Arminianism, and in complete harmony with Calvinistic be- lief, that there is one Supreme will in God, the cause of all existing things, subjecting them to fixed ordinances and directing them towards a pre-established plan. As a Calvinist looks upon God's decree as the foundation and origin of the natural laws, in the same manner also he finds in it the firm foundation and the origin of every moral and spiritual law; both these, the nat- ural as well as the spiritual laws, forming together one high order, which exists ac- cording to God's command, and wherein God's counsel will be accomplished in the consummation of His eternal, all-embrac- ing plan." i86 V THE CREED CATHOLIC ** Endeavoring to keep the um'ty of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in o?te hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of ^//."—Eph. 4:3-5. THE CREED CATHOLIC The catholicity of Presbyterianism/ its liberality of thought and feeling, its free- dom from sectarian narrowness and big- otry, is one of its crowning characteristics. Benjamin Harrison, that noble gentleman, statesman and Christian, whose death our whole country still mourns, said with truth: '* T-here is no body of Christians in the world that opens its arms wider or more lovingly to all who love the Master than the Presbyterian Church." The catholicity of Presbyterianism is no ou^ stand- mere sentiment. It is not a thing of indi- '^^^^ catholu vidual profession or platform declamation. It is rooted in our creed. It is proclaimed ^ The words " catholicity " and " catholic ", as used by the author in this chapter, have no reference to the Church of Rome. 189 THE CREED CATHOLIC in our Standards. It is embodied in our doctrine of the Church. '' The visible Church ", says our Confession, " consists of all those throughout the world who profess the true religion together with their chil- dren." ^ Thus formally and publicly do we repudiate the name of " the " church and claim only to be a church of Jesus Christ. Not only do our Standards contain no de- nunciation of the antagonistic views of sis- ter evangelical churches, they are said to be the only church Standards in existence which make explicit and authoritative recognition of other evangelical churches as " true branches of the Church of Jesus Christ." ^ To the " Communion of Saints ", our Confession devotes an entire chapter. We are there taught that our " holy fellowship and communion " in each other's gifts and graces, in worship and mu- tual service of love, " is to be extended ' "Confession of Faith", Chap. XXV, sec. 2. *"Book of Church Order", Chap. II, sec. ii. par. ii. 190 THE CREED CATHOLIC unto all those who in every place call upon the name of the Lord Jesus." ^ The catholicity of our Standards finds Recognition beautiful expression in the Presbyterian ^-^J^^^^^^J"^ attitude toward all sister evangelical churches. While a branch of evangelical Christendom unchurches all sister denomi- nations, such action is abhorrent to Pres- byterian feeling and unknown to Presbyte- rian practice. Members and ministers of other evangelical churches w^e treat as in all respects true members and ministers equally with ourselves of the Church of Christ. While several of these churches decline giving letters of dismission from their own to other communions, we make no distinc- tion. We dismiss members to Baptist, Episcopal, or other Christian congrega- tions, in precisely the same form, and with the same affectionate confidence, as though we were transferring them to churches of our own name. « ••Confession of Faith", Chap. XXVI, sec. :?. 191 THE CREED CATHOLIC Some evangelical denominations deny the validity of ordinances performed by sis- ter churches, and when a minister or a member would come to them from a sister denomination, the one must be re-ordained, the other re-baptized. Such denial is ut- terly contrary to the Presbyterian spirit and )isage. We never repeat the rite. The ordinance of a sister church we accept as no less valid than if performed by ourselves. While from many evangelical pulpits the ministers of sister churches are shut out, or from co-of¥iciation in sacred ceremonies, such exclusion is never practiced by us. It is alien to che Presbyterian heart and habit. We are as free and cordial in asking Epis- copal, Baptist, or other evangelical minis- ters, to occupy our pulpits, or assist us officially in administering the Lord's Supper, as in asking our own pastors. We unchurch no true Christian. We re- ject no ministerial ordination. We repu- diate no administered scriptural sacrament of a sister church. Returning good for 192 THE CREED CATHOLIC evil, we recognize our high-church fellow clergyman as a true minister of Christ, and our immersionist brother as having been validly baptized. We respond with all our hearts to the " Amen " of the Methodists; we join with our brethren in any psalmody that puts the crown upon the brow of Jesus; and most lovingly do we invite our fellow Christians of every name and denom- ination to partake with us of the emblems of His broken body and His shed blood. We have no prejudice, no peculiarity, no crotchet of any kind, to restrict our Chris- tian sympathies and dig a chasm between us and other servants of our Master. Our catholicity is wide as evangelical Christen- dom. When the day of union dawns upon the militant forces of our common Lord, and His prayer is answered " that tiiey all may be one ", it will be largely due under God to the teaching and the example of the Presbyterian Church. The catholic breadth of her Christian sympathy is seen in her liberal support 193 THE CREED CATHOLIC Support of of interdenominational and undenomina- InsHiutionl. tional religious enterprises and institutions of all kinds. Wherever the common cause of Christ calls for the sacrifice of sectarian interests and the submergence of sectarian diiTerences, the Presbyterian Church is ever first to respond, with greatest gifts and largest labors. She stands with hand out- stretched and purse open for every needy worthy cause that bears the name of Chris- tian. Her members have been called " God's silly people " from the self-forget- ful generosity with which they have lav- ished the time and means often sorely needed by their own church upon those great outside enterprises whose sole claim is the common Christian good and whose sole appeal is to the catholic Christian heart. The statement of D. L. Moody is well known, that if he needed one hundred thousand dollars for some worthy unde- nominational religious enterprise, he would naturally expect to secure eighty thousand of it from the Presbyterians. In the great 194 THE CREED CATHOLIC interdenominational societies and associa- tions, and in those private or public chari- ties sustained by the gifts of good people of all Christian names, figures show that Pres- byterians usually do and give not only more than any other denomination, but often more than all the others combined. In a western city the Young Men's vormg Men's Christian Association was seeking funds to Christian . .. .. . f. . . Association. secure a new buildmg. After sixty thou- sand dollars had been given by one Presby- terian, a general committee of one hundred was appointed, representing all denomina- tions. That number proving too large for effective work, a special canvassing com- mittee of five was selected, taken from the leading business men, and limited to those who would contribute at least five thou- sand dollars. Four of these so appointed were found to be Presbyterian elders. The Young Men's Christian Association Secretary said that this was about the pro- portion in other cities.^ * Hays' " Presbyterians", p. 354. THE CREED CATHOLIC American The American Bible Society is one of the ^'^'^■^' noblest unsectarian institutions in the world. Its beneficent work eternity alone can measure and reveal. Dr. S. Irenseus Prime, the genial and famous author and editor, was corresponding secretary of the Society. A few years before his death he made a careful examination of the receipts of the New York City Bible Auxiliary. He found that for the preceding fifty years the contributions to the Society from the Pres- byterian churches were five times greater than the sum total from all the other churches combined, and for the preceding seven years were six times greater. Dr. Prime adds that '' an analysis of the sources of contributions to the Bible cause in any other city or part of the country, out of New England, will show that the Presby- terian Church contributes to this great na- tional Society in about the same propor- tion." 5 The American Bible Society, the Amer- ' " First General Presbyterian Council ", p. 70. 196 THE CREED CATHOLIC ican Tract Society, and the American Sun- American day School Union are our three national ^^'y-J^'l^^^^y religious enterprises, the importance of Unioji, whose work, and the utterly unsectarian character of whose management and aims, commend them equally to all Christians. One of the leading executive officers of one of these Societies, himself not a Presbyte- rian, said that if the Presbyterian Church should withdraw its contributions and co- operation from any or all of these Societies, their great work would thereby be ended.^' The above facts and figures illustrate the nobly practical nature of the catholicity of the Presbyterian Church. She issues no formal declarations concerning unity, " For love hath better deeds than words to grace it." She simply practices that catholic Christian bigheartedness which her Bible and her Standards teach. Her catholic spirit of love finds beautiful CathoUcphii expression in the administration of her "^"^ ^^^^' magnificent philanthropies. In the North- * Hays' *' Presbyterians", p. 353. 197 THE CREED CATHOLIC ern Presbyterian Church alone there are more than a dozen Presbyterian Hospitals, Homes, Orphanages, and the like, for the care of the needy and the relief of the suf- fering. They are completely equipped, and the inmates of the hospitals enjoy the bene- fits of the highest medical skill and the best attendance which money can command. These noble institutions represent an out- lay of millions on millions of Presbyterian money, but they are Presbyterian only in their support and management, not in the objects which they seek to relieve. Their arms are stretched forth to receive and bless all, without regard to name or creed. In one of these hospitals, seventy-four in every hundred of the inmates came from the Methodists, the Catholics, and the Lutherans, while only eight were Presby- terians. The Jews, Unitarians, and Friends helped to make up the rest.*^ The catholicity of the Presbyterian Church appears in her one condition of ' Hays' " Presbyterians ", p. 352. 198 THE CREED CATHOLIC church membership. She demands nothing On^ condi- whatever for admission to her fold except ^^'^ "f church mem- a confession, uncontradicted by the hfe, of tership. faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The appli- cant is not asked to subscribe to our Standards or assent to our theology. He is not required to be a Calvinist, but only to be a Christian. He is not examined as to his orthodoxy, but only as to his '' faith in and obedience unto Christ." ^ He may have imperfect notions about the Trinity and the Atonement; he may question in- fant baptism, election, and final persever- ance; but if he trusts and obeys Christ as his personal Saviour and Lord, the door of the Presbyterian Church is open to him, and all the privileges of her communion are his. When churches prescribe conditions of membership other than the simple condi- tions of salvation, they are guilty of the un- scriptural incongruity of making it harder to get into the Church than into Heaven. 3 •• Confession of Faith ", Chap. XXVIII, sec. 4. 199 THE CREED CATHOLIC To such ecclesiastical tyranny and exclu- siveness the Presbyterian Church stands in utter contrast. Her Standards declare that as simple faith in Christ makes us members of God's family,^ so '' those who have made a profession of faith in Christ are entitled to all the rights and privileges of the Church." ^^ Thus with a broad and beau- tiful catholicity the gates of our Presbyte- rian Zion are flung wide as the gates of Heaven for all the children of God. Magnifies The Presbyterian Church is catholic in ' its embrace and emphasis of those great essentials of the Christian religion which form the common faith of evangelical Christendom. The central facts of redemp- tion, which are at once the heart and the life of the Christian system, to wit, that Jesus Christ is very God and very man, God manifest in the flesh, the one only power unto salvation from sin and endless death ' " Ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ." Gal. 3 : 26. " •• Book of Church Order", Chap. Ill, sec. 3. 200 THE CREED CATHOLIC by atoning expiatory sacrifice, through faith alone, these, with the other fundamen- tal doctrines beheved by all Christian com- munions throughout the world, are held by the Presbyterian Church with a grasp that none can loosen and preached with a power that none can dispute. In her Standards and her pulpits they receive, as they de- serve, the supreme emphasis and honor. Even those articles of her creed which The Presby some suppose distinctive are more catholic ^'"'''^'^"/'^ than denominational. In her practice of in- ,reed. fant baptism she is in harmony with nine tenths of Christendom. In her mode of baptism she stands again with the over- whelming majority of Christendom. In her doctrine of election, predestination, and final perseverance she is in line with the majority of the historic creeds of the evan- gelical world. It is hardly too much to say that if, from aU the authoritative articles of belief of the various churches, one were to make a choice, selecting only such beliefs as are held by the whole or the largest 20I THE CRE£D CATHOLIC part of evangelical Christendom, the elect and catholic creed so formed would corre- spond, almost doctrine for doctrine, with the creed of Presbyterians. Says Dr. Charles A. Briggs: '' Presby- terianism is pre-eminently Christian." ^^ " The Presbyterian Church has the true apostolic succession in striving after the apostolic faith in its purity, integrity, and fulness." ^^ " Presbyterianism is a real Christianity which rejects everything that is not a product of the Christianity of Jesus Christ. It appropriates everything in every age of the Church which bears the impress of Christ and which repre- sents the power of His Spirit." ^^ '' The Presbyterian churches adhere to all the doctrinal achievements of the ancient church — the catholic doctrines of the Trinity, the Person of Christ, and the " "AmericaQ Presbyterianism", p. 5. " Id., p. 8. "Id., p, XI. 202 THE CREED CATHOLIC office of the Holy Spirit. They do not adopt the peculiarities of the Greek or the Roman or any other branch of the Chris- tian Church, whether in doctrine or prac- tice; for these peculiarities are not cath- olic. Presbyterianism is truest to catholic- ity in that it insists upon those things which are truly catholic, and declines to mingle with them those things which are not catholic." ^* ''Presbyterianism", declares the ssime " TAe genu- writer, " belongs to the modern age of the '"^ ^.^''''' , ^ ^ tiant^y of all world, but it is not a departure from the agesr Christianity of the ancient and mediaeval church. It is rather the culmination of the development of Christianity from the times of the apostles until the present day. It comprehends the genuine Christianity of all ages. It conserves all the achievements of the Christian Church. It leads the van of the advancing host of God. It makes " " American Presbyterianism", p. 12. 203 THE CREED CATHOLIC steady progress towards the realization of the ideal of Christianity in the golden age of the Messiah." ^^ Libcraiin The stress laid by the Presbyterian "tiaiT^^^' Church upon the essentials of religion is the secret of her liberality in non-essentials. The vestments of the minister, the attitude of the worshipper, the precise order and form of worship, and the like, she leaves to the Christian common sense of the individ- ual church. Regarding such matters she may advise or recommend. She never leg- islates. She is ever mindful of her Lord's prayer, '' Sanctify them through Thy truth ". An exaggerated illustration of the Presby- terian indifference to things about which we have no commandment from the Lord is the exclamation of a noble old Scotch elder when bounded on the burning ques- tion whether or not his minister should wear a gown: " Let him attend to his own wardrobe; he may preach in his shirt- ** " American Presbyterianism ", p. 5. 204 THE CREED CATHOLIC sleeves for aught I care, if he only preaches sound doctrine." Our Presbyterian polity, or form oiotir polity church government, whence comes the de- '''^^P^^'''^^' nominational name we bear,^^ is derived from Scripture. The famous Anglican scholar and prelate. Bishop Lightfoot, can- didly declares: " It is a fact now generally recognized by theologians of all shades of opinion that, in the language of the New Testament, the same officer in the church is called indifferently bishop or elder or presbyter." '^'^ Says Prof. Heron of Bel- fast: " It is a simple historical fact, of deep significance, that wherever the Reforma- tion had free course, wherever it was per- mitted to shape itself spontaneously after Scripture, and without external interfer- ence, it assumed a Presbyterian form." Among the young Protestant Churches of native growth to-day, which are struggling ^^ We are Presbyterians, because our churches are governed by presbyters (or elders or bishops). Every elder is a bishop according to the New Testament. " Com. on Philipplans. 205 THE CREED CATHOLIC into life amid the Romanism of Southern Europe, the Mohammedanism of Western Asia, the superstitions of Brazil, or the heathenism of Japan, the same tendency is seen, the same process is going on.^^ As soon as the initial stage of Congregation- alism is outgrown, there begins the group- ing into Presbyteries, the natural and scrip- tural flowering into the complete Presbyte- rian form. Unequalled. That the Presbyterian is the best church polity, as the London Spectator unhesi- tatingly affirms, would appear not only from its scriptural origin, but also from the fact that its principles of popular repre- sentative government have been adopted by all the most enlightened nations of the earth. Growingiy While the scripturalness and excellence of our ecclesiastical polity are familiar themes, few properly recognize its grow- ingiy cathohc and universal character. The Presbyterian polity is rapidly leaven- *® Ogilvie's "The Presbyterian Churches", p. 158- 206 universal. THE CREED CATHOLIC ing all the Protestant churches. It is work- ing visibly in every sister denomination. Only the repressing hand of the State in Germany to-day prevents the Lutheran Church from adopting a Presbyterian con- stitution. The Lutherans of America have adopted synodical government as the best suited to their needs, and have associated the representatives of the people with their pastors in their local and national councils. The earlier Anglican prelacy has given way in America to a distinctly Presbyterian type of Episcopal government. The Eng- lish Episcopal Church has adopted synod- ical rule in all her colonial branches, where in her synods layman and cleric meet to- gether with the Bishop as permanent Mod- erator.^^ The Methodists have been obliged to modify their clerical government by the admission of lay members to their conferences. Modern Congregationalism is a manifest compromise between the In- dependent and the Presbyterian way. Even **Ogilvie, p. i6i. 207 THE CREED CATHOLIC the Baptists, who have been the stanch- est representatives of Independency, have come to intrust the real management of de- nominational affairs to local and national associations, the former treating churches which v^alk disorderly as liable to the disci- pline of exclusion from the association.^^ The above are some of the approxima- tions on the part of the sister Protestant churches to methods formerly peculiar to Presbyterianism. The able author of the sixth volume of "American Church His- tory '' states that " As a whole the Protes- tantism of America has become Presbyte- rian in substance, though not in name." ^i When comes that day for which many are longing and praying, when the churches of Protestant Christendom shall abandon their isolation and unite in one mighty Evangelical Federation, there can be little doubt that its form, and the chief factor in its formation, will alike be Presbyterian. '" "American Church History", vol. vi. p^ 285. 21 Id., p. 285. 208 THE CREED CATHOLIC The catholic and ecumenical character of ^'umber #/ Presbyterianism is proved and pictured {xi'"'^''''''^^'' the numerical vastness of her constituency. Her adherents are variously estimated at from twenty-five to forty millions.^^ Rev. W. W. Moore, D.D., LL.D., says: "The Presbyterian Church is the largest Protes- tant church in the world to-day." Rev. R. P. Kerr, D.D., the historian of Presbyte- rianism, pronounces it " by far the largest Protestant church on the globe ". Rev. Moses D. Hoge, D.D., LL.D., nomen clarum et venerabile, said from his pulpit: ''The largest Protestant family in the world is the Presbyterian." It is inspiring to remind ourselves \hdifBeyefo, ours is a historic church. Our present ^'"^^''•' ''■^ .... 1 • , them who millions are the children and successors of through millions upon millions more, seated now in f^^^^ ^^'^ the galleries of '' History's vast Coliseum '^ ;,ltr/''" 22 Dr. W. H. Roberts' estimate is twenty-five m\\-P^°"^i^^5" lions, Dr. J. N. Ogilvie's twenty-eight millions, Dr. W. A. Campbell s thirty-one millions. Dr. James Mc- Cosh's thirty-four millions, Dr. R. P. Kerr's thirty- five millions, Dr. W. P. Breed's forty millions. 209 THE CREED CATHOLIC tier above tier, generation upon genera- tion, of those who through ages of toil, trial, and triumph, " subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens ". When we remember that as Presbyterians we stand on soil drenched with the blood, baptized with the tears, and eloquent of the achieve- ments of saints and heroes in number with- out number, surely our hearts should cry out, in language sacred as familiar: " We cannot dedicate, zve cannot consecrate, zve cannot hallow this ground. The brave men who struggled here have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to their unfinished work." " In the mem- ory of their mighty acts ", says Dr. W. M. Paxton, " we should train our children. The historian Sallust tells us that the Ro- man mothers trained their children in the 2IO THE CREED CATHOLIC presence of the busts and statues of their ancestors. In Hke manner we should train our children and our rising ministry, as it were, in the presence of their forefathers, in all the memories of our past history, and urge them, as the Roman mothers did, never to be satisfied whilst the virtues and victories of the past were more numerous or more glorious than those of the pres- ent." More catholic and imposing even than Worldwide the Presbyterian numbers is the worldwide ^"^P^''^- range of the Presbyterian empire. While the adherents of other Protestant com- munions are more or less massed in single countries, the Lutherans in Germany, the Episcopalians in England, the Methodists and Baptists in the United States, the line of the Presbyterian Church is gone out through all the earth. She thrives this hour in more continents, among a greater num- ber of nations and peoples and languages, than any other evangelical church in the world. As her witnesses in continental Eu- 211 THE CREED CATHOLIC rope, she has the historic Presbyterian Re- formed churches of Austria, Bohemia, GaHcia, Moravia, of Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, of Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, of Russia and Switzerland and Spain. She is rooted and fruitful in Africa, in Australia, in Asia, in Great Britain, in North America, in South America, in the West Indies, in New Zealand, in Malane- sia, — the people of this faith and order gird the earth. Presbyterianism possesses a power of adaptation unparalleled by any other system. It holds in steadfast array a great part of the intelligence and moral vigor of the Christian world, and from its abounding spiritual life are going forth the mighty forces of Christian missions into all the heathen world. Go ye into On every continent, on the islands of the sea, on the soil of every non-Christian faith, Presbyterianism has planted her standards. Eager to break the bread of life to the per- ishing, and reveal to the restless darkened millions '' that Light whose dawning 212 all the xvorld. THE CREED CATHOLIC maketh all things new ", she has gone out, as her Master bade, through the lands near at hand, on and on, unto the uttermost parts of the earth. No other church in America has ex- Missionary tended its banners and flung out its line of ''ssresst-^f battle as the American Presbyterian Church XI?Wc«;/ has done.^^ In this respect at least t\\^ Presbytenur belief of Dr. C. A. Briggs seems justified, ^^"^' that '* American Presbyterianism is in ad- vance of all other Christian denominations in the realization of the ideal of Christi- anity." ^* The missionary heralds of our Pan-American Presbyterianism alone, which is but a branch of the Catholic Presbyterian Church, are scattered from British Colum- bia to Yucatan; they are in Central Amer- ica, and in Colombia, Venezuela, British Guiana, and Brazil; they are on the African coast from Liberia to the Ogowe, and in the heart of the great Congo Basin; they are strong in Syria and Persia, and side by '^ Robt. E. Speer. ^^•' American Presbyterianism", p. xiii. 213 THE CREED CATHOLIC side in India our separate columns are ad- vancing under one Captain; we are pro- claiming glad tidings in Siam and Laos, in Hainan and the Philippines, in Cuba and Formosa; we have long since " partitioned China ", not for political spoil, but for her own salvation; our united forces are teach- ing the Hermit Nation that as no man, so no nation, liveth to itself; we have pro- claimed to the Sunrise Kingdom the Sun of Righteousness, whose rising shall know no setting. Our strategic points are taken, our stations occupied, our watch-towers girdle the globe.^^ The outlook. With a past rich in glorious achievement and a present marked by worldwide ex- tension and triumphing missionary . en- thusiasm, the future of the Presbyterian Church is radiant with promise. Who can doubt that through historic development, through centuries of special experience, through stern battles w^ith relentless ene- ** Report of Com. on For. Missions, Western Sec- tion, to Seventh General Council. 214. THE CREED CATHOLIC mies as well as through the silent sweeter nurture of His love, God has constituted our Presbyterianism one of His elect agencies in the fulfilment of that gracious Purpose which includes not ourselves only,, but the whole world? May He thrill us with the consciousness of our Divine com^ mission and endowment. May He give us grace, with an humble reliance on His en- abling Spirit, to do our part in that great and blessed work, whose aim is the uni- versal enthronement of our common L^rd, and whose end is nothing less than the re- generation of humanity. 215 INDEX Alva, 70 America, Calvin and founding of, 119, 132-136; Calvinism and colonial elements of. 120 ; Calvinism and republican principles of, 121, 122, 126- 130; Calvinism the training school of, 120, 137; national constitution modelled after Presbyterian, 140-142; sum- mary of Calvinism's contribu- tions to, 142 ; the Revolution a Presbyterian measure, 143- 148; worK and infiuence of Pres. Church in, 148-152 American Bible Society, 196 American S. S. Union, 197 American Tract Soc, 197 Anglo-Saxondom, its Protestant- ism due to Puritans, 72 ; Cal- vin's influence upon, 131 Apostolic Succession, 202 Aristotle, 33 Arminianism, 92, 94, 183, 184, 186 Arnold, Matthew, cited, 94, 183 Arnold, Thomas, cited, 15 Assembly, see General Ass., or Westminster Ass. Attila, 180 Augustine, 13, 87 Bacon, Francis, 16, 33 Bacon, Dr. Leonard Woolsey cited, 120 Baldwin, Prof., cited, 151 Bancroft, cited, 72, 78, 81, 82, 90, 91, 96, 121, 122, 127, 129, 130, 136, 143, 144 Baptism, not repeated, 192; in fant, 201; mode, 201 Baptist approximation to Pres- byterianism, 208 Baptist Association, cited, 36 Baxter. 17; cited, 18 Bayard, Ambassador, cited, 152 Bayne, Peter, cited, 64 Beecher, H. W., cited, 47, 62 Benevolence, 150 Bible-readings, no Bishop, in New Test, usage, 205 Book of Ch. Order, cited, 190 Bowen, Dr. L. P., cited, 6i Breed, Dr. W. P., cited, 146, 209 Briggs, Dr. C. A., cited, 31, 202, 203, 213 Bruce, Robert, 160 Buckle, cited, 92, 98, 102, 12 1, 183, 185 Bunker Hill, 135 Bunyan, 17, 59 Calvin, not onginator of Cal- vinism, 12; C. and Pres. creed, 13; and Catechisms, 25; and Scripture, 33; and God, 47; 217 INDEX and martyrs, 55, 126; and Eng. Puritans, 71; debt of mankind to, 71, 130; C. and Augustine, 87 ; and St. Cyran, 88; and free inquiry, 91; and popular education, 96, 148; and Knox, 98, 130; and Luther, 100, 135; and America, 119, 132-136; and popular government, 128-130; influ- ence of, 131 Calvinism, assailed, preface, Ji; inadequately represented by the Five Points, preface; is it dead ? preface ; hated by heresy, ii; Pres. Church its chief representative, 12; ori- gin of name, 12; Bible its sole standard of doctrine, 33; true secret of unpopularity, 35 ; C. and revision of Confes- sion, 37, 38; tested by its fruits, 43-153; Keynote of, 44; C. and God, 44; and duty, 45; program of, 46; C. and sin, 48; and grace, 49; array of mar- tyrs. 54; heroic moral energy, 55-58; appeals to facts, 57; type of character, 59, 61 ; cre- ated English Puritanism, 63- 74 ; saved the Reformation, 72 ; created modern Christian civil- ization, 74; C. and art, 81 ; and religious toleration, 81; and persecution, 81 ; in Hoi- land, 75-83; in France, 83-88 ; at Port Royal, 87, 88; in New- England, 89, 90; C. and free inquiry, 91; intellectual supe- riority, 92; how explained, 93; most satisfying and stimulat- ing, 94; "lofty," 9S; C. and education, 96, 97, 148; in Scotland, 98-103 ; C. and mis- sions, 100, 10 1 ; in home life, 106-116; in America, 119- 153; C. and revolutionary fore- fathers, 120 ; C. and human rights, 121; a democratic relig- ion, 121, 122; C. and liberty, 123-126, 132-137; C.'s coro- nation of individual man as sovereign, 128, 129; opened new era, 129; school of self- government, 137; summary of contributions to American Republic, 142 ; C. and revivals, 150; illustrated in Predestina- tion and Providence, 157-182; confirmed by Science and phi- losophy, 182-186; catholicity of, 189-215 Campbell, W. A., cited, 209 Caricature, favorite anti-Calvin- istic weapon, 60 Campbell, Douglas, cited, 75, 77, 78, 79, 80 Campbell, W. A., cited, 209 Carlyle, cited, 45, 47, 63, 97, 99 Castelar, cited, 135 Catechisms, Westminster (see Shorter, Larger), creed com- plete in each, 13; predomi- nantly ethical, 21; their exposi- tion of Decalogue, 22; labor bestowed upon, 24-27; vs. other catechisms, 27; no revi- sion of proposed, 39 Catechizing, benefits of, 1 10 Catholicity, of Presbyterian- ism, shown in Standards, 190; in fraternal recognition of other churches, 191- 193; in support of unsectarian insti- 18 INDEX tutions, 193-197; ii) philan- thropy, 198; in condition of membership, 199; in embrace and emphasis of Christian es- sentials, 200-203; in liberality in non-essentials, 204; ingrow- ing Presbyterianization of Prot- estant Christendom, 206-208; in number of adherents, 209; in v/orldwide distribution, 211, 212. Choate, Rufus, cited, 134 Church-going, 108 Coligny, 59. Collier, cited, 15 Common-school system, Calvin inventor of, 96, 148. Communion of saints, 190 Confession of Faith, subscrip- tion to, 14; ethical quality, 21 ; evangelical richness, 22; labor bestowed upon, 27 ; revision of, 37-39; teaching concerning infants dying in infancy, 39; catholic spirit of, 190 ; cited, 32, 45, 160, 168, 174, 176, 178, 190, 191, 199 Congregationalism, 206; approx- imation to Presbyterianism, 207 Constitution of U. S. its model, 142 Covenanters, 86, 143 Cowpens, battle of, 147 Curry, Dr., cited, 19, 92 Creed, purpose and ftmction, 21, 23 Cromwell, 17, 59, 66 Cyclopedia, Universal, cited, 75 Cyran, St., 88 D'Aubigne, cited, loi, 132 Descartes, 33 De Tocqueville, cited, 121 Doyle, J. A., cited, 121 Dutch Calvinists, see Holland,. Duty and Calvinism, 45, 100 Dyer, cited, 71 Eaton, Gen. John, cited, 149 Education, 96, 97, 148 Edwards, Jonathan, 135 Eldership, Presbyterian, 138, 147, 195, 205 Election and grace, practical effects of, 56. 122-124 Elliott, cited, 148 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, cited, 93 Encyclopedia Britannica, cited, 62,83 England, Calvinism in, 20, 59, 63-74 ; liberties of, won by Calvinists, 125, 134 Episcopal, Protestant, approxi- mation to Presbyterianism, 207 Family, the, and Presoyterian- ism, 149 Family Religion, the family altar, 107; religious conversa- tion, 109 ; Scripture and cate- chism, iio; happy Sabbath- keeping, 108- II 2 ; parental discipline, 112; the home Sanc- tuary, 114 Fatalism and foreordination, 166, 180 Fisher, Prof, Geo. F., cited, 33, 44, 102 Fiske, Prof. John, cited, 46, 71, 125, 137 Foreordination and fatalism, 166, and free -agency, 167-173; illustrated, 161-175 France, Calvinism in, 83-88 210 INDEX Free-agency and foreordination illustrated, 167-172; both to be believed, 172, 173 Froude, cited, 43, 57, 58, 59, 60, 72, 99, 125, 183 General Assembly, Southern, cited, 15 ; Northern on revision of Confession, 37, 38; Southern and revision, 38; Archbishop Hughes on, 139 Geneva, 55, 130, 131, 135, 136 German Reformed Church, I20, 212 Gibbon, 58 Gillespie, George, 29 Gladstone, cited, 151 "God's silly people," 194 Green, J. R., cited, 20, 47, 65, 73, 74, 122, 128, 129, 141 Gunsaulus, F. W., cited, 120 Hampden, 17 Harrison, Benjamin, cited, 189 Harte, Bret, cited, 147 Hays, Dr. Geo. P., cited, 195, 197, 198 Heath, Richard, cited, 138 Heidelberg catechism, 27 Henry, Matthew, 17 Heresy, hostile to Calvinism, II Heron, Prof., cited, 205 Hillis, Dr. N. D., cited, 152 I } [story vs. fiction, 60 Hodge, Prof. A. A., cited, 148 Hoge, Dr. M. D., cited, 209 Hcdland, Calvinists of, their suf- ferings and heroism, 75-77; by what inspired, 78 ; leader, 78 ; morality, 79 ; achieve- ments, 80-82; intellectual free- dom, 91 ; contributions to America, 120^ 143 Home, the Christian, created by the Puritan, 73 ; a Scotch Pres- byterian, 106-116 Hospitals. Presbyterian, 198 Howe, John, 17 Hughes, Archbishop, cited, 139 Huguenots, character, 83-86, product of Calvinism, 86 ; in America, 120, 143 Hume, cited, 125 Huxley, cited, 184 Independent, The, cited, yo Infants dying in infancy, 39 ironsides, 71 James, King, cited, I29 Jansen, 87 Jefferson, Thomas, cited, 143 Joseph, story of, illustration 0/ Predestination and Providence, 161-175 Kepler, 178 Kerr, Dr. R. P., cited, 209 King's Mountain, battle of, 147 Knox, chief aim, 47; character, 59; pupil of Calvin, 98, 130; creator of Scotland, 99 ; effect of his teaching, 122, 123 Kuyper, Prof. Abraham, 184 Landrum, Dr., cited, 149 Larger Catechism, completed be- fore Shorter, 26; cited, 160 Law of God, Confession's chapter on, 22 Leadership, national, 15 1 Lecky, cited, 63, 84, 184 Ley den, siege of, 76; University of, 97 Liberty, civil, saved to the 330 INDEX world by Puritans, 71 ; fruit of Calvinism, 122-137 Lightfoot, Bishop, cited, 205 Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 210 Lombroso, cited, 185 Longevity, Puritan, 89 Lord's Prayer, and Calvinism, 45 Lowell, J. R., cited, 47, 73, 104 Luther, 25, 27, 59, 135 Lutheran approximation to Pres- byterianism, 207 Lycurgus, 130 Macaulay, cited, 64, 66, 6^, 68, 69, 70 Mayflow^er, 135 McCosh, James, cited, 209 McFetridge, N. S., cited, 55, 85 Mecklenburg Assembly, 144 Melville, Andrew, 59, 122 Methodist approximation to Presbyterianism, 207 Methodist Ecumenical Confer- ence, cited, 12 ; Conference Wesleyan, cited, 36; Confer- ence, cited, 54 Michelet, Jules, cited, 47 Mill, John Stuart, cited, 183 Milton, 17; cited, 18; 59 Missions, American Presbyterian, 213; and Calvinism, 100, loi Mitchell, Dr. A. F., cited, 23 Mohammedans, 180 Moody, D. L., cited, 152, 194 Moore, Dr. T. V., cited, 105, 180 Moore, Dr. W. W., cited, 209 Morgan, Gen., 147 Morley, John, cited, 56, 66, 94, 102 Morris, Dr. E. D., cited, 177 Motley, cited, 55, 76. 78, 79, 8i, 126, 133, 134 Murray, Regent, 59 Napoleon, 53, 80 New England Puritans, charac- ter, 89, 90 ; example of Cal- vinistic spirit of free inquiry, 91 Novelists vs. historians, 60 Ogilvie, J. N., cited, 206, 207, 209 Ordination, doctrinal require- ments at, 14; not repeated by Presbyterian Church, 192 Owen, John, 17 Pa ton, John G., 107 Patterson, Dr. F,. M., cited, 150 Paxton, Dr. W. M., quoted, 210 Penn, William, 81 Pickens, Gen., 147 Pilgrim Fatheis, 91 Pilgrim's Progi-ess, 112 Pitzer, Dr. A. VV., 171 Plato, 33 Polity, Presbyterian (see under Presbyterian Church). Port Royal, 88 Predestination, in Encyclope- dia Britannica, 62; illustrated, 162-176 ; P. and Providence, 157: and common sense, 158, 159 ; and fatalism, 166 ; and free-agency, 167-173 ; practical effects of, 56, 178-182 (see Foreordination, Piovidence). Presbyterian Church, name, 205 ; the martyr church, 11, 54 ; leading representative of Calvinism, 12; doctrinal church, 14 ; conditit)n of membership, 14, 199; of ordination, 14; Scripture's champion and mar- 221 INDEX tyr, 36; confessional revision »»> 37-39 ; polity of, origin, 205 ; excellence, 139, 206; in- fluence upon character, 137, 138; upon other churches, 206- 208; served as national train- ing school, 137 ; furnished model for national constitution, 140-142; P. C. and American Independence, 143-148 ; and education, 138, 148; and Sab- bath and Family, 149; and benevolence, 150 ; and national leadership, 151; catholicity of, 189-215; historic church, 209- 211; number of adherents, 209; worldwide range, 21 1; power of adaptation, 212; missionary aggressiveness, 212, 213 ; out- look, 214 Preston, Hon. W. C, cited, 140 Prime, Dr. S. I., cited, 196 Providence, and William the Silent, 79 ; presupposes Pre- destination. 157-159 ; all-em- bracing, 159, 160 ; illustrated in Joseph's life, 161-165; P. and fatalism, 167 ; and free- agency, 167-172 ; and sin, 173-177 ; practical effects of doctrine, 177-182 Puritans, founders of common- wealths, 56; by what inspired, 56 ; in England, name and character, 47, 64. 65, 70; spir- itual father, 71 ; Puritan army, 66-69; our Puritan heritage: liberty, 71 ; Protestantism, 72; the Christian home, 73; in America, 89, 90, 120, 143 Ranke, citedi 119 "Rebellion," "The Presbyte- rian," 145 Reed, Dr. R. C, cited, 48 Reformation, the Protestant, led by Calvinists, 19 ; fought through by Calvinists, 72 Reformed Churches of Europe, 212 Religion in the home, see Family Religion. Renan, Ernest, cited, 88 Revision of Confession, in North- ern Church, 37, 38; in South- ern Church, 38 ; not a question of orthodoxy, 39 Revivals, and Calvinism, 150 Revolution, of 1776, "a Presby- terian i^easure," 143-148 Roberts, Dr. W. H,, cited, 120, 205 Romanism, its catechism, 27; where best studied, 98 Roosevelt, Theodore, cited, 95 Rutherford, Samuel, 29 Sabbath, in the home, 110-112; Presbyterian emphasis upon, 149 Saintsbury, cited, 15 Sanctification, entire, 48 Schaff, cited, 18, 131, 134 Scotch-Irish, numbers at Revo- lution, 120 ; part in Revolu- tion, 143, 144, 148 Scotland, Calvinism in, 59; where effects of Calvinism best st- id- led, 98 ; the Scotch before Knox, 98; the transformation, 99; Scotch missionaries, lOO; moral and intellectual pre- eminence, 103 ; religious home life, 106-116; S. and Pres. Church government, 141 333 xNDEX Selden, John, 28 Shakespeare, 15 Shorter Catechism, Assem- bly's last and best work, 26; definition of God, 30 ; first question strikes keynote of Calvinism, 45 ; safeguard against error, 49 ; effect on Scottish peasantry, loi ; in the home, no; in the Revolu- tion, 148, cited, 45, 159, 161 Smiles, Samuel, cited, 85, 86, 91 Smith, Goldwin, cited, 66 Solon, 130 Sovereignty, Divine, 44; and William the Silent, 78; illus- trated, 157-182 Spectator, London, cited, 206 Speer, R. E., cited, 213 Spencer, Herbert, cited, 184 Standards, see Westminster Standards. Stanley, Dean, cited, 19 Stanley, Henry M., cited, 100 Stephen, Sir James, cited, 128 Strickler, Dr. G. B., cited, 27 Subscription formula, 14 Taine, cited, 47, 65, 68, 69, 153 Ten Commandments, catechisms' exposition of, 22, 49 Thompson, Dr. R. E., cited, 146, 208 Tilghman, Chief Justice, cited, 142 Twisse, Dr. William, 17 Ursinus, 25 Walpole, Horace, cited, 146 Washington, George, cited, 144 Watts, Isaac, 17 Westminster Assembly, name and era, 15; personnel, 16; estimates of, 18, 19; back- ground, 19; task, 21; first characteristic, thoroughness, 24-28; advantages and train- ing, 24, 25 ; second character- istic, prayeriulness, 18-31; third characteristic, loyalty to Scripture, 32-36 Westminster Standards, doc trinal, 13; and church mem- bership, 14; and office-bearers, 14; formula of subscription to, 14; name and era of formula- tion, 15; ethical quality, 21 ; spiritual vitality, 22; use and function, 21, 23; labor and prayer bestowed upon, 24-3 1; scripturalness, 32-36; and phi- losophy, 33; hard sayings in, 34; why assaulted, 35, 36; Calvinism of, unimpaired by past or proposed revision, 37, 38. (See Catechisms, Shorter, Larger; Confession.) William the Silent and Calvin- ism, 78; father of religious liberty, 81 W^ilson, Dr. S. Law, cited, 61 Witherspoon, Dr. John, 144 Young Men's Christian Associa tion, 195 223 A- Date Due m^ff*^ ^^ Mrie '42 mj r ' " 9 -5-^Zf By2 <> -: 7 f »M ii i ii «f iii» « ii »iw i aa Jfc iV. Hf?