Presbyterianism

“ This Presbyterian believes that billions of years before that baby in the cradle—that little dimpled child, basking in the light of a mother's smile—was born, God had made up His mind to damn it; and when Talmage looks at one of those children who will probably be damned he is cheerful about it; he enjoys it. That is Presbyterianism—that God made man and damned him for His own glory. If there is such a God, I hate Him with every drop of my blood; and if there is a heaven it must be where He is not. Now think of that doctrine! ”

“ And I want it distinctly understood with this jury, that while I am opposed to Catholicism I am not opposed to Catholics—while I am opposed to Presbyterianism I am not opposed to Presbyterians. I do not fight people,—I fight ideas, I fight principles, and I never go into personalities. As I said, I do not hate Presbyterians, but Presbyterianism—that is, I am opposed to their doctrine. I do not hate a man that has the rheumatism—I hate the rheumatism when it has a man. ”

“ The leaders in that day also, such men as Henderson, Gillespie, Rutherford and Baillie, understood the spirit of Presbyterianism and the need of the Church quite as fully as did any leaders of either an earlier or a later day. It is not to be forgotten that, in an age that produced men whose names must never be omitted when the roll of Scotland's greatest sons is called, the Presbyterian Church stood firmly for absolute liberty in worship from prescribed forms. ”

“ That history is such as need cause no Presbyterian to blush when it is related side by aide with that of any other Church; surely they must be bold souls who would propose to introduce a radical change into the genius of Presbyterianism, or to relinquish principles which have led to such success, for others that have yet to show an equal vitality and vigor.
Our free and untrammeled worship demands from the worshipper his best; it brings him face to face with his God, and forbids him to rest in any mere repetition of a familiar form ”

“ Here, Episcopalian and Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning their Maker, listen with attention and devotion to each others’ preachers, and all mix in society with perfect harmony. It is not so in the districts where Presbyterianism prevails undividedly. Their ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival, if they had power. ”

“ The Presbyterian Church has a history which may with reason cause all her children to thank God and take courage as they look forward on greater works than those of past days yet to be accomplished. Her past is rich in noble deeds, valiant testimonies and stirring struggles for the truth, and through it all she pressed forward rejoicing in a liberty which is inseparable from the principles of Presbyterianism, and one product of which has ever been an unwillingness to be trammeled by forms in her approach to God. ”

“ Presbyterianism on probation! Built upon the rock of truth, it lasts while the rock endures. Presbyterianism to be succeeded by an uncertainty? How could the Church entrust the government of God's house to the king's commissioners?
When "The Engagement" became public, the Covenanted Church was plunged into a debate that wrought havoc. The peaceful sea was struck with a storm; the angry waves lashed every shore. The compromise failed, but the Church was infected, weakened, rent, in twain, and for forty years was unable to stand in the presence of her enemies. ”

“ The moving spirit of Presbyterianism has been a consciousness that Christianity claims to be something far higher than any human institution, the Court of Session, for instance, or even the British Constitution. ”

“ Lewellin.—"I was present in a company some time since, when an ingenious Scotchman made out, as he thought, a very strong claim for the superiority of Presbyterianism to the other forms of church government. Episcopacy, he remarked, has the monarchical element too dominant in her constitution—the clergy are everything; in Congregationalism, the democratic element is too dominant—the people are everything; but Presbyterianism unites the two elements, and in about equal proportions the clergy and the people act together—they are a combined power." ”

“ That spirit, at once of independence as regards man, and of dependence as regards God, has characterized Presbyterianism in its most vigorous and progressive periods; by that spirit must it still be characterized if, in succeeding ages, the work allotted to it is to be faithfully and well performed. ”

“ Presbyterianism without the animating life is a poor shrunken thing: it never lies in state when it is dead; for it has no body of fine forms, or trapping of imposing ceremonies, to give it bulk or adornment: without the vitality of evangelism it is nothing; and in this low and abject state my friend found the Presbyterianism of Eigg. ”

“ Presbyterianism in Virginia and the states south of it from colonial days, as well as the recent revival in Kentucky, gave them ground for saying: “We are not the only Presbyterians who view the doctrine of the atonement different from the Confession.”
But the Springfield Presbytery was only a transition stage. These five men might make their independent presbytery the nucleus of a new Presbyterian body, as the Seceders and others had done in Scotland long before, and as the Cumberland Presbyterians were to do a little later; or they might cease to be Presbyterians. ”

“ The Presbyterian Church, South—that Church whose history has been characterized by a loyalty so unswerving to the doctrinal standards of Presbyterianism, by a spirit so wisely aggressive in evangelistic and missionary effort, and by a ministry so scholarly and eloquent, has, in the matter of public worship, shown as constant a fidelity to the Westminster Directory as in doctrine it has shown to the Confession of Faith. ”

“ Two years after, the General Assembly, by a sudden and very unexpected movement, passed a vote exscinding, without trial, from the communion of the church, four synods, comprising the most active and decided anti-slavery portions of the church, The reasons alleged were, doctrinal differences and ecclesiastical practices inconsistent with Presbyterianism. By this act about five hundred ministers and sixty thousand members were cut off from the Presbyterian church. ”

“ Presbyterianism has been one great support of it in England. The sectary in religion is taught to appeal to his own bosom for the truth and sincerity of his opinions, and to arm himself with stern indifference to what others think of them. ”

“ During the period of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, Presbyterianism was established as the national worship of England and Scotland by the Solemn League and Covenant. A great many Episcopal clergymen were deprived of their parishes. At the Restoration several laws against the Scotch Covenanters and other Dissenters were enforced, and retaliatory legislation drove two thousand clergymen from their parishes to starve. ”

“ In England Presbyterianism was neither established nor yet the only prevalent creed among the enemies of Episcopacy. Many other separatist sects had sprung up in mysterious darkness, and, as soon as Laud’s hand was withdrawn, suddenly emerged into daylight—Brownists, Independents, Formalists, Adamites, Anabaptists, all sorts of names, differing in most respects, but all agreed in one, that the union of ecclesiastical and political power, as it had hitherto existed in England, must come to an end. In the signatures to the petition these sects had as great a share as the Presbyterians. ”

“ Presbyterianism has an ecclesiastical organisation and a written creed, and its doctrines have long since become clearly defined by means of public discussion, polemical literature, and general assemblies. ”

“ They thus consent that Methodists, Baptists, and others, shall be taxed for their support. That Presbyterianism is not the Established Church in this country may be owing altogether to the fact that it has always been too weak to place itself in that position. ”

“ This answer did not please Presbytery, and he was asked if he would support the boards regardless of what they did. When the young man declined to make any such blind promise, the Presbytery refused to ordain him.
One of his friends remarked that the difference between modernism and Christianity might be stated thus: in modernism you believe as you please but do what the officials tell you; in true Presbyterianism you do as you please so long as you believe what the Confession says. ”

“ Independents or Congregationalists are a Protestant sect deriving both names from their principle of government; repudiating both Episcopacy and Presbyterianism, they hold that every congregation should manage its own affairs, and elect its own officers independent of all authority save that of Christ; they profess to derive all rules of faith and practice from the Scriptures, and are closely akin to Presbyterians in doctrine. Numerous as early as Queen Elizabeth's time, they suffered persecution then ”

“ In episcopacy the supreme authority is a diocesan bishop; in congregationalism it is the members of the congregation assembled in church meeting; in Presbyterianism it is a church council composed of representative presbyters. In episcopacy the control of church affairs is almost entirely withdrawn from the people; in congregationalism it is almost entirely exercised by the people; in Presbyterianism it rests with a council composed of duly appointed office-bearers chosen by the people. The ecclesiastical unit in episcopacy is a diocese, comprising many churches and ruled by a prelate ”

“ Those who favour state connexion and those who oppose it agree in claiming spiritual independence as a fundamentalSpiritual independence. principle of Presbyterianism. That principle is equally opposed to Erastianism and to Papacy, to the civil power dominating the Church, and to the ecclesiastical power dominating the state. All Presbyterians admit the supremacy of the state in things secular, and they claim supremacy for the Church in things spiritual. ”

“ But you must remember that this gentleman who believes in this doctrine is a Presbyterian, and why should a Presbyterian object? After a few hundred years of burning he expects to enjoy the eternal auto da fe of hell—an auto da fe that will be presided over by God and His angels, and they will be expected to applaud. He is a Presbyterian; and what is that? It is the worst religion of this earth. I admit that thousands and millions of Presbyterians are good people, no man ever being half so bad as his creed. ”

“ When a Presbytery has nothing else to do, it dearly loves to pass a general condemnation on sacerdotalism, in which the tyranny of prelates, and the foolishness of vestments will be fully exposed, but a Presbytery wields a power at which a bishop's hair would stand on end, and Doctor Dowbiggin once made Carmichael leave the Communion Table and go into the vestry to put on his bands.
When a Presbytery is in its lighter moods, it gives itself to points of order with a skill and relish beyond the Southern imagination. ”

“ The secluded members being Presbyterians to a man, there was at once an enthusiastic recollection of the edicts of the Long Parliament between 1643 and 1648, setting up Presbytery as the national Religion, with a determination to revert in detail to those symbols and forms of the Presbyterian system which the triumph of Independency had set aside during the Commonwealth, and which had been allowed only partially, and side by side with their contraries, in the broad Church-Establishment of the Protectorate. ”

“ For while the extravagances into which the sects fell, appearing in various forms one after the other, necessarily offended those who did not belong to them, the Presbyterian preachers, after it came to an open breach in the Assembly, distinctly attacked the Independents from the pulpit; and they were still by far the more powerful. The common people, sure of their faith, desired the Presbyterian forms, stringent church discipline, even excommunication, and rejected toleration. ”

“ And the Presbyterian Church, praise God for its glorious history. It has always waged a never ending, uncompromising war against wrong and oppression. The organization is a body of conservatives until aroused, which must be by a cataclysm. Then we never sleep until right prevails, though the road we travel grows wet with blood and tears. Presbyterians came to America for conscience’s sake. They claimed the right to worship God as their conscience dictated. The first settlement was at New Amsterdam in 1628. The church grows as the community is raised to a higher educational standard. ”

“ They, too, like the nobles, were waiting, and, unlike the nobles, their religion was more to them than lands, and houses, and goods. The Protestantism of the Presbyterian was sensitive above that of all other Protestants, and there went along with it a deep-rooted national jealousy of English interference. Even those who had no aversion to a moderate form of Episcopacy, and were heartily disgusted with the intolerance and pugnacity of the extreme Presbyterians, thought that it would be best to let well alone, and that any further innovation would be impolitic and dangerous. ”

“ As long as the ministers of the Presbyterian Church are men of God, recognizing His call to the sacred office of the ministry, and believing that those whom He calls He equips with needed grace and gifts for their work, so long will they be able to lead the congregations to which they minister in worship that shall be at once honoring to God and a help to the spiritual life of the people: when they cease to be such men forms may become, not only expedient, but essential. ”