PAN-PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD AT EXETER HALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9154, 8 September 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

PAN-PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD AT EXETER HALL.

[FROM THE PALL MALL GAZETTE.]

The Pan-Presbyterian Council meets once in four years, the Pan-Anglican once in ten years. The Presbyterians have met in Edinburgh, Belfast, Philadelphia, and the next year they will meet in Toronto. The Anglicans always assemble in London. The two bodies, each moving in different orbits, have for the first time como into conjunction. What omen this conjunction signifies no ecclesiastical astrologer has yet arisen to declare, and it must be admitted that the conjunction is more chronological and geographical than spiritual and real. The two Pans ignore each other as much as if they were a thousand miles apart. There is something well worthy ©f recognition in Presbyterianism even by the haughtiest Anglican who ever prided himself upon the exclusive monopoly of the Apostolic Succession, and the Bishops from Lambeth would find the Pan-Presbyterian Council in Exeter Hall well worth more than a passing visit. For Presbyterianism is the most virile and democratic form of Protestant Christianity. It forms to a great extent the vertebral column of the Reformed Churches. Ib is an ecclcsiastical system adapted for men rather than for molluscs, and no religion has more grit in it than that held by the orthodox who believe in John Knox. From another point of view it is interesting to the political observer. It is the great parliamentary form of Church government. Popery is autocracy, Anglicanism is aristocracy, Congregationalism is communalism, Presbyterianism is the application of parliamentary constitutional republicanism to Church government. "No Bishop, no King," said the first James, and the Republican training of her synods and general assemblies has made Scotland such a tower of strength to the Homo Rule cause that Mr. Gladstone very pardonably mistook it in one of his Midlothian campaigns for the Land of thb Leal.

A representative of the Pall Mall Gazette waited the other day on the organising secretary to hear something of the present position of Presbyterianism in the world. In the course of the interview an eminent professor of the Free Church joined in the conversation, which went pretty much as follows : —

" How do you estimate tho present numerical strength of the Presbyterian world ?" "We are twenty millions strong. That is to say, there are twenty millions of men, women, and children who belong as adherents to Presbyterian churches. From our last numbering of our people we find that there about 23,000 ordained pastors, and on our church rolls there are nearly four millions of communicants. Estimating five adherents to one communicant, and about eight hundred persons in connection with each congregation, that brings out the total pretty near twenty millions." "Of whom I suppose tho majority are Scotch or of Scotch descent?"

" Largely, but not exclusively, as some seem to think. There are representatives here from a million and a quarter Presbyterians in tho German Empire. We have also representatives from France, and there are Presbyterian churches in all lands, from Russia to Japan. But, roughly speaking, Presbyterianism is the religion of two races, the Scotch and the Dutch. As the Irish have carried the Roman faith over the new world, so the Scotch and Dutch have set up Presbyterian churches wherever they have gone." " And where have they not gone? The Dutch, I suppose, are chiefly in South Africa ?"

" There are many in South Africa, where tho Boers—who have a representative at this synod—have the polity and much of the spirit of the Covenanters, but there are also many in the United States. I should say roughly that of our twenty millions eighteen millions are either Scotch or Dutch, or of Scotch or Dutch descent."

"And all your churches, of whatever nationality, hold the unity of the Presbyterian faith ?"

" Yes, to a most surprising extent. We stand on the ancient ways. We hold the live great articles of the Westminster Assembly. We have the same polity, and we have "even in small things, without any concert or communication, arrived at the same results."

" For instance?"

" Well, take for instance the curious agreement among all our churches that three or four years' training in divinity is sufficient thoroughly to equip a man for the Presbyterian ministry. In all countries where our theological colleges have been established our people seem simultaneously to have arrived at the same conclusion. In great things, as in small, we arc of one mind."

" Then you have no burning questions to distract your peacc?" " None. Some years ago there seemed a danger that some of our ministers in Holland would be carried away by what is called the higher criticism, and that disputes would distract our churches about the authenticity and authority of the Scriptures, but the danger passed, and at present we have no controversy imperilling our faith."

"No down-grade controversy, such as distresses Mr. Spurgeon ? No Ritualist extravagances ?" "No. We find sometimes that our young students are inclined to dally with these rationalistic speculations. But that which saves them and keeps the Church true to the great doctrines of grace is the practical experience of direct work with sinful, strugling, suffering men and women. Fine theories, pretty and philosophical though they look in the closet, do not stand tho test of being put to the saving of souls. _ It needs a longer rops than philosophic Rationalism to reach down to the sunken strata of lost humanity."

" Then your Robert Elsmeres—" "Very soon find what Robert Elsmere would have found if be had lived long enough, that nothing but the doctrines of grace havo grip enough in them to save men and women from their sins.''

" But does the Zeitgeist really pass over you, then, as the angel of death passed over the houses sprinkled with the blood of the Paschal sacrifice

" Hardly. It affects us I suppose in depriving us of members who would otherwise have joined us. But within the churches there is not much trace of the destructive influence of modern unbelief. If visible at all it shows itself most in the pulpits of the Established Church of Scotland. In the voluntary churches it is felt rather than seen in the weakening of that spirit of absolute dogmatic certainty which once prevailed." " But your Westminster Confession ?" " We hold to it still, but the interpretation is modified, no doubt, by the spirit of the time, and there is not a grim insistence upon the acceptance of all the doctrines by every communicant. Whether or not the communicant interprets the doctrine of sovereignty and predestination in the extreme Calvinistic sense, or whether he regards it as merely a form of expressing a conviction that the universe is governed by a Divine plan, is a matter left to the individual conscience."

" Suppose that I apply to be admitted and tell you that I cannot accept the limited theory of the Atonement, and that my views as to predestination and free will are Arminian rather than Calvinistic ?"

"For my part," said one of the Doctors of Divinity, " I would admit you to membership provided you were a believer in Christ, and were in conscious fellowship with the Christian members of my Church." " But you would not, I suppose, accept me if I were only what you may describe as an unconscious Christian, and rejected the supernatural while endeavouring to live the Christ-life, and do the work of Christ

" You would not want to join a Church whose fellowship is based upon a common belief in the reality of the supernatural." "That depends upon whether the communion attracts me by its service for man, and by its practical realisation of the Christian ideal of sacrifice. But suppose that I was born in the orthodox faith, join your Church, and afterwards find miracles and the supernatural incredible, while still wishing to work with you, would you turn me out?"

"I am afraid," said one of my interlocutors, "that we should. But we are very much more considerate to all those exceptional cases than we used to be, and providing you kept your views to yourself, and did not blazon them abroad, we should leave to your own conscience the responsibility of remaining within the pale of the Church."

" Then you still maintain tho doctrine of reprobation 2"

Reprobation is nob a doctrine so much as an inference from the doctrine of preordination, and it has been grossly burlesqued. Hudibras, for instance, fathered upon us the hideous calumny of saying that there are infants panting in eternal torment. We never said anything so revolting. Nor do we believe that the souls of infants are lost."

"You do believe in everlasting punishment ?"

" We see no scriptural warrant for asserting that there is a state of probation after death."

" And you hold on to the strict keeping of the Sunday?" " Certainly. Presbyterians constitute the vai%uard of the Christian host charged with the defence of the Day of Rest."

"In Church government are you not weakening into Congregationalism ?" "Nob in the least. The Congregational - ists are moving rather in the direction of Presbyteria ism." "In one sense, yes. The county associations and Congregation unions approximate to your Synods and General Assemblies. But your Synods I*o longer interfere as they used to do between ministers and congregations. A congregation calls whom it pleases, and, although you still moderate upon the call, it is understood that the Church Assembly does not interfere ?" " That is partially true. But we do nob regard that as approximating to Congregationalism. The right of appeal to the Church courts in all cases of dispute between minister and congregation remains. That is the distinctive mark of Presbyterian ism as against Congregationalism, as the refusal to recognise Bishops is our mark against Episcopacy." " Then on the whole you are hopeful ?" " Yes, and confident. We are facing the problems of the new time with the old faith."