PRESBYTERIANISM AND MINISTERIAL FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

New Zealand Tablet, 16 January 1913, Page 27

PRESBYTERIANISM AND MINISTERIAL FORGIVENESS OF SINS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —At times I have a predilection for dropping into various churches on ■ Sunday evening and listening carefully to the views enunciated by the several preachers. Some few months ago I found myself in St. Joseph’s Cathedral, On my way home I called on a friend of mine, a true-blue Presbyterian, and, by the way, found he had a visitor bound for Paradise, treading the self-same track as himself. On being asked which church I had been to I gave the desired information, whfin they looked and expressed astonishment at, as they put it, my wasting time over Pome. One thing led on to another and I was soon involved in a wordy argument as to the respective claims of Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism. Forgiveness of sins by the accredited authorities. was by them scornfully derided, and on my stating that the Presbyterian body claimed the power as well as the Romish Church they openly jeered. Asking my friend to pass me the IFtriminsttr Confession of Faith, I read to them Chap. xxx.: ‘Of Church censures, when they both declared they had never seen or heard of anything of the kind in the Presbyterian fold before, though they were each in the neighborhood of fifty. It occurs to me that very few Presbyterians study the Confession of Faith, and on reading your leading article of October 24 last,. in reference to the Rev. J. Kennedy Elliot, a Presbyterian divine, I thought it would not be without interest were I to send for the perusal of your readers the chapter in question, copied verbatim from the Confession of Faith. Chap, xxx. — Church Censures. I.—The Lord Jesus, as King and Head of His Church, hath therein appointed a government in the hand of church-officers, distinct from the civil magistrate.

II. —To these officers the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are committed, by virtue thereof they have power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that Kingdom against the impenitent both by word and censures; and to open it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the Gospel, and by absolution from censures as occasion shall require.

lll.Church censures are necessary for the reclaiming and gaining of offending brethren; for deterring of others from the like offences; for purging out of that leaven which might infect the whole lump for vindicating the honor of Christ, and the holy profession of the Gospel; and for preventing the wrath of God, which might justly fall upon the Church if they should suffer His covenant, and the seal thereof, to be profaned by notorious and obstinate offenders.

IV.—For the better attaining of these ends the officers of the church are to proceed by admonition, suspension from the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper for a season, and by excommunication from the Church according to the nature of the crime and the demerit of the person. There is certainly no ambiguity about this deliverance of the Westminster divines in 1647, which was furthermore ratified by Acts of Parliament in 1649 and again in 1690, as the ‘ Publick and allowed Confession of the Church of Scotland with the Proofs from Scripture.’ The proofs from Scripture are quoted throughout in footnotes, and supporting the doctrine embalmed in the above chapter we find the divines relying on the Gospel of St. John, Chap, xx., 23—‘Whosesoever sins Jy ye remit they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained.’ Let us go into this matter. The Commonwealth, with a view doubtless of ridding the combined Assembly of Divines and the Commissioners of the, Kirk of Scotland of any distraction' born of matters carnal, instituted a system of reckless finance, paying each and every member for ten days before, ten days after, and during the period of their deliberations no less a sum than four shillings per day, and in the resulting at-

mosphere of peace was generated ‘ a common Confession of Faith for the three Kingdoms ’ the Assembly ‘ judging it to. be most orthodox, and grounded upon the word of God.’ Just so. It then becomes a question as to whether teaching ‘ grounded upon the word of God,’ ' approved by the General Assembly, 1647, and ratified and established by Acts of Parliament, 1649 and 1690, as the Publick and allowed Confession of the Church of Scotland with the proofs from the Scripture’ has been abandoned at any time between 1690 and 1913, and if so why, and by whose authority?. The Rev. J. Kennedy Elliot may be hazy about this matter: the Confession of Faith as representing the Church of Scotland certainly, is not. Let us hope then that the rev. gentleman will avail himself of the resources of his Church-by studying the truths embodied in the Confession of Faith which in turn is built upon the Word of God : and with the resultant knowledge be enabled in times of dire distress, to induce his ‘ Church officers to comfort any weary soul desiring remission of sins. ;/ I remain, sir. Yours' obediently, Omega. Dunedin, January 4.