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in its place; but what it may do, when too exclusively relied on, we are taught by German exegetics, which end in frittering away the word into — nothing.

Mr. Church would have the Bible explained philologically, and its statements regarded as ultimate facts, which may serve as the basis of an inductive theological science, and this, too, as one of the conditions of union, after he had shown that drawing conclusions from its simple statements is the great cause of disunion! Does the learned author know what induction means ? What is it, in fact, but the very thing he condemns ? But he is charmed with the boasted magic of induction in the natural sciences. He is a Protestant, and is bound to be so. But will be tell us what induction has done in the field of natural science ? Observation and experiment have done something there, we concede ; but that induction has done any thing we shall be prepared to believe, when we find a natural science, so called, that is any thing more than a mere hypothesis, or even when we find all naturalists consenting to adopt one and the same hypothesis.

The last resort is equally hopeless. Men by doing good may, undoubtedly, be prepared to relish the truth ; and our Lord himself teaches us, that, if any man will do the will of his Father in heaven, he shall know of the doctrine. But our Lord said this on the supposition that there was a teacher present to tell what the will of the Father is. Mr. Church adopts the doctrine, that do good and you will be prepared to know the truth. He must have holiness of life, and active benevolence, before he can be prepared to know the truth. But how, before he knows the truth, can he know what is good ? or how, without the truth, have true holiness of life? If he can be holy without a knowledge of the truth, what matters it whether he know the truth or not? Let him follow out the doctrine he lays down under this head, and he will find himself in that very latitudinarianism he condemns.

Mr. Church is, however, a man of ability, and these absurdities and contradictions belong less to him than to his system. His work is a complete and unanswerable demonstration of the impossibility of harmony and union on the Protestant principle. Harmony and union are, in the nature of things, possible only in the truth, and in some uniform and infallible means of ascertaining it. His work frankly consesses that Protestants have not the truth, and it sets out on the assumption that it is yet to be found, and that they must be subjected to a long course of judicious discipline, before they can be prepared to find it, or to recognize it when they find it. Uniform and infallible means of ascertaining it they have not, and the author proves they cannot have. Hence, he supposes it impossible to avoid mingling “very considerable errors” with the word. Why, then, talk of harmony and union? Why seek for them on the Protestant principle? Why not boldly accept the scandalous dissensions and divisions of Protestants, unblushingly assert that they are grateful to God and profitable to men ; or else frankly acknowledge that Protestantism is not only a crime, but a blunder,-that it has failed, and ever must fail, of its purpose ? Do be consistent. If you will adhere to the Protestant principle, do so manfully ; take it with all its necessary consequences, and do not try to deceive yourselves. Three hundred years you have tried your experiment; you have thoroughly tested your principle, and you know as well as ever you can know its practical workings. You can get no different results, unless you change one or both of your factors. There is no error in the process. Why, then, be ashamed of the results ? If your principles are good, your results are good, and should not be disowned. If it is good to sow the wind, it is good to reap the whirlwind. If it is good to sow to the flesh, it is good of the flesh to reap corruption. If it is good to serve the Devil, it is good to be damned. Do not be ashamed of your wages. Do not add to the sin of rebellion the disgrace of cowardice. Avow your master, and acknowledge yourselves contented with his pay. If you recoil from the scandalous results of Protestantism, blame not the results, but your system, and abandon it. If ye will not be Christians, at least, for the honor of our common humanity, be MEN.

Nothing seems to us more ridiculous than these efforts of our Protestant friends to effect harmony and union. Nay, we can hardly view them without a species of contempt. Yet we check ourselves. We, after all, see in them a ground of hope. They prove that Protestants are not wholly given over. They prove that they are not satisfied with their present state, and that they feel they have not as yet realized even their own meagre conception of Christianity. The late World's Convention in London was a striking proof of this. All Protestantdom is said to have been represented there, and, if so, the whole Protestant world there solemnly confessed to all mankind, that hitherto Protestantism has proved a failure, - a total failure. What else assembled that convention? What other fact did it symbolize? And is it nothing that universal Protestantdom should make this confession ? The fact is, Protestants are heartily ashamed of the workings of their system; and they feel, that, unless they can do something to secure a result different from what they have hitherto obtained, it is all over with them. They feel that they are not the Church of God ; that not for such results as they have obtained did Almighty God establish his kingdom on the earth ; and they would fain confer together, and, if possible, devise ways and means to become what they are sensible they are not. But, as says a homely old proverb, “It is impossible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Poor men! while we rejoice that the consciousness of a need of religion assembled them together, we cannot but compassionate them in their hopeless task. They are condemned to roll the huge stone up the steep hill, and ever to have it come down with thundering rebound. Unhappy Titans ! why would they make war on heaven? Wretched prodigal sons ! why must they starve in a strange land, when in their Father's house there is bread enough and to spare? They will, some of them, conscious as they are growing of their famishing condition, yet ask this question, and arise and return, and be welcomed as the lost that is found, as the dead that is alive.

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Art. III. - The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church

in the United States of America, containing the Confession of Faith, the Catechisms, and the Directory for the Worship of God ; together with the Plan of Government and Discipline, as ratified by the General Assembly at their Sessions in May, 1821, and amended in 1833. Philadelphia : Haswell & Co. 1838.

In the articles inserted in the former series of this Journal on Presbyterianism, we attacked that system in its very foundation, and proved that it has no support but the imagination and sophistry of its authors. This, in reality, is all that is necessary for its complete and entire refutation ; for when the foundation is taken away, the superstructure must fall of

itself. Nevertheless, in order the better to expose the folly and absurdity of sectarians, we will go farther, and take up and refute the several Presbyterian doctrines in detail. This, though not absolutely necessary, may not be altogether useless.

In our present article, we shall select for examination the Presbyterian dogma of predestination and fatalism. The errors heretofore refuted, with insignificant exceptions, are common to all classes of Protestants ; but this error is very nearly peculiar to Presbyterians, and that by which they are chiefly distinguished from other sects.

If there be any theology current in the lower regions, it must be the Calvinistic doctrine of election and reprobation; and among religious societies on earth, they who adhere to it may well be compared to the Dragons de Mort, in the late Continental wars, - so called because they offered and received no quarter, but unfurled the black flag, the sure signal of death. The excessive harshness of this theology has revolted most religious minds, and even Presbyterians themselves are not unanimous in its maintenance. In fact, only a portion of their community still retain it; for, not to mention the celebrated quarrel between Gomar and Arminius, which so impaired the strength of Calvinism, the great schism, in 1837 and 1838, - of which we have spoken in the foregoing article, and which divided the Presbyterians into two very nearly equal camps, originated chiefly in a difference of opinion in regard to the doctrine of election and reprobation. The New School Presbyterians repudiate, in the main, the cruel and impious teaching on this article of Calvin, and other rigid predestinarians; while the Old School still retain it, rally under the black flag, their hereditary colors, and swear to prove true dragoons of death to the last. If, therefore, the doctrine is abandoned by a part, there is still another part that upholds it, and renders its discussion not altogether superfluous.

In the present article, we shall depart, to some extent, from the method we have heretofore pursued, and, instead of taking up chapter and number as we find them in the Confession itself, we shall bring together the several propositions which relate 10 the same subject, that we may preserve unity and connection in our discussion, and dispose of the whole subject at once. We will give, - 1. A clear and faithful statement of the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, and show, that, however disguised or mitigated, it is really contained in the Presbyterian Confession of Faith; 2. We will examine and refute the

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proofs which Presbyterians adduce in its support ; and, 3. Set forth and establish the Catholic doctrine which is opposed to it.

1. The Calvinistic doctrine of predestination, simply stated, is : God from all eternity determined to create some men for the purpose of making them happy and glorious, and others for the purpose of making them unhappy, and consigning them over to eternal torments. The former he created that he might manifest his goodness ; the latter, that he might glorify his justice. If one object, that it does not appear how such a determination can glorify God, and that to create men for the purpose of torturing them savors of cruelty and injustice, it is replied, that the objection is impertinent. Is not a man free to take of the same tree a portion for his fire, and another portion to be made into an ornament for his house ?

This theology asserts that God from all eternity decreed to bestow certain favors and graces on those elected to manifest his goodness, and to cause the others to commit sin and run into every excess, that he might glorify his justice in their punishment. That is, God does not merely permit the sins of the wicked, as Catholics allege, but positively decrees, ordains them, urges their commission, and actually produces them. In other words, God, in order to secure the execution of his decree concerning the election of some and the reprobation of the rest of mankind, imposes on the former the necessity of being good, and on the latter the necessity of being wicked ; or, to use a comparison which is no exaggeration of the doctrine, God makes, on the stormy ocean of this world, some sink, and others float, by giving to the former a leaden jacket which weighs them down, and to the latter a buoyant jacket, a sort of life-preserver, around their waists, which keeps them up. Or, rather, to represent still better the present state of men since original sin, God has concealed under the life-preserver a bag of salt, so that, at first, all sink alike ; but after a while the salt melts away, the life-preserver prevails, and they who are favored with it rise to the surface, while those who have the leaden jackets do not. Notwithstanding this, Calvinists tell us, with a grave face, that God is not the author of sin ! First, because, as they say, it is not God, but the leaden jacket, that causes the wicked to sink ; second, because the wicked sink willingly, that is, in going down they will to go down, and take pleasure in so doing; third, if it be urged that the sinking should be imputed, not to the leaden jacket, but to the agency that

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