12 October 1883 A.D. Rev. Thomas Dwight Witherspoon—Distinctive Doctrines of Presbyterianism
12 October 1883 A.D. Rev. Thomas Dwight Witherspoon—Distinctive Doctrines
of Presbyterianism
October 12: T.D. Witherspoon on the Distinctive Doctrines of
Presbyterianism (1883)
Archivist. “October 12: T.D. Witherspoon on the Distinctive
Doctrines of Presbyterianism (1883).” This Day in Presbyterian History. 12 Oct 2014. http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2014/10/october-12-2/. Accessed 12 Oct 2014.
October 12: T.D. Witherspoon on the Distinctive Doctrines of
Presbyterianism (1883)
“The Distinctive Doctrines and Polity of
Presbyterianism,” is the title of an address delivered by the Rev. Thomas
Dwight Witherspoon, on the occasion of the Joint Centennial celebration of the
Synods of Kentucky, 12 October 1883, at Harrodsburg, KY. First published in
1883, it was later reprinted in 1933 as part of the volume Centennial
of Presbyterianism in Kentucky, 1783-1883. Addresses delivered at Harrodsburg,
Kentucky, October 12, 1883. A
full list of the contents includes [1.] Historical Address, by Rev. J. N.
Sanders; [2.] The Dead of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, by Rev. Edward
P.Humphrey; [3.] The Relation of the Presbyterian Church to Education in Kentucky,
by Rev. L.G. Barbour; [4.] The Distinctive Doctrines and Polity of
Presbyterianism, by Rev. Thomas Dwight Witherspoon; [5.] The Planting of
Presbyterianism in Kentucky One Hundred Years Ago, by Rev. Moses D. Hoge.
THE DISTINCTIVE DOCTRINES &
POLITY OF PRESBYTERIANISM.
BY REV. T.D. WITHERSPOON, D.D.
Every denomination of Christians
has certain distinctive principles, which serve to differentiate it from other
branches of the visible Church, and which constitute its raison d’etre—the ground more
or less substantial of its separate organic existence. In proportion as these
principles are vital and fundamental, they vindicate the body that becomes
their exponent from the charge of faction or schism, and justify its
maintenance of an organization separate and apart from that of all who traverse
or reject them.
We are met today as
Presbyterians. We have come to commemorate the first settlement of
Presbyterianism in Kentucky. You have listened to the eloquent addresses of
those who have traced the history of our Church in this commonwealth for a
hundred years. They have told you of the first planting in this Western soil of
a tender branch from our old and honored Presbyterian stock, of the storms it
has encountered, of the rough winds that have beaten upon it, and yet of its
steady growth through summer’s drought and winter’s chill, until what was
erstwhile but a frail and tender plant, has become a sturdy oak with roots
deep-locked in the soil, with massive trunk and goodly boughs and widespread
branches overshadowing the land.
You have heard also, the
thrilling narratives of the lives of those heroic men by whose personal
ministry the Church was founded; of the toils they underwent, of the perils
they encountered, of the hardships they endured that they might plant the
standards of Presbyterianism in these Western wilds.
The question arises with
especial emphasis under circumstances like these : What are the peculiar
principles of the denomination whose centennial is celebrated with so much
enthusiasm today? Is there anything in these principles that justifies such
sacrifices and toils as were made by the noble men whose biographies have been
read? Is there anything in the distinctive doctrines and polity of this
Church to render its settlement in Kentucky a hundred years ago, and its
perpetuation and development through a century of conflict and struggle, a
matter worthy of such joyous, grateful commemoration as we give today? Is
there anything in these creeds and symbols, venerable with years, which we
have received from our forefathers, which makes them an inheritance meet to be
transmitted in their integrity and purity, with increasing veneration, to
our children and to our children’s children forever?
These, Christian friends, are
the questions that, through the kindness and partiality of my brethren, I am to
endeavor to answer today. And in the fulfillment of my task, I invite you to
walk with me for a little while about this, our ancestral Zion, to “mark well
her bulwarks and consider her palaces that ye may tell it to the generation
following.”
And first, let us endeavor to
get a clear idea as to what constitute the distinctive principles of
Presbyterianism, as to what there is that is peculiar in its doctrine and
polity. Confining myself strictly under the head of doctrine, to the
department of ecclesiology or the doctrine of the Church, and viewing the
polity of Presbyterianism in its only proper light as basing itself distinctly
upon, and adjusting itself most accurately to that form of doctrine delivered
in Scripture, I may say that, just as in our doctrine of Redemption, there
emerge the historical five
points, over which controversy has waged since the days of the
Synod of Dort, so in our doctrine of the Church there are five points,
constituting five distinctive principles of Church government, each one of
which places our Church polity in sharp contrast with that of other
Churches around us, and all of which together make up a system as unique as it
is beautiful, as scriptural as it is complete, having nothing comparable to it
in any other organization in the world.
Let us take up these five points
of Presbyterianism successively, and endeavor to engrave them as clearly as
possible upon our memories and upon our hearts.
1.
The first fundamental principle of
Presbyterianism is that Church power is vested not in officers of any grade or
rank, but in the whole corporate body of believers. Our doctrine is that
Christ, who is the great Head of the Church, the alone fountain and source
of all its power, has not vested this power primarily in a single officer
who is the visible head of the Church and the vicar of Christ, as in the
Roman Catholic Church, or in the body of Bishops or superior clergy as in
the Episcopal Church, or in the whole body of the clergy as in the Methodist
and some other churches, but in the people, the whole body of the people,
so that no man can attain to any office, exercise any authority, or wield any
power in the Church, except he is called to that office, invested with that
authority and clothed with that power by the voice of the people. Here, then,
is a grand, fundamental difference between the Presbyterian Church and all
those churches that are prelatical or hierarchical in form, in that ours is a
government in which Christ rules through the voice of his people, his
whole redeemed people, and not through any privileged class, any spiritual
nobility, or aristocracy of grace.
2.
The second fundamental principle of
Presbyterianism is that this power, though vested in the people, is not administered
by them immediately, but through a body of officers chosen by them, and
commissioned as their representatives to bear rule in Christ’s name. The
offices that are to be filled have been ordained of Christ, and none may be
added to those which he has ordained. The officers who fill these offices are
chosen by a vote of the whole membership of the Church over which they are to
rule, and yet are to be chosen under such special prayer for the guidance
of the Holy Spirit who dwells in the Church, that whilst the outward vocation
to office is from the Church, the inward call and commission to each officer is
to be recognized as from Christ Himself, the great invisible and spiritual
head. The only power, therefore, immediately exercised by the people is this
most important and fundamental power, that of vocation. They choose those who
shall administer the government over them. These rulers act as their
representatives and so the government is a representative government, as
distinguished from a pure democracy or a government of the people by
themselves. This principle separates us from all churches that are
congregational in form, as the first from all that are prelatic or
hierarchical. This last distinguishes us, therefore, from the Congregational
churches of England and of this country, from all churches of the Baptist faith
and order, and from those churches around us that call themselves the
Christian, or Reformed, in all of which questions of doctrine and discipline
are decided by a direct vote of the whole congregation, whilst in ours these
questions are settled by the voice of those officers who are chosen to bear
rule.
3.
The third fundamental principle of
Presbyterianism is that the whole administration of government in the Church
has been committed to a single order of officers, all of whom, though having in
some respects different functions to perform, are of co-ordinate and equal
authority in the Church. It is true that the Presbyterian Church, after the
pattern of Scripture, has two orders of officers, the elder and the deacon; but
the deacon is not a ruler. He has no spiritual oversight or authority.
His office is purely executive. He has charge only of the secular
concerns of the Church. Its government is committed to a single order of officers,
the presbyters or elders. These elders are of two classes. There is first a
class who, not having been called of God to be preachers of the Gospel, but
recognizing His call through the Church to bear rule, continue in their secular
avocations, devote such portion of their time as they can spare from their
business to the oversight and care of the flock, and exercise full authority as
rulers over the house of God. These are called Ruling Elders, because their
office is simply to rule. There is a second class who, in addition to the
call to bear rule, recognize a divine voice summoning them also to the work of
preaching the Gospel, and this function of preaching, which is the highest and
most honorable in the Church, demands their whole time, so that they give up
secular callings, and are specially set apart of the Church to this higher
function, and so are known as Teaching Elders or Ministers of the Word. But
whilst this ministry of the Word entitles them to special honor, it confers no
higher rank and invests with no superior authority. The minister in our church
courts has no more authority than the ruling elder, so that we not only have in
the Presbyterian Church the “parity of the clergy,” of which we hear so much,
but the parity of the eldership, of the ruling elder with the teaching elder, a
principle not to be found under any other form of church government.
4.
The fourth distinctive principle of
Presbyterianism is that these Presbyters rule not singly but jointly in
regularly-constituted assemblies or courts. This is a principle upon which I
would lay particular emphasis; for in it the admirable genius of our system
especially appears. Whilst there are functions that are purely administrative,
such as preaching the Word, administering the sacraments, etc., which a
Presbyter may, when so commissioned, perform separately and individually, yet
all legislative and judicial functions are to be administered by assemblies or
courts alone. And no one of these assemblies is competent to the transaction of
any business unless representatives of both classes of Presbyters, ministers
and ruling elders, are present. There is no exercise of any several
authority, as by a bishop or a presiding elder, in any part of the field.
There is no possibility of any one man power, for all authority must come with
the sanction of a church court.
5.
The last distinctive principle of Presbyterianism
is that these church courts are so subordinated to one another that a question
of government or discipline may be carried by appeal or complaint or review
from a lower to a higher court, representing a larger number of congregations,
until every part of the Church is, through this due subordination, brought
immediately under the supervision and control of the whole. Thus our
Church Sessions, which constitute the lowest order of assemblies, are, as many
lie within a certain district, subordinated to a higher court or Presbytery,
constituted of representatives from each of these Church Sessions, meeting
twice every year and oftener if necessary. The minutes of the Church
Sessions all pass under the inspection of the Presbytery by way of review and
control. There is the right both of appeal and complaint to the
Presbytery from any action of any of these Church Sessions; and Presbytery has
in such cases all the right of a higher court or court of appeals. The
same is true of the Synods in relation to the Presbyteries, and of the General
Assembly in reference to the Synods—so that the authority and oversight of the
whole Church is brought to bear upon every part, and the right of appeal
belongs to the humblest member of the Church, by which he may carry his cause
through all intermediate courts to the General Assembly, the highest of all.
Here, then, to recapitulate, is
our system of government—power vested in the great body of Christ’s people;
administered through officers chosen by the people and commissioned of Christ;
administered by a single order of officers equal in authority and rank;
administered not severally but jointly, in duly organized assemblies or courts,
and in assemblies or courts so subordinated to each other as to bind the whole
mass together in a unity of mutual oversight, government, and control.
Such, in brief, is the system of
church polity which we hold. It differs, as you will readily perceive, in its
essential features from that of every other denomination. It is the system held
by that great Presbyterian body, which is composed not only of the various
branches of the Presbyterian Church in this country, in Canada, in England,
Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, but also of what are known as the Reformed
Churches of Germany, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, France, etc., comprising in
all a constituency of nearly if not altogether fifty millions of souls.
For this system we claim, without
seeking to disparage that of any other representative body of Christians, the
following points of excellence :
First.—Its
exact Scripturalness. As
Presbyterians we hold that everything concerning the doctrines and polity of
the Church must be brought to the sure criterion of the Word of God. To
that which is revealed nothing is to be added, and from it nothing is to be
taken away. And so we hold to our form of government because we believe that
essentially, in all its leading features, it is the same that was delivered by
our Lord to His inspired apostles, and by them to the primitive Church.
We find, from the study of the New Testament, that the apostles were accustomed
to “ordain elders in every city.” As there was but one church planted in each
city these elders were, most of them, Ruling Elders. We find that, as in
the 20th chapter of Acts, these officers, are in one place called elders, and
in another, bishops, showing that the New Testament bishop is not a diocesan
officer, but only an elder considered as having the oversight of a congregation
of believers. We find that these elders, together with the deacons,
constitute the only orders of permanent officers in the Church. Even the
apostles themselves, recognize themselves in the exercise of authority in the
Church as elders. Thus, Peter says : “I, Peter, who am also an
elder and a witness,” etc., and John, the apostle, begins his epistle : “The
elder to the well-beloved Gaius,” etc. We find that these elders are of
two classes, exactly corresponding to those in the Presbyterian Church now; the
“elders that rule,” and “those that labor in word and doctrine.” We find that
their authority is exercised in duly organized courts. Timothy is ordained by
the laying on of hands of a Presbytery. A Synod is convened at Jerusalem,
composed of the apostles and brethren, before which is issued and decided an
appeal from the Church at Antioch. Our entire system in all its five essential
principles, is, therefore, found in Scripture. Our polity is that revealed
in the Word of God; and in its exact scripturalness, its close conformity to
the “pattern given in the mount,” is found the first great excellency of
Presbyterianism. To this scripturalness of our system, we have the testimony of
the ablest and most learned biblical scholars, and even of those who differ
with us in forms of government. In the Episcopal Church, for instance, which
lays such exclusive claim to apostolic origin and descent, the ablest scholars
and the profoundest theologians admit that, in the days of the apostles, the
bishops were only pastors of churches, and the present order of diocesan
bishops was not known. This is the testimony of Archbishops Usher,
Whately, and Tate, Bishop Lightfoot, Canon Farrar, Dean Stanley, Dean Howson,
Lord Macaulay, Mr. Hallam the historian, and a host of others whom I could
name, so that we justly claim for our system its strict accordance with the
teachings of Scripture.
Second.—Its
vindication of the unity of the visible Church under all dispensations. The
Scriptures constantly speak of the visible
Church as being the same under
both the old and new dispensations. Paul does not represent the olive
tree as being rooted out and another planted in its stead, but as having the
Jewish branches broken off, and the Gentile branches engrafted in their
room. Now, under our Presbyterian theory of church government, and under
it alone, have we a clear conception of this visible unity under both
dispensations.
Let us look for a moment at the
form of government under the old economy. The first distinct reference we
have to the Church as a visible organization is in connection with the calling
of Abram, and his settlement in Canaan. Doubtless, the visible
Church had existed before, had existed since the offering of the first
sacrifice before the gates of the lost Eden—but here is the first reference to
its organic form. And now what is that form? The only officers we
read of are the elders of Abraham’s house. One of these, Eliezer, is
distinctly mentioned (Gen. 24:2
) as the “servant and elder of his house” (not the eldest
servant, as in the authorized version, but the servant and elder). We
hear little of these elders at this time, for we hear little of the Church; but
they are to play a very prominent part a little later. At the time of the
Exodus they appear as the distinctly-recognized officers of the Church; when
Moses is sent as the deliverer of God’s people from the bondage of Egypt, he is
directed (Ex. 3:16
) to go and gather the “elders of Israel” together, and
deliver his message to them, as divinely-appointed rulers of the
congregation. When he is sent to demand of Pharoah the release of the
children of Israel, he is instructed to take with him (Ex.
3:18
) the “elders of Israel,” as the representatives of the
chosen people. When in the wilderness Moses receives the law from the
hands of Jehovah, on Mount Sinai, he writes it, and delivers it to the priests,
the sons of Levi, and the elders
(Deut. 31:9
) as the spiritual rulers of God’s people. In every instance
in which any authority is exercised or any discipline administered, we find
these elders
referred to as the rulers in the Church. They are sometimes called, “the
elders;” sometimes “the elders of Israel;” sometimes “the elders of the
congregation;” sometimes “the elders of the people;” but they appear on every
page of the history of the Jewish Church, as its divinely-appointed and
recognized rulers.
Nor was the term elder one simply of seniority
or of respect, as some have supposed. There were many elders in age, who were
not elders in office. The term elder
implied official rank and position. Thus, when the Lord directed
Moses to select out of the elders of the tribes, seventy, who should constitute
the highest council of the Church, or, as we might say, its General Assembly,
he instructed him (Num. 11:16
) to choose only those whom he certainly knew to be “elders
of the people, and officers over them.”
The Jewish Church was,
therefore, governed by elders in the days of Moses. It was so in the days
of Joshua, when there were elders in every city (Josh.
7:6
; 20:4
; 24:31
; etc.), and in the days of Judges (Judges
2:7
; 8:16
; Ruth 4:2
; etc.), and in the days of Samuel (1 Sam. 15:30
; 16:4
; etc.), and in the days of David (2 Sam. 5:3
; 17:4
; etc.), and in the days of Elijah and Elisha (1 Kings 21:11
; 2 Kings 6:32
; etc.), and in the days of Ezekiel (Ezek.
14:1
; 20:1
; etc.), and in the days of Ezra, when the Old Testament
canon was completed (Ezra 10:14
; etc.), and in the days when our Saviour appeared in the
world (Matt. 21:23
; 27:1
; Mark 8:31
; Luke 22:52
; etc.). It is sometimes asserted that these elders were only
civil rulers and not ecclesiastical; officers of the State and not of the
Church; that the priests had the exclusive authority in spiritual matters, and
the elders in secular matters. But, so far as this from being the case, that,
as we shall soon see, the priests themselves, ruled, not as priests, but as
elders, and in every act of government were associated with the “elders of the
people,” while the council of seventy, or the Sanhedrin, as it was afterwards called, was
composed entirely of elders, chosen from the different tribes of Israel. It is
true, that, owing to the union of Church and State, these elders had many civil
duties to perform. But their functions as civil officers, resulting from this
temporary connection, were only incidental. Their highest functions were
spiritual. They were pre-eminently ecclesiastical rulers. They had charge
of all the interests of the “Church of God which was in the Wilderness with the
angel which spake to Moses on Mount Sinai.” The fact that they had civil duties
to perform, and secular questions to decide, no more proves that they were not
Church officers than does the sitting of the bishops of the established Church
of England in the House of Lords prove that they are not Church officers.
The Old Testament Church was,
therefore, Presbyterian, inasmuch as its whole government was administered by elders chosen from among the
people and set apart to the office of rulers over the house of God. It was
still further Presbyterian in the sense that these elders were of two distinct
classes—elders of the priests and elders of the people. This appears very
distinctly in the constitution of the Sanhedrin, or highest ecclesiastical
council of the Jews.
This body consisted exclusively
of elders (Numb. 11:16
) chosen from all the tribes of Israel. Those from the tribe
of Levi, were, of course, of the priestly office. They added to their function
as elders, that of ministers before the altar in the sanctuary. To distinguish
them from elders of other tribes, they were called priest-elders, or elders of
the priests (2 Kings 19:2
; Is. 37:2
, etc.), and afterwards chief priests, one being taken in later
days from each of the twenty-four courses in the temple. We have thus under the
old economy “priest-elders” and “people-elders,” corresponding with the two
classes of elders in the Presbyterian Church at the present
day.
day.
These elders ruled in that olden
time, not singly, but jointly. No officer in the Jewish Church had any such
individual authority as that now exercised by the bishop of an Episcopal
diocese, or the presiding elder of a Methodist district. In every city
there was a “bench of elders,” which held its sessions in the gate, and to
which all questions of government were submitted. In smaller cities this court
corresponded to a Church Session, in larger ones to a Presbytery. There was, as
we learn from Jewish writers, a higher court, composed of not less than
twenty-three elders, to which appeal could be had from the decision of the
“elders of the gate,” corresponding in this respect to our Synod; whilst above
all was the Sanhedrin, or ultimate court of appeal, corresponding to our
General Assembly.
It will thus appear that the
Church under the old dispensation was essentially Presbyterian, that in the
setting up of the new dispensation no change in the form of government was
needed, and no breach in the continuity of the Church was made, as Archbishop
Whately has so admirably said. (Kingdom
of Christ, pp. 29, ff. Ed. of Carter & Bros., N.Y., 1864) :
“It appears highly probably—I
might say morally certain—that wherever a Jewish Synagogue existed that was
brought the whole or the chief part of it to embrace the Gospel, the apostles
did not there, as much form
a ‘Christian church (or congregation, Ecclesia) as make an existing congregation Christian’ [the
italics are his own] ‘by introducing the Christian sacraments and worship, and
establishing whatever regulations were requisite for the newly-adopted faith,
leaving the machinery (if I may so speak) of government unchanged, the rulers
of synagogues, elders and other officers (whether spiritual or ecclesiastical
or both), being already provided in the existing institutions.” “And,” he
continues, “it is likely that several of the earliest Christian churches did
originate in this way; that is, that they were converted synagogues, which became Christian churches as
soon as the members, or the main part of the members, acknowledged Jesus
as the Messiah. * * * * And when they founded a church in any of those
cities in which (and such were probably a very large majority), there was no
Jewish Synagogue that received the Gospel, it is likely that they would
conform, in a great measure, to the same model.”
And, as thus the unity of the
visible Church, under the two dispensations, appears in this element of
Presbytery, which runs through and characterizes its whole polity, so is it
with the unity of the Church militant and the Church triumphant; for in that
apocalyptic vision which was given to John of the future glory of Christ’s
redeemed and ransomed Church, there still appear, as the representatives of
this same principle of Presbytery, the “four and twenty elders surrounding the
throne.” Well may we give honor to a system which thus vindicates the unity of
Christ’s witnessing Church under all dispensations, to the end of time and
through the cycles of eternity.
Third.—Its
superiority as a basis for the organic unity of the whole visible Church
in the world. It must be evident that a
system which shall unite all Christian people in the bond of a common unity
must have provision by which, on the one hand, every part of the Church shall
be subordinated to the authority of the whole, and by which, on the other,
there shall be the utmost protection and security for the rights and liberties
of each individual member.
The first element in this unity,
due subordination, is secured very perfectly by the system of hierarchy; that
which finds its expression in the Church of Rome—but it is a unity in
which the rights and liberties of the private member are completely sacrificed
to the oppression and tyranny of the governing power. In the system of
independency or congregationalism on the other hand, the rights of the
individual are secured, except against that most fearful of all despotisms, the
despotism of a majority against whose prejudice or passion there is no
protection by the right of appeal. But this liberty is at the expense of
due subordination. The system of Presbyterianism secures a unity as complete as
that of the Church of Rome, and at the same time a protection for the rights of
the individual such as is not found in any other system of jurisprudence,
either civil or ecclesiastical. For while it is the boast of our
civilization that, by our system of appellate courts the humblest citizen
may carry his cause from a lower to a higher tribunal, and so receive an award
which is free from all taint of local prejudice or personal malice, yet, in
fact, the exercise of this right of appeal is limited by its costliness, and
only the favored few who have the means to employ counsel and assume
responsibility can carry their cause to the Court of Appeals.
But in the Presbyterian Church
the humblest and poorest member can have his cause carried, without any
expense, from Church Session to Presbytery, from Presbytery to Synod, and from
Synod to General Assembly. The ablest counsel in the land is at his service
without one cent of compensation or fee, and he may obtain, as is often done,
the voice of the whole Church in the decision of a question in which he feels
that his rights or his interests are involved.
Fourth—The
flexibility by which this system adjusts itself to all stages and conditions in
the life of the Church. If you should conceive a man
with his wife and infant children thrown by shipwreck upon a heathen island, if
he be a Christian believer, and his family a Presbyterian family, then he
carries with him a complete Presbyterian Church. Upon him, as the head of his
house, the office of the Presbytery or eldership devolves. His wife is
the deaconess; his children are the baptized members. There is a complete
“church in his house.” As his sons come to manhood, or heathen men are
converted and taught in the way of the Lord, they are admitted by him to share
in the office of the Presbytery, but the Church is complete at the very
moment when he is thrown upon the island, and there is no other form of
church government under which this would be true.
Again, if the whole Christian
world were, today, to resolve to come into organic union under a single form of
government, there is (with the exception of the Papal, which, as we have seen,
secures only the unity of a resistless and remorseless despotism) no system
which could be adopted without a strain too severe to be borne, except that
Presbyterian system which we have endeavored in these pages to sketch. No
Baptist Convention or Congregational Association that could gather in one place
could be large enough to represent this whole Ecumenical Church. No Methodist
Conference or Episcopal Council, even though they were limited to diocesan
bishops, could find a hall large enough for their assembly. But our
Presbyterian system, without a strain upon its machinery, would add another to
its ascending series of courts, and as now Church Sessions are represented by
delegates in Presbyteries, and Presbyteries by delegates in General Assemblies,
so General Assemblies would be represented by delegates similarly chosen in an
Ecumenical Council, and the unity of the whole visible Church finds expression
without a moment’s confusion or jar.
There are many other
excellencies which we might claim for our Presbyterian system, such as its spiritual
power through its peculiar hold upon the family relation, its historic bearing
upon the problems of civil and religious liberty, etc. I content myself with a
single additional reason for our love and veneration for our time-honored
Presbyterianism.
Fifth—The
historic associations that cluster about it. From
the days of the apostles until now the Church, in its purest forms, has been
Presbyterian. The Waldenses, who, in their native valleys of the Piedmont,
maintained the purity of the primitive doctrine and the simplicity of Christian
ritual, amidst all the corruptions and superstitions of the Church of Rome,
were Presbyterian. Claiming to have received their doctrine and discipline
directly from the apostles; refusing to submit to the authority of the Church
of Rome; remaining unshaken in their simple faith through all the fires of
persecution and of martyrdom; extorting even from their persecutors reluctant
but explicit testimony to the simplicity of their piety and the blamelessness
of their lives, they maintained the light of a pure Presbyterian doctrine and
order through all the darkness of the middle ages, and there, in the secluded
valleys of the Piedmont, it was still blazing when Luther and Farel and Zwingle
and Calvin kindled on the highest mountain tops the watchfires of the
Reformation.
Another witness through these
dark ages for a pure Presbyterianism, is found in the church of the ancient
Culdees, of Scotland. This church owes its establishment to the labors of
Columba, a native of Ireland, who, about the middle of the sixty century went,
as an evangelist, into the midst of the Picts of Scotland. Having converted
great multitudes of these fierce tribes to Christianity, he established upon
the island of Iona a seminary of learning for the training of pastors and
evangelists for his work. The ministers trained in this seminary were called
Culdees, and the churches founded by them Culdee Churches—the world Culdee being most probably a
corruption of the Latin words Cultor
Dei, worshipper of the true God. These churches of the Culdees, or
worshippers of God, existed for many centuries without holding any connection
with the Church of Rome. Indeed, they not only refused to acknowledge the
authority of the Romish See, but they protested against its errors and
innovations, and maintained their ground successfully against its usurpations
and encroachments until the very dawn of the Reformation. Their form of
government was essentially Presbyterian. They had a Synod or Assembly, to the
members of which they gave the name of Seniores,
or Elders. These elders, acting in their collective capacity, elected and
ordained to the ministry. All ministers were of equal rank. Those who had
permanent charge of churches were called bishops, but their office and authority
were simply those of pastors of individual churches. They held no higher rank,
and exercised no greater authority than the other Seniores who sat with them in council.
We have thus two distinct lines
of Presbyterianism running back to apostolic times, and the memories which
gather about us today are those of a grand historic Church. Pre-eminently
the “ Church of the Covenant,” her covenants have been sealed with blood.
Those primitive martyrs who “were stoned, were sawn asunder,” etc., were
witnesses for the principles for which we contend today. Those heroic
Vallenses who were hunted from crag to crag of their native mountains, who were
hurled by their persecutors over the steep precipices and dashed in pieces on
the rocks below, were Presbyterians. Those grand old Covenanters of
Scotland, who “loved not their lives to the death” for “Christ and His crown,”
were Presbyterians. This old Church has come down to us with her vesture,
like that of her Lord, crimsoned with blood. The most illustrious martyrs, the
most renowned confessors, the most valiant reformers have been hers. Let us
venerate her for what she has been; let us love her for what she is. In this
centennial year, let us fling forth her encrimsoned banners freshly to the
breeze. Let us send forth a larger band of evangelists to carry our standards
over rugged mountains, and plant them in sequestered valleys, in rude hamlets
and secluded villages. Let us kindle the light of our pure faith and scriptural
polity in ever-increasing centers of influence and power. Let us fully
endow and equip our denominational institutions of learning, that our young men
may be deeply grounded in all those principles for which our forefathers
sacrificed and toiled. Let us gird ourselves like men for the work of
perpetuating, establishing, and enlarging the sphere of influence of our
beloved Church.
And may each one of us so live
and so labor that when the testimony of this generation is borne and its work
ended, we may transmit to our children, in its purity and in its integrity, the
legacy of Presbyterianism which we have received from our sires, having our
names honorably linked with the increase of its prosperity, and the enlargement
of its influence in the world.
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