THE BASIS OF UNION.
WE have no desire to dwell continually in these columns on the subject of the Union that has been effected between the Free and U.P. bodies, but in view of the crisis that has arisen in connection with the matter in a number of Free Church congregations throughout the country, we feel it our duty to give what light we can on the subject. This will be seen to be all the more necessary when we take into account the many misleading statements that are circulated by the promoters of union, who do not hesitate to traduce as lies any damaging exposures that are given of the foundations upon which their new Church is built. It may be useful at present to examine some statements in reference to the Basis of Union, which have been made by responsible leaders in the United Church, and which are being disseminated everywhere.
It has been affirmed that the union would take place “on the Standards.”
The question arises, On what Standards? Certainly not on the Standards of the Free Church alone, but the Standards of the U.P. Church also. This is a basis which no consistent Free Churchman can accept. You might as well ask him to build his house partly on the rock and partly on the sand, and thus to ensure its certain destruction. But “the Standards” spoken of must not be taken to mean even the original documents of either Church. There are old Standards and new Standards. Both bodies have Declaratory Acts, and however much these have been kept out of sight in the present controversy by the promoters of union, they form part of the Standards upon which the union has taken place. These Acts embody an entirely erroneous system of belief, and it is this system that is the ruling standard of faith in the United Church. The Confession is held forth in word, but not in reality; it has been given up as a standard of any practical value. The same thing may be said of the Claim of Right of 1842; the claim to be the Church of Scotland has been entirely thrown away. The statement then that this union has taken place “on the Standards” is fitted to be very misleading among those who do not understand what is embraced in the expression.
It is further strongly affirmed by some “Constitutional” leaders that they have carried all their principles with them into the United Church.
It is very difficult for any conscientious person to understand how such an affirmation as this can be made in face of the real facts of the situation. Is there any possible sense in which it may be said that these gentlemen have carried their principles with them? Certainly they have not carried their principles with them as principles, for if they had continued to hold them as principles they could not have entered this Church. The only sense in which they have carried them with them is as mere opinions. Their principles as such have no breathing space in the United Church. The terms of the Uniting Act make this clear. It professes to give great liberty to all parties in the matter of their distinctive principles, but it takes care that it does not acknowledge any beliefs outside the Standards, upon which the Union is based, as principles, but merely as “views of truth and duty”—very different things. One may have “views of truth and duty” that do not amount to fundamental principles of faith. We quote the words of the Basis of Union, “It is hereby declared that members of both Churches . . . shall have full right, as they see cause, to assert and maintain the views of truth and duty which they had liberty to maintain in the said Churches.” We may ask further, What was the liberty they had in the said Churches? Since the passing of the Declaratory Acts they had no liberty to exercise discipline upon any who held the erroneous views contained in these Acts. They might have liberty to speak into the empty air, but nothing further. This liberty, therefore, was a mere mockery, and ought still to be treated as such by all conscientious men. Further, let it be noted that the Constitutionalists referred to, in entering the United Church, accept a constitution that is based upon the overthrow of their own principles. For if their principles had held the day, there would have been no Union with a Voluntary Church. These gentlemen, however, are now prepared to act under a Voluntary Constitution, and to administer it to others. They are now prepared to administer the Declaratory Act to candidates for office—the very Act they were so much opposed to in former times as that they were willing to die rather than have anything to do with it. What a complete surrender of principle is this! This, however, is not the first time such a surrender on their part took place. They surrendered their Church testimony when the above Act was passed. It is sad, however, to think that this Union affair instead of opening their eyes to see the low state into which they had fallen as members of the nominal Free Church, should prove only the means of blinding them more and more to their backsliding position, and alluring them onwards to a greater apostasy from the principles which they profess to hold.
It has also been frequently stated that the questions put to candidates for office in the United Church are practically the same as before.
No statement could be more untrue. The second question in the old form is as follows: “Do you sincerely own and believe the whole doctrine contained in the Confession of Faith, approved by former General Assemblies of this Church, to be founded upon the Word of God, and do you acknowledge the same as the confession of your faith; and will you firmly and constantly adhere thereto, and to the utmost of your power assert, maintain, and defend the same, and the purity of worship at present practised in this Church?” In the new form it runs thus: “Do you sincerely own and believe the doctrine of this Church, set forth in the Confession of Faith, approved by Acts of General Synods and Assemblies; do you acknowledge the said doctrine as expressing the sense in which you understand the Holy Scriptures; and will you constantly maintain and defend the same, and the purity of worship in accordance therewith?”
Now, it is very clear that in the old question the person who answers is committed to “the whole doctrine contained in the Confession”; but in the new question he is simply committed to “the doctrine of this Church, set forth in the Confession.” There is a great difference here. For every one knows that the doctrine of the Free and U.P Churches, which now form this new body, is not by any means the whole doctrine of the Confession. Rather a great deal of it is quite opposed to that doctrine. The framers of this question, however, are bold enough to affirm that the doctrine of the United Church is in the Confession, but they are conscious also that the Church does not accept the whole doctrine contained in it, and so they have conveniently left out the word “whole.” It is sometimes said that the reason why this word has been omitted is because it was a redundancy, but no one that knows anything of the matter will consider this explanation better than dust thrown in the eyes of the people. In fact, it appears to us that that Jesuitical dishonesty, which pervades the Church of Rome has come in like a flood into the larger Presbyterian bodies of this country, so that responsible leaders and teachers will not honestly admit the changes in doctrine that have been introduced, but will try to deceive the people with the idea that things are as they formerly were. When they believe that these changes are all in the right direction, and that the old views are now out of date, why do they not come forward and openly acknowledge their belief, and defend the same? No; because along with the renunciation of the old views—views founded upon the Word of God—there has been a deterioration of conscience and moral backbone. The new lights have little or nothing of the high integrity of their forefathers; they are of a lower order in the scale of morality.
Notice again that the person who answers the new question is committed to the Church’s doctrine as “approved by Acts of General Synods and Assemblies.”
These Acts include the Declaratory Acts we have already mentioned. Thus it may be seen still more clearly that it is the doctrine approved by the Declaratory Acts that he is asked to own and believe. Another sentence to be observed is the following:—“Do you acknowledge the said doctrine as expressing the sense in which you understand the Holy Scriptures?” That is to say, the candidate is required to acknowledge the dangerous notion that there may be several senses put upon the Holy Scriptures, and moreover, that the sense put upon the Holy Scriptures in the doctrine of this Church that has been approved by the Declaratory Acts is the right sense. Can any one say, with the least show of decency, that this question is practically the same as before? Is it not plain that the candidate is called upon to endorse doctrinal views that had no place whatsoever in the former questions, and that are entirely at variance with the Confession of Faith? The last point to be noticed in this question is “the purity of worship.” It is not the purity of worship that obtained at the Disruption that is here spoken of, but the purity of worship that obtains at the present time in accordance with the said doctrine of this Church. Now, this purity of worship admits of uninspired hymns and instrumental music, so that the candidate here endorses the impure and unscriptural worship that has license in the United Church.
It must be clear to all who impartially study this question in its new form that it is entirely different from what it was, and that it embraces with approval all the baneful changes in doctrine and worship that have been introduced into the Church since 1843. The other questions that succeed are in harmony with the one presently examined.