the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruple, or mistake, to be only about articles not essential and necessary in doctrine, worship or government." After the scruple, or mistake, has been stated, the Synod or Presbytery before which it occurs, proceed immediately and settle the question of admission or rejection. "And if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge such minister or candidate erroneous in essential or necessary articles of faith, the Synod or Presbytery shall declare them incapable of communion with them." Here the process rests; it is conclusive; the import of the act is as clear as light; it is effectual for the purpose; it contains nothing arbitrary or intolerant; it leaves every minister and candidate to his own sovereign discretion to comply with the rule and enter the church, under the favorable decision of the judicatory, or cherish his mistakes and withdraw.

The Adopting Act having reference only to the Confession of Faith and Catechisms, the same year "the Synod, on motion, gave their judgment that the Directory for worship, discipline and government, commonly annexed to the Westminster Confession, is agreeable to the word of God and founded thereupon, and therefore unanimously recommend the same to all their members, to be by them observed, as near as circumstances will allow and Christian prudence direct."

Although this act is as perfectly clear and specific as any human composition can be made, yet there were a few individuals who disapproved of it, on the ground of alleged obscurity, principally in regard to the import of the terms, "essential and necessary articles; good forms of sound words and systems of Christian doctrine." But from a candid and just inspection of these words, we do not see how it can be rationally doubted that they refer to the matter and substance contained in the preceding terms, "the Confession of Faith, with the Longer and Shorter Catechisms of the assembly of Divines at Westminster." To remove all ambiguity and doubt, the Synod of 1730, the year following the act, make the following record, viz: "Whereas some persons have been dissatisfied with the manner of wording our last year's agreement about the Confession, &c., supposing some expressions not sufficiently obligatory upon intrants; overtured that the Synod do now declare that they understand those clauses that respect the admission of intrants in such a sense as to oblige them to receive and adopt the Confession and Catechisms, at their admission, in the same manner and as fully as the members of the Synod that were then present. Which overture was unanimously agreed to by the Synod." Their meaning is, that they allow objections to be made only to parts of the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, giving privilege and power to civil inagistrates to interfere with religious matters. The Synod cer

tainly had power, and none can question their right, to explain and confirm their own transactions. It was substantially the same body or company of individuals, and they declare what their mind was, and that it remains unchanged.

Some discontent still remaining, from want of full and prompt explanations accompanying the act, a fresh avowal of its meaning was made by the Synod in the year 1736. The records for that year show, that "an overture of the committee, upon the supplication of the people of Paxton and Derry, was brought in, and is as follows: That the Synod do declare, that inasmuch as we understand that many persons of our persuasion, both more lately and formerly, have been offended with some expressions, or distinctions, in the first or preliminary act of our Synod for adopting the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, &c.; that in order to remove said offence, and all jealousies that have arisen, or may arise, in any of our people's minds, on occasion of said distinctions and expressions, the Synod doth declare, that the Synod have adopted and still do adhere to the Westminster Confession, Catechisms and Directory, without the least variation or alteration, and without any regard to said distinctions. And we do further declare this was our meaning and true intent in our first adopting the said confession, as may particularly appear by our Adopting Act, which is as followeth: All the ministers of Synod which are now present, (eighteen in number,) except one who declared himself not prepared, after proposing all the scruples that any of them had to make against any articles and expressions in the Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the assembly of Divines at Westminster, have unanimously agreed in the solution of those scruples, and in declaring the said Confession and Catechisms to be the confession of their faith, except only some clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, concerning which clauses the Synod do unanimously declare, that they do not receive those articles in any such sense as to suppose the civil magistrate has a controlling power over Synod, with respect to the exercise of their ministerial authority, or power to persecute any for their religion, or in any sense contrary to the protestant succession to the throne of Great Britain. And we do hope and desire, that this our Synodical declaration and explanation, may satisfy all our people as to our firm attachment to our 'good old received doctrines' contained in the said Confession, without the least variation or alteration, and that they will lay aside their jealousies that have been entertained through occasion of the above hinted expressions and declarations, as groundless.' This overture was approved without dissent. This great and important public measure, so solemnly introduced in the caption and memorial; so deliberately scanned and adopted by the Sy

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nod in 1729; so anxiously and honestly reviewed and re-affirmed with amplifications in 1730; so solemnly re-examined and still farther elucidated and absolutely confirmed in 1736, stands as a monument of the original faith and purity and fidelity of our early predecessors in the Presbyterian Church. Here, in the Adopting Act, is a splendid light-house, or luminary, seen from afar; it beams upon Presbyterians from another world, and irradiates their foot-way every step they take in the path of true and sound orthodox Christianity.

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The orthodox and fair men of that day, and of this day, so understand the document of 1729. We are the followers of the adopters of that act-we honor their names and their deeds here recorded-we construed, apply, and commend their act, just as they did. But this feeling in the orthodox body, of favor towards "a rigid adherence to the Confession of Faith, Catechisms, and Directory," strikes the New School brethren with horror. They prouounce it," a rash departure from the tolerant and fraternal principles of 1691 in England, and 1729 in America." This act of 1729, they pronounce, "a return to, or re-affirmation of, the liberal principles of 1691, upon which the Presbyterian Church in America was based," and construing it thus, they claim it as the model and the screen for all their false theology, which will be exhibited in the sequel of this work. On the contrary, the Presbyterian Church required this orthodox protection and security against error, in her infant and exposed state, and the surrounding church and country strongly sympathized with this act, tallying, as it does, so strikingly with our Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Even the Puritans, and Independents or Congregationalists of New England, notwithstanding their peculiar forms of church government, were, by far the greater part, devoted to orthodox evangelic religion, and the act of 1729 gave them no uneasiness or offence. The Westminster Confession had been adopted in New England long before, and the Westminster Catechisms were taught there, as carefully as in Scotland. So that New School men would gain very little, if they could establish the untenable assumption that the Presbyterian system is based upon Congregationalism. The truth is, the New Englandism of that day differed toto celo from its present phases, and the errorists who now attempt to shelter themselves, and lower the character of the Presbyterian Church by casting this unjust imputation upon the Puritan and Pilgrim fathers, would have fared little better there in that day, than they do here at present. The deteriorating and deceptive terms, "heads of agreement," "for sub

* Division, p. 88.

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stance of doctrine," "essentials and non-essentials," &c., were not in use, because uncalled for at that time.*

The reader can now judge how far the system adopted in 1729, ratified and confirmed in 1730 and 1736, to purify and guard the church, then and ever afterwards, furnishes a grant or concession to New School speculators, to violate their vows, to maintain the Confession of our Church, and maintain its purity and peace, by introducing and circulating at pleasure, their novel, ever-varying, conflicting, and injurious errors, upon every cardinal doctrine of our sacred standards. This is what the New School claim as their right and their privilege; and the orthodox body are denounced as intolerant because they adhere to their standards and vows.

It is reasonable to suppose that the first settlers in New England, from their proximity to the Presbyterian districts and constant intercourse with them, should exert considerable influence upon the Presbyterian population, and their religious character, in its early days. This admitted, New School men, in endeavouring to give the early Presbyterians an unsound character-to awaken jealousies and suspicions against them-do great injustice, in some instances, to the early character of New England herself. From her mixed population, they infer the impurity of the Presbyterian people, with whom they associated so freely. Because some of this multitude were Puritans, some Quakers, some Congregationalists, some Independents, they would infer that all were unsound, or at best, lax in principle-indefinite, fluctuating, and unreliable and of course, (this is their argument,) so were the so-called Presbyterian mass. This is doing great injustice to

* (Saml. Blair.) "There never was any scruple, that I heard of, made by any member of the Synod, about any part of the Confession of Faith, but only about some particular clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters, (about the civil magistrate) and those clauses were excepted against in the Synod's act receiving the Confession of Faith, only in such sense, which, for my part, I believe the reverend composers never intended in them, but which might notwithstanding be readily impressed upon them." The cordial approbation of that act, and the method of subscription to it which it proposes, as generally prevalent, is here placed beyond controversy. Any person desiring still further evidence of the universal popularity and acceptance of the synodical acts and ratifications, are referred to the Presbyterian Magazine, Vol. III., No. 3, p. 141. They will find there, that the Synod of Philadelphia, the Presbytery of New Brunswick, the Synod of New York, and the two Synods united, in 1758, all agree with the act, to profess the same principles of faith, the same form of worship, government, and discipline. At the time of organizing the General Assembly in 1789, the same sentiments, the same confidence and harmony, pervaded the whole Presbyterian mass. No schism or disagreement that ever occurred in the church, impaired materially this unanimity in the church, in regard to Catechisms, forms of devotion, government and discipline, till New Schoolism, like Pandora's box, made its appearance.

New England, as well as to our own church. Without being partial to her, we must be just to all. Now the truth is, there is no lack of evidence to vindicate the first adventurers from the Plymouth rock into the rude and uncultivated hills of Massachusetts and Connecticut, from this implied aspersion. The early Presbyterians derived no contamination from their intermixture with such a noble company, or partial extraction from such a source. Most of her learned and excellent men were strenuous defenders of those very articles of scriptural faith, for which we ourselves earnestly contend. "Cotton Mather." in his Magnalia, Vol. I., p. 266, informs us that a gentleman of New England having published a book, in which he attempted to prove "that Christ. bore not our sins, by God's imputation, and therefore did not bear the curse of the law for them, the General Court of Massachusetts," (the highest authority in the state,) concerned that the glorious truths of the gospel might be rescued from the confusion whereinto the essay of this gentleman had thrown them, and afraid lest the Church of God abroad should suspect that New England allowed such exorbitant aberrations, appointed Mr. Norton to draw up an answer to that erroneous treatise. This work he performed with a most elaborate and judicious pen, in a book afterwards published under the title: "A discussion of that great point in divinity, the sufferings of Christ, and the question about his active and passive obedience, and the imputation thereof." The great assertion explained and maintained, is, according to the words of the reverend author, "that the Lord Jesus Christ, as God-man and mediator according to the will of the Father, and his own voluntary consent, fully obeyed the law, doing the command in the way of works, and suffering the essential punishment of the curse, in the way of satisfaction unto divine justice, thereby exactly fulfilling the first covenant; which active and passive obedience of his, together with his original righteousness as a surety, God, of his rich grace, actually imputeth unto believers; whom, by the receipt thereof, by the grace of faith, he declareth and accepteth as perfectly righteous, and acknowledgeth them to have a right unto eternal life." At the close of this volume, to prove that it spoke the sense and meaning of the churches generally through the country, there is an attestation signed by five distinguished names, Cotton, Wilson, Mather, Symmes, and Thompson, who declare, "as they believe, they also profess, that the obedience of Christ to the whole law, which is the law of righteousness, is the matter of our justification; and the imputation of our sins to Christ, and thereupon his suffering the sense of the wrath of God upon him for our sins, and the imputation of his obedience to us, are the formal cause of our justi