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unreprovingly. Even from those who had been erewhile members of her communion and embosomed in her friendship and confidence, collision did not strike out one spark of sympathy for us. We had supposed that

E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

The New Englander, however, does not trouble itself to insinuate skillfully. It seems to think that stage of things quite gone by. It speaks out plainly. It is not necessary to arrange its statements with any special care. They will group them

selves with an internal order around-not indeed hatred to our Church, but opposition to it, as the grand obstacle in the way of sectarian Congregationalism.

"With every session of the General Assembly came the annual crop of suspicions and broad assertions derogatory to the churches of our order at the West. Were these to be credited?" "What native shape would even the tradition of a truth retain, falling from the lips of some unscrupulous 'commissioner,' then tortured with much comment in full General Assembly, and then blown on all the winds! But what if it were only the fraction of a truth, or no truth at all to begin with?" The Plan of Union is “an ill-fated compact. It had come to be "a wholly one sided and treacherous arrangement.”*

Treacherous! We cannot trust ourselves to speak with such a word ringing in our ears. This from New England! These are the men who were to stand by us, shoulder to shoulder. Et tu Brute! The feeling that first sent the blood tingling through our veins, changes into sadness while we write.

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But this is not all. Let our Church listen, if possible, more in sorrow than in anger:"

"Some low level of Presbyterianism." "Time was, when there were in this country the two distinct and integral polities of Congregationalism and Presbyterianism, and no third thing between them." "This intermediate quiddity, which it (the Plan of Union) had produced, this composite New School product, styling itself Presbyterianism." "It has been the most

effective imputation against our brethren at the West, that they were not Congregationalists of the good old New England sort. * * But they who make this charge, who were they? Not Presbyterians by their own Book -discarded by the genuinely Presbyterian Assembly; and daily admonished by their own Book-abiding brethren among them, that they had spoiled their system by their fond inventions! For there remain not a few who are Presbyterians in the ranks of the New School, among them, but not of them, and sighing over their conscious misplacement."

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"It is a pathetic question for that portion of north-western Presbyterianism which is in sympathy with the system, what it shall do with itself. Its longing for re-union with the one only genuinely Presbyterian body is rising continually. It feels itself away from its home-but how to get thither? The doctrinal barriers, though as high now as in 1837, would not stop it. But here lies the difficulty, how to carry with them to the Canaan of an Old School connection the spoils of New England, with which their churches are filled. The churches will not go there. Very widely the same affliction prevails which the Rochester Presbytery has of a long time felt-unwilling to go to New Schoolism, because that is not Presbyterianism; and unable to go to Old Schoolism, because their churches are too far New Englandized to accompany them. And so they wander yet in the wilderness. There is a way, but one of too much self-denial to be yet adopted. Let the churches throughout the West follow their real affinities -each tribe to its own tent. An alien element in any connection is no gain, but an incumbrance. We go for an exchange of prisoners, and a recurrence in principles to the status ante bellum."*

This is what New Haven "goes for." Let us see what it went for in 1837.

Christian Spectator, December 1837, p. 599, sq:

* *

Is not Dr. Richards as really a friend of truth and Presbyterian order as Dr. Miller? Are not Dr. Beecher and Dr. McAuley as really friends of truth and Presbyterian order as Dr. Wilson and Dr. Phillips? Will the Christian world recognize R. J. Breckinridge as a more distinguished friend of truth and Presbyterian order than Albert Barnes? Shame on such arrogance! Let Dr. Miller say whether such a use of terms is not bad morals, as well as bad logic and bad manners. * * The writer of this letter and his party use** habitually the same device. Let them say, if they can, whether the device when used by them has any more moral dignity, than when used by men of inferior consideration. That this party has any right to arrogate to itself such a title as is here claimed for it, ("friends of truth and of regular Presbyterian order,") will not be admitted by other Christian Churches.

The Spectator is commenting on the "Circular Letter of the (Exscinding) General Assembly to the Churches throughout the world," sent out in 1837, and intends the language we have quoted as the indignant denial of the Congregational Church to the claim that they (whom New Haven now calls "the only genuine Presbyterians,") were the only genuine Presbyterians.

On p. 601, Mr. Barnes is said to be not only a good Presbyterian, but "among the most distinguished ornaments of the Presbyterian Church, whose fame belongs not to that Church only, but to Christendom." But now "New Schoolism is not Presbyterianism." (New Englander, p. 88.)

• New Englander, p. 80, sqq.

Spectator, p. 601, "That there are no theological differences. between the Yankee Presbyteries of Western New York and the Scotch-Irish Presbyteries of Western Pennsylvania, we do not allege; but that the former are more disposed than the latter to tolerate ** any * material variation from the truth and order of the Presbyterian book has not been proved." Yet now the New Englander, p. 85, sq: tries to prove in four heads a departure from Presbyterianism in our Church.

On p. 622, the Spectator draws out the Scotch form and American form of subscription to the Confession of Faith, with the following inference:

Why is this studied departure from the model? Who can explain it, but by admitting, that the founders of the American Presbyterian Church, being most of them of the Puritan stock ** intended to have more freedom of opinion, more theological discussion, more toleration of subordinate differences, than is consistent with an honest use of the Scotch formula?

Of course the American Presbyterian Church has ceased to be Presbyterian, by carrying out the very spirit and letter of its founders!

We must give one more "indignant" extract from the Spectator, p. 625.

"Under the operation of this Plan (of Union) Western New York and Northern Ohio, to say nothing of regions further West, have been filled with churches, whose faithfulness** is worthy to be spoken of throughout the whole world. This is the system" (the Spectator now boils over,) "against which the self-styled 'friends of truth and order' in the Presbyterian Church have for several years been increasingly clamorous, and which the last General Assembly abrogated.'"

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It would be unfair not to give a specimen of the Spectator's wit. p. 628. First, though, we must quote again from New Haven in 1853, p. 89, "Bodies whose system could have no fusion but a confusion." But the (exscinding) General Assembly said the same thing, that the Plan of Union produced "confusion." Thereupon New Haven in 1837, wittily laughs the charge into oblivion thus:

To ascribe it to the Plan of Union, is as idle as if we should ascribe it to the odd nomenclature of terms in the central region of New York. What else is to be expected, we might say, but "confusion and irregularity," where Homer, Virgil and Ovid, Marcellus, Scipio and Pompey, Utica, Syracuse and Rome, Whitestown and Smithfield, Oriskany and Skeneateles, are so strangely mingled together?

The Spectator is very indignant at covenant-breakers, p. 632. "That such an offence will be recognized ** as a good reason for abrogating a covenant, that had stood sacred for the third part of a century, is not so obvious." At the time of the Albany Convention it had stood for half a century.

One more quotation, p. 632:

But leaving the question of the reasons for abrogating the Plan of Union, was the manner of proceeding right? Was it right to strike so hastily and annihilate it at a blow, or did Christian charity require some conference?

Did the Albany Convention invite a conference with that Assembly which declared the Plan of Union in full force last May, and which, when rumors were urged derogatory to the American Home Missionary Society, did appoint a committee. of conference to meet it in a friendly manner, and see whether brethren could act harmoniously together?

This Article of the New Englander actually reads like insanity. But the worst of it is, there is method in the madness. And what that method is we will now explain to our people.

The New Englander and the Independent wish to make the impression that all Presbyterianism is rigid, formal and despotic. The Exscinding Acts, for example, are regular Presbyterianism, the legitimate and natural working of the system. Presbyterianism, they would insinuate, is really not friendly to a thorough religious liberty. It is an oligarchy. Power is studiously kept in the hands of a few. The ministers and ruling elders, about one-thirtieth of the church membership, and one-hundreth part of the denomination, keep the power in their own hands, and hold the people in subjection. And so with theological opinion. Presbyterianism really, in its essence, is narrow. Limited atonement, natural inability, iron fate, Antinomian imputation, are its legitimate and natural outgrowths. The church of the Excision is the "only genuinely Presbyterian body." "New Schoolism," as they nickname our Faith and Order, "is not Presbyterianism." It is "discarded by the genuinely Presbyterian Assembly."

When men look up a little amazed, and ask what American Presbyterianism is, the answer is ready, "It is a third thing-an intermediate quiddity-a composite New School product, styling

itself Presbyterianism." That is, it is a deception, a fraud on the public, all that is good in it is stolen from New England. Its religious liberty; its freedom of thought; its liberal theology; its active revival spirit; its polished scholarship; its bright genius; its warm-hearted piety; its scorn of wrong; and its protest against despotism; all-all are the growth of New England, working in some hybrid form, some monstrous incongruous way with fragments of Scotch-Irishism "sighing over a conscious misplacement, and longing for reunion with the one only genuinely Presbyterian body." That is, in very plain English, our Church is a wretched impertinence, its existence is worse than useless, all the real, valuable, nineteenth-century matter in it should--aye here is the interesting and delightful point-go into the new, glorious, world-famous, Albany-Convention, Congregational Church, and our right well-beloved and trusty allies, the Exscinders, can have the Scotch-Irish partthey belong to them.

Can our readers imagine the mixture of smile and scorn with which this inkling of a proposition-this projét de Convention to dismember Poland-will be received at Princeton and at the Presbyterian House in Chestnut street? The grave divines, the polished ruling elders, the learned professors, will they catch at the glittering bait, or will they think it a little too bad? Manoeuvering, like misery, makes people "acquainted with strange bed-fellows." Shall we have Princeton and New Haven hobnobbing at some "third" place, some "intermediate" road-side tavern, arranging the preliminaries, and dividing the spoils? This is a great country, and a considerable age. We must wait patiently. Nous verrons.

It may be very gratifying to these two Churches to divide us in twain, and each take half, like the false mother in Solomon's judgment, but the real Mother, when the sword is upraised for this severing, how will she feel? If this present policy is persevered in, our brethren will have an opportunity to see.

New England is in bad hands. This lordly style of the New Englander, this flinging of sword and scabbard into the scale, after the fashion of Brennus the Gaul, with a "Vae Victis," for the American Presbyterian Church, neither suits the character nor the position of the land it yearns to

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