What Makes A Presbyterian?

1900

The Great Churches of Christendom

A Series of Articles From Their Several Leaders Showing What Is Required of Their Communicants in Matters of Doctrine and Duty.

By Dr. W. C. Gray, Editor, The Interior

Strictly speaking, Presbyterianism is a form of church government, but that form is an expression of great principles, principles which were implanted in the bosom of man, illustrated in divine revelation, and crystalized in the only form of government which ever received explicit divine sanction; namely government by the representatives of the people. The primitive family was at once the state and the church; the father of the family being the priest and the ruler of his household. He was the first elder. Aggregations of families were governed by councils composed of these elders. When families increased and became communities the elders ruled through representatives. Thus the ancient and primitive church of God was ruled until the time of Saul. It was a divinely sanctioned theocracy, administered through representatives of the people. The people were rebuked when they desired to substitute a monarchy, a centralized government. The local rule of the elders was continued. Christ found them ruling in the synagogue. Paul instituted them in the churches which he organized. This form of government remains today what it was when Enoch walked with God, when Abraham thrashed the kings, when, at Miletus, Paul bade a weeping adieu to the elders of Ephesus, and when the General Assembly bounced Briggs; a theocracy administered by the representatives of the people. It will continue throughout eternity. When John looked from the cliffs of Patmos into the Golden City, did he see a "prudential committee?" John was a well-posted man, as well as a sweet prophet and a sublime bard; but, to save his soul, he could not have told a prudential committee from a coroner's jury. Did he see a bunch of mitered abbots, big or little, from an acolyte to a pope; anything of that kind or variety? If he had, he would have laid down his spiritual binocular and exclaimed with a sigh, "Where am I?" Nay. He saw four and twenty elders in the exercise of their spiritual functions There were one hundred and forty, and four thousand there already — not a pope nor a prudential committeeman in the whole heavenly country. The brethren of the other communions will all come into the most ancient, the divine and the eternal church of God, at last.

Presbyterianism a Model for Governments

Allow me to assure Drs. Henson and Gilbert, who have so ably and agreeably set forth the claims of their respective denominations, of an abundant entrance. They will wake up on the other side and be in the Presbyterian Church without knowing it. It will be a case of infant baptism. When they come to sprinkle that heavenly infant, Dr. Henson, I will volunteer to hold the child.

The Presbyterian Church, therefore, stands for a government of the people, by the people, and, under God, for the people. Our federal government took Presbyterianism as its model. It does not always realize its ideal. It is the fate of all free governments to fall at times under a dictator. Caesar tramped down the freedom of Rome, the two Napoleons the freedom of France, and a little dictator sometimes bobs up in the Presbyterian Church; but he soon bobs down again.

The doctrine of the Presbyterians is in accord with his polity — the sole sovereignty of God and the perfect freedom of man. The sovereignty of God can receive no help from us, but the freedom of man may receive much. The first element of freedom is knowledge; therefore the Presbyterian who knows his calling is devoted to the education of the people. Thus it has come about that the Presbyterians possess a higher average of education than any other people. They are deeply devoted to the interests of free schools, academies, colleges, schools of every kind and grade. They are rigid in requiring thorough scientific, historical and classical education of candidates for their ministry. It is the highest ambition of father and mother to educate their children.

That men may be free they must be virtuous as well as intelligent. The Presbyterian is therefore a champion for every instrumentality and reform that will elevate the moral standard of men. They are vigorous defenders of the Sabbath, because it is essential to the intellectual, moral and spiritual enlightenment of men. They are uncompromising enemies of the saloon, because it is a chief force in maintaining the devil's institution of human chattelhood. Whatever degrades men enslaves them to their own passions, or to the will of other men is determinedly resisted. They regard the Bible, and therefore they so strenuously defend it, as the magna charta of human freedom, the charter of God, upon which a man may stand and bid defiance to any master, civil or ecclesiastical — to satan, to the pope, to the civil autocrat. We stand in this freedom wherewith Christ Jesus hath made us free. To this Presbyterians have testified with their blood on many a battlefield, with their eloquence on countless platforms and pulpits. See how our Hollanders met Alva, our Orangemen met James, our Roundheads met Charles, our Scotch Irish met George III. They have nailed their doctrine of human freedom fast to their standards.

Characteristics of Presbyterians To-day

Wherein does the present Presbyterian differ from his predecessors? Chiefly in that he knows more — hence he is not so narrow, turbulent or bigoted. He is more liberal with his money because he has more of it. He is more liberal in his charity toward other faiths, because he sees that they are on his side in the great war for Christ's kingdom. He is not so dogmatic and pugnacious, because the more he knows, the more he knows he does not know. He has plenty of information to acquire along that line yet. Our men who know it all are now confined to two classes — old men who stopped acquiring knowledge forty years ago, and young men who have not yet begun to acquire it. They are the fellows who stand ready to explain things to God.

The traditions of Presbyterianism are, as we have seen in the line of a broad and enlightened patriotism. This has its drawbacks so far as the church is concerned, in that our people give almost as freely to outside enterprises and charities as they do to their own, thereby earning for themselves the sobriquet, "God's foolish people." It loses for us much practical sectarian zeal. It is exemplified in the number of men of our faith who occupy positions of great civil responsibility. Our presidents are predominately Presbyterian. Of the present governors of the states there are more than twice as many who are Presbyterians as of any other type.

What is the present chief duty of the Presbyterian? I must say that it is to inform himself more thoroughly of his mission in the world, and to concentrate his strength more closely upon it. He must stop scattering. He cares little about ceremonial, the mode of baptism, etc. He does not believe in the "historic episcopate," nor in anybody's "divine rights."

Cardinal Beliefs of the Church

What he believes in is regeneration, moral reform, education, liberty, human brotherhood and equality before God and the civil law. Let him put his money and his muscle behind his own works. Let him be more watchful in spotting demagogues, civil or ecclesiastical. Let him not allow himself to be diverted from his work by controversies over non-essentials.

It is said by some that Presbyterianism stands for doctrine. No, it does not, in the sense that it is a sexton's guard standing at the mouth of a funeral vault to prevent the stealing of the dead. It stands for living principles toward man and pure worship toward God. It stands resolutely for the Bible because the Bible is its charter of rights, terrestrial and celestial. It stands for God as the universal Sovereign, for Christ as the expiatory Savior, and for man as a lost sinner, whom it is the duty of every Presbyterian to find and bring back to his Father's house.

—The Ram's Horn, Nov. 17, 1900, p. 9.