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PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1881.

a perfect consistency between a strong attach it to capes of Phales's pureb, and an enlarged and mo: ler all that my plaee call upon the name of Jesura (h 1 Cor. 1. 2. How rer. Chalmers, is known to knowledged leader of c thy was poing champion of her elugu ode of her pal

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THE

PRESBYTERIAN MAGAZINE.

MAY, 1851.

Miscellaneous Articles.

PRESBYTERIAN UNION.

THERE is a perfect consistency between a strong attachment to our own branch of Christ's Church, and an enlarged and most tender love for "all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." 1 Cor. i. 2. How remarkably this was exemplified in the late Dr. Chalmers, is known to all wellinformed Presbyterians. The acknowledged leader of the Free Church of Scotland, the uncompromising champion of her distinguishing principles, and the eloquent advocate of her public measures, he was at the same time alive to every interest of the body catholic, not excepting those organizations in which he saw much to deplore and to condemn. In this his character stands as a rebuke, first to the narrowness of such as never look over the low wall of their own petty enclosure, and then of all who think it necessary to buy a seeming union at the price of every thing peculiar in our creed and order.

Presbyterianism in America has a work before it which was never dreamed of by the McKemies, and Henrys, and Taylors, and Wilsons, who laboured among our early plantations. We can scarcely credit the statistics before our eyes when we look over our States, territories, and missions, and read such figures as one hundred and twenty-seven Presbyteries, one thousand nine hundred and twentysix ministers, and two hundred and seven thousand communicants. These are not scattered individuals, however closely allied, but an organized Church, which, though claiming no exclusive possession of the ark, are bound together and identified by a common creed, a uniform polity, and a happy gradation of courts. By God's unspeakable grace, this union is not documentary, symbolical, or VOL. I.-No. 5. 26

simply nominal, but to a good degree real; our nineteen hundred ministers are as much agreed in their tenets as any equal number of men in any church since the days of the Apostles. A like concord prevails in regard to nine out of ten of the great questions which fearfully agitate the religious community at the present time; that is, in regard to missions, revivals of religion, education, and slavery. It is our part to rejoice with trembling, in so great a favour, and to employ to the uttermost the power entrusted to our hands.

The life of an individual minister is too short for any part of it to be wasted in empty debates or weakening divisions. Loyalty to our beloved Church, proceeding from admiration of its history, thankfulness for its successes, conviction of its creed, love for its members, and prayer for its increase, will consolidate and magnify our body in an unexampled degree. We who are ministers, the nineteen hundred who go before the many thousands of Israel, are solemnly called upon to love our Church, and to love one another, with an ardency which we have never known. With such a spirit of humble brotherly affection, ready to sacrifice every paltry sectional or individual interest, and resolved under God to hold together, even though all others should fall asunder, "how should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight!" Deut. xxxii. 30.

This union must prevail among ministers, or it can never prevail among the people; and one of the most important questions which can come before us is, how this delightful Presbyterian unity may be promoted and maintained. We have perhaps been too ready to confound it with a contentious upholding of our principles against those who are without. But it is evident that a man may be triumphantly polemical towards adversaries, and yet may turn the edge and temper of his sword against those also who are within; may fight friends as well as foes. Just here is the chief danger of a widely extended church; and, since there was schism in the world, no church has ever been so widely extended. Just here, therefore, we need to set our strongest guard. No external conventional arrangements, will secure this unity of strength. It must proceed from inward principle, and from principle that belongs to the spirituality of religion. The hearty, gracious union of all ministers in our Church; with a love of one another's persons and a zeal for one another's success; a resolution to sink differences, and abhor dissensions; and a purpose to live and die in a unanimous struggle for the great ends in which we are agreed, would be followed by an aggression on the host of adversaries such as might give hope of Christ's coming. That union which is strength, and which is pre-eminently our Presbyterian strength, in which we thankfully and humbly hold ourselves more favoured than our Episcopalian and Congregational neighbours; that union which we would perpetuate must have a deeper root than any thing external. It is not to be secured by our church courts. We yield to none in