In the Statutes and Canons, the Articles are described, as 'Articles agreed upon in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562;' whereas the Council of Trent did not hold its last Session, nor put forth its last Decree, till December, in 1563.

This is the face of facts and dates most favorable to the assertion in the Tract.

Now let us see to what it really amounts. The Convocation of 1562 is so called, according to the Old Style. It commenced its sittings in the month of January of the year which would now be called 1563; and it continued to sit till the month of June, just six months before the conclusion of the Council of Trent. In the course of those six months, how many Decrees were made by the Council on the points condemned in our Articles? One, only one; including, indeed, all the matter dealt with in the 22d Article,-an Article, it must be admitted, relating to several important particulars. Such is the amount of all that can be honestly stated in favor of the writer's allegation; but even this would give a very inadequate view of the weakness of his case. For although the Articles, having been in the main settled by the Convocation of 1562, are always designated as the Articles of that Synod, yet they were not then permanently and finally concluded.

final

The Convocation of 1571 reconsidered them, with a view to settlement, and made alterations in them, (of no great moment indeed,) before it authorized their publication in English;--and, what is more important, before it made the Canon requiring Subscription. It was to the Articles so corrected, not as they were left by the Synod of 1562, that the statute of 13 Elizabeth requires Subscription; for it expressly specifies the Book of Articles put forth by the Queen's authority, --which was true of the English Book of 1571, only.

Subsequently, on the accession of King James, because, towards the close of the preceding reign, Subscription to the Articles had been made by many, with such limitations or qualifications as materially affected its value as a Test of Unity of Doctrine ;--the Synod holden at London in 1603, (after having, upon a publique readinge and deliberate considerasion of the said Articles, willingly, and with one accorde, consented and subscribed,') provided by its 36th Canon, a more precise and stringent formula, by which every one who subscribes, professes to believe 'all and every of the Articles to be agreeable to the Word of God!'

Here, then, we might leave the case, apparently without a shadow of pretence for the allegation, that whereas the Articles were written before the Decrees of Trent, they were not directed against those Decrees.'

But if this be so, the other and much more important allegation, that the Decrees, taken by themselves, in their mere letter, do not express the Romish doctrine, which our Articles condemn,--and, consequently, that Subscription to the Articles is not incompatible with adherence to the Decrees, loses, at once, its best support. And thus, perhaps, we might be excused from more minute examination of it. Still, it cannot be an useless labor, to show the utter want of all foundation

whatever for so dangerous a position. For, as I hardly need to say, whether true or false, it involves the whole question between us and Rome. Those Decrees combine, avowedly combine, the whole system of Romish Doctrine, peculiarly so called. They compose the Shibboleth of Rome. The Creed of Pius IV., formed upon them, and little else than a brief epitome of them, (appended to the Creed of the Catholic Church, in defiance of the Canons of the General Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon,) is required to be explicitly held and maintained, not only by every Romish Pastor, but also by every convert who is received into communion with Rome. Too much care, therefore, cannot be used, in warning every member of our own Church,--especially, I may be allowed to say, after recent unhappy experience, the younger of our clergy,-against all approach to so fearful and unhallowed a conjunction.

- I have done with the Tract. Let me only add, that I wish and hope the intention of the writer, as declared by himself, may protect him from the severity of censure which the Tract itself deserves. He wrote it, he tells us, 'to do all he could to keep members of our Church from straggling in the direction of Rome;' and he accounts for the sensation it has excited, by saying that, 'what was addressed to one set of persons, has been used and commented upon by another.' He adds, that, the consciousness how strongly he had pledged himself in other writings against Rome, made him quite unsuspicious of the possibility of any sort of misunderstanding arising out of his statements in it.""

ART. V.—OLD SCHOOL PRESBYTERIANS AND POLITICS.

Minutes of the General Assembly, (Old School,) held at St. Louis, Mo., May, 1866.

IN the April and July No's. of this Review, we gave proofs of the extent to which politics and political agitation have taken possession of, and rent, and torn in pieces, several of the leading Sects of the country. Of most of them, this was to be expected. Having no fixed Faith, they live upon the excitements of the hour. They must agitate, agitate, agitate, or they must die for want of vocation and lack of breath. But from the Old School Presbyterians, who still hold on to their "Confession of Faith" with some tenacity, better things were looked for. The General Assembly of this large body, however, which met at St. Louis, Missouri, May 17th, was the scene of such remarkable sayings and doings, and the results cannot but be so important to the whole country, that some notice of it deserves to be recorded. It is an item in the religious history of our times. It is a phase of public opinion which, as public Journalists, we should not ignore. It utters a voice of warning, to which we shall do well to give heed.

This General Assembly consisted of over two hundred and fifty members, gathered from the Middle, Western and Border States, and continued in session sixteen days. Up to the time of the Civil War, the Old School Presbyterians had abstained from meddling with political matters; and, in this, they were conforming to their own established and formally expressed rules. Their Confession of Faith declares :

"Synods and Councils are to conclude or handle nothing, but that which is Ecclesiastical, and are not to intermeddle with Civil affairs which concern the Commonwealth."

But when the late Civil War began to rage, and the War spirit prevailed, Northern Old School Presbyterianism, which

*See Confession of Faith, Chap. XXXI., Sec. 4.

has of late been becoming more and more infected with New England Congregationalism and Pelagianism, was swept along with the current, and in its Assemblies, from year to year, went rapidly from one extreme point on to another. Thus, the Assembly of 1865, in answer to overture No. 7, passed an order to this effect :

"It is hereby ordered, that all our Presbyteries examine every Minister applying for admission from any Presbytery or other Ecclesiastical body in the Southern States, on the following points: 1st. Their connection with the rebellion. 2d. Their views concerning slavery." It further orders, "Church Sessions are also ordered to examine all applicants for church membership by persons from the Southern States, or who have been living in the South since the rebellion, concerning their conduct and principles on the points above specified; and if it be found, that of their own free will they have taken up arms against the United States, or that they hold slavery to be an ordinance of God, as above stated, such persons shall not be admitted to the communion of the church, till they give evidence of repentance of their sin and renounce their error."*

The last General Assembly, in 1866, held after the War had been terminated for more than a year, so far from being modeerated in tone by a spirit of charity and conciliation towards their Southern brethren, who are so numerous and influential a portion of the body,-on the contrary, reiterated and endorsed all that had previously been said and done. In its Pastoral Letter, alluding to these Rules of Discipline of 1865, it says:

Any concessions touching the offenses of such persons, would have been the highest of unkindness. It would have been a connivance at sin, and would have brought down upon them and us alike the displeasure of God." Again, "We have taken our position upon the clearest principle of the word of God, as set forth in our standards. We have aimed to reclaim offenders, by demanding only what Christ requires of us, as rulers in his house." It says, "upon both branches of the deliverances of the last Assembly-loyalty and freedom-we therefore arrive at the same conclusion, that they should be maintained." (See Pastoral Letter.)

Really, the firm grasp with which the odium theologicum, the spirit of intolerance, has seized hold of this conservative denomination, is something wonderful. The influence of such a body of men as composed that Assembly, upon the country

at large, at a time like the present, is fearful. If Christians are thus relentless in their hate, if they cannot forget and forgive, if they cannot confide and trust, if it is at the Altar of Moloch, and、not of Christ, that they catch the spirit of devotion, then, pray, what hope is there for the Nation! Should it prove true, that, as a people, we are to continue hopelessly divided, and that the days of the Republic are already numbered, and that we are on the eve of events which God alone can measure, the responsibility of this unknown future will rest, in no small degree, upon the members of that body whose doings we are describing.

The special occasion of strife and contention, however, at this General Assembly at St. Louis, grew out of action which had been taken by the Louisville Presbytery, Ky. This body had issued what it called a " DECLARATION and TESTIMONY," a pamphlet of twenty-seven pages, and signed by "forty-one Ministers and seventy-eight Elders." This document was very ably, boldly, and sharply written; and, originating in the Border States, where personal hatred was intensely bitter, it reviewed the course of the General Assemblies during the last three or four years, with great plainness. As a matter of argument, it is, in the main, unanswerable. The General Assembly, however, determined to get along with it in another way. It soon appeared that its members had come together nerved to the most resolute and summary action. Among them were to be found some of the ablest men, and readiest debaters of the country; such men as Breckenridge, Wilson, Krebs, Boardman, Van Dyke, Anderson, Thomas, Robinson, West, Humphrey, Brookes, Gurley, &c., &c.

What to do with the sharp logic and cutting severity of the "Declaration and Testimony," was a much more difficult question, than what should be done with the men who wrote and had signed it. It had, evidently, already been determined that it should be met, not with the weapons of reason, and upon its own merits, but, as one of the members described it, with "Church power," and "brutum fulmen," in some shape or other. The first thing which the Assembly did, was to exclude from its sittings the Commissioners of the Louisville Presbyt