IS WEIGHED IN ITS OWN BALANCE AND FOUND WANTING

LET HIM THAT READETH UNDERSTAND

“If his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?”—Matthew. "If he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?"— Matthew. "If he ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion?"—Luke.

REV. J. L. GOODKNIGHT, D.D., LL.D.

686 Pres D139di

PRESBYTERIANISM U. S. A.

Weighed in Its Own Balance and Found Wanting.

We are often asked why we would not be merged into the Presbyterian Church U. S. A. In the following pages we give quotations from the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church U. S. A. by chapter and section. This is the so-called "revised edition," after the so-called “revision of 1903." There are many Presbyterians who believe these statements and heartily accept them.

We abhor them with all our soul, mind, and strength, hence we would not be merged and will not be merged-"property or no property." It is a principle, not a sentiment we stand for. You can judge for yourself, after you have read these quotations from the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church U. S. A, whether you believe them. Every minister and ruling elder of that church must swear that he accepts and believes them. Every fa ther and mother must teach the Larger and Shorter Catechisms to their children as a part of their Christian faith. The Confession of Faith requires them to do so. (Directory of Worship, Chap. VIII, 4, p. 427.) God would be a wicked, malicious and most cruel món. ster, if he were such a being as the Presbyterian U. S. A. Confession of Faith makes him. The Bible Moloch of the heathen (Lev. xvii. 21; 2 Kings xxiii. 10) would be a sweet and saintly being by the side of such a God as is portrayed in the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church U. S. A. under its doctrines of election, foreordination, predestination and decrees. The founders of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church heartily repudiated these monstrous doctrines in 1810; and so do we, their loyal sons and daughters, in 1910.

All we ask of you, is to read what is herein taken from their Confession of Faith and be convinced for yourself. If this does not satisfy you, then get a Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church U. S. A., and read it from lid to lid. You will find it saturated, from first to last, through and through, with fatalism. Then get a Confession of Faith of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and read it. You will find in it the best Bible creedal statement that has even been written.

The following are extracts taken from the so-called revised Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church U. S. A., 1904 edition:

THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH

CHAPTER III.

Section I. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.

Sec. 3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

Sec. 4. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreor dained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

Sec. 5. Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causés, moving him thereunto, and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

Sec. 6. As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any others redeemed by Christ, and saved, but the elect only.

Sec. 7. The rest of mankind, God was pleased (according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures) to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.

Sec. 8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care.

CHAPTER V.

Section 1. God, the creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, and from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

Sec 2. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly..

Sec. 4. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God, so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men, and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to his holy ends.

CHAPTED VI.

Section 3. They (Adam and Eve) being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation. [Parents impart Adamic sin.]

CHAPTER VII.

Section 3. wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requireth of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto those that are ordained unto life, his Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe.

CHAPTER VIII.

Section 1. It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten Son, to be the mediator between God and man unto whom he did, from all eternity, give a people to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified. [Hence there is the Lord's