9 June
1837 A.D. Old v. New School Presbyterians: “Errors & True Doctrines”
June 9: “Errors and
True Doctrines” (1837)
Unlike
immediately prior years, the General Assembly of 1837 was controlled by the Old
School wing of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Taking advantage of their
numbers, they took the action of removing from the denomination the Synods of
Utica, Geneva, and Genesee, in New York, and the Western Reserve Synod in Ohio.
The primary complaint of the Old School Presbyterians was the teaching of a
modified Calvinism, labeled “Taylorism.” And with the excision of these four
Synods, they hoped to remove the Taylor doctrine from the Church. Old School
Presbyterians had also come to oppose the 1801 Plan of Union, a cooperative
arrangement with Congregationalists. Here too, the removal of New School votes
from the Assembly made it that much easier to repeal the Plan of Union.
Sixteen
charges of theological error were leveled at the New School men by the Assembly
of 1837. And no sooner were those charges laid on the table, than the New
School responded in prompt reply with the document initially known as Errors and True Doctrines.
Later that same summer, in subsequent conference, the New School men issued a
revised version of this text under the name of the Auburn Declaration. With this document, the New
School men sought to affirm their orthodoxy. Or as one historian summarized it,
“The
Declaration thus adopted became, not indeed a creed, but an authoritative
explanation of the interpretation given to the Westminster Symbols by the
leading minds in the New School Church, as organized in 1838. It was in 1868
indorsed by the General Assembly (O. S.) as containing ‘all the fundamentals of
the Calvinistic Creed,’ and this indorsement was one among the most effectual
steps in bringing about the reunion of the two Churches in 1870. The document
is rather a disavowal of imputed error than an exposition of revealed truth,
and must be understood from the anthropological and soteriological
controversies of that period of division now happily gone by.”
ERRORS
AND TRUE DOCTRINE.
[submitted as a protest to the General
Assembly, June 8, 1837]
First
Error.—“That God would have
prevented the existence of sin in our world, but was not able, without
destroying the moral agency of man; or, that for aught that appears in the
Bible to the contrary, sin is incidental to any wise moral system.”
True
Doctrine.—God permitted the
introduction of sin, not because he was unable to prevent it, consistently with
the moral freedom of his creatures, but for wise and benevolent reasons which
he has not revealed.
Second
Error.—“That election to eternal
life is founded on a foresight of faith and obedience.”
True
Doctrine.—Election to eternal life
is not founded on a foresight of faith and obedience, but is a sovereign act of
God’s mercy, whereby, according to the counsel of his own will, He has chosen
some to salvation; “yet so as thereby neither is violence offered to the will
of the Creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken
away, but rather established;” nor does this gracious purpose ever take effect
independently of faith and a holy life.
Third
Error.—“That we have no more to
do with the first sin of Adam than with the sins of any other parent.”
True
Doctrine.—By a divine constitution,
Adam was so the head and representative of the race, that, as a consequence of
his transgression, all mankind become morally corrupt, and liable to death,
temporal and eternal.
Fourth
Error.—“That infants come into
the world as free from moral defilement as was Adam when he was created.”
True
Doctrine.—Adam was created in the
image of God, endowed with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. Infants
come into the world, not only destitute of these, but with a nature inclined to
evil and only evil.
Fifth
Error.—“That infants sustain the
same relation to the moral government of God, in this world, as brute animals,
and that their sufferings and death are to be accounted for on the some
principles as those of brutes, and not by any means to be considered as penal.”
True
Doctrine.—Brute animals sustain no
such relation to the moral government of God as does the human family. Infants
are a part of the human family,and their sufferings and death are to be
accounted for, on the ground of their being involved in the general moral ruin
of the race induced by the apostacy.
Sixth
Error.—“That there is no other
original sin than the fact, that all the posterity of Adam, though by nature
innocent, will always begin to sin when they begin to exercise moral agency;
that original sin does not include a sinful bias of the human mind, and a just
exposure to penal suffering; and that there is no evidence in Scripture, that
infants in order to salvation, do need redemption by the blood of Christ, and
regeneration by the Holy Ghost.”
True
Doctrine.—Original sin is a natural
bias to evil, resulting from the first apostacy, leading invariably and
certainly to actual transgression. And all infants, as well as adults, in order
to be saved, need redemption by the blood of Christ, and regeneration by the
Holy Ghost.
Seventh
Error.—“That the doctrine of
imputation, whether of the guilt of Adam’s sin, or of the righteousness of
Christ, has no foundation in the Word of God, and is both unjust and absurd.”
True
Doctrine.—The sin of Adam is not
imputed to his posterity in the sense of a literal transfer of personal
qualities, acts, and demerit; but by reason of the sin of Adam, in his peculiar
relation, the race are treated as if they had sinned. Nor is the righteousness
of Christ imputed to his people in the sense of a literal transfer of personal
qualities, acts, and merit; but by reason of his righteousness, in his peculiar
relation, they are treated as if they were righteous.
Eighth
Error.—“That the sufferings and
death of Christ were not truly vicarious and penal, but symbolical,
governmental, and instructive only.”
True
Doctrine.—The sufferings and death
of Christ were not symbolical, governmental, and instructive only, but were
truly vicarious, i.e., a substitute for the punishment due to transgressors.
And while Christ did not suffer the literal penalty of the law, involving
remorse of conscience and the pains of hell, he did offer a sacrifice which
infinite wisdom saw to be a full equivalent. And by virtue of this atonement,
overtures of mercy are sincerely made to the race, and salvation secured to all
who believe.
Ninth
Error.—“That the impenitent
sinner is by nature, and independently of the renewing influence or almighty
energy of the Holy Spirit, in full possession of all the ability necessary to a
full compliance with all the commandments of God.”
True
Doctrine.—While sinners have all the
faculties necessary to a perfect moral agency and a just accountability, such
is their love of sin and opposition to God and his law, that, independently of
the renewing influence or almighty energy of the Holy Spirit, they never will
comply with the commands of God.
Tenth
Error.—“That Christ does not
intercede for the elect until after their regeneration.”
True
Doctrine.—The intercession of Christ
for the elect is previous as well as subsequent to their regeneration, as
appears from the following Scripture, viz. “I pray not for the world, but for
them which thou hast given me, for they are thine. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.”
Eleventh
Error.—“That saving faith is not
an effect of the operations of the Holy Spirit, but a mere rational belief of
the truth or assent to the word of God.”
True
Doctrine.—Saving faith is an
intelligent and cordial assent to the testimony of God concerning his Son,
implying reliance on Christ alone for pardon and eternal life; and in all cases
it is an effect of the special operations of the Holy Spirit.
Twelfth
Error.—“That regeneration is the
act of the sinner himself, and that it consists in change of his governing
purpose, which he himself must produce, and which is the result, not of any
direct influence of the Holy Spirit on the heart, but chiefly of a persuasive
exhibition of the truth, analogous to the influence which one man exerts over
the mind of another; or that regeneration is not an instantaneous act, but a
progressive work.”
True
Doctrine.—Regeneration is a radical
change of heart, produced by the special operations of the Holy Spirit,
determining the sinner to that which is good, and is in all cases
instantaneous.
Thirteenth
Error.—“That God has done all
that he can do for the salvation of all men, and that man himself must do the
rest.”
True
Doctrine.—While repentance for sin
and faith in Christ are indispensable to salvation, all who are saved are
indebted from first to last to the grace and Spirit of God. And the reason that
God does not save all, is not that he wants the power to do it, but that in his
wisdom he does not see fit to exert that power further than he actually does.
Fourteenth
Error.—“That God cannot exert
such influence on the minds of men, as shall make it certain that they will
choose and act in a particular manner, without impairing their moral agency.”
True
Doctrine.—While the liberty of the
will is not impaired, nor the established connexion betwixt means and end
broken by any action of God on the mind, he can influence it according to his
pleasure, and does effectually determine it to good in all cases of true
conversion.
Fifteenth
Error.—“That the righteousness of
Christ is not the sole ground of the sinner’s acceptance with God; and that in
no sense does the righteousness of Christ become ours.”
True
Doctrine.—All believers are
justified, not on the ground of personal merit, but solely on the ground of the
obedience and death, or, in other words, the righteousness of Christ. And while
that righteousness does not become theirs, in the sense of a literal transfer
of personal qualities and merit; yet, from respect to it, God can and does
treat them as if they were righteous.
Sixteenth
Error.—“That the reason why some
differ from others in regard to their reception of the Gospel is, that they
make themselves to differ
True
Doctrine.—While all such as reject
the Gospel of Christ do it, not by coercion but freely—and all who embrace it
do it, not by coercion but freely—the reason why some differ from others is,
that God has made them to differ.
Philadelphia,
June 8th, 1837.
[signed
by]:
George Duftield, E. W, Gilbert, Thomas Brown, Bliss lbirnan, N. S. S. Beman, E.
Cheever, E. Seymour, George Painter, F. W. Graves, Obadiah Woodruff, N. G.
Clark, Robert Stuart, Nahum Gould, Absalom Peters, Alexander Campbell.
The New School protest having been lodged, the official
reply was brief and dismissive:
ANSWER
Mr.
Plumer offered the following resolutions, which were adopted, viz.
1,
Resolved, That the paper just offered, purporting to be a protest, though it
contains several important mis-statements of facts, and much extraneous matter,
be admitted to record without answer; the lateness of the period at which it is
offered rendering it inconvenient to answer it, and the character of the paper
rendering another disposition of it proper and necessary.’
2„
Resolved, That duly certified copies of this paper be sent to the respective
Presbyteries to which the signers of the protest belong, calling their
attention to the developments of theological views contained in it, and
enjoining on them to inquire into the soundness of the faith of those who have
ventured to make so strange avowals as some of these are.
Dr.
Beman moved, that the attention of all the Presbyteries be directed to this
protest.
The
motion was lost.
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