John Bulow Campbel! Libraiy Columbia Theological Seminary Decatur, Ga. 30031 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation http://archive.org/details/columbiatheologiOOrobi COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AND THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH A Study in Church History, Presbyterian Polity, Missionary Enterprise, and Religious Thought Kc*a3CC5<**3l WM. CHILDS ROBINSON, A.M., Th.D., D.D. Professor of Church History and Polity Columbia Theological Seminary BV 14070 lUli Copyright, 1931, by Win. C. Robinson John Bulow Camobell Library Columbia Theo-ogicai Seminary Decatur, Ga, 30031 To My Father DAVID WALLACE ROBINSON, ESQ. A lifelong representative of those Presbyterian Elders and Deacons whose gifts of time, means, business and professional abilities have made possible the institutions of our Church. FOREWORD The substance of this book was presented as a thesis to the Faculty of the Theological School in Harvard University, in partial fulfill- ment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology, in April, 1928. The matter has been slightly revised, and references to a few more recent works have been inserted. The Board of Directors of Columbia Theological Seminary has endorsed the work and approve its publication at this time by the author. Having been presented at the Centennial of the Seminary in May, 1928, and now being issued the centennial year of the Society of Mis- sionary Inquiry, this volume might not improperly be designated the Columbia Centennial History. Decatur, Georgia, August, 1931. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction The Genesis of Columbia Theological Seminary 9 Early Interest in Theological Education in the Southeast 10 "The Classical, Scientific and Theological Seminary of. the South" . . ' 11 "The Theological Seminary of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia" 12 Location, 13; The Faculty, 14; New England's Con- tributions, 16; Support, 21; The Charter, 23. "Columbia Theological Seminary" 24 Columbia Seminary and the Southern Presbyterian Inte- gration 25 The Ideal of a Southern Presbyterian Zion 26 The Organization of the Southern Presbyterian Church . 46 The Perpetuation of the Southern Presbyterian Church . 54 Columbia Seminary and the Polity of the Southern Presbyterian Church 68 The Polity of James Henley Thornwell, the Structural Lines of the Southern Presbyterian Church .... 69 The Ruling Elder, 71 ; The Analogy of the Presby- terian System, 78; The Headship of Christ, 81. The Diaconate, a Thornwellian Principle Elaborated by Dr. J. L. Girardeau 85 The Book of Church Order of the Southern Assembly . . 89 The Form of Government, 90; The Rules of Discip- line, 94. Thornwell's Doctrine of the Sacraments 97 The Lord's Supper The Doctrine of John Calvin . 97 Baptism, Its Matter and Its Form 101 Columbia Seminary and the Missionary Enterprise of the Southern Presbyterian Church 106 The Missionary Spirit of the Founders 107 The Society of Missionary Inquiry 108 The Southern Board of Foreign Missions 110 Church Extension 116 Colored Evangelization ' 122 "The Chalmers of the Disruption," Dr. J. Leighton Wilson 134 A Notable Succession 140 Social Service 143 Columbia Seminary and the Thought of the Southern Presbyterian Church 147 Contributions of the Seminary to the Thought of the Church 148 Publications Periodicals, 148; Reviews, 149; Books, 151. - Library and Lectureship, 153. Thinkers Educators, 156; Moderators, 158. Contributions in Special Spheres of Thought 158 Interpretation, 159; Natural Science in Connection with Revealed Religion, 168; Philosophy, 193; Theol- ogy," 209. Bibliography 229 \ INTRODUCTION THE GENESIS OF COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY Early Interest in Theological Education in the Southeast. 'The Classical, Scientific and Theological Seminary of the South." "The Theological Seminary of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia." Location. The Faculty. New England's Contributions. Support. The Charter. "Columbia Theological Seminary." "Almighty God had called us . . . to light up another sun which shall throw further west the light of the Gospel."" Address of Board of Directors. /C 6oggs, Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Polity, affirms that this explanation was hurriedly accepted by a tired Southern As- sembly; that its meaning is an enigma the riddle of the sphinx; and that the Southern Church should have demanded further light on its meaning before exchanging delegates. But he is inclined to think that the Northern Assembly regrets the Johnson resolution of explan- ation and is as much grieved thereby as is the Southern Church, and he expects the Northern brethren to do the handsome and generous thing of withdrawing the explanation. 82 78 Note: This reunion was protested against in October, 1868, in a book re- view of Baird's History as (if it should occur) furnishing a reason against a North-South Reunion Southern Pres. Review, Oct., 1868, p. 607 '"Minutes Southern General Assembly, 1870, pp. 529, 530. 80 Reed, History, p. 282. sl Minutes of Southern Assembly, 1882, pp. 531, 541, 542, 552, 553. Minutes of General Assembly (U. S. A.), 1882, pp. 50, 66, 83, 84, 102, 103. 82 W. E. Boggs. The General Assembly of 1882, in Southern Pres. Review July, 1882, pp. 569-590. 56 Columbia Seminary and Dr. B. M. Palmer (Jr.) goes further in his opposition to fraternal delegates, on the basis of Dr. Johnson's explanation. He declares that the two Assemblies are not one on the question of "the relations subsisting between the Church and the State." But, by making a treaty of peace that imports these deliverances on loyalty and re- bellion into the agreement, the Southern Church is giving up her position. "When we allow these political declarations to be import- ed into the treaty between us as in part the basis of reconciliation, what becomes of our testimony against these political deliver- ances?" 83 Dr. R. C. Reed, Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Polity (1898-1925), thus paraphrases the "Herrick Johnson Rider." ' 'We do not declare our regret for nor our withdrawal of. those expressions of our Assemblies which charged you with being traitors and rebels/ Surely this was modifying with a vengeance!" 84 The establishment of fraternal relations with the Northern Assem- bly was also feared as a step in the direction of organic 85 union. Through the courtesy of his grandson, the Reverend John Blackburn the use of manuscript notes of Dr. J. L. Girardeau, professor in Columbia Seminary 1876-1895, are available. In these papers there is an outline of an address by Dr. Girardeau, given at a conference in the Seminary Chapel in 1884. The outline is entitled "Question of Organic Union with Northern Presbyterian Church." Dr. Girardeau affirms "that organic union will not approach us directly, but will come through one (or both) of two ways: i. e. cooperation, which was the reason inciting to fraternal relations; and local assemblies." In 1904, the Northern Assembly removed all aspersions and charges, of any and every kind, upon the Christian character of the Southern Church. The fourth of Palmer's difficulties in the way of closer relations was thereby completely removed. Meanwhile, the Northern and Southern Assemblies had enjoyed a fraternal celebration (1888) of the Centennial of the life of the Assembly; and, after hearing the Report of a Committee of Inquiry into the views of the Northern Assembly, the Southern Assembly de- S3 Palmer, Fraternal Relations Sou. Prcs. Review, April, 1883, p. 328. s, Reed History of the Southern Pres. Church, publ. in Presbyterian Standard, Charlotte. N. C, Oct. 24-Nov. 21, 1923. s T.irardeau in Sou. Pres. Review, 1882, p. 575. The Southern Presbyterian Integration 57 cided to appoint a Committee on fraternal cooperation in Christian work. 86 But just at this time, 1889, the Revision controversy took place in the Northern Assembly. The Girardeau notes show that this dampened the Southern desire for unity. In a review of Dr. Briggs' "Whither?" Dr. Girardeau declares himself at variance with most of Dr. Briggs' views. In an address dated November 22, 1889, Girardeau characterized the demand for revision as evidence of "The Doctrinal Defection in the American Presbyterian Church." He found in this demand proof, that the Old School New School Union was a doctrinal compromise, the effects of which "are now coming out." Dr. James Woodrow, sometime Perkins Professor of Natural Science in connection with Revelation in the Seminary, in an article of April 26, 1889, entitled "Are We Agreed?" acknowledges that, while there were Southern New School men as doctrinally lax as Northern New School men, the proportion of them was smaller. "And it is further true that, while we are very far from being able to claim spotlessness, there has always prevailed, and there now prevails, a jealous regard for doctrinal soundness in the South in a far higher degree than in the North. . . . Our people rightly dread as most deadly any departure from the faith once delivered to the saints." 87 On April 19th, Dr. Woodrow quotes Dr. Briggs' view on verbal inspiration as published in the Homiletic Review (January) as "showing in the Northern Assembly indifference to fundamental truth." 88 Dr. R. C. Reed of. Columbia Seminary, in writing his History of the Presbyterian Church of the World, gave his view of the Union between the Cumberland Church and the Northern Assembly (1904). "These statements made it clear that the Cumberland Presbyterian Church was favorable to union, on the ground that the revised con- fession and the brief statement contained a modified form of Calvin- ism in substantial accord with that held by the Cumberland Church. In other words, the Cumberland Church was ready to unite with the Northern Church on the basis of the latter's standards, because these ""Southern Pres. Assembly, 1888, pp. 412, 422, 456. i7 Dr. James Woodrow, by M. W. Woodrow, pp. 598-599. "Ibid, p. 594. 58 Columbia Seminary and standards had come to be substantially identical with its own." Dr. Reed also added, in his copy sent for publication to the Presbyterian Board of Publication, that in his judgment the aforesaid union showed that the Northern Church preferred external enlargement to doctrinal purity. This last statement was changed by Dr. Roberts, stated Clerk of the Northern Assembly, before publication, into an innocuous platitude, and so reads in the printed copies of Dr. Reed's book. 89 & 90 In a short History of the Southern Presbyterian Church, published in the Presbyterian Standard of Charlotte, North Carolina, October 24-November 21, 1923, Dr. Reed, from the standpoint of Columbia Seminary, categorically answers the question "Why should we (the Southern Presbyterian Church) not go back to our mother?" 1. "Because the mother Church (the Old School Church) no longer exists. 2. "The Church of which that Old School Church is now a com- ponent part is a Church practically without a creed." The Church professes one creed, but has two standards (Old School and New School) for testing orthodoxy. 3. "The Cumberland Union of 1905 opened a still wider door into the ministry, so that it is hardly too much to say that this great, doubly united Church stands for no clearly defined system of truth." 4. "The Northern Church is travelling in the direction of Broad- Churchism, and soon the denial of doctrines hitherto held to be dis- tinctive of Evangelical Christianity will be tolerated. 5. "The Northern Assembly practices the doctrines of the Spring Resolutions . . . "the doctrine that the church owes allegiance to the civil government and must render support to the government." 91 According to Dr. Thomas Cary Johnson, Dr. Palmer "never ceased to believe that the Head of the Church had laid on his communion the burden of testifying to the Church's non-political character, and of standing for sound and certain Calvinism." 92 Kced History of the Presbyterian Churches of the World, p. 267. ! "'Note: Dr. Reed stated to his classes in Columbia Seminary that this change was made, without his consent, by his friend, Dr. Roberts. "'As published in Pamphlet, pp. 21, 22. ' "Johnson, B. M. Palmer, p. 546. The Southern Presbyterian Integration 59 The second difficulty urged by Dr. Palmer in 1870 doctrinal in- clusiveness is a difficulty of. increasing magnitude in the minds of leaders of Columbia Seminary to the organic union of the Northern and Southern Churches. The New School Union of 1869-70; the Revision Question of 1889; the Cumberland Union of 1904; the Auburn affirmation of 1923 ; 93 the latitude taken by New York Presbytery in ordaining ministers; 94 the failure of the Assembly of 1927 to judicially rebuke this latitude; 95 the ideal of "an inclusive church" avowed by Northern leaders, 96 are to Columbia Seminary like so many stones in a vast pyramid of difficulty in the way of organic union. Palmer's other great objection the relations between church and state were still pressed by Dr. Reed in 1923. supra. Dr. Woodrow acknowledges that the church courts of the South do not have a perfect record on this subject, "although there was an honest endeavor, even in the midst of the most intense war excite- ment, to avoid whatever is inconsistent with the distinction, estab- lished by our Saviour, between the things of God and the things of Caesar." But he points to the declaration of the Southern Assembly of 1876 disavowing all such incidental allusions 97 as the reestablish- ment of the ideal of the strictly spiritual function of the Church the principle of "the non-secular and non-political character of Christ's kingdom." 98 To any one at all familiar with the intensity of South Carolina politics, the wonder is not that Dr. R. E. Thompson finds allusions of a political nature in the narratives of Religion of the Southern As- y3 An affirmation designed to safeguard the Unity and Liberty of the Presby- terian Church in the U. S. A.. Auburn, N. Y.. 1923. This document, signed by o\er twelve hundred "Northern Presyterian" ministers and elders, declares that the acceptance of none of the following doctrines are essential to ordination in the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., i. e. : the Virgin Birth of Christ, His bodily resurrection, His miracles, the inerrancy of Scripture, that Christ offered up Himself a sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice and reconcile us to God. 01 Minutes Assembly U. S. A., 1925, pp. 32, 37. 83-88, 207. A Plain State- went of Conditions in Neiv York Presbytery, James E. Bennett, N. Y., 1925. ""Minutes U. S. A., 1927, p. 188. Cf. Action of 1928 Assembly in allowing Synod of N. Y. to vote in appeal vs. Synod of N. Y. This irregular vote dis- missed another alleged case of doctrinal latitude. '"'Minutes U. S. A. Assembly, 1920, pp. 98, 117-122. '''Minutes Southern Assembly 1876, p. 233. ,J8 Z)r. J as. Woodrow, p. 596, April 26, 1889. 60 Columbia Seminary and semblies of the war period," nor that Dr. Bean finds them in the narratives of Religion of the Presbyteries of South Carolina during the war; 100 the marvel is that the ideal is so far maintained as to keep these matters so generally out of the direct action, and to confine them to narratives dealing with the state of religion and of life. So steadfastly has this ideal been held by Columbia Seminary that the institution may be said to be an embodiment of the principle of the spirituality of the Church. The founders of the Seminary prayed for an institution that should be separate from sectional politics; and in the heat of nullification hatred of New England, in 1831, 1832 and 1833, the Seminary elected Massachusetts men as her pro- fessors. In 1836 and 1837 this ideal was written into the life of the controlling Synod. In the forties, Thornwell of Columbia wrote it into the Old School Assembly. In 1861 Thornwell and Palmer wrote it into the Magna Charta of the Southern Assembly. Small wonder, then, that Palmer should maintain that the ideal had been realized, even during the war. He endorses the Assembly's declaration of 1870: "Our records may be searched in vain for a single act of ag- gression, or a single unfriendly declaration against the Northern Church." But he rejoices the more that in 1876, six years before the Concurrent Resolution, the Southern Assembly had disavowed any and all declarations of a political nature declaring that it "does not recognize such as forming any part of the well-considered, authori- tative teaching or testimony of our Church." 101 Dr. Henry A. White, of Columbia Seminary, thus characterizes the attitude of the Southern Church toward her ideal of the non-political character of the Church, even under the stain of war. Though their members come direct to the Assembly from war and camps, "Politi- cal measures are not formulated, nor even discussed in the sessions of the General Assembly." "At no time during the struggle, how- ever, does the Assembly declare that it is the religious duty of its members to fight for the Confederacy, nor does the Assembly adopt any rule whatsoever to require an examination of a man's political sentiments as a preliminary to his admission as a Church member." 102 There doubtlessly are, here and there, in the statements of Columbia "Thompson, Presbyterians, p. 158. m) Pres. Church in S. C. Since 1850, pp. 90-115. ""Palmer, Sou. Pres. Rev., April, 1883, p. 319 ff. '"-White, Sou. Pres. Leaders, pp. 345, 347. The Southern Presbyterian Integration 61 Seminary leaders, glorifications of history exchanging the ideal for the actual but even so the history of ideals is history. It need not be claimed that Columbia Seminary has attained the ideal of the spirituality of the Church, but that the institution for a century has consistently pursued that ideal. Nor that the principle of non-par- ticipation of the Church in the political or secular has, in every case, been lived up to by the ecclesiastical Courts in which the Seminary has had a voice; but that this has been maintained with such consistency as to fairly entitle it to be regarded as the working principle of these bodies. It is not evident that this is either the ideal or the working principle of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America. The difference between this Assembly and the Old School Assembly, from which the bulk of the Southern As- sembly separated, can be distinctly seen by comparing the Baltimore (Old School) Assembly of 1848 with the Baltimore (U. S. A.) As- sembly of 1926. Dr. Thornwell led the former in declining to in- struct its members to support or unite with The American Temper- ance Union; because, "The Church of Jesus Christ is a spiritual body. ... It is hence beside the province of the Church to render its courts, which God ordains for spiritual purposes, subsidiary to the schemes of any organization founded in the human will and liable to all its changes and caprices." 103 In the Baltimore Assembly of 1926 there were three groups, The Fundamentalist or Conservative Group; the Mediating or Pacifist Group; the anti-Fundamentalist Group so named as including those who were Liberal and those who, for other reasons, were opposed to the Fundamentalist. Each of these groups, through its spokesmen, condemned this doctrine of the non-participation by the church in political or secular matters. The anti-Fundamentalist spoke first on this subject. They kept the daily papers, before and during the As- sembly, 104 alive with charges against a Princeton Seminary Conserva- tive, because he had taken the ground that New Brunswick Presby- tery, being a Church Court, ought not to endorse the Volstead Act. The Mediating Group was represented by Moderator Thompson. Minutes (0. S.) 184S, p. 58. 104 Note: The writer was reading The Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Public Ledger. 62 Columbia Seminary and On taking his chair, the Moderator not only pledged his loyalty to the Presbyterian Constitution, but specifically and particularly pledged his loyalty to the Constitution of the United States of Amer- ica thus, from the Southern viewpoint, again binding the Church to the chariot of Caesar. Ex-Moderator Clarence E. Macartney was regarded as the spokesman of the Fundamentalists. In the course of a historical address delivered by him to this Assembly, he re-en- dorsed "the Spring Resolutions" of the Assembly of 1861; and maintained that these Resolutions were justified by the whole course of Presbyterian history. 105 Dr. Henry A. White, of Columbia Theological Seminary, who was to have represented the Southern Church, was detained in Richmond by sickness; and, therefore, no answer was made at the time to this speech. 106 It is not within the province of this paper to declare that the principle of non-participa- tion in state or political matters is a sufficient one to prevent the union of the Southern Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church U. S. A. It is adjudged the task of the historian to say that in recent years the two bodies have shown different ideals on this subject. For the sake of completeness two lesser objections to organic union urged by Columbia men must be touched in passing. Dr. Woodrow discusses and endorses an objection to union presented by Dr. B. M. Palmer, namely, the race problem. This is characterized as "a/i in- superable barrier.'" Woodrow fears ecclesiastical unity will lead to negro social equality, ecclesiastical subjection to the negro majority perhaps even amalgamation. He says "people at the South of different origin and blood and creed do not all mix together any better than they do in Boston itself"; and that every ecclesiastical body has "a right to choose whom it will receive into its member- ship." 107 The reply of the Northern Assembly's Committee on Closer Rela- tions, that that body would favor preserving "the present boundaries ^Minutes of U. S. A. Assembly of 1926, as far as applicable, p. 19, 154. 108 A more recent example of the attitude of the U. S. A. Church toward secu- lar things is to be seen in the endorsement of a particular candidate for the presidency by Moderator H. K. Walker and by the Bd. of Xn. Education, 1928. im Jas. Woodrow, Aug. 25, 1887, pp. 583, 584; Dec. 22, p. 590; Jan. 5, 1888, p. 592. The Southern Presbyterian Integration 63 and constituencies of the Presbyteries and Synods of both Churches," allayed the fears of. Southern leaders on this subject. 108 About ten years ago Columbia Seminary was opened with an ad- dress on this subject of organic union by Dr. Wm. M. McPheeters. The new approach to the subject there presented was that the South- ern Church had been providentially brought into independent exist- ence; that she had justified her independent organic life on the field of history; that the leading and blessing of God could be seen in her life (through these dealings in providence and grace). Ought she then dissolve that independent organic life without a definite evi- dence of His leadership in the movement? For the Southern Church to resolve this organism into another was, in effect, to commit suicide, without, of course, the moral blame attaching to suicide. 109 But when organic union seemed impossible, or undesirable, the other plan, which Dr. Girardeau had foreseen as a step in the di- rection of organic unity, namely, local assemblies or federation, was advocated by a Columbia leader. Dr. Thornton Whaling, the Presi- dent of Columbia Theological Seminary (1911-1921) was for several years on the Southern Church's ad-Interim Committee on Closer Relations. 110 In this position he warmly advocated Federal Union. A digest of his reasons, sent by Dr. Whaling for the purpose of this history, follows: Why the Southern Church Prefers Federal Union, By Thornton Whaling, D.D., President, Columbia Theological Seminary, Columbia, S. C. "The Southern Presbyterian Church has expressed a preference for Federal Union rather than for Organic Union, and it is earnestly desired that our brethren of the U. S. A. Church should understand the reasons for this preference. If human testimony can be believed, seventy-five per-cent of our ministers and Church officers prefer Federal rather than Organic Union, and I beg the privilege of as- signing some of the reasons for this widespread preference. 10S Letter of Jos. T. Smith, Feb. 2, 1888, Minutes Sou. Pres. Assembly, 1888, p. 461. 100 Cf. Action of Assembly of 1865, p. 358; 1882, p. 567; Alexander's Digest, pp. 1028-1029. lw Minutes 1920, p. 178, cf. Alexander's Digest, 1922, pp. 1003-1014. 64 Columbia Seminary and "First, Federal Union is Catholic, while Organic Union is provin- cial. There are ten or twelve other Presbyterian and Reformed Churches in our country with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of members, and any plan of union ought to take them into view. "Federal Union contemplates the integration of. these great Churches into a Federal Assembly, and is, therefore, broad in its vision and amply wide in its scope. "Organic Union, on the other hand, is so provincial that it leaves altogether out of view those other ten great historic Churches, and narrows its scope to a union of only two Churches in the great brotherhood of more than a dozen. It is too narrow, provincial and petty, contrasted with the catholicity, breadth and scope of Federal Union. "Second, Federal Union is tolerant, w4iile Organic Union savors of bigotry. "Federal Union recognizes each of the other ten or more Churches as legitimate types of Presbyterianism, wrought out of Providence of God, under the guidance of divine spirit. It believes that each one of them is as fully entitled to continual existence as any of the others. It finds a method by which, without annihilating their identity or destroying their autonomy, they can combine in one great Federal Union, while preserving the historic and traditional types to which they are committed, under the leadership of the great Head of the Church. "Organic Union, on the other hand, regards one Church, and that (it) is true the largest Presbyterian Church numerically in the United States, but still only one type of Presbyterianism, as the exclusive, legitimate, and normal type, in conformity with which the others must finally reduce themselves. Without the use of harsh language, the distinctive Church policy certainly savors of narrowness, intoler- ance and bigotry. "Third, Federal Union is forward-looking, while Organic Union is backward-looking. "Federal Union, based on the principles of representation and federation, is the key to the future, according to the statement of great statesmen like Lloyd George and Clemenceau and others. Il- lustrations of its operations are manifested all around the world, and The Southern Presbyterian Integration 65 notably in the Imperial Federal Republic of the United States. The League of Nations is a partial effort to the realizing, in international life, of this same principle. The eyes of Federal Union are fixed upon the future, in the confident faith that civil and ecclesiastical polities of life are to find the bond of unions in the practical applica- tion of these great principles. "Organic Union, on the other hand, looks to the past, emphasizing ideas that were shimmered in 1861, and speaks loudly and emphatic- ally about a National Church. Of course, National Churches are anachronisms. They are out of date in the twentieth century and are destined never to be in date in any subsequent period. The ef- fort to knit sundered bonds might result in a kind of patch-work like the old crazy-quilt, but cannot give you a life organism, animat- ed by one organic principle, as Federal Union proposes. "Fourth, Federal Union is possible while Organic Union is im- possible. "The Presbyterian Church in the United States is ready for Federal Union and other Presbyterian Churches have indicated a willingness for such a combination. When a plan is discovered which allows brethren of all of the Presbyterian and Reformed Churches to re- tain their distinctive principle in doctrine, government, administra- tion and ritual, they will find no sufficient reason to decline entering into it. The Southern Church stands in readiness to enter, heartily and enthusiastically, into such a combination. "On the other hand, Organic Union, requiring not only the South- ern Church but all of the other Churches to surrender everything which they regard as distinctive and peculiar, is certain to encounter an antagonism which will make it impossible of realization in our day. Disintegration and disorganization of the Churches must be the prelude and condition which alone will make consolidation possible. "It is a distress to many minds to find that the statesmanship of. the greatest Presbyterian Church in the United States is not equal to the task of seeing that consolidation is impossible, and that real and true Federation is the key to the wise union of all of the branches of our common Presbyterianism. We love the U. S. A. Church: we do not wish to destroy it as a type of Presbyterianism, but we are not willing that it should be the only type and that all of the other 66 Columbia Seminary and Churches consent to surrender their autonomy and be re-made again after the fashion of even the great U. S. A. Church." While at Columbia, President Whaling advocated union along such lines of federation as the Pan-Presbyterian Alliance suggests the giving of ecclesiastical authority to such an organization. In this way he hoped to bring together what he characterized as "the long surrendered, the too-long divided Churches of our American Presbyterianism." 111 The views of Dr. Reed, supra, represent Columbia Seminary's atti- tude as recently as that attitude has been defined. The chief grounds for the perpetuation of the Southern Presby- terian Church, as revealed by this survey, are : first, that the South- ern Church holds to the principle of. the strict spirituality of the Church, its non-participation, as a Church, in the political or the secular; while the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A., still maintains the principle of the "Spring Resolutions"; secondly, the Southern Church has aimed at Confessional consistency, while "the U. S. A. Church" has been travelling in the direction of doctrinal inclusiveness. Southern leaders have felt that a union of the two bodies would re- sult in the continual clashing of divergent principles, and promote discord rather than harmony. The differences between the two bodies in the field of Church polity will be dealt with in the next chapter. The perpetuation of the Southern Presbyterian Church is guarded by a legal seal. The Book of Church Order of the Presby- terian Church in the United States provides that full organic union and consolidation with any other ecclesiastical body can only be effected by the approval of two General Assemblies and the consent of three-fourths of the Presbyteries; and that this paragraph can only be amended by the same vote. 11 ' 2 In 1928, conversations concerning union were in progress between the Southern Presbyterian Church and the United Presbyterian Church. The Seminary was represented on the Southern Committee by its Chairman, Dr. S. L. Morris an alumnus of the institution. 113 "'Addresses before the Chicago Presbyterian Social Union 1913, cf. Alex- ander's Digest 1922, pp. 1003, 1014, etc. xMinutes 1920, p. 178. Minutes, 1931. ""The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, Revised Edition, Richmond, 1925, Section 162. 1VA Minutes Assembly (U. S.) 1927, pp. 9, 28, 41. The Southern Presbyterian Integration 67 Looking at this question, a question with many angles, from the one angle which has been central in this chapter, such a union could prove a safeguard for the Southern Presbyterian principle of the spirituality of the Church. The fathers of the Seminary regarded the sectional spirit as the antithesis of the non-secular spirit. To them, a Southern Presbyterian Church maintaining the strict spirit- uality of the Church would have been a paradox. The missionary v/ork of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, by making the Church to some extent an international Church, has probably saved it from the danger inherent in the fact that it is a sectional Church the danger of developing a sectional consciousness, of identifying the Church with the secular, political, or provincial aims and pur- poses of the section. But should a union be consummated on the principle of the sole Headship of Christ in His Church and the strictly spiritual character of the Church, such a union, by making the Church national rather than Southern, would more adequately safeguard the outstanding principle of the Southern Church from the danger inherent in a sectional institution. 7/i Christ there is no East nor West In Him no South nor North. * * * * All Christly souls are one in Him Thro' out the whole wide earth" John Oxenham, 1908. Hymn 375, The Presbyterian Hymnal, Richmond, 1927. COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY AND THE POLITY OF THE SOUTHERN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH The Polity of James Henley Thornwell, the Structural Lines of the Southern Presbyterian Church. The Ruling Elder. The Analogy of the Presbyterian System. The Headship of Christ. The Diaconate, a Thornwellian Principle Elaborated by Dr. J. L. Girardeau. The Book of Church Order of the Southern Assembly. The Form of Government. The Rules of Discipline. Thornwell's Doctrine of the Sacraments. The Lord's Supper The Doctrine of John Calvin. Baptism Its Matter and Its Form. "We are not ashamed to confess that we are intensely Presby- terian." Address to all the Churches of Jesus Christ by Assembly of 1861, presented by Dr. Thornwell. Minutes, p. 60. "A catholic love for all his true people, and unshaken confidence in the divine right of the Presbyterian system: these are things which should never, by us, be disjoined." J. L. Girardeau, Historical Ad- dress before Synod of S. C. p. 78-79 The Southern Presbyterian Polity 69 The Polity of James H. Thornwell "Hyper -hyper -hyper High Church Presbyterianism" Charles Hodge. In the matter of Presbyterian Polity, as well as in matters of. doc- trine, Dr. Thornwell was a supporter of Dr. R. J. Breckenridge. Several of his most important articles on this subject are commen- taries on similar articles by Breckenridge. The polity which they advocated was developed in connection with practical questions at issue in the Old School Presbyterian Church. Breckenridge, as quoted by Thornwell, maintains that Presbyterian principles of polity were complicated by the Plan of Union with Congregational- ists; and that, while the paramount issue which split the Presbyterian fold in 1837 was not governmental, yet it was polity alone which made the Plan of Union unconstitutional and the Synods organized under the plan illegal. Writing in 1843, Breckenridge justifies the radical excision on the ground of polity. Because of a lack of presbyters in the constitution of these synods, he declares that the assembly of 1837 was right in annulling the Plan of Union as un- constitutional. 2 This gives the setting of this question in the minds of Breckenridge and Thornwell. Dr. J. L. Girardeau, one of Dr. Thornwell's successors in the de- velopment of polity at Columbia, declared that Thornwell also felt that the principles of pure Presbyterian polity were not maintained with sufficient clearness by the Westminster Divines, owing to the several polities represented in that Assembly. 3 These views left Dr. Thornwell untrammelled by any set system of polity, and allowed him freedom to study the polity of the early Christian Church for himself. There is ample evidence that he used his wide learning to gather from the Fathers the earliest polity extant. He speaks of giving the Apostolic Fathers a careful perusal; 4 and his articles abound in references to them, to the Canons, to the Councils, to the early Greek and Latin Fathers in the originals. 5 In view of this study it will be interesting to notice, in passing, wherein Thornwell 'Thornwell Coll. Writings, Vol. IV, p. 228. 'Thornwell, Vol. IV, p. 49, 55, 56. 'Girardeau in S. P. R., Vol. XXXII, p. 5. 'Thornwell, Vol. IV, note 1, p. 114. 'Notes, pp. 119, 120, 121, etc. 70 Columbia Seminary and has been supported in particular points by more recent studies in Church Government. 6 Thornwell's interest was not primarily academic. His discussions of polity were waged over practical questions decided in the Old School General Assemblies, particularly those of 1843 and 1860; and then re-decided for Southern Presbyterians after their separation from the Old School Assembly. That is, the principles for which Breckenridge and Thornwell contended in the Old School Assembly were not completely victorious there; but they have become the great structural lines along which the Southern Church has been organized. In the heat of the debate of 1860 Thornwell disavowed any purpose to split the Church over the differences in polity between himself and Dr. Hodge. 7 And when the Presbyterian Church South was organ- ized it adopted the Old Constitution of the mother Church. 8 But by overtures, by revisions of the book of Church Order, by adopting the Book of Discipline formulated by Thornwell for the Old School Church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States has become in a large measure the embodiment of the Thornwellian Polity. Alex- ander's Digest 1922 (p. 103) gives a typical way in which this change has taken place. In 1843 the General Assembly decided that the presence of elders was not necessary to constitute a quorum of a regular Presbytery. 9 Breckenridge and Thornwell wrote vigorously against this view. 10 After the Southern secession, ThornwelFs home Synod (South Carolina) overtured the Southern Assembly in re- gard to the necessity for the presence of a ruling elder. In 1871 the question was again raised by the review of the minutes of Synod of South Carolina. Alexander adds a note that, "The new book of Church Order provides (paragraph 4) that the presence of at least one ruling elder is necessary to a quorum of Presbytery." "Note: Lack of space forbids a treatment of the not less radical differences between Thornwell's views and those of more recent students. E. g., Thorn- well's views of the jus divinum of the Church's constitution would probably be characterized by Harnack, Sohm and other scholars hereafter mentioned as Catholicism in contra-distinction from primitive Christianity. Cf. Harnack, The Constitution and Law of the Church, N. Y., 1910, pp. 3, 4, 232, 245, 253; note Sohm's Theory, pp. 177, 183. 7 Thornwell, Vol. IV, p. 233. "Alexander's Digest, 1922, p. 1. "Minutes of General Assembly of 1843. pp. 190, 196, 198, 199, 203. "Thornwell, Vol. IV, p. 43, ff p. 115, ff, etc. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 71 The principles as enunciated were as much Breckenridge's as Thorn well's; but as embodied in the Southern Church thev were Thornwell's. Breckenridge stayed with the old Church. Thornwell guided the shaping of the new. His work was enshrined in his pupils and fellow professors in Columbia Seminary, in the Synod of South Carolina, and finally in the whole Southern Church. Today his name is one to "conjure" with in Southern Presbyterian Polity. For example, Dr. Thomas Cary Johnson, of Union Theological Seminary (Richmond, Virginia), stops in his discussion of Calvin's Contribu- tion to Church Polity to mention one other of the occasional succes- sors of Calvin in the field of polity. He mentions James Henley Thornwell. 11 The Ruling Elder The particular practical issues which directed Thornwell's atten- tion to Presbyterian polity were two decisions by the "Old School" Assembly of. 1843. These declared that elders were not necessary to constitute a quorum of Presbytery; and that they were not entitled to lay hands on Ministers of the Word in ordination. 12 These de- cisions were understood by Thornwell to imperil the whole author- ity and position of the Ruling Elder. He began a careful study of this subject, and as a result enunciated principles that go to the foundation of the question of the place, position, and meaning of the office of Ruling Elder, "of the whole analogy of Presbyterian polity," and the headship of Christ in and over His Church. The corner stone in Thornwell's polity is the office of the elder- ship. His declaration of the identity of the primitive presbyter and bishop 13 has received the endorsement of a wide circle of. Anglican scholars, following the publication of Bishop Lightfoot's Essay on the Christian Ministry in 1868. 14 This school is frank to acknowl- edge that the episcopate developed out of the presbyterate by eleva- tion, rather than out of the apostolate by localization (p. 196). Among those who follow Lightfoot's views may be mentioned: Dr. ^Calvin Memorial Addresses, Pres. Committee of Publ., Richmond, Va., 1909, p. 87. Cf. Eugene Daniel Church Polity and Worship, pp. 152, 3 in Memorial Volume of West. Assembly Pres. Comm. of Publ., Richmond. 1897. "Minutes of 1843, pp. 190, 196, 199-201, 178, 181, 182, 183. Cf. Moffatt. James, The Presbyterian Churches, N. Y., 1928, pp. 115-116. ,3 Works, Vol. IV, p. 132. "Dissertation published with St. Paul's Epistle to Philippians by J. B. Light- foot, 1915, Macmillan, p. 181. 72 Columbia Seminary and H. M. Gwatkins, Early Church History; Dr. J. Armitage Robinson, Essay on Christian Ministry in Swete, Early History of the Church and the Ministry; Dr. Edwin Muller, Cambridge Episcopal Theologi- cal School. Of the liberal school, Dr. F. Loofs, accepting the late dating of Acts and the Pastorals, still holds to the identity of. the two offices; 15 and Dr. George La Piana presents a similar view in his Lectures on The History of Christian Institutions. Dr. Thornwell made the presbyter the first and fundamental per- manent officer. 16 Mgr. Pierre Batiffol, a French Roman Catholic scholar, in Primitive Catholicism holds that the Church began under an initially intended government (pages 36-96, 149) ; that the Church was saved by a power representing Jesus (p. 150) ; that these presby- ters are "the earliest permanent ecclesiastical function which history records" (p. 151) ; that Paul's final instructions to Timothy imply that on the death of Timothy this delegate and disciple is to be re- placed only by the presbyterium (1 Tim, 4:14) of every church (pp. 117, 118) ; that these presbyters are at the head of the local church to govern and instruct it (p. 117). 17 Dr. Moffatt quotes simi- lar views from Prof. Emil Metzner, Die Verfassung der Kirche in den zwei ersten J ahrhunderten (p. 142) . 18 Canon Streeter's hypothesis that there was no one form of govern- ment in the early Church is really based on the phenomena that elders are not mentioned in the important corporate act taken by the great Church at Antioch (Acts 13: 1 ff.). The position of Streeter ih valid against Dr. Hodge's conception of presbyters. If the presby- ter was primarily a teacher (or preacher), why is he not named among those who were leading the worship in Antioch? But the objection will not stand against the Thornwellian polity. Antioch recognized elders as the proper governing and administrative officers in her several contacts with the Jerusalem Church (Acts 11:30; 15), and her missionaries elected elders to govern the Gentile churches (Acts 14:23). Any argument e silentio is precarious. But, if Streeter insists on an inference concerning the government at Antioch, lu T. M. Lindsay The Church and the Ministry presents Loofs views as given in Studien und Kritiken for 1890, p. 375. ,0 Works, Vol. IV, p. 532. l7 Batiffol Primitive Catholicism, Longmans, Green & Co, 1911, cf. Gore The Holy Spirit and the Church, Scribners, N. Y., 1924, pp. 13, 42, 51, 139 (note), 140, 143. '"Moffatt The Pres. Churches, p. 13. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 73 it is more reasonable to infer from Antioch's regular recognition of elders in her contacts with other churches that there were elders governing and administering the Antiochian Church than to infer the contrary. Dr. F. J. A. Hort is, therefore, on safer ground than Canon Streeter. 19 In sifting out the question of the eldership, Thornwell took the position "that Pastor, Bishop and Presbyter are different names of precisely the same office." 20 He holds that the Ruling Elder is fundamentally the Presbyter of Scripture (p. 104). The view of his opponent seems to have been that the Presbyter of Scripture is represented by the Presbyterian Preacher, and therefore a jus divinum presbyterii can only be plead for the Preacher (p. 107, 108, etc.). 21 Thornwell tries to go to the bottom of the matter. He shows that Presbyter and Preacher were not originally interchangeable terms. That in the synagogue the Presbyter was a ruler, tho not a preacher (p. 117). He holds that the same was true in the early church; "that presbyter as a title of office means a ruler and nothing more than a ruler." "The eldership as such never includes teaching; this is always a superadded function" (p. 119). An examination of the correlated terms Pastor or Shepherd, Bishop, Rulers ( Rectors ) , etc., is made in the Septuagint, classical Greek, the New Testament, the Fathers, the Jewish usage. Thornwell holds that Ambrose is right (commenting on Ephesians IV p. 118) in making Pastor the synonym of Ruler. He maintains that Bishop means what its English transliteration implies, "overseer." Thornwell holds that episkopoi was orginally the Greek usage for the Hebrew, zekenim, with a conno- tation and significance from the Attic Civil administration, overseers (p. 124-131). Thornwell's view, that the synagogue presbyter was not a preacher, but a ruler; and that the synagogue had influence on the Christian practices seems to be generally held by recent authori- ties on the subject of Judaism. 22 Dr. Hatch in the Bampton Lectures I9 Cf. Streeter, The Primitive Church, pp. 78-80; Hort. The Christian Ecclesia, pp. 90-91. L "'Coll. Writings, Vol. IV, p. 110. 21 Hodge, Charles, Church Polity, pp. 265, 276. Thornwell, pp. 107, 108, etc. "Easton, B.S., A Study of the Presbyterate, The Churchman, May 2, 1931, pp. 10-11. Gwatkins, H. M. in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. I; 301 of. G. F. Moore, Judaism, Vol. I, pp. 285, 289, 305; Harnack, Law and Constitu- tion, note p. 191 ; Hatch, The Organization of the Early Churches, pp. 57-62, 67. 74 Columbia Seminary and distinguishes the Bishop and the Elder; but he agrees with Thorn- well, to this extent: he regards them both as more nearly rulers than preachers. He regards the Elder as the guardian of discipline and conduct (p. 56), and the Bishop as the business and financial administrator (p. 36, 46). Bishop Lightfoot, in his Essays on the Christian Ministry, declares that government was probably the first conception of the presbyter's office (p. 194). Professor Burton Scott Easton, another Episcopal scholar, holds that the Jewish presbyter was ordained to rule, and as a presbyter had nothing to do with the actual conduct of Israel's worship. Further, that the Christian conception of the presbyterate paralleled the Jew- ish at every point; so that the only blessing sought for the newly or- dained presbyter was the grace of counsel that he might "rule." 23 Even Princeton's New Testament department seems to have swung from Hodge to Thornwell's view. Purves declares that "the elder- ship was not primarily a teaching office. Its functions were chiefly disciplinary and executive." 24 The whole Harnackian emphasis on the itinerant ministry tends to put the presbyter, as of the local ministry, primarily in the place of a ruler and not of. a preacher. In one place Thornwell seems to have foreshadowed Harnack's view of the Lehrgabe 25 as the special pos- session of the General Ministry. He says "that Presbyters as such were not entitled to preach, nor Preachers as such entitled to rule, would seem to be an obvious conclusion from the marked difference which the Apostle repeatedly makes between the gift of teaching and the gift of government. Rulers and Teachers are different en- dowments with which the ascending Saviour furnished the church, and no ingenuity of criticism can fasten the same signification upon such terms as doctrine and government. The miraculous gifts, too, which according to Paul (1 Cor. XIII, 8) were speedily to cease the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge all had evident refer- ence to the function of teaching. The extraordinary officers who possessed these functions were certainly Teachers; and yet, from the fact that they did not continue to adorn the church beyond the age 2 *The Churchman, May 2, 1931, pp. 10-11. "Turves, The Apostolic Age, p. 94. ~Harnack, The Constitution and Law of the Church, pp. 23, 24, 25, 58, 59. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 75 of the Apostles, it may be safely inferred that they were not Presby- ters." 26 Such a statement logically brings up the question of the relation of the Minister of the Word to the Ruling Elder. Thornwell's doc- trine is that a Presbyterian Preacher has a right to rule qua presby- ter, not qua preacher. 27 The f.orm of government denominates the Preacher a Presbyter, since it is "his duty ... to govern well in the house of God." He shares with the Ruling Elder the term Presbyter in that both are appointed to rule (p. 105). As a minister of the Word, the rulers of the Church have oversight over the Preacher, and he has oversight over no one (except himself). His duty is to de- clare the whole counsel of God, and the duty of the rulers of the church is to take care that he does this. It is only qua Presbyter that the Preacher has rule and oversight (p. 113). Therefore Thornwell holds "that all church authority is vested exclusively in the hands of. Elders (Presbyters of both kinds ruling only, and ruling plus teaching), and the right of bearing rule in the house of God is the distinctive peculiarity of their office." Further, "that all Presby- ters or Elders are equal and, when convened in ecclesiastical courts, are entitled to the exercise of the same rights and privileges." "The right of rule pertains to Ministers of the Gospel, not as Preachers but as Elders" (p. 132). He holds that both ministers of the Word and Ruling Elders are representatives of the people, elected by them their "chosen rulers." Thornwell then understands the Preacher to be one species of the genus Presbyter. He adduces 1 Tim. 5:17 as "The Negative Instance" to show that Presbyter and Preacher are not interchange- able terms (p. 106, 107). Commenting on the same text Hort affirms: "The distinction im- plies with tolerable certainty that teaching was not a universal func- tion of the Elders of Ephesus." 28 The specific difference which marks out the species Preacher from that species of Presbyter which only rules is the lawful authority to preach. Presbyter means simply a ruler, and the office of Preacher a function superadded to the Presbyterate. The Preacher in the 2C Thornwell. Vol. IV. p. 118. 27 1 bid, p. 113. 2H The Christian Ecclesia, p. 196. 76 Columbia Seminary and primitive church was selected from the consistory, and in the age of Ignatius was distinguished from the Presbyters by title of Bishop; it was owing to accidental circumstances that the Presbyters ever came to be Preachers. "I can trace in Ignatius the Constitution of our own church." 29 It was the specific duty of every Presbyter to rule; but there was nothing in the nature of that office to prevent the individual who filled it from adding to its duties the function of public instruction. 1 Tim. 5:17 shows that some elders did in fact preach. However, "the eldership, as such, never includes teaching: this is always a superadded function, and it is not in consequence of his Presbyterial authority that an Elder preaches." For obvious reasons, the Elder who preaches would always be the Moderator, or president of the council of. his brethren. All originally were equally Bishops of the Church, but in the age immediately succeeding that of the Apostles Bishop generally became restricted to the Presbyter who preached (p. 118, 119) i. e. because he always presided over the Presbytery. "He differed from his brethren in nothing but the authority to preach and administer the sacraments; the dispensa- tion of the sacraments being, in fact, only a symbolic method of preaching, and, therefore, an exclusive function of the Preacher's office. Filling this double function the preaching Presbyter received double honor, a double share in the affections of the people, the high distinction of a permanent presidency." Thornwell cites letters of Ignatius, Polycarp, Cyprian, and the Apostolic Constitutions to show that preaching was the characteristic distinction of him who received the special appellation of Bishop (p. 120 with notes). This question of the elevation of. the episcopate out of the presby- terate is one of the most difficult questions in Church polity. Lind- say quotes Dr. Loofs as declaring "that we just do not know how the threefold ministry rose out of the twofold." 30 However, much of recent scholarship would agree that Thornwell was very near the mark when he attributed to the superadded gifts of the Ministry of the Word (Lehrgabe), to the administration of the sacraments, to the permanent presidency of the parochial board of the elders, the ex- planation of the elevation of the Bishop above his peers. It has been noted that Thornwell remarked on the extraordinary ministry's pos- -"Coll. Writings IV. '"Lindsay, p. 376. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 77 sessing the gift of teaching without being rulers. In one place he also seems to have had a passing glimpse at the connection between the work of. Preacher and Deacon. "The Preacher shares, in com- mon with the Deacon, the title of Minister, because both are appoint- ed to a service, and he shares, in common with the Ruling Elder, the title of Presbyter, since both are appointed to rule" (p. 105). By widening the horizon, increasing the background, modern scholar- ship has shown the significance of these fleeting glimpses and filled in the picture. Hatch has pointed out the significance of that eleemosynary service in which both the President and the Deacons shared, and the part which the administration of this work had in the origin of the office of Bishop. 31 Dr. Harnack has shown that in time the Bishop took over from the extraordinary or "charismatic" ministry a "superadded function" the gift of teaching. 32 In his careful studies in the History of Christian Institutions, Dr. George La Piana has shown that the local officers early had a certain vital spirit- ual function the right to administer the sacraments. A doctrine of redemption is expressed in the sacramental rites. In the absence of the itinerant ministry the duty of administering the sacraments fell to the presbyters, and in particular to their president. Ignatius at- tributed the right to supervise the administration solely to the Bishop. The spiritual power of the Bishop is thus allied with the administra- tion of the sacraments. 33 The suggestions of the Lightfoot school (Lightfoot p. 199) that the personal prestige and influence of individual leading Presbyters such as James, Ignatius and Polycarp ought also be taken into any compendium of the situation or situations; 34 as well as such factors as the inexperience of the membership: the need for unified control and uniformity of worship, and the dangers from persecution and speculation which the Church was facing. 35 In regard to the Ministry of the Word, Thornwell holds this office to be the immediate call of God. Men should not be urged to go into 31 The Organization of the Early Churches, pp. 26-55. Z2 Law and Constitution, p. 92. ^Lectures on History of Christian Institutions Harvard University Session 1926-1927. 34 This development was neither the same nor simultaneous in different parts of the Church. ^Note: Dr. La. Piana attributes to the desire for the simultaneous observ- ance of Easter the carrying through of a real episcopal authority in Rome by Bishop Victor History of Christian Institutions. 78 Columbia Seminary and the Ministry, merely because they can give no reason for not doing so. They ought not to go in at all unless they have the best possible reason for doing so a definite consciousness that the Ministry is God's call to them God's will for their lives. "The grand and ulti- mate fact is the call of God." The proofs of this call are: (1) the inward testimony of a man's own conscience; (2) the approbation of the Christian people manifested through the call of some particu- lar congregation; (3) the authorization of a divinely constituted spiritual court, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 36 The Analogy of the Presbyterian System Dr. Thornwell holds that the cardinal and the distinctive principle of our polity is the government of the Church by free representative assemblies. "Ours is a government, not by Presbyters, but by Presbyteries." It is not in the hands of individual officers but in the hands of officers chosen by the people, judicially convened. 37 Further, he maintains that our government embodies that principle of checks and balances which is expressed in the bicameral charac- ter of modern legislative assemblies (p. 63, 64). Without having two chambers, the Presbyterian Courts observe the same principle by having, in one court and council, two classes of representatives. "The Ministers are a check upon the Elders, and the Elders are a check upon the Ministers, and the higher (courts) are checks upon the lower courts. The object of the check is to promote the dis- covery of truth by bringing different views and different modes of thought into collision by securing certainty of full and free discus- sion (p. 63)." A government solely in the hands of the Ministers creates a privileged class and the people lose their place in its gov- ernment. A government, exclusively in the hands of the Ruling Elders, would lean too much to popular will (p. 64). The minis- terial habits of retirement, study, meditation on abstract and gen- eral principles, furnish the check which the Ruling Elders need. The double representative discourages equally ecclesiastical despotism and popular passion. These two principles Thornwell calls the analogy of our system (p. 67). Thornwell, IV, The Call of the Minister, p. 11-42. 7 Vol. IV, p. 62. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 79 His description of. a Commonwealth in the State is an exact pic- ture, in its essential features, of Presbyterian government in the Church (p. 62). But Thornvvell is very careful to define wherein that parallel, picture, or analogy lies. If the essential principle of American state polity be, as Lincoln defined it at Gettysburg, "gov- ernment of the people, for the people, by the people/' 38 Thornwell would deny the parallel in church polity. He carefully distinguishes the representative in his definition from the delegate (p. 98). The delegate is the locum tenens of his principal (p. 99) . The definition of representative is radically and essentially different therefrom. He is a confidential agent, pursuing the dictates of his own understand- ing and bound to act in conformity with his own convictions of right (pp. 99-100) . He deliberates and acts for his constituency; but upon his own personal responsibility, regardless of. their temporary whims or caprices. Burke manifested the true ideal of a representative when he declared to the electors of Bristol, "I did not obey your instruc- tions; no! I conformed to the instructions of truth and nature, and maintained your interests against your opinions, with a constancy that became me." (Quoted page 100). Representative government differs from a pure democracy, in being essentially a limitation upon the people. The people choose representatives because it is not safe for them to rule themselves. The people form a constitution to pre- vent the accumulation of too much power in their own hands. This constitution is the immediate source of all power to all the repre- sentatives chosen under it. They are to obey it rather than the will of those who elected them (p. 100). "The representatives possess powers and discharge functions to which their constituents as a mass can lay no claim." In the Church the representative government is not, as in the State, even ultimately the creature of the people; it is the direct appointment of Christ and the powers and duties of eccles- iastical representatives are prescribed and defined in the Word of. God, the real constitution of the Church" (p. 101 ). 39 The people were never given any right to exercise jurisdiction or to administer discipline. They have no right to appear in Session or Presbytery. "The business of the people is to elect the men who give sufficient ^The first two of these phrases were used by Dr. Thomas Cooper in 1794. Cooper was a bitter opponent of Burke. Malone, pp. 77, 49. 30 Similarly Moffatt for Godet, Gillespie, and himself. The Presbyterian Churches, N. Y., 1928. pp. 22, 23. 80 Columbia Seminary and evidence that they are fitted by the Spirit to fill the offices which Christ had appointed" (p. 101). These men represent the people in the sense that they are the choice of the people their chosen rulers. They are not the tools of the people. They are to administer the laws of the Saviour; and to receive no authoritative instructions but those which have proceeded from the throne of God (p. 101) . Thus Thornwell denies that the rights, powers, and authority of the Ruling Elders are in any sense delegated from the people (p. 132). By government by representative assemblies he does not mean dem- ocracy. In Thornwell's analogy, then, church power is conceived as in actu primo in the Church (p. 97). But this primary power simply vests the priesthood of believers with the choice of rules (p. 98, p. 138). Thornwell does not mean by power in actu primo that the membership confers authority on the officer holder. He means that office holders are in the body of the Church, and thus that all power is potentially in the Church. The extent of the power of members consists in their election of their chosen rulers. But power in actu secundo, i. e. in its exercise, is in the hands of office holders (p. 97). The part of the people is more the duty of choosing the men who give sufficient evidence that they are fitted by the Spirit to fill the offices Christ has appointed. They are "called by Christ through the free choice of the people" (p. 138). The endeavor of the people is not that their opinions be maintained by their officers, but that God's will be done (p. 163). Their selection of their officers is, funda- mentally, a ratification of God's choice as He has manifested that choice in spiritual gifts. The fact that the people are allowed to make this choice is more a manifestation of God's confidence in them than of. their inherent powers. Starting from different presuppositions, and studying the subject purely as a historical problem, a group of modern scholars have ar- rived at positions similar to Dr. Thornwell on this point. Sohm's theory as presented by Dr. Harnack is that "election (by the people) is nothing but a testimony to the presence of the charismata; i. e. election simply confirms and makes plain to everyone the choice really brought about by God." 40 40 The Constitution and Law of the Church, pp. 197, cf. 209 note, 224, 226, cf. Harnack (ibid), p. 241. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 81 Dr. George La Piana points out that, as the matter lay in the consciousness of the Church, the government of the Church was not a democracy ; but a pneumatocracy not a government by the people, but a government by "the Spirit." This government lacked the fundamental requirement of democracy, namely the delegation of powers from the people to their officers. In a democracy the ulti- mate source of authority is in the people. They delegate their author- ity to chosen individuals, which act is a real investiture of authority to govern. But, according to the theology of the Christian Church, authority is religious; the Spirit ruled the Church; officers received their authority from above. 41 That the people are privileged to discern and to declare those whom God has chosen is a certain seal to the priesthood of believ- ers; not democracy's right to name her spokesmen. Elders are rep- resentatives of the people, but delegates of God (p. 138). Their choice 42 is not so much a citizen's rule as it is a Christian's obedience to God's will; not only a right, but also duty; not so much a power as a privilege. As a balance, however, it is emphatically stated that every officer is a minister, given by God, to minister to the Church. The officers exist for the Church not the Church for the officers (p. 19). 42b The Headship of Christ It will be seen that in this analogy Thornwell is most zealous for the place and authority of Christ. To say the least, it was a proper Providence that, in the organization of that communion which em- bodies Thornwell's polity, the distinctive slogan was declared to be the Headship of Christ. In the organization of the Southern Presbyterian Church this slogan had primary reference to the disentanglement of the Church from political matters the non-secularization of the Church. And in this primary matter it should be said that Thornwell was no op- portunist. His positions in regard to the Church's keeping free from matters of State and other secular movements were maintained "Lectures on the History of Christian Institutions, Harvard University Ses- sion 1926-1927. 4 "Cf. Alexander's Digest, Revised 1922, p. 102, section 222. ,L ' b Cf. Doumergue. Jean Calvin, Vol. V, Lausanne, 1917, pp. 156-163. 82 Columbia Seminary and previously to 1861 on the floor of the Old School Assembly, as has been shown. 43 Dr. Palmer, in his Life and Letters of Thornwell, narrates Thorn- well's opposition to a paper introduced into the 1859 Assembly com- mending the African colonization scheme. Sitting next to Thornwell, Palmer aroused him from a doze and whispered the occasion to him. Thornwell presented his views as follows: "The Church is exclusively a spiritual organization, and possesses only a spiritual power. Her business is with the salvation of men; and she has no mission to care for the things or to become entangled with the kingdom and policy of this world." Our beloved Zion stands "the beauty of the land"; because the only voice she utters is the Word of God; because no word is heard in her councils but His. "Let our Church lend her- self, in the name of the Lord and in her own proper sphere, to her own mission, and her enemies will never rejoice over trophies won from her. The salt that is to save this country is the Church of. Christ, a church that does not mix up with any political Party or any issue aside from her direct mission." 44 The same principles are maintained at length in his article on the Relation of the Church to Slavery, published in his Collected Writings p. 381 ff; and first written as a report to the Synod of S. C. 1851. Whatever may be thought of Thornwell's position in regard to the relation of Church and State, he must be credited with consistency therein. When Thornwell led the Southern Presbyterians in a new organization as a protest against the Old Assembly's decree of loyalty to the Washington government, he was simply acting according to his stated convictions and convictions which he had helped write \ into the legislative acts of former Old School Assemblies. 45 The Headship of Christ receives repeated and emphatic statement in the polity of James Henley Thorn well. - 45b v First, the sole Headship and Kingship of Christ is set over against any allegiance due by the Church to any State or government. The Southern organization flung again to the breezes the Blue Banner with the inscription "For Christ's Crown and Covenant." "The "Minutes of General Assembly Presbyterian Church in U. S. A., Vol. XII, 1848, pp. 58, 59. Minutes of General Assembly 1845, pp. 16, 17, 18. "Palmer, Life and Letters of James H. Thornwell, p. 437, cf. Thornwell's Collected Writings, Vol. IV, pp. 472-478. '"'Assembly 1845, Minutes, pp. 16-18; Assembly 1848, Minutes, pp. 58-59. ,r ' b Cf. Doumergue, "Toujours la Christocratie," p. 38. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 83 Church and the State" are as planets moving in different orbits and unless each is confined to its own track the consequences may be as disastrous in the moral world as a collision of different spheres in the world of matter." 46 ^ Secondly, the material principle, answering to this formal principle, is the spirituality of the Church. She is to recognize the headship of Christ by confining her sphere of labour to those things which He has commissioned her to do, i. e. preach the gospel of free salvation through His atonement; edify His body the Church; wit- ness for the truth; take order for the extension of the Kingdom into all the world. She is to have no connection with political or moral voluntary societies. 47 * Thirdly, the Headship of. Christ is maintained by the proclamation of the Scriptures as the only and sufficient rule of faith and practice. The Bible is the law of the Church. The Church is to declare and minister Christ's law. She can make no requirement binding the conscience of men without a scriptural warrant, explicit or implied (p. 163). The Christian presbyters should legislate only in the sense in which the Jewish presbyters legislated "they interpreted the Law of God." 48 i Fourthly, the Headship of Christ is recognized in the endeavor to ascertain and conform to de pure divino church polity. The Scrip- tures are made the Constitution of the Church. Thornwell main- tains that the polity of the Church in its regulative and in its con- stitutive principles is there revealed (p. 252). He professes to find there his organic and his architectonic principles; and to con- fine the discretionary power to "the circumstantials of commanded things" (p. 259). Beyond this he held, with Dr. Cunningham of Edinburgh, that nothing should be introduced into the government and worship of the Church, unless a positive warrant for it could be found in Scripture (p. 249). On this ground Thornwell contended against the Board organization of the "Old School" Church, and ad- vocated Executive Committees in lieu thereof. Committees he held were circumstances common to parliamentary bodies and indispensa- l6 Thornwell, IV. p. 449. 'Ibid, pp. 472-478. ,8 Easton, The Churchman. May 2, 1931, p. 10. 84 Columbia Seminary and ble to their orderly and efficient conduct of business. Boards, as then organized, he considered unwarranted. 49 "The Church in all her operations, both at home and abroad, must act not indirectly through great Boards which can never meet, and which constitute only a barrier between her and her work, but directly through Executive Committees small enough to meet often and actually to do what is committed to them." 50 This Thornwellian doctrine resulted in the modification of the Boards in the Old School Assembly; 51 and in the substitution of Executive Committees, directly accountable to the General Assem- bly, for Church Boards in the Southern Presbyterian Assembly. 52 Fifthly, the doctrine of the Headship of Christ in Presbyterian Polity was given a vitality, which is sometimes lacking, by the recog- nition that all the officers of. the Church in their positions, rights, powers, authority, empowering gifts, equipment, are the immediate appointment and institution of Christ. 53 The chosen rulers are those whom He has called, and equipped with His Holy Spirit and given to the Church to minister unto her. They are delegates of Christ not delegates of the people. This capstone rounds out the polity, putting in a vital touch by giving each officer the loftiest sense of his high calling in Christ. Dr. J. B. Adger, in his article entitled Memorial of James Henley Thornwell, D.D., LL. D., names nine particular positions of Dr. Thornwell on Polity. 54a All of these nine have been covered in our previous discussion, except the following: "4. That the deacon is not to be connected with the lowest church court merely, but may be employed by the upper courts to keep the charge of all their pecuniary and other secular af- fairs." "7. That giving of our substance is an act of worship to Almighty God." "8. In respect to church discipline, etc." 40 Vol. IV, p. 237. r, "Adger, Memorial to J. H. Thornwell. Semi-Centennial, p. 192. "Minutes of Assembly of 1860, p. 46. Thornwell. Vol. IV, p. 239. ""Alexander's Digest, Revised 1922, p. 169. The Southern Assembly of 1927 modified this direct mode of action by its new Assembly's Work Committee, Minutes 1927, pp. 28, 32. 134. The dissolution of "The Committee of Forty- Four" by the Assembly of 1931 was a return to Thornwell's principle. r,a Thornwe]l, Vol. IV, p. 132. c1 Semi-Centennial of C. T. S.. p. 192. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 85 "9. I may add that Dr. Thornwell held distinctly to Calvin's peculiar doctrine of the Lord's Supper and of Baptism, and that he showed indisputably that the Church of Rome has corrupted the one as well as the other" (pp. 192, 193). Of these four, the mere statement of that one numbered seven would seem to be sufficient, while the one numbered eight will be taken up in the study of the Book of Discipline. The two questions of the diaconate and the sacraments remain to be discussed. These subjects of Thorn wellian Polity have to be studied mainly from the writings of his colleagues and disciples, Drs. Girardeau and Adger; since Thorn well's views on these subjects have not been fully elab- orated in his own writings. 54b The Diaconate, a Thornwellian Principle Elaborated by Dr. J. L. Girardeau. Dr. Girardeau develops the doctrine of the diaconate in a series of articles published in the Southern Presbyterian Review from 1879. to 1881. 55 In the first article the relation to the presbyterate is defin- ed. 56 Dr. Girardeau starts with the assumptions that the office of deacon was instituted by Christ (p. 2) ; that it is perpetual; that its function is not preaching, but distribution; that its ends are tem- poral in contra-distinction from spiritual ; that election is by the people (p. 2) ; that ordination thereto is by the congregational pres- bytery with prayer and the imposition of hands (p. 3). He holds that the presbyterate and diaconate are the two orders of the ministry; that the one terminates on persons and the other on ecclesiastical goods; the one has to do with the cure of souls, the other with the care of the bodies (pp. 4, 5) . He maintains, at length, that the higher office does not regularly include the lower office (p. 5 ff). Among the inferences from this position are: that the Minister of the Word is not ex-officio moderator of the board of deacons; that the Dea- con's Courts are invalid; that where the proper duties of deacons are to be discharged the deacon ought to be assigned to their perform- ance and not the presbyter (pp. 24, 25). The Scope of the Deacon s Functions is dealt with in a second ar- ticle. The primary work of the deacon is the care of the poor; " >,b Cf. However on the Diaconate. ThornwelVs Coll. Writings, Vol. IV, pp. 154, 155, 199, 200. 201. "Vol. XXX, XXXI. XXXII. no Vol. XXX, p. 1-31. 86 Columbia Seminary and construed as the poor of the church, Christian strangers, the poor of the world (pp. 117, 137). 57 Not only the care of the poor but "the management of all eccle- siastical goods and property ought to be committed to the deacons, as officers of Christ's appointment " (p. 137). This position is ar- gued on the basis of "certain great undisputed principles" (138), to- wit: that Christ is the sole Prophet whose instructions the Church is to obey; that He has left none of the real wants of the Church un- supplied; that she has a temporal as well as a spiritual side; that without warrant from His word no office can be introduced into the Church (p. 138). Thus, reasoning from the analogy of the deacon's office as related to the temporal relief of the poor, contemplating its very genius and spirit, he holds it to be a legitimate inference that whatever other functions of a temporal character are to be per- formed for the benefit of the Church should be imposed likewise upon him who was designated and known as the temporal officer (p. 142). Dr. Girardeau's case for committing all the temporalities to the deacons can be strengthened by the consideration that the care for the poor and the strangers almost covered "the temporalities" of the early church. 58 Inferences from this conclusion are that the appointment of trus- tees (other than the ordained deacons) is unwarranted (p. 139). Deacons ought to be used to collect benevolent offerings of the con- gregation; both those regularly given at the Church worship, and those collected from individual donors, e. g. for the support of a Theological Seminary (pp. 153-155). A third article stresses The Importance of the Office of Deacon. Girardeau affirms that, in the discussion of the Board question in the Old School Assembly, "Dr. Thornwell took very strong ground in regard to the employment of deacons in connection with the execu- tive agencies charged with the prosecution of the benevolent enter- prises of the church." 59 The importance of the office in meeting the needs of the poor is magnified. "Jesus still walks in this vale of tears as personated by "Vol. XXXI, pp. 117-160. 5S Cf. Hatch, The Organization of the Early Churches. Bampton Lectures of 1880, pp. 32-36, Fifth Ed. London, 1895. "Charity was of the essence of the Christian Associations. The eleemosynary element was very prominent," p. 36. rn S. P. R. Vol. XXXII, p. 6. Cf. Doumergue, p. 62. The need of the poor is a function in alienable from the Church. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 87 His poor and needy brethren" (p. 8). Those shod with the sandals of diaconal service are urged to hasten their charities (p. 10). "The rich and the poor are harmonized upon the diaconate. It is the di- vinely erected breakwater against the irruption of agrarianism, com- munism, and every kind of leveling theory, against the 'peace and order of the Christian commonwealth' " (p. 11). The purpose of the article is that the office should not be limited to this primary function. They should see to the support of the ministry (p. 28) ; promote benevolent enterprises and institutions, e. g. Foreign Missions (p. 20) ; and their functions ought not to be confined to a single congregation. 00 The deacon, as an officer of the church, ought to be used by the hgher courts to care for the tem- poral interests of the Church at large (p. 191). This position is argued from Scriptures (pp. 191-195 ) ; from the analogy of the Pres- byterian System (pp. 195-199) ; from "the actual practice of our Church" (pp. 199-203) ; from testimonies from R. J. Breckenridge and J. H. Thornwell. 01 The summation of the discussion on the diaconate includes the doctrine that deacons ought to perform all diaconal functions; that boards of trustees, having ecclesiastical business of. a purely financial character to manage, should consist only of deacons, e. g. the Board of Trustees of the General Assembly, of the Committee of Ed- ucation, of Publication, of Home and Foreign Missions; that dea- cons should perform the diaconal functions of executive committees of Synods and Presbyteries, and of Boards of Directors of theolog- ical seminaries. 62 Dr. Girardeau made a strong effort to give a worthwhile place and work to an office which, as Dr. George La Piana has well said, has seldom been regarded in any branch of the Christian Church as of permanent importance. Girardeau closes one of. his articles with a touching appeal to the Great Exemplar: "It is a striking fact that the Lord Jesus, in His sojourn on earth, did not occupy the outward seat of the ruler He condescended to appear as a prisoner at the bar of the eldership of His own visible Church. But, as the great Deacon of Israel, He declared that He 3 Vol. XXXI. p. 191. 'Collected Writings, Vol. IV. pp. 154. 155. 199, 200. 201, 204, 206. 2 S. P. R., Vol. XXXI, pp. 208-209. Cf. Palmer, Life of Thornwell, p. 230. 88 Columbia Seminary and came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and illustrated the noble unselfishness of that utterance by the untiring dispensation of healing to the suffering bodies of men. Having closed His won- drous mission of beneficence to the poor diseased body, it is affect- ing to contemplate Him, entitled, as He was, to the submission and homage of a prostrate universe, bearing a towel and a basin, the symbols of a servant. Him, before Whom every knee shall bow in heaven, earth and hell, bending His knee and washing His disciples' feet. In the discharge of their peculiar duties it will be glory to deacons to walk in His footsteps, and imitate His example of com- passionate ministration to the temporal wants of men." 63 A comparison of the Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. with the Book of Church Order of the Presby- terian Church, U. S. A., shows that the labors of Dr. Girardeau in reference to the diaconate have not been in vain. The care of all the temporalities of the Church, collecting and distributing funds, care of the property, as well as the care of the poor, is committed by the Southern Church to the deacons. The deacons may be ap- pointed by the higher courts to serve on committees, as trustees of any fund held by any court, and may devise plans of church finance. 64 Like the elders, they are ordained in the Southern Church by prayer and the imposition of hwds. Q5 They elect their own Chairman of their number, 66 and receive the Pastor as an advisory member, not as ex-officio Chairman. 67 In the Form of Government of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. 68 the temporalities may be entrusted to the deacons; in prac- tice they generally are entrusted to a distinct board of Trustees; 69 the pastor is ex-officio moderator of the Board of Deacons (Ibid sect. 3) ; ordination is only by prayer; 70 higher judicatories make no provision for deacons. 68 S. P. R., XXXI, p. 28. M The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. Revised Edition, 1925, Richmond, Va..' Pres. C. of Publ., pp. 21, 22. ^Paragraph 48, p. 33. ""Paragraph 148, p. 80. "'Paragraph 47, p. 22. m The Constitution of the Pres. Ch. of U. S. A., Philadelphia Pres. Bd. of Publ. 1921. ""Chapter XXV, section 6, p. 396. '"Chapter XIII, section IV, p. 373. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 89 The Book of Church Order The first Southern Assembly simply adopted the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, in which was specif- ically included the Form of Government and the Book of Discipline, only substituting the term "Confederate States" for "United States." The resolutions to this effect were presented by Dr. Thornwell, and the motion made by Dr. Leland. 71 But even the brief alterations in the Constitution made by the Augusta Assembly necessitated a new edition of the book, and this necessity occasioned the appoint- ment of a committee to revise the Form of. Government and the Book of Discipline. 72 This committee consisted of: J. H. Thornwell, D.D.; R. L. Dabney, D.D.; B M. Smith, D.D.; J. B. Adger, D.D., and E. T. Baird, D.D.; Ministers; with Ruling Elders W. P. Webb, T. C. Per- rin, W. L. Mitchell, Job Johnson, and (on motion of Dr. Thornwell) Judge Shepherd. 73 A historical sketch of the work of this committee states that Dr. Thornwell was made chairman of the committee, because he had been chairman of a committe of the Old School Assembly on the Revision of the Book of Discipline. 74 Death made sad inroads into the committee appointed by the Augusta Assembly, and the committee was re-constituted at the As- sembly of 1863. Dr. John B. Adger was unanimously presented to the Assembly for chairman of this important committee, 75 and with the same unanimity W. P. Finley, Esq. and Rev. B. M. Palmer were nominated to fill other vacancies (pp. 151, 152). Dr. Adger's ac- count of the proceedings in regard to the Book of Church Order shows that many brethren were invited to meet with the committee and make suggestions privately to the committee, both before and at the Memphis (1866) Assembly; that in this way five hundred emen- dations were made; and that there was comparative unanimity when the reported Book was scrutinized by the Assembly. 76 Dr. Adger's summary and defense of this first proposed form of government is as follows: 77 "'^Minutes Assembly of the Pres. Church (C. S. A.), p. 7. 12 Minutes, 1861, pp. 7, 39, 10. Ti Ibid, pp. 10, 11. T4 5. P. R., 1867, p. 115, cf. Assembly of I860 (Old School), p. 18, etc. "'Minutes, pp. 123, 127, 151, 152. S. P. R., July, 1867, pp. 116, 117, cf. Minutes, 1866, p. 37. "S. P. R., July, 1867. p. 117. 90 Columbia Seminary and The Proposed Form of Government. "Taking up this part of the report, to examine it a little in detail, we notice that the whole of chapter I of the present Form is omitted. Dr. Baird said well, the reason of this omission was that the chap- ter was nothing but 'an apology for our being Presbyterians'. More- over, whoever will look carefully and candidly at this chapter must discover that it smacks in sundry places very disagreeably of Con- gregationalism, and also that the principles of value which it does hold forth, are all contained in the other parts of the Form. "The first chapter of the proposed Form presents us with a state- ment of the doctrine of church government, under five heads, which appears to exhaust the whole of it. The various paragraphs of this . chapter give precise definitions of each of these five heads, viz : 1. The Church; 2. Its members; 3. Its officers; 4. Its courts; 5. Its orders. "The second chapter gives us, in four sections, our Presbyterian doctrine, in full, respecting the first of these heads. From the West- minster Form is borrowed that sublime scriptural statement of the kingship and headship of Christ. The jus divinum presbyterii is dis- tinctly declared. The Church, considered in the threefold aspect of universal, denominational, and particular, is defined. Church power is set forth according to its nature and limitations as presented in the Scriptures. And the congregation (as the proposed Form uni- formly styles a particular church, for the sake of distinctness) is fully set forth. "The third chapter, we think, will strongly commend itself to the Church generally, for the manner in which it deals with the little ones of. the flock. "The fourth chapter treats in full of teaching elders or ministers of the Word, whose office is the first in the Church, both for dig- nity and usefulness; of ruling elders, who are (as well as ministers) true scriptural presbyters; and of deacons, whose jurisdiction is not over persons, but only over things, w T ho are not charged with the government of the church or the care of souls, but of ecclesiastical goods and tables, viz., the table of the Lord, of the minister, and of the poor. It is a common impression with those not well acquainted with these subjects that to serve the communicants with the bread and the wine is the business only of the elders. In fact, many sup- The Southern Presbyterian Polity 91 pose that is the chiefest part of. their service. On the contrary, it is no part whatever of the elder's office, as such. To the minister alone belongs the administration of the sacraments. Any hand may pass the bread or the wine after they are delivered to the communi- cants by the minister. In the Church of Scotland, elders and dea- cons both assist at the table, as Pardovan tells us, Book I, Title VIII; Book II, Title IV. "We do not understand the proposed Form as exclusively affix- ing this service to the office of the deacon. We should oppose any such view of the diaconate. But we believe that deacons may serve the Lord's table as well as the other two tables named. And we like any measure that will help to set before the Church her teaching elders and her ruling elders in their true positions the former charged with that highest of all offices preaching both in the word and in the sacraments; and the latter charged with ruling the Church, and not with serving tables any more than the other class of pres- byters. "The appointment by the sessions of godly women to the diaconal functions is allowed under the proposed Form. We rejoice at it. Protestants greatly need such an institution. The Scriptures, we be- lieve, call for it. "The fifth chapter treats of the courts of the Church. The pro- posed Form defines the quorum so that the presence of both classes of elders is necessary in every court. We believe this is right. It accords with the genius and spirit of our whole system. At the same time, let it be observed that no one could maintain that the proceedings of any court would necessarily be invalidated in any case where the ruling elders might all be absent. The definition of the quorum is designed merely to set forth what is needful to con- stitute a regular Church court, but irregularity and invalidity are not the same thing. "The proposed Form adopts very fully the idea of ecclesiastical commissions, with certain wise and wholesome limitations. We be- lieve our Church is prepared to adopt very cordially this feature of the proposed Form. "There are sundry minor regulations proposed in this chapter from the arrangements of the present Form, which will commend themselves to our brethren. 92 Columbia Seminary and "The same may be said of chapter six, which relates to orders. We have observed nothing in this chapter which we suppose can rouse any opposition, except the imposition of hands by the session in the ordination of. ruling elders. But the proposed Form sets forth ordination in its true scriptural light as the act of a church court, and it also sets forth the church court in its true scriptural light as composed always of presbyters of two classes. All the rest is just a matter of logic. We feel confident that the necessary con- clusion will be admitted generally, and the Church will agree that the ordination of ruling elders ought to be by the session. Even deacons were ordained with imposition of hands by the apostles; and why should this ceremony be omitted in the case of elders? Moreover, our doctrine on this subject is not that of Rome. We do not make orders in any sense a sacrament. It does not belong to ministers as such. It always is an act of government by the rulers of the Church. "The proposed Form closes with such provision for changes in the constitution of the Church as we must say appears to us wise and reasonable and safe." Dr. Girardeau, writing in the Southern Presbyterian Review of. January, 1878, thus characterized the proposed revision: "This lan- guage of the first revision of the Form of Government sent down to the Presbyteries from Memphis in 1866 presents a rather different phase of Presbyterianism from that which has been commonly held in the Church, and also from that set forth in the old Form of Gov- ernment. It was owing in large part, we apprehend, to the influence of Dr. Thornwell that such language was employed and such a prop- osition was affirmed in the Memphis revision. 78 The Assembly of 1866 sent down the proposed Form of Govern- ment to the Presbyteries for their adoption. 79 A canvass of the re- port on the Presbyteries by the Assembly of. 1867 showed that the proposed Book of Order failed of adoption by the requisite number of Presbyteries. 80 Dr. Stuart Robinson declares that the matter was delayed, pending the admission of the Synods of Kentucky and Mis- 7S S. P. R., Vol. XXIX, p. 128-129. '"Minutes, 1866, p. 37. "'Minutes, 1867, pp. 134. 149. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 93 souri, that they might vote on the revision. 81 The question came up again by overtures to the Assembly of 1869 (pp. 375, 377, 378), and a special committee, with the help of members of the old commit- tee and the officials of the Assembly, submitted a report on the same which was sent down to the Presbyteries. 82 In view of the divided vote of the Presbyteries on this Book, the whole subject was re- committed "to the original committee on Revision" by the Assem- bly of 1870. 83 Dr. J. B. Adger, as chairman of this committee, re- ported to the Assembly of 1871, and the committee was continued. 84 The following year the subject of the Form of Government was over- shadowed by interest in the Rules of Discipline; 8 ' 3 and, in the un- settled state of the times, 86 the next Assembly committed the proposed Book of Church Order to the Archives of the Assembly. 87 The As- sembly of 1876 took the matter out of the Archives and sent the re- vised Book down to the Presbyteries. In the Assembly of 1877 88 a new committee was appointed with Dr. George D. Armstrong, Chairman, and Dr. Adger, second-named member. This committee presented a plan 89 whereby the Book, as a whole, was separated from minor disputes which had arisen over particular emendations (pp. 424-426) . The Assembly endeavored to embody changes for which a majority of the Presbyteries had expressed preference; to designate disputed points for particular presbyterial action ; to ask approval of the Revised Book as a whole (p. 430). The final committee to prepare the Book for presentation to the Presbyteries was: J. B. Adger, D.D.; B.M. Palmer, D.D.; George D. Armstrong, D.D.; J. L. Marye, D. C. Anderson. Certain amendments were adopted by the Presbyteries that year, and a new publication, with the amendments embodied, made. 90 The Assembly of 1879 again appointed Dr. Adger chairman of its committee on the Revised Book; 91 while among others associated with him was Dr. T. E. Peck of Union Seminarv, an- 81 S. P. R., XXV, p. 123. "'Minutes, 1869, pp. 378. 385. 388. 396. ^Minutes, 1870, pp. 518. 519. ^Minutes, 1871. p. 9. ^Minutes, 1872. pp. 164-166. 218. m S. P. R., XXX, p. 124. ^'Minutes, 1873. p. 329. ^Minutes, 1876. p. 239, 241. ^Minutes, 1877, p. 406. ^Minutes, 1877. p. 430. ^Minutes, 1879. p. 9. 94 Columbia Seminary and other disciple of Dr. Thornwell. On the report of this committee the new book of Church Order was declared to be the law of the Church. 92 Certain details yet remained to be ironed out, and the revision com- mittee was revived with the following members : J. B. Adger, Chair- man; B. M. Palmer, G. D. Armstrong, Stuart Robinson, T. E. Peck, James Woodrow, H. A. Lefevre, Thomas Thompson, W. W. Henry. 93 The traditions of the Seminary, authenticated by Dr. Melton Clark, a member of the Faculty and the son-in-law of Dr. James Woodrow, are that the Book of Church Order was put into shape in the Old Chapel of Columbia Theological Seminary, under the direction of Dr. J. B. Adger as Chairman of the committee, and with Dr. James Woodrow acting as secretary and doing much of the actual work. The Old Chapel was one of the buildings bought with the Columbia grounds. It was originally a carriage house. 94 Perhaps the license will be allowed, of recalling, in this connection, that the Book of Church Order for a Church which glories to acclaim Him alone as King who was cradled in a manger, was composed in a house built for a carriage-stable. The Rules of Discipline. Dr. J. B. Adger summarizes the distinctively Thornwellian prin- ciples of discipline thus: "In respect to church discipline, that an offense, the proper object of that discipline, is nothing but what the Word of God condemns as sinful; that in appellate jurisdiction our courts must not be treated as parties; and that baptized, non-communicating members of the Church are not to be subject to technical discipline." 95 A glance at Thornwell's writings on the subject of discipline amply vindicates this summary of Dr. Adger's. 96 Another point which Thornwell holds to have been implicit in the Old Book, but which he proposed more explicitly in the New Book, was "the right ^-Minutes, 1879, p. 17. ^Minutes, 1879, p. 55. "'Archives, Vol. II, pp. 971, 972. M 'Semi-Cent ennial of C. T. S., p. 192. Thornwell Collected Writings, Vol. IV, pp. 299-375, especially p. 310 ff, 315 ff, 325 ff. "In addition to references above Vol. IV, p. 337 ff for infant membership; p. 364 for the standard of offenses; p. 315 ff and 374 ff for parties in appellate jurisdiction. The Southern Presbyterian Polity 95 of inquest." 97 He held that "every church court has the inherent right to demand and receive satisfactory explanations from any of its members," since "the church courts are the spiritual guardians of the people" (p. 304). Scandalous reports concerning a member are an injury to him, and to his Church. The church court should institute inquiry in such a case and declare the report either true or false (pp. 371, 372). The Assembly of 1835 recognized the right of every Presbytery to be entirely satisfied of the soundness in the faith and the good character in every respect of ministers applying for admittance. The New Book would apply this principle to mem- bers as well as ministers, to morals as well as heresy. 98 Dr. Thornwell strove to work out these principles and simplify the procedure of the Old Book of Discipline under appointment of the Old School Assembly. As chairman of the committee 99 on this subject, he submitted a revised Book of Discipline to the Assembly of 1859. 100 The matter was recommitted to the same committee to report at the following Assembly (p. 546) . The next Assembly again took up and re-committed the matter. 101 The illness and absence of Dr. Thornwell in Europe and the disturbed state of the country pre- vented any further action the ensuing year. 101 ' The war and the question of reunion with the New School Church seems to have prevented the Thornwellian revision from becoming permanent in the Northern Church. 103 The revision of the Book of Discipline, together with the revision of the Form of Government, was committed by the Augusta Assem- bly to a committee of. which, because of his previous work on this subject, Dr. Thornwell was made chairman. 104 The checkered ca- reer of this committee has been narrated, in part, in the previous sec- tion. Dr. Adger presented a report on the revision of the Book of Discipline to the Assembly of 1872. 105 This book was ordered pub- lished (p. 172), and sent down to the Presbyteries. While desig- 97 Vol. IV, pp. 371 ff, 304. 9s Vol. IV, pp. 372, 373. Minutes Assembly 1835. pp. 27, 28. ^Minutes of Assembly 1859. p. 516. 100 Minutes, pp. 516, 521. 101 Minutes, 1860, pp. 18, 87, 55. 102 Minutes, 1861, pp. 301, 307. 103 Stuart Robinson in S. P. R., Jan., 1879, p. 122 1( *Minutes Southern Assembly of 1861, p. 10. ^Minutes, 1872. p. 155. 96 Columbia Seminary and nated in some places, The Book of Discipline, it seems to have been more exactly named The Rules of Discipline. 106 A divided vote of the Presbyteries and "the continued unsettled state of things" con- signed these Rules of Discipline to the Archives of the Assembly. 107 The question of the Book of Discipline thereafter was considered with the question of the Form of Government, and by the Assembly of 1876 sent down to the Presbyteries. 108 "The Assembly of 1877 adopted the method of sending down to the Presbyteries that portion, both of the Form of Government and the Rules of Discipline, about which there seemed to be little difference of opinion; and, for a separate vote, some eight propositions, two of them alternative prop- ositions, to be voted upon separately by the presbyters.'' 109 The minutes of 1878 showed, by a tabulation, the approval by a large majority of the Presbyteries of the more important proposals in the Revised Book of Discipline; 110 but "the book as a whole" failed of the requisite votes. The Assembly of 1879 declared the new Book of Church Order, including the Rules of Discipline, to be the law of the church. 111 According to Dr. Stuart Robinson's account, the subject of re- vision was followed very closely by the brethren of the Northern Church, who were simultaneously engaged in a similar work under the guidance of such men as Dr. A. T. McGill, Dr. Wm. E. Moore, the compiler of the New Digest; Dr. Francis L. Patton, etc. 112 For the U. S. A. brethren, the Banner is quoted as highly evaluating the Southern Revision: "Radical improvements are made throughout. The doctrine of Ecclesiastical and other commissions is developed, electors of Church Officers sharply defined, difference between Eccle- siastical and other Offenses stated, Judicial and Non-Judicial Process distinguished, common fame is abolished as an accuser, 1a Cf. Mather, K. F., Miracles and Prayer in a Law-Abiding Universe in his Science in Search of God, N. Y., 1928. Southern Presbyterian Thought 193 dust is as compatible with the doctrine of mediate creation ( or if one prefers mediate evolution) as is inorganic dust. But the corpse of Christ can never be resurrected by the forces inherent in a rock tomb, nor by those intrinsic to a dead body nor by the forces of such environment interacting with those of. this lifeless organism. The Christian man has no controversy with the scientist who holds that evolution is one of God's ways of working; but as long as one is a Christian he can never agree that evolution is the one and only factor in history and nature, or the only way of God's working. As a scientist one may see fit to oppose either or both of the above state- ments. In particular he can easily find grounds for disputing the latter. Entropy is, perhaps, as well attested in physics 117 as evolu- tion is in biology. But this last view must be opposed in the interest of Christianity. A Pauline statement of the synthesis might be: "There are diversities of operations ( energizings) , but it is the same God which worketh all in all" (1 Cor. 12:6) ; but "if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain" (1 Cor. 15:17). In line with the purpose of the Perkins gift the present course in Apologetics seeks to acquaint the students with the implications for religious thought of the revolutionary changes in the field of astro- physics, e. g., Eddington's new concept of. natural law; entropy's challenge to inorganic evolution; the porosity of the atom and the principle of indeterminacy as helps in the visualization of the spirit- ual control of natural forces and the acceptance of supernatural in- tervention; the probability of the uniqueness of protoplasmic life on this planet; Jeans' mathematical argument for the existence of God. 118 Philosophy Throughout the history of the Seminary a study of philosophv has been, to some extent, involved in the attention devoted to natural theology. 1 - But a markedly increased interest in philosophy and the study thereof is to be associated with the connection of Dr. J. H. Thornwell with the Seminar). This connection began with his election as Director in 1838. 121 In November, 1837, Dr. Thornwell was made a professor in the College of. South Carolina, located in n 'Eddington, A. S., The Nature of the Physical Universe, p. 84. Cf. Clarke, Austin. Zoogenesis, for other factors in addition to evolution in biology. n8 A Pilgrimage to Science. Christian Observer, March 18. 1931. Min. Synod of S. C, 1840. appendix, p. XIX. y21 Archives. Vol. II, p. 507. 194 Columbia Seminary and Columbia; and the department of Metaphysics was committed to him. 122 Practically from this time until his death, Thornwell re- sided in Columbia. 123 During this period he was the "regular" sub- stitute for the Seminary professors when they were sick, or absent raising funds. 124 Finally he gave up his other connections to devote his full time to the Theological Seminary. 125 The whole influence and teaching of Thornwell tended to bring to the study of theology that apprehension which thorough knowledge of the currents of philosophic thought gave. Thornwell's biographer says, "the industry with which he ploughed the field of philosophy is proved by the existence, amongst his manuscripts, of a course of lec- tures covering the entire field, all prepared within the two years in which he taught in this department." And after years of copious reading added wide stores of. knowledge to the foundations laid by this two years' professorship of. Metaphysics. 126 High testimonials to Thornwell's thorough scholarship and marked ability in this great field of thought, by Sir William Hamilton, Mr. George Bancroft, the historian, Hon. John C. Calhoun, Dr. J. L. Girardeau, Dr. B. M. Palmer (Jr.), are preserved by the latter in his biography. 127 Thorn- well followed Sir Wm. Hamilton in describing Plato and Aristotle "as the opposite poles of human thought, between which speculation has continued ever since to oscillate"; and made himself thoroughly familiar with them in their original sources. His familiarity with the mediaeval scholastics "was equally great," particularly with Thomas Aquinas and Suarez. "The modern philosophy had, of course, passed under review in its original sources. The chief masters, Bacon, Des Cartes, Locke, Leibnitz, the Scottish School at home and in France, Kant and his Disciples, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, were his daily companions." 128 As to Thornwell's position, Palmer writes, "Taking his departure from the English and Scotch schools, that all our knowledge begins 122 Palmer, Life of Thornwell, p. 147. V2S Ibid. 12i Ci. e. g. Report of Faculty to Board, Min. Synod of S. C, 1846, p. 31. 125 1856-1862 Appendix Catalogue C. T. S., 1927, p. 64. 1855 Accessus as shown by Report of Board, 1855, Min. of Synod, p. 35. 12r, Palmer, pp. 151, 152. 127 Palmer, Life and Letters of Thornwell, pp. 536-538, 379, 305-306, 541. Cf. ThornwelVs Collected Writings, Vol. II, p. 452. So Dr. Thornton Whaling. Thornwell Centennial Addresses, pp. 22, 23. 128 Palmer, pp. 536, 537. Southern Presbyterian Thought 195 in experience, he concurred with them in the doctrine of fundamental beliefs as necessary to it, and by which alone it is made available." 129 Knowledge begins in experience, yet "experience must include con- ditions in the subject which make it capable of intelligence." "There must be a constitution of mind adapted to that specific activity by which it believes and judges." The mind is "subjected to laws of belief under which it must necessarily act." . . . "Certain primary truths involved in its very structure." As, "undeveloped in experi- ence, these do not exist in the form of propositions or general con- ceptions, but irresistible tendencies to certain manners of belief, when the proper occasions shall be afforded." When "developed in experi- ence and generalized into abstract statements, they are original and elementary cognitions, the foundation and criterion of all knowl- edge." . . . "The laws of belief qualify the subject to know, they cannot give the things to be known. These are furnished in experi- ence; which thus not only affords the occasions on which our primi- tive cognitions are developed, but also the objects about which our faculties are conversant." 130 "The law of causation is at once a law of thought and a law of existence." 131 A letter from Dr. J. L. Girardeau, published and endorsed by Dr. B. M. Palmer, constitutes the best presentation of Thornwell's place in philosophy, coming, as it does, on the authority of the two keenest philosophic minds which he instructed. Dr. Girardeau writes: "You insist that I shall give you my conception of the place which Dr. Thornwell occupied in philosophy. 1. "It is not difficult to fix his general position. He em- phatically belonged to that class of thinkers who advocate what is known as the Philosophy of Common Sense, in contradistinc- tion from the class whom he designates as Sensationalists. As both these classes hold that the materials of knowledge are in part derived from contact with the external world through sen- sation, they are distinguished from each other by the affirmation or denial of certain primary intuitions, or fundamental laws of belief, implicitly contained in the constitution of the mind, which, brought into contact with the material derived from the external world, enable us to know" . . . Ibid, p. 539. 130 Thornwell's words quoted in Palmer, pp. 539, 540. 131 Thornwell Coll. Writings, Vol. I, p. 57. 196 Columbia Seminary and 2. "In so far as Dr. Thornwell maintained the principles of. the Common Sense Philosophy in opposition to the Sensation- alists, he is in alliance with the Absolute Ontologists of Germany and France. How is he to be distinguished from them? He himself answers the question. He divides the class of Common Sense Philosophers into two schools: that of the Rationalists, who not only make the fundamental laws of belief independent of experience for existence, but also for development; and that of those philosophers who, admitting that these primary principles are independent of experience for their existence, ground their development in experience alone. This latter school he designates the school of Experience. He definitely claimed to belong to this school. He utterly repudiates the view of the Rationalists, who evolved from these fundamental laws of belief a Philosophy of the Absolute and Unconditioned. He maintained that these laws would lie dormant and inoperative, were they not developed by the occasions which are furnished in experience. But Kant, who, in his advocacy of the ideas of. pure reason, so far made common cause with the Rationalists in their opposition to Sensationalists, utterly opposed their ontological speculations. Dr. Thornwell, however, was not a disciple of Kant in reference to the office discharged by the fundamental laws of belief. Kant was a pure subjectivist. The certainty of existence for which he contended was altogether subjective. The Scottish school, on the other hand, found in the fundamental laws of belief vouchers and guarantees for the real existence of the external world; they grounded the objective certainty of. knowledge in the subjective necessity of believing. This was Dr. Thornwell's position." . . . 3. "He was . . . very clearly a natural realist." 5. "He was very strenuous in maintaining, with Hamilton, the doctrine that all human knowledge is phenomenal and relative. He held, with him, that substance is, in itself, unknowable; that what we know is the phenomenal manifestation." 7. "He rejected the Kantian distinction between the under- standing and the pure reason and assigned the primary truths, fundamental beliefs, to the understanding. He accepts the Kantian doctrine that space and time are native conceptions of the mind and, as such, condition all thinking." "Thornwell differed from Hamilton most markedly on the question of Divine Providence. Instead of Hamilton's chasm between fatalism and chance, Thornwell enumerated three hypo- theses; that of the Casualist, who asserts an absolute commence- ment; that of the Fatalist, who asserts an infinite series of rel- ative commencements; that of the Theist, who asserts a finite series of relative commencements, carried up in the ascending Southern Presbyterian Thought 197 scale to a necessary Being, at once Creator and Preserver. He held that the extremes of casualism and fatalism are not only inconceivable, but that they are self-contradictory, and, there- fore, false. The hypothesis of theism he conceded to be also inconceivable, but he maintained that it is not self-contra- dictory, and that upon the principle of excluded middle it must be true. However, he affiliated more closely with Sir Wm. Hamilton than with any other representative philosopher." "In reference to conscience, he mentions that the 'Divine Gov- ernment' of Dr. McCash, had brought out views which he had before held, and had it in mind to publish. Perhaps, to Dr. Thornwell is due the first explicit announcement of the great formula: the fundamental laws of rectitude, implicitly contained in the conscience, sustain to it the same relation which the funda- mental laws of belief, implicitly contained in the understand- ing, sustain to it." 132 It is principally in regard to this last point moral philosophy that the work of Dr. Thornwell is directly available. A series of Discourses on Truth, delivered by him to the students at the College of South Carolina, were published by Carter of New York in 1855 and reprinted in Thornwell's Collected Writings. 133 A copy of. these sent to Sir Wm. Hamilton elicited a highly flatter- ing commendation thereof. 334 The Discourses treat of the following subjects: The Ethical System of the Bible; The Love of Truth, in two discourses; Sincerity; Faithfulness; Vows; Consistency. In the first, Thornwell declares, "The true light in which redemption should habitually be contem- plated is" that of a Divine institute of Holiness. Its immediate end is to restore the union between ourselves and God which sin has broken" (p. 474). "The first step in real moral improvement is faith in the Son of God. When that step is taken we begin to live" (p. 475). Discussing The Love of Truth, he maintains that we are responsible for our opinions in so far as we are responsible for the motives and influences under which we form them. The love of truth for itself, is the law in conformity with which all our intellectual processes should be conducted. "The end of every inquiry should be knowl- edge, the aim of every investigation simple and unadulterated truth" in2 Letter of Dr. J. L. Girardeau, quoted in Palmer, pp. 543-545. VA *ThornwelVs Coll. Writings, Vol. II, p. 451 ft". m Ibid, p. 452. 198 Columbia Seminary and (p. 496). "Evidence is the measure of assent" (p. 501). "As we know by and through the mind, we can only know according to the laws of mind; all error may consequently be traced to some trans- gression of the laws of belief" (p. 502). "All efforts to restrict freedom of debate and the liberty of the press should be watched with caution, as prejudicial to the eliciting of evidence and the propagation of truth" (p. 511). He expresses disapproval of argu- ing on the wrong side of a question as a proof of skill, warns against the love of applause and the fear of ridicule, the substitution of sar- casm for argument (pp. 512-518). The love of truth is the founda- tion of all solid excellence "it makes the man of principle" (p. 518). Turning from theoretical to practical truth, he finds three marks which should characterize truth of life and conduct. First, there is sincerity, "which obtains whenever the signs, whatever they may be, by which we intentionally communicate ideas, exactly represents the state of our own convictions" (pp. 519-520). Then there is faith- fulness, which "consists in fulfilling the engagement and meeting the expectations which we have knowingly and voluntarily excited" (p. 521). The third thing is consistency "or harmony of character" (p. 522). "These three sincerity, faithfulness and consistency comprise the whole duty of practical veracity. The opposite of the first is de- ceit in its Protean shapes of lying, hypocrisy, and flattery; the op- posite of the second is fraud; and the opposite of the third is incon- stancy or fickleness" (p. 522). A study of Dr. Thornwell's works shows that he was a philosophic theologian. His treatises on the arguments for the Being of God in the light of Kant's Critique, on the limits of our knowledge of God, or the formal nature of sin, 135 justify the remarks made of him, "His passion was for speculation. He revelled in abstract thought, and soared with delight even to the utmost verge of the knowable and thinkable in the world of mind." 136 It is this power of sustained thought which has made the Columbia theology a power in the Southern Church. And it may be said that the writing of theology Thornwell Coll. Writings, Vol. I. 'Palmer, p. 536. Cf. Thornwell, Vol. Ill, p. 24. Southern Presbyterian Thought 199 along these massive lines makes necessary some presupposition of philosophic knowledge to use aright the same. On the other hand, it should be not less clearly emphasized, that Thornwell was a Christian philosopher, with an unfaltering rever- ence for the authority of the Word of God. His characteristic re- mark was, "if. there is but one passage of Scripture against us, our speculations must go to the winds." 137 The successors of Dr. Thornwell have been men who appreciated the value of studying theology, in the light of the best philosophical thought. That Dr. Palmer, Thornwell's immediate successor, 138 ap- preciated the value of this discipline, will have been sufficiently evi- dent by the quotations and references already made from his life of Thornwell. The biographer has revealed himself, not less than his subject. 139 The longest professorship in the department of Didactic and Polemic Theology since the death of Thornwell was that of Dr. J. L. Girardeau, 1875- 1896. 140 Dr. Girardeau felt a keen interest in philosophy. His son-in-law declares that his library was more theological than homiletical, and more philosophical than theologi- cal; and that the study in which he most delighted was philosophy. He regarded a system of philosophy as a necessity for every system of theology. His discussions of- philosophical questions were found among his literary remains, carefully prepared and marked "com- plete." They were published by his son-in-law, Rev. Dr. George A. Blackburn, in 1900. 141 The editor characterizes the book as "a supplement to Hamilton's Metaphysics," which the Seminary students were expected to read in connection with the course of lectures. The subjects dealt with in these discourses are: Introduction, defining terms, dividing the subject matter, setting forth the author's philo- sophic position, viewpoint, and end to be accomplished; The End of Philosophy, "an ultimate principle of unity" upon which the elements of the soul, the external world in immediate contact with us, and the universe at large, may be collected into unity (p. 27) ; Conscious- 137 Palmer. p. 545. 1S8 Catalogue, 1927, appendix, p. 64. 139 Palmer, pp. 535-546, 147-151. Catalogue, 1927, appendix, p. 64. 141 Discussions of Philosophical Questions, bv J. L. Girardeau. Preface by G. A. Blackburn. Richmond. Pres. C. of Publ., 1900. 200 Columbia Seminary and ness, with special reference to Sir Wm. Hamilton's views; The Authority of Consciousness; Cosmothetic Idealism; Berkeley's Ideal- ism; Objective Idealism; Pantheism; Sir Wm. Hamilton s Doctrine of Casualism; Spencer s Relativity of Knowledge; The Argument for the Being of God from our Cognitive Nature; Mr. Spencer s Agnostic Philosophy ; Physiological Psychology; Spa,ce What Is It? Girardeau's epistemology is that, by consciousness, we have not only the immediate knowledge of the subjective phenomena of our own souls (p. 49) ; but also an immediate knowledge of the external world 142 (p. 50). Consciousness, immediate knowledge, and percep- tion, in relation to the external world, are held to be one and the same (Ibid). Consciousness and perception are different names for the same faculty (p. 84). Therefore, he holds that "it is impossi- ble to doubt the testimony of consciousness to a phenomenal fact without doubting the existence of a consciousness itself" (p. 94). He concurs with the Scottish School in affirming the substantive differ- ence between matter and spirit "contrasted in the antithesis of exist- ence"; but "related in the synthesis of knowledge" (p. 18). He denotes the view he advocates as "natural realism" 143 (p. 51). Dr. Girardeau offers a high tribute to "the views of the profound German philosopher, Jacobi." He declares, "with the exception of the defects implicated in them, they will, in the destined triumph of truth in a golden age, be brought to the front and win a wider and happier recognition" ... "a consummation devoutly to be wished" (p. 25) . The inference can scarcely be avoided that Girardeau's chart of intelligence, found on the next page, is profoundly affected in the special function assigned to the Believing Faculty by F. H. Jacobi, whom Ueberweg characterizes as "the philosopher of faith." 144 142 Cf. Alexander, Time, Space and Deity, pp. 16, 21, 24, "compresence," "togetherness." Or for a much closer approximation cf. D. C. Macintosh's theory of critical natural realism as a form of epistemological monism which may be called "critical realistic monism, or more briefly critical monism." The Next Step in the Epistemological Dialectic in The Journal of Philosophy, April 25, 1929. Sed contra. Lovejoy, Revolt vs. Dualism. "Between 'nature' and experience there is a radical discontinuity," p. 265. Relativity and the quantum theory support this bifurcation, i. e., epistemologicat du a lism, pp. 263-264. 1,:! Cf. Macintosh. D. C, The Reasonableness of Christianity, p. 161 ff. 144 F. Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, trans, from the 4th German edition by G. S. Morris, N. Y., 1888, pp. 194, 198-200. Southern Presbyterian Thought 201 CT g CD n Eh CD 5* o 13 3 cr S 3 * CTQ 5? 3T CD o 3 CD 13 CD O CD GO ~ o ^ o 5T 5 leg- O OP 13 5- B re cr 73 a o - cd x 3 cr 13 cd o CD !=0 CD 13 CO X W CD CD 3 13 i-j pa CD i X CD cd 3 o 3 a- n o 3 X 2. o' c X 3 CD X 5. W x* 3 CD m. O cr 13 c^ CT h-. CD 1 n x o O 3 h^o C6 3 ^3 m x g I 3 3 g | % O 3 - ^ O 13 *=- 3- H *i a- n n cd O 13 3 O g - ctT a- CD Q . CD CC x 3- CD 2 O 3- 3 3 p CD J3" 2 3 C 3 3 W cf^. r Cr p x 3- H ^ 2 Cfq 3 3 3 < o 3- 3 o CD 75 CD * !? 3 . CL 1 CtT a- era CD o o aq 3 3 3- x c <-' x 3 x '-J 2. w x' 3 3- ID -5: r cr p ^ cr 2 c& 2. ^j 3 CD cr g i I cr 13 CD 5- CD C^ cr ?^ O X 3 cr 13 CD cr s^ re CO H cr CD n o TO CD cr CD H cr - o o Cb re *+* 3 2 n r o Co Cfq 1- SKI o re re re CD o CD <; CD 3 O CD - Q- CD > > - H > H 202 Columbia Seminary and According to Dr. Girardeau's chart, there are three faculties of mediate knowledge Representative Faculty, Thinking Faculty, Be- lieving Faculty. Faith has a double function. First, it is a voucher for the other faculties of knowledge. Secondly, faith is as truly a source of knowledge as is reason. 145 On this last premise, Dr. Girar- deau was led to develop, in his inaugural address, the thesis that Theology is a Science, Involving an Infinite Element. The endorse- ments of this thesis by two of Dr. Girardeau's successors, Dr. W. T. Hall and Dr. Thornton Whaling, give to the view the standing of a particular philosophico-theological tenet of the Seminary. 146 Dr. Hall thus summarizes the position of Girardeau: 147 "Faith being a source of knowledge, our author proceeds to discuss the question, 'Have we a valid knowledge of the Infinite Being?' This he tests, both in the sphere of natural and super- natural revelation. The conclusion reached is that in neither sphere is a knowledge of God as Infinite attained by the cogni- tive reason. Must we, therefore, abandon hope of reaching such knowledge? By no means. In all our knowledge there are two elements, one of which addresses itself to the cognitive powers, the other to the believing faculty. It is the joint operation of these two classes of faculties that gives the full result. We know substance; only, however, as it is manifested through its properties. When the phenomena are apprehended by the facul- ties of cognition, the existence of the substance becomes known by an immediate and necessary act of faith. In. like manner, when the world is apprehended as contingent, the believing faculty, under the law of the casual judgment, infers a self- existent Creator. And the process is the same in the sphere of Supernatural Revelation, the necessary conditions being furnish- ed by the life-giving energy of the Holy Ghost. Man was made to know God. There is, in every soul of man, a fundamental faith which adapts it to the knowledge of the Infinite Being. This proposition will bear the test of all the criteria by which fundamental beliefs are discriminated. And when this native faith is developed by a cognitive experience, it gives valid knowledge of the Infinite God." "Still another question in this connection is raised by the author. Granting that we have a valid knowledge of the Infinite God, he goes on to inquire, Ts it possible for the reason to employ it as an element in the processes of science?' The sig- 1,r 'Cf. Thornton Whaling in The Life Work of J. L. Girardeau, p. 294. ua The Life Work of J. L. Girardeau, p. 192, 292, 393 ff. U1 lbid, pp. 192, 193. Southern Presbyterian Thought 203 nificance of this question will be recognized at once by all who have reflected upon the difficulty of finding a satisfactory defini- tion of theology, or of allowing to it. in strictness of. speech, the character of a science. In grappling with this problem, the author notices first that we may define without limiting. For in- stance, unless we are Pantheists, we must distinguish the divine substance from all created substance. And yet we do not limit it. Again, we distinguish one divine attribute from another, but do not limit any of them. Again, it is admitted that, while we know the fact of God's existence, we do not know how He exists. It is the fact that God is Infinite that we know. It is revealed to faith. It is susceptible to affirmation and negation mav be made a term of human judgments. In like manner, a divine attribute cannot be perfectly comprehended by us, but it may be known as an infinite perfection by faith; and as known may be made the subject or the predicate of a proposition. Cognition may furnish one term, and faith the other, and the proposition be valid. For example, we are entitled to make the affirmation; the justice of God is infinite. Cognition gives justice a particu- lar kind of perfection, as the subject, and faith gives the term infinite as predicable of justice. Here, then, we have an in- finite element as a valid constituent of a premise, and as other premises may be construed in the same way, legitimate con- clusions may be drawn. But if we may reason about the infinite and from the infinite, it is manifest that it may constitute a valid element in human science under the limitations, however, which have been pointed out." In view of the recent developments in Behaviouristic Psychology, the Chapter on "Physiological Psychology" is of special interest. Prof. G. T. Ladd's book, Physiological Psychology, is highly evaluat- ed as "the most satisfactory book upon this subject" (p. 437) ; is commended in so far as the new science deals with the relations of mind and body as its proper object-matter. But Girardeau objects to the view that, by investigating the correlations between the struc- ture and the functions of the human nervous mechanism, conclusion as to the laws and nature of the mind can be drawn. 148 He declares that the conditions required for the development of a science of physiological psychology are such as to make it an extremely diffi- cult thing to reach trustworthy results thereby (p. 441). Girardeau's criticisms upon the claim that psychology and physiology are reducible to unity as one and the same science are: 'References to Physiological Psychology, p. 4. quoted p. 448. 204 Columbia Seminary and 1. "The presumption is mightily against this claim." A line of thinkers from Plato to Lotze admit the distinction between psychol- ogy and physiology (pp. 447, 448). Opinions so universally held can only be overthrown by proofs (p. 449) . Such a revolution will exceed any revolution accomplished in the field of science, and will strike at the very foundation of morals and religion making "no real difference between a moral principle and a sensation" (p. 450) . 2. The investigations of the sciences of psychology and physiology proceed by different methods. His final consideration is whether ultimately mind and body are one and the same entity (p. 470 ff). In this section he endeavors to refute the arguments of Dr. Bain in Mental Science. One great defect he finds in this work is the absence of allusion to God which he regards as eminently consistent. "A psychology without a soul is the correlative of a philosophy without a God" (p. 485). This discussion is closed with two incidents of personal observation which revealed the difference between soul and body. The soul showed brilliance of light, as the body pased into the shadow of death (pp. 492-495). The last discussion presents arguments to show that space and duration are neither relations, nor conditions either of existence or of thought, nor substances; but are perfections of the Infinite Spirit 149 (pp. 18; 496-515). Dr. Thornton Whaling ventures the assertion that the Southern Church will recognize, in Girardeau, her greatest philosopher. 150 Among the Seminary alumni, Dr. J. R. Howerton was for many years Professor of Philosophy in Washington and Lee University; and is the author of Freedom and Causality. 1 ^ 1 Dr. Whaling averred that he was a disciple of Thornwell and Girardeau, and as such a philosophical theologian. In ^accord with this platform, as President of the Seminary 152 (1911-1921) he ar- ranged his classes so that, in the Junior year, the hours for Systematic 149 Cf. Alexander, Samuel, Space, Time and Deity, London, 1920, pp. 341-342. (Time-space is the infinite substance, "the stuff of things." But, space and time are attributes of the universe or Space-Time or God, or the One.) ""The Life Work of J. L. Girardeau, p. 287. 151 Tenney, Souvenir, p. 99. ^"Catalogue C. T. S. Southern Presbyterian Thought 205 Theology were given to the study of Prof. Ralph Barton Perry's Present Philosophical Tendencies? ,)3 The intricacies of this work were somewhat simplified by a series of questions and answers prepared by the professor. Dr. Whaling used Prof Perry for criticism of other systems; and himself differed from Perry's Neo-Realism in the direction of the Scottish School of natural realism. He favored the dualism of being rather than the "neutral entities" of. panobjectivism; and so anticipated Lovejoy's declaration that the revolt against psychophysical dualism has failed. 154 At the present time, in tracing the course of Christian thought an effort is made to present as a background the principal philo- sophical movements, and to consider their relations to the theologi- cal views of the corresponding period; while Psychological Apolo- getics seeks to demonstrate the fact of consciousness and the fallacy of Behaviourism. 155 It is evident that three elements have entered into the structure of the theory of knowledge as it has been propounded at Columbia. With the Empiricist, there is the recognition that knowledge is de- rived from the external world through sensations, and as such is phenomenal. With Kant, there is the recognition of primary princi- ples or categories in the mind, such as space and time, conditioning all thinking. With the Scottish School, in this constitution of the mind there are found vouchers and guarantees for the real exist- ence of the external world. The ultimate trustworthiness of observa- tions is based upon the veracity of consciousness. "The categories are both principles of thought and principles of being." 150 This third element, "the fundamental laws of belief," "the subjective necessity of believing," the believing faculty as the voucher for the other faculties of knowledge and as a source of knowledge, is the striking element in the Seminary's philosophic presentation. Faith, "the cornerstone of the heart," 10 ' is the keystone in this arch of thought. ^Present Philosophical Tendencies, N. Y.. Longmans Green & Co., 1916. 154 Lovejoy, A. O., The Revolt Against Dualism, Norton, 1930. 15:, King, Behaviorism, a Battleline, Cokesbury Press. Apologetics, 1930, Class papers bound C. T. S. library. ^Brightman, E. C, An Introduction to Philosophy, N. Y 1925, p. 97. 157 Luther, M., Tischreden. 206 Columbia Seminary and Other . systems have failed to acknowledge with the same frank- ness their cardinal foundation, or to define faith- judgments as true forms of knowledge. But in some form, every comprehensive Weltanschauung has had to accept something as data to be received on faith, in some sense of that variously used and abused term. Even Dr. Loyd Morgan, in fitting his Spinozistic Emergent Evolution into the Realist's "Time Space Deity" pyramid, confesses that the basal elements thereof are held with acknowledgment that they can- not be proven. 158 Meanwhile Dr. Knudson avers that "faith is the ultimate ground of every philosophical system"; that faith alone bridges "the gulf between thought and reality"; that the ultimate justification of all our faculties is to be found in an "auto de fe." 159 Lovejoy denies that physical realism rests on a blank act of "animal faith"; but confesses a general faith in the orderliness of physical reals. 160 As between the two modern schools which are challenging the at- tention of the older Natural Realists, the Columbia philosophy has more in common with the Personal Idealists of the Bowne-Bright- man-Knudson type than with the Neo-Realists. Neither of these schools accept external, material reality as adequately as did the Common Sense Realists. The Neo-Realist discards such a meta- physical question in the interest of epistemology and their "logical or neutral entities." The Personal Idealist is inclined to follow the Absolute Idealist in making the physical universe a manifestation of spirit. But for the Personalist that abrogation is in the interest of vital personalities, not of "logical entities," "the scholasticism of epistemology." Both Thornwell and Girardeau realized the pro- priety of, and need for, a unifying element in all philosophy. "The insatiable demand for unity, ever crying out from the depths of our souls, forbids our being satisfied with the bewildering multifarious- ness of phenomena." 161 In the field of natural philosophy Thornwell found this unity pre- sented as substance and attribute, as thinker and thought, as cause 158 Morgan, Loyd, Emergent Evolution, pp. 24, 33. Alexander, Samuel, Time Space and Deity. :59 Knudson, A. C, The Philosophy of Personalism, pp. 67, 140-153, New York, 1927. 100 Lovejoy, A. O., The Revolt vs. Dualism, pp. 267-268. 101 Girardeau, Discussions of Philosophical Questions, p. 323. Southern Presbyterian Thought 207 and effect. 102 Of these three, he felt that the reasoning which sup- ported the idealist view of the Thinker and his Thought was the more cogent, and this unity was the more attractive to him. The suggestion that "consciousness, the unicity of the Thinker and the multiplicity of his Thought, gives the analogy to the solution of the problem of monism and pluralism, is certainly very apt. The place which Columbia theologians have given to the spiritual and personal realities lends sympathy to the personalistic as against the neo-real- istic interpretation of the universe. Thornwell avers that God is first of all the God of. men rather than first of all the God of nature. He holds that the government of the natural world, "the dead universe," is subservient and in order to the higher spiritual ends, the ethical harmony, of the universe. The government of the lower is in the interest of the government of the higher. 163 He reiterated Hamilton's dictum, "On earth there is nothing great but man. In man there is nothing great but mind." Girardeau held as axiomatic, "spirit as greater than matter." The visible creation is transient and doomed to perish (Hebrews 1:10-12); while the things that are not seen are eternal (II Cor. 4:18). The highest, the unchanging, realities are personalities; the ultimate values are personal; in its ultimate meaning the universe is a plurality of persons. The highest purpose of physical universe is to manifest the wisdom and power of God. Though distinct from God, it is a medium of communication between persons. One essential difference between the Realism of Thornwell and theistic Personalism, the most attractive monistic philosophy, is to be found in the doctrine of creation. As a philosopher "thrilled" by the Word of God, Thornwell held fast to the doctrine of. creation ex nihilo; while Girardeau declared the doctrine of God's creation of the Universe, non-spiritual as well as spiritual, was vital to theism. 164 Their doctrine of creation rests on a philosophy of Being, rather than of Becoming; while the Boston School is bringing about a recrudes- cence of the doctrine of continuous creation hitherto associated with New England Calvinism. For the Natural Realist this is counter to the testimony for the external reality of matter found in Empiricism 102 Thornwell, Collected Writings, Vol. 3. p. 365. 103 Thornwel,l, Collected Writings, Vol. 3, pp. 187-188, 272-273. Girardeau, Discussions of Philosophical Questions, p. 318. Cf. Dr. James Woodrow, p. 633. 1