'Calvinism,' he says,* 'is gradual republicanism.' 'In Geneva, a republic on the confines of France, Italy, and Germany, Calvin, appealing to the people for support, continued the career of enfranchisement, by planting the institutions which nursed the minds of Rousseau, Necker, and De Stael.' "The political character of Calvinism, which, with one consent, and with instinctive judgment, the monarchs of that day feared as republicanism, and which Charles I. declared a religion unfit for a gentleman, is expressed in a single word-predestination. Did a proud aristocracy trace its lineage through generations of a high-born ancestry, the republican reformer, with a loftier pride, invaded the invisible world, and from the book of life brought down the record of the noblest enfranchisement, decreed from all eternity by the King of kings. His few converts defied the opposing world as a world of reprobates, whom God had despised and rejected. To them the senses were a totally depraved foundation, on which neither truth nor goodness could rest. They went forth in confidence that men who were kindling with the same exalted instincts, would listen to their voice, and be effectually 'called into the brunt of the battle' by their side. And, standing serenely amidst the crumbling fabrics of centuries of superstitions, they had faith in one another; and the martyrdoms of Cambray, the fires of Smithfield, the surrender of benefices by two thousand non-conforming presbyterians, attest their perseverance. And what were the results?' 'Such was the system,' adds this writer, 'which, for a century and a half, assumed the guardianship of liberty for the English world. 'A wicked tyrant is better than a wicked war,' said Luther, preaching non-resistance; and Cranmer echoed back, 'God's people are called to render obedience to governors, although they be wicked or wrong-doers, and in no case to resist. 'Civil magistrates,' replied English Calvinism,-I quote the very words, in which, under an extravagant form, its champion asserted the paramount power of general principles, and the inalienable rights of freedom,-'civil magistrates must be servants unto the church; they must remember to submit their sceptres, to throw down their crowns before the church, yea, as the prophet speaketh, to lick the dust of the feet of the church.' To advance intellectual freedom, Calvinism denied, absolutely denied, the sacrament of ordination; thus breaking up the great monopoly of priestcraft, and scattering the ranks of superstition. 'Kindle the fire before my face,' said Jerome, meekly, as he resigned himself to his fate; to quench the fires of persecution forever, Calvinism resisted with fire and blood, and shouldering the musket, proved, as a foot-soldier, that, on *Hist. of United States, vol. ii. pp. 461-463. 4 VOL. III. the field of battle, the invention of gunpowder had levelled the plebeian and the knight. To restrain absolute monarchy in France, in Scotland, in England, it allied itself with the party of the past, the decaying feudal aristocracy, which it was sure to outlive; to protect itself against feudal aristocracy, it infused itself into the mercantile class, and the inferior gentry; to secure a life in the public mind, in Geneva, in Scotland, wherever it gained dominion, it invoked intelligence for the people, and in every parish planted the common school.' SECTION III. The framers of our ecclesiastical system designed that it should neither be a monarchy, nor a democracy, but a republic. BUT we will pass on to the contemplation of our system in its ecclesiastical bearings. In framing her constitution, the great object before the church in this country, was, to present such general principles, as would, if honestly carried out, and faithfully maintained, secure, on the one hand, union, efficiency, and a well-ordered government, with the power of guarding against all traitorous designs upon the purity or peace of the church; and at the same time, best uphold the just rights of the several churches, of individual ministers, and of the lay members of the church. Liberty, as far as it can be enjoyed without anarchy; government, so far as it is compatible with liberty; and the greatest possible enjoyment of both;-this was the glorious aim and object, to secure which our fathers earnestly labored. Our ecclesiastical constitution was cradled in the spirit of liberty.* Even bishop Hughes, filled to the very brim as he is with envenomed hate against our church, has confessed, that those tenets in the Westminster confession, which were hostile to civil liberty, 'were discarded, (by the American presbyterian church,) as being unsuited to the soil of new-born liberty and of things.' And he urges against us that very principle of amended,' he adds, 'to suit the constitution and the new order of things.** And he urges against us that very principle of freedom, by which we were ready, on discovering preexisting error, to abandon and subvert it. Most strange infatuation! Since he thus seals the everlasting condemnation of the system *See this well illustrated by Dr. Rice, in Evang. Mag. vol. ix. pp. 26, 27, 28, 535, 536. Breckinridge and Hughes's Discuss. p. 303. tIbid, p. 289. of popery, seeing that what it has been, it must ever remain, the same determined foe to civil and religious liberty. Presbyterians, however, never regarded their standards as either infallible or unchangeable. They are not our rule, either of faith or practice. They are not substituted for the scriptures, nor do they claim its authority. Any thing which has been admitted into them contrary to either civil or religious freedom, may, therefore, at any time be removed. And so it was in the present instance. Our standards were amended on the very points to which this author alludes, before the adoption of the American constitution, not in consequence of it. The spirit of liberty and of republicanism, which they breathe, was the cause, and not the effect, of American liberty. The founders of the presbyterian church brought with them to this country an inextinguishable love of liberty, both civil and religious. Speaking of the presbyterian settlers in the colony of South Carolina, long previous to the revolution, Dr. Hewett says,§'these ministers adopted this mode of religious worship, not only from a persuasion of its conformity to the primitive apostolic form, but also from a conviction of its being, of all others, the most favorable to civil liberty, equality, and independence.' This spirit was enkindled by the reformation, and taught to give expression to its views, by those solemn leagues and covenants into which the reformers in Germany, and in Scotland, and the puritans in England entered, for their mutual defence, for the overthrow of tyranny, and for the establishment of constitutional liberty, civil and religious. Let any one compare their language with that of our declaration of independence, and he will perceive in the former the parents of the latter.* Our system of polity, says Dr. Rice,† was drawn up at a time when the general principles of government, and the great subject of human rights and privileges, was more thoroughly and anxiously discussed than at any other period since the settlement of this country. It was during the time when the sages of America were employed in framing the Federal constitution, and considering its merits, throughout the United States. And the men who drew up this plan of government for the church, were, many of them at least, men deeply versed in civil and ecclesiastical history; and who had borne no inconsiderable part in the eventful period which preceded. Perhaps this may in some measure account for the striking similarity which occurs in the fundamental principles of our polity, and the form of government adopted by the United States of America. Like Dr. Rice, in Evang. Mag. p. 27. §Hist. of S. C. Lond. 1779, vol. ii. p. 53. *See my Disc. on the Hist. Infl. and Results of the Westminst. Ass. McCrie on the Unity of the Ch. App. p. 156, &c. and Note to ch. iii. †Ibid, p. 28. that form of government, our polity is neither monarchical, nor democratical, but a democratic republic. "The Church,' writes Cartwright, in his Replye to Whitgift, 'is governed with that kind of government which the philosophers that write of the best commonwealths affirm to be the best. For in respect of Christ, the head, it is a monarchy; and in respect of the ancients and pastors, that govern in common, and with like authority amongest themselves, it is an aristocracy, or the rule of the best men; and in respect that the people are not secluded but have their interest in church matters, it is a democracy, or popular estate.' Such were the views entertained by the framers of our constitution. To constitute the church visible monarchical, was, in their opinion, to dethrone Christ, to proclaim rebellion against his supremacy and kingly rule, and to introduce tyranny and spiritual despotism. To constitute the church a pure democracy would have equally secured the destruction of her character, and have defeated her end; since, as has been seen, such a form of government cannot, in the nature of things, long subsist. It were idle to call the perfectly independent government of each christian society a government. It is no government at all, unless we will call every family a society, and its rulers a government. And even if the contrary were granted, most certainly no analogy could be found in such separate and disunited bodies to our confederated union, which is made up of all the parishes in each state, and of all the states throughout its entire extent of territory. Our fathers, therefore, left our church under that constitution given her by her divine Head, by which we have seen she is a democratic republic. Our church is therefore the union of many churches;-a union so devised as that, while each is left in a measure independent, the whole are harmonized and made strong. The love of liberty is combined with the love of unity, the consolidated power of union, with the diffused power of popular freedom. It resembles the far-famed Grecian phalanx, in which each man was fully armed, and the whole so combined as to form one moving mass of skill and courage, bearing like a mountain against the opposing foe. Price's Hist. of Nonconf. vol. i. p. 249. SECTION IV. All the principles of republicanism are found in our presbyterian system. Is equality of conditions the fundamental principle from which all our other civil and republican institutions flow? This doctrine is imbedded in every principle, and is characteristic of, the presbyteran church. 'We lay it down,' says Dr. Rice,* one of the fathers of presbyterianism in this country, 'as a fundamental principle in our system of polity, that ecclesiastical power is by the Lord Jesus Christ vested in the church; it belongs to the body of the faithful people.' Separate and distinct from the church, its officers have no independent or irresponsible authority. The title of clergy we recognize as given by inspiration to all God's people,‡ and possessed by them until pope Hyginus, and the succeeding prelates, appropriated it to themselves, condemning the rest of God's inheritance to the 'injurious and alienate condition of laity;' separating them by local partitions in their churches; and thus excluding the members of Christ from all offices in the ecclesiastical body, 'as if they meant to sew up that Jewish veil which Christ, by his death on the cross, rent in sunder.' Against these usurpations, and this whole system of priestcraft, we earnestly protest. All such distinctions we repudiate. Every faithful disciple of the Lord Jesus we admit to wait upon the tabernacle, and to offer up spiritual sacrifice to God, in whatever office God and the congregation shall assign him. Presbyterianism, both as it regards the government of a particular church and of the church generally, is, therefore, based upon the principle of representation. 'Our laws too are all written laws, made and administered by our own representatives. We have no rulers.'§ The support of the ministry, the expenses of the congregation, the advancement of every cause of christian benevolence, are all voluntary on the part of the people; and the amount in each case assessed by the people themselves, or by the conscience of each individual contributor. Our church property is all held in the name of trustees elected by the people; and the temporal affairs of every congregation are managed by the people. Is it then the great characteristic of our republic, that all power is ultimately resident in, and derived from, the people, and this, not as the gift of man, but of God? What can be more analogous than the principles of our presbyterian constitution? Do we not teach that the divine charter of the church |