in the State of Tennessee in relation to Hopkinsianism ran high, but it happily subsided without leading to schism. The views of Hopkins and Emmons do not prevail in our Church and our young clergymen especially have, in most cases, very little sympathy with them.

From about the year 1812 and onwards there awoke in this country among Presbyterians and Congregationalists a general interest in religion, and in everything calculated to promote it. Theological Seminaries were established, and the foundation was laid of the great societies for circulating the Scriptures and religious tracts, for home and foreign missions, and for the education of young men for the ministry. After much effort on the part of large-hearted men, the two denominations were induced to co-operate in these measures, and every thing looked favourable for their fusion into one Church. Indeed it began to be a favorite hope and speculation that denominational peculiarities were to wear away, and millennial glory to be introduced by this prevalent catholic spirit.

It was soon after this time that a remarkable religious revival, resembling that which preceded the schism of 1741, commenced in New England, under the preaching, especially, of Mr. Nettleton. He was a man of no very remarkable genius or eloquence, but at this time seems to have been pervaded by the love of souls. He was characterized by great singleness of purpose and by some peculiar measures, in which there seems. to have been no great harm, and which were accompanied with great success in doing good. When he had been some years in the field, and the revival spirit was gradually kindling in many hearts, a man of much greater power in every respect appeared suddenly upon the stage. The Rev. Charles G. Finney had been a lawyer in a western New York village. When after a severe struggle, he yielded his heart to the Redeemer, he took not counsel of flesh and blood, but set himself with an originality like that of Paul and Luther and Whitefield, to awaken sinners sleeping on the brink of perdition. It is difficult for us now-when ministers and people, of all schools, seem stupidly insensible together to the condition of men who are going to hell in multitudes-to realize the condition of things then, especially in Western New York, but which ex

Immense

tended more or less to all parts of the country. masses of people crowded the churches wherever Mr. Finney preached. The Spirit of God seemed to be with him wherever he went. His power over his audiences was a marvel. His intense grey eye seemed to contract its pupil, as though concentrating for the basilisk's power, and down before it went the vanity of the foolish, the brazenness of the scoffer, and the strength of the learned and the wise of this world. When he directed all who were determined to become Christians to kneel down before God and yield up their hearts, hundreds bowed like ripe grain before the scythe of the reaper, and the place filled with sobs, and agonized as by one pulse of fearful anxiety and yearning prayer, was solemn as the awful garden where the Master sweat great drops of blood, falling down to the ground. God forbid that we should doubt that His Spirit was with Finney and his fellow labourers in those days!

It is in the light of those scenes that we must look at the theologizing that preceded the rupture of 1837. It is true that among the educated ministry there will always be men. who love speculation for its own sake, and who find in disentangling the knotty points of divinity a congenial delight. But the views then taken of divine truth were intensely practical. It is true that there had been a gradually modifying Calvinism in America, from the days of Edwards. It is true also that the peculiar notions of Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, and his school, made some progress in the Presbyterian Church, but very much less than the heresy-hunters have attempted, with the double aid of gossiping slander on the one hand, and undiscriminating stupidity on the other, to make out. But the main purport of this remarkable awakening of attention and discussion to the subject of theology, was as follows:

Interwoven with the truths of the Calvinistic system were certain methods of metaphysical explanation of these truths. These had obtained currency in the schools and pulpits of the Church, as though they were part of the revealed word. When the revival preacher, bent on pulling sinners out of the fire of perdition, was pouring in upon the convicted soul the light of heaven, he was met by these traditions of philosophy, which,

taking the form of maxims, had effected a practical lodgment in men's minds and prevented them from feeling the power of the truth. The sword of the Spirit was thus blunted by a scholastic philosophy. Determined not to be so baffled, the awakened and energetic mind of these men of God probed these maxims to the bottom, and piercing to the philosophy in which they were embedded, extricated from it the ore of truth. The glosses they exposed were especially these three: 1. That a man might be sent to perdition for the sin of our first parents without sin of his own. 2. That the atonement was made only for a part of mankind and hence a man could not seek the Saviour until he knew that he was one of the elect, for no provision might be made for him. 3. That man has no power of any kind whatever to accept Christ as his Saviour.

It was not a reckless design to disturb old notions of theology or to unsettle the faith of Christians that led these men to reinvestigate Calvinism, or to decline to use certain stereotyped phrases. It was demanded, "Why, if you are orthodox, do you not use the precise phraseology of other divines?" The answer was plain, "This phraseology has been abused to the ruin of souls. Men have been rocked to sleep in the cradle of orthodoxy. Men have had apologies framed for their impenitence by doctors of divinity. We have sharpened our language as the mower sharpens his scythe, because we wish to reap the grain. We cannot consent to be co-workers with Satan in the ruin of souls." We do not mean to deny that on the one side, in this excitement, there was something of the recklessness that attends great success and unbounded popularity, as upon the other there was the envy that attends the absence of power when power becomes the great object of admiration, but, in the main, we must think that a sincere practical desire to make the truth of God most efficient for its purpose, was the primary motive in the theological inquiries of these times. The earnest men who must at all hazards be clear in their office could not sacrifice the efficiency of saving truth to any other consideration. And we fearlessly assert that, in the great mass of the Presbyterian ministry, there was no essential departure from Calvinism.

In the Articles now publishing in this Review called "Old

and New Theology," the reader will find a full, minute, accurate and able account of the theological differences between the two parties in the Church. It will not, therefore, be necessary for us to go minutely into that subject here. They respect imputation and original sin, atonement, justification, regeneration, and ability. The result of a careful examination by any candid and competent mind would be that both parties are thorough. Calvinists, one as much as the other, the difference being only one of temperament, culture and acumen, and that there is no reason, but only prejudice, in the way of their working kindly in the same church.

Before we proceed with our narrative we will make a quotation from the Minutes of the Assembly as late as 1824-5, to show how perseveringly the Church adhered to the established method of subscription. It is in the case of the Tammany Street Congregation, Baltimore, and is the last exposition of the Assembly on the subject, previous to the high party times:

"The standards of our church as a system of doctrines cannot be abandoned in our opinion, without an abandonment of the Word of God. They form a bond of fellowship in the faith of the Gospel, and the General Assembly cannot but believe the precious immortals under their care to be more safe in receiving the truth of God's Holy Word, as exhibited in the standards of our church, than in being subject to the guidance of any instructor, whoever he may be, who may have confidence enough to set up his own opinions in opposition to the system of doctrines, which men of sound learning, full of the Holy Ghost, and mighty in the scriptures, have devised from the oracles of the living God. It should never be forgotten, that the church is solemnly cautioned against the danger of being carried about by every wind of doctrine.

"This confession of faith, adopted by our church, contains a system of doctrines professedly believed by the people and the pastors under the care of the General Assembly, nor can it be traduced by any in the communion of our church, without subjecting the erring parties to that salutary discipline, which hath for its object the maintenance of the peace and purity of the church, under the government of her great Master."*

*Minutes, 1824, pp. 211-13.

The same sentiments were re-affirmed the next year, 1825.* In the year 1830, the Rev. Albert Barnes was called from the church at Morristown, N. J., to the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. In this year he published a sermon called "The Way of Salvation." This Church is one of the oldest and most important in our connection and had been almost uniformly the place of meeting of the General Assembly. The difficulties between what had begun to be considered two parties in the Church, the reviving again of the ever-recurring rigid and liberal feelings, had been gradually increasing, and a clique at Philadelphia, of which Dr. Green was the head, determined to resist the call of the First Church. They charged the sermon in question with being heretical. They attempted to resist Mr. Barnes' admission into the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and being foiled there, appealed to the Synod of Philadelphia. The Synod ordered the Presbytery to proceed to a regular trial. The case was referred by the Presbytery to the Assembly, and a number of papers in relation to it were laid before that body in 1831. The matter was at length, by mutual consent, referred to a committee of eleven of which Dr. Miller was chairman. Their report was adopted. The material part of it is contained in the following resolution:

"Resolved, That the General Assembly, while it appreciates the conscientious zeal for the purity of the church by which the Presbytery of Philadelphia is believed to have been actuated in its proceeding in the case of Mr. Barnes; and while it judges that the sermon by Mr. Barnes, entitled "The Way of Salvation," contains a number of unguarded and objectionable passages; yet is of the opinion, that, especially after the explanations which were given by him of those passages, the Presbytery ought to have suffered the whole to pass without further notice." The Assembly then "united in special prayer, returning thanks to God for the harmonious result to which they have come; and imploring the blessing of God on their decision."†

It is in this year that we find the first entry of the yeas and nays upon the Minutes, showing the drawing asunder of the two

* Minutes, 1825, p. 274.

† Ib. 1831, pp. 180-1.