Page:On the Revision of the Confession of Faith.djvu/18

10 Presbytery of Nassau to the General Assembly of 1888, asking for the revision of the third chapter of the Confession of Faith (that on "God's Eternal Decree") on the ground that "in its present form it goes beyond the Word of God, and is opposed to the convictions and repugnant to the feelings of very many of our most worthy and thoughtful members." That the Assembly did not consider the matter very urgent is sufficiently evinced by its neglecting to act on it further than by referring it to the next Assembly. In the interval between the two Assemblies, the Presbytery of Nassau made a strong effort to enlist the Church at large in its overture, sending a circular letter out requesting the co-operation of the other presbyteries. The success of the effort was not striking—the great majority of the presbyteries paying no attention to the request, and the great majority of those who did take up the matter refusing in one way or another (usually by laying the appropriate motion on the table) to enter into the movement. Only some fifteen presbyteries out of upward of two hundred responded by appropriate action; and it was in answer to their request thus obtained that the Assembly passed the overture. Even this meagre result, we shrewdly suspect, does not represent an impulse wholly native to our soil or Church. In these days of easy communication the ends of the earth are brought very close together, and contagion is easy if not unavoidable. It is significant that the Committee of the Presbytery of Nassau, in urging co-operation on the other presbyteries, were not willing to rest their appeal on the merits of the case; but were careful to adduce the examples of the Scotch United Presbyterians and the Presbyterian Church of England. And the contagion of the present restlessness of the foreign Presbyterian Churches in their relation to the Confession of Faith, appears to us to be the source of all the apparent strength