Page:Southern Presbyterian Journal, Volume 13.djvu/475

 vised that their allegiance is to the United Nations first and to their own countries second. It is a strange day in America when American citizens are advised that their primary allegiance is to some other organization, rather than to their home country.

It is so easy for Christians to feel a sympathetic interest in and desire for peace but to fail to see that just as the builders of the Tower of Babel had "right motives," nevertheless they were actually defying God; so today nations may work for peace but deny the one source of real peace—-the Prince of Peace.

Some day we may find we have been trying to promote a mirage, and even worse, to have been hosts to a Trojan horse of the worst kind.—L. N. B.

Positive Proof

By Paul D. Hastings

Reidsville, N. C.

One of the most important facts in the Union Issue now before our Church that those who think such a Union unwise for our Southern Presbyterian Church have been pointing out is that there has never been in the past nor is there at the present time a spontaneous desire for Union at the grass roots of our Church among the Laymembers. The entire Union movement has been developed and forced upon our Church on the General Assembly level by a small but influential group of men, mostly ministers, working through the Committee on Co-operation and Union, as this Committee is about 90 per cent composed of some of the strongest prounion men in our entire Church. In the September 20 issue of the Presbyterian Outlook was a list of the chairmen of the pro-union group in each Synod. This list consisted of twelve ministers and four Laymen. It was amazing to find the name of S. J. Patterson, Jr., head of the Division of Men's Work in our Church, listed as chairman of the pro-union group for the Synod of Virginia. Certainly the overwhelming majority of the members of our Church will agree that it is entirely out of order for the head of any Division in our Church to take such a position on either side of this most controversial issue.

The first seven Presbyteries to vote on Union voted 366-50 against Union. This overwhelming vote and the fact that in the last three Presbyteries, which voted openly so that it was known who voted for and against Union, not a single elder in the entire Presbytery voted for Union in Harmony and Congaree Presbytery; and only three elders voted for Union in Florida Presbytery. All of this should convince the members of our Church that the Laymen are absolutely and vigorously opposed to the proposed Union. What kind of a Union would result in the Laymembers of our Church being carried into it against their desires and protests?

If this group of influential ministers who have forced this issue upon our Church have not given this important matter the time and study necessary to get informed as to all that is involved in the proposed Union for our Southern Church, then this should cause the members of our Church serious concern.

But, if these men have given the matter the necessary time and study and are informed as to the more liberal views, beliefs, policies, and programs of the leadership which controls the Northern Presbyterian Church and yet they, themselves, are not concerned about these things and continue to agitate for Union, then this should be a matter of even more concern to the members of our Church.

It is becoming clearer all the time that the real issue which we are faced with in our Southern Presbyterian Church isn't the Union Issue but that this is just a surface indication of a much more serious doctrinal issue which we will be faced with after the Plan of Union is defeated. We should face facts when they are clear and obvious!

In the ecclesiastical controversies of this decade little reference is ever made to Chapter II of the Westminster Confession. Is this because the Trinity is a dead letter? Or does it indicate unanimous acceptance? Or does the controversy merely seem to leave the matter untouched, while in reality the doctrine of the Trinity is very much involved?

To some people in some churches the Trinity is a dead letter. The hymn book of one denomination has rewritten "Holy, Holy, Holy," so as to exclude all reference to "God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity." A defense that is offered for such disconcerting editing is that the doctrine of the Trinity is based more on pagan Greek philosophy than on the Scriptures. But such a defense can be credited only by those who are ignorant of the extensive Scriptural arguments in the writings of Athanasius. Some ignorance of Greek philosophy also helps.

Can it be said then that in the Presbyterian church, whatever may be the case with other denominations, the second chapter of the Confession is unanimously accepted? Before this question can be answered in the hoped-for affirmative, a distinction should be made between the first two sections of the chapter and the third. Only in this last are the trinitarian distinctions mentioned. The first two sections describe a basic monotheism, which, with many proof-texts from the Old Testament, could be largely and perhaps altogether accepted by a devout Jew. As a summary of the Biblical teaching concerning God's attributes, His righteousness, His glory, His OCTOBER 20, 1954