Presbyterians and the Pope

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 30, 23 July 1903, Page 1

Presbyterians and the Pope

In describing the volcanic * ructions,' that broke up ' the society upon the Stanislow,' Truthful James lays down the following rules of controversial courtesy :— 1 Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent To say another is an ass,— at least, to all intent ; Nor should the individual who happens to be meant, Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent. 1

Hard names were, however, among the commonplaces of theological controversy of the sixteenth and following centuries. They hit like explosive bullets and filled the air of discussion as did the chunks of old red sandstone and • the remnants of a palaeozoic age ' in the lively discussion that ensued among the members of ' the society , upon the Stanislow.'

L'Estrange's • Dissenters' Sayings ' is a mine of the theological slang and Billingsgate of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One of the evil relics of those days of fierce storm and angry strife still lives on among us in the twenty-fifth chapter, sixth section, of the Westminster ' Confession of Faith,' which is one of the standards of the Presbyterian Churches. It lays it down as an article of belief that the Pope • is that AntiChrist, that Man of Sin and Son of Perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ and all that is called God.' We are, happily, living in gentler days ; and the vitriolic epithets and violent controversial methods of those evil times are being fast collected together and consigned to museums of antiquities, or left to twelfth of July orators and to the tag-rag-and-bobtail enthusiasts whose voice is heard when (to use Macaulay's phrase) « Exeter Hall lifts up its biay.* Educated and broad-minded Presbyterians nowadays no more believe the Pope to be Antichrist or the Man of Sin than they believe him to be the Man in the Iron Mask or the Man in the Moon. A pleasing sign of the improved temper of our time appeared at the annual assembly of the Free Church of Scotland that was held in Edinburgh in 1894. The Continental Committee incorporated in its report a vote of thanks to one of Pope Leo's predecessors— to the « kindly personality of Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century, who sent the Gospel of Peace to our Teutonic forefathers.' And a few weeks ago at Los Angeles (California) the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, by a unanimous vote, struck out of their creed that part of the article which declared the Pope to be 1 that Antichrist, that man of sin and son of perdition that exalteth himself in the Church against Christ and all that is called God.' And thus-so far as America is concerned-one of the fierce theological epithets of the Reformation days goes into the museum— passes out of the use of men and into the realm of history.