Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-04-30
From The Ohio Observer.
THE CHRISTIAN OBSERVER AND
THE AKRON CONVENTION.

nO L ulIdutilHld SuIiottdH OuStINbT Ol
March 10Th contains a severe but courteous
censure of the Convention held at Akron a
few weeks since. We arprehend that perth
nent as might be some of the remarks of the
Editor 10 certain other portions of the church,
they are hardly relevant in This case to the
churches represented in the convention and
fol the purpose of informing our brethren at
The East more fully respecting our ecclesias-
teal condition, we avail ourselves of the &C.
casion offered by this censure to state some
facts not accurately understood, we believe,
in some parts Of the country. We merely
premise in reference to the resolutions censur-
ed, that many in the Convention never intend
ed TO include in their condemnation of slave
holders, all, unfortunately, who stood in
the legal relation of masters to slaves, and ir-
respectively of the intention IF entering or
sustaining ii.
The remarks of the Observer to which we
particularly refer, are the following:
"Should a minister from Tennessee be
called 10 a church in Portage Presbytery, and
present 4 duly authenticated certificate of dis
mission to Join that Presbytery, the Constitu-
lion requirts "lhat PresbyIery 10 proceed TO
install him in the congregation" The Pres
bytery has no right to examine him-nor to
refuse to install him. if he had a hundred SER
wants. A similar constitutional rule gives
any member Of the church in Mississippi or
Kentucky, who may be a STAKEHOLDER, a right
TO membership in any Presbyterian Church
in Ohio, on presenting his credentials.
And do PresbyierianS c%onspire with men
who are not members of our Church, to sub
vert these constitutional rights at a blow 3
Is it not preposterous for Presbyterians to
meet with others in a convention, to establish
a new basis of fellowship and order-to en-
act a law which no Presbylery or Synod, or
even the General Assembly can establish
and which can only be enacted in the man
ner prescribed in Chapter II, sec. 5 Of the
Form of Government? Is it not absurd, aud
worse than absurd, for Presbyterians TO aban-
don their judicatcrles, and 90 into a conven-
ton to change the fundamental basis of COM
munion and order in the church? Have con-
]reniions any thing to do with the rules and
discipline of our Church! Do onr standards
recognize the power of such meetings!
The ecclesiastical nature of their act is still
more ofensiUe than IFS immoral and disorder
y character. The Church is a divine insti-
tuticn. 1t is the kingdom of Christ; and
He is the sole law-giver in this Kingdom
lie has prescribed terms Of admission and
exclusion, and revealed them in his word,
and no men or angels. have the right or DOW
or to change them. 1t were rash, if not i'm
pious, presumption for the highest iudicaiory
10 prescribe terms of membership in the
Church which He has not appointed /! But
in this proceeding we have a few ministers
and laymen, self appointed, responsible to
nobody, discussing a subject of which they
evidently know very little, gravely promul-
eating, after IA day thus spent in controversy,
a neW law or test of fellowship in the Church
of Christ; a neW rule of order, alike un-
known in the Apostolic Church, and in the
Purest Churches of the present age.
Such, reader, are their own confessions,
and those at the North who effect some OPP
position to slavery, ge, up a false issue to
screen themselves, as wei as to cover up the
dark and internal deeds of their own South
ern butchers.
ErangeHcai .AHiance.-The Brooklyn Star
contains the plan of the American Delegates
for the formation of an American Alliance
1t is signed by Rev. DR.. De Witt as chair
man, and Rev. DR.. Cox and Rev. Mr.. Vince
lock, Secretaries.
The following is their settlement of the
Slavery question:
"lnasmuch as the peculiar circumstances
of this country seem 10 demand an expression
of sentiment on the subject of slavery, this
Alliance declares that a discrimination is tc
be made between those who hold slaves, not
by their own fault, or for the sake of theil
own advantage, but from motives entirely be,
nevolent, and those who hold their fellow
creatures in bondage for the sake of gain
and that the former are TO be regarded as en-
titled to fellowship, while the latter canno
be received as members of this Alliance
Tribune.
The Rev. Henry Cowles, editor of the
Oberlin Evangelist, says:
81 would suggest, also, the importance Of
making determinations according to truth,
between those Shareholders on the one hand
who retain the merely legal relation through
the CONSTANTS of law-temporarily, and for
really benevolent ends-that is, for the pur-
pose of more sure or more facile emdncipd-
tion and those, on the other hand, who yield
their willing support to the system. In my
view the cause of anti-slavery is strengthen
ed by admitting such a discrimination"