Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-30
With the creed of the old church. Rev. W.

with the creed of the old church. Rev. W.
! Y. Page thinks if they once begin revision
| it will be made basis for further revision,
| and they might finally come to revising the
Apostles. He by no means believes the
ministers of to-day could make a better
creed than Calvin, but has no hesitation in
| asserting that "Calvin could have swallowed
| a thousand of the theologians of the present
and not have suffered from Indigestion:
| This is somewhat severe on the faculty OF
Princeton, and Andover, ana DR.. Hall, and
Dr. Paxton, and DR.. Talmage, and DR.. Nc
| Gosh ct al. But withal, revision" seems
to be the winning side, though it is hardly
to be supposed that the General Assembly
will 20 to the extreme length of abolishing
the old Confession of Faith and substituting
"brand new one," as Brother Talmage
recommends. Still, if he carries weight
with his 30, 900, 900 of readers and admirers,
the creed will be rather severely handled
before they get through with IL. When the
old once solemnly held and unfeignedly be-
lieved articles Of faith are repudiated and
denounced bv so many good men, who have
professed to uphold them when ordained to
the ministry, it is plain to see that they
must eventually go. either by way of revis-
ion or substitution.
EXAMPLES IN OTHER CHURCHES.
The United Presbyterians had to become
reconciled to fine churches and the voicetul
pipes of the organ-although they were
held by some to be devices of the devil
after considerable fighting and unseemly
squabbling, and so will they all at last be
compelled to resign the comfortable doc
trines of predestination, infant damnation
and OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES that, as DR..
Hamilton said, ''horrify every man with the
slightest sense of JUSTICE
1t will be hard on the old people to give
up their cherished articles of their creed,
but the young folks will grow up to the pro-
posed change, and be none the worse for it.
But if, as DR.. Talmage advises, they let
election and reprobation 90, if they let
eternal punishment slip, how are the wicked
to be kept straight-and the righteous ade-
quately rewarded? II drinking wine, and
playing cards, and smoking cigars, and
driving fast horses, and going to the theater,
and indulging in worldly delights generally,
are not to be held as hindrances
to church membership, how are the sheep to
be distinguished from the goats? These
new ideas aud radical utterances will very
much puzzle many people, and probably
upset their preconceived notions, but they
will be likely to set people to doing their
own thinking and to formulating their own
the church they will interpret for them
selves and reach the conclusion of Talmage
himself that 'No one can explain the
mysteries OF Gods government now, much
less the mysteries of His government five
hundred quintillion YearsIago."
WHEREIN THEY DIFFER.
By the way, is not this the point for
which Ingersoll is contending? Judging
by the sermon before us, which comedies so
much, it would seem as if the ground for
dispute between the famous agnostic and
the noted divine was growing quite narrow.
Talmage asserts that belief in Christ is the
only essential to salvation, and Ingersoll
says he doesn't know. However, those who
dread extremes and prefer the happy me-
dunn have little cause for alarm that the
General Assembly will adopt the idea of
Brother Talmage for "brand new creed" at
present. The ardent advocates OF the
change in the Presbyteries have only pro-
posed revision" and "com promise and
that greater emphasis should be placed upon
the love and benevolence OF God than on
divine wrath and endless punishment-or,
in other words, that the cruel creed of the
sixteenth century should be made to fit in
with the sentiment and spirit of the nine
teenth.
Still, even in view of all the amazing
changes and advances made so quietly in
the last half century by the brains of scien-
tifc men in all the realms of thought, the
advice of Talmage as to the Christian
bound hand and foot by religious creeds to
Loose him and let him go'' will be
deemed by many most daring and dan
gerous innovation. BESSIE BBAMBLR.