The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1900-04-18
PA, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 49, 1900
ATTACKS CREED.
REV. DR.. PARkHURST'S ASSAULT ON
WESTMINSTER CONFESSION.

Christ's Words to Nicodenrus Creed
Enough For Him-The Doctrine of
Foreordination, He Declared, n Burden
to the Presbyterian Church.
New YORK, April 16.-Rev. DR. Ohas.
III. Parkhurst, speaking in his pulpit in
Madison Square Presbyterian church,
made vigorous assault on the West
minister confession of faith. He said:
"We ought to have a new confession
of faith. 1t is surprising that the Pres
byterian church is able to do as much as
it is doing with such an incumbrance
strapped upon us as we are tottering un-
der in our present confession. In the
first place the thing needed is not sys-
tenn of theology, for that is what our
present confession is, but simple, brief
Saxon statement of half dozen or 50 of
the vital ingredients of Jesus Christ S
message to the world could get along
with confession of faith containing
but the little that Jesus said when he
was trying to make q Christian O. .Nico-
demus: God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten son, that whose
ever believeth i'll him should not perish,
but have eternal life.'
That gives us the doctrine of God s
unlimited love, human guilt, the Di-
vinity of Christ, salvation through
Christ, faith in Christ, immortality;
Nd Nf
the words monasyllables, profound
enough for any elder, simple enough for
any four year old.
"At any rate we want new creed.
Amending this one will not meet the
necessities of the case. Better give it
a dignifed place in the museum for
what it is than hack it to pieces and re-
vamp it for what it is not.
"And then, once more, if there were
among us the distinct feeling which the
gospel so wonderfully guarantees, that
everything in this great Christian mat
ter pivots ON the absolute and uncondi-
toned love of God, we should be intol-
ant toward everything that states or
even suggests anything like partial or
arbitrary love on Gods part, loving
some because he chose to and damninS
the rest in order to show what he could
do and how just he was.
"Now that is our book, the Presby-
terian confession of faith in the third
chapter. If we are thorough Presby-
terians and believe what our doctrinal
prospectus advertises us as believing,
we believe it probable that some of the
children in your homes, little children,
perhaps the baby of your bosom is
damned, already damned, damned be-
fore it was born, damned from everlast-
ing to everlasting and then you are in
vited to come into church and say Our
Father Why, any man who should be.
come father for the sake of the joy
and glory he would use in racBing his
own offspring, deliberately creating n
child with a view to the agony into
which he was going to torture it, would
be chased from the earth as friend and
as an ebullition.
"It does not meet the case to say that
it is only i'll the book, and that no.
body breaches it. 1t is true that no.
badly breaches it and equally true,
doubt not, that nobody believes it.
nevertheless it is printed on the flag be-
meath which the Presbyterian army is
marching, and it hurts us as a denomi-
nation. Men are staying out because it
is there and men are going out because
it is there"