![Editorial Notice Considered. [A Review of the Review of the “Two Witnesses.”]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5519d094e4b08a0cc608b841/1645067778040-6J02LZ4AUN37IR1W2NXL/DSteele.jpg)
Editorial Notice Considered. [A Review of the Review of the “Two Witnesses.”]
James Dodson
[from The Reformed Presbyterian, Vol. XXIII, No. 9, September, 1859, pp. 268-271.]
[Note from Thomas Sproull, editor: ‘We publish the following communication from Mr. Steele as an act of justice to him, inasmuch as he appears to think his discourse was unfairly treated by our remarks in noticing it. We confess our inability to understand Mr. S’s. position, and the more he attempts to define it, the more to us he mystifies it. As we design not to have any controversy with him on the subject, we cheerfully give him the last word.’]
The editor of the Reformed Presbyterian, vol. v., No. 6, p. 196, in noticing the “Two Witnesses,” “regrets to say something that might mislead the inquirer for the testimony of Christ” is discoverable in said pamphlet. Should this be so, no one ought to regret it more than the writer. In the editorial notice, I am made to say—“that the history of the church should be made an article of her creed.” The reader, I believe, will search in vain for anything contained in the essay of such equivocal import. The distinction between “saving faith and a faith that is not saving,” I have not made. I have distinguished between the grounds of saving faith and terms of communion in the visible church. There is a distinction, and a difference too, between saving faith and a faith that is not saving, but it had nothing to do with the subject of which I was treating. Let us shun irrelevant matter, and avoid the use of equivocal terms, if we desire to be understood.
The editor “does not admit that a faith that is not saving is that with which we believe that the standards (subordinate standards, of course,) are founded on the word of God.” Well, then, as “saving faith” is the only alternative, this faith with saving faith, we must believe the subordinate standards to be founded on the word of God. Have I apprehended the language of the editor aright? or have I misrepresented his idea? I think not. Now this is the position groundlessly imputed to me, a position which I have controverted, and which I continue to reject, as derogatory to the supreme authority of God’s word, and fraught with baleful consequences to the church of Christ?
The term faith sometimes means the principles of the Christian’s profession—as “earnestly contend for the faith.” Sometimes faith signifies a saving grace seated in the Christian’s heart—as “like precious faith.” The latter is the proper sense of the word: the former is figurative and also scriptural, because of the relation or connection between them. Hence the term faith has come by ecclesiastical usage to signify the bond of fellowship, or terms of communion in the church of God. The propriety, indeed I may say the necessity of subordinate standards both of faith and practice in the visible church, arise from the corruption of our nature. This is the true cause why men differ so widely in their conceptions of God’s mind and will speaking to us in the Scriptures. And “how can two walk together unless they be agreed?” And if two shall agree, or ten thousand shall agree, in their joint apprehension of the word of God, does that agreement amount to infallible truth? Do the bond and symbol of unity constitute divine testimony—challenge divine or saving faith? I understand the editor to affirm. I deny. No—God only can of right challenge implicit faith or obedience. This is not due to synods, councils or any other assembly of sinful and fallible men. The subordinate standards, or which is the same thing in other words, the terms of communion in the visible church, are all conclusions drawn from the word of God—and since by her divine constitution she is to continue till the end of time, preserving her covenanted identity, and giving point and publicity to her doctrine and order, until she shall have completed and finished her testimony; these doctrines and this order, so deduced from the Bible, she must receive as historical doctrines and order, besides being satisfied, that they were in accordance with the “pattern shown in the mount.” So, then, the church of Christ is to adhere to her subordinate standards, not as formally divine or infallible, but as she has always expressed herself—as “in nothing contrary to the Holy Scriptures.”
I have never furnished my fellow mortals with ground, or the shadow of ground to say, that I put “human history on a footing of equality with the Bible, or make history an article of the church’s creed;” but a heresy akin to this it has been my lot to oppose, and I trust through divine grace to be enabled to oppose while in the church militant; that the doctrinal conclusions deduced from the word of God by fallible men are infallible; and that the faith with which we believe these doctrines to be founded on the word of God is saving faith!
An approbation (not saving faith) of the faithful contendings of the martyrs of Jesus, is justly required as a condition of membership in the Reformed Presbyterian church. But it would be equally irrational and tyrannical to require an approbation of contendings, without defining and specifying which are faithful and which are unfaithful; and more irrational, if possible, to suppose that these contendings can be known otherwise than by history! History, history alone, uninspired history, can furnish the facts in our covenanted father’s contendings in the British Isles, or in the United States, by which we can possibly judge whether they were faithful contendings or not. This history the church must transmit to her children, or abide the displeasure of Zion’s King and Lawgiver. See Ps. 78:5, &c.
If the editor [Thomas Sproull] of the Reformed Presbyterian will exhibit me as making “thrusts” at any object, it is surely well that I am not chargeable with aiming at anything vulnerable! My analysis of the “Preface to Reformation Principles Exhibited,” was intended to show that the book which bears this name was not a consistent or full exhibition of our covenanted testimony—the testimony of Jesus; and besides, that those who framed the document never intended that the “historical view” should be considered by the reader as a part of the church’s testimony, but simply as a part of the PLAN upon which they proposed to exhibit their principles to the world. The practice of each member and of the whole body was left out of the Testimony, and inserted in the “historical part of the author’s plan.” The “argumentative part of the plan” has never yet been framed!
As to my “never finding fault with that work, ‘Reformation Principles,’ while in the Synod,” and insinuations relative to “a good spirit, candor, consistency,” &c, I only say, these things are not arguments; and avoiding personalities, I merely invoke the memory and pose the consciences of the senior ministry, relative to efforts made in 1834 to have defects supplied in our Terms and Testimony; in 1836 to give “more point and publicity to our Testimony;” in 1838, to “restore the term Testimony to its former ecclesiastical use;” to the “preamble and resolutions” of 1840, which providentially gained publicity through Synod’s clerk, and therefore continue to speak for themselves to all “who have ears to hear.”
Whether in leaving the communion of the Synod I thereby “withdrew from the church,” contains a problem, or suggests a question which every reader will readily determine for himself. And moreover, believing from long experience and extensive observation, that anonymous articles and fictitious signatures have often been prejudicial to truth, and injurious to Christian and ministerial character, I do not hesitate to subjoin to the foregoing article my genuine signature.
Sparta, Illinois.