Rev. Dr Gibb's "Evangelical" Union.

The National "Evangelical" Church of New Zealand.

To the Editor.

Sir,—There are three things Presbyterian people are anxious to have full and clear and accurate information about at present. They are:—(1) Have the members of the Assembly's Union Committee unanimously adopted Dr Gibb's new creed. (2) If not unanimously, who are the persons that have assented to that creed, and are responsible for its now being before three Churches as the creed of the Union Committee of the Presbyterian Church? (3) What is this new creed? What is its attitude to the Presbyterian creed, to the Reformation doctrines to the Catholic faith of Christendom?

These are questions of importance, and the first two were raised by me in the Assembly, and in my letter of the 26th of November. To that letter, after three weeks' delay. Dr Gibb says he has replied "with great reluctance," page 65 because, from private communications with him, he says he judged I was "extremely anxious" he should reply. My private communications took the form of two telegrams, sent for obvious reasons, the first after a week's delay, asking if he had seen my letter and whether he intended to reply, to which he made answer that he had not seen it. The second, stating that a 'Times' had been sent, made the same inquiry, to which he made answer be probably would reply. There was, therefore, no anxiety whatever expressed or implied that Dr Gibb should honor me with his notice. The manner and tone, somewhat "'igh and 'auglity," of his reply perhaps indicate that Dr Gibb's Tecent "honours" have not had sufficient time to become quite assimilated to the genial nature he shows to his friends.

Dr Gibb replies that not only is his statement correct that the Assembly's Committee unanimously adopted the articles; but in the face of my letter he still affirms: "But the fact stands that there was, and, as far as anything to the contrary yet appears, there still is, unanimity between Presbyterian and Methodist Committees on the question of these articles of the faith." My opposition apparently does not count; and as, dike the rest of the members, I am only a cipher to Dr Gibb's integer, one protestant more or less does not break the "wonderful and profound unanimity between the Methodist and Presbyterian Committees." It is, indeed, wonderful and most profound!

There are two methods, available to everyone, by which the value of Dr Gibb's assertions may be tested. There is the new creed itself. If there was profound unanimity in the Presbyterian Committee, the Committee happily are all living and can be produced. It is plainly not a creed that would or could ever be composed, for any purpose immediate or remote, save by men who atached but the slenderest if any weight to the principal doctrines of the Presbyterian Church or of the Reformed Faith, and that must be the opinion of the vast majority of the Union Committee, alleged to be profoundly unanimous in recommending its adoption to three Churches. This new creed, let it be borne in mind, while professing to be based on the articles of the Presbyterian Church of England, eliminates from those articles the Reformation doctrines of the origin of the living races of mankind, of the Fall, of the temptation of mankind by Satan, of the origin of sin, of native depravity, of the Atonement, of justification by faith solely on the ground of Christ's perfect obedience and atoning sacrifice, of the election of Grace, of regeneration, of Christian perseverance, and of eternal punishment. Here is a creed in which not one shred, not if you search with a microscope, and if you make a chemical analysis, not a trace of distinctively Presbyterian doctrine is left; and the Christian people of New Zealand are asked to believe that it has been unanimously adopted by the Union Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Hew Zealand. To recite the names of the Union Committee from the Assembly's "Proceedings of 1902" is to banish Dr Gibb's glowing vision of "profound unanimity" into the limbo prepared from the foundation of the world for ecclesiastical fairy tales without hope of a second resurrection. Here they are:—"Revs. H. Kelly, W. G. Dixon, I. Jolly, J. Paterson, J. K. Elliott. J. M'Kenzie, J. H. Mackenzie, J. G. Smith. G. Lindsay, W. Hewit-son. P. B. Fraser, D. Dutton. A. 'Cameron. Dr Watt, Dr Dunlop,' J. Chisholm. R. R. M. Sutberland. J. Gibb; Messrs J. G. W. Aitken. R. Glendining, A. C. Bogg, W. H. Adams, G. Reid, D. A. M'Nicoll," and Dr Erwin added of the first meeting of committee. Here are twenty-five names of well-known men, twenty-four if you exclude Rev. H. Kelly as having left for the Australian Church. Does anybody, having the least acquaintance with these men, believe will not say a "unanimous assent," but the assent of a majority, nay, of a respectable minority, of these brethren was ever obtained knowingly to Dr Gibb's new creed? Personally, though a member of this same Committee. I have not heard one single member, except Dr Gibb. who has distinctly expressed approval of it, and such as I have come in contact with have expressed the very reverse. Consequently, I am just as anxious to know as the Church at large is who are the persons forming this "unanimous" Presbyterian Committee. By simply taking this new creed in your hand and going to any of these gentlemen and asking them: Did you, and do you, give your assent to this thing? you will discover how "wonderful and profound" is the Presbyterian unanimity. That is one wav—available to everybody—in which Presbyterians anxious to know who of their number have assented to page 66 this creed may profitably inquire and learn who constitutes this "unanimous" Committee, and when and where they ever met.

But that method of inquiry brings in the merits of the new creed. And there is another way, equally open to all, without bringing in the merits of the new creed, in which inquiry may be conducted, and that is to investigate the history of its production as related by Dr Gibb. The new creed might have been as orthodox as if John Knox were convener, but that would hardly justify John Knox in saying that it was unanimously adopted, after careful consideration, by the Union Committee, unless in point of fact it was. For if the new creed were a true creed and shone with its own light, it would not much matter, so far as the creed itself is concerned, whether it was unanimously adopted or adopted by a majority of the Committee, or only by Dr Gibb himself. So noble a production would shed the lustre of its glory on all who claimed a share in its "inspiration" and composition, and would cant conviction with its own weight. And, therefore, honour should have been given where honour is due, and the exact number and the names of the Union "Committee" who have unanimously assented to this new creed should have been given from the first. But, apparently, Dr Gibb's theory is that a part is equal to the whole (if he is in the part), or might become the whole, as a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. A feeble defence of this theory may possibly be sought in the fact that a mere quorum of an administrative Committee whose functions are strictly limited by regulations is called the Committee, but few, I imagine, will justify the convener of a large special Committee calling a selected coterie a unanimous Committee.

Let Presbyterians then investigate the history of the Assembly's Committee as related by Dr Gibb. To my statement in my letter that "the Presbyterian Committee, As a Committee, has not itself come to any agreement on the articles in question," Dr Gibb does not allude, and has made no reply. Not only has he not contradicted it, but the truth of it can be demonstrated from his own letter. More than that, I will now add and demonstrate that, so far from his articles having received "the careful consideration of the Presbyterian Committee," that Commitee, as a committee, never so much as had a chance to consider the articles on their merits. Here are the stages given by Dr Gibb in his letter:—

1. The first meeting of the Assembly's Committee was called in Dunedin, as is usual, at such date and hour as would naturally suit the convener. Of the twenty-four members named above, there were present—as far as I recollect—the following:—Revs. W. Hewitson, D. Dutton, A. Cameron. Dr Watt, Dr Dunlop, J. Chisholm, Dr Gibb, Dr Erwin, P. B. Fraser. and Mr A. C. Begg—that is, ten out of twenty-four members. It was quite evident the members were not prepared, and, indeed, were very much averse, to con-sider a definite move before they had made up their minds to any line of action whatever. There were some previous questions to be discussed and settled, and this the Committee as a whole never once had the chance to do. Dr Gibb, however, represented that he had the articles prepared by a Committee, of which Dr Dykes was convener, and adopted by the Presbyterian Church of England as their creed; and that as Dr Erwin and I had come a considerable distance to attend the meeting, he might read them; but as he himself records, "no definite pronouncement was made on any one of them." "Finally," he says, "it was resolved that a Committee consisting of Drs Watt, Dunlop, and Gibb should be appointed to go carefully into the articles and make such alterations as they might deem desirable." If minutes of the Committee contain this statement, I accept it; but my recollection is that authority was neither asked for nor given to any sub-committee "to make such alterations as they might deem desirable." Nor was I aware that Dr Gibb was, as he might well have been, convener of the sub-committee. The professors appeared to be much averse to having anything to do with it, and it was only on the understanding, I took it, that no changes were to be made save those specified at the meeting, that they undertook the work at all; and I should be much surprised if they had asked for the responsibility or accepted it if laid upon them by a "committee" of the kind, to overhaul the whole Christian Faith on behalf of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. The changes spoken of were merely for the sake of future comparison, and referred to two articles. It was agreed that the whole of the original Presby- page 67 terian articles, which Dr Gibb had with him, should in the first instance be printed in the 'Outlook' for reference and general information, and that these articles, less two of them, which, it was said, the Methodists might object to, should be printed for the Committee. It was never suggested nor implied that the omission of anything at that moment committed anybody to anything for the articles having only been once read over by Dr Gibb to the meeting, nobody really knew what was their full import and relative bearing except Dr Gibb. It was certainly never hinted at that meeting that there was so much as a suggestion to tamper with the foundation doctrines of the Reformed Faith, much less of Catholic Christendom. The meeting in any case was somewhat hurried, and lasted probably not more than an hour and a-half at the outside. I repeat that in going so far at this stage even as to print these articles, it was done before members of the Committee had ever got time or opportunity properly to consider what they should do, or, in true Presbyterian fashion of fulness and freedom of discussion, to have the benefit of each other's opinions, and learn how far or in what direction it was proper or advisable to move. It was recognised that it was only a preliminary meeting of ten members out of twenty-four.

2. Of the next stage Dr Gibb says: "The sub-committee met and performed its task with absolute unanimity." This sounds well, no doubt; but what does it mean? For all I know, this sub-committee may have been of a fractional nature, as Dr Gibb's unanimous committee is fractional and infinitesimal throughout. Be that as it may, I may be permitted to believe that when the articles left this sub-committee they were entirely satisfactory to Dr Gibb. Apparently it was Dr Gibb's desire to obtain for this new creed the authority of professorial sanction, as he has certainly displayed a feverish anxiety and haste to anticipate and claim the sanction of the committee of his Church; but I may be permitted at the outset to say regarding professorial sanction that the Presbyterian Church has never taken or believed her creed on the sanction professors, but her professors have been appointed to their posts of special trust and influence on a written and solemn declaration, given and received with the solemnity of an oath, that they believed her creed in the terms in which it is given and received, and that they will maintain and defend it. And there is no evidence whatever that the professors ever gave their deliberate sanction to the creed in circulation at the Assembly. And it is a moral impossibility that Dr Dunlop could: for I have lying before me a contribution of Dr Dunlop's in the Expository Times for August, 1903—mark the date,—in which he pours all the scorn of a copious and powerful eloquence on just such a creed as his sanction is now claimed to commend to the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. Space will not permit a quotation here, and in due time and manner I shall quote it in full, and much else besides, for the Presbyterians of New Zealand. As to Dr Watt, I have no reason whatever to think that his treed is different in the main from Dr Dunlop's or from the historic Re-formed Faith of his Church.

Now, mark the next step in the evolution of Dr Gibb's new creed. The moment this new creed came out of the hands of this sub-committee, he says, "a number of copies were sent to the Methodist and Congregational Committees with a request that they should take them into careful consideration and come to a definite finding anent them." And from that moment, be it observed. Dr Gibb parted company with the last pretence of authority, either from his Church or her committee. He and any two individuals of the Presbyterian ministry might just as well have got together, struck their pens through every article of their Church's creed that clashed with their own opinions or with the creed of the Roman Catholic Church, and have sent the product of their labors and profound unanimity to the Pope at Home, asking him "to come to a definite finding anent it." As he would! The committee of which Dr Gibb was chairman had never so much as resolved to accept the original articles as a basis of treaty, much less the brand new creed of Dr Gibb's subcommittee. Yet before they have so much as seen these new articles, Dr Gibb has forwarded them to the Methodist and Congregational Committees for a "definite finding anent them." Needless to say even if the entire Presbyterian Committee had so far lost their sanity as to cut every shred of Presbyterianism out of their Church's creed, and done the same thing, they would have been equally ultra vires.

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3. The next stage is, that "after an interval the Presbyterian Committee met." Like, I presume, other members, I had got a copy of the product of the subcommittee, with an intimation of a meeting of the committee with the representatives of the other churches. But when I read the articles, at a single glance, the whole movement for "evangelical" union in the hands of Dr Gibb took on a new aspect. I could not believe my eyes when I read the new creed, and made the comment that whoever was at the bottom of it, it could not be the work of the professors. For very good reasons, some of them quite Obvious, I did not attend this meeting; and it got on excellently and unanimously without me. How many of the 24 members of the committee attended has yet to be learned. But did those who attended get a chance to consider the articles and come to any conclusion on their own account, representing, as they were supposed to do, the dearest interests of their Church? No. Dr Gibb had it all arranged, and appears as general manager of the whole concert And while they were "deliberating," and before they had completed half their work, they were hustled again. "The work of revision," writes Dr Gibb "was not completed on this occasion, because arrangements had been made for the attendance of the Methodist and Congregational Committees at a certain hour in the afternoon, and when that hour arrived the Presbyterian Committee had to desist"—had to desist and merge themselves with the Methodist and Congregational Committees. Not one hint does Dr Gibb give of how many of the 24 members of his own committee were thus, in the name of that committee, yet without their knowledge or sanction, by his arrangement previously made, hustled into throwing the creed of their Church into the melting pot of a general meeting of this kind.

4. But there they are, and the half of the articles that the Presbyterian "Committee" had been "considering" were dealt with, and as a result they were amended and "adopted" by this united committee.

5. "Before the next meeting of the united committees took place," says Dr Gibb, "I had left for Wellington I handed over the business to Dr Dunlop's instructing him to arrange for a meeting as soon as possible of the three committees to deal with the remaining articles." In due course, in obedience to these masterful "instructions," Dr Gibb received a report of this meeting, and "it appeared this second united meeting had been as unanimous as the first." I believe nobody outside of a little coterie of the Presbyterian Committee got any notice of this second united unanimous meeting, even if they would have attended; and obviously its meeting with the other committees had not a shadow of pretence to be regarded as a meeting of the Union Committee of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand. So far as I am concerned as a member of that committee, like, I believe, the vast majority of the Union Committee. I never heard more of its doings from its first meeting I attended till the Assembly met and there was put in my hands, amongst the Assembly's printed reports, what purported to be the report of the Union Committee, where for the first time I saw the articles of the new "Evangelical" Church of New Zealand that had survived the furnace of Dr Gibb's "united" and uniting committees.

In this report the following sentences are sufficient to reveal Dr Gibb's ideas and intentions:—"The following are the articles unanimously approved of by the Methodist and Presbyterian Committees. . . . Your committee ask the Assembly to consider these articles seriatim to adopt them provision ally, and send them down to presbyteries and kirk sessions with an inquiry as to whether they consider union desirable on this or a similar doctrinal basis" And what he expected the Assembly to do, he had already announced at Lyttelton, on his way to the Assembly, under the title of "Acting-Moderator" "He was of opinion that the Wesleyan proposals would be approved by the General Assembly of Presbyterians." Here his new creed is adroitly called "Wesleyan proposals." "There will be a fight, though." he prophesied: and be concluded his interview: "It is alleged, also, that the union would lead to doctrinal strife, but I think these difficulties are mere bogies." When visions are about, there is no knowing what some people may regard as "bogies." Consequently, it appears, Dr Gibb expected that, it is presumed, on the testimony of great names and to the sound of big drums, the General Assembly of Presbyterians would swallow holus-bolus a new creed and new faith; while he should announce to an expectant world the birth, as of one born out of due page 69 season, of the National "Evangelical" Church of New Zealand! Later, the simple Presbyterians were to discover that they had been misled into a fog or become agnostic on the main articles of their Christian faith—but only, be it observed, 'provisionally"! This wise "provision" would make the change of front easier: while it left room for new developments, it also left room for a return to sanity and to repentance and new obedience!

6. What did happen may be learned in connection with Dr Gibb's sixth stage. He called a meeting of the Union Committee—the first that in any fulness could reasonably have been convened since the previous Assembly,—and to them was allotted the barren "honor" of "adopting" the printed report and articles already in the hands of members of Assembly, and the creed already before three Churches as the Creed of the Union Committee. Of the meeting that took place Dr Gibb gives no record or hint in his letter. Of the great history-making Presbyterian Committee of 24 that had been so busy during the year concocting, "after careful consideration," a new creed for the "Evangelical" National Church of New Zealand only three turned up to meet the convener; and among the three not one, unless Mr A. C. Begg were one, of the "unanimous committee" who had "'united' two churches once so far apart in the matter of doctrine"! This was very sad and ominous; for, inveterate Protestant that I am, I was one of the three! Why the others did not attend I have no means of knowing. Most of them, like myself, had been treated as ciphers during the year; they therefore might have thought that they did not count, and did not, like me, want to count only among the Protestants, and that possibly their absence now might be counted to them for righteousness. Other less important considerations as their not having heard of the meeting, or their having other engagements, may possibly have accounted for their absence. Anyway, I believe 20 out of the 24 members mentioned were in Dunedin at Assembly time. I would not have mentioned this meeting, which being duly called was entitled to be regarded as a meeting of the committee, if Dr Gibb had not ungenerously and unfairly left it to be inferred that I was attending all the meetings of his committee, and only uttered a somewhat feeble and belated protest in the final meeting presently to be mentioned. For at this meeting of four I let it clearly be known to Dr Gibb what I for one thought of the new creed, and that I believed it never would be accepted "provisionally" or otherwise either by committee or Assembly. Mr A. C. Begg and the Rev. W. G. Dixon, the others present, will bear me out that my objections, which appeared new to them, were neither indefinite nor feeble. From the outset Dr Gibb agreed that a committee of four could do nothing, and he intimated he would call another urgent meeting. The consequence was that the union debate could not come before the Assembly during the first week. The second meeting constituting the sixth and, as I hoped, last stage in Dr Gibb's new creed, was attended by a good many, and the statement I made regarding it in my letter of the 26th of November is not questioned, much less refuted, by Dr Gibb's letter—unless silence be refutation. I wrote of this meeting: "The fact is, it was unanimously agreed in the last meeting of the Presbyterian Committee to report to the Assembly that consideration of articles of faith was not 'sufficiently matured' for them to be laid before the Assembly"; a statement regarding which Dr Gibb observes a silence that may be felt. And I will now add, what Dr Gibb might have been spared, that the committee practically ignored his printed report and articles, except so far as to permit him to pass the exordium and peroration of his report. The Rev. Mr Hewitson drew up, at request of the meeting, a motion, which was unanimously carried, to the effect that the Assembly should submit the previous question to the Church at large, whether negotiations should be entered into for a union at all; for the committee felt that the Church at large had never constitutionally given its sanction to this movement. It was he who dictated more than once as the finding of the committee for insertion in the new report the words I have referred to, that consideration of articles of faith was "not sufficiently matured." and thus clearly affirmed the fact that the articles referred to were never assented to by the Union Committee. Then Dr Gibb suggested that the articles might the embodied in the report as articles under consideration. I rose and protested against their getting even the sanction of this side-wind, and challenged the production of minutes to show the relation of the committee to the articles. No minutes were forthcoming; and as I do not know who is the page 70 secretary to this epoch-making committee, I will add that I have never heard any minute read. And, as Dr Gibb shows in his own letter, no independent sanction of even an infinitesimal fraction of his committee was ever at any duly convened meeting obtained for these articles. Consequently, the motion of Mr Hewitson disposed of them when, for the first and last time, the Union Committee of the Presbyterian Church came together in fairly full strength The Committee, courteously and gently withal, but as firmly as possible, refused to be committed to what Dr Gibb had with so much enthusiasm done in their name. And if Dr Gibb had kept perfect faith with his committee (or had not so completely mistaken and misinterpreted their mind and temper); if he had made his new report in spirit and in letter in terms of their finding, or had even kept his speech within the terms of the evasive report which he submitted to the Assembly, all this present trouble, with its inevitable consequences, would not have arisen. But Dr Gibb seems to have committed himself, if not his committee, up to the hilt to other persons or committees; consequently he seems to have either found it impossible to draw back, or was determined not to do so. Anyway, his zeal in the Assembly outran all discretion; he seems to have entered the fool's paradise of "Evangelical" Union, and so, again treating his committee as ciphers, he declared in the Assembly that his committee were unanimous for this new creed. Plainly, the object of my protest in the Assembly, which Dr Gibb as unwisely as unfairly endeavored to burk, was to dear myself and others for whom I might speak from all complicity in a double-dealing with the Church's creed, and to protest from the outset that the Union Committee of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand never gave its sanction to this new creed.

In conclusion, permit me to point out to the Church at large as a remark able and significant fact the absence of the elders—the ordinary representatives of the people—from any part, at its crucial stage, in this new creed-making Instead of there being, according to the constitution of the Church, an equal number of ministers and elders on so vitally important a committee, only the names of six elders appear on this committee of 24: and I question if a single one of the six ever gave, or ever would give, his assent to this new creed. It certainly does not increase one's confidence in the coming new "Evangelical" Church of New Zealand that it should be purely a clerical movement, and the origin and sanction of its creed shrouded in mystery. "Evasive and ambiguous I have described the new creed; evasive and ambiguous is Dr Gibb's history of its inception.

What I have now written will help to throw some light on the first two questions at the beginning of this letter, and it will help Presbyterians to seek for more. What it shows is that it was an act of rare audacity and recklessness for Dr Gibb to claim for this new creed of his the unanimous sanction of the Union Committee of the Presbyterian Church. And before the Church at large runs the risk by giving a mandate to Dr Gibb or any clerical coterie of flinging the most vital Articles of her faith into the crucible of a visionary clerical debating society, she will ask more about this new creed that, full grown, has suddenly emerged, like a chimera, from her bosom. Who are its authors, and what, indeed, do they believe and mean, and whither are they bound? As the Ancient Mariner relates:

We were the first that ever burst,
Into that silent sea.

This long letter is written for the information of Presbyterians, and its length will, it is to be hoped, deter the merely curious from a perusal of it. Regarding the third question, and eventually the only question, as to what this new creed means, that is a large question not suited to your columns, and one that a great many highly competent to elucidate it will take a part in deciding. A distinguished American divine (not a Presbyterian) says that the Presbyterian Church is the most theological in the world; she is at all events amply competent both to understand and defend her creed. Already the Rev. J Jolly, one of the "unanimous" Union Committee, writes to the Outlook that the new creed "will create keen and angry discussions, even to the breaking of friendships"; and he declares that there has been "eliminated from the English Presbyterian Articles—the alleged "basis" of the new creed-"the very centre of the Gospel, the very ground of our hopes." Tins only shows how necessary it is that this new creed should be carefully scrutinised, and page 71 that no sanction of great names or of "unanimous" committees should stand in the way of the most searching investigation. It is at least fairly clear that the new creed can with no more truth be said to be based on Principal Dykes's English Presbyterian Articles than a parody and burlesque of a poem can be said to be based on the poem burlesqued, as it no more represents the Presbyterians of New Zealand than do the opinions of the celebrated three tailors of Tooley street represent those of "the people of England."

Dr Gibb informs me "through you" that he "will not reply to any further letter I may send to you." therein manifesting a rare discretion The matter raised, he says, "is not of general interest," and represents only a "difference of opinion between me and Mr Eraser," therein manifesting a rare obtuseness And he concludes: "If it were the question of union, that would be another matter"! therein provoking me to say something unkind. I will rather add: May Presbyterians, when they have come through their hereditary theological controversy, understand their creed even better and love it more, and exclaim at the close: "No man having drunk old wine straightway desireth new; for be saith, The old is better!"