II.

Reply of Rev. Principal, Dykes, D.D.,

Rev. and Dear Sir,—I duly received yours of the 21st December last, with reprint from the 'Otago Daily Times.'

1. In reply to your inquiry, I have to say that the "Twenty-four Articles of the Faith" have not displaced the Westminster Confession as the Subordinate Standard of the Presbyterian Church of England, as you will see from the Formula by which ministers are required to accept it, a copy of which I append. I understand the "Articles" as explaining what is to be included in the "body of Christian doctrine set forth in the Westminster Confession." That is by itself a vague expression, but it is taken to be just the doctrine "more briefly expressed" in the Articles. (Much Confessional material embraced in the Westminster document has now been relegated to a secondary place in our "Appendix," which is merely a working agreement for the sake of peace.)

2. The New Zealand draft, to judge by the paper you send me, has borrowed a good deal of the language of our Articles, and I suppose the framers of it had a right to use what they found suitable to their purpose. But they have cut out all its Calvinism, and its Calvinism is an essential part of it as accepted in our Church; nor could the mutilated remainder of it be fairly called or regarded as our articles of Faith" any longer, but as a quite different thing.

3. I am neither called on to express any opinion on the wisdom of the policy of uniting various Evangelical Churches in New Zealand on a non-Calvinistic basis, nor am I in a position to do so, because I do not know the local circumstances. That is a very grave question, on which the Presbyterians of New Zealand will have to reach their own conclusions, in view of all the conditions affecting the position and prospects of the Kingdom of God in that part of the world.

4. But if it were desired to find a general statement of the Evangelical Faith common to all the non-Episcopal Churches as a basis for negotiations on such a wide proposal for Unon, I should have thought it might have been found page 19 in the "Free Church Catechism," drawn up by a Committee; representing different communions, rather than by taking some of our Articles and rejecting or altering others. I presume that Catechism is known on your side of the globe. It can be had from the Memorial Hall, in Farringdon street, London.