quire something more than the authority of Mr Smith; for we have the testimony of Chrysostom on our side, who knew his native Greek language infinitely better than the most accomplished scholar of modern times, and who, in one of his discourses on the very text which Mr Smith has adopted in his discourses, defends and maintains the doctrine generally held upon the subject in the following decisive terms :— "Where He (Christ) said, 'Do not think that I came to destroy the law; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfil,' that declaration not only laid a check upon the forwardness of the Jews, but it likewise sealed up the lips of heretics, who alleged that the old law was from the devil. For if Christ came to destroy his tyranny, on what account did He not destroy the law, but even fulfil it? For He not merely said, 'I do not destroy,' which certainly had been sufficient, but He likewise added, 'I fulfil,' which indicated that He was not only no adversary of the law, but was a defender of it. And in what way, do you ask, did He not destroy but fulfil the law or the prophets? The prophets He fulfilled, because He confirmed by His works all things that had been spoken by them; wherefore, the evangelist says, in respect of each of the following particulars, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, viz., when He was born, also when the children chanted that admirable hymn respecting Him, also when He entered into Jerusalem riding upon an ass, also in many other particulars did He fulfil the prophets, all of which would never have been fulfilled unless He had come. The law, indeed, He fulfilled, not in one way only, but also in a second, and even in a third. In one way, indeed, because He never transgressed in anything what possessed legal authority, but fulfilled the whole law; for hearken to what He said to John, Thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness,' and to what He said to the Jews, 'Which of you accuses me of sin?' and again to His disciples, "The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.' Therefore, in this first way, He fulfilled the law. In a second way He likewise fulfilled it-viz., in what He did in our stead and upon our account; for is it not marvellous that He not only fulfilled it Himself, but that He graciously bestowed upon us that we should fulfil it, which Paul thus manifestly declares For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one who believes ;' and he further says that He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.' For since the law had for its object to make men righteous, but was enfeebled or weakened, He, by His coming and bringing in the righteousness which is of faith, esta blished the purpose of the law; and what it availed not to accomplish by the letter He accomplished by faith; and therefore He said, 'I am not come to destroy the law.' But if any one inquire diligently, he shall find another and a third way in which this has been done. What is that? By means of the precepts which He gave; for there was no abrogation of the former commandments, but an enlargement and fulfilment of them; for the commandment, Thou shalt not kill,' is not abrogated by the commandment against anger, but it is fulfilled and strengthened by it, and the same of all the others." The authority which Mr Smith ascribes to the Old Testament Scriptures is exceedingly limited, and does not rest upon their having a divine revelation of the holy mind and will of God binding upon the faith and obedience of men, but rests solely upon this one ground, and to this one effect, that they are sufficient to establish any clear and undeniable spiritual truth, and any moral duty, "seeing," he adds, "that moral duty carries its reason in itself, and is therefore binding whenever and wherever, and by whomsoever received." It is difficult to understand how any clear and undeniable spiritual truth requires to be established; for if it be clear and undeniable, to go about to establish it must be superfluous; and if this be the use of the Old Testament Scriptures, they are indeed superseded, not by the New Testament Scriptures merely, but by the dictates of natural religion, and the common-sense of mankind. To propound that they are also of sufficient authority for establishing any moral duty, and this because moral duty carries its reason in itself, is in effect to ascribe to them no higher function or use than belongs to the writings of any respectable human author; nay, the same thing may be affirmed of the Apocryphal writings, and, in point of fact, it has been affirmed by the canons of the Episcopal Church. But previous to leaving this part of the subject, it is important to remark that the same limitation which Mr Smith imposes upon the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures generally-viz., that it is merely didactic authority, and not nomothetic or divinely obligatory on faith and practice-he has expressly and particularly affirmed concerning the authority of the Decalogue. Thus, he says, The Ten Commandments contain a weighty summary of moral duty, and in so far are perpetually binding." Moral duty, he affirms, carries its reason in itself, and is therefore binding, "whenever, and wherever, and by whomsoever received." Does it not follow from this that he rests the authority of the Ten Commandments essentially and solely upon their accordance with the dictates of man's moral judgment, and not upon the divine will of the Supreme Lawgiver. When Mr Smith, at a subsequent stage of the proceedings, gave a statement of his views to the Presbytery, whilst he professed to re-affirm his replies given at the meeting in October, of which that commented upon was one, he essentially modified it, by leaving out the words "in so far:" 66 "But if I understand that substantially, though not formally, he would have me to re-affirm my replies given at the meeting in October, I can most frankly do so, which I now do to this effect: That I hold most firmly the immutability of all divine moral law; and that the Decalogue contains a divinely authenticated summary of that law, which is everlastingly binding, only that the New Testament contains a fuller and clearer statement of the law." Now, although this is a more guarded statement than the previous, and as such was seized upon by one of the dissentients, and made one of the grounds for a motion to the effect that it amounts to a repudiation or disavowal of the opinions contained in the sermons, it requires to be observed that it concedes nothing in the way of repudiation or disavowal. Mr Smith does not, indeed, now say that the authority of the Decalogue rests upon its being merely a summary of moral duty; but neither does he say that its authority rests unrepealed and unabrogated upon the divine ordination and will of Him whose throne is for ever and ever, and the sceptre of whose kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. Even the latter and less objectionable statement is entirely compatible with his continuing to hold and teach, "The moral law, as known to the Jews, was perfect so far, being free from mistake; but the perfect law of God is only uttered in the New Testament, and illustrated in the life of Jesus." "The Christian conscience possesses the advantage of a higher law than they (the Jews) knew." And-" Look back on the sad pages of Christian story-sad, in spite of many a noble heroism and holy service and as you read the tale of cruel persecutions, and absurd pretensions, and meddlesome interferences, and grasping claims, let me tell you, you will lose all the lessons of wisdom to be gathered from such facts if you ascribe them to any peculiar wickedness in those by whom they were done, for they were often good, and loving, and pious, and true men; but they were men who tried to work out both the Old Testament and the New, and the consequence was, that they turned the gospel of Christ into oppression, and cruelty, and wrong. Hence it is that I am so anxious to impress it on you that the law and the prophets are alike fulfilled and annulled in Christ; for I am quite certain that in any attempt to combine them, if the law will gain something, the gospel will suffer more- -Moses may be enlarged, but Christ will far more be restrained." The proceedings of the Presbytery at the meeting where Mr Smith's answers were received, are given in the papers before the Assembly, and it will be seen that, after two motions had been made and withdrawn(and here I would observe that they were not made at night, but in the forenoon) a third motion was adopted unanimously, viz., "That the answers were unsatisfactory." We now come to the last step in the proceedings, and that which gave rise to the dissent which was brought before the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, referred by that court to the General Assembly. It was moved and unanimously agreed to, that a "Committee be appointed to take inte consideration the position in which the whole of this subject is now placed, and to recommend to the Presbytery at an early day what measures, in their judgment, appear to be called for in this case." It will be recollected that the Presbytery, at their meeting on the 12th day of September, unanimously agreed to the following deliverance :—" "That the two discourses of Mr Smith be disapproved and censured, as containing statements regarding the moral law of the Old Testament Scripture which are at variance with the language of the Confession and the teaching of Scripture." Now, the committee, proceeding upon this deliverance, suggested to the Presbytery that they should lay before Mr Smith, more categorically and in detail, the objectionable nature of the doctrine in his two sermons, as under the two heads of "1. The Moral Law; 2. The Old Testament Scriptures." And it will be observed that, in furtherance of this suggestion, the committee did further agree to recommend to the Presbytery to call Mr Smith's special attention to certain full extracts from his sermons, such as they deemed to be objectionable, and also to the extracts from the teaching of the Confession of Faith and of the Holy Scriptures appended to these several extracts. And here I may remark that there has been an attempt to-day to represent our position as if we had placed Mr Smith upon trial. That was by no means the position in which he stood towards us. We did not meet with him as a party at all. We looked at and dealt with him as a brother. Our great object was, by private conference, to bring him to judge as we did of his sermons, and to adopt the contrary views which it is said by the dissentients he has adopted. We, however, question that. We have no ground for adopting that view; yet they say he has done that. The whole of our proceedings were, therefore, those of a committee of Christian men and of brethren, with a view to bring Mr Smith to what we considered a right way of thinking upon essential facts of divine truth, so that not only the Presbytery, but the whole community, might have the fullest confidence, not only in his talents and eloquence, but in the scriptural care and fidelity and truth of his discourses in future. All that we did was with a view to his spiritual good; and, therefore, it is entirely to misrepresent the mind and feeling of the Presbytery to consider us as endeavouring to entangle him in any views but those which he was led to embrace after conference and by study of the Word of God, and prayer, as the views of Scripture. Now, before proceeding further, it is necessary to defend the report of the committee from an allegation which was openly made in the Presbytery, and which is more covertly and indirectly alluded to in the reasons of the dissentients -viz, That it goes beyond the original findings of the Presbytery, and raises other issues. To this we reply that it does no such thing, but in express terms reduplicates upon the previous findings of the Presbytery; for it purports to extract passages which confirm these:-1. Thus, Mr Smith's sermons contain statements regarding the moral law at variance with the Confessions and Scriptures; and, 2. Passages which contain statements regarding the Old Testament Scriptures of a singular nature, and which prove that the same principles as to superseding, annulling, and abrogating are to be applied to them wholly, as had been applied to the moral law of the Old Testament. I should here remark, further, that those members of the committee who have appended their names to the Reasons of Dissent, made no objection whatever of the nature now complained of in the committee, or considered that any irregular step whatever was taken, but cordially co-operated in preparing the report, and approved of the extracts, and the pages annexed to them severally from the Scriptures and the Confession of Faith. Having thus shown that the first reason of dissent is entirely groundless, I now proceed to consider the second reason:-"II. Because the erroneous opinions which, in the judgment of the Presbytery, the sermons were fitted to teach, have been explicitly disavowed, and the opposite truths confessed in language that is in entire harmony with the standards of the Church." After the elaborate review which we have taken of the whole proceedings in the case, it is humbly submitted that the dissentients had no valid ground whatever for making this declaration. What was the finding of the Presbytery after hearing Mr Smith's third statement a statement, be it remembered, in which the dissentients acquiesced? It was in these brief but decided terms:-" That the answers were unsatisfactory." Now, be it observed, that Mr Smith had made no subsequent statement whatever in the Presbytery, of one description or another, from that third statement, until after the motion was made in the Presbytery, which the dissentients supported, and which they now defend by this second reason. When and where were his erroneous opinions in the sermons disavowed, and the opposite truths confessed? Let them specify, if they can, the time and place. That it was not in the Presbytery can be proved in the most conclusive manner. But this is not the only groundless statement of which there is cause to complain. What does the motion, which the dissentients supported, and now ask this Assembly to confirm, aver in its second clause? It runs in the following terms:-"2. That the attention of Mr Smith having been specially called, in terms of the report, to those passages in the sermons on which the foregoing sentence is based, and now understanding that he disclaims and rejects the views which the Presbytery considers the passages to convey, and that he adheres to those doctrines of Scripture and the Confession of Faith with which the Presbytery have found the passages in question to be at variance, the Presbytery deem it unneces sary to take any further action in the case." Whatever grounds the mover and supporters of this motion had for understanding what is here affirmed, they were grounds never heard by the Presbytery from Mr Sinith. The grounds must have been recent- now understanding." This motion was made on 19th November. The last statement of Mr Smith, which was declared to be unsatisfactory, was made on the 3d day of October, or more than six weeks prior to the motion. The Presbytery records show that there neither was, nor could be any opportunity for Mr Smith to make any statement to the Presbytery whatever. Whence, then, did this understanding come? Looked at in the light of a matter predicated, the statement in the motion speaks of a fact which had not taken place when the predication was made. And looked at in the light of a matter assumed and expected to be confirmed by Mr Smith-in other words, as an anticipated result-the prediction was entirely defeated by Mr Smith's reply. Instead of disclaiming and rejecting the views complained of by the Presbytery as at variance with the Scriptures and the Confession, what does Mr Smith say ?— "Moderator, it is not easy for me, without more time to weigh the matter, to say whether I can accept Dr Buchanan's motion or not. It may mean much or little, according to the point of view from which it is looked at. If I view it in the light of his speech, it may imply a great deal, which would require me to explain at some length ere I could give any reply whatever. Again, if I view it in the light of the report now given in, then, too, it would mean a great deal; but I should be able at once to decline adherence to it. But if I understand that substantially, though not formally, he would have me to re-affirm my replies given at the meeting in October, I can most frankly do so, which I now do to this effect-1. That I hold most firmly the immutability of all divine moral law, and that the Decalogue contains a divinely authenticated summary of that law, which is everlastingly binding; only that the New Testament contains a fuller and clearer statement of that law. 2. That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, and the only rule of faith and manners; and further, that their organic relation is of such a nature that the Old Testament does not derive its authority from the New, but both have the same kind of authority, and that both taken together are the complete revelation of the Divine will. I therefore, of course, now, as always, unhesitatingly disclaim any opinion at variance with these truths, which has been ascribed to me as supposed to be taught in my sermons.' We have already shown that the first portion of this statement differs from the reply to which he refers as given on 3d October. There he says:-"To sum up my reply to this part of the question as distinctly as I am able, I hold that all moral principle is unchangeably binding, and that the Decalogue, so far as it is moral, partakes of that unchange |