The Anderson Intelligencer

THE SOUTH CAROLINA SYNOD.

A Review of the Proceedings and a Re-affirmation of the Position of the Minority on the Woodrow Question.

[Published by Request.]

To the Editor News and Courier: Your admirable paper (by far the best we ever had in South Carolina) caters for a variety of tastes and represents many different interests. It is not every one who reads all the articles you set before us. You have published the proceedings of the late South Carolina Synod, and though many are tired of the whole matter which chiefly occupied them, yet what you set forth has been read with great interest by a large number of persons. Comments on those proceedings you will not consider out of order. The accidental majority would not suffer debate and have put the Synod into a position which, it is believed, her ministers, elders and members do not approve and will not sustain.

Allow me then to say imprimis that what took place in the Synod of South Carolina, touching the Anti-Woodrow case, was no new thing, but just what is the continually recurring fact in the history of human opinion. That body, as well as the Presbytery of Charleston, has agreed to and confirmed the erroneous deliverances of our last Assembly—but "Truth crushed to earth shall rise again. The eternal years of God are hers!"

In this controversy let me say now to your readers, both parties of us Presbyterians are agreed in maintaining the plenary or verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. Both are agreed that God is the Almighty Creator of all things. And both agree that He is still carrying on His work of creation. Nor is either party disposed to deny what scientific naturalists affirm, viz: that descent with modification is the law of the successive appearances of the animal tribes on this globe from the beginning until we come down to man. And both parties agree that God is now creating man just as He creates all other animals.

We differ upon only one point, viz: the creation of the body of Adam. And our difference turns upon a single word in our English Bible, which may or may not be correctly translated. As to that word, dust, our side, with Dr. Woodrow in the lead affirms nothing; we only say that it may mean some sort of organized material such as the frame of an animal which God modified to suit His purpose in creating man. The other side, however, insist that the word used by our translators must be accepted by us as the only proper signification of the Hebrew term, and they threaten us all, as well as Dr. Woodrow, with serious consequences for the doubts we express touching this one English word.

Now, as to the question of the creation of our first father, it is maintained on our side, that the last General Assembly not only added to, but directly contradicted the Word of God. The decree of the Assembly at Augusta was in these words: "That Adam and Eve were created body and soul by immediate acts of Almighty power." It was thus denied that God could have employed any time in the creation of Adam. But the Scripture says, "The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Here is plainly set forth not an immediate act, but a work. The whole process of creation described by Moses was gradual, occupying six days; and the creation of the first man and woman were very important parts of the whole. It is not for us to decide how great or how small a portion of the sixth day was consumed therein. Only this much is made certain, that the creation of our first parents cannot have been by "immediate acts" as our Assembly has ventured to assert. Because, the Almighty must have formed Adam's body out of the dust of the ground before he could breathe into it the breath of life. He must have created Adam's nostrils before he could breathe into them. In like manner Eve's body did not spring immediately into being by one act of Almighty power, for God first caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam; and after that He took out one of his ribs; and then He closed up the flesh instead thereof; and after all these acts He began the work of fashioning Eve's body out of the rib. Can any mortal tell how many minutes or hours our Maker was pleased to employ on that sixth day in converting the mere rib of Adam into the full developed woman, Eve? Did our Assembly know anything whatever about that of which it here affirms? Yet, in the very face of Scripture, it has presumed to alter its decree, which if we accept not we are dangerous heretics! And Charleston Presbytery and the Synod of South Carolina have been persuaded to follow the Assembly in this contradiction of the Bible.

Thus, Mr. Editor, you perceive that we freely criticize and condemn our Assembly, but we are intensely loyal to our Church. The Assembly is not our Church, nor is any majority of the Presbyteries our Church. They only represent or misrepresent it, as the case may be. Nor yet are majorities in any case, however large, at all sure to be in the right. In fact, it is very apt to be the case that the minority is in the right. If I am asked then, where is your Church? I answer that her members and office-bearers are in all these Southern States, and that her doctrine is not in her assemblies, or her synods, but in her Confession, and her Catechisms, and in the holy and infallible Word of God, out of which these Standards were taken.

Yet further, Mr. Editor, we condemn what these fallible Courts of our Church have said and done in this matter, but we are no schismatics. We follow the immortal John Calvin, and hold that we are never to go out from the Church except for the denial by her of fundamental truth. She is our mother, (so Calvin has taught us,) and as such we must honor and obey her, so long as she obeys her Head. We are never to forsake the Church, unless we have to forsake her in order to hold to Him. Unless turned out of the Church we are always to remain in her bosom, and in the beautiful language of Augustin, which Calvin quotes, we are "pityingly to correct what we can, but patiently to bear what we cannot correct, in love lamenting and mourning until God shall either reform and correct, or, at the harvest, root up the tares and scatter the chaff."

The case of the Andover Seminary and its professors has been called in your columns. "A rival of the Woodrow case." It is really, however, a very different affair—that is, the denial of the great Christian doctrine that, "Now is the day of salvation," and a presumptuous declaration that for all heathen people there must be a probation after death. Our case is simply a doubt as to whether the Hebrew word, translated "dust" in our English Bible, really and necessarily signifies that impalpable powder which we are all so familiar with in these times of drought.

JOHN B. ADGER.

Dr. Woodrow will have to Go.

The Presbyterian Synod met at Spartanburg Thursday. Dr. Strickler reported a resolution from the committee on the Seminary, approved by all but one member, instructing the board of directors to meet on December 8 and request Dr. Woodrow to resign, and if he refused that the committee proceed to vacate the chair of Perkins professor, and make such other arrangements to fill the same as may appear suitable. Dr. Woodrow spoke in opposition, Dr. Rogers supporting the resolution. Dr. Clisby, the Revs. W. A. Milner, J. H. Cartledge, John W. Baker and others took part in the debate. Dr. Woodrow replied. A division was taken late at night. It resulted: Ayes 66, nays 8.

—A Washington letter says there is as much caste in negro society at the Capital as among the whites. The better educated and better bred have little to do with the ignorant, and with those whose blood they do not think so good as theirs. They have their balls and parties, literary societies and social clubs, and enjoy life in much the same way as their Caucasian brothers.