History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China

by John Van Nest Talmage

So much for the Report of the Committee of Synod. The decision of Synod has been given, as stated above. The important question now is, what will be the result of this decision on the Church at Amoy? This question, however, cannot yet be answered with certainty, for we cannot yet even guess what course the Missionaries there, when they learn the decision of Synod, will feel it their duty to pursue. There may be more, but I can now only think of three ways open before them. (1.) To ask the Board to recall them. They firmly believe that their course of proceeding, in organizing the Church at Amoy, is not only in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, but also with the principles of our Church. To be the instruments, then, of dividing the Church, which God has gathered by their hands, may be to sin against their consciences. They may therefore ask the Board to appoint other agents to carry out the decision of Synod. This would not be insubordination, but perfect subordination both to the authority of Synod and also to that authority which all Protestant Christians acknowledge to be supreme. This, I suppose, would be the most natural course for the brethren to take, except for one consideration; that is, their love for the Churches gathered by them, or under their care, and their responsibility in reference to the spiritual welfare of those disciples of the Lord. It would be the severest trial they have ever been called on to endure to be recalled from their work. Therefore (2.) They may delay their action, making one more effort to get their views published, hoping that the Church will yet change her decision, and not require of them to engage in a proceeding which they think will be so injurious to the cause of Christ; but, on the contrary, will approve of the course heretofore adopted by them as altogether scriptural, and the true doctrine of our Church. Or (3.) They may possibly, after mature reflection, think the least evil will be to carry out the decision of Synod, although that decision be altogether contrary to their own judgment. Then they will take three of the six churches, which now are all of our order, and organize these three a separate Denomination and an integral part of the Church in America. This is the course which at home will be generally expected of them.

Now let us suppose that they will adopt this third course, and then let us look calmly at its results—at the supposed or real advantages thereof, and the supposed or real evils thereof.

We first look at the Advantages.

1. The most important is, or is supposed to be, that there will thus be higher courts of jurisdiction to which appeals may be made, and by which orthodoxy and good order may be the better secured to the Church at Amoy. Such advantages, if they can be thus secured, we would by no means underrate. There sometimes are cases of appeal for which we need the highest court practicable—the collective wisdom of the Church so far as it can be obtained; and the preservation of orthodoxy and good order is of the first importance. Now let us see whether the plan proposed will secure these advantages. Let us suppose that one of the brethren feels himself aggrieved by the decision of the Classis of Amoy, and he appeals to the Particular Synod of Albany, and thence to the General Synod. He will not be denied the right to such appeal. But, in order that the appeal may be properly prosecuted and disposed of, the appellant and the representative of Classis should be present in these higher courts. Can this be secured? Is the waste of time, of a year or more, nothing? and where shall the thousands of dollars of necessary expense come from? Now suppose this appellant to be a Chinese brother. He also has rights. But how, on this plan, can he possibly obtain them? Suppose (which of itself is an absurdity) that the money be raised for him, and he is permitted to stand on the floor of Synod. He cannot speak, read, or write a word of English. Not a member of Synod can speak, read, or write a word of his language, except it be the brother prosecuting him. I ask, is it possible for him thus to obtain justice? But, waiving all these disadvantages, the only points on which there is the least probability that an appeal of a Chinese brother would come up before the higher courts, are points on which these higher courts would not be qualified to decide. They would doubtless grow out of the peculiar customs and laws of the Chinese—points on which the Missionary, after he has been on the ground a dozen years, often feels unwilling to decide, and takes the opinion of the native elders in preference to his own. Is it right to impose a yoke like this on that little Church which God is gathering by your instrumentality in that far-off land of China? But it is said, that these cases of appeal (because of impracticability) will very rarely or never happen. Be it so; then this supposed advantage will seldom or never occur, and if it should occur, it would prove a disadvantage. The highest practical court of appeal for the native churches can be secured only on the plan for which the Missionaries contend. Why must we deprive the native Christians of the benefit of the collective wisdom of all the churches of like doctrine and order among them?

As regards orthodoxy and good order, it is incumbent on the Church at home to use her utmost endeavors to secure these. Doubtless this was the great design of Synod, both in the action of 1857 and in the action of 1863. But will the plan of Synod give us any greater security for these things? How can they be secured? We answer, under God, only through your Missionaries. The greater your hold on your Missionaries, the better security for the churches under their care. The plan of Synod would place your Missionaries ecclesiastically almost beyond your control. They must be dismissed from the various Classes in this country, and, together with the native churches under their care, form themselves into a Chinese Classis. Either they will have a controlling influence over the native portion of this Classis or they will not. If they have, then your only way to discipline them will be to discipline their Classis. It would be a new doctrine in our Church, to make the Board of Foreign Missions an ecclesiastical medium between the Synod and one of its Classes, or to enforce discipline over the ministry by the money rod. The Classis, as such, must be disciplined by the direct act of Synod. Or, suppose the Missionaries do not have such controlling influence over the native members of Classis, for the native members will outnumber, and, unless the action of Synod (as we greatly fear) seriously retard the work at Amoy, will very soon greatly outnumber the Missionaries. What then? Your Missionaries are under the ecclesiastical control of the native converts. Their doctrines and morals are to be decided on by a court composed mainly of recent converts from heathenism. The only way to bring them before the higher courts in this country, is through this native court, as we have already seen, almost an impossibility. Is it not plain that the Church at home will not thus have a moiety of the control over her Missionaries she now has? Is this the way to keep the Church at Amoy sound and pure? It seems to be supposed by some that the Missionaries desire to be separated from the control of the Church at home. This is altogether a mistake, and another result of withholding their views from the public. They have no such desire. The contrary is altogether the fact. They do not desire to be placed under the control of the native Chinese churches. They did not derive their authority from those churches, they are not sustained by them, and they are in no sense their agents, but they derive their authority through, are sustained by, and are altogether the agents of the Church in this country; therefore the Church at home has and should retain control over them. They are amenable to the Church at home, through their several Classes. These are the only courts qualified to take cognizance of their doctrines and morals. They desire to remain in this relation. We think they have a right to demand this, until such time as they become agents of the Church in China, instead of the Church in America.

Suppose by some means suspicion should arise at home concerning the orthodoxy or morality of one or more of your Missionaries. On the plan proposed, what can the Church do with them? May the Board of Missions, on mere report or suspicion, recall them without giving them a proper trial? Can the Board try them? No. It is not an ecclesiastical court. Will the Church be satisfied with the decision of a court, a majority of whose members have recently been converted from heathenism through the instrumentality of these very Missionaries? But continue the plan of the Missionaries and all will be simple. If any of the Missionaries give occasion for suspicion, let them be tried by their proper Classes in this country. This is all that the Church at home can do ecclesiastically towards keeping the Church pure in China. Whether the proposed nominal union be consummated or not, the only hold you will have on the Chinese churches will be through your Missionaries. If they will not receive the instructions, and listen to the advice of your Missionaries and of the Synod through them, you would not expect them to obey the injunctions of Synod. Your only other resort will be to withhold from them help. Can you not do the same now?

But in all this discussion, I fear, we lose sight too much of our dependence on the Head of the Church to keep His Church pure. Sure I am that the Church in China cannot be kept pure by legislation on this, the opposite side of the globe. But we expect Christ to reign over, and the Holy Spirit to be given to the churches, and the proper ecclesiastical bodies formed of them in China as well as in this land. Why not? Such are the promises of God. The way to secure these things is by prayer, and the preaching of the pure gospel, not by legislation. Let the Church be careful in her selection of Missionaries. Send only such as she has confidence in—men of God, sound in the faith, apt to teach—and then trust them, or recall them. Don't attempt to control them contrary to their judgment. Strange if this, which is so much insisted on as the policy of our Church, be right, that she cannot get a single man, of all she sends out to China, to think so. Can it be that the Missionary work is so subversive of right reason, or of correct judgment, or of conscientiousness, that all become perverted by engaging in it?

2. Another supposed advantage is the effect it will have in enlisting the sympathies of the Church in behalf of the Mission at Amoy. It is said, tell the Church that we have a flourishing Classis at Amoy, a part of ourselves, connected with General Synod, just like all the other Classes of our Church, the effect will be wonderful in enlisting sympathy, money, and men in behalf of that Mission; otherwise the opposite evil must be apprehended. If these things be so, they are indeed of grave importance. The Mission in China cannot live without the sympathy of the Church at home. But are these things so? It seems to us that the supposition takes for granted that our Church in its Missionary work is influenced by a desire for self-glory, or self-gratification; or, at least, that she is not a Church of liberal views—that she is not at all to be compared, in this respect, with the English Presbyterian Church, or the Free Church of Scotland. Allusion has already been made to the liberality of the English Presbyterian Church. I may now also remark that a large amount of the funds for carrying on the work at Amoy is raised in Scotland from members of the Free Church. They never had any idea that the churches gathered in China were to be a part of their own Church. They do not even ask that they be a part of their sister Church in England. They only ask that they shall be sound in the faith and hold to the essentials of Presbyterianism, even though they have some characteristics peculiar to the Dutch and other Reformed Churches. These Presbyterian brethren in England and Scotland are not only ready to support their own Missionaries in their work of building up the churches under their especial care, but they stand ready to assist the Missionaries of our Church in building up the churches under our especial care. Of their frequent offers to assist us, when they feared we should be in want of funds, our Board can bear testimony. We are not yet willing to believe that our people are a people of narrow views in a matter like this. It is contrary to our history in time past. It is contrary to the facts of the present day. It is contrary to all my observation among our churches. Our people do not first ask whether it be building ourselves up, before they sympathize with a benevolent object. We believe the contrary is the exact truth. It requires a liberal policy to call forth liberal views and action. As regards the enlisting of men, look at the facts. Every man who has gone out from among you, to engage in this Missionary work, begs of you not to adopt a narrow policy. So in regard to obtaining of funds. Usually, the men who are most liberal in giving are most liberal in feeling. This must be so in the very nature of things. The way to alienate the sympathies of the Church from the Mission at Amoy is to divide the Church there by a sectarian policy; and the way to enlist her sympathies is to continue the former plan, and let the work go forward with the Divine blessing as in days past. The people will be more encouraged, and praise God more heartily, when you tell them of six organized churches like our own, and many others growing up all around, than they will if you tell them of only three churches, and only a few out-stations, under our care. They will not object to hear that the English Presbyterian brethren are laboring with us, and organizing churches so nearly like our own. However powerful the motive addressed to the desire to build up our own Church, there are motives infinitely more powerful. Such are the motives to be depended on in endeavoring to elevate the standard of liberality among our people.

Let brethren in the Ministry try the experiment, and tell their people of the wonders of God's grace:—that he has led his servants from our own Church in this land, and from the Presbyterian Church in Great Britain, in their work of evangelizing the heathen, and laying the foundation of the Church of Christ, to lay aside all national animosities, and rise above all denominational prejudices and jealousies—that he has given to the Presbyterian Church in England, and the sister Church in Scotland, a spirit of catholicity and liberality as exhibited in the previous part of this paper—and that, as a consequence, he is causing his Church to grow up in the region of Amoy in beautiful proportions, all the congregations under their care and ours also manifesting the same spirit of catholicity and liberality, submitting to each other according to the Divine command, working together with the utmost harmony, and, as a consequence, with wonderful effectiveness. Can you account for such things except by the energy of the Spirit of God? Surely it is not the spirit of the world, neither is it the spirit of the devil. Try the experiment, then, and see whether the wonders of God's grace will alienate the hearts of his people. Your Missionaries have no doubt—we can hardly understand how any who examine the subject can doubt—we are sure that no one can personally behold the work and yet doubt, that the wonderful blessing of God, which has accompanied the work at Amoy, has been both the cause and the result of this harmonious labor on the part of your Missionaries, and those from the sister Churches in England and Scotland. Therefore, we feel assured that the simple recital of the grace of God thus manifested, must influence the hearts of his people most powerfully, and therefore it is that we beseech the Church not to interfere with, and hinder the work of God. May we not refer, without being charged with disrespect, to the Synod of Jerusalem as a proper example for our General Synod? Peter says, "Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear?" And then the decree, which the Synod sent to the Churches, runs thus: "It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things." The ecclesiastical "power which the Lord hath given" to his Church is "to edification, and not to destruction."

If the Missionaries be allowed to proceed in building up a Church, like our own, simply with reference to the evangelization of China, doubtless brethren in the ministry, and other influential men, could take occasion therefrom to prejudice the Churches against our work. They could do this, if they were so disposed, without any such occasion. But will they do it? We cannot believe that they will. They love the cause of Christ too well, and desire to see the world converted to God too ardently, to permit them to throw any obstacles in the way of our work, even though that work be not carried forward in the manner which they consider altogether the best. If we are right, these brethren will soon see that we are right, and however powerful the motive to be addressed to the desire of extending our own Church, they will find infinitely more powerful motives to be addressed to a more noble desire of the Christian heart. If our people have not yet learned, they should be taught to engage in the work of evangelizing the world, not for the sake of our Church in America, but for the sake of Christ and His Church, and when the Church thus built up is like our own, they should be fully satisfied. We believe they will be satisfied with this.