Literature. This department comprises the miscellaneous publications, which are expressly devoted to promulge the doctrinal principles, and to defend the government and discipline of the Presbyterian churches.

There is a quarterly periodical, by Presbyterian writers, entitled the Biblical Repertory and Theological Review, which is devoted almost exclusively to disquisitions strictly religious, or to those which have a close affinity with them, either on Christian ethics or ecclesiastical history. Several weekly newspapers are issued by them, and very extensively dispersed. The Presbyterian, at Philadelphia; the Presbyterian Advocate, at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; the Presbyterian of the West, at Springfield, Ohio; the Protestant and Herald, at Frankfort, Kentucky; the Watchman of the South, at Richmond, Virginia; and the Observer, at Charleston, South Carolina.

Board of Publication.-In addition to these miscellanies, the Presbyterians have organized a most important and efficient society, denominated the Presbyterian Board of Publication, which was instituted for the purpose of disseminating standard volumes of theology and ecclesiastical history, and also tracts that elucidate and defend Presbyterianism. This board, which is elected by the General Assembly, has printed nearly fifty tracts, doctrinal, ritual, on Popery, historical, and for youth.

Nearly one hundred and thirty works have already been issued by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, which may thus be classified: Biographical, nineteen; devotional, eight; doctrinal, twenty; experimental, seventeen; historical, seventeen; polemical, sixteen; practical, five; prophetic, five; and works adapted for youth, eighteen. The benign fruits, which this powerful typographical machinery is producing, can be estimated only by remembering the moderate price at which the works are sold, and the high character of the volumes themselves, a few of which are enumerated in the order in which they originally were published.

Brooks's Mute Christian; Halyburton's Great Concern; Life of John Knox; Charnock's Discourses on Regeneration; Guthrie's Christian's Great Interests; Lime Street Lectures; Bradbury's Mystery of Godliness; Flavel's Divine Conduct; Charnock's Discourses on the Attributes of God; Owen on the Holy Spirit; Charnock on Christ Crucified; Owen on Justification; Calvin's Institutes, translated by John Allen; Owen on Indwelling Sin; Sibbs's Souls' Conflict; Lorimer's History of the French Protestants; McCrie's History of the Reformation in Italy and Spain; the British Reformers, with their Lives, twelve volumes; Daillie's Use of the Fathers; Mead's Almost

Christian; Charlotte Elizabeth's English Martyrology, and the Lives of the British Reformers, separate from their writings.

The beneficial influence, under the divine auspices, which must result from the unrestricted dissemination of these and similar invaluable Christian productions, throughout the Republic, and especially among the Household of Faith, far transcends our utmost imagination; and the exhilarating anticipation cannot be otherwise expressed, than in the Psalmist's urgent petition, "O Lord, we beseech thee, send now prosperity!" Amen.

Missions. This portion of the philanthropic labours of the Presbyterian churches is conducted by two distinct agencies and boards of managers.

Domestic. The primary arrangements for Home Missions, under the committee appointed by the General Assembly, were comparatively restricted in extent and languid in their operations; until in 1828, the present efficient system was adopted, through which “there has been a gradual but constant increase in the number of missionaries, the amount of funds collected, the interest excited, and the good accomplished." Three hundred missionaries are now employed, while the prospect of usefulness in spreading the gospel never was more promising than at the present period. Signal success already has attended the work under the divine blessing; and every heart must exult in the glorious prospect, that "the. righteousness" of Zion "shall go forth as brightness," and "the salvation" of Jerusalem "as the lamp that burneth."

Foreign." The first mission to the heathen, established by the Presbyterian Church, was among the Indians on Long Island, in the year 1741. David Brainard was the second missionary. His ordination took place in the year 1744, and the fields of his remarkable labours were at the forks of the Delaware, on the borders of the Susquehanna, and at Crossweeks in New Jersey. From that period increasing attention was given to this great subject, and various missionary societies were formed in which Presbyterians largely participated. This was particularly the case in the United Foreign Missionary Society, which after a brief career was eventually merged in the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.'"

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Notwithstanding, many Presbyterians were solicitous that their own churches should separately engage in the missionary work. In consequence of which, "In the year 1831, a determined and active effort was made by the Synod of Pittsburg, to awaken the church to a sense of her duty in this respect, by the organization of the West

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HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

ern Foreign Missionary Society. This society met with so much favour, that the General Assembly in 1835 resolved to engage the whole church in an enterprise worthy of her character and resources. The Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions' was organized in the year 1837, under favourable auspices, and to it was made an entire transfer of all that pertained to the Western Foreign Missionary Society.

"The experiment has succeeded, and the smiles of God have rested on that institution. Flourishing missions have been established among various tribes of American Indians, in Western Africa, Northern India, and China, and all the operations are carried on with great ability."

In Northern India, there is a synod of American missionaries in connexion with the General Assembly; comprising the Presbytery of Allahabad, of six ministers-the Presbytery of Furrukabad, of four ministers-and the Presbytery of Lodiana, of five ministers. The Board of Missions issues two monthly periodicals, the "Missionary Chronicle," and the "Foreign Missionary;" which are extensively dispersed, and effectually sustain the solicitude that is experienced to "send out the light and the truth."

The foregoing article claims to be but little more than an authentic compilation. The writer has freely copied and incorporated with his own language, the language of such of his authorities as suited his purpose, without specific notice. He takes this place to acknowledge his obligations of this sort to the authorities on which he has thus drawn, viz. The Confession of Faith; Edinburgh Encyclopædia ; Miller's Christian Ministry, and Presbyterianism; Histories of the Westminster Assembly, by Hetherington, and by the Presbyterian Board of Publication; and Hodge's Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church. He has also received very essential aid from the Rev. George Bourne, in the sedulous explorations of the official documents and records of the Presbyterian Church, and other reliable authorities, and in the arrangement and principal composition of that part of the historical sketch which commences with the formation of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and in the preparation of the statistical department.

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

BY JOEL PARKER, D.D.,

PASTOR OF THE CLINTON STREET CHURCH, PHILADELPHIA.

THE character and peculiarities of the Presbyterian Church may be learned from the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America: containing the Confession of Faith, the Catechisms, and the Directory for the worship of God; together with the Plan of Government and Discipline as amended and ratified by the General Assembly at their session in the first Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, in May, 1840, and the annals of the church found in the published reports of the proceedings of its ecclesiastical judicatories. This church does not differ very materially in doctrine and worship, or in ecclesiastical government and order, from any of the great family of anti-prelatical churches that sprung from the Reformation, and which are commonly termed Calvinistic.

It acknowledges no authority in things pertaining to the doctrines and duties of the Christian Church, but the revealed will of God as found in the sacred Scriptures. It maintains

That God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrine and commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his word, or, beside it in matters of faith, or worship; that the rights of private judgment in all matters, that respect religion, are,universal and inalienable, and that no religious constitution ought to be aided by the civil powers farther than may be necessary for protection and security, and at the same time be equal and common to all others.

That in perfect consistency with the above principle of common right, every Christian church, or union, or association of particular churches, is entitled to declare the terms of admission into its communion, and the qualifications of its ministers and members, as well as the whole system of its internal government which Christ hath appointed; that in the exercise of this right, they may, notwithstanding, err in making the terms of communion either too lax or too narrow;

yet, even in this case, they do not infringe upon the liberty or the rights of others, but only make an improper use of their own.

That our blessed Saviour, for the edification of the visible church, which is his body, hath appointed officers, not only to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments, but also to exercise discipline, for the preservation of truth and duty; and, that it is incumbent upon these officers, and upon the whole church, in whose name they act, to censure or cast out the erroneous and scandalous; observing, in all cases, the rules contained in the word of God.

That truth is in order to goodness; and the great touchstone of truth is its tendency to promote holiness; according to our Saviour's rule, "By their fruits ye shall know them." And that no opinion can be more pernicious or more absurd, than that which brings truth and falsehood upon a level, and represents as of no consequence what a man's opinions are. On the contrary, that there is an inseparable connexion between faith and practice, truth and duty. Otherwise it would be of no consequence either to discover truth or to embrace it.

That while the above principle is highly important, yet it is necessary to make effectual provision that all who are admitted as teachers be sound in the faith. Nevertheless there are truths and forms, with respect to which men of good characters and principles may differ. And in all these cases it is the duty, both of private Christians and societies, to exercise mutual forbearance towards each other.

That though the character, qualifications, and authority of church officers are laid down in the holy scriptures, as well as the proper method of their investiture and institution; yet the election of the persons to the exercise of this authority, in any particular society, is in that society.

That all church power, whether exercised by the body in general, or in the way of representation by delegated authority, is only ministerial and declarative; that is to say, that the holy scriptures are the only rule of faith and manners; that no church judicatory ought to pretend to make laws to bind the conscience in virtue of their own authority; and that all their decisions should be founded upon the revealed will of God. Now though it will easily be admitted that all synods and councils may err, through the frailty that is inseparable from humanity yet there is much greater danger from the usurped claim of making laws, than from the right of judging upon laws already made, and common to all who profess the gospel; although this right, as necessity requires in the present state, be lodged with fallible men.