The Ecclesiastical Disruption of 1861 [pp. 321-351]

1876.3 THE ECCLESIASTICAL DISRUPTION OF i86i. 323
trifle of the church, and the only one which keeps its foundations secure.
The Address of i86i is thus officially proclaimed to be of the
~~ighest authority upon the questions it presents. Its specific
object is to vindicate the disruption of the church. Its Ianguage on this point is as follows: "The church, in these
seceded States, presents now the spectacle of a separate and
independent and complete organization, under the style and
title of the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of
America. In thus taking its place among sister churches of this
and other countries, it seems proper that it should set fofth the
~auses which have impelled it to separate from the church of
the North, and to indicate a general view of the course which
it feels it ii~cumbent upon it to pursue in the new circumstances
in which it is placed. We should be sorry to be regarded by
our brethren in any part of the world as guilty of schism. We
are not conscious of an~y purpose to rend the body of Christ."
There are two distinct branches of the subject which call for
separate consideration. One is historical, and concerns the
causes of the disruption. The other involves fundamental
principles, which enter into the vital elements of our ecclesiastical life. It will be the natural order to take up the historical
question first.
I.
In the opening sentences of this Address, the separation of
the Southern Church from the Northern is spoken of as purely
voluntary. It says, that "the Presbyteries and Synods in the
Confederate States" have "renounced the jurisdiction" of the
Northern Assembly, "and dissolved the ties which bound them,
ecclesiastically, with their brethren of the North." As "this
act of separation left them without any formal union among
themselves," they proceeded to organize an Assembly " upon
the model of the one whose authority they had just relinquished."
But although~this step was voluntary, the Address pleads the
action of the Northern Assembly, in May, i86i, as the reason
— certainly the occasion-which impelled to the separation. We
ask special attention to it~ language on this point. It says: "The
first thing which roused our presbyteries to look the question of
~epIration seriously?in the face, was the course of the Assembly
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