Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.Fagg, John Gerardus
Religion
Forty Years in South China: The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D.
Fagg, John Gerardus
Missions -- China; Talmage, John Van Nest, 1819-1892
"Much must be left to their discretion, prudence and judgment. But of the
wish and expectation of this Synod to have their action conform as soon as
may be to the resolutions of 1857, your committee think the brethren at
Amoy should be distinctly informed. They therefore offer the following:
"'I. Resolved, That the General Synod, having adopted and tested its plan
of conducting foreign missions, can see no reason for abolishing it; but,
on the contrary, believe it to be adapted to the promotion of the best
interests of foreign missionary churches, and of the denomination
supporting them.
"'II. That the Board of Foreign Missions be, and hereby is, instructed to
send to our missionaries at Amoy a copy or copies of this report, as
containing the well-considered deliverance of the Synod respecting their
present relations and future duty.
"'III. That the Secretary of the Foreign Board be, and hereby is, directed
to send to the Rev. Dr. Hamilton, of London, Convener of the Presbyterian
Committee, a copy of this report, with a copy of the action of 1857, and
that he inform him by letter of the wishes and expectations of the Synod
respecting the ecclesiastical relations which this body desires its
churches in Amoy to sustain to it.'"
In the report of the Foreign Committee of the English Presbyterian Church
for 1863, the following language is used in reference to the Union Chinese
Church of Amoy:
"We are hopeful, however, that on further consideration our brethren in
America may allow their missionaries in China to continue the present
arrangement, at least until such time as it is found that actual
difficulties arise in the way of carrying it out. 'Behold, how good and
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unify,' and there are few
brethren towards whom we feel closer affinity than the members of that
Church, which was represented of old by Gomarus and Witsius, by Voet and
Marck, and Bernard de Moore, and whose Synod of Dort preceded in time and
pioneered in doctrine our own Westminster Assembly. Like them, we love
that Presbyterianism and that Calvinism which we hold in common, and we
wish to carry them wherever we go; but we fear that it would not be doing
justice to either, and that it might compromise that name which is above
every other, if, on the shores of China, we were to unfurl a separate
standard. We would, therefore, not only respectfully recommend to the
Synod to allow its missionaries to unite presbyterially as well as
practically with the brethren of the Reformed Dutch Church; but we would
express the earnest hope that the Synod of the sister Church in America may
find itself at liberty to extend to its missionaries a similar freedom."
These sentiments were unanimously adopted by the Synod of the English
Presbyterian Church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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