of the Lord, and that any further agitation will do harm instead of good, both in our own denomination, and in the work of the Kingdom as a whole. We would therefore respectfully and earnestly ask that Concord Presbytery overture the General Assembly to discontinue its Committee on Union.
We have authorized our Pastor and Clerk of Session to sign for us.
Fraternally, your brethren in the Lord,
—J. Kenton Parker, Moderator W. I. Johnson, Clerk
Similar action was taken by Session of the Centre Presbyterian Church, in Concord Presbytery, by unanimous vote against union.
Letters
Editor, Southern Presbyterian Journal: (Because of the malpractice of some agents over the State, it would be helpful to your readers if the following article could be run and it would also benefit the Homes for Children in this state in protecting their name.) Allen B. McClure.
"The North Carolina Orphanage Conference in annual session on September 16th, 1954, considered again the problem of agents, especially boys and girls, using the name of one of the orphanages of the state as a means for selling magazines. The Conference was unanimous in declaring that no institution has ever allowed students to represent the institution or to speak in its name for the purpose of selling magazines or any other articles. This group would further call to the attention of the public the fact that the needs of all its students are met at the local institution through the regular channels, and if any individual in the sale of magazines or other articles uses the name of an institution to enhance his sales he is a fake and a fraud.
The Conference would, therefore, warn the people of the State of North Carolina and elsewhere to beware of anyone who comes with the sale of any article, trading upon the name of any child-caring institution, orphanage, or children's home. The Conference requested that this information be sent to all the daily newspapers and religious publications of this area in order to prevent malpractices that are common throughout the State."
Barium Springs, N. C.
SANCTIFICATION
By Gordon H. Clark
"He died that we might be forgiven,
He died to make us good."
In this third stanza of "There is a green hill far away," the doctrines of justification and sanctification are conjoined. Naturally, the limitations of hymnology do not permit an explanation of the conjunction: it would seem that forgiveness and being made good are two results, otherwise unrelated, to Christ's death. But the Confession of Faith, Chapter XIII, and still more explicitly Paul, in Romans VI and elsewhere, make sanctification the purpose or aim of the preceding stages of salvation. It is true, but not sufficient to say, we are justified and we are also being sanctified; it is downright false to say, we are justified by faith alone but of course we must now do some good works; to express the relation with a minimum of adequacy we must drop the and and the but and use the conjunction therefore: we have been acquitted and pardoned of sin apart from any human merit, therefore we must do good works. Or, to quote Rom. 6:14, "Sin shall not have dominion over you (sanctification), for ye are not under the law but under grace" (justification).—"He died to make us good."
Such is the Scriptural answer to the objection that justification by faith alone is an immoral doctrine. It is sanctification that unmasks the caricature quoted in a previous article, "Free from the law, O blessed condition; I can sin as I please and still have remission." Paul's argument is clear: "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Not at all; how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? . . . Our old man is crucified with Christ in order that the body of sin might be destroyed, in order that henceforth we should not serve sin . . . Sin shall not have dominion over you."
Because Paul said, "Sin shall not have dominion over you," and because of other expressions, certain groups of people who were not privileged to be guided by the Westminster Confession in their study of the Scriptures have concluded that it is possible to achieve sinless perfection during our earthly life. I know one man who boasted that he had not sinned for twenty-six years. And the fact of the matter is that compared with other Christians he was a very good man. Compared with God's law, however, he was, I am sure, imperfect. It is only through a feeble appreciation of God's righteousness and holiness coupled with an ignorance of the definition of sin that one can imagine that one is sinless. Job was able to hold his own against his irritating friends. He was sure he had not committed any particular sin of which his plagues were the punishment. But when his friends left him and God appeared to him, Job
