The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1870-05-18

divinity anu Vlcarl0uS. saIisldctloh VI 'N'
Lord Jesus Christ, the fall of man, the work
of the Holy Ghost, spurn American
churches, the purest in creed and membership
on earth, because they would not declare
that relation Of domestic servitude criminal,
in which all the patriarchs and prophets
lived, and which Christ and his Apostles
authorized Such pitiful follies and wrongs
as these give little promise that those hands
wilfbe the ones to heal the breaches OF Pro-
testant Christendom. At later day we
have seen a journal, which called itself the
Christian Union, circulated with vast zeal
and expense, avowedly to advocate this cause
of peace and love. But its tone was the
most truculent and threatening which has
ever been heard in Amceica.
The plans likewiss Of these men do not
appear to be the res f devout faith and
reliance on God, but arrogant worldly
wisdom and unbelief. ,ney Tnanifestly have
little faith in the power of the truth, unsup-
ported by material power, to subdue the
world to Christ. They have forgotten our
Saviour's declaration that the kingdom OF
God eometh not with observation" they
wish to have men cry, "Lo, here; and To-,
there" They are anxious to exchange
strict integrity of conviction and purity of
doctrine, and the secret but mighty power
of the Holy Ghost through his words, for
human eczat, numbers, wealth, combination
and power. They expect and prepare to
convert the world, as they built the Pacific
railroad, and as they conquered our country
by mighty aggregation of money and
numbers. There is, my brethren, more of
the lust of power than Of disinterested love,
in these overtures for fusion.
And this suggests the last point which l
propose to urge in this discussion. Prete"-
sions which so plainly betray the cravings Of
ambition are ominous Of danger to religious
liberty. The employment of force to pro-
duce conformity has always been the natural
corollary of the principle these men assert
Consider: They say that the visible one
ness of Church Government is necessary
to realize Christian unity. Outward con-
formity, then, becomes an imperative Chris
tian duty. He who refuses it rends the
body of Christ. All separation is schism,
according to them; and the tendency OF
their premises is, of course, towards the ex-
treme conclusion that schism is a sin that
necessarily damns the soul. Now the dan
gerous trait of this creed is that it obviously
sets the sin of division, as they term 1t, In
such light that its forcible prevention and
punishment becomes reasogiable. For the
practical argument sgaig2e the persecution
of errorists, supposing them really in error,
was not that men are irresponsible for the
false opinions they sincerely entertain
They are responsible to God. Nor was it
that the crime of heterodox belief is not mis-
chievous; it may be infinitely mischievous.
Why then, supposing the crime of false be-
lief clearly ascertained, why may it not be
as reasonably suppressed by force, as horse
stealing, or murder? The answer which
Professionalism gives is this; that the man
of evil belief is responsible, but to God only,
and not to man, because God is the exclu-
sive Lord of the conscience; and that a
belief which is not intelligent and sincere is
worthless to God and man, whereas the
stocks, the rack, the scourge have no ten
dency to reconcile the mind and heart of the
sufferer to the creed of those who are perse-
cutting him. But now see how the dogma of
the necessary unity-of the visible Church
evades all this just logic. 1t replies: very
true, the stocks, the rack, the scourge are
not means to produce light in the under
standing, and love in the heart for creed
before rejected and hated; but they are
very proper means to compel acts of outward
uniformity. And according to this system
these are as necessary to the salvation Of
souls as faith and sincere conviction
Again, if a visible Church claims this exclu-
sive and necessary supremacy, Jure dirlno,
who can fail to see how natural will appear
to it the claim of authority to enforce it :!
Such Church assumes to be, in certain
sense, an earthly Redeemer; it will no long
er admit that men are responsible only to
their Redeemer in heaven for their opinions
beseech you here, my brethren, to pom
der well the lessons = your Church history
they are most instructive. You will there
learn that whenever the Church has conde.
scended to argue her right to persecute,
many religious prosecutions have been the
license of mere blind hatred and fury, or Of
ruthless and unmasked ambition the claim
has always been argued from the false pos,
tulate that the visible Church must neces-
sarily have an external and organic unity
Was it not on this plea that the Bishops Of
Rome crushed out the primitive Churches OF
Britain and Ireland? But the most signif-
can't fact to my mind, in the whole history
of religious liberty is this, that the first as.
sumption of the right to persecute, by the
Christian Church itself, was made against
the Donatists of North Africa in the 5th
century, and on the arguments of the great
ST. Augustine. These sectaries, as they
were called, were charged by the Catholic