Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-19
OUTSPOKEN OPPOSITION

To the Suspension of r. p. Preachers by
Their Presbytery-Dr. Townsend's Idea
of the Case-How He Looks at the VIII
kinsburg Church Trials.
During his sermon on "Unitarianism'
yesterday, Rev. DR.. j. G. Townsend said:
Our thoughts make or mar US. The low,
false thought makes the Ii e mean and false.
Other things being the same, the purer and
truer our thinking. the purer and truer our
lives. The outward is the inward thought
taking form, and it is because we believe
our thought is truer, our world theory nobler,
that this church has been tablished in the
orthodox CITADEL
DR.. Townsend's ''topic" for the day was
THE r. p. Presbytery and the suspended
Ministers" of which he said: 1.-THE Pres
bytery of the Il. P. Church has recently
suspended seven or eight ministers. And
Tor what? For immortality? There has not
been a shadow of suspicion upon their spot
less names. But what have they done?
They have asserted their right to cast a
ballot with their countrymen-their crime
is that they are American citizens. And
for this Presbytery composed of Christian
ministers and Christian laymen has sus-
pended them from the ministry.
These suspended ministers cannot
sprinkle upon the face of a child the crystal
waters OF baptism; they cannot counsel the
lmpenltent; they cannot pray with the
dying, or go to the bereaved home
where the dark angel has made his vista
tion. But they have broken law of the
church. An Infamous law is better broken
than kept. What right had the r. P.
Church to make this law? And what right
has the Presbytery to enforce it? Is not
such law a super-C Christianity? The MEM
bers of that Presbytery believe that verse of
Revelations inspired which declares that if
any man shall add to the words of the
prophecy of the Book, God shall add to
him the plaques which are written in the
Book. And have not they added to the
simple and beautiful teachings of the Mas
ter rules of their own making? They pro-
Tess to be the disciples of Jesus, and yet
have made barriers SO high that if the
Nazarene were to reappear on earth He could
not enter their churches. These members
of the Presbytery make tine rules of their
little sect higher than the words of Christ.
"If their ministers keep all the words of
Jesus; if they incarnate the golden rule; if
they visit the sick and the moor; if they
preach the sublime ethics of the Sermon on
the Monut from the throne of holy life,
even if they are the real inward disciples of
their Lord, but claim also the right to be
American citizens, they. forsooth, must be
silenced and driven from the church
"These men make that church both an
anachronism and an oligarchy. Let them be
assured of this, that their letter worship
will surely kill the spirit OF the church.
The church must expand, break through the
chrysalis of these antiquated and unjust
rules or it will die. These men have created
a super They have laid, of
their own devising, heavy burdens upon
those whose Christ-touched burdens had dis
solved away. They are the direct descend
auts Of John Calvin, and would, if they
were living in his time, warm their hands at
the flames that consumed Servetus."