The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1911-06-01

cording to the dictates of our con-
science" What about the erroneous
conscience; what about the weak and
unlearned? Would they not be at the
mercy of their own conscience; would
they not be at the mercy of the whims
and fancies of So called teachers and
religious leaders? st. Paul sounded
the keynote when he wrote to the
Galations, "If an Angel from Heaven
preach to you a Gospel different than
that which we have preached let him
be an anathema" Simply to worship
God according to the dictates of our
conscience is not religious liberty. Con.
science depends upon the intellect, and
in order to have right conscience we
must know the truth. If the judgment
of the intellect is false the conscience
will be false and the dictates of that
conscience will be false. And we can
not worship the true God in a true re-
lgion out of the dictates of false
conscience. AS civil liberty consists
in the rights of man being protected
by law and authority, so religious lib
erty must consist in religious or Di-
vine truth being protected by law and
authority. Civil liberty is maintained
by civil law and civil authority. Re-
| ligious liberty is maintained by Divine
law and Divine authorty-not in every
man following whatever erroneous or
impiOus conscience he may have.
Supposing our civil liberty depended
upon every man acting according to
the dictates and inclination of his in
tellect, will and conscience, without
being restricted to right and just rule
of action prescribed by law. What
| would be the consequence? Anarchy
would reign. Might would be right
and liberty would be unknown in our
land. If such were the case the negro
would still be in slavery. But thanks
to the trainers of our independence
they set standard of truth in the in
alienable rights of man to which reason
and judgment and action must con-
form, maintaining liberty.
And just so in order to have religious
liberty there must be a standard of
truth which does not depend upon pri-
apart from and immeasurably above
human speculation and knowledge-it
treats of God, of Heavenly things, of
eternity. 1t is the embodiment of Di-
vine Wisdom, of principles and truths,
God Himself and His revelations in
time to His creatures. To know and
estimate Alright the things of God, we
must have God Himself for our teacher.
or at least some one authorized and
commanded by Him to teach us in His
name. Any other teacher would be
wholly incompetent to the task because
any other might mislead us fatally
The truths of religion and conse.
quently religious liberty rest not on
mere human speculation or theory or
science. They rest upon fact name
ly, that God Himself has so declared
and 50 spoken in Ii revelation to man.
We want therefore no higher freedom
than that of which Jesus spoke when
ne said "I on shall know the truth and
the truth shall make you free" And
how know the truth? Not indeed by
private judgment but upon Divine au
lhority, for His commission to the
Apostles was "GO we into the world and
preach the Gospel to every creature,
teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever | have commanded YOU
and behold | am with you all days to
the consummation of the world" This
does not leave the rule of faith to pri-
vate judgment or the dictates of an
erroneous conscience but to Divinely
constituted authority in His church,
which shall say "This is Divine TRUTH"
"This is the law of God" and
which will preserve religious liberty to
Gods people to the consummation of
of the world.
Just as our civil freedom, prescribed
by just and wise laws and backed by
rightly constituted authority, with wise
judges to interpret that law insures us
civil liberty by maintaining standard
of rights which the citizens of our
country must not exceed or undervalue,
so the religious freedom assured to us
in the Declaration of Independence,
prescribed by higher and more per
feet law-the law of God given to us in
Divine revelation and backed by the
authority of God Himself, confided to
His church when he said, "He that
heareth you, heareth me-" And again,
"IIe that will not hear the Church, let
him be to them as the heather and the
publican" with the wise and necessari
ly infallible judge of that law constitut-
ed in st. Peter and his successors when
Christ said 81 will give to thee the keys
of the Kingdom of Heaven, and what
soever thou shalt bind upon earth shall
be bound in Heaven" this, say, in.
sures us religious liberty by maintain.
ing the standard of religious truth
which no man or sect of men shall
deign to exceed or presumptiously un-
dervalue.
AS all right minded and conscientious
citizens respect and cherish the laws of
our country that makes them a free
and powerful nation, so let us, my
r.sa L.. Ill i
tious citizens of the Kingdom of God
upon earth, respect and cherish the
law of God confided to His church that