Widnes Examiner. — 1883-06-23 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

THE REV. R. PILCHER ON "THINGS NEW AND  OLD."  The annual meeting of the members of the Provincial Assembly of Presbyterian and Unitarian ministers and congregations of Lancashire and Cheshire was held on Thursday at Altrincbam. Divine service was conducted in the Dunham-road Chapel during the forenoon, when a sermon was preached by  The Rev. R. PILCIIER, of Warrington on "Thing new and old." He stated that the most marked departure in the Christian Church from the spirit of the Master, and the one most fraught with evil, was thetaking, as the test of a man's acceptableness to his Maker or to his fellow-men, his belief about divine things insteed of his faith in them; in a word, a correct creed—orthodoxy—instead of a correct life. The resultant evils in life were 'shown in all their intensity by ' the corruptions which gave such force to Luther's revolt against the church of his day, and were still too painfully clear to-day in the slackness, not to say deadness, of conscience shown by many whose professions of orthodoxy were the loudest. The resulting evils in the realms of mind were shown in the intellectual suicide of myriads who, unable to believe the Church creeds, vet afraid to doubt, sought refuge from the necessity of thinking in the ceaseless round Of a symbolical worship, or in the attitude towards religion of thousands whoAorced to deny, passed on into indifference or into open hostility. "All or none" was the challenge of the Church. Then "none" was the reply. Nor were things much better among so-called Protestants. Although they claimed the right of private judgment, in matters of faith they failed to see or at least to own, that the recognition of conscience as the final court of appeal, in thought as well as in deed, shut out the claims of an infalliable book as logically and as peremptorily as those made made by an infallible church. To those who frankly made conscience the final court of appeal, and whose bond of union was their religion rather than then' theology, the criticisms so frequently passed on Christianity caused no misgivings or fear. Their attitude towards the great problems of theology was one of expectation, not of certainty ;of tentativeness, not of finality. For inasmuch as every newly known fact must alter their point of view, and therefore their mode of thought and speech, there could be no" finality in theology any more than in politics. To "rest and be thankful" was only possible to a true man or woman in the deep weariness of age or in the deeper hush of death. The disowned heretic of to-day, who in a spirit of son-like sympathy lifted soul and life alike to the great Father, was more truly a follower of the Master than myriads of the infallible fold who bowed before God in fear but had no thought of love. In the afternoon a business meeting was held under the presidency of the Rev. William Gaskell. An address in favour of a wider application of the principle of religious equality was delivered by the Rev. J. Wright, and the report of a Special Committee was submitted in which it was stated that the committee had witnessed, with sincere regret, the rejection of the Affirmation Bill. The only subj-ct of congratulation in connection with the matter was the noble speech of the Prime Minister, which they remarked was rendered all the grander as a vindication of civil and religious liberty by the fact that there was probably not a man in England who had more aversion than Mr. Gladstone has to Mr. BracilauA and all his works. The committee also expressed the opinion that the day was past when blasphemy should be punished as a criminal offence. They also stated that they cordially approved of the Cemeteries B'll introduced by Mr. H. Richard, and expressed their conviction that religious equality would not be secured until fellowships and posts in connection with the Universities of Oxford an Cambridge are thrown open to .Nonconfi.rmists. and not confi,v-d to Churchmen as they now are. A petition in favour of the rupeal of the blasphemy laws was afterwards adop`ed, as was also one to the Home Secretary praying for the re lease of the persons recently committed to prison for blasphemy.