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to the simple capacities of village children ; nor yet whether the Bible be not a better text-book than any manual of religious instruction that was ever penned ; but solely whether M . Gaussen , having once enrolled himself in the retinue of a church which prescribed a certain catechism to be taught , ought to adhere to bis agreement . He speaks of the word of God as a fount of wisdom and of virtue ; and he then goes on to say , ( which is much more to the purpose than any thing that hehad said before , ) " Am
I bound by any engagement to teach any thing else than the word of God ?" P . 30 . To this question , thus categorically proposed , we answer as unequivocally , " Yes ! certainly you are ; the church , of which you swore yourself a member , and to the regulations of which you promised obedience , when you entered into the ministry , does wish you to teach something else than the word of God ; it prescribes to you a catechism , of which it expects all its pastors to make use , and of the abstract excellence of which , itself as a body is the only judge . When you entered into holy orders you knew that it was the custom of the church to which you were attaching yourself , to use a catechism , and that it admitted of none being used besides that which was sanctioned by itself . Why , then , if you felt the objection
at that time , did you ever bring yourself under an obligation which you knew that you must violate if you followed up your principles ? Or , if these scruples came over you at a later period , why not retire at once , and in good humour , from a church , the ordinances of which you could not approve ? " M . Gaussen asks , pp . 34 , &c , whether a pastor should be compelled to make use of a book , the doctrines of which he does not approve ; and he declares that in the detail of ecclesiastical discipline he shall ever be ready to succumb to the Company , but that when doctrine is concerned , he can follow no other guide than his conscience and his God . But we will take leave to remind him , that he " wrote slave" when he
entered the bosom of the church as one of its accredited ministers , and that , whether it be a mere matter of detail , or a high point of doctrine , the obligation to submit to the orders of the majority of the body to which he belongs is equally strong . Whether , as a question of moral expediency , it was advisable that he should " write slave , " is not now the question ; having written it , the obligation which it implies remains in force so long as he continues to be an ostensible member of the body to which he attached himself ; and to cry out , as he does , p . 36 , * ' I have no other master than
my conscience and my God , " is to assume the airs of a freeman , while he wears the livery of a slave , and to claim the rights of independence when he has long ago signed them absolutely away . See also pp . 87 , 145 . In p . 39 , M . Gaussen maintains , that though a minister may be of opinion t hat there are many abuses in his church , and that it is not governed as it ought to be , he should nevertheless remain in it , so long as he can freely proclaim the counsel of God . But where will M . Gaussen point out to us an established church in which a pastor can thus freely proclaim the
Untitled Article
610 T 7 te Pastors qf Geneva and M . Gaussen .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1831, page 610, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2601/page/34/
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