Cover:
Vol. 14, Ecclesiastical 3
About This Product
Excerpt: The point I take to be fatally dangerous is confounding private judgment and conscience. We see the full-blown fruit of it in the present state of Protestantism, where private judgment is used to authorize the rejection of everything the individual does not agree with.
The difference is plain in the case put. A father's authority is admitted. Now if it be a matter of conscience, Christ's authority or the confession of His name, of course this cannot stand in the way. I am bound to love Christ more than father or mother. But suppose I reject my father's authority for everything my private judgment differs in as to what is right, there is an end of all authority. There may be cases of anxious inquiry as to what my duty is, where spiritual judgment alone can come to a right judgment. This is the case in the whole Christian life. We must have our senses exercised to discern good and evil-not be unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is; and such exercises are useful.
But the confounding a judgment I form simply as to right with conscience is, in result, confounding will with obedience. True conscience is always obedience to God; but if I take what I see as sufficient, confusion of a deadly character soon comes in. Does one not submit to a father's authority unless he can bring, even in an important matter, a text of scripture for everything he desires? Is there no setting up of self and self-will in such a principle?
But I go farther; and it is the case in question. Suppose in an assembly a person has been put out for evil. All admit that such, if truly humbled, should be restored. The assembly think he is humbled truly: I am satisfied, suppose, that he is not. They receive him. Am I to break with the assembly or to refuse subjection to their act, because I think them mistaken? Supposing (which is a more trying case to the heart) I believe he is humbled and they are satisfied he is not, I may bow to a judgment I think erroneous and look to the Lord to set it right. There is such a thing as lowliness as to self, which does not set up its own opinion against others, though one may have no doubt of being right.
Table of Contents
1. Gifts and Offices in the Church*, On
2. House of God, the Body of Christ, and the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, The
3. What Is the Church, as It Was at the Beginning? and What Is Its Present State?
4. Church, the House and the Body, The
5. Matthew 16
6. Reply to "Our Separating Brethren"
7. Claims of the Church of England Considered, The
8. Review of a Sermon Preached by the Rev. G.M. Innes
9. What the Christian Has Amid the Ruin of the Church
10. Ecclesiastical Independency, On
11. Remarks Upon "The British Churches in Relation to the British People"
12. Presbyterianism: a Reply to "The Church and the Pulpit"*
13. Law, the Sabbath, Ministry, and the Sacraments, Letter on the
14. Dr. Capadose and the Dutch Reformed Church
15. What Is a Sect?