PRIVATE JUDGMENT

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 478, 23 May 1867, Page 2

PRIVATE JUDGMENT

; 13 Y Till-: HLV. T. K. ('ON HI. It, M. A . We live- in an age of crowds. The- lei-u-clv mdvacy, and quiet, widely-scattered acti vities with which our fathers were contented fifty years ago, are becoming more and more diiiieult for most of us oven to ■imagine and understand. Our great cities —daily growing greater with astonishing rapidity—are tiie Un it important 'productl and characteristic of our tim', and are bo coming more and more (whether for good or evil) its ruling power. Society suiter# a kind of congestion an I chronic iiulamnialion round the-e great centres, which continually draw to themselves an increasing current of populih m and business; while the multitude of lesser towns, once thriving and busy, sutler decay and para-, i'fis. Everything is getting marked with a corresponding stamp. 1£ we take a journey, instead of waiting at a wav-iue inn, or the corner of some shady lam-, for the stage cuaeii. with it- halx-doi'ca or dozen, pav-engers, \vr crowd in scores and hun-j duds to a i-r.'' v.iv ition, where tln a dinj ot trail’ie is nev, r -i ->nt. day or night, no' i even, alas ! on what -ImuM he the <iuv o' est. If we plan a days holiday in lh, ; country, instead of a qumt ramble or drir-d with a friend, we ru-di off with 1,000; vuple by an excursion t rain, an-1 tak- a a| ct urn-tick t tor a fifty or seventy miles j journey, if we engage in busiuo.-s, de-i -pising the plodding industry and small l -ICady gain# of a former general ion. we■ get up groat eompaui ■#, ami lumen gigan-i tic cnterpi ises, and talk ab-mt miiiio!.# oh capital a- if it were so much waste piper.; —which, in truth, it t>o often proves to. iie it we have great public questions to decide, we swarm together in lens and' hundreds of thousands, and prove our I cause by tlie unanswerable logic of a mom;

ster demonstration. We betray our littleness by the value we have come to set on !size ami numbers. “The largest news;paper in the world,” and the newspaper with “ the largest circulation in the world,” j parade their rival claims on the largest j lulls, in the largest type the printer can ifurm-h. The shopkeeper who can adver jtise “the largest assortment of goods” j thinks no other qualification necessary to I draw the largest number of customers ; land his “ immense business,” carried on at j“ enormous sacrifice,” in “most extensive ■premises,” and “ on a gigantic scale,” but I too consistently ends, too often, in a *• co- ] lossal failure.” Even bankruptcy ami roguery are deemed almost respectable it il'.e concern fails for a million. The nation lives in sight of itself, j Words spoken alter dinner in one corner lof the land are read, before breakfast in : every corner of if, together with yesterday's jiieas of all (he world. Public oj.nnion i!accounted the infallible oracle, the one j verdict from which there is no appeal j radiion triumphs and tyrannise? with 1 irresistible force. The will of the many is j assumed to be the legitimate sovereign

power among minkind. “ What every-! body does” is held conventionally justi-j liable, even though it may be clear violation of the law of the laud, the laws of sound expediency, and the law of God. j IN'o wonder that religion, the most vital; :aiul sensitive part of a nation's life, should' |receive from these strongly-marked eha-i ■ racteristics of the age a corresponding I limpness. Ao wonder if there is danger—l growing danger—that the religion of the I closet should disappear in the religion ol the crowd, becoming either a thing of excitement, or sensation, or a tiling of| theatric peilormanes and show ; or, on the other bana, that personal piety should be overborne and trodden out bv the irrcligioii of the crowd, personal conviction merged in public opinion, and a conventional standard of morality, which, because it is conventional, is always a sinking standard., substituted for the unchangeable law of God.

To ward off these dangers, and countervail these powerful tendencies, it is of the lirst importance to hold fast, and earnestly to enforce the great principle, that ill all regions of life, but above a.d m religion, as ■ tiie loftiest and most vital, the true worth land dignity of life turn not on that wuichi |belong- 5 to the crowd, but oa that which] 'pertains to the man—to thepiorgonal mind j

—j-iersonui conviction, personal choice, personal character. If England is to ba saved from decaying and “ perishing, as other great empires have decayed and perished, her salvation will be fund not in classes or in masses, but in wise heads, patriotic hearts, and upright, strong, use-

ful lives. And if the religions life of England is to be saved from the influences which threaten to corrupt, weaken, and degrade it, this must be done, not churches or societies, but by the faith, the holy living, the prayers, the wisdom, the practice, l . oiTort and example of individual Christians. L, : our sons and daughters bs trained. tocrcioi o, to iiuid it as a iirsl aJLLUIIIj liu unquestionable principle, that “private judgment”— the exorcise of personal conviction and clit .ce—lies at the root of all tint is most truly precious and noble in religious hie. .Not that they should ha stimulated or suil'e. ed to overgrow their mental strength—not that they should be taught to cherish the silly ambition of being men and women before they have projierlj learned to be children, or urged, to think independently on matters on which they have scarcely learned to think at all. They must be warned against the delusion that independent thought and fullest force of personal conviction necessarily involve any revolt or secession from beliefs which have first come to us in tf;e los=ons of our childhood and the traditions of our fathers, or that thinking dilhrently from our teachers, atiords any presumption that wo think more truly, blur, at the same time, they must learn that the true end of all intellectual education is to make them think, lor themselves ; of all moral training, to make them act for themselves ; and of all r eligioas teaching, to make them able to search the Scripture for themselves, and test all teaching by it, to grasp the truth with a hold which no scepticism or scorn, ot others can loosen, and inweave it into their own life and experience; and to tollovv (Jurist with a personal trust so complete, a personal loyalty so warm and strong, that it would not falter even if they should s me day have to say like the great \postle, “ JNo man stood with me, but all

forsook me.” Tins {ire.it principle of the worth of private judgment and personal character was from tiie beginning one of the strong distinctive marks of the Gospel, whereby it shone out in powerful contrast, not only with human systems of philosophy (which regarded personal convictions rejai-ding moral and intellectual truth as the aristocratic privilege of a select few, and blind suoniis-ion to forms ns tiie lot of itisin). but to the oilier form of Divine revelation under the Jewish dispensation. Under th :t system, suited to tiie nonage of tln> Church and tiie infancy of the human race.

•.-very tiiim; was national, public, collective, individual faitn. and personal piet.vwero the rcllected image of the cre-.d and insutut ions of tiie nations. K.’ligion was intricately interwoven v.iih national history. legislation, polities, government, agriculture, and social life. A man could not oe an unbeliever in Divine revelation without denying tiie national records and eummittimr treason against the State, file Day of Pentecost was the signal that all tliis had passed away for ever. It was ihe announcement of tha setting up of a new religion, not for a nation, but for a world, —lor all men ami for every man ; distinguished, therefore, on the one liana, oy universality, but, on the oilier hand, by closeness of individual reference and directness of personal appeal. The exhortation of the Apostle Peter to those ! representatives of “all nations of the earth ” whoso jarring tongues were first t uned to the key-note of a common Gospel, was, “ Repent and be baptised, evert/ one \of you.” When the foundation of the Jewish Church was laid, the nation was leathered in one vast congregation at the j foot of Sinai, the voice of the multitude •ns.ponded as the voice of one man—‘‘All itlio pmple answered together and said, Ail tnat the Lord hath spoken we will juo;” the blood of sacrifice was sprinkled ion the aitar, the book, and the crowd of wmrshipoers ; and the covenant was made with tiie nation. Rut the foundationstones of the Christian Church were laid .'lone bv stone. and those who “ gladly received ” the Word, three thousand sou.a in ad, made distinct personal profession of their tilth in the rise i Saviour whom the inatioti with its rulers had rejected, i iiie Gospel bases reiuiou, as did the | Jew i'h eiispe ■; sat ion, on history, tut it u net the history of a nation, church, or community, but the history of a person of u living, personal, present, loving tSaiviour. Correspondency, ah its motions are so presented as to bear upon each of us singly, personally. Its first appeal is ito tout which is most intensely personal, — oo,.science, and the sense ot sin. licpsnt 1 it demands personal conviction of truth, nersotu'.l faith in Christ, Dost xnou believe on the Hon of God? it brings persO.ialh homo the gilt ot pardon. Tur sins ore forgiven, it claims personal consecration. lltdd yourselves to God. In this direction v\e must seek, under God’s blessing, the safeguards for our voung people against the lour mam perils of our time, —its 1 -w standard of morality, its levity, its superstition, its unbelief. How beautifully does the great evangelical prophet, in a passage oi. wonderfully mingled rebuke an.t promise, foretell tins

uraud distinctive mark ot tne now dispensation, tiiis nobis and happy result oi the promised bcstowment ot (irod's Spirit oa the families of His people ? “ One shall say, 1 am the Lord’s; sad another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand, and surname himself by the name of Israel,"