Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

Vol. II.] FEBRUARY, 1869. [No. 2. THE CARDIFF CONGREGATIONAL MAGAZINE. OUR mWCI¥Lm-( Continued). All Protestants, ostensibly at least, assert the right of private judgment. This was the firm basis on which the Reformers stood, and it has been the weapon by which, the Church of Rome has been assailed for the last three hundred years. It is so simple in its definition, so self-evident in its meaning, so forcible in the conviction it carries, and so fundamental in its relations, that it has already done great things, and it seems to be clearly destined to do still greater things. It is no new discovery of the Protestant Reformers. It is an old truth revived and re-asserted. God has given ey-sj;y human being a soul endowed with intellect and con¬ science. -*i$j| Ms with the individual, and each individual is separately responsible to Him—the Gospel is addressed to individual souls—the Spirit of God operates personally and individually upon all the saved— and mankind shall be judged, not as masses, but as individuals. To develop individual thoughtfulness, individual convictions, individual activity, and a sense of individual responsibility, is the highest aim of Christian teaching, and the chief end of the Scripture polity of Church government. The apostacy which grew into the assumptive infallibility of Romanism, could never have had an existence, had the inherent dignity, the sacred rights, and the fearful responsibility of the individual not been first ignored: the right of private judgment and Papal infalli¬ bility are diametrically opposed. When officers and orders, influenced by self-importance and the lust of power, began to look upon individuals and Churches as materials to be manipulated at their will, to obey their dictates, to minister to their pride, and to be subservient to their selfish purposes, then appeared the Papacy. As we shall observe in a future number, there are officers in the Christian Church. But there is no order ordained by God to whose aggrandizement the Church is to be a docile and submissive instrument. All civil and religious despotism is based upon the false assumption that the unprivileged many have been created and sent into this world simply to obey and magnify the privileged few. As the legitimate rights of each citizen are recognized by human governments, and as the inalienable