FORBIDDEN TO PREACH.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4229, 9 October 1874, Page 3

FORBIDDEN TO PREACH.

(From the Melbourne Daily Telegraph.) The Rev. Cuthbcrt Fetheratonhaugh, minister of the Church of England at Tirana and Jerilderie, New South Wales, has come into collision with the Dean of Melbourne, in consequence of a sermon preached in this city on the 26th July. The sermon is published with a preface, in which the writer says :—“ The sentiments expressed in the following sermon have led my venerable and valued friend, the Dean of Melbourne, to request me, in what I cannot but feel to be a really kind note, not to preach again in any Church of England building in Victoria. Notwithstanding that the Dean in the same letter says ‘he had not thought my infidelity had gone so far,’ I call the letter land, and I am sure it was so meant, for I know the Dean does not mince words, and calls a spade a spade, and thus anyone who does not believe all he (the Dean) considers necessary to salvation he honestly .and conscientiously looks upon as an iufidel, and he says so. I am quite sure that my ‘infidelity’ has been a cause of deep regret to the D=an, as it is to me to think’ that I should in any way cause one pain who has been kind enough to take so much interest in me as has the Dean. I would not add to that pain by publishing this sermon, at the request of some of my friends who have heard it, were it not that I believe the sentiments expressed in it convey moderately, yet pretty definitely, the sentiments and thoughts of nine out of ten thinking men in the Church of England, or, indeed, in any other Protestant Church ; and' that as several good and devout Christians, who formed a portion of the congregation that evening, have told me they concurred with every word I said, they too must be considered to be rowing in the same boat with an infidel, and to be more, or less tainted with his scepticism.” Glancing over the sermon we find the following passage, which is its key note, andis probably the one to which the Dean takes most exception :—“ Day by day we are driven back to rest upon Christ and his teaching. It is said people are giving up Christ; that Christ is more than ever a stumbling-block. What is repelling honest minds and true hearts is not the meek and lowly Saviour, the pure and,sinless Jesus, but the God-dishonoring and Christdishonoring dogmas and doctrines preached in His name. Men are required to believe in and to subscribe to dogmas that depict him, whom Christ has taught us to call Father, as a bloodthirsty and cruel Moloch. Men are told they must believe in the never-ending torment of unbelievers, in the metaphysical disquisitions on the nature of God couched in scholastic language, or take their place among the sceptics. Men are, told that they must believe in doctrines attributing to our Father such unjust and impossible action as the pour-’ ing out the unrestrained measure of His wrathful fury upon the Son of His love instead of upon us, or go out among the unorthodox. I ask, then, is it any wonder that men do stand out and say, better no . religion at all than a religion which would call upon us to kneel down and worship one who acts as no good man would act. I say men will /not worship this God of human invention, but will answer to the Spirit of God within them, and worship Him whom Christ has revealed to us as our Father —as His Father and our Father ; His God and our God.”