4 JUNE 1864, Page 20

" LIBERALS " AND " ORTHODOX " IN THE FRENCH

PROTESTANT CHURCH.*

FENT events have created a deeper sensation in the minor world of French Protestantism, and even in that larger French world from which it becomes every year less separate, than the refusal of the Paris "Presbyteral Council" to renew the " suffragancy " of the younger Atbanase Coquerel (not to be confounded with his father, the well-known ex-member of the Republican Assemblies). The questions involved are at bottom the same which are agitating the English Church. Let us see how a Presbyterian body has dealt with them.

The matter arose thus :—" Titular" ministers disabled by age or illness have a right to propose substitutes or " suffragants " to the Presbyteral Council, which accepts them, subject to approval by the " Consistory," and till now has never rejected such nominees. M. Martin-Paschoud, a minister who has been only able to serve five years out of twenty-eight of his incumbency, has for the last fourteen years been replaced by M. Coquerel junior, the renewal of whose suffragancy has been accepted five successive times by the Council, bub has been rejected the sixth by 12 votes to 3, the decision being confirmed on appeal by the " Consistory."

On M. Coquerel's personal deserts all seem agreed. A journal diametrically opposed to his views, the Archives du Christianisme, speaks of "the consideration justly enjoyed by his personal character," his "ability, his popularity in the Church, where the warmth of his preaching (no doubt less to blame for errors put forth than for truths omitted) was greatlyrelished by alarge number of hearers, and the lively sympathies which he had drawn to him during sixteen years of ministry at Paris." The report of an adverse Committee avows equally "sympathy for his person " and " esteem for his character and ability." Out of three published volumes of sermons, besides ten published separately, not a passage is impugned. The nearest approach to an offence in the exer- cise of his ministerial functions which is charged against him is the having allowed the use of his pulpit to two brother ministers of the Reformed Church, rightly or wrongly reputed unorthodox ; and if indeed their sermons on the occasions re. ferred to are not even alleged to have given any scandal, this, with touching Christian charity it was remarked, only made the mischief greater.

On the other hand, the Presbyteral Council, elected by uni- versal suffrage, and composed largely of laymen, includes many able and even admirable men,—nay, to use the truly French words of Pasteur Rognon, "even glory" (i. e., in the person of M. Guizot) "is not absent from it." Nor is the sincerity of its action in the matter to be questioned. What lies, then, between this worthy minister and this worthy Council ? That curse of curses, religious journalism. Not only are several of his colleagues connected with religious newspapers, but M. Coquerel is himself editor or proprietor of one called by the singularly ill-chosen name of "The Link" (Le Lien), originally founded by his father, and in which he has himself written, he tells us, for sixteen years. This Lien has been the champion of the so-called "radical" party among the French Protestants. M. Coquerel has in it claimed to understand "the questions of the Trinity, of original sin, ex- piation, inspiration, and other so-called fundamental dogmas, quite otherwiso than the orthodox." He has claimed not to see a divine authority in the text of Scripture. He has treated the question of the "supernatural birth of the Saviour" as a problem of subordinate importance, on the exact solution of which he is not yet fixed. He has praised highly the "Life of Christ" of his "dear and learned friend" M. Renan, and has termed him "the only" [Roman] "Catholic theologian."

Now, on perusing the report of the Committee appointed by the Council to consider the question of the suffragancy, it becomes evident that M. Coquerel was condemned, not as a Minister but as a journalist ; not even as a mere journalist, but as an opposition journalist. The Committee meets, deliberates, reports, without ever once calling him before them. The draw- ing up of an adverse report is actually forced, it would seem, upon a member who had been in repeated conflict with the person incriminated. M. Coquerel is charged with being a " suffra- gent " in "open opposition and conflict with the Presbyteral Council to which he is subject." He is found fault with for having

.6 communication du Conseil Presbyteral aux Pickles our le Non-renouvellement de la Suffragance de M. k Pasteur dthanase Coguerel, Jilt.

Le Conseil Presbyterat de rEglise Reform* de Paris et Athanase Coquerel, las. Par Eugene Bersier, Pasteur. Paris: Dents.

vunite de la Foi, Sermon Prechl k 6 Mars, 1854, dans le Temple de l'Oratoire. Par L Rognon, l'an des Pasteurs de l'Eglise Reornada de Paris. Paris: Graasart. Archives da C7irittianinne. 20 Avril, 1864.

supported—always in his paper—a society called the "Union Liberale," which is alleged to have for its chief object to upset the Presbyteral Council ; to have formed amongst his com- municants a society for the relief of the poor, which competes with the official " diaconate" of the Church ; to have preached a sermon which was in effect a protest against the last vote for the elections to the Presbyteral Council. Indeed, M. Mettetal, the reporter, naïvely complains that "it would be

difficult to quote, amongst our deliberations or our acts, 0,

measure of any importance which has not been, on his part or that of his paper, the object of more or less sharp criticism before the public." Copious quotations from the Lien are put forth, with scarcely a mention of any of those qualifications which any fair-dealing man would have carefully set forth, would have sought for even if they were not to be found, and which, as one discovers, were to a certain extent forthcoming. In short, this report is nothing more nor less, for all its moderation of language, than that horrible poisoning of justice at its fountain-head, the "act of accusation" of the Crown prosecutor in a French criminal trial.

As partizan against partizan, no doubt M. Coquerel wins all the honours. He points out the unseemliness of entrusting the drawing up of the report to a personal antagonist, that of treat- ing him as a " suffragant " in opposition to the Presbyteral Council, so as to make of him "an accused person who should have for judges his declared adversaries," that of fishing out charges against him from newspaper articles only. He shows the absurdity of complaining of his mere criticisms of the acts of the Council, of saddling him with all the supposed ten- dencies of the "Union Liberale " of which he is not even a member, of making a crime to him of having formed a chari- table society, such as various of his colleagues have done in like manner. But it is only as a partizan that he speaks. He blindly makes a present to his opponents of the noble title of

" orthodox,"—right-thinleing — whilst at the same time denying their orthodoxy ; sets himself up as a " Liberal Christian," counts heads in the Council between "orthodox " and " liberal," claims

the rights of the liberal " minority," speaks, in the slang of the old French Chambers, of belonging himself to the "left centre," whilst another of his friends is of the "left." Nay, so

anxious is he not to come to terms with his opponents, that after avowing his faith in " the supernatural" he stops short, lest he should be drawn "into seeming more or less in agreement with you than I am."

Little is done by other members of the Council (one only excepted) to raise us into a higher region. M. Martin-Paschoud manfully and often successfully defends his " suffragant," but in the same spirit of sheer partizanship. M. Theodore Vernes asks what can be thought of the doctrine of a man who opens his pulpit to a denier of "the supernatural ?" Pasteur Vemes asks how the suffragancy can be renewed to a man who has said that he had not made up his mind as to the miraculous birth of Christ? M. Guizot complains that in a sermon M. Coquerel has called the Socinians his "brother Christians."

The-one exception to all this wretched religious sword-play, the one expression of a true Church spirit, lies in the written speech

of Pasteur M.ortardon, who, whilst openly regretting that M. Coquerel should in his paper have rendered himself re- sponsible for the so-called "new school," and urging that ministers should abstain from such partizanship, takes careful account of all those " criticisms and reservations" which the report so carefully omits, seeks for M. Coquerel's real views in a work of his called "Christian .Affirmation," forming, in fact, his profession of faith, and insists upon the edification which he has afforded in his sermons to those who are most attached to the truths of the Gospel. Lastly, whilst regretting deeply that M. Coquerel should have proclaimed the existence in the Church of a party of the majority, he stigmatizes with measured firm- ness the uncharitable accusations brought against his communi- cants' association, and the making him responsible for a "Liberal Union exclusively composed of laymen, and warns the Council against its tendency to pursue merely the triumph of an "opinion." M. Laffon de Ladebat declared that he entirely shared M. Mor- tardon's views ; and another wise man, who seems to have made up the minority with them, M. Beigbeder, declared that he attributed in great measure the present state of religious anta- gonism to the excitement produced by the newspapers.

But M. Mortardon preached in the wilderness. So little of the sense of Christian unity was there in the Council, that in their address to the faithful they clear their consciences by thanking "God and ourjust and liberal institutions" that M. Coquerel is free to profess his opinions, and to gather round him those who share them." Aye, one sect more, and the more the merrier ! Fancy St. Paul thanking God and Cmsar Nero that the Corinthians were free to say "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ !"

It is an evil day for the French Protestant Church when, as between a minister who not only has not felt his stomach rise against M. Renan's flimsy and immoral romance, but has taken pleasure in calling him his "dear and learned friend," dedicating to him his articles on the subject with the strangely chosen epi- graph " Eliamsi ornnes, ego non,"—the rash Apostle's pledge, taken only to be broken,—and the body which has declined his further services, one is at a loss to say which side deserves least of our sympathy. But each will have, and has had, its reward. M. Coquerel junior will have consoled himself with the approval of the illustrious glorifier of religious humbug ; the ultra-Protes- tant e of the Presbyteral Council have earned for once the praise of the Monde and the rest of the Ultramontane press.

From all which we may draw at least this negative conclusion, that little as we Englishmen may have ground to feel satisfied with the tribunals of our home or colonial Bishops, there is not a pin to choose in point of fair-dealing between them and an assembly elected by universal suffrage of the faithful.