CHAPTER 2

ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FREE CHURCH OF THE CANTON DE VAUD.
In entering upon the constitution of the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud, the only one which has hitherto been formed on this side of the Rhine, I desire to express my sincere respect for many of the persons who form part of this association, and to testify to many among them, whom I have more or less known, the cordial affection which flows from the sweet conviction of our meeting one another again in the heavenly kingdom. This makes me all the more feel how grievous it is that such brethren should have thought it their duty to ally themselves, or at least should have appeared to ally themselves to any political party, and to falsify thereby, in the eyes of the world, a religious principle and a walk which, with the sacrifices by which it was accompanied, made them respected by good men, even of opinions contrary to their own. United, alas! to persons who do not share their faith, these brethren, by the very attacks to which they are exposed, figure as a political party, and appear rather to undergo the consequences of this, than to bear the cross for the sake of Jesus. This position has had the effect of causing Christianity and the blessed name of Jesus to sustain the reproach of serving as a cloak to a party which was seeking to clothe itself with the influence of that name. How much happier would it have been for these brethren to preach that name without alloy, in the beauty and purity which are proper to it, in the midst of the irritation of passions, on whatever side they might have been shown! If we suffer, let it be only for the name of Jesus; and let adversaries find no occasion of complaint against those who profess to serve the Lord, except concerning the law of their God.
Without doubt, it is a sincere conviction which has determined and impelled in the course they have followed, a large number of the brethren of whom we speak. But (and their opponents themselves have said this) conscience does not act by masses, but individually. In order to increase the influence of the movement, those who had decided convictions thought it their duty, as it appears, to wait for those who had not, or who had less fixed ones. This weakened the idea of a personal conviction. By that very means, conscience evidently was the loser.
The members of the Vaudois clergy were already under the necessity of raising these questions. Events had constrained them to do so. At the demand of the government, prolonged discussions had taken place amongst the clergy upon the change of the fundamental law of the Cantonal church. For a long while past, the clergy had supported and defended against all dissent the principles of nationalism. When, therefore, the greater part was seen to detach itself from the state and unite itself in an ecclesiastical body in order to maintain in concert, according to the very expressions of the constitution of the Free Church, the rights of Jesus Christ over His Church and the purity of evangelical ministry, people might have been astonished that never before had the rights of Christ presented themselves to the minds of these men as disowned by the system which they had previously extolled and justified, not scrupling, moreover, to blame severely, those who, judging as they themselves now judge, were acting individually according to this conviction, and were separating themselves from a system guilty of such a slighting of the rights of the Lord.
Evidently, it is the system which, in their conviction, disregarded the rights of Jesus, and destroyed the purity of evangelical ministry. The act of the government, which served as an occasion for the retreat of a part of the clergy, is the proof of this. Moreover, the ministers who have resigned have not confined themselves to protesting by their resignation against this act, nor to going outside while waiting for its recall, nor to complaining against an isolated act of oppression, while still approving the system. They have done more. By the establishment of a new system, they have protested against the one which up to that time they had justified, and which, by their acknowledgment, denies the rights of Christ over His Church.
How does it happen that the new system, founded on such a declaration, should be the object of admiration to Christians who remain attached to the one to which this declaration applies? That does not belong to me to decide. It is good to remember [for fas est et ab hoste doceri] that conscience is an individual thing.
Let us now examine the system of the Free Church of the Canton de Vaud, such as it is set forth in its Constitution, the acceptance of which is obligatory upon every one who wishes to be a member of it.