Don't agree with your minister on everything? No excuse, says Bernard Whitman, for not going to church. His "Excuses for Neglecting Public Worship Examined" continued..."3. The third excuse which I shall mention is this ; a dislike of the preacher. If a minister is uncharitable, and condemns those who conscientiously embrace different religious sentiments, no one can be blamed for leaving his ministrations. Neither can any one be justly censured for changing his place of worship, when he can attend upon religious instructions more congenial to his views and feelings. But it seems altogether unreasonable to forsake the church on account of some slight difference in religious sentiments, or something disagreeable in the style or manner of the preacher. It is perfectly absurd to expect one person so to think on all subjects, and so to appear on all occasion, as to please the differing tastes of a whole congregation. Neither is this at all necessary, could it be done, for spiritual improvement. Our Saviour has no where required a unity of sentiment among his followers. Religious instructions should be dispensed with charity and examined with candor. You are to prove all things by reason and scripture, and to hold fast what you believe to be good. Receive and improve the truth; discover and reject the error. With these rights freely granted, no one can justly complain. And if you would absent yourself from church until you can find a preacher who speculates on all subjects as you do, you will remain absent to all eternity. No two persons, who thought at all, ever thought alike on all subjects, and no two ever will. So that this excuse is both unreasonable and absurd."
Blessings
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