Presbyterians 'must be represented at Westminster'
THE Rev Mr McCaughan preached on the subject of politics this week in 1892, reported the News Letter. The Rev McCaughan took as the text of his sermon, Matthew v 10 – "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" – which he said he had quoted to fellow minister who had asked him what his politics were.
He told how he had received numerous letters from those in his congregation urging him to stand in the election in East Belfast which was being contested between Gustav Wolff of the Conservative and Unionist Party and Sir William Charley, an Independent Conservative. But he defended his decision not to stand.
The Rev McCaughan said: “My position as a Christian minister is infinitely superior to that of any member of Parliament.”
He added that in his opinion there were no great issues before the electorate that would necessitate a Christian minister entering the field.
He remarked: “The two candidates, in regard to the question of the Union, are at one. They are also supporting, to a more or less a degree, restrictive temperance legislation.”
He asked: “What more could another candidate coming into the field promise or strive to attain?”
But he said that there was one grievance that deserved attention and that was that the Conservative and Unionist Party were never “anxious” to nominate a Presbyterian to stand as a member of Parliament.
Indeed he went on to say: “I say that we, the Presbyterians of Belfast, are not represented in the Imperial Parliament. More, I say that the Presbyterians of Ireland are not represented in Parliament.”
He added: “We have two Presbyterian members, but they are both Londoners, intimately connected with the English Presbyterian Church, which is at many points at variance with our own.”
The Rev McCaughan continued: “This is a grievance that every Presbyterian should strive to obliterate.”
But he concluded on the matter of politics and the Church his standpoint was clear: “I say that every true man who loves God as he ought will strive not only to do God’s will, but will strive to persuade other persons to do it also, and make the will of God not only the fundamental principle that controls national life, so that our country it may be said that righteousness exalteth the nation.”
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Tuesday 14 February 2012
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