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et us remark, further, that if some of our friends deem the scheme proposed for Scotland too little religious, it is as certain that the assertors of the scheme now proposed for England, and advocated in Parliament by Mr. Fox, very decidedly object to it on the opposite score. Like the grace said by the Rev. Reuben Butler, which was censured by the Captain of Knockdunder as too long, and by douce Davie Deans as too short, it is condemned for faults so decidedly antagonistic in their character, that they cannot co-exist together. One class of persons look exclusively at that lack of a statutory recognition of religion which the scheme involves, and denounce it as _infidel_; another, at the religious character of the people of Scotland, and at the consequent certainty, also involved in the scheme, that they will render their schools transcripts of themselves, and so they condemn it as _orthodox_. And hence the opposite views entertained by Mr. Combe of Edinburgh on the one hand, and Mr. Gibson of Glasgow on the other.{15} ----- {14} It is not uninstructive to remark how invariably in this matter an important point has been taken for granted which has not yet been proven; and how the most serious charges have been preferred against men's principles, on the assumption that there exists in the question a certain divine truth, which may be neither divine nor yet a truth at all. Wisdom and goodness may be exhibited in both the negative and positive form--both by avoiding what is wicked and foolish, and by doing what is good and wise. And while no Christian doubts that the adorable Head of the Church manifested His character, when on earth, in both ways, at least no Presbyterian doubts that He manifested it not only by instituting certain orders in His Church, but also by omitting to institute in it certain other orders. He instituted, for instance, an order of preachers of the gospel; He did not institute an order of popes and cardinals. Neither, however, did He institute an order of 'religion-teaching' schoolmasters; and the question not yet settled, and of which, without compromising a single article in our standards, either side may be espoused, is, whether our Saviour manifested His wisdom in _not_ making use of the schoolmaster, or whether, without indicating His mind on the subject, He left the schoolmaster to be legit
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