Book Description

Excerpt from State Churches and the Kingdom of Christ: An Essay on the Establishment of Ministers, Forms and Services of Religion by Secular Power; And on Its Inconsistency With the Free, Humbling, Spiritual Nature of the Christian Dispensation Having long been painfully impressed with the evils of compulsory ecclesiastical systems, existing in Britain and in other nations, I have thought it to be a duty to my own country in particular, to point out those evils, and faithfully to plead for such a thorough change in this respect, as is required by the great principles of the New Testament, and adapted to promote the highest interests of man. Far from being disposed to write in a strain of bitterness, I have endeavoured to handle the subject dispassionately and impartially, under the conviction that every Christian community is entitled to be treated with deference and respect. The present complaint is not against Protestant Episcopacy, or any other religious profession, as such; but applies to all systems for establishing and upholding any religious tenets by the power of the state. It is the principle of this union and enforcement, - the interference of the civil authority in religious matters, and the intrusion of ecclesiastical authority into secular matters, with whatever doctrines connected, that will be mainly considered in the following pages. I rejoice in believing that many of the ministers and private individuals of the Established Church of England, to which principally reference is made, are members of the true universal church of Christ, and children of God by adoption. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.