Book Description

Excerpt from Biographical, Literary, and Philosophical Essays By the principles of our undertaking, we are pledged not to advance any opinions on the grand controversy be tween the religious establishment of our country and the dissenters from its communion - or more precisely, we are engaged to avoid discussing the abstract propriety of an establishment, and also the propriety of that form of it now existing in the country. These are ques tions, it is true, quite distinct from the conduct of the established church, or any of its distinguished members, as political agents in the transactions of a history. Viewed in this light, their operations, their influence, their vir tues, or their vices, are just as fair subjects of observation as those of any other of the agents, involved in our na tional history. But it is not certain that we can exercise our right to this undoubted extent without giving consider able off'ence. Even at this liberal period, there are some whom it would be hard to avoid offending, and in whose opinions we should scarcely seem to preserve our pledged neutrality, while condemning the violent and fatal intoler ance of the church during the reigns of the Jameses and Charleses, though it be evidently impossible to discuss the merits, or even to narrate the events of those reigns without it.' 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.