We ought to be cautious in taking even the best ascertained opinions and practices of the primitive Church for our own. If it coul...d be satisfactorily shown that they esteemed it authorized and transmitted forever, that does not settle the question for us. We know how inveterately they were attached to their Jewish prejudices, and how often even the influence of Christ failed to enlarge their views. On every other subject succeeding times have learned to form a judgement more in accordance with the spirit of Christianity than was the practice of the early ages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but s...ubordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The New Testament is an invaluable book, though I confess to having been slightly prejudiced against it in my very early days by t...he church and the Sabbath-school, so that it seemed, before I read it, to be the yellowest book in the catalogue. Yet I early escaped from their meshes. It is hard to get the commentaries out of one's head and taste its true flavor.... It would be a poor story to be prejudiced against the Life of Christ because the book has been edited by Christians. In fact, I love this book rarely, though it is a sort of castle in the air to me, which I am permitted to dream.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is ...cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the sc...riptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Soon, in all parts of our country, in each neglected village, or new settlement, the Christian female teacher will quietly take he...r station, collecting the ignorant children around her, teaching them habits of neatness, order and thrift; opening the book of knowledge, inspiring the principles of morality, and awakening the hope of immortality. Soon her influence in the village will create a demand for new laborers, and then she will summon from among her friends at home, the nurse for the young and sick, the seamstress and the mantuamaker; and these will prove her auxiliaries in good moral influence, and in sabbath school training. And often as the result of these labors, the Church will arise, and the minister of Christ be summoned to fill up the complement of domestic, moral and religious blessing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Church seems to totter to its fall, almost all life extinct. On this occasion, any complaisance would be criminal which told y...ou, whose hope and commission it is to preach the faith of Christ, that the faith of Christ is preached.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And I profess still, that whatsoever the church of England (the church, I say, not every doctor) shall forbid me to say in matter ...of faith, I shall abstain from saying it, excepting this point, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for my sins. As for other doctrines, I think it unlawful, if the church define them, for any member of the church to contradict them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »