" In the same
tone he reminds the Thessalonians of their having "turned to God from
idols to serve the Living and True God." In like manner, doubtless,
other great principles also of religion and morals are rooted in the
minds so deeply, that their denial by any religion would be a
justification of our quitting or rejecting it. If a pagan found his
ecclesiastical polity essentially founded on lying and cheating, or his
ritual essentially impure, or his moral code essentially unjust or
cruel, we conceive this would be a sufficient reason for his renouncing
it for one which was free from these hateful characteristics. Such again
is the kind of private judgment exercised, when maxims of principles,
generally admitted by bodies of men, are acted upon by individuals who
have been ever taught them, as a matter of course, without questioning
them; for instance, if a member of the English Church, who had always
been taught that preaching is the great ordinance of the Gospel, to the
disparagement of the Sacraments, thereupon placed himself under the
ministry of a powerful Wesleyan preacher; or if, from the common belief
that nothing is essential but what is on the surface of Scripture, he
forthwith attached himself to the Baptists, Independents, or Unitarians.
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