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THE COMPREHENSIVE CHURCH. 225
all their habits; familiar with the animated and exciting
and discursive language of conversation, rather than the
formal and quiet and studied language of books ; these
men require, they must and will have, a liberty to act
out their own religious sensibilities in their own way;
and if they cannot have this liberty in one Church, they
will have it in another.
Now we would not legislate for this liberty. The
very law which should grant, would limit. There is
no law which could reach all cases in any one community or in any one period, much less in all places
and all ages. The proper course is, as in the system
of the Protestant Episcopal Church (would it were better understood even by its own members !), to leave this
liberty untouched, without either the condemnation or
the justification of law. The true Church of Christ, who
is the universal Redeemer, and whose Church represents the universal religion, is liberal and forbearing
with all. It is adapted to all.
There are some lessons in the history of the past
which apply forcibly to this subject. So long as the
Church of Rome, even after it had lost the " harmless-
nessness of the dove," retained the "wisdom of the
serpent," and, instead of restricting, encouraged liberty,
it was sustained with all its errors. When the zeal of
a St. Dominic, or a St. Francis, or a St. Bernard, or a
Loyola was active and had excited powerful sympathies,
that church, instead of opposing that zeal and those
sympathies, employed them as its own agencies, and
made for itself most powerful friends and supporters
of the very classes which would have been its bitter adversaries if they had been opposed. The broad and rap-
| Title | The comprehensive church |
| Creator | Vail, Thomas H. (Thomas Hubbard) |
| Publisher | Appleton |
| Place of Publication | New York |
| Date | 1879 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000229 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | THE COMPREHENSIVE CHURCH. 225 all their habits; familiar with the animated and exciting and discursive language of conversation, rather than the formal and quiet and studied language of books ; these men require, they must and will have, a liberty to act out their own religious sensibilities in their own way; and if they cannot have this liberty in one Church, they will have it in another. Now we would not legislate for this liberty. The very law which should grant, would limit. There is no law which could reach all cases in any one community or in any one period, much less in all places and all ages. The proper course is, as in the system of the Protestant Episcopal Church (would it were better understood even by its own members !), to leave this liberty untouched, without either the condemnation or the justification of law. The true Church of Christ, who is the universal Redeemer, and whose Church represents the universal religion, is liberal and forbearing with all. It is adapted to all. There are some lessons in the history of the past which apply forcibly to this subject. So long as the Church of Rome, even after it had lost the " harmless- nessness of the dove," retained the "wisdom of the serpent," and, instead of restricting, encouraged liberty, it was sustained with all its errors. When the zeal of a St. Dominic, or a St. Francis, or a St. Bernard, or a Loyola was active and had excited powerful sympathies, that church, instead of opposing that zeal and those sympathies, employed them as its own agencies, and made for itself most powerful friends and supporters of the very classes which would have been its bitter adversaries if they had been opposed. The broad and rap- |
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