I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look,begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!
As some to church repair, Not for the doctrine, but the music there. These equal syllables alone require, Though oft the ear the open vowels tire While expletives their feeble aid do join, And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.
If we go to church we are confronted with a system of begging so complicated and so resolute that all other demands sink into insignificance by its side.
Baptists have long upheld the ideal of a free church in a free state. And from the beginning, they believed that forcing a person to worship against his will violated the principles of both Christianity and civility.