If the world grows to worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows to worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldlyness by the world.
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.
Worship, I say, rises or falls with our concept of God .... and if there is one terrible disease in the Church of Christ, it is that we do not see God as great as He is.
The Church seems to totter to its fall, almost all life extinct. On this occasion, any complaisance would be criminal which told you, whose hope and commission it is to preach the faith of Christ, that the faith of Christ is preached.
The world has corrected the Bible. The church never corrects it; and also never fails to drop in at the tail of the procession-and take the credit of the correction.
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.
I am highly susceptible to the force of all truly religious music, especially to the music of my own church, the church of Shelley, Michelangelo, and Beethoven.
If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs do for the sake of our church : it is a sacrifice to our longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power.