ABSTRACT
Believer and unbeliever are strongly affected by it; the former by its direct influence on himself, the latter by its indirect influence through the medium of others: without entering on its eternal consequences; the characters, intellectual powers, the hopes, the destinies, actions, opinions, and desires of the masses of mankind are so influenced by it, that it is the incumbent duty of every man to investigate its nature, its practices, modes of discipline, and government temporal and spiritual. It is different under the systems where, from a fatuity of the human mind, dogmas are allowed to be erected before which the understanding is prostrated, and rigidly receives and acts upon as truth that which it cannot comprehend; and herein Protestant State Churches are disgracefully inconsistent. There are some who defend the necessity of establishments, not the abuses of establishments. In England, the conscientious adherents to the faith of their brothers were persecuted with rancorous vengeance.
