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A Vindication of Ecclesiastical Establishments
A Vindication of Ecclesiastical Establishments Author:John Inglis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION II. ON THE DIVINE AUTHORITY FOR ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS, DERIVED FROM CIRCUMSTANCES CONNECTED WITH THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION. I. It will not... more » be supposed that this part of the argument is to be presented and followed out in an isolated view, or in a way that shall admit of our forgetting what we have found sanctioned by Divine and scriptural example under two preceding dispensations. As certainly as the Divine Being is, in His nature, unchangeable, all his ways are consistent; and hia condescension is so great that, so far as concerns his dealings with men, we are enabled to account for every change in his moral government, by a corresponding change in the circumstances with which it is connected. Great changes have been, at two periods, permitted and sanctioned in the condition of his visible church upon earth ; but, in both cases, the reasons of the change have been manifest. When the patriarchal gave way to the Mosaic dispensation, there was virtually nothing abolished; the change consisted, chiefly if not entirely, in the enactment of a ritual and ceremonial law, for purposes which are well understood,—while the law which had been written on the hearts of men, was reduced into the form of express commandments. When, again, the Mosaic gave way to the Christian dispensation, the ritual and ceremonial law was abolished, for the obvious reason that it had served the purpose for which it was designed. But men were not left to regard it as abolished, merely because, in their fallible judgment, it had become unnecessary; we have in the New Testament the most direct and pointed declarations of what was, in this respect, the counsel and will of God, and the most convincing arguments in vindication of the change. It is therefore natural to inquire whether we ha...« less