the Latest Form of Infidelity Examined Author:George Ripley 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: been injurious to the Christian cause, so much as the manner in which those opinions have been maintained, and the outrageous pretensions which those sects have,... more » with hardly an exception, advanced. The lovers of a free or liberal theology, feel it impossible that they could submit to any such dominion. They know it to be not in the nature of things, that any man can be worthy of all this deference, or can be entitled to have all his opinions respected and adopted as infallible interpretations of an infallible law. They know of no mere man who ever lived by whose name they would be willing to be called, or whose implicit disciples they would be willing to be considered. They refuse the name of Socinus with as much promptness as they would the name of Calvin; not because they are afraid of being thought to hold those opinions of Socinus which have been generally accounted obnoxious, but because they conceive no man to be worthy of the honor which they render to Christ alone, and because they will not bind themselves, nor suffer themselves to be bound by the adoption of any man's name, to become in any degree responsible for his character or sentiments, subservient to his views, or obedient to his dictates. The submission which they will not yield to one man, they will not yield to any one body of men. Theyfeel that they cannot and must not surrender the birth-right of their mental and religious freedom to one or to many, to a name, or a church, or a catechism, but that they must keep their minds open at all hours to receive fresh air and new light, and in a position to profit readily and unrestrainedly by the result of any examination. Entertaining such views as these of the sacredness of religious freedom, they would never call on the instructers of a school of theology to subscrib...« less