A Defence of Scripture Doctrines, as Understood by the Church of England; In Reply to a Pamphlet Entitled 'Scripture the Only Guide to Religious ... Entitled 'Scripture the Only Guide to Relig - Tapa blanda

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1800. Excerpt: ... But, without resting much weight on this argument, let us allow a very possible, and I greatly fear, a very common cafe; that a Clergyman is called to perform the Funeral Service, at the Burial of a wicked Man, dying in his fins: Even then, the Establishment is free from blame. Almost all those vices and acts of irreligion, which prove a Man to be wicked, are punishable by Law. They ought to be punished. Discipline ought to be restored, as in the primitive times. The Church and all her serious Children lament that it is not. If wicked men were proceeded against for their vices and ungodliness, they would either be brought to shew satisfactory marks of penitence, and then the Minister might perform the Service, at their Interment, with propriety and pleasure; or else they would be cast out of the Church, and then he would not be called upon to perform it, at their Funeral, at all. The Church therefore is perfectly consistent with herself. And will any one say, because a Church Service, calculated for the living, and not at all affecting the dead, is sometimes, through a decay of discipline, necessarily performed over the remains of a person, whose case it may not represent, that therefore this is a solid and binding reason why See the Address in the Commination Service. that Church is to be deserted? In other words, is a defect in the administration of good Laws and Institutions, in some inconsiderable instance, a sufficient cause why those Laws should be abolished and those Institutions overturned-If it was necessary for you to leave the Church of England on this account, it would be necessary for all. But if such conduct, under such circumstances, be necessary for all, then it will follow, that no permanent Government, or Religious Establishment, or As...