Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 10, 2025
Of that heaven-born charity which suffereth long, and is kind; which vaunteth not itself, and is not puffed up; which seeketh not her own, and is not easily provoked; which thinketh no evil; which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; which beareth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things of the spirit which impels to such a state of mind as this, we find few traces in the lives and writings of the upholders of State-Churchism in Upper Canada in those days.
If his partialities are dropping off his mind; if his prejudices are melting; if he can read books and papers with pleasure and instruction that once filled him with dark passions and angry outbursts; if his Calvinism lets him read Thomas A Kempis and Jeremy Taylor and William Law; if his High-Churchism lets him delight to worship God in an Independent or a Presbyterian church; if his Free-Churchism permits him to see the Establishment reviving, and his State-Churchism admits that the Free Churches have more to say to him than he had at one time thought; if his Toryism lets him take in a Radical paper, and his Radicalism a Unionist paper then let him thank God, for God is in all that though he knew it not.
"When," he said, "I read the history of the human race, and trace the dark record of wars and carnage, of tyranny, robbery and injustice in every shape, which have been the fruits of State-churchism in every age; when I observe the degenerating effect which it has ever had on the purity and simplicity of the Gospel of Christ, turning men's minds from its great truths, as a religion of the heart, to the mere outward tinsel, to the forms and ceremonies on which priestcraft flourishes; when I see that at all times it has been made the instrument of the rich and powerful in oppressing the poor and weak, I cannot but reject it utterly as in direct hostility to the whole spirit of the Gospel, to that glorious system which teaches men to set not their hearts on this world, and to walk humbly before God."
Brown was chosen to move a resolution denouncing State endowments of religion, and did so in a speech of earnestness and argumentative power. He compared the results of Church establishments with those of voluntary effort in England, in Scotland, in France, and in Canada, and denounced "State-churchism" as the author of pride, intolerance and spiritual coldness.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking