Synopses & Reviews
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: PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. The idea which possessed my mind, when I first sketched out the plan of this volume, was the desirableness of embracing in a common point of view, the phenomena of the different religious parties, whose unintermitted strife and sharp contrast of manners and opinions have given such a deep and varied interest to the spiritual history of England, during the three centuries which have elapsed since the Reformation. In pursuing this idea, I have tried to discover the governing principle and understand the characteristic working of each party; to apprehend their mutual relation; to show how they have occasionally passed off into each other; and out of their joint operation, to trace the evolution of a more comprehensive principle which looks above the narrowness of their respective views, and, allying itself with the essential elements of the Christian faith, may in time perhaps devise some method of reconciling an unlimited freedom and variety of the religious life with the friendliness and mutual recognition of universal brotherhood. Such an idea it is more easy to conceive than to execute. The more I have read, the more I have felt the inadequacy of my materials for fully developing it; andthough every fresh inquiry has confirmed me in my general view, I am conscious, that, with ampler opportunities of research and more leisure for concentrated thought, I could have produced a more useful and satisfactory book. My hope is, that with all its deficiencies, it may still be of some service to that portion of society for which it was immediately designed. What I here offer, is little more than a sketch?exhibiting the general outline and prominent features of the historical development of the religious life of England. I make no pretension to deep and origi...
Synopsis
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