The history of Dissenters Author:James Bennett 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: calculate the total loss of lives, and of substance from the rise of the Puritans to the triumph of toleration under king William ? The multitudes who fled from ... more »these oppressions peopled a considerable part of the new world; while the English refugees, who formed churches in all the principal towns of Holland, added to the strength and industry of that rising state. But, from these accumulated injuries, the Dissenters rose, at the revolution, little diminished in strength or numbers, and capable of turning either scale, into which they might choose to throw their weight . Sect. II.—Reasons of Dissent. The fundamental principle on which Dissenters build their system, is, " That Jesus Christ is the sole head of the church." Legislative authority in religion belongs to him alone. This authority he has exercised by framing a perfect constitution. Whatever he has revealed, we are called to receive. Whatever he commands, we are bound to obey. Whatever he forbids, it is our duty to avoid. Whatever he has left indifferent, that, no man, or body of men, has a right to enjoin or to forbid; for who should make either a duty or a sin of what Christ has made neither the one nor the other ? If men make additions to Christ's constitution, fidelity to him constrains us to reject the criminal encroachment on the sovereign authority of the Head of the church. Or if they take away, or leave out a part Neal, vol. v. p. 21. of Christ's constitution, we must reject their system ; because they impeach the wisdom of the divine Legislator, as if, in his constitution, there were something superfluous: they assume an authority in his kingdom to which they have not the shadow of a claim. To these sentiments, and a corresponding conduct, we feel ourselves bound by the injunctions,—" Be not ye cal...« less