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"The Independent or Congregational theory includes two principles; first, that the governing and executive power in the Church is in the brotherhood; and secondly, that the Church organization is complete in each worshipping assembly, which is independent of every other."
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"A stone thrown up into the air is bound to fall down, and absolute power is like a huge stone thrown up into the air."
"Strength and success - they are above morality, above criticism. It seems, then, that it is not what you do, but how you do it and what you call it. Is there a check in men, deep in them, that stops or punishes? There doesn't seem to be. The only punishment is for failure. In effect no crime is committed unless a criminal is caught."
"It is easy, out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of deity, saying, 'I couldn't help it; the way was set.' But think of the glory of the choice!"
"Power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up."
"Whoever has experienced the power and the unrestrained ability to humiliate another human being automatically loses his own sensations. Tyranny is a habit, it has its own organic life, it develops finally into a disease. The habit can kill and coarsen the very best man or woman to the level of a beast. Blood and power intoxicate ... the return of the human dignity, repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible."
Explore more quotes by Charles Hodge
"When the great promise of the Spirit was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, it was fulfilled not in reference to the apostles only."
"So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy."
"The functions of these elders, therefore, determine the power of the people; for a representative is one chosen by others to do in their name what they are entitled to do in their own persons; or rather to exercise the powers which radically inhere in those for whom they act."
"The Church is everywhere represented as one. It is one body, one family, one fold, one kingdom. It is one because pervaded by one Spirit. We are all baptized into one Spirit so as to become, says the apostle, on body."
"It is a thoroughly anti-christian doctrine that the Spirit of God, and therefore the life and governing power of the Church, resides in the ministry, to the exclusion of the people."
"As the Church is the aggregate of believers, there is an intimate analogy between the experience of the individual believer, and of the Church as a whole."
"Our second remark is, that the office is of divine appointment, not merely in the sense in which the civil powers are ordained of God, but in the sense that ministers derive their authority from Christ, and not from the people."
"The Church, however, is a self-governing society, distinct from the State, having its officers and laws, and, therefore, an administrative government of its own."
"Christ has not only ordained that there shall be such officers in his Church - he has not only specified their duties and prerogatives - but he gives the requisite qualifications, and calls those thus qualified, and by that call gives them their official authority."
"The right of the people to a substantive part in the government of the Church is recognized and sanctioned by the apostles in almost every conceivable way."
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