Excerpt from The New Commandment: A Discourse Delivered in the North Church, Salem, on Sunday, June 4, 1854 Christ, however atrocious be the deeds they do, however unloving the dispositions they entertain. The christian church is builded on human philosophy, and its extension is but the extension of one or another form of philosophy. Every sect has its unalterable and saving creed; the spread of Christianity is but the multiplication of sects, and therefore the multipli cation of creeds. Each new branch Of the vine, has been a new heresy. The Spirit of contention, and not the spirit of charity, has distributed christian communities far and wide, and planted churches in every part of the earth. Each denom imation represents a quarrel; and how many cong1 egationsewe their existence to a feud How many spires are pushed up into the skies out of spite 2 SO it has ever been. Had all the time that has been spent in discussing christian dogmas been devoted to doing christian deeds, the earth would present a very different aspect from that which it presents now. We might have fewer sects, but we, should have fewer miseries and sins. We might not have so many churches, but we should have, in greater abundance, the spirit of Christ. But christians care more for dogmas than they do for charity; and are ready to quarrel and persecute, and hate one another, and to utterly eradicate the Spirit of their master in their zeal to make valid a distinction, or to establish a quibble. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.