PREFACE. THE following Essays deal with theological and ecclesiastical questions which were left comparatively untouched in the earlier series of ECCLESIA. Differences of ecclesiastical position are sometimes the offspring of diversity of taste, temper, and practical experience and have occasionally taken their origin in political, social, and personal animosities; but far more frequently they have arisen out of deep conscientious convictions and fundamental divergencies in the region of pure thought and of religious faith. Some religious differences and theological speculations have no natural tendency whatever to promote ecclesiastical dissension; other diversities of thought must end in corresponding organizations. The following Essays will be of service if they indicate some of the ideas touching the Divine life in man, the incarnation of God, and the worship, the revelation, and the Church of the living God, to which Congregationalism in part owes its origin. The Essays will, moreover, evince no less clearly |