Page:Christian Marriage.djvu/12

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viii
PREFACE

as alone would be possible in a small book. But I have indicated, not obscurely, that I do not think these practical questions can rightly or reasonably be answered by direct appeals to the Bible or the Church. The Christian law of marriage must beyond all question find its principles in the teaching of Jesus Christ, and its exposition within the Christian society, but the application of evangelical principles will not be learned from the pages of the New Testament, nor may the witness of the Church be safely identified with ecclesiastical precedents and decisions in former times.

The relations of Church and State, not merely in that comparatively trivial version of them which is known as "Establishment," but in that larger and more complicated view which includes the whole contact of religion and society, require imperatively at the present time a thorough examination. No thoughtful citizen will contemplate without deep misgivings the alienation from the State of the moral force embodied in the Church,