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Source: Church History Vol. 3 Chapter 29 Page: 557 (~1870)

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557 as well as to every condition of a pure life. All that he claimed as his right was respectfully and temperately to discuss any difference of opinion he might entertain, without being cut off from the church for so doing.

"'His reasons for considering that this was his privilege as a member of the church were, that it was part of the gospel offered to him in foreign lands. He was told that in this church the utmost freedom of speech would be permitted. Popery and other systems had muzzled freedom of speech, but in this church such oppression was to be crushed forever, and never raise again its accursed head. He accepted the gospel on these terms, not simply because the elders told him these were his rights, but because the Holy Spirit bore testimony that they but uttered the truth when they so taught, and he was there that day to claim these privileges of the gospel.

"'When he was examining the doctrines of this church he was advised by the elders to use his judgment and his intellect to the fullest extent, and dispute every principle that he could not understand. This had resulted in his entrance into the church. If he had mounted up the ladder of his own reason and judgment to get into the church, why should he now be called upon to kick that down by which he had ascended, and go along without it? If it was a good thing, and had brought him blessing to use his own opinion at the first, why should he not continue the use of that which had done him so much good?

"'He objected to the requisition for any man to accept any doctrine or principle that he did not fully understand: such a dogma could not be supported by sound reason. We could only be expected to accept any principle, because it was beautiful and true. We were not required to accept God or Jesus because they were God or Jesus, but because they presented teachings higher, holier, and more heavenly than any other beings. How could we tell that any principle came from God except it was that it was better to our intellect and judgment than other doctrine. Beyond this witness of the light of truth within us, we had nothing to fall back upon to guide us.

(page 557)

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