IN RELATION TO HUMAN EXPERIENCE: A TREATISE ON SOME ECCLESIASTICAL SUBJECTS, VIEWED CHIEFLY WITH REFERENCE TO THE FACTS OF HUMAN NATURE AND HISTORY. BY THOMAS DYKES, D.D. GLASGOW : JAMES MACLEHOSE & SONS, Publishers to the University. 1885, PREFACE. THE history of ecclesiastical opinion is largely that of the maintenance of certain theories. The aim of the ecclesiastic has very generally been, not so much to ascertain what is in conformity with the wants and experience of man, as to uphold this or the other church-system. There is now, however, a considerable change of opinion in this respect. The view is widely and increasingly held that matters belonging to the outward manifestation of the religious life are to be considered rather in the light of their adaptation to actual circumstances than in accordance with theories. Instead of the belief, which was formerly prevalent, that all things relating to the Christian Church have been fixed by express divine appointment, it is a growing conviction |