Good Alexander Campbell quote

Here's another Campbell quote that I will probably put in the sidebar. And just a reminder...no human contrived words are authoritative, but we are to encourage and edify one another. That is the only purpose in quoting voices from the past.

"But men cannot give up their opinions, and therefore, they can never unite, says one. We do not ask them to give up their opinions--we ask them only not to impose them upon others. Let them hold their opinions, but let them hold them as private property. The faith is public property; opinions are, and always have been private property. Men have foolishly attempted to make the deductions of some great minds the common measure of all Christians. Hence the deductions of a Luther, and a Calvin, and a Wesley, have been the rule and measure of all who coalesce under the names of these leaders. It is cruel to excommunicate a man because of the imbecility of his intellect."

This theme is recurrent in Campbell's writing. His Parable of the Iron Bedstead makes a similar point.