Excerpt from Church Polity: Or the Kingdom of Christ, in Its Internal and External Development Church polity has become the absorbing topic of the Christian world. In common with all thinking men, I have devoted considerable time to its examination; and have made some progress in the preparation of a vol ume with the design of exhibiting the polity of the New Testament, and tracing the gradual departures from it in the churches which succeeded those planted by the apostles. The completion of the work, on the plan pro posed, will require several years, even under circum stances the most favorable to the prosecution of my labors. Perhaps I may not complete it at all. I have, therefore, yielded the more readily to the suggestion of my worthy friend, the editor of the Periodical Lib rary, to prepare a smaller work, which is now sub mitted to the public. May the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls bless it to the instruction of the flock, for which he labored and died. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.