“There is no regularly constituted church of Christ on earth, nor any person qualified to administer any church ordinances; nor can there be until new apostles are sent by the Great Head of the Church for whose coming I am seeking.”
A statement rejecting formal sectarian organizations and claims, this has been cited to a quotation in Picturesque America by William Cullen Bryant, p. 502, first published in 1872, but such a statement has not been located in the 1874 or 1894 editions.
Disputed
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Roger Williams (theologian)22
English Protestant theologian and founder of the colony of … 1603–1684Related quotes
Henry Liddon (1829–1890) British theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 4.
William Laud (1573–1645) Archbishop of Canterbury
Source: Letter to the Marquis of Hamilton (3 December 1638), quoted in The Works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud, sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. Volume VI—Part II. Letters—Notes on Bellarmine (1857), p. 547
“I do not believe in infallible men, nor in an infallible church, nor in an infallible book”
Benjamin Fish Austin (1850–1933) Nineteenth-century Canadian educator/Methodist Minister/Spiritualist
Defence at his Heresy Trial
Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice
Writing for the court, Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
To the 1864 general conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as quoted in Abraham Lincoln : A History Vol. 6 (1890) by John George Nicolay and John Hay, Ch. 15, p. 324
1860s
“Before Christ comes, it is useless to expect to see a perfect Church.”
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop
Source: Practical Religion (1878), Ch. XX: "The Great Separation", p. 449
“In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians.”
Karl Barth (1886–1968) Swiss Protestant theologian