Excerpt from The Works of Thomas Shepard, Vol. 3: First Pastor of the First Church, Cambridge, Mass, With a Memoir of His Life and CharacterWhen, therefore, the good will of Him who dwelt in the burn ing bush of the af¿icted primitive churches gave princes and emperors to be their nursing fathers, pious Constantine, among 01119: Christian edicts, enjoins the observation of the Lord's day, wherein (if he was bound by his place to be a nourishing father) he went not beyond his commission, iu tuswaddling and cherishing this truth and appointment of Christ, and not suffer ing it to die and perish through the wickedness of men, the power of princes extending to see Christ's laws observed, though not to impose any human inventions and church constitutions of their own. It is true, indeed, that this princely edict was mixed with some imperfection and corruption, it falling too short in some things, and extending too far in others, but there is no just cause for any to stumble much at this, that knows the sick head and heart by the weak and feeble pulse and cross temper of those clouded though otherwise triumphing times.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis 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.