Principles by which we live in this world

"I shall tell you of an inference  that is plain to me, and that I think  I plainly deduce from all that I have had access to consider of the controversy betwixt uniformity  and liberty of conscience in matters of religion; and it is this, That while the world is the world, we must either suffer the horrible  ignorance,  spiritual  slavery and superstition  of the tenth century  to take place in it, or the infidelity,  heresy, and sects of this century,  and of the last; and that in this case, the only  way wherein a man can walk suitably  to the rules of the gospel,  and his duty therein required  toward the power of the earth, so as to keep himself unspotted from the world, and promote  the eternal welfare of his own soul, and the souls of others, in a preparation  for the world to come, is indeed the congregational way." - John Glas, The Works of Mr. John Glas, pg. 305