The Works of John Angell James, Vol. 11: Onewhile Minister of the Church Assembling in Carrs Lane Birmingham

Excerpt from The Works of John Angell James, Vol. 11: Onewhile Minister of the Church Assembling in Carrs Lane Birmingham
If "The Church Member's Guide" was one of the Author's earliest books, it was also the one in which he from time to time made additions and alterations of the greatest importance. The subjects of it were perpetually recurring to his mind with the deepest interest, as they related to the scenes and institutions amidst which he lived: for his life was spent in teaching men their duties, especially those relating to the self-government of the church of Christ. Finding no treatise on that subject sufficiently minute and practical, he offered this work to the churches of his order, and it immediately attained a widely-extended circulation in England and the United States.
The notice which it received from members of the Anglican Church, is stated in the Preface to the ninth edition, which was not reprinted after the publication of "Dissent and the Church of England," and will be found in the volume containing the Author's controversial pieces, with a further notice by the Editor.
This book was considered by many to exaggerate the extent and frequency in the Author's denomination of the evils which it points out, and his anxiety to remove those evils from the system which he supported as, in his view, most in accordance with the spirit and examples of the New Testament, may have given some foundation for this complaint: but whether this were so or not, the candour and the confidence in the churches which the whole book manifests, and the noble spirit with which it was received by them, may challenge a parallel in church history, and afford no slight evidence of the truth and influence of Congregational principles.