On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    many of those evasions , those compromises between conscience and expediency , which are still thought necessary and justifiable for the support of religious establishments . So industrious were the churchmen of the early ages in the inculcation of this monstrous doctrine , that we find the

    Bishop Heliodorus insinuating it , as a general principle of conduct , through the seductive medium of his Romance Theagenes and Char idea . The second maxim , * equally horrible / says Mosheim , * though in a different point of view , was , that errors in religion , when maintained and adhered to after

    proper admonition , are punishable with civil penalties and corporeal tortures / St . Augustine has the credit of originating this detestable doctrine ; to him , it seems , we are indebted for first conjuring up that penal spirit ,

    which has now , for so many hundred years , walked the earth , and w hose votaries , from the highest to the meanest , from St . Augustine down to Doctor Duigenan , from the persecutors of the African Donatists to the

    calumniators and oppressors of the Irish Catholics , are all equally disgraceful to that mild religion , in whose name they have dared to torment and subjugate mankind .

    With respect to the literary merits of the Fathers , it will hardly be denied , that to the sanctity of their subjects they owe much of that imposing effect which they have produced upon the minds of their admirers * We have

    no doubt that the incoherent rhapsodies of the Pythia ( whom , Strabo tells us , the ministers of the temple now and then helped to a verse ) found many an orthodox critic among their hearers who preferred them to the sublimest strains of Homer or Pindar . Indeed ,

    the very last of the Fathers , St . Cxregory the Great , has at once settled the point for all critics of theological writings , by declaring that the words of Divine Wisdom are not amenable

    to the laws of the vulgar grammar of this world ;—* non debent verba ccelestis originis subesse regulis Donati . ' It must surely be according to some such code of criticism that Lactantius

    has been ranked above Cicero , and that Erasmus himself has ventured to prefer St . Basil to Demosthenes . Fven the harsh , muddy and unintelligible Tertullfen , whom Salmasius § JSivc * up in despair , has found a warm admirer

    Untitled Article

    in Balzac , who professes himself enchanted with the * black lustre * of his style , and compares his obsurity to the rich and glossy darkness of ebony . The three Greek Fathers , whom the writer before us lias selected , are in general considered the most able and

    eloquent of any ; and of their merits our readers shall presently have an opportunity of judging , as far as a few specimens from Mr . Byod ' s translations can enable them : —But , for our own parts , we confess , instead of wondering with this gentleman that

    his massy favourites should be * doomed to a temporary oblivion , we are only surprised that such affected deelaimers should ever have enjoyed a better fate ; or that even the gas of holiness with which they are inflated , could ever have enabled its coarse and gaudy vehicles to soar so high into the upper

    regions of reputation . It is South , we believe , who has said that * in order to be pious , it is not necessary to be dull j' but , even dullness itself is far more decorous than the puerile conceits , the Haunting metaphors , and all that false finery of rhetorical declamation , in which these writers have tricked out their most solemn and

    important subjects . At the time , indeed , when thev studied and wrote , the glories of ancient literature had faded ; sophists and rhetoricians had taken the place of philosophers and orators ; nor is it wonderful that from such

    instructors as I ^ ibanius they sh ould learn to reason ill and write affectedly . But the same florid effeminacies of style , which in a love-letter of Philostratus , or an ecphrasis of JLibanius ,

    are harmless at least , if not . amusing , become altogether disgusting , when applied to sacred topics y and are little less offensive to piety and good taste , than those rude exhibitions of the old

    moralities , in which Christ and his apostles appeared dressed out in trinkets , tinsel , and embroidery . The chief advantage that a scholar can now derive from a perusal of these voluminous doctors , is the I ?; : lit they throw upon the rites and tenets of the

    Pagans ; in the exposure and refutation of which they sue , as is usually Jhe case , much more successful thai , in the defence and illustration of th < ii own . In this respect Clemens Ale ^ uulnnus is one of the ino > . t valuable ;; being " chiefly a compiler of the dogmas of ancient learning , and abounding witir

    Untitled Article

    The Fathers . 19

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/19/