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Untitled Article
the dark ages , or of any who would lord it over God ' s heritage ; but the theology which is chanted by the waves , and illuminated by the stars , and pictured forth in the history of his race ; the theology which , having hovered in peerless majesty over the peculiar people , sprang , strong in its immortality , from the fires of their holy temple . Next to God , his study is Man ; next to man , his study is Nature .
Look back and see whether such is not the natural order of inquiry . Observe whether the great lights of the world , of whatever age and nation , have not united the things of the spirit with those of the senses in their contemplations . Zoroaster made the study of the elements subservient to worship . Pythagoras came down from contemplating the starry skies to expatiate on the immortality of the soul . Solon founded his moral on natural law ; and Moses used the learning of the Egyptians as a qualification
for the service of the God of the Hebrews . It was his broad gaze over the expanse of nature , and his penetrating glance into the intimate connexions of things , that made Socrates the sun of the heathen world , and enabled him to intimate what invisibly exists from what visibly appears . Plato studied geometry and poetry in conjunction , —travelled into Sicily to examine its volcanos , and into Egypt to master its mathematical sciences , —and then returned to discourse of the realities of which these were the shadows , —of
the eternal principle which dwells alone , and sends its emanations hither and thither , through the universe . His stei * n pupil , at whose feet the world lay for centuries , founded his logic on his search after " every star that heaven can show , and every herb that sips the dew . " The Stoic philosophy was based on the observation of the immutability of the laws of the universe ; and it was the harmonious flow of the tide of being , which filled the soul
of Epicurus with serenity and love . Archimedes united metaphysics with his deepest researches into matter . The service which Bacon rendered to mankind , was the furnishing philosophical principles to the pursuit of physical science ; and Newton spiritualized his mighty discoveries by a perpetual reference of ail that is to Him who made it . Thus far experience confirms reason in her decision respecting what ought to be the objects of human inquiry , and in what order they should be pursued .
Nor is this contradicted by the fact that revealed religion has , thus far , been held as a truth severed , by an original difference of constitution , from all other truth . If it be so , if Christianity have thus far done nothing for any truth but its own , it still does not follow that such aid is impossible , or not designed by its Author to
be eventually afforded . Is it not clear that Christianity has been long and widely misapprehended ? Is it not clear that , while our religion is held separate from our politics , separate from our literature , separate from our science , it no more puts forth its full power , than if it were held separate from our daily actions and
Untitled Article
76 Theology , Politics ^ and Literature .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 76, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/4/
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