On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
founded ; the independence of Christianity on all temporal power , which led to the long and desolating struggles between the church and the state ; baptism into the name of Father , Son , and Holy Ghost , which formed a pretext for polemical subtleties and an intolerant authority over conscience ; the deduction of the
Christian evidences and doctrines from written documents , which gave occasion , in the heat of party zeal , both to actual forgeries and to corruptions of the sacred text ; Jesus ' s life of celibacy , and his being the son of a virgin , which was afterwards appealed to as a justification of the follies of monachism ; and lastly , the establishment of a kingdom of heaven , which has been constantly
perverted from its original object , of upholding a pure and spiritual morality , to the purposes of the wildest enthusiasm , by fanatics of every varied designation , Chiliasts , Donatists , Anabaptists , and Fifth-monarchy-men . In reviewing this lamentable train of corruptions , Herder observes , with his usual piety and seriousness of feeling : —
* Thus much have I written , with a sorrowing spirit , of this shameful abuse of the best of blessings ; yet I proceed with a cheerful heart to the consideration of the further planting of Christianity in the several quarters of the world ; since , as medicine may be converted into poison , poison also can be changed into medicine , and a principle which , in its origin , was pure and beneficent , must finally prevail * . '
This part of his subject Herder distributes under three principal heads ; viz . thfe propagation of Christianity in the East ; in the Grecian lands ; and in the Latin provinces of the Roman empire : —and on these interesting topics we can only regret that we have not time to pursue throughout his course of enlightened and ingenious speculation . The following remarks on the origin of Christian churches are curious , and to some of our readers may be novel .
* Tradition and faith , in attestation of which life had been freely sacrificed , soon became the chief and triumphant argument for Christianity . The poorer , the more remote , and the more ignorant the community of believers might be , the more they were obliged to take upon trust what tradition conveyed to them ; the word of their bishop and teacher , or the confession of a martyr , who had sealed his testimony to the Church with blood . And
yet , in the commencement of Christianity , no other mode can be conceived , by which it could have been propagated , but this ; since it was founded on a story , and a story implies narration , tradition , and belief . A story passes from mouth to mouth , till , put into writing , it becomes as it were a fixed and embodied tradition , and now first is capable of being compared \ vith other traditions , and proved by them . But , at this period , the eye-witnesses
? Book XVII ., ch . i ., p . 65 .
Untitled Article
226 The Philosophy of the History of Mankind .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1832, page 226, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1810/page/10/
-