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
bring after it , in the way of natural consequence , the benefits resulting from the esteem and love of men , such results are totally unconnected with the name of an exclusive , and the privileges of an incorporated class of society . Paul gloried in a name above the rulers who persecuted him , because in that name resided benefits which they knew not of . He gloried in his privileges , because they transcended any that could be obtained out of a spiritual region ; but that region being once entered , that name once adopted , all distinctions cease , and the prelate who stands up in his stall is of precisely the same rank as the beggar who kneels in the aisle . There is no occasion to remind Dr . Whately of this ; for no bearing can be more free from assumption than his , if we may judge from the spirit of his book ; but we would ask him respecting the righteousness of establishments which directly tend to foster the error he so well understands , and to destroy in those less clear-sighted than himself the impression which it is of surpassing importance to deepen and strengthen ,
—that the origin of Christianity is spiritual , that its aim is to spiritualize , that spirituality is its essence . If the people see men legislating , growing learned , getting rich , mounting from one dignity to another , by virtue of their Christianity , there is small use in telling them that Christianity is independent of all these things . It is far more easy , far more rational , far more honest to $ how them that it is so . As long as there must be privileges , and honours , and wealth , let them be conferred in reward of qualifications to which they are more appropriate ; and then such men as Whately will be spared the vain and ridiculous labour of guarding individuals against errors which are hourly cherished in millions by the influence of institutions . This is like damming up a tributary brook , while the main stream rushes on with a perpetually swelling tide—Dr . Whately cannot be spared for so idle a work . He has done much in searching out the source , and ascertaining that it is too ample to be dried up at present . His next labour should be to divert its course from the fair fields of promise which lie beneath its devastation .
It is a glorious office to teach Christianity at all ; but the work is not invested with its full glory till that which is spiritual is wholly severed from its arbitrary connexion with the temporal adjuncts with which man is prone to combine it , through a clear perception of the reasons for such a disunion . Precedence settled b y this rule is somewhat different from that which the heraldic science of modern Christendom has decreed . By this rule , the cotter , leading the Saturday night's devotions of his family , is greater in his office than the archbishop preaching amidst the state of his thronged cathedral ; and the enlightened dissenting minister is more exalted than either . He has gratefully learned—it may be from the archbishop—the origin of the c \ il * with which he would wage war , while he adopts whatever
Untitled Article
Romanimx and Episcopacy . 391
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 391, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/31/
-