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
and the body . Here are many mights against one ; and on the computation of chances , the trick of a pretended bodily resurrection is not likely to be the true solution , I forbear to make any more remarks than ha . ve heen incidentally offered on the supposed union of fraud and sincerity in the apostles and evangelists . I have endeavoured to show the fallacy
of the author ' s arguments . It matters little in fact whether those arguments go to prove a greater or a less degree of what is styled pious fraud , if they were indeed valid . Christianity would be proved to be no revelation , whatever salvo might be made as to the partial integrity and virtue of the parties to the fraud . But , I repeat , the author of the book before us has , in fact , ascribed , by his theory , a far greater amount of falsehood and imposture to
the principal persons in the Gospel history , than he seems to have designed or to be aware of . In main points the question is , as older writers have represented it , whether the writers or actors were competent and honest , or not . In main points this author has impeached both their competency and yet more their honesty ,
while he speaks of them , notwithstanding , in terms of general respect . He has shown , in effect , by endeavouring to maintain the contrary , that there is no middle point between the admission of a revelation , and the designating of the gospel history as a tissue of enthusiasm , delusion , fraud , and religious ambition , in the persons of Jesus and his apostles .
We are naturally curious to ask what system of belief and practice the author before us ( who , though anonymous , gives every proof we could expect of devatedness to the interests of morality ) has adopted as his own ? He has given very briefly his own theory of morals ( seePref . p . xi . ) : —• There exists in the heart of man an underived and inexterminable principle—the principle of morality—the sympathy and disinterested desire for others' good
— " the cautious feeling for another ' s pain , "—together with the sanctions of approbation and love to those whose conduct is guided by these feelings ; of indignation against the man of blood and violence , the oppressor , the unjust , the hard-hearted , and the selfish . ' Whatever may be thought of the author ' s theological arguments , he cannot , if this be a specimen , rank high as a stu-p dent in mental or moral science . The « underived and
inexterminable principle' may in many , if not in most , instances trace Us derivation with tolerable accuracy to distinct causes;—and it has in not a few instances been , if not exterminated , at least suppressed and perverted . So much for the appeal to instinctive and inherent principles of human naturp . * The existence of these moral
feelings , ' the writer goes on to say , ' is altogether independent of a belief in the sanctions of future punishment and reward , held out by revelation , forming part of the original constitution of the human mind . When what is called revealed religion shall be banished for ever , an enlightened and extensive benevolence shall
Untitled Article
Orthodoxy and Unbelief . & 99
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 839, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/47/
-