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

    approach to it , than authority has been able to compel . At all events , that sickening uniformity of darkness , which was extended like a pall over the middle ages , could never have

    covered the people , to whom the scriptures gave their light . The curfew of prelatical tyranny could never have rung out the signal that was to shut them in a long night of ignorance and terror . The sword of the

    magistrate , placed out of the grasp of the ecclesiastic , might have protected the rights of Christians , and of men , from the violation of misguided zeal and church-policy ; and law , regarding as it ought with indifference all opinions , that neither weaken the obligation nor impede the practice of

    justice , would have interfered between contending sects for no other purpose but to chain down violence and keep the peace . Hence if the cry of heresy were raised , —the magistrate not being coupled with the priest , —for the sake of good order the chase must liave been made a bloodless one . Had

    the Church never been incorporated with the State , her sentences of excommunication would not have become-as destructive to the estates and bodies of men , as they were terrible to their imagination and fears : but

    that association being once established the civil power was soon brought to think , that he- who was rejected by the Church had forfeited the protection , and even incurred the heaviest penalties of the State .

    The Christian has often triumphantly contrasted the early propagation of his religion with the ferocious conquests of Mahomet and his successors ; and he has reason in his triumph . The gospel made its way unaided by arts or arms : it had established itself in the conviction and

    hearts of men long before the stratagems and weapons of this world were employed in the service of the cross ; and none more than the enlightened Christian condemns , and deplores the officious and fatal interference of civil

    policy and power , after the time of Constantine , in the conversion of pagan nations to Christianity . The soldier usurped the office of the missionary ; the diplomatist became evangelist ; and the kingdom of Christ was forced into an alliance and abused Into a resemblance to the kingdoms

    Untitled Article

    of this world . The hand of blood was laid upon the sacred ark : its purity was fled , and it dark and debasing superstition succeeded to the pure , and undefiled religion of Christ . The Gothic tribes that broke into the

    south of Europe , brought with them better morals than they found . Rude they were , and fierce , rapacious often and cruel ; but the vices in the train of luxury had not wasted the powers of the soul , and destroyed the elements of future good .

    Intrepid , and clear-sighted , and remote from the country of Odin , they were not fitted to move long in the fetters of the northern superstition . Had this race of men fallen among Christians , such as Christians were

    in the first ages of the church , and such as might have succeeded to them' but for the pollution of secular connexion and worldly ambition , to accomplish their conversion to genuine Christianity had required no

    refinements of policy , no exertion of force . The sword of Charlemagne could only compel a feigned assent , where a band of zealous , faithful and truly evangelical missionaries would have planted Christianity in the mind , and in the heart . In those couutrres

    of Germany which were first roused from their long stupor by the voice of the Reformer , what noble materials existed for carrying up the Christian edifice 1 At the time when the rude but manly inhabitants were vanquished into a spurious religion , arid driven at the point of the spear to the

    baptismal fonts of the Roman Church And ) had England been brought into culture by such men as first preached the gospel in Britain , and happily escaped the pestilential blight from the Tyber , what a vineyard bad she stood , thus planted and trained by labourers , who resembled the lord of the vineyard !

    It may be said , that although , had the Church never been incorporated with civil governments its history would no doubt be different from what it is ; yet it does not follow that it would be better . On the contrary

    the abandonment of the religion pf Christ to the guardianship of the people would have issued in greater evils , than any that have resulted from placing it under the patronage and , advancing it into a participation of

    Untitled Article

    t Dr . Morell on Church Authority .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1816, page 8, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2448/page/8/