On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
we are saved by the belief of those very things which the Anti-supernaturalist rejects ; and whatever resources the mercy of God may ultimately command in favour of those who reject the gospel through ignorance or prejudice , we are plainly
assured that their present state is one of guilt and condemnation , and that they are utterly alien from all the hopes and privileges of the Christian . The faith of Christ I regard as the touch-stone by which it has pleased the Divine wisdom to try the hearts and discriminate the characters of men . If , indeed , there be a man who
wishes to believe , but is distressed by difficulties which he cannot at present surmount , I believe we may say of such a one that he is not far from the kingdom of God , and be desirous to communicate to him every religious advantage in our power . But even such a one is but a learner and
wholly unfit either to rule or to teach , and if he be sincere , his own modesty will teach him this . For the sake of argument , the Antisupernaturalist has been represented agreeably to the indulgent and partial portrait of your Transatlantic correspondent . I am , however , inclined
to believe that few persons will long remain in such a state of mind . If we discard the belief of all the supernatural events of Christ's life , the obvious conclusion to which we are conducted is , that he was a visionary enthusiast , who , though of benevolent and virtuous dispositions , was carried
away , as many others have been , with false imaginations , mistaking the impulse of his own fancy for the inspiration of Heaven . For men of sense to hold such a character in that profound venerat ion which your correspondent describes , appears to me impossible . That weak and deluded sort of men .
ain ^ n g whom this supposition places lhe 'prophet of Nazareth , have ever i > een objects of contempt and pity with the more enlightened part of mankind . This miserable halting betw een two opinions is wholly vain . If Christ be not risen our faith is
Vj we are yet iu our sins . " The whole evidence of the doctrine of a 'uture life vanishes in air , and we ^ turn , Dow in f , he \ niiieteeuth century , 10 the old Epicurean rcaxim , "Let us
Untitled Article
eat and drink for to-morrow we die /' Feeling myself that the hope of the gospel is the richest treasure that we possess , our best consolation amidst the inevitable distresses of life and our only support in the prospect of death , I have thought it my duty , among others , to bear this my feeble testimony to the inestimable worth of true Christian faith , and to the reality of that " immense gulf which subsists between the true Christian and the Unbeliever . " T . F . B . •^¦ MMMkM .
Untitled Article
- > Cruel Freaks of Power . 347
Untitled Article
Sir , MayAO , 1826 . WISH your correspondent I . F . I ( p . 225 ) had given the authority for his anecdote , which is , however , not too barbarous to be credited , considering the numerous and well-authenticated cruel freaks exhibited not only by Whites in the West Indies , ( before they were restrained by the salutary progress of opinion in Europe , ) but by autocrats , in various ages , of every colour and of every clime . Burke , in the " Introductory Discourse concerning Taste , " prefixed to his Sublime and Beautiful , thus
relates what was doubtless the same story " A : fine piece of a decolated head of St . John the Baptist was shewn to a Turkish Emperor ; he praised many things , but he observed one defect ; he obsers'ed that the skin did not shrink from the wounded part of the neck . The sultan , on this occasion , though his observation was very just , discovered no more natural taste than
the painter who executed this piece , or than a thousand European connoisseurs , who probably never would have made the same observation . His Turkish Majesty had indeed been well acquainted with that terrible spectacle , which the others could only have represented in their imagination "
Burke has not mentioned the name of-the emperor , nor the horrible test to which , according to your correspondent ' s anecdote , his Turkish Majesty submitted his opinion on this question of taste . Yet , when he wrote the Sublime end Beautiful- almost his earliest production , Btifke had not yet learned , what he nrihap-
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1826, page 347, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2549/page/31/
-