On this page
-
Text (4)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
-
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
Essay on the Meaning and the Abuse of the Terms Moderation and Speculation , in reference to Theological Opinions .
July 1 , 1826 . rjHHERE are certain words that , JL in strict propriety , have an exclusive application to moral qualities : there are other terms that really
import nothing more than a particular state of the understanding . Let not such expressions be mutually confounded . He , for instance , who would speak of airy religious sentiments as moderate , or as characterized by their moderation , employs inaccurate , and ,
in some measure , dangerous language : and the man who would brand with the name of speculation theological inquiries from which he shrinks and tenets which he rejects — he who would thus suggest that they are either futile or hurtful *—is equally incorrect and unguarded in his phraseology .
I can discern and recognize a spirit of moderation : * I can describe and recommend , and would endeavour to exemplify , it ; but I am at a loss to know , how moderation can be
predicated of doctrines and opinions . Religious opinions ( I limit myself to the wedenda of the Christian world ) are scriptural , or they are unscriptural : under which of these denominations
they fall * is a point to be ascertained by investigation , by argument , by an appeal to the laws of evidence . If you say that one set of theological sentiments is more friendly to moderation of temper than another set , 1 will ask you for proofs of this
statement . In the mehn time , admitting , us a fact , what , thus far , is only an assumption , we , are not warranted in declaring that-such * tenets themselves are moderate : this were to forget the difference between epithets belonging to mental- ^ and those which sho uld he restricted to moral habits .
at-Thus , a spirit of moderation is intended by Jortin , when he says , ( Pref . l « Kern , on Kcd . Hist . ) " Learning has * lovely child , called Moderation . " t Iu like manner , it is to „ practice , u to opinion , that Horace ^ frequently
Untitled Article
Perhaps you conceive of moderation as something which lies in the middle of two actual or supposed extremes . This you hold to be moderation of sentiment . The definition , even if it be intelligible , is unavailing and
misplaced . Nothing can be less precise : nothing , as a standard of truth and error , more fallacious . According to Aristotle , * virtue is moderation of desire , of emotion , of pursuit : yet this great philosopher did not fancy that truth must therefore occupy a sort of central station . Nor do instructors
of far higher authority countenance such a test , which is totally fanciful > with the additional disadvantage of being at almost every man ' s command . Indeed , there scarcely exists a religious denomination , which does not imagine that its own creed and disci *
phne are in the happy medium between what it deems opposite mistakes , between excess and scantiness . The remark is at least valid , as to those degrees and shades of opinion which are not , . on the one side , atheistical , and , on the other , grossly
fanatical and superstitious : if these be put aside , every man ' s tenets , and every society ' s , are , in the view of the several professors of them , the sentiments of a just moderation . Extremes ,
it is affirmed , border on each other , and produce each other : he who , to-day , credits what no evidence supports , and even what evidence contradicts , may , to-morrow , easily bring himself to reject what powerful evidence sustains . As to the remainder of the
religious world , all , if they themselves be the judges , are the children of moderation : among Protestants , especially , the Caivinist thinks that lie
quoted lines ( Sat . L . i . lines 106 , 107 ) relate . To opinions they are not more applicable than to a parochial modus , or to manorial fines . —Bosweirs Life of Johnson , III . 35 . ( 3 d ed . ) * Ethic : Nicomacli : L * . ii . C . vi . Sa Cleobulus : fA . tr pop—a 6 p / $ -os * .
Untitled Article
THE . * ¦ 4
Untitled Article
. ¦ ' . " - - ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ' ¦ — ~ . ---- _ , . No . GCXLVII . 3 JULY , 1826 . [ Vol . XXI .
Untitled Article
v » ' .. xki . ; $ o
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1826, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2550/page/1/
-