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
affirming its . knowledge of events buried scarcely skin - deep in the womb of time I True ; it is no longer the " meek and lowly" Jesus itinerating" the streets of Jerusalem , but " the risen Christ ascended up on
high , having led captivity captive : " no longer the Lamb of God led to the slaughter amid the taunts and execrations of a petty multitude in Palestine , but among myriads of saints and angels and innumerable
liosannahs , seated " hard by" the throne of God . This is indeed a discrepancy in time and state which might be supposed to account in some degree for here and there a
phenomenon in the language of inspiration : but , let me ask the " straitest of a sect , " do they reach , do they approximate a complete solution of that entire metamorphosis which a true glance from the eye of
a stranger to our controversies must descry in what is predicated passim there of the great ordained prophet of Nazareth ? I ask not how the glory of the man , and nothing else or more , on earth * tallies with his humiliation : but I do ask whether all this , realized
as it may be presumed to be by the piercing eye of an apostle ' s faith , will explain and account for the veneration , the wonder and the love which he seems to have felt ? Seems , do I say ? Which beyond alt question , if
words have any meaning , he did feel from head to foot , at every retrospection of the sacrifice made by this victim at once and conqueror of the grave , in his pilgrimage upon our globe , and in the shedding of his Mood . It is not for me to measure
another ' s apprehensions on any subject by my own ; nor do I know well how to transfuse the spirit of my own expressions and feelings into the heart of another man . But only compare now the writings of some eminent saint of the pure Humanitarian school with those of Paul . Is
not the rayless glare of a winter ' s morning sun beside the glowing- glories of a summer ' western sky ? Is j not the casual and colloquial mention of the benefits derived fz * otn this heavenl y luminary , contrasted with tiie fervent ami constant adoration of
some Oriental devotee ? Interroffato nes are , I am well aware , not arguments ^ but to man y an ingenuous
Untitled Article
mind an appeal maybe often well nigh as conclusive as a demonsfratitff * Whence then all this toto coelo difference between- the apostles' and some of those who sit at their feet ? No explanation can , I think , be given of it , than , that they thought also toto ccelo differently of the person of their common Master . The enthusiasm of the one is now as much in character
as the complacency of the other . In the one case , the love of Christ is something tangible , definite , easily explicable ; in the other , something inaccessible , unfathomable ,
unintelligible , ineffable . Here , all is staid , proportioned , equidistant ; there , a leading association has taken entire possession , lords it over the mind , can never be out of season or out of
place , " constrains" every thing to itself ; at one moment prompts a long irrelevant digression , at another crosses it and immediately becomes its theme $ surprises us by extraordinarycollocations , interrupts us with long parentheses—is , in short , the alpha
and omega of the writer's thought , and is ever breaking out , luxuriating , and almost playing pranks , as it were , with his language . Who is there that does not instantly recognize this principium and exitus in St . Paul ' s Epistles ? What is their theme , which ,
only in subordination to that of the love of God , well nigh alternates with it , scarcely at times preserving its "distance due" ? But one answer can be given by any one who has ever read them . Whence then , again I ask , this only not leading , this predominant , this , I had almost said , monopolizing idea ? Be the affirmative what it may , it cannot , cannot be .... But , after the example of a great and good man , I check myself , and my page warns me that it is high time to bring these already too longprotracted observations to a close . That they will be welcome to the generality of your readers , even as
matter of amicable controversy , is more than I am authorized to hope : that they will be received in the spirit of charity , I feel myself no less warranted than entitled to expect . They will not have the slightest effect on the faith of a confirmed Rationalist but should they only increase his # ood ~ will and indulgence towards no inconsiderable number , within and
Untitled Article
Objections to one Species of Uniiarianhnk . Q&l
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1826, page 601, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2553/page/29/
-