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Untitled Article
even if thes vagueness of a < HHairt f ^ tarfty i » terv ^ de $ be awd joy are quelled * a $ d reason maintains jts s ^ jat . Ou tbid priociple , perhaps , it js that the vast and highly exciting hope of . impaojtajl Ufe very rarely , eyeji in susceptible minds , geuerattfs that Had of emotion wj ^ ch bripgs with it the hazard of mental 'derangement . Religious madness , when it occurs , is most
often the madness of despondency . But if the glories of heaven might , by any means , and in contravention of the established orde * ef things , be brought oul from the dimness and concealment of the unseen world , and be placed ostensibly on this side of thejdarkness and coldness of death , and be linked with objects familiarly known " , "" they might then press so forcibly upon the passion of hope , and so inflame excitable imaginations , that real insanity , or an approach towards it , would probably , in some instances ^ be the
consequence . * A provision against mischiefs of this kind is evidently contained in the extreme reserve of the Scriptures on all subjects connected with the unseen world . This reserve is so singular , and so extraordinary , seeing that the Jewish poets , prophets , and preachers , were Asiatics , that it affords no trivial proof of the divine origination of the books ; an intelligent advocate of the Bible will choose to rest an argument rather upon the paucity of its cjiseove- * ries than upon their plenitude . "— " But a confident and dogmatical
interpretntion of ^ those prophecies that are supposed to be on the eve of fulfilment , has manifestl y a tendency thus to bring forth the wonders of the unseen world , and to connect them in sensible contact with the familiar objects and events of the present state . And such interpretations may be held with so full and overwhelming a persuasion of their truth , that heaven and its
splendours may seem to stand at the door of our very homes -. ^ -to-morrow , perhaps , the hastening crisis of the nations shall lift the veil which so long has hidden the brightness of the eternal throne from mortal eyes—each turn of public affairs ; a war- ^ a truce—a conspiracy—a royal marriage—rmay be the immediate precursor of that new era , wherein it shall no longer be true , as heretofore , that ' the things eternal are unseen . '"—Pp . 97 , 98 .
To those lovers of truth who bring to the study of the Bible all the vigour of thought , all the knowledge and intelligence of which they are masters , new evidences of its truth will be continually brought out which are unmarked by superficial observers . Of this kind is the evidence intimated in one of the paragraphs we have just quoted . The same mind which recognizes in the seventh heaven of Mahomet the production of an earth-born
imagination , will discern the impossibility of conveying to the human mind any conception of the realities of the unseen world , while he is convinced that the framers of a new religion would not forego so powerful a means of influencing the minds ef those whom they designed to delude . Many impostors might have imagined a better heaven than that of Mahomet ; but no impostor or enthusiast would have refrained from describing an unseen world which he affirmed to exist . Much less would he be able to reveal
just so much as would be sufficient to arouse the hopes and fears of his followers , while he rendered it impossible for them to form the most remote conceptions of the nature of those spiritual regions on which their expectations were fixed . A wisdom above that of man is here discernible in adapting the revelation to the minds which are to receive it , —in apportioning the light to the strength of the organ which is prepared for it . A . love above that of man to man is also discernible in the care with which the human
mind is protected from the ravages of a wild imagination ; and while roused to the utmost degree of activity by intimations substantial , though obscure , js restrained from extravagance by that very obscurity . This gentle restraint on human faculties , this tender care of human weakness , proceeds from the
Untitled Article
4 ? i Natumt History of Emhusiittm .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 474, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/26/
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