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Untitled Article
to the system than to its victims ; and the system now meets with the universal reprobation it deserves . It is shewn by our author to have subsisted in contempt of the Divine constitution of human nature , and outrage of common instincts ; to be the promoter of deliberate selfishness , of spiritual pride , and of greediness of the supernatural . It led to the practice of rnystifying the Scriptures , and recommended itself by feats of proficiency in the exercises of artificial virtue .
' After dwelling on the mournful picture of degradation caused by the enthusiasm of monachism , it is refreshing to turn to the partial revival of true piety among the Jansenists and the inmates of Port Royal ; and while lamenting their lack of power to throw off the galling yoke of superstition and temporal subjection under which they groaned , it is exhilarating to mark the bolder and truer course of Luther , who , spurning the control not only of the pope but of the fathers , searched the Scriptures , and there found the great realities of religion *
The tenth and last section argues the probable spread of Christianity , not only from the belief of its truth , ( on which supposition its future prevalence is certain , ) but from past experience of its power . Be it true , or be it false , it has surmounted a host of obstacles , it has survived persecution , it has stood its ground amid the revolutions of centuries ; and though long and darkly overclouded , has burst forth like a buried stream , hidden but not lost . Having done all this , it may do it again : and though the infidel may assert its falsehood and reject its sanctions , he cannot deny its power in past ages , -or limit its results :
sc But if there were room to imagine that the first spread of Christianity was owing rather to an accidental conjunction of favouring circumstances than to its real power over the human mind , or if it might be thought that any such peculiar virtue was all spent and exhausted in its first expansive effort , then it is natural to look to the next occasion in which the opinions of mankind were put in fermentation , and to watch in what manner the system of the Bible rode over the high billows of political , religious , and intellectual commotion , It was a fair trial for Christianity , and a trial essentially different from its first , when in the 15 th century , after having been corrupted in every part to a state of loathsome ulceration , it had to contend for existence , and to work its own renovation , at the moment of the most
extraordinary expansion of the human intellect that has ever happened . At that moment when the splendid literature of the ancient world started from its tomb , and kindled a blaze of universal admiration ; at that moment when the first beams of sound philosophy broke over the nations , and when the revival of the useful arts g * ave at once elasticity to the minds of the million , and a check of practical influence to the minds of the few ; at the moment wheu the necromancy of the press came into play to expose and explode necromancy of every otlier kind j and when the discovery of new continents , and of a new path to the old , tended to supplant a taste for whatever is visionary , by imparting a vivid taste for what is substantial ; at such a time , which seemed to leave no chance of continued existence to aught that was not in its nature vigorous , might it not confidently have been said , This must be the crisis of Christianity ? If it be not inwardly sound—if it have not a true hold of human nature—if it be a thing of feebleness and dotage , fit only for cells , and cowls , and the precincts of spiritual despotism—if it be not adapted to the world of action—if it have no sympath y with the feelings of men—of freemen ;—nothing" can save it ; no power of princes , no devices of priests will avail to rear it anew , and to replace it in the veneration of the people ; or at least in ^ any country where has been felt the freshening- gale of intellectual life . The result of this crisis need not be related . " —P . 25 § .
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480 Natural History of Enthusiasm .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 480, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/32/
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