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Untitled Article
and the emotions would not have responded to its call . What a multiplicity of feelings does the word Atonement arouse in the mind of a belie Ver in the doctrine ; and how poor a substitute would be found in the periphrastic expressions by which , having become a Unitarian , he would designate the work effected by Christ ! Poor , we say , relatively to him 9 and their power over his heart * not relatively to the absolute truth or value of the
views entertained by us on this important point . So would it be in other instances . Let a Catholic substitute the word communion for sacrament , and there would with him be a similar want of correspondence between the expression and the sentiment . Though an opinion , as held by different individuals , be in essential points the same , yet a diversity of phrase will occasion a diversity of feeling . Few men know how to translate the language which they use into that of others , or to discriminate between a
different sentiment and a different representation of a sentiment , and most judge that sentiment to differ in reality which wears to them a novel garment . But the change to which we have referred was more than a change of phraseology—it was a change of opinion , a radical change , affecting tenets once held most sacred . How was it possible for such a change to take place , such a revolution of sentiment , without a breaking up of the moral being , without weakening its power , and unduly increasing the sway
of the intellect ? Let a youth , arrived at an age to think for himself , have all the teachings of his parents impeached and exposed , and could he fail to experience a revulsion of feeling ? Would not his heart be disturbed and unsettled ? Would it not require a long time for the agitated elements to subside ? Would not the intellect gain the mastery in the interval ? Would
it not be a labour of inconceivable difficulty to acquire moral feelings equally strong with those infused into him in infancy ? Is it probable that in the majority of cases any such would be acquired ? That eloquent visionary , Rousseau , would , we are aware , have a youth left till arrived at years of maturity before the teacher should assume his office to form the intellect and the heart ; but he must know little of human nature who does not see that
the teacher would then find his pupil ' s mind and soul wholly , and in all important points , irrecoverably preoccupied . The immediate effect of this disproportionate culture of the intellect has been injurious to those engaged in it . They have , in a restricted sense , been martyrs to the revival of truth . They have gone through a process which , however much energy it might give to the mind , impaired the fair and absolute perfection of the character . Like lawyers , whose minds are
often cramped and narrowed by foregone and irrational conclusions , and perverted by having the disagreeable task of making the worse appear the better cause ; like medical men , with whom the finer feelings and more generous sympathies of our nature , are not seldom blunted and overlayed ; so some of those who contended earnestly for the faith , whether in public or in private , with the pen or with the tongue , were amerced in their moral feelings by reason of the undue activity of the intellect , and the incessant
employment of the weapons of logic . Professions are mostly injurious to the individual , however beneficial to society . The man is sacrificed to the lawyer . And so the peculiar pursuit of the reformer or the disputant is liostile to the perfect Christian . Let it be understood that we are not casting blame , but stating facts . If the Reformers of religion have suffered , they suffered of necessity—they suffered for us . And a review of their losses should awaken our gratitude as well as our caution . Beside the immediate , we have to notice , and chiefly , another effect of this disproportionate activity
Untitled Article
69 & The Watchman .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1829, page 698, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2577/page/26/
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