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
regarded by them as brethreu and children of one common Parent , and entitled to participate in his blessings , they are merely fed with a scanty portion of the crumbs that fall from the table of the rich man , whose domestic animals are often fed aud attended with a degree of care and attention to which the poor man and his family are too frequently strangers .
Many are the vices . to be extirpated aud the virtues to be established before Christianity can have its perfect triumph . The most baneful of the former , and which is justly denominated a species of idolatry , is covetousuess ; a vice which seems naturally geuerated by splendid and richly-endowed establishments , whether civil or religious . One of the most
prominent of the latter is meekness or humility , to which virtue such establishments are destructive . To expect to extirpate the one , or establish the other , under existing institutions , seems hopeless and futile ; for all these institutions hold out strong temptations to cupidity and ambition . So fatal are these temptations , that they seduce even
a large number of Christian ministers , who , whilst they teach to others the coutempt of wealth , labour to obtain it ; and , whilst they teach humility , practise ambition . Reversing the commandment of our Saviour , they love " to be called of men Rabbi ; " and , like the princes of the Gentiles , they love to exercise lordship and dominion . That institutions which undermine the divine virtues taught by Jesus should be reformed , is
what every good man , who loves him , must necessarily wish . The emancipation of those who have dissented from the Established Church from the disabilities under which they have so long laboured , affords a rational hope that , by the wisdom of civil governors , religious institutions will be reformed , arid Christianity again be productive of disinterestedness and humility .
If there are vices to be extirpated , and virtues established , before Christianity can have its perfect triumph , there are also false doctrines to be exploded and true ones to be planted . One of the most dangerous of the former is by theologians termed original sin . The
advocates for this doctrine assume , that since , the fall of Adam the condition of man has been such as to disable him from doing good works , without the grace of God by Christ , or without the miraculous interference of God preventiug him . Hence the common answer given to the advocates of peace and re-
Untitled Article
formation' is , that tire abolition of the evils complained of , ' however desirable , is wholly impracticable in what is technically termed the present / alien state of man . This seems to be equivalent to saying , that in the natural state in which God sends men into the
world , they are incapable of embracing Christianity , or obeying those laws which ( notwithstanding their disability ) God commands them to keep . Neither selflove nor extreme depravity could invent a better plea to excuse crime or foster indolences It is surely reasonable to suppose that when the institutions of religion shall be reformed , this and all false doctrines will be exploded .
Allowing , however , that hereditary depravity or original sin does exist , f should hope that there are few Christians , who contemplate with gratitude the powers of mind which God has graciously given them , who will seriously maintain that they are under a natural incapacity , without miraculous interference , or the grace of God bv Christ
preventing them , to refrain from revenge , or to obey those plain commands which God has iaid upon them . If man cannot , by the exercise of moral discipline , by reading or teaching , be brought to restrain those animal propensities to which , by the constitution of his body , he is subject , he is clearly placed by his Creator in a worse condition than the
irrational part of the creation , inasmuch as these , by means of education , and without preventing grace , are capable of being brought to shew kindness to their natural enemies . We must , therefore , suppose either that these animals are happily free from what theologians call original sin , and that they naturally possess better dispositions than men , «> r else we must admit that those who are
entrusted with human education , whether priests , parents , or school-masters , are far less diligent in the discharge of their sacred duties , than those who are employed in instructing the brute creation . *
• Upon the Surrey side of Waterloo Bridge may daily be seen a cage about five feet square , containing the
quadrupeds and birds hereafter mentioned . The keeper of this collection , John Austin , states that he has employed seventeen years in the business of training creatures of opposite natures to live together in content and affection . And these years have not been unprofitably spent . It is not too much to believe that many a person who has given his half-penny to
Untitled Article
416 Afiscelhneous Correspondence .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 416, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/56/
-