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Untitled Article
which it is reached after and attained by exertion , or by which it is only received as a gift . It is , therefore , no degradation to the truth itself to speculate on the mode by which it is attained ; while due honour is paid to the best of heaven ' s gifts by an adequate estimate of its capabilities .
The inferential nature of Christian doctrine aids the development of reason by another method * The gospel has employed the faculties of men more extensively and more efficiently in its actual form than it could have done in any other . If its truths had been given in the form of a system , men would have grown careless and indolent about them , for want of that stimulus to the intellectual faculties which is essential to moral excellence .
If the practical law of Christianity had been imposed in the form of express , unchanging directions , obedience would have had a passive rather than an active character , and the deep , sympathetic interest in this law which has had so large a share in the development of the human mind would have been wanting . If such a system of doctrine had been offered , such a code of law imposed , Nicodemus would not have had his thoughts stirred up by obscure intimations ; the rich young man would have needed no instruct
tions how to perfect his obedience ; Cornelius would have sought no conw munion with an apostle ; Paul ' s Epistles might have been dispensed with ; the testimony of the fathers , the labours of the learned , the experience of the pious , the sufferings of the faithful , would have been matters of small concern to men of the present day . The obedience of all would have been of the narrow , constrained kind , which is now the symptom of a misinterpretation of the gospel ; and if men had not outgrown the law , it could only be because the law had stinted their growth . As it is , the variety of
intellect which has been employed in the process of inference , the diversity in the methods by which truth has been developed , the multiplicity of instruments used to effect a common object , have advanced the human reason to a higher point than it could have reached by any other mode of occupation . For many hundred years , the reason of multitudes has been concentrated on the same point ; and national and individual minds , united by no other sympathy , separated by circumstance , and alienated by prejudice , have joined in the work of investigation , attestation , and deduction , till convictions which would have been held in solitude became common
property , and the sparks of intellectual light which would have glimmered faintly in their dispersion , have kindled into that unconsuming flame which even now sheds back its radiance upon the sacred records . The analogies between various tongues and the language of the Scriptures , between the customs of other nations and those which subsisted in the Holy Land have been traced ; the comparison between the non-essentials of life and the permanent features of humanity has been drawn ; and , in consequence , the
influence has been deduced that there are substantial , universal objects of human pursuit , and that these objects are set forth in the volume which is presented for the universal study of mankind . Each Christian nation , each inquiring individual has assisted the researches of others on points of equal interest to all , and the usual consequence of a concentration of power has been experienced—an augmentation , a progressive augmentation of power .
The labours of the Christian fathers in Europe , Asia , and Africa , not only afforded contemporaneous aid , but guidance and assistance to their posterity * The corruptions of a false philosophy , the superstitions of the ignorant , ihe subtleties of the deluded , while directed to one object , were of use , if not in guiding to what is true , in warning from what is false . The effects of co-operation , or at least of mutual influence , direct or indirect , have
Untitled Article
514 The Education of the Human Rate ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 514, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/10/
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