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them may therefore immortalize their beauty in every heart , while the sacred records contain so much that is Jewish as to leave no doubt of their genuineness , all their teachings , doctrinal and practical , are based on facts of universal interest , and illustrated by permanent analogies . The one provision affords proof of its divine origin from its connexion with the preceding dispensation ; the other , from its adaptation to the expansive nature of the universal human mind .
These considerations lead to a conviction that the education of the human race T > y a special method is the object of revelation , and that reason is the instrument by which it acts . All attempts so to separate the intellectual from the moral nature of man , frequent as they are , cannot but be vain in the present case . Not only are the human faculties so mutually influential that no one can be perfected while others are neglected , but some cannot be acted upon at all except by means of others . The moral sense can only be
affected through the intellectual powers , and reason and conscience , if not identical , are at least inseparable . They sprang to birth together , were fostered by the same hand , and invigorated by the same means . They must be matured by the same influences ; and as they entered together on their immortal career , they must pursue their courses in perfect unison . The world of matter was created to be subservient to the world of mind ; and whatever minor purposes may be answered by the forms and influences of
the universe in which man is placed , the leading object is the generation and education of the moral sense , through the instrumentality of reason . All influences , come whence they may , from the heights of the firmament or the depths of the ocean , breathing from the face of nature or beaming from the countenance of man , thundered from the sanctum of Deity or echoed from the recesses of human spirits , are absorbed and modified by reason . The intimations of the Divine will are , in all cases , received by reason ; its
power is administered by reason . By its reciprocal action reason is invigorated , and must , at length , be perfected . All other media must finally be dissolved ; all inferior aids discarded . The light of truth must visit man in its purity , and spiritual realities be placed within his grasp . Every inferior stimulus must be gradually weakened . Hope and fear must melt into love , reward and punishment must be disregarded , and the perception of good supply the place of every lower incitement . When this is effected , man must have cast off the shackles of mortality , and the race have escaped the
conditions of its earthly existence . New heavens and a new earth must have been evolved from the elements of the present . Then , and not till then , will the gospel have done its work . Then , the perfection of spiritual science being attained , the second elementary book will be cast away . Then , and not till then , the will of God being an object of intuitive perception , the process of inference will be superseded , the application of principles will be involuntary , and their influence unerring ; and the truth of the gospel , having been assimilated by each individual mind , will lose its separate
existence . It is scarcely necessary to intimate my dissent from some hypotheses which Lessing has intermixed with his speculations . His opinion that the Jews were ignorant of the strict unity of Jebovah till their captivity , has already been questioned . It will also have been observed that his supposition of the gospel being an elementary book , destined to give place to others , is not admitted into my exposition of his system , such a supposition appearing irreconcileable with the inferential nature of the Christian doctrine and law .
Untitled Article
516 The Education of the Human Race .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 516, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/12/
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