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Untitled Article
process , the intellect is exercised and the taste gratified , is a recommendation rather thari an objection to it £ adoption ; and there is jio fear &ut that those hearers ty |) 9 ss i nt ellects are sluggish , and whose tast ^ arg ^ culti vate ^ , will listenJc > Ja 1 $ ^ niueli piirpose ^ as to a moral £ sfcay , or a pj £ ce of textual criticism . TJieirlitti ^ w nai Are fujl , ap <} are more likely to be jceptbrj ^ roiBg than if exposed po dje e . vappratipg heats of controversy , or the idry wi&ds of attfiquat ^ ii etbics .. . .., ' , ,. ,
It is a delightful privilege , and ope of modern dat $ , & > he enabled to describe what p reaching ought to be from the observation of xwhat it is .. To own the truth , we might not have formed so clear a conception of what it ought to be , if we bad not had the experience of what , in a few instances , it is . Th ^ s conception will probably be originated in many minds ; in many more , exalted and enlarged , by the sermon before us , which , while it amply fulfils the avowed design pf its author in the scope and power of its reasoniogs , answers also Jthe unintentional purpose of a perfect ijh ^ tration . The inseparable attributes of Christianity having beep described , —those
features which preserve an immortal youtfr apd beauty amidst the revolutions of ages , —the institutions of the primitive Christians are shewn to have been adapted to the circumstances of their times , but in no degree to have involved the essence of truth . The mistake of regarding the Scriptures , which are only the records of revelation , as the revelation itself , having been exposed , the , two causses from which the Christian dispensation appears to have suffered most in its influence on mankind are declared to be , the
concealment of the Scriptures during the ascendancy of the Church of Rome , and the misconception and injudicious application of them subsequent to the period of the Reformation . * In the first of these crises we see the spirit of the dispensation buried
undejr the weiglit of its secular institutions ; in the second , extinguished by a minute and scrupulous interpretation of its historical records : and in both , we perceive Christjanity identified with what is really distinct from itself , and is but a mode or a means of its existence /'
Into the first of these errors there is little fear of our relapsing ; but we are far from having outgrown the other . Whatever we may have owed to the prevalence of a rigid and literal principle of scriptural interpretation , the possibility of its producing any advantageous result is over , while it is still regarded by many with respect . The time for it is past , and nothing but
evil can arise from the habit of looking to the Bible for rules for the regulation of every thought , word , and action , and for precedents for the decision of injnute points of faith and conscience * It is not enough to declare the Bible to afford the rule of faith and practice ; it is now time to discover what is the essence of that faith and the principle of that practice ;—to infer
and not to quote that rule . i " Those who have been educated in . the principles of a particular religious system , and accustomed to regard as Christianity , not only the fundamental truths originall y taught by Christ and his apostles , but also the practical inferences and applications , which have been deduced from those truths , and
Mended with them by the experience a « 4 observation of Christians in suecesbivoajgea , will ofteu experience sonie disappointment , when their studies are first seriously Jwnwl to the Scriptures , at pot / finding t&em rnore abundant in particular rules find preceuta mmedhxtely serviceable to the presept wants of life , and diiscqvenn ^ that the severa l t , e ^ ts ,, whicU thqy . h ^ vc bee n , used to <; oufcider as thq scriptural authority for the \ arioua articles of their cjfeed , lutye
Untitled Article
Tayler * s Sermon . 531
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 531, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/27/
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