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The forms under which religion has been seen in the world , are most multitudinous and diversified . They have varied with country , climate , age , and character . In no two periods , in no nation , scarcely in any two individuals have they been the same . Amidst this diversity it might seem at first sight difficult to determine what religion is . But the difficulty vanishes on a little attention . If , indeed , you consult the sectarian , he will involve
you in inextricable labyrinths . I am right , he says , and all the world beside is wrong . Ask his fellow-bigot , and you have a similar answer and so onward , till having gone through a host of these short-sighted and narrow-minded creatures , you find that each condemning each in turn , error is everywhere and truth nowhere . The fact , however , is , that all are Tight and all are wrong . There are great features of religion as well as of our common humanity in which all agree , and all in the main are right ; there are other
minor diversities in which error generally prevails . It is the business of the wise man to abstract that which is wrong from that which is right ; that which is accidental , local , and temporary , from that which is essential , universal , and eternal . The diversiry is among the first , the agreement with the second . The first may change , decline , and perish , and religion remain without serious injury ; the second cannot be impaired without loosening the bonds by which the creature is attached to the Creator . It is to be regretted , however , that men too generally identify religion with its accidental rather than with its essential features , and in consequence learn to feel as bigots rather than as brothers . One will tell you that religion is Calvinism when he should have said Christianity ; another that it is Unitarianism , when he should have said the gospel ; another that it is the system of Jesus , v / hen speaking of the world at large he should have said the love and service of the Creator . Here it is works , there faith ; with this man it is assurance , with that man fear , when it is not one of these , but all . This minister places it in the prostration of the intellect , that in the recital of creeds ; this Christian finds it in a regular attendance on public worship , and that in the numbering of beads and the iteration of prayers , when these are but the forms and not the spirit of religion . This sect has its favourite notion , and that its favourite practice , when both deriving their importance solely from the imagination of their votaries , are , in the prominence they hold , the fictions of men and not the requirements of God . And so throughout the religious world you find men judging of religion as they do of the beautiful in form , extolling what they are accustomed to , and condemning what is strange , whereas religion is made for universal man , is a plant not
of one but of every soil , and is found , not indeed in equal perfection , but still found , doubtless , in forms acceptable to the common Father , wherever a human mind thinks or a human bosom throbs . Religion may be contemplated as a principle , as a course of action , and as a sentiment-In this last aspect religion extends its influence over the whole of God's intelligent creation . By a sentiment we mean , that religion consists ( in part ) in feeling , a recognition of superior power , and thus proves a mysterious but powerful link which unites the heart of the creature with the Creator . We hold it to be impossible for a human being in p ossession of his rational
* Conversations 011 Religion with Lord Byrou and others . By the late James Kennedy , JM . D ., of His Majesty ' s Medical Staff . London : Murray .
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LORD BYRON * S THEOLOGY . *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1830, page 605, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2588/page/21/
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