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Untitled Article
standing does but hold the scales , the heart throws in the weight . It is this , which , when oppressed with the burthen of an earthly condition , casts itself upon the idea of perfection hereafter far beyond the limits of that oppression .
High above all that is terrestrial , the spirit soars victorious and triumphant . Subjected here to the powers of material nature , it bears under their fostering influence a short-lived blossom , and is soon withdrawn from the agitations of sense . This is the basis of natural religion , that revelation within us through which we are conscious of our proper nature . "— " He who should not shrink back alarmed from the imputation of prejudice , which of all scandals is the worst , would not long deny the existence of feelings and dispositions a priori in our nature . At present this form of expression has to
encounter objections , which will disappear with time . There is still in philosophy a strong prejudice against all that is called feeling , because abuses have been linked with the word . Speak of feeling , and men think of some transient impression , sdme paroxysm of weakness , or of some fond manner of thinking , without acuteness , and unsupported by reason . And yet it is an acknowledged fact , that there are cases in which , to refuse the evidence of feeling , is to reject all means of information and conviction . There are lofty and intransitory feelings , independent of passion , humour , and the
excitements of sense , which give intelligence of things to which the ideas of sense , and the understanding employed upon them , can furnish nothing more than the clothing . All truths which reason contemplates stand before it as ideas or representations , and thus first they become objects of thought . But this is not the form in which all are originally given . There are truths which are the offspring of the heart , and owe their arrangement only to the head . A merely good head has never known how to speak , and yet less how to act in what regards the end of human life and man ' s final destination . Through
the suggestions of a natural religion , the mind of man aspires to a region of greater spiritual freedom above this world of sense ; but wanting a certain object , it endeavours to sustain its hope by images which are very dissimilar according to the degrees of intellect and cultivation in different tribes and persons . To deliver it from this state of visionary expectation or doubt , revelation descends to its succour . The announcement of a heavenly kingdom , the invitation to the full assurance of hope , the commandment to be pure in heart , that we may be qualified to inherit the promise ; these are the glad tidings of the Christian revelation , and thus it is * the anchor of the soul ,
sure and steadfast . ' " I subjoin the substance of some theological passages on the same subject from the lectures of Knapp , who was certainly no rationalist : " It is an undoubted fact , that we men could be better than we are , and every man must confess it of himself . The possibility of continual moral improvement suggests the belief , that there is in the nature of man a capacity of being raised to moral perfection ; and from the capacity we infer the destination ; as we see in the seed that it is intended to be developed into a
plant . The true destination of man as a rational being is , continually increasing moral perfection , or in the language of Scripture , holiness - and happiness connected with it , and in the same degrees . But if man has been ordained by God to such an end , he must have the power to attain it ; and since he does not possess it of himself , God must have provided the means by the use of which he will become continually better ; for it is impossible that God has designed man for that , which for him is unattainable . The power must be sought , and can be found only in religion , that is , in the sense of our relation to God , or faith in God as our supreme ruler , law-
Untitled Article
Letlcr&from Germany . 271
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 271, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/55/
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