On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
-dity , the narrowness , the barrenness of mind which we lament in theology . We strive to break this benumbing spell . We would expose this terrific fallacy . We would raise the slave of creeds into the freeman of Christ . We demand , with him , ' Why do ye not even of yourselves judge that which is right ? ' We sound the trumpet of the gospel ,. and cry , * Awake , thou that sleepest , and arise from the dead , and Christ shall give thee light . ' And would not the world be benefited if men could be made to think as
freely and as vigorously in religion as they do hi other concerns ? Have not all great eras of improvement been characterized- by a burst of intellectual activity ? Was it not thus when Christianity roused the nations from the torpidity of their ancient scepticism and idolatry ? Was it not thus when the reformation was achieved ? A pure , and rational , and liberal theology would exalt the character of any people to the proudest heights of intellectual dignity . This was the soul of the consecrated literature of Judea .
Whether prophets and apostles were theologically inspired or not , their theology inspired them intellectually ; it was from heaven , and raised their minds above the world ; it gave them a sublimity unapproached by all other philosophers , moralists , and bards . Such should ever be the effect of genuine religion . Such never can be its influence till the bigotry and imposition are overthrown which denounce against what they call heresy and error the pains and penalties of eternity . "—Fox ' Sermon , Pp . 19—22 .
" Whatever may be the amiable inconsistencies of individuals ,, it is impossible , while these tenets are held , for the spirit of Christian love to pervade the land . They may be checked in some degree by doctrines of a different character - , they may also be checked by the best impulses of our calumniated nature ; but they cannot be neutralized ; they are too prominent in the system to which they belong , to be without a mighty influence over the heart : and that influence it is our bounden dutv to strufirerle for the over the heart ; and that influence it is our bounden duty to struggle for the
annhilation of . They are a source of slavish fear in religion , which is alike degrading to man who feels it , to the gospel which is represented as working by such- base means , and to God who is its object . They are a source of censoriousness and bigotry , which bring upon society a countless train of evils , often perpetrating by word and deed atrocious injustice , and sowing the land with seeds of bitterness . They ^ urn men aside from c doing justly ,
loving mercy , and walking humbly with their God . ' They fill the world with contentions ; and the death-bed even of their firmest votaries is often a scene of changing emotions , and melancholy apprehensions , and dark desponding ^ , which it is fearful to contemplate . They destroy even the wish for that purer and higher state of affection , that large expansion of the soul , the notion of which seems necessary for the gradual development of love in us ; for the heaven of their hopes is a scene of complacent exclusion , which
I should say only the hardest and narrowest selfishness could enjoy . Much must be done with m « n ' s minds before their hearts become right with God , or right with humanity . Controversy must eradicate the prejudices which impede the growth of their affections . They must be brought into the light , to make them feel the warmth , of genuine religion . Many a massy pile of false doctrine must be battered down before theology and morality can be reconstructed on the broad foundations which Christ haa laid of universal
Untitled Article
672 Sermons at the Anniversary of the Irish Unitarian Society .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1831, page 672, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2602/page/20/
-