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light id quenched , or Christian truth is buried in darkness and debasing error ? * I know I shall be told that a roan in the circumstances now supposed , would still be culpable for his unbelief , because the Scriptures are within his reach , and these are sufficient to guide him to the true doctrines of Christ . But in the countries of which I have spoken ,
the scriptures are not common ; and if they were , I apprehend that we should task human strength too severely , in requiring it , under every possible disadvantage , to gain the truth from this source alone . A man born and brought up in the thickest darkness , and amidst the
grossest corruptions of Christianity , accustomed to hear the Scriptures disparaged , accustomed to connect false ideas with their principal terms , and wanting our most common helps of criticism , can hardly be expected'to detach from the mass of error which hears the name of the Gospel , the simple principles of the primitive faith . Let us not exact too much of our fellow-creatures . In our zeal for
Christianity , let us not foYget its spirit of equity and mercy . In these remarks I have taken an extreme case . 1 have supposed a man subjected to the greatest disadvantages in regard to the knowledge of Christianity . But obstacles less serious may exculpate the unbeliever . In truth , none of us can draw the line which separates between innocence and guilt in this particular . To measure the responsibility of a man , who doubts or denies Christianity , we must know the history
of his mind , his capacity of judgment , the early influences and prejudices to which he was exposed , the forms under which the religion and its proofs first fixed his thoughts , and the opportunities since enjoyed of eradicating errors , which struck root before the power of trying them was unfolded . We are not his judges ; at another , arid an unerring tribunal he must give account/—p . 6—11 .
We are sorry to see ( p . 227 ) that Dr . Channing ' s mind is undecided between the doctrines of the future restoration and the final destruction of the wicked . As a scriptural question , we should have expected that the spirit in which he expounds texts , would have led him to the deduction of the former doctrine from the language of many passages . His notion of mental liberty must , of course , prevent his recognition of those reasons for it
which arise from the combination of the benevolence of the Creator with the doctrine of philosophical necessity . But ouSer and conclusive arguments , might have presented themselves in the views of human nature so nobly developed in the fourth discourse . The following passage on greatness contains a presumptive argument that the capabilities of what has hitherto been the great majority of our race , will not be ultimately sacrificed .
4 true view of great men is , that they are only examples and manifestations of our common nature ; showing what belongs to all souls , though unfolded as yet only in a few . The light which shines from them is , after all , but a faint revelation of the power which is treasured up in every human being . They are not prodigies , not miracles , but natural developements of the human soul . They are ,
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Channiitg ' * Sermons . 135
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1833, page 135, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2608/page/67/
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