On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
precision of detail , we wished to exhibit a slight sketch of the marked and salient features of a school , which embodied the popular spirit of the time , and furnished some of the most powerful of those influences , derived from general and widely-acting
causes , and scarcely less efficient on heathenism than on Christianity , through which our religion worked its way to ascendency , and wl | ich contributed to give it its earliest form and pressure . From that very superficial review of a subject , which is pregnant with interesting reflections , we now proceed to draw one or two applications .
I . What and where is heresy ?—is a question which we might be pardoned , perhaps , for omitting to entertain in this age of comparative toleration for varieties of opinion , were it not for the incalculable mass of wretchedness which the assumed competence to decide it has in almost every age inflicted on mankind . Lardner has handled this topic in various parts of his works with
his cqston * ary gentleness of spirit and latitude of charity ; and it is disgraceful to the tardy progress of ideas on such subjects in England , that the principles which he has so luminously stated , are pqt yet generally embraced , or , at least , consistently acted upon . But Lardner flourished near a century ago , and it is no discredit to his venerable name to confess that he has not
exhausted the subject , or left very clearly defined the line of demarcation between heresy and orthodoxy . Such a line is not indeed to be very strictly drawn ; but an approximation may be made to it by considering the origin and nature of Christianity . Historically speaking , the only practical difference between orthodoxy and heresy , as was strikingly evinced in the great Arian and Athanasian controversy , has been little else but the difference between intolerance persecuting and intolerance persecuted .
But what is Christianity ? Considered in its elementary form , is it any thing but an assemblage of facts , relating to a particular individual , purporting to have occurred at a particular time and place , and to have been followed by a specific train of effects ? Our first inquiry , then , is—Have we an authentic record of these facts ? and what is the ground of distinction between the canonical and the apocryphal Scriptures ? In this inquiry is involved the
essential principle of Protestantism ; and in pursuing it the German theologians , widely as we may dissent from some of the conclusions of their neologism , have , as a body , nobly distinguished theqiselves . They have sought for truth , instead of labouring to defend a system ; and their search has not been all in vain ; but
here in England , with all the splendid provisions of our hierarchy for learning , we are disgracefully behind the demands of the age . In , this most important field of inquiry we have done next to nothing for half a century ; and , notwithstanding the improved $ tate q [ philology , and the great accumulation of critical aids and materials , we seem to have set our minds on final measures as
Untitled Article
On the Influence of the Spirit of Gnosticism . Q 03
Untitled Article
2 U 2
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1833, page 603, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2622/page/19/
-