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
said they say that he came back from death , spake to them oft for forty days , and was carried before their view beyond the preciacts of this earth . " Here is a series of events deeply interesting indeed to those who were immersed in them ; but of which , even on the spot where they occurred , it might have been expected that , within one generation , their
very rumour would have died away , lost in the stir and cares of life . A few months began and ended them ; an obscure recess of the world was acted upon by them . They concerned one of a social class , which is beneath the proud level of history , and whose vicissitudes , after a few years , are added to that dark abyss of forgotten things , above which gigantic vices and ambitious virtues struggle to be seen . They are ,
moreover , the simple record of a private life , coming in almost at the death of ancient history , and overshadowed by its pageantry , —the miracles themselves rendered insipid , except for their benevolence , by its prodigies . Yet this fragment of biography did not die ; it not only lived , but it gave life ; it recast society in Europe , and called into being a new world .
" Providence then sent out these events upon a mission . They liad some function and office , what were they for f To enquire after their end , to go in quest of the design which they were to accomplish , is to seek a reply to the question , what is Christianity f If we discover the purpose of Christ ' s life , we have found Christianity . "—p . 1—7 . How this discovery is to be effected ; what the materials are , and in what mode to be employed , are enquiries which follow ; they come with augmented interest after such an introduction ; and the reply to them is the task attempted in the lectures .
The first treats of the Scriptures , their contents and authority ; the second investigates the claims of the Catholic church ; the third those of Protestant churches ; in the fourth the rights of reason are asserted , and its province in religion defined ; and the last two are on the relation of natural religion to Christianity , and the influence of Christianity on morality and civilization . In the estimation of the writer of this notice , the author ' s views
are not less sound in their foundation than lucid in their statement , and in the reasonings by which they are supported . His views , we mean , of the method of theological investigation , the * Rationale of Religious Enquiry ; ' for as to Ids own belief , or any other forms of doctrine , they are not involved in the discussion , nor obtruded on the reader . The professed object is steadily pursued ; and it is one of paramount importance . It is
the great " previous question . " Anterior to its settlement no other question cafri be satisfactorily disposed of . The laws of enquiry and controversy must be ascertained before we can be sure that enquiry is not wasted time and trouble , or controversy anything better than " a contest in the dark . " The work is , therefore , valuable for all classes , Christian or Unbeliever , Proteatant or Catholic , those who are engaged in the foxmatiim of
Untitled Article
556 The Rationale of Religious Enquiry .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1836, page 556, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2661/page/32/
-