This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1837 Excerpt: ..."The way, then, t obtain this result is to permit all to be said on a subject that can be said." To shew how ljttle religion has to hope, in the opinion of our author, from this unbridled spirit of free discussion--take the following significant passage: --" Nothing more, it is manifest, would be required for the ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1837 Excerpt: ..."The way, then, t obtain this result is to permit all to be said on a subject that can be said." To shew how ljttle religion has to hope, in the opinion of our author, from this unbridled spirit of free discussion--take the following significant passage: --" Nothing more, it is manifest, would be required for the destruction of error, than some fixed and immutable standard of truth, which could be at once appealed to, and be decisive of every controversy to the satisfaction of all mankind; but that no such standard exists, the slightest consideration will be sufficient to evince. If it be asserted that on points of religion the sacred writings are such a standard, it may be urged in reply, that this is only an apparent exception; for in the first place, we have no standard by which the authenticity of those writings can be determined beyond all liability to dispute; and in the second place, supposing we had a test of this nature, or that the authenticity of the Scriptures was too evident to admit of the least doubt from the most perverse understanding, yet we have no decisive standard of interpretation." Few persons will mistake the import of the foregoing passages: the following is not less clearly significant. "Men of vulgar creeds," will not mistake its object, namely, to palliate the reproach of the dying scenes of such persons as Voltaire, Paine, and other polite infidels. "In religion, the strong power of associations, in opposition to the convictions of the understanding, is peculiarly worthy of notice, especially in the case of changes from a superstitious to a more rational and liberal creed. The force of a man's education has perhaps long held him in bondage, and his whole feelings have become interwoven with the ...
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