The Progress of Religious Thought; As Illustrated in the Protestant Church of France Being Essays & Reviews Bearing on the Chief Religious Questions of the Day, Translated from the French with an Introductory Essay on the Oxford Essays & Reviews (Paperback)

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. 1861. Excerpt: ... INTEODTJCTOKY ESSAY ON "ESSAYS AND REVIEWS." By The Editor. "This presumptuous imposing of the senses of man upon the words of % God, the special senses of man upon the general words of God, and laying them upon men's consciences together under the equal penalty of ' death and damnation; this vain conceit that we can speak of the thinjgs of God better than in the words of God; this deifying our own interpretations, and tyrannous enforcing them upon others; this restraining i of the word of God from the latitude and generality, and the understandings of men from that liberty, wherein Christ and the Apostles left them;--is and hath been the only fountain of all the schisms of the Church, ' and that which makes them immortal."--Chillingwoeth. The two religious atmospheres of Prance and England offer at the present moment an interesting yet painful correspondence. They are both strongly marked by the signs of progress; they are both disturbed by passion, which attempts to resist the onward movement. The progress too in both instances has a similar origin and a similar tendency. Its origin is in the spirit of the age--a spirit which, being on the one side, a re-action against disbelief, is on the other, the / child of mental freedom and improved methods of inquiry and modes of thought. This spirit is now passing over all civilised lands, levelling old and decaying systems of opinion and government, by calling into being a broader and higher life, mental, moral, and religious. Its continued existence and operation are as inevitable as its re-constructing power is certain and efficient. Naturally it calls forth opposition. In this opposition, too, France and England have points of agreement. The opposition there and here comes from the unin formed multitude; fr...