Eirenicon; Toleration, Intolerance, Christianity, Christian Unity, the Church of England and Dissent. Toleration, Intolerance, Christianity, Christian Unity, the Church of England and Dissent (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. 1867. Excerpt: ... HISTORY OF DISSENT. The following examples of the admixture of Reformation in religion with heresy, or with error arising from its being premature, and leavened with one bad spirit of the age in which it arose, though it combated another, so that it had in it the elements and sentence of its own short-Hvedness, though it sowed a seed of truth which would never die, but was gradually to work and grow till it sprung up to ripeness in co-operation with others at the proper season, --are all or mostly taken from Meander (" Hist. of the Church," Bonn's ed.), who is the great expounder of this principle. "The design that Marcion started with was simply to restore Christianity to its purity, which in his opinion had been corrupted by foreign additions. The one-sided position from which he started was the occasion of most of his errors. He was not willing to be confined to the general tradition of the Church; for in this he thought foreign elements had already become mingled with pure apostolical Christianity. Taking his stand on the ground of positive Christianity (a position which so far is the spirit of true Protestantism), he refused to admit that anything but the words of Christ and of his genuine disciples ought to be considered as the fountain-head of the true Gospel. Unfortunately, however, instead of recognising the many phases of Christianity presented in the multiplicity of the organs chosen for its promulgation, he indulged in an arbitrary and one-sided distinction among them. His desire to adopt only the earliest records of pure original Christianity led him into historical and critical investigations, which were foreign to the contemplative direction of mind peculiar to the other Gnostics. But here he affords a warning example of the facility with wh...