Remains and Occasional Publications of the Late REV. John Davison, B.D. (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. 1840. Excerpt: ... The First Ages of the world have left much of their History under a veil, and transmitted to us the difficulty, and the desire, of exploring it. The earliest act of Religious Worship, offered by man to his Creator, of which we have any record, was by Sacrifice. And yet, in this great Institution of Religion, which begins the piety of the Old World; which afterwards obtained so wide a prevalence, and became the one chief ordinance in the systems both of True Religion and of False; which seems to involve so much of mystery in its use, and is full of vanity in Paganism, and yet is the image of the prime Truth of Christianity, and the counterpart of the real grace of Redemption; in this Institution, we are at this day at a loss, and obliged to discuss it as matter of doubtful inquiry, whether it came originally by Command or by Choice, and bore on its primitive usage the sanction of God, or of Man. B Leamed writers, fully competent to the argument, have passed different judgments upon it; in which they have had their respective followers, impressed with the confidence of an opposite conviction. And this diversity of opinion has disjoined those who might have been expected to agree. For in this case the first Fathers of the Christian Church have not been able to recommend their notions to those, who, in later times, have professed the greatest zeal for rectitude and piety of belief. Thus, in one instance more, have we been made to feel the uncertainties of our knowledge; of which indeed we have a very constant experience for our monitor; and to discover, by our inquiries, nothing so much as the change which has befallen our Primaeval condition; a change to a state of some unhappiness, in our precarious attainment, or our imperfect and unsuccessful communicatio...