Millenarianism - An Essay (1855) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MILLENARIANISM. " Here," said a student tp Casaubon, as they entered the old Hall of the Sorbonne, " is a building in which men have disputed for four hundred years." " And," asked Casaubon, " what has been settled? " How does it happen that the labors of learned men so often prove utterly worthless, and rather encumber than aid the honest inquirer after truth. It is simply because they mistake the proper objects of human inquiry, and exceed the limits which God has set to the understanding of man. They investigate subjects that cannot be known, and attempt to solve questions that cannot be answered. It is probable that one half, at least, of the works of philosophers and theologians might be annihilated, in a moment, without abridging the means of human improvement, or injuring the cause of true science. " Our public libraries," says Hallam, " are cemeteries of departed reputation; and the dust accumulating upon their untouched volumes speaks as forcibly as the grass that waves over the ruins of Babylon." Fortunate would it be for mankind, if the Babylon of controversial theology were sleeping, side by side, with its great prototype; but modern enthusiasts build again the tombs of the old prophets and those potent heresiarchs, who ruled among the nations, in former ages, " even all of them lie in glory, each in his own house." If their tomes were as innocuous as their tombs, we would " let the dead bury their dead," in quiet; but the literature which bewilders and misleads the humble inquirer after Divine truth, is infinitely more pernicious than that which caters to the passions of the carnal heart. There is hope that the " very chief of sinners " may be converted and saved; but the state of those fanatics, " whose little reading and less meditating, hold ever with hardest o...