A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumesRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumes
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Free thought -- History
presumably the Lawrence Clarkson who for his book The Single Eye was
sentenced by resolution of Parliament on September 27, 1650, to be
imprisoned, the book being burned by the common hangman. [350] He is
further cited as teaching that even unbaptized persons may preach and
baptize. Of the other heresies cited the principal is the old denial
of a future life, and especially of a physical and future hell. In
general the heresy is pietistic or antinomian; but we have also the
declaration "that right Reason is the rule of Faith, and that we are to
believe the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Trinity, Incarnation,
Resurrection, so far as we see them to be agreeable to reason and no
further." Concerning Jesus there are various heresies, from simple
Unitarianism to contemptuous disparagement, with the stipulation for
a "Christ formed in us." But though there are cases of unquotable
or ribald blasphemy there is little trace of scholarly criticism
of the Bible, of reasoning against miracles or the inconsistencies
of Scripture, as apart from the doctrine of deity. Nonetheless, it
is very credible that "multitudes, unsettled ... have changed their
faith, either to Scepticisme, to doubt of everything, or Atheisme,
to believe nothing." [351]
Against the furious intolerance of the Puritan legislature some pleaded
with new zeal for tolerance all round; arguing that certainty on
articles of faith and points of religion was impossible--a doctrine
promptly classed as a bad heresy. [352] The plea that toleration
would mean concord was met by the confident and not unfounded retort
that the "sectaries" would themselves persecute if they could. [353]
But this could hardly have been true of all. Notable among the new
parties were the Levellers, who insisted that the State should leave
religion entirely alone, tolerating all creeds, including even atheism;
and who put forward a new and striking ethic, grounding on "universal
reason" the right of all men to the soil. [354] In the strictly
theological field the most striking innovation, apart from simple
Unitarianism, is the denial of the eternity or even the existence of
future torments--a position first taken up, as we have seen, either
by the continental Socinians or by the unnamed English heretics of the
Tudor period, who passed on their heresy to the time of Marlowe. [355]
In this connection the learned booklet [356] entitled Of the Torments
of Hell: the foundations and pillars thereof discover'd, search'd,
shaken, and removed (1658) was rightly thought worth translating into
French by d'Holbach over a century later. [357] It is an argument on
scriptural lines, denying that the conception of a place of eternal
torment is either scriptural or credible; and pointing out that many
had explained it in a "spiritual" sense.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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