Christianity and Modern ThoughtPeabody, Andrew P. (Andrew Preston)
Religion
Christianity and Modern Thought
Peabody, Andrew P. (Andrew Preston)
Unitarianism
What must we do, we Protestants, in the presence of this fact? Must we
exaggerate, must we be unfair in our attacks? No. Must we go to sleep,
thinking there is nothing to do? No, not that either. We must work; we
must work steadily to give light and instruction to all. We have
here,--and I have tried in a very rapid way to give you an idea of
it,--we have here history. That is the greatest of weapons in such a
case as this. Usurpers never like history, because they know very well
that history condemns them. We must make history known, make the facts
known, and proclaim liberty and the rights of the human conscience. We
must do that over the whole world. I do not believe that Protestantism,
as it has often been said, is nothing else but Roman Catholicism
stripped of some of its abuses, and without some of its errors. It is
something else. If there were time, and I could begin now instead of
ending, I would try to show you that in the history of Protestantism,
and even before Protestantism appeared, there has always been, next to
that stream of power of Roman Catholicism, always becoming stronger and
more encroaching up to these last days, another current of protest;
there have always been men struggling for faith with liberty, who said,
"That cannot be;" who understood better the Gospel, who liked the spirit
of the Gospel, the spirit of God in Christ, better than the spirit of
Rome. For centuries their mouths may have been closed; their speaking
and teaching punished by death; but always they became more and more
numerous, and active, and vigorous; and then came the great day of
Luther. Protestantism has not been a negation, a remnant of Roman
Catholicism, the negative side of Christianity. I cannot adopt that idea
in the least. True Protestantism is full of the spirit of the Gospel; it
is the living soul of Christ in the Church, it embodies the perfect
conviction that there is truth, that there is salvation, that there is
liberty, in the Gospel, and nowhere else so completely.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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