Christianity Viewed in Relation to the Present State of Society and Opinion.Guizot, François
Religion
Christianity Viewed in Relation to the Present State of Society and Opinion.
Guizot, François
Christianity; Church history -- 19th century
There are several passages of this remarkable work which are
particularly distinguished by these characteristics. To these I
feel pleasure in referring the reader. They are in both parts of
the book; that is to say, in the first part, chapter fifth,
entitled _Christ's Credentials_, and chapter ninth,
[Footnote 51] entitled _Reflections on the Nature of Christ's
Society;_ in the second part, chapter tenth, entitled
_Christ's Legislation compared with Philosophic systems_,
and chapter the eleventh, _The Christian Republic_ [Footnote
52] A perusal of these passages will, if I do not deceive myself,
fully justify the impression which the work has made upon me, and
satisfy the reader that I am right in what I have said of the
author's inconsistency with respect to religion.
[Footnote 51: Ecce Homo, ed. 1866, pp. 41-51, 81--102.]
[Footnote 52: _Ibid_, pp. 108--119, 120--126.]
Without expressly referring to any other passages I simply
remark, that there are in this book ideas expressed and
particular assertions made, which suggest numerous questions and
call for many observations. I find in the entire volume a
singular mixture of plain and practical common sense with a
subtlety sometimes tinctured with piety, and sometimes with
philosophy. There reigns in it, upon the nature of man and of
human societies, an intellectual elevation, both moral and
religious, which embarrasses and obscures itself in a long and
painful process of refinements. It bears the impress of a
grandeur of thought and of sentiment, without presenting them,
however, in a form sufficiently simple and vivid. But I have no
idea of examining or discussing here in detail this remarkable
work; my aim is only to make the result clear to the reader, to
which I have already referred, and indeed it appears
incontestable. The author's aim has been to study and portray the
human part of Christ, the human part of his doctrine as well as
of his life. He has declared this to be his aim by entitling his
book "Ecce Homo," and by saying that he deferred to another
volume "every theological question, every study of Christ as the
Creator of Theology and of Modern Religion."
{220}
He has already done much more than he is aware; the striking
inference from his first volume being that there was in Christ
much more than man, and that if he had been but man, however
superior we may picture his nature to be to that of ordinary
humanity, the work of Christianity, such as it in fact was and
is, would have been to him a thing not only which he could not
have accomplished, but which he could not even have conceived.
The End.
Bradbury, Evans, And Co., Printers, Whitefriars.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Christianity Viewed In Relation To The
Present State Of Society And Opinion., by François Guizot
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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