The Sheepfold and the Common; Or, Within and Without. Vol. 1 (of 2)East, Timothy
Religion
The Sheepfold and the Common; Or, Within and Without. Vol. 1 (of 2)
East, Timothy
Christian life; Christian life -- Pictorial works
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"The passages which you have quoted
unquestionably imply the necessity of some moral change; and I can
conceive a propriety in their application to the Jews, or to pagan
Gentiles of ancient times; but they cannot, with any show of reason,
be applied to us, who are born Christians, and educated in the
belief of Christianity."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"No, we are not born Christians. We are born in
a country where Christianity is professed, and of parents who
bear the Christian name, and we have been educated in a belief of
Christianity; yet no one is a Christian until he is renewed in the
spirit of his mind, and is in some measure conformed to the image of
Jesus Christ, who was holy and undefiled. To prove the correctness
of this statement, I will refer you to our old friend, Mr. Trotter.
His father, you know, was a good man; but he himself, with all his
excellencies, was an avowed sceptic; and his brother was no less
dissolute in his habits than he was corrupt in his principles.
You will admit, I presume, that some moral change is necessary in
relation to such men."
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"Certainly; if a man be a sceptic, his opinions
must be changed before he can become a believer; and if his habits
are depraved, they must be changed before he can become a Christian.
But the majority are virtuous, and to these I suppose you do not
intend to apply the doctrine."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"You may know many whose characters are adorned
with the various traits of excellence, but have you ever known a
perfect man?--a man in whose temper there is no flaw--in whose
disposition there is no perversity--in whose principles there is no
obliquity--one who uniformly, and on all occasions, displays the
most entire and irreproachable goodness?"
_Rev. Mr. Roscoe._--"No, I must confess that I do not know such a
one. I quite admit that the most perfect and the most amiable men
I have ever known, have, on close acquaintance, disclosed some
imperfections of character, more or less."
_Mr. Roscoe._--"And may not a person acquire a high degree of virtue
even while he is destitute of every _religious_ principle? Our
friend, Mr. Frowd, as you may well remember, was a most excellent
and virtuous man, and even a zealous Churchman; but you know that he
rejected the Divine origin of Christianity, and supported the church
as a mere human establishment, which served to give stability to
the government, by operating on the prejudices and passions of the
masses of the people through the medium of her clergy. Hence we must
not confound morality and religion, as though they were essentially
the same thing, seeing that the most moral may be as sceptical in
their opinions as the most impure, and are often even more unwilling
than they, to receive the humiliating doctrines and self-denying
precepts of the gospel."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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