Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1876-02-16

DeGler, ne Is tne true Way-iaring Christian.
cannot praise fugitive and clustered
virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that
never salics out and sees her adversary,
but sinks out of the race, where the i'm
mortal garland is to be run for, not with
out dust and heat.
That virtue, therefore, which is but Il
younsling in the contemplation of evil,
and knows not the utmost that vice prom
iScs TO her followers, and rejects it, is but
a blank virtue, not pure; her whitcness
is but an eXcrcmcntal whitencss; which
was the rcasoi why our sage and serious
poet, Spencer, tscribipg true temperance
under the person Of Guion, brings him in
with his pllaer, through the cave Of
Mammon, and the bower OF earthly bliss
that he ight see and know, and vet ab-
STAIN
Since, therefore, the knowledge and sur
vcy Of vice is in this world 50 necessary to
the constituting of human virtue and the
scanning OF error to the confirmation Of
truth, how can We more safely and with
| less danger scout into the regions Of sin
and ta!slty, than by reading all-lnanner of
tractates, ana caring all manner Of rea-
son?
Give he the liberty TO know TO utter,
and to argue freely according to consci-
encc, above all liberties. AID though all
TIL. winds Of doctrine were leG loose to
play upon the earth, SO Truth be in the
field, We do injuriously by licensing and
prohibiting TO miodoubt her strength.
Let her and fal>ehood grapplc; who ever
knew truth pat u The worse, in n free and
open encounter!
lie who hears what praying there is for
light and clear knowledge to be sent down
among us, would think OF other matters
to be constituted beyond the discipline of
Geneya, framed and fabricated already to
our hands. YcJ when the new light
which we beg for shines in upon u, there
be those who envy and oppose, if it come
not first in at their easement.
For who knows not that truth is strong
next to the Almighty; she needs no poll
c!es or StlatagemS TO make her victorious;
those are but the shifts that error uses
against her power.
What great purchase is this Christian
liberty which Paul SO often boasts Of: His
doctrine is, that he vino eats or eats not,
regards day or regards il not, may do
either to the Lord.
How many other things might be toler-
atcd in peace, and left to conscience, had
we but charity, and were 1t not the chief
stronghold Of our hypocrisy to be ever
judging one another?
| fear yet is iron yoke of outward con-
liormity hath left Il slavish print upon our
neckS.
And what do they tell us vainly Of new
opinions, when this very opinion of theirs,
that none must be heard but whom they
like, i, the worst and newest opinion of
all others; and is the chief cause why
sectS and schiSms So much abound and
true knowledge Is kept at distance from
us; besides yet Il greater which is in it.
For when God shakes kingdom, with
strong and healthful connections, to a
general reforming, it is not untrue that
many sectarieS and false teachers are then
busiest i'll reducing; but yet more true is
it, that God raises to his own work men
of rare abilities, and more than common
industry, not only to look back and revise
what hath heretofore been taught, but to
gain further, and to go on some new en-
Iishtened steps. in the discovery Of truth.
JOHN MILToN, A, d., lG4l,