Unable to find any theological resting-place, Newman went as a
quasi-missionary to Bagdad. He returned to Oxford and gave himself up to
his increasing doubts. Finally, becoming a Unitarian, the Scriptures
present new difficulties; Christianity has been too highly praised and
flattered; and has had the credit of doing a great deal which it has had
no share in effecting. The Bible has not been found able to cope with
fresh evils; and Romanism became corrupt and vicious with that book in
the hands of the priesthood. But dissatisfied as Newman is with the
present, he takes a cheerful look upon the future. "The age is ripe," he
says, "for something better, for a religion which shall combine the
tenderness, humility, and disinterestedness which are the glory of the
present Christianity, with that activity of intellect, untiring pursuit
of truth, and strict adherence to impartial principle which the schools
of modern science embody. When a spiritual church has its senses
exercised to discern good and evil, judges of right and wrong by an
inward power, proves all things, and holds fast that which is good,
fears no truth, but rejoices in being corrected, intellectually as well
as morally, it will not be liable to 'be carried to and fro' by shifting
wind of doctrine.
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