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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), September 1809, Edition 1 of 1, Page 499

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      iflaF performed JlancfoTs oratorio to fee Messiah ; yet . I have visited both these temples far more fre * quentl y ^ ten times eftener , in order to ben ^ J in solemn contfcmpla- - tive reverence before the tombs of the worthies , who there repose enshrined , than I have ever done ift honour of God or of the prophet .

      You next proceed to , or rather glide over , the question of the personality of angelic natures . I assert , that according to evangelical testimony , Jesus- Christ believed the personality of angels . I appeal to all the gospels ; especiaHy to Matthew xili . 39 , 41 and 4 9 : xviii . 10 ; xxiv . 31 and 36 ; xxv .

      31 ; xxvi . 5 o , and xxvui . 2 . Now there is equal reason for believing the personality and habitual interference of angels , an his testimony * as there is for believing the resurrection of the body , the last

      judgment , or his being the allotter of our future condition . If you deny this , you must offer some criterion for discriminating between his personal superstitions and his celestial revelations .

      Ihirdlyy you call out against the bad taste of appealing to tha ritual of the heathens . Under what teachers have you learnt to criticise the beautiful ? Probably you are the first who ever claimed for the collective Christian church

      the praise of good taste ; or wh © affected to think u the elegant divinities of Greece and Rome" had been superseded by imagery in a better style . Compare any gi'eat

      works of art , produced by christiatts , with the analogous efforts of heathens : Milton with Homer , Chrysostom with Cicero , Michael Angelo with Praxitck * ; how ' humiliating to us the compari ^ ojiv

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      Among tbe greatest services of the papists to religion , most writers are for reckoning their solectkm and preservation of several beau * tifiil rites of the pagans , and their uniform efforts to cover with at

      varnish of taste the methodistic a * vulgarity of the early Christians . You next tell me that the pro * testant writers have ably argued against the invocation of saints * Quote your passages in proof ; or at least refer to them . I doubt

      the fact . Then you appeal to Dr . Priest * ley ' s Corruptions of Christianity ^ who says of the invocation of fc

      saints , that this is a most horrid corruption of genuine Christianity * I skaII take for granted . " O , the complete demonstration { _© j the inquisitive antiquary !

      I repeat the assertion , —the book of Ecclesiasticus ( see ^ spe - cially xiiv . 15 ) fully proves , that , at the time of its being written , the Jewish congregations showed

      forth the praise < of famous men ; and consequently that hero-worship was already established among the Jewish Christians before the death of Christ . It is clear

      that Jesus Christ , like all his cotemporaries , attributes to the saints in heaven , a knowledge and participation of what passes in this world : see John viii . 5 G .

      The author of Hebrews favours a like opinion , xvi . 22 , 23 .. Na y > Dr . Priestley himself , ( see the note ? to the forty-fifth section of his

      Harmony of the Evangelists ) overcome , in three instances , by the weight of scriptural testimony , admits that Kjioch , " Moses mid Elias are now living and thinking

      about us . To escape the argument drawn from , the story of the traufc ' figu-

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      Qn Cktistiqn Polytheism . ^ 499

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      vol . iv . 3 V"

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1809, page 499, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1740/page/25/