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SiRr Walthamstow , Nov . 13 , 1815 . UPON reading the extracts from Mr * Townsends Armageddon in your last , ( pp . 649- ^ 65 % ) I could not help conceiving a wish that its merit as a poem might recommend it to an extensive circulation , as it seems under the guise of poetic imagery to preof
sent a just view the horrors and absurdities of a system , which is infinitely more ajxsurd and horrible than any other extravagance which the human mind has yet conceived . The perusal of such a work may perhaps have the happy effect of terrif ying itsto their senses some of those who have been terrified out of tbtan , tod
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by presenting their creed before thein in its true colours , may lead them to seek a refuge from its terrors in a diligent examination of the scriptures that they may learn " whether these
things are so . " It requires a mind of a certain temperament , such as that of Jonathan Edwards and Mr . Townsend , to dwell uponthe views exhibited in "Armageddon * with a conviction of their truth , and not to
aicken into anguish ind despair . He&ce I suspect that the generality ofthose who in the main think with Mr . Townsend will wish that , however his own fancy was delighted with such conhad not
templations , h ^ endeavoured to fix the fancy of his reader , on descriptions at wtrich , I do not say reason stands aghast , ( for that in theology is a trifle ) but at which humanity shudders . How much more to be
applauded is the caution of a writer in the Evangelical Magazine , who observes that though the doctrine of predestination is beautiful in its place ( in what place , he has omitted to mention ) it is not desirable that it should be dwelt upon too frequently . But leaving Afi \ T . with whom , in truth , after the excellent remarks of
your reviewer , I . have very little to do , I proceed once more , with your permission , to make one or two remarks on that system of Theology which is usually termed Calvinistic . It is then a system which , to say the least , is no where laid down in form
in the New Testament , but is collected by inference from detached passages © f scripture , and is a mere hypothesis to account for a certain phraseology which is infinitely better accounted for without it . It is a sys- , tem which no good man can wish to ^ be true , and which no man can be- lieve to be true , Who suffers his mind
to be impressed with the general re- presentation of the divine character 0 and government which are given from Genesis to Revelation . It is a system which gives a hideous picture of the Deity , transforming love into blind partiality , and justice into
insatiable vengeance . It is a system which were it true would render it a happiness for the human racc ^ and by probable inference for the universe at ! ai-ge > could the theory of the A * theistbe realised ! It is a system which by representing human nature as radically depraved , and sift in itself **>
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702 Mr . Cogan on the Mythology of " Armageddon "
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are raised / ' ( or shall be , which is all one in the eye of Deity ) " even Moses shewed at the bush 5 " how ? " When he calleth the Lord , the God of Abraham , and of Isaac , and of Jacob ; for
he is not a God of the dead , " ( between him , and the finally dead , there can be no relation ) " but the God of the living s for all Jive to him , " St . Paul , likewise , hath fully established this point , in the I lth chapter to the Hebrews .
To conclude , natural religion , is the sun under a cloud ; the Jewish dispensation is the sun under a brighter cloud , with occasional manifestations of his radiant orb ; the gospel is the sun in bright and unclouded splendour : but it is the same sun which
enlightens us , under every dispensation , though with different degrees of glory . Or if you say the light of nature , compared with that of the gospel , is but as a twinkling taper , compared with that glorious luminary > still the light and heat of the former are of the same nature and
essence with that of the latter * " Nature , employed in her allotted place . Is handmaid to the purposes of grace . " COWPEJI . It appears , therefore , that to defend Christianity at the expense of natural religion , is to run before we are called . It is to pull down with one
hand , what we profess to build with the other ; or to place ourselves somewhat in the condition of Sisyphus , whom the ancient poets represent , as continually labouring to force a prodigious stone up a steep hill * which ever revolves upon him with redoubled weight *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1815, page 702, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1766/page/38/
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