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Governor of the universe , good , placable , a punisher of vice , and rewarcier of virtue , whom they thought it their duty to worship , and to pray to him , and this Being they called God . * This knowledge and persuasion they are supposed to have attained ** by the mere light of unassisted reason , without any help from revelation and
tradition . Dr . Sykes , as Di \ Leiand farther remarks , ** . observes that * Cicero well argues , that , if we grant that God is an intelligent being , we must grant that he directs and governs all
things / And yet Cicero , in that passage , as he himself quotes him , speaks not of God , in the siugular number ,
but of the gods . * Si concedimus intelligentes esse deo £ , conceditnus etiatn providentes , et rerurn quidem maxiinarum . ' De Nat . Deor . Lib , ii . " See Leiand on 4 * the Christian Revelation , " Pt . i . Ch . xiv . 8 vo . l .. 311 , Note . I was led to consider this subject lately , though not foi ? the first time , by reading , in Dr , En field ' s able and very instructive History , the following concluding paragraph of the first book of Barbaric Philosophts :
" in the midst ot every appearance of ignorance , superstition and imposture , it is , however , an important
fact , that the doctrines of a Supreme Deity , and the immortality of the soul , were universally received . * Who does not admire ( says . / Elian , Var . Mist . L . H . C . 31 ) the wisdom of the Barbarians , none of whom ever fell
into the atheistical absurdities of Euinerus , Diagoras , Epicurus , and other philosophers ? No Indian , Celt or Egyptian , ever questioned whether there were gods , or whether they concerned themselves in the affairs of men . " I have not JKHau at hand , but there is no reason to doubt Dr . Enfield ' s translation . It is extraordinary that the learned writer did
Not observe how ill his quotation served to establish his opinion , that u doctrine of a Supreme Deity /* "ot a belief in gods , had been ** universally received" by those nations to whom he assigns " the Barbaric Phi-1
losophy / The reception of that doctrine must , I apprehend , be confined , ° u a strict examination , to " the ancient Hebrew * , ' * and we know where they discovered it . h K .
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Liverpool , _ Sm , September 17 , 1819 . IT gives me pleasure to find I have been the means of exciting some attention to so important a subject as the Divine Influence . In your last Number , ( p . 470 , ) T . F . undertakes to defend the Compilers
of the Liverpool Hymn Books , by stating that they dfd not mean to convey the idea that supernatural communications from the Deity are to be expected as the result of our petitions for divine illumination , any more than , when using the words of the Lord ' s Praver , " Give us this
day our daily bread , " they would expect to receive a miraculous supply of food . They do , however , seem to believe that both truth and bread may be expected to be granted in answer to petitions for them * and yet strangely , as L . thitik , deny such communications to be supernatural .
I have always thought that the petitionary part of devotion must be included in the inquiry into the subject of the Divine Influence , and it was my intention to enter pretty fullv
into it ; but as T . F , has introduced it in his letter , I shall , at present , content myself with offering a few queries and remarks respecting it . If it be a duty enjoined upon us in the New Testament , which T \ F . assumes to
/ be the case , I would ask , whether the precept and the promise are not given by the same authority ; whether they do not appear to be inseparably connected , and whether they are not equally obligatory—if so , how comes it to pass that , as the duty is in these
days most unsparingly observed , it appears impossible to specify a single unequivocal instance of the appropriate observance of the promise ? Was not the fulfilment of the promise , in the age in which it was given , exhibited in a great number of
notorious fads ; and by what means , excepting by undeniable facts , can the extension of the promise to the present time be proved ? Can this be done by shewing merely the possibility or Advantage of such facts ? - Can
the Compilers of the Hymn Books produce a single instance , either in themselves or others , upon whose veracity and judgment they can rely of a proper answer having been giv&n to any one of those extraordinary
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Divine Influences . 675
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1819, page 675, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1778/page/23/
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