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    ment and the mediation of Jesus Christ A schoolmaster , it is said , may grant his scholars some indulgence ^ or ? remit the ? punishment due to an offender , if one of his pupils will consent to write an extraordinary , exercise . 1

    But to make the case parallel , this saidexercise should ' furnish' the ground upon which favours should be granted , qf punishments rfmiM ;^ d ^ in every case in which indulgence is shewn * or an offence * forgiven * Ths remission of punishment , for instance * . wMnaver it is remitted , must'be referred , as to its procuring cause , to the exercise of A ? B ; , which wa ^ oinposed , for this kind and generous purpose *

    Bishop Butler , in his Analog furnishes another instance of false reasoning applied to this subject . In defence , of what he terms the satisfaction of Christ , he sap , that " when in the daily course of Providence it is appointed that innocent people should suffer for the faults of the guilty , this is . liable to the very same objection as the instance we are now considering , " He also remarks , that " vicarious punishment is a providential appointment of every day ' s experience . " If the expression vicarious punishment is to be under

    stood according to its proper and obvious meaning , vicarious punishment is a thing altogether unknown in the plan of Providence and the economy of human life . And if nothing more be meant by the expression than that the innocent are liable to suffer in consequence of the faults of others , it may be replied , that this appointment , of which a very satisfactory explanation may be given , bears no resemblance to a judicial decree by which , an innocent person should surfer that the guilty might escape .

    But analogy has no where been , more egregiously misapplied than in defence of what have been termed mysteries in religion . We are compelled to believe certain truths in relation to things , of which we know not the nature or mode of * operation . And this fact has been urged in behalf of propositions which are either absolutely unintelligible or demonstrably false . It has been said , that * as we are obliged to believe what we cannot comprehend , we shall be guilty of temerity if we reject those sacred mysteries which from their very sublimity must ever be incomprehensible to man . In this

    reasoning , incomprehensibility is made a generic term , which , includes two distinct cases , that of conclusions which reason is compelled to admit on subjects which , considered in their full ; extent , lie beyond its grasp ; and that of propositions , the terms of which are either obscure or contradict each other . To confound these cases may suit the purpose of the theological disputant , but the judicious inquirer after truth will take good ' care to separate them . He will believe that there is a God , though he knows not how this great Being exists ; but he will not on this account be a whit more disposed to believe that the Father is God , and that the Son is Gody and that the Holy Ghost is God , and yet that there are not three Gods but one God . *

    * When it is said tfhat there are three persons in one God , the charge of verbal contradiction is avoided . But when the terms of the proposition come to be explained , if it do not resolve itself into mere Unttarianism , it presents us with three Gods in one God . That ; this should not have btfeji perceived by men of understanding and reflection , affords a striking proof of a trutU which has not yet received the consideration that it deserves—I mean the power of words to blind the understanding .

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    On the Use and Abuse v £ Anylogical Reasoning . 11

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1827, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1792/page/11/