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Untitled Article
human nature has the same tendencies every where and at all times , those tendencies being only modified and not radically changed by the various influences to which men are subjected . As face answereth to face in water , so is the heart of man : ' and Eve would have known her own likeness whether she looked at it in
cisterns fouled with earthly intermixtures or in the mountain lake freshened with streams from heaven . From his main position our author cannot be dislodged : the question is , whether he has not left an opening through : which an adversary may reach him , and whether he can be secure till he has extended his lines one post farther . His six chapters treat of Superstition , of Vicarious Religion , of Pious Frauds , of undue Reliance on Human Authority , of Persecution , and of Trust in Names and Privileges .
He begins well by adverting to the popular difficulty , —the difficulty which the schoolboy puts and at which his wise father shakes his head , —how the Israelites could be so ineffably stupid , so absolutely infatuated , as to be idolatrous;—idolatrous in so gross a manner as they were , while they had Jehovah ' s visible presence for their guide , his audible presence for their oracle , and his sensible and immediate chastisements and rewards for their
government . The golden calves , and the groves and altars and invocations of Baal are equally an astonishment to the baptized child and his Christian parent ; for want , as Dr . Whately tells us of that philosophy which enables the student of human nature to discern the same principles in their different manifestations . The same vices and absurdities may have existed in every age under different forms ; taking their proportions , of course , from the
various kinds and degrees of restraint which circumstances impose . The Israelites had not our advantages of experience . We judge of them by the event : they could not do so of any preceding people : and if our judgment of them could be compared with that which the generations of a . d . 5832 will form of us , the decision
might not be so incomparably in our favour as we may suppose . Looking only to what is past , there is no such wonderful difference between worshipping the brazen serpent ( which had once really had its sanctity ) and venerating the feather of GabriePs wing with which the Koran was written , and adoring the wood of the true cross . Yet the Mahometans marvelled at the Jews , and the Catholics marvel at the Mahometans . Some there are also that
marvel at the Catholics ; but are all such quite sure that they see no sanctity in the sacramental bread and wine , or in the east rather than the west , or in the season of Lent , or even in a surplice and lawn sleeves ? Dr . Whately alleges not only that these superstitions exist , but several even more absurd , and he speaks from the experience to which his professional duty has led him . We cannot follow Kim through the whole of his most useful ex-
Untitled Article
382 Romanism and Episcopacy .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 382, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/22/
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