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posure of popular superstitions ; but we must put a plain question to him on a text which he has himself furnished . He says , ( p . 71 . ) 6 All these and numberless other such superstitions , it was the business of the Romish priesthood , not to introduce indeed , but to encourage and maintain , inasmuch as they almost all tend to increase the influence and wealth of the Hierarchy : let it be the Protestant pastor ' business , not only to abstain from conniving at or favouring any thing of the kind , but ( remembering that the original source of superstition is not in the Church of Rome but in the heart of man ) to be ever on the watch against its inroads from various quarters and in various shapes . '
This is true and good as far as it goes , but it is not complete . The Church of England should be coupled with that of Rome throughout this passage ; for whatever applies to the one applies to the other also . Superstitions respecting the sacraments , feasts and fasts , and the whole ritual of our church , indirectly tend , by exalting the clergy , to increase the influence of the Hierarchy ; and superstitions respecting tithes , &c , tend directly to increase
its wealth ; so that it becomes ' the business of the English clergy , not to iutroduce indeed , &c . &c . ' And again , if the original source of superstition be in man ' s heart , is it not the duty of his spiritual guides so to arrange and vary all outward ordinances as that there may be the least possible danger of encouraging a notion of any inherent sanctity in any of them ? Did not Christ
aim at this in what he said of the washing of hands and the giving of gifts ? And had not Paul the same object in what he wrote concerning the Lord ' s feast at Corinth ? And does the church co-operate with or contravene the Scriptures in appointing holy persons , and holy places , and holy times , however strenuously her best prelates may argue and warn against a superstitious abuse of such institutions ?
The mention of holy persons leads us on to Dr . Whately ' s second chapter , on Vicarious Religion . The argument against the existence of two kinds of religion , one for a certain class and another for all , is triumphant . It is founded on the true explanation of the term * mystery , ' and our only wonder is that one who adopts that explanation should still hold the doctrine of the Trinity as the basis of that faith whose object is to make manifest that which had before been concealed . Of course the existence of this doctrine must be manifest to our author , though the
meaning of anything so inexplicable cannot be , and ( as he owns ) is not manifest . We differ from him in two ways . We hold the Apostle ' s meaning to be , not that the existence but the nature of religious doctrine is made manifest by the Christian revelation ; and we not only do not discern the doctrine of the Trinity in the gospel , but we discern that it is not there . Though some think us blinded , like the people of Dothan , who saw nothing of the glory
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Romanism and Episcopacy . 388
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 383, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/23/
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