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Untitled Article
however , was absorbed into the mass nearly eighteen centuries ago ; but , except the Jewish , what priesthood has shown by its influence that it was divine hi its origin ? Professing to stand between heaven . and earth , haye they brought down truth fronx the hand bf the God of troth ? HdVe they been the dispensers of peace from the God of love ? Have they watched from their
elevated position for the approach of freedom ^ and given the signal to the world below them to prepare its triumph ? Have they directed the tendencies of man to high objects , arid employed his energies aright , as it was their part to do if they were indeed the privileged agents of Providence ? G , nc « ! look through the records of society thus far , and it will be found that priests
have flattered the vices , and taken advantage of the weaknesses of their disciples ; that they have fomented strife , and hindered freedom , and , above all , kept back or polluted God ' s own truth . This , which is notoriously true of all pagan priesthoods , is not less so , iri varying degrees , of all which have called themselves Christian . It is no new thing to complain of the Romish church
government ; but was there ever a Protestant priesthood which was not worldly , cowardly , and deceitful ? Is there much to choose between the ministry of the English church , or the Scotch church , or the Presbyterian , or any other ecclesiastical government ? Is not the history of pious fraud ( the worst kind of fraud ) to be found complete in the ecclesiastical annals of every incorporated religious class ? Arid are we not warranted from
this to infer , that the principle of incorporation is as wrong in respect of religion as of any other profession ? This principle brings about its disastrous results with equal effect , through whatever means it operates , whether through the licentiousness of the Romish clergy , or the policy of the English , or the bigotry of the Scotch : whether through the fanaticism of the Puritans of a former age , or the worldliness of the Presbyteriaris of the
present . It cannot but issue in these results , notwithstanding all the virtuous efforts of the pious and disinterested who have been found in all these bodies . No individual exertions , or testimony , or sacrifices in favour of truth , can be of more than temporary and partial avail , while principles are countenanced which afford temptations and inipurtity to fraud . All established ministries offer this temptation and impunity , whether the object be the selfish pursuit of temporal advantage , or the fancied promotion
of the cause of religion . It is difficult to nieasure the comparative guilt of these two objects . It is difficult to make a choice between the Sadducees and the Pharisees ; but it is easy to pronounce on the positive guilt of both , And to declare that if there be crime in the worldliness of Romish policy , and in the licentiousness > f Romish monachism there if » also crime in Methodist revivals , and n the pretended exercise of holy gifts in a metropolitan chapeK no ess than in the dreadful proceedings which we are about tb frelatei
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546 On Witehtraft-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 546, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/42/
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