On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
form belief of the remotest , and the purest ages . " : For . my own part I have access to no records earlier than the writings of Moses and the Jewish prophets , and historians , and in these 1 can find no traces of the doctrine which my worthy friend has exhibited . From Genesis to Malachi I see no account of any such malignant omnipresent bting as the devil is commonly imagined to be , and much less of a third 4 t
divine person / ' whose office it is to rectify the evil produced by the second . All good and all evil is in the Jewish scriptures , uniformly ascribed to the One God , who is the great and primary Agent In all events . It is Jehovah , and not the devil , that < hardens the heart of Pharaoh * . " And if -there is " evil in the city / ' it is " the Lord , " and not an evil spirit , f who hath done itf . " The word devil never
occurs m the Old Testament , iri the sense in which ' it is now used . And Satan , as my friend well knows , properly signifies only an adversary , and is applied even % o God himself , when he appears adverse to the desires and designs of his creatures . Comp . 2 . Sam . xxiv . 1 . with 1 Chron .
xxi . 1 . The . first chapter of Job is plainly an allegorical description of the calamities which are supposed to have befallen that excellent man . Credulity herself would not re- * ceive it in a literal sense . In the New Testament the word devil is sometimes used to personify the principle of evil , and sometimes the
idolatrous and persecuting power , and the want ot attention to this figurative mode of expression has misled many readers , who were ignorant of hebrcw and oriental phraseology , and has induced them to believe the real existence of an evil spirit .
Wjtiat my friend advances concerning demoniacal possessions is still more extraordinary than his doctrine concerning the devil . He is not only inclined to admit that cases ' of real possession existed in the time of our Saviour , but that similar cases occur even now . He quotes with apparent approbation the supposed opinion of the late respectable Dr . Ashworth , cc that all insanity proceeds from demoniacal possession / ' and he concludes his note with observing , that <* the subject is certainly attended with difficulties , and a person may believe or jdisbelieve without any impeachment of his understanding . "
* Exod . vii , 5 . f Amos ., iii . 6 *
Untitled Article
Mr . Belsham s Strictifres on Carpenter s Lectures * 305
Untitled Article
. VOL . U . - 2 .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1807, page 305, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2381/page/17/
-