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Untitled Article
There is indeed no absurdity which nrien of the best tin * derstanding may not be induced to believe by the force of prejudice and early association , especially if they do not allow
themselves to enquire and examine . Athanasianism and transubstantiation have been defended by men of the greatest abilities and strictest integrity ; notwithstanding which , there are few persons who have paid much attention to the subject of late , who will not pronounce those doctrines to be absurdities and contradictions . My worthy friend , who I suppose must have read Mr . Farmer ' s incomparable treatise to which he alludes , should know , that possessing demons were never supposed to be fallen angels , but human ghosts .
And can he really believe that human ghosts are permfrted to enter into the bodies of living men and to torment them ? Can he for a moment suppose that a man cannot fall into an epileptic fit , without being struck down by a ghost ? or that a lunatic cannot utter blasphemies in his raving ; paroxysms , without being instigated by a ghost ?
He may perhaps plead that he believes such persons to be possessed by devils ^ and not by ghosts . But he well knows that this is neither the language nor the doctrine of the New Testament , which invariably distinguishes between devils , and demons , or ghosts ; and which never speaks of a man as possessed by devils , but uniformly by ghosts * And if
my friend chuses to travel out of the record , and to vindicate his opinions by an appeal to the authority of the platoirizing fathers , I will not deny his right , nor impeach his understanding ; but I will beg leave to decline following him into his pathless labyrinth , and to tell him that if he admits of their authority in matters of faith , I do not - The New Testament teaches no such extravagant doctrine ^ as that human bodies may be possessed and tormented by fallen angels : and the account wliich it reveals of the state
of the dead , plainly proves , that , though it uses popular language in describing natural diseases , it gives no countenance to the absurd philosophy upon which that language was formed .
The fourth Lecture , which treats € C of the respect and reverence which are due to the Author of our Religion , and the books which contain it , " is introduced with a concession , which , from the pen of a Christian minister is not a little remarkable . " If we read , " says my friend , the history of the wisest nations and the greatest empires , such as Persia , Greece , and Rome , we find that they enforced
Untitled Article
306 Mr . Belsham ' s Strictures on Carpenter ' s Lectures *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1807, page 306, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2381/page/18/
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