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Untitled Article
Is not here then an inevitable source of vice ? How could it have been prevented by any conceivable powerj wisdom or goodness , before its effects had been witnessed ? and then it would
naturally tend to its own destruction . —The supposition which I have made of a state free from every kind of evil seems to resemble that of a celebrated writer
respecting a perfect society ; the felicity of which , as it has since been shewn , would soon be destroyed by the principle of population .
The third irrational doctrine ascribed to Unitarians , is , that cc although every thing proceeds under the strict law of necessity , miracles have been performed . ''
But surely no Unitarian believes that " every thing proceeds" under any kind of law , independently of the will of the Almighty ; if he does , I must leave him to
vindicate his own persuasion . And if every thing be dependent on , and subordinate to the will of God , why may not i £ miracles have been performed , " as well as natural events have occurred ? The one is as easy to Almighty power as the other . " If , " says our opponent , " the same law of necessity acts on the minds of intelligent beings , and with the same imdeviating effect as that which rules the world of inanimate matter , nothing has happened or can happen to occasion an interruption of the general harmony . ' * Is this to be considered as a gratuitous assertion , or as an identical proposition ? Does the author mean to
affirm that if mind is as much subject to laws as matter , miracles are impossible ? Or does he contend that if the " law of ne-
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cessity" constantly operates and has always operated , with an 66 nndeviating effect 9 f both on mind and matter , then nothing can ever have occurred to
interrupt the regular course of causes and effects ? If the first supposition convey the idea intended by the writer , it does not follow from any thing he has advanced that either matter or mind could not be subject to a miraculous opera * don . If the latter be his
meaning , it is what no one will dispute ; but of what service can it be to the cause which he has under * taken to advocate ? ** If God , " we are told , " iti the original arrangement , could not exclude some evils under the
law of necessity to which he subjected all his works , neither could he by any interruption of that arrangement . " But how does "A Churchman , " know that J
Besides , if he means that no in * terference could exclude every evil , what rational Unitarian maintains that it could ? If mankind were at first instructed by immediate revelation respecting the being and perfections of God , and what he requires of his creatures , the active employments , the cares , the pleasures , and the amusements of life , might , by diverting the attention of men to many other objects , in the lapse
ot several ages , obliterate almost every idea of a Supreme Being and Governor of the world . Another revelation might then , surely , be of some service in recalling men ' s attention to these important subjects , and , if it could not expel qvery evil from the earth , it might at least diminish their number and magnitude , b y rectifying the opinions of mankind , pointing out to them clear-
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42 < 1 jjir . AllcJiins Answer to the Churchman *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1808, page 426, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2395/page/26/
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