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Untitled Article
of paying this at stated times and places , and the duty of paying it according to the forms and ordinances which God himself has supernaturally prescribed to us / 1 These propositions , no well
instructed believer in revelation will controvert . We shall protest , however , against our author ' s argument from the pomp and splendour of divine worship under the Jewish dispensation , in favour of
the same pomp under the Christian . The scriptures of the New Testament enjoin no such magnificence : nor is it agreeable to fthe simplicity and spirituality of the gospel . Accordi ng ly , it was
not till Christianity was grossly corrupted that the professed disciples of Jesus were ambitious of not being u behindhand with the ancient people of God , in the solemnity of their religious worship . " ( pp . 6 , 10 . )
In the second part of his seranon , the preacher undertakes to point out " a plain and easy rule by which the unfortunate divisions of the religious xvorld may be effectually healed and the truth of
revelation , upon each point of controversy , be clearly discovered by every well meaning individual possessed of common sense . " Dr . M ., we perceive , excessively
laments the endless variety of discordant sects among Christians , and the contradictory systems of religion which a large proportion of them hold . We have no wish
to disguise the fact , or to deny the evil . But is there no other or greater evil in the church of Christ ? How arc sects created ? \ What does the existence of them imply ? Usurpation on the faith
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and consciences of men- —the attempt to bring human beings into an imagined uniformity of opinion , in the bonds of ignorance or hypocrisy , has been pro - ductive of far worse effects , than any which have flowed from sects the most various and clashing , ( pp . 6 j 13 . &c . ) u It would be blasphemy , " says this writer , " to assert that the divine founder of Christianity has left it destitute of a rule and
a guide to conduct his followers into truth and amity . " Who supposes that he has ? Our Saviour ' s language on this very case is too clear to be mistaken ; since one of his prayers , in behajf of his disciples , is , * Sanctify them
through thy truth ; thy word is truth , ft it , however , a
iiecessary consequence of a rule and a guide being given , that thfcy shall universally and co ? npletely answer the desired end ? Apply this kind of argument to the faculty of reason , even when it is not employed upon religion : and you will shew that reason is not the
gift of God ; a doctrine too monstrous to be endured . The fact is , that the most important favours bestowed by the Deity upon men are liable to be abused , and
the purposes of them to be , m some measure , defeated by human imperfection . In this respect , as in several besides , there is an obvious analogy between natural religion and revelation , ( p . 13 . )
We have pleasure in observing , that Dr . M ., notwithstanding he speaks of cc our Catholic ancestors , " combats the idea of a merely hereditary religion . " The cause , " he remarks , of the
un-* John , xvii . 17 .
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86 Review . —Miln * er > $ Serntoni
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1810, page 86, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2401/page/38/
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