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
On the Necessity of preaching against Political Immoralities . 381
Untitled Article
have not your fears for their moral good , given way to fears of alarming popular prejudice , of injuring your theological disputations , or * perhaps , of being called ct political parsons ?"
I shall probably be answered , Cc this is scarcely a fair representation of the case ; for though we certainly do not often refer to
political occurrences , we frequently deliver discourses on practical morality , and on the dangerous consequences of vice : and having laid down the rules , it is for every individual to apply them for himself . "
But will individuals make such , applications for themselves ? It unfortunately too often happens , that mere rules , naked principles , are not understood , or more correctly speaking , they are not felt , they do not excite . A lecturer on
natural philosophy lays it down as a principle , that water will always find irs level , but he does not stop here / he illustrates , he applies his principle experimentally to practice , he thus makes it understood , and indelibly fixes it in the
remembrance . It is equally necessary for the preacher to illustrate the principles which he would inculcate by examples from life . Let us try this on the ground I am contending for . We must be
fronest and just ;—and in all our dealings . Now suppose this applied to a duty which as citizens we are frequently called upon to perform ;—we are on the eve of an election ; and the preacher tells his flock that their franchise
js given to them as a public trust , which they must discharge , as they conscientiously believe to be most for the public good , —that they are not to be influenced by
Untitled Article
any consideration of private advantage ;* or they cannot be honest and just to their country . In giving ear to this , would they be less open to admonitions on other matters ? Could any harm result ? " And would you have us to degrade the house of prayer into a political club-room ? No , Reverend Sir , but I would have you to elevate your flock to the rank
of men ; I would have you teach them that they are not , during an election , to set at defiance the principles which at other times they profess to act upon
" But we should injure the cause of religion were we to meddle with such subjects . " In ~ jure the cause of religion ! If it be > the end of religion to reform the morals and to mend the heart , I
ask , how it can be injured by your endeavouring to put a stop to practices , the effect of which is to corrupt the morals and to debase the heart ? " We should be thought to
travel out of the line of our professional duty > and to take upon ourselves a business more properly appertaining to the legislature . ' ' But the legislature may not chuse to interfere ; and is no effort to be
made ? Will you still withhold your exertions lest you injure the cause of religion ? You will scarcely persuade yourselves that the cause of religion can be served by your remaining passive observers of the growth of this evil . Unless
it be broadly maintained that pub . lie life is without the pale of religion , that politics and morality are unconnected , nay , that ( hey are wholly at variance , I do not see on what principle those who have devoted themselves to tbe service of Christ , can regard the vices of
Untitled Article
yol . ' vixx ,, 3 d
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1813, page 381, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2429/page/25/
-