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What a gracious God have we , that suffers not Satan to tave his will upon us ! Then the devil began to curse and swear , and bla . pheme the Trinity in a most fearful and horrible manner .
Balsam . The Lord rebuke thee . Satan * But this man is mine , for he hath given himself to me , and sealed it with his blood . Balsam * I do not believe that the father of lies speaketh truth , and I do believe , how confident soever thou art , than thou wilt lose thy hold before tomorrow morning .
The devil continued to curse and swear , further , saying , Satan . How canst thou endure to hear thy God blasphemed ! I will never give over blasphemiag so long as thou stayest in the room . Balsom . I will pray for him . Satan . Wilt thou pray for a man that is damned }
Balsom . I will go home and pray for him , and get ail the force I can in the town to join with me , After this , there being no more voice heard , Mr . Balsom went home about 11 o ' clock at night , where he found in hh house divers Christians , which he intended to have sent for , waiting for
him , and upon the sight of them he spake to them to this purpose : Friends , 1 wonder at the providence of God in bringing you hither at this time , for otherwise I must have sent for you ; and so declaring to them what had happened to the afflicted man , he
desired them to spend some part of the night with him , in seeking God for him , which accordingly they did * , the next morning Master Balfeom going to visit him again , found him in a comfortable condition ; and asking of him how he did ? he answered , through
the goodness of God , I have overcome , and am now as full of comfort , as I was before of trouble 5 and so continued all that day cheerful , but in great weakness , and the next morning died , no disease appealing uppri him . "— - lives , Sec . p . 4 O 2 , 3 .
This narrative , like the preceding , is too fair a specimen of that inclination to the marvellous which runs through Mr . Clarke ' s writings , I looked into Calamy ' s Account , expecting to have found
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a censure of this propensity from a grave historian , especially as he well exposed the delusions of the French prophets , who , in bis time » pretended to supernatural as ^ isU
ance , I looked , however , in vain , Calamy appears to have been no critical historian of the nonconformists . In Mr . Clarke , he finds
nothing to censure . His works — u though not calculated for the nice and curious , yet , have been very useful to persons of a middle rank , who , by the help of his industrious pains , have got much profitable knowledge , they could not otherwise have had an oppor *
tuuity of gaining . " [ % \ ed . p . 12 . ) To this judgment the lute author of ihe Noncon . Mem . ( i . 101 ) ap . pears to give an unqualified assent . Could these sober-minded writers believe that marvellous tales worthy of monkish chronicles , the incredibility of which fcW the nice
and curious would detect , were yet " useful to persons of middle rank , " and a source of * profitable knowledge . " In this connec * . tion it would he unjust not to quote an author of our time , who has shewn a more discriminating judgment . I refer to the late Ro *
bert Robinson , in one of his ndles to Claude ' s Essay * published in 1779 » Robinson was then an or * thodox beljever , and took t very fair occasion to controvert the op »
posite doctrines , especially . hose of the Unitarians . He , however , had the magnanimity to exposp folly , wherever detected * He say $ ( ii . 118 )** there are many extraordinary and extravagant tales told in Clarke ' s Lives of the Puritans . "
Notwithstanding this great hie * mish of credulity , so visible in Mr . Clarke ' s works , published during the time of the common *
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Account of" Master Balsom , " the Exorcist . 533
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VOL . IXf " 3 £
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1814, page 533, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2444/page/9/
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