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Jag the Necessarian doctrine . They jffe enviable mortals , pure intellectual easences , that live in aether and enjoy a perpetual calm . But this can be the lot of very few . The majority of inquirers are on the side of free agency :
whale many , I fear , who perplex their brains with this abstruse question , are in much the same state as Pentheus was , after he had presumed to pry into the hidden sacrifices of Bacchus . He was smitten with a frenzy which made him see double ; and having a desire to return home to Thebes ,
another Thebes appeared to his deluded optics in an opposite direction , so that he kept running back wards and forwards , between the real and the imaginary Thebes , all his days , in a state of perpetual disquiet and unrest . A similar state of mind is often produced by reading books on Necessity . Is it not better to confine this and the like
discussions to the schools , where they serve well enough to sharpen the wits of the young academicians , who retain in after life the good effects of the discipline , though they may despise the subtleties which had given such vigorous exercise to their faculties ? J . W .
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Sir , April 11 , 1820 . MOST interesting discussion has A lately taken place in the Repository between my friends Mr ; Cogan , Dr . Moreli and Homo , on the doctrine of Necessity . On the Philosophical part of the question , Mr . Cogan appears to me juvulnerable , C a definite effect must have a definite cause / ' ) as
well as in his arguments against Philosophical Free Will : but the moral question appears to remain just where it did before $ for if man be the creature of the circumstances in which he is placed , why his good actions should
be rewarded with immortality and everlasting happiness , or his evil deeds subject him to future punishment or annihilation , appears a subject involved fo the deepest and most impenetrable obscurity . J . S ,
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Norwich . _ S » , . - April 25 , 1820 . T HAVE lately been reading Mr . Bel-X ^^ T n ^ . g ^ r ^ ops , entitled , *' -Chris * ^ % : ple ^ w g t % rsthe P ^ trpaage of w * e Civil Power , but protesting against
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the Aid of Penal Laws , " and , as a member of a Dissenting church , I cannot help entering my protest against many of the Opinions which are therein delivered . I trust they will receive their full refutation from some able
pen , but in the mean time allow me to make a few remarks upon them . Mr . Belsham asserts , " that Christianity deserves and requires the support and patronage of the civil power /'
Is , then , Christianity that weak and puny thing , that it really stands in need of the help of kings and magistrates to keep it upon its legs ? Is the glorious gospel of the ever-blessed God to be bolstered up by the helps of poor , feeble and fallible men ? Does that
Church against which the gates of hell shall not prevail , require the patronage of man to strengthen its foundations ? Patronage , indeed ! And bestowed by man upon the best gift of the Creator I What is the history of the Christian Church but a record of the fatal and
miserable consequences which have j £ - sulted from the patronage of the civil power ? John Calvin called in the patronage of the civil power ; and all religious persecutions , in all ages , hav < e arisen from the adoption of Mr . B . ' s opinion , " that Christianity required the support and patronage of the civil
power . " It is contended that the civil power should be exerted to protect Christian teachers in the discharge of their office , in the erection of places for worship , and in providing places and means of instruction for ministers . I can see
no good reason for any interference , by the civil power in these cases . We derive our right to teach Christianity from a source far above and beyond that of any human authority . It can neither be conferred nor taken aw « iy Besides , what need of a law on the
subject ? It is not necessary that we be permitted by Act of Parliament to walk the streets , or to eat ou ^ r dinners ^ and to make a law to permit us to teach Christianity , would impl y tha power to withhold such permission . Ail we say is , Let us alone . 2 . Why
are places of worship to be built under the direction of the civil power I Why cannot Christians of all classes provide for their own wants , ^ d why should , it " be left to the discretion of those who are entrusted with the public purse , to determine to what extent ,
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On Mr . BeUham ' s Three Sermons . 277
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1820, page 277, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2488/page/21/
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