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Untitled Article
beginning to the ; end , of express ! assert tions of God's general and particular interference , without any allusion ,, or the conceivable implication of any such allusion , to a particular age , or the preternatural intercourse of God with a peculiar people : and this interference is described as something distinct from
the fixed laws of nature , which imply what is perceptible to observation and experiment—as the influence of the Creator ' s upholding energy in the " various processes of animal and vegetable life . " It is described as direct or immediate ; and it is only not miraculous because it is not visible .
The question whether the Supreme Being has exhibited more than two modes of his agency , " natural and supernatural /* and the demand for a clear definition and description of that agency which , without being supernatural , is not to rank with natural phenomena , appear designed to reduce the advocate of Divine Influence to a
dilemma . But the whole turns on the sound of words . The terms natural agency , as applied to the Deity , are , I conceive , improper in this question : they involve a taking for granted of the thing in dispute , namely , that God is only known to act on sensible or external things , or by the fixed general laws of mind and matter . As the term
supernatural designates agency equalJy obvious to the senses , it is equally improper ; for the believer in the Divine Influence here discussed , is not entan * gled with the difficulty of proof , as if he maintained miraculous influence :
he affirms that there is a third mode of Divine agency , which is perhaps fitly described by the term providential ; which is from its very nature incapable of proof , but which is not the less the subject of reasonable trust .
I do not see the consequential force of the writer ' s proposition , that " if it be necessary to our advancement in virtue that the Supreme Being should occasionally interfere with his aid , the grand and glorious apparatus of Christianity might have been spared as
defective and inadequate to our wants . '' This supposes that a constant miraculous interposition is necessary , which is excluded from the question altogether . Why should Chriartieinity be expected to supersede the ordinary providences and influences which God
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Jia < I exercised since the beginning , *> f his cr 0 £ tion - - ¦ , The > soundness of this argument which denies all positive interference of the secret providence of God , may well be suspected , when we see that it
leads to a denial of the expediency and rationality of prayer . I mjist . confess , Sir , that to me a prayerless Christian seems as great < an anomaly , as aChrigtle&s Christianity . How any man who professes to take the Scripture as his rule of life can reason himself into the
propriety of dispensing with prayer , because it might only have been irir tended to be used in a miraculous age , is something extraordinary . Peter quotes David as authority for the fact that * ' the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous , and his ear is open to
their prayers . " 1 Pet . iii . 12 ; Psalm xxxiv ! 15 . Can it be pretended , with any colour of justice , that this assurance applied only to Jewish periods and circumstances ? This is manifestly a general truth , connected with the character and providence of God , and if it was true in the times of David and
Peter , it is true now . The confounding prayer , therefore , with institutions , the permanence of which beyond the apostolic period may be doubtful , is a mere sophism . To comment on the alleged uncertainty of these
institutions , would lead me into too wide a digression from the subject in hand ; but as to the washing the feet of the disciples , a custom purely oriental , the notion of the writer , " that this act "
( considered in its literal ceremonial ) " is much more solemnly enjoined than any other / ' exceeds any thing that I know of in the servile inferences of Popish commentators . It seems strange that any person
acquainted with the views of our Saviour respecting prayer , Matt . vi . 8 , should exhibit such ignorance of its nature and design ; which the writer appears to confine to the obtaining of specific requests . As to what he asserts > however , about ' * the want of correspondence between the answer and the
petition / ' as being " too palpable to be denied , " it is assertion merely . If the person who prays to God for " recovery from illness , mitigation of pain , preservation by land or water , direction and assistance in forming the moral character , " cannot prpve phiio-
Untitled Article
Christianity not Natiirulism . 19
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1821, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2496/page/19/
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