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and of conferring immortality on a material substance , does the believer in Christianity experience no difficulty in reconciling the scriptural fact that few will be saved with the infinite benignity of the Parent of the
universe , and with the means employed for the redemption of naankind ^ by his boundless power ? Is there no difficulty in apprehending how the final extinction of the great majority of mankind , after enduring ages of
torment , ( believed by so many of the Unitarians , ) can be consistent with the Divine justice ? On this scheme also , as well as on that of the eternity of future punishment , the unhappy sinner might weJl be entitled to exclaim in the language of Young ,
Father of mercies 1 why from silent earth , Didst thou awake and curse me into birth ? And even admitting the doctrine of Universal Restoration , does the strict impartiality of the Deity , as asserted
in the New Testament ^ perfectly acoord in our conceptions with the sufferings which the greater portion of the human race will undergo previously to their final restitution , while a few favoured individuals solely from being placed in less perilous circumstances , will escape this accumulation
of misery and will be rewarded for their unmerited good fortune with the immediate possession of interminable happiness ? When I say unmerited , I say nothing more , I apprehend , than what coincides with the opinions of the adherents of Calvinism , and of those Unitarians who believe in the
necessity of the will . Unless restrained by timidity from uttering their sentiments , neither of these classes of Christians can with any consistency deny that one portion of mankind , small in number , has been pre-ordained or elected to virtue and
happiness , and the other , countless as the waves of the ocean , to inevitable vice and misery . Both parties , I believe , will acknowledge that this mysterious fact is really implied , if not formally stated , in Scripture : but who can penetrate the darkness which surrounds it ?
Without dwelling , however , on these and other questions of a similar nature , can any thing , I would ask , be more mysterious than what we arc
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taught to believe respecting the agetu cy of Providence ? Revelation in * forms us that the minutest as well as the most important events are under the constant superintendance of an all-seeing and omnipotent Being , and yet how frequently do these events
appear at variance with the Divine character as described in the gospel Nothing can be more consoling to the mind amidst the misfortunes and disappointments of human life than the knowledge imparted to us of a particular Providence ; but in no degree does this knowledge of the fact remove the difficulties that arise when
we attempt to scrutinize the conduct ol the Almighty towards his intelligent creatures , or to compare his moral government of the world , as far as it is obvious to our view , with the expectations which his revealed attributes would lead us to form .
Notwithstanding the express declarations of the sacred writers and the numerous examples they have recorded , the concession of the incomparable Paley is most strictly true , that we must prepare , provide and act as if there were no Providence .
Of the justice , the impartiality and the particular providence of the Deity , there cannot indeed exist a moment's doubt , and yet there are mysterious circumstances connected with the application of these attributes to
the condition and destiny of the human race , which the information conveyed to us in the inspired volume does not enable us to develope . In all cases of this nature , however , the conduct we ought to pursue admits of no hesitation . Where we cannot
explain , we must be content to acquiesce . It is altogether unreasonable to expect that revealed religion should be in every particular level to the apprehension of minds so imperfect as
ours ; nor is there any thing to excite surprise that the vehicle of that religion should be found , in some instances , like the Cumaean Sibyl as described by the poet , obscuris vera involvens . Difficulties in the
doctrines ot the one and in the language of the other will still remain after the minutest investigation ; and , as it is well observed by Bishop Watson , it would be a miracle greater than any we are instructed to believe if none remained .
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192 No System of Theology exempt from Mystery .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1826, page 192, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2547/page/4/
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