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Untitled Article
ever well they may with the wise proceed in private , are not exercises the most fitted for the junctures and the exigencies of daily and casual intercourse . In fact , too many men are , in society , rather like instruments which will answer and vibrate to any touch , than rational beings , thinking before they feel , and judging before they act . If this be true in ordinary life , it is less surprising that the pretensions of the pulpit or the platform—pretensions
made on subjects and in places fitted to awaken the feelings and to lay open the heart to any contagion of a religious nature—that these should find access to the bosoms of the people , and , superseding the exercise of their judgment , lead them at the speaker ' s will . Even without any actual intention of misleading by false pretensions , it would be very possible for a preacher , by the use of vague and unexplained language , to create in his hearer ' s mind the idea that he was under the immediate guidance and enlightenment of God .
However it may be effected , the fact , we are persuaded , is , that the many regard the teachings and doings of their spiritual guides as the teachings and doings of the Almighty . Monstrous delusion ! iiited before all other thing * to keep the mind in darkness , and to lead a people captive in the chains of superstition , and make them ready instruments of the designing . One of the strongest objections we have to make against the popular efforts of the day , is , that they have encouraged this pernicious error , and greatly extended ita dominion . That the people are to blame , we know—greatlv to blame ; but
though they have too often presented their hearls prepared to be wrought upon , and gone after him most willingly who came most in the way of authority , and in pretensions to power from on high , they have yet this apology , that they did it in ignorance ; while many of the agitators , though they knew the impression they were producing on the people ' s hearts , and the utter groundlessness of all their real or seeming claims , persevered nevertheless in the unholy work , taking the name of God in vain , misleading the people , and hesitating , nay declining , to explain , for fear of unsettling the public mind , or perhaps of endangering their own dominion .
Our limits do not permit us to specify the various grounds on which we have formed the conclusion we have expressed . We do not , indeed , expect that any one who is at all conversant with the religious world , will , for a moment , doubt that pretensions to supernatural and special aid prevail throughout it . In fact , the notion that God works in an extraordinary way to second the efforts of ministers , is woven into the very texture of the
religious community , and Unitarians are not seldom unmercifully dealt with because they exclude such baseless conceptions from their creed . But to shew the extent to which this error has gone , we quote the following anecdote lately given in the Protestant Methodist Magazine , and ushered in with no inconsiderable circumstance as an instance of the way in which God , by " his special interpositions , " secures the benefit of " his children . "
" A short time ago , a poor but pious woman lost a bundle of clothes from a cart in which she was returning home from a visit to her relations near Harrowgate . A week was spent in fruitless inquiry and search for the lost articles . At the end of that time , as the p oor woman ' s husband , also a pious character , was walking out on business , he met a female who was a perfect
stranger to him . As he passed the woman , a strong impression took possession of his mind that she was the person who had found the lost bundle ; and so powerful was the persuasion , that he was induced to turn back and tax her with jt . At first she strenuously denied all knowledge of it ; but as both a gown arid handkerchief of the lost articles were found on her person , ( who issued the search warrant ?) she was soon induced to confess she was
Untitled Article
38 Encouragement given to the fore-nam < d Error . — Alleged Miracle .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1830, page 38, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2580/page/38/
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