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make the worse appear the better reason , such words as are ambiguous or indefinite are altogether invaluable ; anH even rational Christians are inveigled into erroneous opinio n * and practices by sophisms of this description . I have been led to this train of reflection by tl ) e use which I find some intelligent persons make of the term " unction , " as applied to the language of the pulpit . We are
sometimes told that a preacher has a great deal of zeal and •« unction , " or that he has a great deal of talent , but too little unction . " I question if those who thus speak always know exactly what they mean ; and of those who do employ the term in a definite sense , I question whether all understand it in the same sense , and whether all the senses of the term are rationally applicable in the circumstances in which it is
habitually applied . The term , I need scarcely say , signifies " anointing , " and is borrowed from the ancient practice of anointing persons to the offices of kings , and priests , and teachers . Thus we read in the Pentateuch that Aaron was anoiuted by Moses , and that his sons were anointed . Hence " unctiou" came to signify that the person anointed was in vested with a sacred ness and sanctity of
character different from his neighbours , and the word came , in course of time , to be applied to all , whether anoinied or not , to whom such sanctity of character belonged . The Christians of the apostolic age , among whom miraculous gifts
were common , are said , by John , ro have ' an unction from the Holy One , " from which they derived such instruction that they " needed not that any one should teach them . " Do those who employ the term in these days mean to lay claim to such divine illumination ? The fanatic
will reply in the ammative , the sober Christian in the negative . Why , then , should the latter employ a term so inapplicable to the character of his pretensions , and so calculated to confound them with those of the mystics , who regard all their own foolish ecstacies as proofs of inspiration , and their most irrational effusions a « revelations from
heaven ? But 1 shall , perhaps , be told by some one , that he employs the word in a different sense . I answer , that this does not remove my objection to it , which is founded on its ambiguity . The enthusiast employs it in the scriptural sense , and only errs in applying it to the circumstances of modern Christians . The
rational Christian , if he employs it at all , employs it in a 8 ease altogether forced ana unnatural . Dr . Johnson defines
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" unction" to be " any thing which exrites piety and devotion . " But this " any thing" may either be the wild rant of Methodism , or the noblest strain of religious poetry , and surely these are things which , for the credit of pure and rational religion , ought not to be confounded together under a common application . To some the word suggests the idea of the
reveries of Joanna Southcote , of Mr . Irving , or some other modern prophet , Protestant or Catholic ; , while its frequent employment , by persons of more enlightened and rational views , seems to shew that to them it brings into recollection some of the sublimest passages of modern composition , passages consistent with , and every way worthy of , the
dignity of that rational nature with which the Deity has endowed his human offspring . Who can think of such an effusion as AddisorTs hymn , " The spacious firmament on high , " and suffer for a moment the idea that the sublime , and , if you will , enthusiastic aspirations which it is calculated to rouse , should be confounded with that religious insanity which
it is the tendency o-f the other class oi productions to excite ? The one is an derating , a soul-ennobling emotion ; the other is inconsistent with reason , and therefore degrading to man , and destructive of pure religion . Perhaps some of your readers may think that I have said too much ou this subject , but I am persuaded that 1 shall in this respect appear most completely justified in the
eyes of those who are best acquainted with the history of the influence of such equivocal terms on the opinions of mankind . My object is , that the zeal of the rational Christian and that of the fanatic should appear to the world to be , what they really are , two distinct and inconsistent things : and if my communication has this tendency , it will not be undeserving of a place in the pages of the Monthly Repository . R . N .
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On Lay Preaching-. To the Editor . Sir , April 14 , 1830 . Will you permit me to offer a few observations on a letter , inserted in your Repository for April , from one who-,
Htyling himself " Ah Observer , " wishes to ascertain whether lay preaching would be beneficial or injurious to the cause of religion . He says , that when this subject has been treated , it has been generally with reference to the luiniHter , and not to the people . " I will endea-
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340 Migcellaneous Correspondence .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1830, page 340, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2584/page/52/
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