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Untitled Article
feelings , but his notion of the moral law is compounded of the second and third of the theories enumerated by our author . But of all those theories , whether ethical or metaphysical , whether declaring what our conduct should be . or what our feelings are , none surely is so utterly destitute of plausibility as Mr . BIm key ' s own doctrine , that virtue is constituted by the will of God .
If we believe this , we believe that God does not declare what is good , and command us to do it , but that God actually makes it good . Good is whatever God makes it . What we call evil , is only evil because he has arbitrarily prohibited it . The countless myriads to whom he has never signified his will , are under no moral obligations . This doctrine takes away all motives to yield obedience to God , except those which induce a slave to obey his master . He must be obeyed because he is the stronger . He is not to be obeyed because he is good , ( orthat implies a good which he could not have made bad by his mere will . If we had the misfortune to believe that the world is ruled by an evil principle , that there is no God , but only a devil , or that the devil has more power over us than God , we ought by this rule to obey the devil . Mr . Blakey is evidently quite unconscious of these consequences of his theory . But , that they are legitimate consequences who can doubt ?
And this theory Mr . Blakey believes to rest upon the authority of scripture .
* I venture to affirm , ' says he , * that from Genesis to Revelation inclusive , there is not a single passage , which , when fairly examined , claims the attention and homage of mankind upon any other ground than what is implied in the command which accompanies it . '—p . 326 .
The scriptures , as Mr . Blakey himself says elsewhere , do not enter into speculative questions ; they tell us what to do , not why . But do they not say perpetually , God is good , God is just , God is righteous , God is holy ? And are we to understand by these affirmations nothing at all , but the identical and unmeaning proposition God is himself , or a proposition which has so little to do with morality as this , God is powerful ? Has God in short no moral attributes ? no attributes but those which the devil is conceived to possess in a smaller degree ? and no title to our obedience but such as the devil would have , if there were a devil , and the universe were without God ?
Mr . Blakey insists much upon the sublimity of the scriptures , and the perfection of scripture morality ; considerations which tell strongly against his own doctrine ; for if we are capable of recognising excellence in the commands of the Omnipotent , they must possess excellence independently of his command ; and excellence discoverable by us even without revelation ; for whatever reason can recognise when found , reason can find . If the morality of the scriptures is admirable : because it conduce * to happi-
Untitled Article
Blakey s History of Moral Science . 667
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 667, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/7/
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