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    «« promotes the influence , and superintends the efficacy of those means which he has planned for our instruction /* In this case ° f the Heathen , Hoes he suppose that there is the

    connexion of cause and effect between Ihe prayer and the conversion ? It would rather , I think , have the appearance of mere coincidence , which should not , however , the less excite his gratitude .

    H . T . speaks of " religion being deprived of its influence" by the supposed effect of prayer being xlenied , as he imagines " our help arid protection" in some way to depend upon ft , and ' upon God ' s spirit interposing its energies in behalf of his creatures . " What does all this mean ?

    With respect to " the personal relation" of God to his creatures , 1 know nothing more , and H . T . proves nothing more , than that he has created them , and given them faculties for all necessary purposes ; that he pres-erves

    or destroxs them , agreeably to the general laws of his universe ; that he has consulted their happiness by interfering with his general laws , in order to communicate highly

    important instruction and information by Jesus Christ ; and that , according to the use they shall make of their faculties , and of their opportunities for improvement , their future state will be determined .

    As H . T . will not suffer me to call those influences which he has mentioned supernatural , I must be permitted lo consider them as natural phenomena , or effects of some fixed law or laws of nature , requiring , like

    all other natural ivhetiornena , the evidence of fads to prove their existence : the evidence 1 demand . In short , without such evidence , all the supposed proofs of the New Testament

    i » favour of such interpositions * must be considered as inapplicable to the present day , and must be limited to the miraculous age of the Christian Church .

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    ing no longer the ways of Providence to assist us in the explanation of pi ? ophecy , we are left to the fulfilment of the figures of prophecy in former times to determine upon those events that are to take place m the succeeding

    ages . Being come to that peculiar period when the church of God is to wield the sceptre of human government , it may be as well to give , first , the prophetic description of that church- as recorded Rev . iii . 14—22 *

    1 . Its name , the Church of Laodieea , lao , the people , dicea * their rights : the church which shall rule the nations , and be the cause of all the people of those nations possessing

    their long-lost rights . Here , then , we behold the coinseqttefjrce of the triumphs of Christianity ; the oppressor is destroyed , and the oppressed is set free .

    2 . This long-desired church , the anticipation of past ages , will , to the true Christian , prove a disappointment of his warmest expectations . He will see universal liberty of conscience , the execution of the pure principles of justice , and these

    principles arising out of the intelligence of every mind , and by universal practice , become the very habit of society ; but , wilh all these advantages over past a ** esf there will not be found

    that fervid piety and ever-active gratitude to God , and filial dependence on him , whit h regulated the conduct of Paul , and will regulate him who 1 ms been forgiven much , and , there * foro , loveth much . Wisdom is the

    fruit erf experience . Jesus himself was made complete by his sufferings , and where that vvhkHh is lovely and beautiful is performed by habit , and not by choice , in the midst of temptation , there cannot be much virtue in its performance . 3 . This church , from the loveliness

    of their universal organization , will consider themselves as rich and having no need ; but Jesus , who was no lukewarm character , will consider tlietn as wretched , miserable , impoverished *

    blind and naked , deficient of all tUt requisites of true virtue . Their state had been that of unmixed good , and they were , therefore * deficient of that true wisdom . which cannot be ob ~

    tained without having first partaken -of the fruit of the tree *> f JuiewJadgfe of good and evil *

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    On the Contents of the Book of Revelation . No . V . 077

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    On the Contents of the Soak of Revelation . No . y / [ S « e pp . 42 , 113 , 317 and 416 . ] WE are bow come Ao the most difficult part of thta bvok : ha < r ~

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    ^ ol . xiv . 4 ix

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1819, page 677, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1778/page/25/