Tuesday, May 7, 2013

"...they suppose the system of Providence...", Boston, 1808

"While they demand a seven-years apprenticeship, for the purpose of learning to make a shoe, or an axe; they suppose the system of Providence, together with the numerous, and frequently abstruse,  doctrines and precepts, contained in the Scriptures, may be all comprehended without learning labour, or time. While they insist, equally with others, that their property shall be managed by skilful agents, their judicial causes directed by learned advocates, and their children, when sick, attended by able physicians; there were satisfied to place their Religion, their souls, and their salvation, under the guidance of quackery."

-- Timothy Dwight, A Sermon Preached at the Opening of the Theological Institution in Andover, Boston, 1808; cited in The Democratization of American Christianity, Nathan O. Hatch, 1989, p. 19.

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