Page:Prelate and Pastor.djvu/16

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6
Swedenborgianism.

posed, by the clergy. They who merely reason from the result are always liable to mistake the way of duty. There cannot be the smallest doubt that it is right to guard those whom we love, those for whom we are in any degree responsible, against every serious danger which we can foresee; and this duty is not at all affected by the result. The natural, obvious, and divinely appointed way of checking the progress of error, is, to detect, expose, and refute it by scriptural argument and warning. If at any time it should spread in defiance of such efforts, we may be sure that without them it would have spread more rapidly and more disastrously.

There is another objection which comes home to our kindlier feelings. While the error was at a distance, to contend earnestly