The fast and the cholera : a sermon, preached in the Unitarian chapel, Boston, on Tuesday, September 25th, 1849, (being the day agreed upon to be observed in the borough, as a day of fasting and humiliation, in consequence of the extreme prevalence of the cholera) / by James Malcolm, ... to which is appended, a brief, practical view of the Asiatic cholera, by A.G. Malcolm, M.D.

  • Malcolm, James, 1811-1855.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The fast and the cholera : a sermon, preached in the Unitarian chapel, Boston, on Tuesday, September 25th, 1849, (being the day agreed upon to be observed in the borough, as a day of fasting and humiliation, in consequence of the extreme prevalence of the cholera) / by James Malcolm, ... to which is appended, a brief, practical view of the Asiatic cholera, by A.G. Malcolm, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    calamity, or to bear it becomingly, when, in the dispen¬ sations of His Providence, it may at length overtake us. But we now come upon more delicate ground, when we come to consider the present attempt of explaining the Di¬ vine judgments, and the confident declaration that the pes¬ tilence is a punishment for our sins. In the circular to which I have already referred, we are told,—“ In this visi¬ tation we cannot but recognize the hand of God, and must / view it as directly sent to be a punishment for SIN.” My friends, I believe that this delusion, that the calamities of life are Divine judgments for the punishment of sin, and that we can by our humiliation and prayer change the fixed laws of God—by fasting and penance, alter the consequences of imperfect sewerage, and filthy industry, cause the rank grave-yard to pour forth only vi¬ vifying qualities, and the dank ditch no longer to emit its pestiferous nuisance—that all this prejudice has arisen from the unguarded application of the laws and maxims of the Jewish dispensation to the Christian. I think we might safely affirm that nearly all the sermons to be preached this day, will be delivered from texts taken from the Jewish and not the Christian Scriptures :—that the preachers, instead of seeking their inspiration from the words of the divine Master, and copying from his faith and trust in Providence, and drawing from the exhibition of his obedience encou¬ ragement, and from his sufferings, resignation,—will go back two thousand years, to a dispensation intended for an infant people, and long since superseded, and will exhibit themselves in this respect to be more Jews than Christians. To this antiquated authority, rather than to any evangelical source, is to be ascribed the superstitious eagerness to re¬ ceive implicitly tales of the punishments that have fallen from the Divine justice upon supposed sinners, salibatli breakers, profane swearers, and such like, as detailed in the popular tracts of the day.* But what warrant have we * Some of my readers may he edified by an extract or two. “ Di¬ vine vengeance on a card-playing Parson.—A clergyman was spend¬ ing an evening, not in wrestling with his God, hnt at the card-table; after stating that it was his turn to deal, he dropt down dead. It is worthy of remark (says the writer,) that within a very few years, this v/as the third character in the neighbourhood which had been sum¬ moned from the card table to the bar of God.”—Evanc;. Mag. “ A Bee, the instrument of Divine punishment on a Su'carcr.— A young man is stung by a bee, gets into a passion theren])on, and utters the most dreadful oaths and imprecations. In the midst of his fury, one of the little creatures stung him on the tij> of that nnruK