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StidkifiS t ^ cas ^ Idwbtttat ^ arawitKiii the cogaUaoce of roost of i » y readera , of individuals who are really transformed by Galvinistic notions into perfect , happy beings—whose tempers cam never , $ e ruffled- *—and who « pr © - serve , amidst the trivial duties of fife ;
a certain elevated and mysterious sanctity , to which we poor Arminian struggles after fC sincere though im * perfect obedience ' cannot for our Jives attain . t , ¦ * . Such were tny difficulties ( for I am now rehearsing my Unitarian " expe *
nences" ) until I began to question the maxim , to which I had hitherto yielded a tacit and undoubting assent * that if is speculative truth alone which in every partieulur instance is pro ductive of the most valuable effects * The child who is told that the bears
shall some and eat him up , behaves himself delightfully for an hour or t \ VH >—no angel is so fascinating , so ^ weet , so obedient . But wilt the bears therefore in very deed come and eat him up , even if he sets the whole house into an uproar ? The Roman
Catholic girl is often perhaps an astonishing pattern of the most perfect religious and moral propriety . Bat can the Confessional and the Purgatory , which haunt her imagination by day and by night , and thus became to
her the efficacious substitutes , or at least the powerful helps of the nicest moraHseme , on that qsccaunt lay claim far their origin to truth * to scripture ^ and to rig-kteoumess ? Henceforth , then , let iae not be told , that the
superior sanctity of life which may in a few instances be attained under CalvJnistic preaching , are necessarily demonstrations that that preaching la founded qq the BiWeu And yet I am nol going to be so loose and latitudinariau as to leave the matter here . I pray not to be misunderstood . I would atill irSintain , that notwithstanding these occasional individual instances to the contrary , The Truth , whatever it m&sf fee , must , on the whole , and , to use a vulgar expression , ia the long run ,
be most entirely productive of virtue and happiness to mankind . My child ' s wur §<* eiiaU never pretnwsje him ^ -d ' eliidive interview vvitk the King of Ear gl ^ ndfJmUe ^ halL mvm threaten Mm ^ witb M ^ ing ^ idevoiirjQdi : hy tUer beam , ^ I though , eve Hy o ^ k p ^ ssiWe c ^ p& >
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^^^^^ M ^^ M ^ p i ^ Because , ^ I am cou ^ need tHut oj ^ maxims of education ^ aM moral ga ^ vernment , if resolutely persevered in ^ will most successfully eonduce to his ultimate virtue and felidtyr . And
thus , even though I had never witnessed or heard of a single instance © f the mischievous effects of GaLvioism ; though I had never seen it most cruelly hardening the heart against some of the sweetest charities of life :
though L had never known it to inflate its possessor with the most intolerable spiritual pride , nor excuse and sanctify in his eye the indulgence of the worst passions ; though I vv . erc ito ^ at all aware 'that it had ever driven a
single wretched being into the utter madness of desperation ^ nor hurried forward others into the practical excesses of Antinomian . presumption , nor benumbed the large and uninitiated portion of mairy a Ghristian coo * - gregation into a hopeless indifference or a reckless and indefinite expeeta ^
tion of some future period of personal repentance ; yet , as long as I perceived so many arguments fcom Scripture ^ from analogy with the known charraeter of God , and froni abstract reasoning , to preponderate m favour of speculative LTmtariamsm , I would atill repose ray entire confidence id that system ; I would believe that its g& » n # ml and ultimate tendencies woUid
he most salutary ; that its influences would carry human nature to as high a degree of moral and religious excel * lence as the whole of hunran nature can bear ; and that a time would sooner or later arrive , when the pepfectioii of virtue aiwl happiness shall he the invar-able result of inculcating the perfection o £ truth .. > r Religious newspapers , which appear to > be a novel matter to Mr . Worsley ^ fe experience , are extremely abundant in Araerica . 11 had thought that we must hate followed England ia this , as we have ia co » many other fpood things .
Archdeacon Paleifs Creed . 1 httppened to be present at the original delivery of tlie Memoir of Me ; Chase hmv alluded to ^ as it asaumed the form of a funeral address I x ; ould aot but be aCraek « wkliiT the ihconsfateiicy into ivi ^ ch ^ thcr rites of the speafeeite www Qhutcto teetrmefc \ £ m ,
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Critical Synoptts of the Mo ^ 3 * " *¦ i . / - ¦ " ;¦•¦ -. " ¦ ' ¦" . i ¦ ¦ i i . . . « ¦ „
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1826, page 141, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2546/page/13/
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