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238 -On the Decline of Presbyterian Cong...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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To The Editor Of The Monthly Repository.
other communities , outrun their associates , by thinking for themselves- From these we are now daily receiving contributions . The ministers , especially of our more orthodox brethren , are frequently
bursting through the thick darkness which surrounds them , and the people , as their education and means of Itnovvledge are improving , are gradually following their steps . And the time is not ,
probably , distant , when the other sects will go through seme of the process which the Presbyterians liave passed before them . These sects are arriving fast at the wealth and improvement which
distinguished the Presbyterians a century ago . An alarm of the consequence has taken possession of their priesthood . Books are spoken of with jealousy . But much is done for them which
their forerunners had to do for themselves . Obloquy has spent much of its rage on their predecessoTs . They must expect that their congregations will be thinned as they advance in refinement .
Indeed , it is the case already , as every town bears witness . While those ministers who are , in any considerable degree , possessed of solid learning and a pi * re taste , are attended by respectable , but not numerous audiences , their unlettered brethren in the ministry , holding forth in thfc next streets , have crowded congrega * - tions . But let them , be encouraged . The havoc will , probably , be less direful in their ranks : an advanced guard has facilitated their progress . Indeed > the more
respectable societies have little to fear from decline of numbers : that has already overtaken theqi in a great degree . Even ortho-
To The Editor Of The Monthly Repository.
doxy will not succeed if it be accompanied by good taste in the preacher of iU This fact may be disguised and palliated : it cannot be disproved ; it cannot be entirely concealed . It must be so , white mankind are without
information-Bullet the Presbyterians ex . amine their principles ; let them no longer be indifferent to them . Their misfortune has been , that they have been too long before they have asserted their claim to
the station which they hold as forerunners in the race of improvement . They have been too modest , or too timid , in holding themselves up as models for imitation , as persons who have
arrived at that religious civilisation to which the progress of the majority is so slow . They have feared obloquy rather than claimed renown . They have undervalued the principles which they embrace ; and , on that account , have studied them with too little
ardour . They have $ perhaps , also underrated the advance already made by the world around them . They might have begun sooner to call for attention : they might have begun sooner their labour on themselves and on their
neighbours . Indeed , they do now begin to respect themselves : they begin to solicit indulgence no longer ; they are beginning to call for discussion . Those who began twenty or thirty years ago are now reaping the fruit of their exertions . Their
societies flourish abundantly Others , who are now undertaking the same task , are thioning their ranks of useless hands , weeding their fair garden , and experien cing all the mortification of the necei *
238 -On The Decline Of Presbyterian Cong...
238 -On the Decline of Presbyterian Congregations .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1810, page 238, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02051810/page/22/
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