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Untitled Article
u That he changed hi& opinions towards the close of life , ' which scarcely ever happens to old men . I do not charge the intelligent author of that History , with a design to misrepresent facts . I believe he was too honest to do'it intentionally . And it appears that he was not proof against conviction , as in consequence of several letters which I
wrote to him , soon after the publication of the above History , he acknowledges , in his Emendations , a sheet afterwards published , that he had at the time of penning the History , forgotten what he had known before v that Mr . C . Winter and his friends were disowned by and excluded from the church of
Hengod . So that it is here implied that he was not willing to separate or make a division , till he was " cast out /* though < c not into the world . " What that place is , between the church and the world , it may be difficult to say ? We cannot suppose it to be heaven . Young as I was in the year 1773 , when the excellent subject of these memoirs exchanged this world for a better , as he
bestowed upon me many marks of attention and was w 6 nt to instruct me , I was more likely to know the change in his sentiments , had there been any ^ than a person at the distance of 150 miles , who had no correspondence with him . Mr . Thomas says , " People may have talked on one side and the other ; but my aim was to know and set forth the truth * . " Of this he could not have failed ,- had he applied to Mr . Winter ' s congregation .
But I can easily excuse this cc report of his change of sentiments / ' which was conveyed to Mr . Thomas , some how , over land and water , by supposing that the reporter had benevolence enough to wish that a man of Mr . Winter ' s character might rest in the abodes of bliss , —and that he could construe any pious expression to imply a change of sentiments , which he might deem necessary to the enjoyment of those abodes ; and also that the goodness of Mr . Thomas ' s heart , which I do not in the
least doubt , might lead him to confide in such a report . Mr . W . certainly had no apprehension of danger from a change of sentiments when he found reason for it . When he was charged with having discarded some opinions which he entertained in his youth , his reply was , " Wise men sometimes change their minds , but fools never alter their opinions . " In
short , if the author of the History be at all censurable , it is for not applying for information at the proper source . Candid and meek , as he allows that Mr . W . naturally and habitually was , yet it is highly improbable that the latter would have disclosed
* Emendations , p . tr .
Untitled Article
liev * Charles Winter . 117
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1806, page 117, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1722/page/5/
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