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Untitled Article
and adducing strong and powerful motives to virtue in the death and resurrection of Jesus , and a glorious immortality beyond the grave . " But it is unreasonable / ' he would say , " for any person to expect the rewards of a Christian , unless he lives as one . " On these subjects he frequently treated at large , and when contending with the deists ( for there were some of this class at times in his audience ) , maintained that in
these' things Christians were aH agreed , and that , however plausible their objections against Christianity might appear * on the ground of contradictions existing in several parts of Scripture , it wanted but little examination to convince the inquiring mind that all these difficulties are unsubstantial , and the argument founded upon them unsupported .
Numerous as were the trials Dr . Priestley had laboured under , the sum of them was not as yet made up ; for Divine Providence had ordained another scene of discipline , to perfect his increasingly virtuous mind . Towards the latter end of the summer ( 1795 ) , his youngest son , Henry , was taken from him by death , just after he had fixed him in a farm , and built him a house a little distance from Northumberland , ' At this juncture I was reflecting in my mind where they would bury him , because when Dr . Priestley preached in the Presbyterian chapel ,
one of the before-mentioned ministers was so displeased thereat , that he declared if they permitted him any more , he would never enter into the pulpit again : but 1 was soon relieved from my anxiety , for Mr . Haines , the gentleman with whom I lived ,
being one of the Quakers , and the original proprietor of all the township , hact appropriated a plot of ground in which to bury himself and his religious friends of that denomination , and was himself the first interred in it , about fourteen days after our arrival at his house . Thus situated , Mrs . Haines , a gentlewoman of a kind and liberal heart , dispatched me with a note to Dr . Priestley , generously offering him the privilege of their familv ground , if he chose to accept it ; which he did
with thankfulness , returning an answer by me , in which he expressed a hope that he and all his would manifest a due degree of gratitude for her kindness . I attended the funeral to the lonely spot , and there I saw the good old father perform the service over the grave of his son . It was an affecting sig ht ,
but he went through it with fortitude , and , after praying , addressed the attendants in a few words , assuring them " that thaugh death had separated then ) here , they should meet again in another and a better life . If they had seen any thing in the conduct of his son worthy of praise ^ patte rn after it j ifaoy thing tp the contrary , that avoid .
Untitled Article
596 Particulars of Dr . Priestley .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1806, page 396, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1727/page/4/
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