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themselves Whigs or Tories in politics , libertarians or riecttssft * rians in metaphysics . Such professors have done Unitariaiusm much injury . If Unitarians be really in earnest , they ought to hold no parley with such fashionable intruders . If they are determined the world should know that they are something more than mere polemical theologians , they ought to narrow the
door of admission into their church , and while rational inquiry and universal charity guard the one side of the porctv , habitual piety and personal purity ought to protect the other * We would recommend the following interesting passage t ® the consideration of serious Unitarians ^ as it relates to practices
now much in disuse , but to which Dr . Priestley acknowledges he was much indebted . € < Though after I saw reason to change my opinions M ( from Calvinism to Arminianism ) " I found myself incommoded by the rigour of the congregation with which I was connected , I shall always acknowledge with great gratitude that I owe much to it . The business of rein
gion was effectually attended to in it . We were all catechised in public 9 till we were grown up , servants as well as others : the minister always expounded the Scriptures with as much regularity as he preached , and there was hardly a day in the week , in which there was not some meeting of one or other part of the congregation . On one evening there was a meeting of the young men for conversation and prayer . This I constantly attended , praying extempore with others when called upon . At my aunt ' s there was a monthly meeting of women , Who acquitted themselves in prayer as well as any of the men" belonging to the congregation . Being at first a child in the family , I was permitted to attend their meetings , and growing up insensibly , heard tnem after I was capable of judging . My aunt , after the death of her husband , prayed every morning and evening in her family , until I was about seventeen , when that duty devolved upon me . "
Dr . Priestley was an extraordinary quick composer : he accounts for the acquisition of this habit in the following manner : — < c It was my custom at that time to recollect as much as I could of
the sermons I heard , and to commit it to writing * . This practice I began very early , and continued it until I was able , from the heads of a discourse , to supply the rest myself ; for not troubling myself to com-v mit to memory much of the amplification , and writing at home almost as much as I had heard , I insensibly acquired a habit of composing with great readiness $ and from this practice I believe I have derived
great advantage through life - , composition seldom employing so much time as would be necessary to write in long hand any thing ; I have published . " ' After spending three years , viz . from Sept . 1752 to Sept . 1755 , at the academy at Daventry , he accepted of an invitation to be assistant preacher to a Mr . Meadows , who had a small congregation at Needham Market , in Suffolk . In thi * ? In short hand *
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4 % t Memoirs of 2 ) r . Priestley .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1806, page 432, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1727/page/40/
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