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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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cr savs , some few instances may beadduced of Christians , of regular and serious deportment , who have lived without any visible signs of worship , " &c . To this assertion a short note is added , as follows .
" Milton , for example—Johnsons Life of Milton . " Now whether this note has been made by the original composer of the sermon , or has been placed where it is by the ingenious editor , is
not of so much importance , by far , as whether Milton really was such an example . Perhaps the following extract from iC Remarks on Johnson ' s Life of Milton /'
may assist your readers in forming a right judgment . " The Doctor s next debate with himself is concerning Milton ' s religion . The appearances in this part of Milton's history puzzled Mr . Peck before him , who , after decently drawing tjje saw to
and again , fixes Milton . , in Quakerism . Dr . Johnson seems to think he was of no church , merely , as it should seem , because he was neither of the church of Rome , nor of the church of England . If not , to what purpose is the following reflection ? * To be of no church is
dangerous . ' We cannot admit even Dr . Johnson ' s experience to decide this matter for us ; "who , indeed , hath immediately destroyed his own hypothesis , by acknowledging that Milton , who associated with no particular , church , * appears to have had full conviction of the truth of Christianity ; to have regarded
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[ Concluded from page 330 . ]
The only passage in Jude is one of very daubtful authority . J do not mean , that it is wanting
w any ol the most ancient copies which are now extant ; but , oi doubtful authority , because it is '"conceivable that an inspired apostle , or one who had a corn-
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the holy scriptures with the profoundest veneration- ; to have been untainted with any heretical peculiarity of opinion ; and to have lived in a confirmed belief of the immediate and occasional agency of Providence / * And yet he grew old
without any 'oistble ' worship . Does it follow , from hence , that Milton grew old without-any worship at all ? Yes truly , such is the conclusion . In the distribution of his hours , says the Doctor , there was nt > hour of prayer , either solitary or with his household : omitting public prayer , he omitted all .
" But these particulars , wherever the Doctor got tjiem , must have come from persons who had no more honest busi * ness in John Milton ' s closet than Dr . Johnsoin himself , who never was there ; nor can possibly know what was done ,
or what was omitted in it . '* " All this , however , is mere speculation . We learn from Richardson , that one of Milton ' s family , at least , attended public worship ; and more of them might , for any thing the Doctor knows to the contrary . "
Before I conclude I would , by way of confirmation of the above * Remarks / ' bog leave to observe , that our groat poet , who , in his Paradise Lost , has put into the mouths of our first parents so
many admirable invocations an < j adorations , was of all , or most n > en , very unlikely to live in the habitual neglect of secret or family devotion . Your ' s , An admirer of Milton .
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peteiU knowledge of the history of the Old Testament , and of iho dispensation of the gospel , should introduce such a fabulous legend
as that which is the subject of the 9 tirverse . "'How that Michael , the archangel , when -contending with the devil , he disputed about
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On the Existence of the DetiL 433
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ON THE EXISTENCE OF TUB DEVIJL .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1809, page 433, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1739/page/19/
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