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' ought Jtai to have been given tc i the * world . The executors are of the contrary opinion r and , in their behalf , it is pleaded , that " the circulation of such a number of copies as Dr . P . had directed , by his will , to be distributed , rendered it impossible to adhere to the other part of his direction " ] Vow the difficulty of adhering to it we do , indeed , admit : but the impossibility we are too dull to nprreive . And if the mere
difficulty of discharging a trust could justify an executor in neglecting or violating it , this very important and responsible office would be worse than inefficient . -Nor are we sensible of there having been a necessity to publish these sermons , u the only means of preventing a surreptitious sale . " Granting , for a moment , that there were no other methods of preventing such a sale , ( though it would still have been in the power of the executors
to have disowned , if not to have stopped , so base a proceeding ) we lay our finger upon the author ' s prohibition , I would not have the said sermons published for sale ; " b } ' which clause he intended , unquestionably , to bind his executors , and by which therefore
* they ought to have been bound . Injunctions of this sort are not to , be trifled with , for the sake of meeting an actual , and still less a contingent evil . The transgression of a duty on my neighbour ' s part , < loes not authorise a dereliction of it on mi tie .
Several sermons were transcribed by thd author himself , fotprinting ^ we repeat not for pwihcation—and he had designed to transcribe others . Nevertheless ,
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Review . —Paley ' s Sermo ? is . 447
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voii . iv . 3 n
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the whole was left by him in an unfinished state : and there were many things which , in his own judgment , might be omitted , and others which might be altered or consolidated . How far the person , to whom the further choice and subsequent revisal and arrangement qf tjiem were entrusted , has been judicious in his selection , &c . we have not an opportunity of ascertaining ; though , accord - ing , to Mr . Meat ) ley ' s Memoirs of Dr . P . there has been an omis > ioa
of some sermons well calculated for general usefulness . Be this as it may , the unfinished state in which the copy was left , ought , most surely , to have been consi - dered as a strong additional reason for withholding these discourses from the public at large . Whether the profits of the sale are devoted , like those of the sale of Bishop Warhurtons Letters , to some charitable institution , or to what other uses they are
applied , we are profoundly ignorant . So much for the advertisement The sermons themselves are thirtyfive in number , vjnequal in length , and yet more so in style and reasoning and general merit and effect . In som& views they mate a
favourable impression on us : they shew that the author was zealously attentive to one of the most important duties of his parochial charge , —that he composed sermons for the instruction of his audience , and composed them , for the most part , in a way
particularly calculated to administer instruction to a nai ^ d congregation —that he did noir satisfy himself with the delivery of ' merely ' moral essays , but wa « earn en tv pro-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1809, page 447, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1739/page/33/
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