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Untitled Article
< 3 vhich are rational , pious , and well-known ) the committee may advantageously recommend a selection of . In the mean time the good sense , discretion , and experience of the parties using such helps , may be relied on as sufficient to determine their choice , according to their peculiar circumstances . It can hardly be necessary to add that the most clear and solemn principles of Unitarian faith should be conspicuous in every work that is used , whether in the department of doctrine , prayer , or psalmody . It may sometimes happen that a serious brother , officiating for the general edification , may be so gifted ( for there are gifts both by nature and grace , independent of human
learning ) , as to address a small congregation profitably , without reading , and if so such a service may be most acceptabl e * But in general , it is probable that a solemn public reading of a printed religious discourse , may be more
commonly useful . Of such discourses there exist a great abundance , from the hearts and pens of many learned and pious Unitarian ministers—men whose works , though their authors are dead , yet speak— -and speak excellent truths .
Others yet live , and live worthy of the works they have sent forth . Many of those invaluable volumes of discourses , though faniiliar to more general readers , may be new to the greater part of ., such country congregations , whose members
but for such opportunities of hearing , might never know of the existence of such religious instruc-r tions . To those whose reading may , have extended to all ( be ; worfcs which may be selected for jthe purpose in view it must ever
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be pleasing and profitable to refresh their memories and feelings , and to partake with others of what they had before approved as excellent . If the understanding be well-informed , and good affections excited and strengthened by public
hearing , the main end of preaching is answered : and by the use of correct and animated compositions respecting those truths which never change , a great point may be
secured , i . e . the prevention of weak and incongruous addresses , which though delivered extemporaneously from the be , st motives , may sometimes prove worse than unprofitable .
Among the names which now occur to me , for selection of discourses , I , will mention the following , viz . The doctors Lardner , Samuel Clark , Foster , Price , Jebb
Priestley ^ Toulmin , Rees 9 Carpenter ; and of untitled brethren , AbernetAy Bourne , Lmdsey 9 Kentish , Fawcetty JardinejfjQ ^ lJi-CJ ^ COthers might be pointed out ** perhaps to equal advantage , and which must be well known to the
London committee * From the whole mass of excellence a sufficient variety might be easily selected , and sent , either as presents ^ or at reduced prices , where the
cost was an object with country correspondents * But it would generally happen that money for such purchases would be readily paid , by those who were sincere in the cause . .
Th ^ sijccess this plan of instruction £ fend edification may dependjina considerable degree ^ on the diligence and qualifications , natural- qnd acquired , of , those members who , mostly officiated . I *< iy mostly , because it seeing desirable that public reading should
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Mr . Matthews en the new Umtarian Academy . 309
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1812, page 309, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1748/page/29/
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