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OBITUARY
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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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Oft the 2 ^ ° f April , died at his house in % mS ^ Street , Brunswick Square ,, ] $ & * W Jo ^ f ™?' Esq . in the 52 nd yea ? of his age . This gentleman iv ^ s son of the Rev * Thomas Porter , a respectable dissenting minister , who at different periods , ^ oenastor of considerable
congregations at Bury Street , St . Mary Axe , and Queen Street , Ratcliff-highway , London ; also at Hinckley and Northampton * JHe was author of an exellent tract entitled , " Serious thoughts
on the Birth of a Child . " Mr . Porter ' s mother was daughter of Commodore Boys , who died while he was lieutenant-governor of Greenwich Hospital * of whose dreadful calamity , occasioned by the loss of the
Luxborough Galley , in 1727 , by fire , there is a most interesting but terrific narrative in the 5 th vol . of Stockdale ' s edition of Campbell ' s Lives of the Admirals . A separate account of this distressing calamity was also published by the Commodore ' son , in the year 1786 , in 4 to .
The subject of this memoir embarked when he was 14 or 15 years of age , under the patronage of his uncle , the late Sir Henry Hervey , in the navy , and saw much service in the West Indies at the period when
ihe French ar * d English fleets , under Count de Grasse and Admiral Lord Rodney were opposed to each other . At the end of the American war , he was placed in his Majesty ' s
Victualling Office , in which he continued at Portsmouth and Deptford till 1809 , } vhen he retired on a pension granted ^ him for twenty-five years * active servic
e-, his superiors bearing the most honourable testimony to the tetent , the zeal and integrity , with w Wch he had ever discharged the duties attached to his public situation . Mr . Porter :, though educated in the doctrines of Calvinism , had studied too closely the works , and the
reveal-™ word of his Maker , to remain long j « that gloomy system . He had been * ght that the Almighty was the ^ nevoleut father Of a part of the h uman race only : the scriptures , he v ! 3 h » considered him as the b <* and Father delighting in the hi * p-& aM mankind . He had been ^ in early life to believe in a
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trinity of persons in the Godhead ; advancing years led him to a rational conviction of the supremacy and unity of the Creator , to whom alone religious homage and adoration were to be paid . Having abandoned the
errors of early life , and the prejudices imbibed by education , he was not backward in avowing a faith more consistent with right reason , and more worthy of the character and attributes of the God andfather of the
universe . He was accordingly amonothe earliest members of " The Unita * Tian Society , " which was established in Londou ^ n the year 1791 . At this period he was . known to , and highly respected by the venerable
Lindsey , and in his friendship , he enjoyed a large share till the death of the latter in 1808 . In the year 1805 , Mr . Porter printed a new edition of his fathers work , *« Serious Thoughts on the Birth of a Child , " with such alters
ations as , he believed would render it useful , but of which alterations he gave proper notice in an advertisement prefixed to this impression . Mn Porter , for more than twenty years , endured almost constant ili health , frequently attended with
excruciating and long-continued sufferings , but in the midst of all his afflictions , he was patient and resigned to the will of heaven ; the principles of religion were the solace of his mind , at times , - when with less fortitude , , and a less steady dependence on the
goodness of God , he might , overwhelmed by pain , have sunk in despondence . And within a few hours of his death , he expressed in the most grateful terms , the high satisfaction which he then derived from that system of doctrines to which he had
uniformly and steadily adhered , through so long a course of years : the words of the Psalmist might be justly applied to him , " Mark the perfect man , and behold the upright , for the end of that man is peace . " He has left a widow , pitied on account of her
heavy loss , and highly respected by all their compion friends j and three sons , whose attentions to their father while living , and affectionate and pious sorrow at his death , prove that they sufficiently estimated and valued lib virtues to copy them into their own
Obituary
OBITUARY
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1815, page 253, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1759/page/53/
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