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preacher was devoted to represent the contest between the Devil and the Almighty Saviour , which should have the greatest number of poor mankind : and , horrid , horrid ! the Devil succeeds . Yours , &c . VARIORUM . •^^^¦ i C ^¦¦
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Sir , PERFECTLY agree with your I correspondent , ( p . 429 ) in his
remark on the severity with which Bereus ( p . % 38 ) had chosen to animadvert on the earliest publication of my much respected tutory Dr . Enfield ; a severity which I think might well have been spared , if he had given himself the
trouble to recollect that if , in ins juvenile compositions , he may perhaps have adopted too much the style of an essay-writer ( though they , are certainly very beautiful essays , which no one can read without both delight and
profit ) , such was not the strain of his later discourses from the pulpit . Of this he must have been aware if he is , as I suppose , a constant reader of the Repository ; in the seventh volume of which , p . 29 S , &c , he has probably read some excellent extracts from the
Sermon on the Progress of Religious TCnowledge , or if he had been led by the account of Y ) r . E . in your eighth vol . p . 4 . 31 , % to the perusal of his Posthumous Sermons , from the admirable preface to which by Dr . Aikin that account was chiefly taken . He ought at least to have examined
these Discourses , before he had returned to the charge on the mere authority of a garbled extract from Dr . Aikirf s Preface , inserted in the Biographical Dictionary . Such " more
noble" conduct would surely have become JBereus , whose assumed signature might have been expected to suggest to him the propriety of € searching whether these things were so . " He would then have found that
Dr . Aikin does , indeed , and properly , represent his friend as " a moral preacher , " but as one " solicitous to deduce from religion a rule of life enforced by its peculiar sanctions" He would also have found that " he
carefully drew up a series of discourses on the principal incidents and moral precepts of the gospel , in which he displayed both his talents as a commentator , and his skill in expanding into general lessons of condact those
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hints and particular observations which occur in the sacred writings ; The whole of the third volume consists of a selection from the series above referred to ; it is , in short , an admirable system of practical Unitarianism . And if Bereus had set him .
self to read and study it thoroughly , instead of sitting down content with Mr . Chalmers ' s second-hand report of it , I persuade myself that he could not have done this , be he who he may , without becoming a more enlightened Unitarian , and , what is of much greater consequence , a better man . V . F .
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Tenter den , August % 1815 . Sib , f 1 1 HE wish of your correspondent JL Bereus [ p . 4 £ 9 , ] induced me immediately to take a slight view of Dr , Enfield ' s S vols . of Sermons : and a
slight view was perfectly sufficient to confute the statement of Mr . Chalmers . The fourth sermon of the first vol . is upon Matt * xiii . 44 . " The
Christian Religion a valuable treasure . " He here most beautifully and impressively describes the Christian religion as a rich treasure of truth , of wisdom and of consolation . " To
this sermon , I first refer your readers , particularly to that part which applies to the hour of affliction , * when Christianity directs to sources of comfort , more substantial and satisfying than philosophy can boast . " As also to " the wounded spirit under a consciousness of guilt , on whom the Christian doctrine of divine -mercy
sheds a ray of heavenly light over his gloomy prospects , and bids him be of good cheer for his sins may be forgiven him : " that the sincere penitent will ever find mercy . After this he adds the promise of the gospel of a . resurrection to eternal life , grounded on Christ ' s resurrection from the dead .
In the second vol . we have a sermon upon Christians beini > sons of God , from 1 John iii . < 2 S ; a sermon which is throughout also truly evangelical or Christian . € The 3 rd vol . consists entirely of be
evangelical subjects ; all the texts - ing taken from the New Testament : three sermons are upon Christ ' s last conversation with his apostles , before his crucifixion : the next upon the Lord ' s supper ; and the last upon
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490 Character of Dr . EnfieWs Sermons .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1815, page 490, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1763/page/26/
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