On this page

• Text (3)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    tti&t we thereby reflect upon ourselves . If this were done in the spirit of earnest and severe rebuke , it would be far more tolerable than when we lightly make their infirmities the matter of our discourse . Our children and servants are of course led to make the inference , that a man may be a popular and approved minister among us , Whose claims to respect and esteem are not sufficient to shield him from disrespectful remark . We ought to remember that the character of our ministry does , in a great measure ^ depend upon

    ourselves . Such as we are , such will our ministers be . It is the many who govern—the few will always , in free religions , be what is acceptable to them . If the ministerial office were made more inviting , if reciprocal duties were better performed , things would alter greatly ; but this will never be , unless we are brought , as a body , to feel more strongly what we owe to our fellowcreatures with regard to religion , till the powerful among us are led to acknowledge that the duty of " doing to others as they would be done by , " involves the duty of doing what they can to raise the tone of religious feeling .

    If they complain that our provisions for the maintenance of religion do not keep pace with what the spirit of a liberal age requires , if they think education is not so complete , nor the candidates for the ministry sufficient either in number or station in life to answer the demands of a period that is characterized by improvements of all sorts , why do they not feel that duty calls On them to make efforts to supply the deficiency ? From no other quarter can it emanate . Let us not see them forsaking our places of worship in search of a more genteel religion until they have done what they can to give their own the advantages it wants , for herein " walk they not charitably . "

    To return , then , to the point from which we set out—charity willeth " that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth . " How extensive is the duty hereby imposed upon us ! How incessant its calls upon us ! It is a great point to know both our greatness and our littleness ; to feel that there is scarce an event in the round of our lives which may not be made to serve the best interests of Christian truth ; to be sensible that in our grandest schemes for doing good there may be a lurking error which will overturn the whole . " God does not want our sinful acts , " said the excellent Lindsey .

    We are not to fancy that the sacredness of a cause will excuse our want of Christian temper in upholding it , nor that any thing is too mean to require our attention , if religion is to be served by it , and the habits of obedience strengthened . " A deep sense of personal deficiencies , a wakeful jealousy , a profound humility , a disposition to see the worst of our case , are the very tneans of Christian improvement . " Let us not shrink from using them both in public and in private , for our cause will most assuredly prosper , both outwardly and inwardly , in proportion to our faithful employment of them . ML

    Untitled Article

    Memoirs of the Socini . * 21

    Untitled Article

    The name of Socijnus has obtained preeminent celebrity in the religious world . By many persons it has , indeed , been always regarded with strong feelings of antipathy , because associated in their minds with doctrines and sentiments which they judged to be dangerous heresies ; but others have been disposed to hold it in high respect , as connected with honourable struggles in the cause of religious truth , with costly sacrifices voluntarily made at the call of conscience , with an integrity of heart which remained inflexible in seasons

    Untitled Article

    MEMOIRS OF THE SOCINI .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1827, page 21, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1792/page/21/