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berty and Necessity . " " Doubt and suspense of judgment I conclude to be all that we can reach on this difficult and important question . " This he wrote in 1820 . The same conclusion he eloquently contended for in debate in 1796 . In Vol . XVII . p . 11 , he advances an argument in favour of liberty , which he anxiously wished to believe in , as he did in every doctrine promoting the
wellbeing of man here and strengthening his hopes of a happy hereafter . Vol . XV . p . 593 , " Importance of Revealed Religion . " An earnest argument in favour of Christianity arising from the purity of its morality . This argument shews clearly what his life made manifest to his friends , that his affections were decidedly Christian . Vol . XVII . p . 163 , in honour of Dr . Priestley for his moral as well as intellectual qualities .
The last , and certainly not the least excellent contribution of Mr . R . to the Repository was , Vol . XX . p . 53 , an account of his old friend Mr . Davis , of Cullumpton , formerly of Wigton . In drawing a beautiful picture of this good man , his biographer has undesignedly portrayed his own feelings and affections towards religion and religious men . That these were his last words deliberately penned for general perusal , adds to their interest .
The concluding years of Mr . R . ' s life were not years of happiness . Old age was still at a distance , but the serenity of health was gone , as well as the vivacity of youth . For several years before his death , languor and debility had been slowly undermining his constitution . While he still continued to attend to
business , his strength was gradually failing . The powers of body seemed exhausted . He kept his bed three weeks before he died . His sufferings were not acute ; and he never lost his equanimity . He died on the 21 st of January , 1827 , in the 65 th year of his age . He was interred
in the cemetery attached to the Worship-Street Meeting , where , on the succeeding Sunday , an appropriate discourse was delivered by Mr . Aspland , which the deceased would have appreciated as it deserved , for the union of strong powers of reasoning and benevolent zeal for the truths of revelation .
Mr . Robinson was somewhat above the ordinary size ; latterly corpulent ; and his limbs were small , and seemed hardly able to sustain his frame . He had a florid complexion , a dark eye , prominent nose , and handsome mouth , his voice thin and piercing , his speech strongly marked with the Cumberland
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292 Obituary . —Anthony Robinson , Esq .
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be said to fall down and worship . their ' creed instead of their Creator . " Vol . XI . p . 276 , On " Calvinism" denying its pretensions to be more evangelical than Unitarianism ; and an article headed " Misery of Life an Objection to the Divine Government . " This would have been fitly written with mingled tears and blood , so pitiably wretched must the writer have been . It is due to his
memory to relate that at this period ( April , 1816 ) he was bowed down by a heavy domestic calamity . He lost a child to whom he was excessively attached . From the shock he never completely recovered . His views of human life were henceforth neither correct nor healthy . It may be
here added , thcit believing man born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards , he estimated the virtues rather by their fitness to mitigate the evils of life than their capacity to confer felicity . In the same volume , p . 323 , he deduces moral evil from natural evil . And in a
subsequent article , Vol . XII . p . 393 , urges , that criminals are to be contemplated rather with compassion than detestation , because pain produces crimes . * So he affirms , Vol . XIII . p . 254 , that original sin is nothing but original misery . Mr . R ., however , declares his assent to the Unitarian doctrine concerning evil and its origin .
In Vol . XII . are several painful articles on the doctrine of Malthus on population , signed Homo , a signature he afterwards adopted . Malthus ' s book seems to have materially contributed to the depression of spirits under which Mr . R . was at this period suffering . Vol . XII . p . 274 , on Southey ' s Letter to W .
Smith . Vol . XIII . p . 362 , on a sentiment ascribed to Dean Tucker . The religious tone of this article is remarkable . One striking observation deserves repetition : " I have never yet met with a writer on eternal torments who did not write as if himself were without either part or lot in the matter . " Vol . XIV . p . 226 , fine remarks on Dr . Johnson . The warm
eulogy passed on the writings and character of Mr . Belsham ought to be noticed , as proving the generous placability of his disposition . Vol . XIV . p . 617 , on Lady Russell . Vol . XV . p . 93 , on "
Li-* It is at least equally plausible to affirm that pain is also the cause of error , and certainly those speculative opinions which the friends of Mr . R . suspected him to entertain , seemed rather to have their origin in the excitations of woiinded sensibility than to be t \ $ e result of calm contemplation of human life and nature .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 292, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/60/
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