On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
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
plexion of your inward man too delicate and weakly . Ye are not only babes in Christ , but sickly babes too . Is your conscience sensible and tender ? It is a bad sign when in the natural man the feeling is numbed and torpid . Conscience is the moral
sense or feeling every where diffused , and tremblingly alive to every impression . Does it continue quick and lively , or is it worn away by the irritation of frequent injuries ? Is any part about you palsied and callous ? Then , indeed , is your soul ' s health in an alarming state , and you have great reason to apply to the Physician of souls for a cure .
Do you relish the word of God ? I ask not do you read , though that were perhaps a question to be asked , but do you relish it ? Are you revived by its promises , awed by its threats , quickened by its examples ? Those who have acquired a taste for the literature of the schools , do as it were suck the sweetness from the poet ' s spring and imbibe into their souls the spirit of the classic page . Do you in like manner dwell upon the conversations and the life of your Saviour ? Do you cling to them like a bee to the bud , and draw out their genuine flavour and sweetness ? Taste of that honey , and , like Jonathan , your eyes shall be enlightened .
Is your sense of invisible things quick and piercing ? Where others see trees and suns and harvests , do you see God and Christ and glory ? Where others see crosses and afflictions , set as it were in array against them , do you see graces springing and blessings dropping down upon you ? Where others see the vain and miserable politics of this world , the fretting , bustling
and contention of the children of it , do you see an overruling Providence , directing and ordering all things according to its own wise and beneficent purposes ? Do you see God in every thing ? Is he always intimately present to you in every scene and in every transaction , and nearer to your heart than any outward connexion ? Then is the vital principle strong and vigorous within you .
Lastly , do you live by prayer ? Are your prayers forced from you by the strong impulse of nature , when danger or unforeseen distress overtakes you , like that of Peter : " Lord , help us , or we perish ? " Are they formal and stated only , or do you pray without ceasing , —standing , walking , conversing , buying and selling ? In the song and in the dance do you lift up your hearts to God ? For though the buyers and sellers might not be introduced into the temple , yet the business of the temple may and must be carried on in the commerce of the world .
And if you have the happiness to find after fair examination that you are yourselves thus advanced , make it your business to educate and bring up others to the same state of maturity . Be nursing fathers and nursing mothers to the church of Christ . When you meet with those who are inferior to yourselves in gifts and attainments , do not separate yourselves from them with a pharisaicai fastidiousness , but treat them with that tenderness and indulgence which you would shew to a promising infant . Remove out of their path every stumbling-block , remembering who it is that hath said , "
Offend not one of these little ones . " Let your superiority be shewn in bearing with their weakness , in instructing their ignorance , in rectifying their mistakes , and passing over with a manly indifference the little spirit of captiousness and humour which proceeds from the petulance of their infirm age . Remember , it is not a trifling thing to be born , . and despise not the day of small things . Before birth there is nothing ; nothing on which to ground a hope , or hardly a wish ; but as soon as born , there are the seeds , the rudiments of a human being : they want expaflding , it is true , but they ace
Untitled Article
jDiscourse hy Mrs . Barbauld . 481
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1827, page 481, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1798/page/9/
-