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Untitled Article
perly . We ought to remember that they have had at least good opportunities of informing themselves respecting the foundation of the doctrines they are to teach , and be ready to admit the benefit we may , if we are not wanting to ourselves , derive from their hours of secluded study—still more if their hearts are evidently warmed with devotion , our own piety may be excited and heightened by theirs . But let us not be hushed into superstitious silence about their capabilities and our requirements . We know it would
be good for the cause of religion , and why should we scruple to say it , that we had a ministry , generally speaking , much better formed by habit and experience to do its work in society at large . I am not instituting a comparison between Unitarian ministers and those of other sects , but considering what may fairly be expected from a set of men whose time , thoughts and talents are or ought to be professedly devoted to the business of doing the highest possible degree of good to their fellow-creatures . We must have
biblical critics , it is true , but to pretend that acquaintance with all that can , taking the highest standard , be necessary for the elucidation and exposition of the Scriptures , the dexterities of controversial divinity , and the necessary labours of composition , is employment enough for the best faculties of an , educated and vigorous mind , is mere slothfukiess . Let those who groan so heavily under the burden of composing or compiling one or two sermons a week , and make the period when the labours of life should only commence a signal for the abandonment of active acquirement in every department but one , look at other professions ; let them see the labours of the
lawyer and the physician , both in theoretic and practical pursuits ; let them keep their eyes on a man like Mr . Brougham , for it is good to fix their standard high , and see to what a pitch mental activity may be carried . In fact , there is something very humbling in the survey of clerical leisure ; its quiet days and unbroken nights , when we contrast it with the hurried moments into which many men of business do contrive , some way or other , to crowd a multitude of useful deeds . And ought we to be satisfied with the
progress and standard of usefulness of many who seem to think a familiar proficiency with the polemics of a few debateable subjects the ne plus xdtra of mental excellence ? Neither ought we to yield too readily to the plea of necessary labours for the supp ly of bodily wants and personal comforts . Unless a man be fully impressed with a sense of the duties he has to discharge , unless he has taken pains to establish the habit of performing them , added comforts and pecuniary advantages will do nothing for him . One extenuating circumstance , however , should not be omitted when we
bring forward the charge of indolence , or rather of an acquired incapacity for any hig h standard of mental activity , against many of our spiritual leaders , and this is , that the effect of sedentary habits and scholastic application is not in them , as in the case of men of business , corrected by any sudden transitions or change of ideas . When a young man leaves his college and settles with a congregation , his case is essentially different from that of him who is
put upon a new track and obliged to serve an apprenticeship to-some totally new employment . He goes on adding to his previously acquired stock of knowledge ; he associates , perhaps , with as great a variety of persons as he can ; but that knowledge and society are often precisely of the same character as what occupied him before ; and unfortunately for him , his station precludes
him at the most important period of life from mingling in a free , unreserved manner with his fellow-creature 3 at large . Always revolving in his own mind the materials of his more immediate duties , the kind of selfish absorption too often consequent on those attempts to benefit others which depend
Untitled Article
Hints to Unitarians . 653
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 653, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/21/
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