On this page

• Text (1)

  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

• 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

    upon a prominent display of one ' s own ability , is apt to take place ; the bodily health too is injured by the want of active employment , and the spirits become unequal . Strong stimulus is required , the habit of reiterating the solemn truths of religion without connecting those truths with repeated active exertions , weakens the susceptibility even with respect to them , and there is much danger of losing the inward sincerity with which we set out . Flattery and that sort of deference , which his station even in youth

    commands , often produce soporific effects . All this time a character is forming , the very reverse of what will recommend itself by its practical usefulness . A considerable degree of mental talent may remain ; a power of thinking and of expressing thought ; but there will not be an example , a living specimen , of the bright influence of vital Christianity , because the anti-social propensities will have received a greater degree of developement than the social . Thus the most promising openings are too often closed in sloth and inactivity .

    A minister might do a good deal to avert the evil complained of , if attention to the dangers to which he is peculiarly exposed were but kept alive in his mind , and it is no unfriendly office to direct his eyes towards it . Let him struggle against those circumstances in his situation which engender selfishness , idleness , and exclusive habits ; let him lay his mind and his heart open to outward influences , and turn his strength to acts of real kindness and usefulness as the best antidote to the danger of resting in mere

    sentiment . There is one cause dear to the hearts of all who feel that the religion of Christ is a revelation of light and knowledge , in which , if no other opportunities offer , he may ever be occupied with advantage , that of education . Though a religious mind cannot rest satisfied with merely diffusing principles and cultivating habits which tend to the augmentation of temporal advantages , yet he whose business is to go about doing good should be " thoroughly furnished unto all good works . " Here the youngest minister may

    do much : there must be many subjects upon which he possesses more information than a large proportion of the youth of his congregation . Let him assemble round him a few of these and endeavour to improve them ; let him look beyond them , and strive to extend any light he may possess in all directions . But there are a hundred other ways in which practical usefulness may be combined with what is more strictly professional eminence . When we think how great a work is yet to be achieved , even in this land , which is

    so often held up by blind boasters as a land of superior enlightenment , we cannot but desire that an order of men set apart to minister to the mental and moral wants of the people , should scrupulously remember the highest mark of their vocation , and labour to qualify themselves for raising the tone of society around them . Let them strive against having their minds exclusively occupied about some particular species of good , even though it be the

    removal of what they conceive to be religious corruptions , for this often stands sadly in the way of the performance of actual services to our fellow-creatures . He who is for ever thinking of one particular duty of his profession , or of the future and present triumphs of truth , cannot bring his mind to those little casual circumstances by taking advantage of which the Christian character is formed and Christian influence diffused .

    I have extended these remarks farther than I originally intended , and yet much more might be added , were not the task rather an invidious one . The minister of religion may say , that he professes but to lay before his hearers the precepts and commands of a revelation which is the object of their common belief , and that he deeply feels himself to be far from the standard of

    Untitled Article

    654 Hints to Unitarians .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 654, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/22/