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mind is confused ; and the soul , in amazement , can only exclaim , " Oh ! inconceivable error ! Oh ! unfortunate man I Oh ! just judge ! " * —p . 369—372 . A few expressfofis having appeared to us objectionable , we feel it a duty to notice them . It is said of our Saviour , he tastes not the commonest blessings , and partakes not of the
simplest meal , without first offering his solemn tribute of thanksgiving to the Universal Father . '—( p . 51 . ) Has not the author here betrayed himself into an obvious exaggeration ? Is this assertion borne out by the facts of the sacred record ? Is is not an utter impossibility ? The feeling of thankfulness might be permanent ; but to make the ' commonest blessings , ' which are of incessant occurrence , Occasions for a solemn tribute of
thanksgiving , ' would be to reduce the functions of existence to the perpetual enunciation of praise . Restricting the assertion to the partaking of food , the author is still beyond the bounds of proof ; there is no evidence as to the universality of our Lord ' s practice but that of inference from Jewish custom , —evidence which defeats the object of the writer , which is to illustrate the peculiar devotion of Christ . ' Grace before meat' is an external form of
devotion not selected by the author , in this connexion , with his usual felicity . It is a relic of times when either the precariousness of obtaining food , or the value set upon the enjoyment of consuming it , rtiade the excitements of devotional feeling somewhat different from what they have been in later ages . Of all
forms this has the most lost its vitality and become a mere mummy . Ah habitual sense of dependence ought to be kept up ; habitual thankfulness ought to be cherished ; but does not Christian experience universally testify that this practice has less heart in it than almost every other expression of devotion ? The objection , be it remembered , is not made to the custom , but to the stress which
seems , perhaps uhc 6 flsciously , to have been laid upon it in this instance . In p . 70 , we find the question— ' If a Christian should unfortunately find himself , by some unaccountable agency , engaged in the act of gambling , or entering the portals of a theatre , arid were seriously to put these questions to himself , What can you
imagine would be the result ? If he were really to say to himself , Where am I going ? What am I about ? What do I here ? Can you believe it possible for hitii to proceed with any degree of self-approbation ? ' This broad condemnation of theatrical amifeerneht requires a few observations , to which the writer hopes he is not impelled by dome unaccountable agency ; but by the dictates of Christian sincerity and frankness .
If by gambling' be meant , as we presume , something considerably beyond the ch&tices of twopenny ftackg&mmoii , or sixfoenny long Whist , therfe is ho little misrepresentation in the juxta ^ Position of the Wo actiorts censured by Hie atrthoi * . Although
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Bear a * Fainily Sermons * S 3
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/11/
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