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32 ( f On Dissenting Ministers playing at Cards .
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TeTigion , practical ., as well as theoretical . But daily observation teaches us how difficult it is to write on almost any subject , especially on the subject of morals , with temper and liberality . ^ The Writers on whose papers I ara about to animadvert , furnish new proofs of this truth . I have been endeavouring to account for this temper in the case before us and I thought I could discover a pretty adequate reason in the opinion of your friend , R . S . T . for some not very * candid or Christian reflections . He wishes it to be understood that he is no great admirer of virtue except what is very common ;
nothing of this sort above the " mass of his congregation , ' * lest he should be idolized or should be thought a hypocrite or a modern Pharisee ! Under this impression no doubt he wrote his remarks , and as it lay near his heart he seems willing that his readers should not suppose him a hypocrite , but only an accuser of the author of the letter , of hypocrisy , Pharisaism , or as being a sort of Bramin ^ a dealer in mysteries ! A man who ; confesses that he only aims at a very common degree of virtue , may find an apology in the practice af many like himself for writing in such a strain . I think he is likely to obtain his end amongst his constant readers $ nd hearers , for I find he calls himself a dissenting teacher ! I have however my doubts whether the low degree of piety and virtue which seems so
pleasing to ft . S . T . will not become lower if he should continue his visits at the card-table . Whether the dread of beiqg thought ant Enthusiast or a reader of the Evangelical Magazine , that dreadful < c farrago /* of impiety and nonsense , should urge him to persevere in exercising his rational faculties this way , time must determine . If I thought R-. S . T . would acquit me from seeking to be idolized hy the vulgar , I should advise him to study the character of Jesus Christ who it seems was not afraid of being tfiought a deceiver or a Pharisee when he taught and acted on a superior scale , lie thought it fit to be an example to others , and to go before the flock over which he was made the overseer . But I shall be told this is an extraordinary case which we cannot hope successfully io
imitate . Perhaps if I were to refer to the Apostles and the directions which they followed , I should be answered by the sama objections . We must therefore leave the Bible , I believe , and look elsewhere for the new doctrine of equality which is professed by R . S . T . Unhappily for the Christian church we find an apology for this sort of lax morality in the lives of our modern young gen ~ tlemen , who are become the teachers of a rejigion , whose influence it is to be fcared they have never felt , whose sanctions they hare never appreciated , and whose honour is by therrr often insulted ! From hypocrisy , in one ense such characters will be acquitted , though in another it iflay be asl ^ ed , Ct Friend , how earnest thou here-not having on the wedding garment !"
I say . Sir , cards form a strong temptation to sin , to covctousness and injustice—they excite in the breasf ; the worst of passions when the stake may not be more than sixpence—they are a waste of time and subversive of all instructive conversation—they often create
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1807, page 126, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2378/page/14/
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