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Untitled Article
here insinuate , it is not easy to say . I was present , as well as he , at the delivery of the sermon , and can bear witness that they did hear him from beginning to end , without interruption without murmur , without any sign of disgust or impatience , and that after the close of the service , having occasion to
converse with many friends whom I had not lately seen , several of them spoke of the discourse with great approbation . Not being a member of the assembly , I can give no account of what passed at the meeting for business which followed ; but having been present at the dinner—not as professing an
attachment to any sect or party , but as a friend of religion and religious men—I think it my duty to say , that the sermon was mentioned in myhearing with applause by many , and with dislike by none ; and that , to my certain knowledge , the author is
perfectly correct in saying , that it is " sent into the world at the request of several who heard it / ' So little foundation is there for the broad assertion of Mr . M . that it u gave general dissatisfaction . "
If , however , the conduct of the worthy preacher had been such as it is represented to be by Mr . M . it was not merely calculated to give dissatisfaction , but called loudly for a vote of censure from the venerable assembly to whom it was addressed , for he would have us believe , that it was a " violation of the
universally prescribed privileges of female modesty and re * serve / " And this charge he endeavours to support by citing several expressions from the sermon , twelve in number , of which seven are literal quotations from the New Testament , and then appealing to the good sense of any person , whether the discussion of such a subject was not highly indecorous and improper . '
After these heavy accusations against Mr . Bennett it must have excited a smile in the countenances of your readers to find Mr . M . declaring that he has taken up his pen merely to exculpate the General Baptist Assembly from the odium so improperly cast upon them ; and it will naturally be asked , who is the real calumniator of the assembly ., Mr . M . who
denies that they had the candour to hear with patient attention , a gentleman whom they had invited to preach to them , or your Reviewer , who is " unwilling to believe" that they should be less ready than an assembly of the clergy , to manifest their regard to the right of private judgment . Whether Mr . M . will acknowledge any portion of good sense in a man whose notions of modesty are somewhat different from his own , I cannot tell . For my own part , though I think I
Untitled Article
Mr . Slurch on Mr . Bennetts Sermon . SS 5
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1807, page 585, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2386/page/21/
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