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efforts of personal malice —the infuriate ravings of party virulence , and merit only that kind of chastisement you would bestow upon the snarling cur that should trouble you by its barking at the heels of your horse . "When 1 finally left the community of Methodists , it was in as' regular a manner as any
thing could possiply have been done , I voluntarily gave in my * Tickety accompanied with a ley : er expressive of my reasons for that step , and was afterwards most earnestly solicited to return to the connexion ; I remained on terms of friendship with my class-leader to the very last hour of my departure from the
country , now upwards of two years ago . That I afterwards occasionally attended the meetings of Friends , is true ; but that I ever solicited permission to join their community , or even thought of ever doing so , I utterly deny . My first religious impressions were favourable to scriptural Unitarianism ; these
impressions were unhappily rooted from my young mind by Deism on the left hand and Methodism ' on the right-When I came seriously to reflect ; and durst venture to use the gift of reason , tho . ^ e impressions began to revive :
having become . better acquainted with the nature of moral evidence , and having seen in a thousand melancholy instances , the futility and inefficacy of evangelical professions and pretensions , I was led to a serious re-examination of
the sacred scriptures , which can alone teach men the native truth as it is in Jesus : the result is , that I am well convinced *« there is but one God the Father , and one Mediator between God and man , the man Christ Jesus . " When the compass accidentally receives a sudden and violent shock , the
needle , being agitated to its centre , is forced from its proper point of direction , and the mariner , for the moment , knows , not how to steer his course ; but "when the machine is at rest , the little faithful director soon resumes its wonted
station , and the rejoicing sailor makes straight onward for the desired haven . This is a simile whteh I conceive will justly illustrate those " oscillations" for which I am now sp rudely attacked and reproached . 1
The Eclectic Reviewer concludes his strictures , by applying against me a long triug- of % he most drcajdftrl denuncia-
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Mr . Nightingale' ^ Defence < £ c . ^ 85
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tions of eternal vengeance , and finally ends in the following vcryi charitable and christian-like manner : u Foamin g OUT THEIR OWN SHAME , WANDERING stars , to whom is reserved—"
^ his / is among the genuine results of that connexion . It is in consequence of this connexion that my work was not reviewed , as solemnly promised , in the last number but one of the Eclectic Review . The critique has since lieen re-touched , tha tit might tally with that in the Methodist Magazine . There is internal evidence sufficiently strong to corroborate this statement in the review
" " the JVuthodists ; thispiecP ^ or abuse of . In a note at the end of this infamous critique , the writer begs leave to console me with a » assurance thstPhe is not connected with the Methodists . This is net true : be £ * connected with the Methodists ; this pieJWof abuse of
before me . A more artful , wicked , and taase combination against the reputation of an author i and the peace of an individual , has seldom been set on foot ia this country . The tender mercies of these
pseudocritics are , cruel : but , though their enmity is unbounded and their fury without limits , I despise the injpotency of their indignation as muck as they hate and persecute the author of the Portraiture of Methodism * I desire
no other praise from such nien than , their cordial disapprobation . -,. M , y book they cannot confute , and all their base and dishonest artifices have hitherto tended only to increase its circulation . My personal character stands supported by testimonials , even from Macclesfield , as honourable to me as any from these reviewers would be base and degrading " , as satisfactory as theirs- would be dark and doubtful . And what is singularly
unfortunate for their consistent in / ormantsy I have now £ n my possession a strong recommendation td a place of great trust and responsibility , df a date subsequent to my removal from the IMLcfhodist Society , signed , not only by men of the very first fortune and respectability in the town of Macclesfield , but even by some of those Method * sts THEMSELVES ivbt > / juve now had a principal hand in vilifying and abusing me \ \ But why phould I enter the lists of combat with men over
whom victory itself would be humiliating ? Feb . i , i 8 oi . J . N ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1808, page 85, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2389/page/29/
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