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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.
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Practical Remarks $ n Matthew ^ v . £ 7 , % 8 . 3 ^ i
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accidentally called into jthe mind ,, ideas and feelings which couW n ^ t be shamelessly pwn . ed to a revereck friend ;—or it it should lead any
to impose a restraint uppn themselves ^ which before they bad not thought necessary , and thus preserve from farther wanderings . But the effort will not have been
ktet , if it should merely rouse the sleeping conscience ; it may diminish the evil , if it do not eradicate it : —that torpor of the con * science is the death of all the highest principles of religious worth .
Give up any tlii pg ^ -r—yes , every thing , rather than depart from duty : ' tis the command of Jesus , and wisdom directs t £ > , <| bey .
Cultivate the love of duty , , thp ^ i esi ro of following it& dictates to the utmost . \ Yhatever leads yo \} towards the paths of sin , let it bo sacrificed however de&r or
valuable . Hold yourselves ready to obey the first promptings of conscience ; and let no present good , no present evil , have sufficient power over you to lead you to
forfeit your hopes of heaven . It is better to lose all here , than subject yourselves to misery hereafter ; better to sacrifice every hope of happiness here , tha , n lose the happiness of . eternity .
Would that , ray young readers might be led to serious thought by these reflections , th ^ t , they would make them the * foundation of ¦ their principles of conduct . They are prompted by the earnest
wish to save them from knowing , by experience , the dreadful consequences of indulging irregular desires , of fostering them by read-, ing or by conversation *;—by ihp earnest wish to rnake those ( eel who . bjave alread y erred in , this
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duced where otherwise no connexion would have existed ; and being thus indulged $ , nd strengthened , the imagination becomes disordered and debased 5 and what to the pure mind would s be pure ,
then furnishes food for unhallowed thoughts , cherishes unhallowed , desires , and often strongly excites to licentious actions . —Can it then be asked , " where is the harm ?" Jn ninety-nine cases out of a
hundred , this will be the result in some shape or other : —but take the hundredth ; surely it must be admitted that holiness cannot reside in so- impure a habitation . Gusts there may be of devotional' ] feeling ; but settled habitual piety / cannot exist in a heart so debased J
Every holy feeling must be checked , almost annihilated , by those opposing desires . Both classes , cannot rule ; and those which submit ^ will soon cease to be the regulating motives q { the conduct , will soon lose their vividness and
their vigour . I am confident I do not overcharge the picture . There is no call for exaggeration : the consequences are so obvious , that those who are alive to duty ' s call , who listen to the still small voice which speaks within them , will obey their warning g , nd shun the first
lure of vice however harmless its appearance . I shall be grateful if what I say shouldjreacji the heart of one young person who has not yet seriously thought of the- necessity of keeping the heart with all diligence , should preserve one from listening to or sharing in licentious conversation * from reading
licentious books , or those which have the felt effect of exciting irregular thoughts and desires , from in * , bul ging , where they ^ mye been :
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1808, page 267, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2392/page/39/
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