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brothers met for . a private service which they sedulously attended every sabbath day for nearly twenty years . While thus situated , Mr . . Vidler preached at the Baptist ckapeL They were his hearers ; thtir minds were open ; his arguments appeared to them conclusive ; and most of them , became speedily converts
to his view of universal redemption . Soon after this the apostle of Unitarianism in the North passed through the city of Uncoln . He sought for a place in which he might preach salvation by that faith in Christ which worketh by love , and these Berean Christians
cheerfully listened to him in the Baptist chapel . The fruit of Mr . Wright ' s labour ' s among them , after having paid them a few visits , was an entire conviction of the trath of the Unitarian doctrine , and an open avowal of that faith which in tKeir neighbourhood was sadly spoken against Towards the close o £ his
life , Mr . Widdowson talked "with an enthusiastic ardour of the opinions he then held , and of the superior satisfaction they afforded him above all he had held before . " I have waded ' , " he used to sayy " through a deal of mire , but even hi that 1 found a delight , because to my unenlightened mind it bore the semblance of truth : but I have wondered
since how I could be so easily satisfied 5 yet at every stage I met with difficulties which I could not get over , and my joy was always poisoned by the regret that all was not right . " Under an Unitarian view of gospel truth he found no doubts
unsolved , he saw in the divine Being nothin-g but love and benignity , in the messenger of his great design the stamp of his image , and in the Christian religion a system of human perfection , the only guide to present satisfaction and to eternal blessedness . — Mr . Widdowson
was a striking instance of the power of conscience to bear a map through opposing principles and evenS popular clamour . The liberty which he assumed to himself Ityfh . inking on religious topics , gave ^ ftim a li ^^ disposition in weighing political pi nions ; and , the reader will not be ^ surprised to hear that during the last Vyar , he was dubbed a Jacobin , and himself and his hpuse threatened to be destroyed because he was the champion of the principles , of Thomas Paine ,
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whom the people , with « maybt for * leader , burnt in effigy . Such was the judgment of the rabble , little worthy the serious concern of the conscientious politician . But , regardless of all " thejr senseless clamours and tumultuous cries , " he justified his opinions and came off triumphant . And the writer of these
memoirs , who is executor to his will , is astonished to find how many clergymen of the church of Kngland were his friends and steady customers , even to the day of his death : a circumstance that reflects honour on the place in which he lives and the dispositions of these patrons of conscience and of worth .
One of them , about that time , was addressed by a friend in these words ' : < c I wonder-how you can employ that Widdowson : he i * a J acobin , he is at Culymite * , and hoMs opinions dangerous to church and state ** ' This
enlightened clergyman made the following memorable reply : € i He is an honest mas , and as long as I find him so , I will never leave his shop . " He was always received with the highest respect in the families of the gentry around , and it was not till his infirmities rendered it
impossible for him to travel about for their orders that his business began tfr fall ofi * . But &e had the satisfaction of knowing that he had done enough ; and seeing his children doing well and being able to leave his widow with a handsome support , he had the best grounds for cheerfulness and hope , which he discovered to the last . He considered
not death as an enemy , but often said that as he was of no more use in life it mattered not how soon he went out of it . He died contented and joyful , " with a conscience approving , a bosom serene /' " He rose from life ' s banquet a satisfied
guest , Thank'd the JLord of the feast , and in hope went to rest . " A very numerotvs attendance when his funeral sermon was preached , on which
occasion the chapel was filled with the most respectable families of tradesmen and others , was a maYk of approbation and esteem for the deceased , which also is worthy of heing mentioned . Lincoln , . I . W
"' Culymites , from David Ctfly , a zealous high Calvinist in the beginning ©* the hat century , a sect of methodists ; this has been long u ^ cd in JL uicolashire »* a fegrm of reprgagh for dissenters in general ,
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5 I'D Obituary .
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Josffch W ' iddo * ivson *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1808, page 516, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2396/page/60/
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