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shall know more , and shall understand what we now cannot *—To keep up a disposition to research and inquiry is highly important ; but it is also important so to regulate the understandings and imagination of the young ,
that they may be prepared for difficulties ; prepared to expect that in the works and ways of God they shall meet with what they cannot understand , —• to feel full coiifidencQ in the grand truths o £ rel igion , though accompanied with difficulties , —and to obey even where they do not see the reasons
of the commands of God . Though religious belief -must , in the early periods of life , be chiefly founded upon authority , yet we ought , as circumstances pe / mit , to render it rational , by shewing the grounds of it . Though the convictions arising from early education , founded' solely on parental influence , are of tea as effectual in regulating the conduct , and so far as valuable as those
which are the result of examination , yetrit will too often happen , in this age of inquiry , that where this is the only foundation , those convictions will easily be shaken , especially where they oppose wrong dispositions . Important truths , of the just foundation of which we are ourselves firmly convinced , should be early
instilled into the mind , even when the ground of them cannot be shewn : they will indeed to a certtm extent be prejudices , but so are all the convictions of children , excepting those which they derive from the evidence of their
* -ases ; and it is a part of the ^ e ordinations of providence , tb at before the understanding can
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On Early Religious Education . 279
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exert itself , a lively belief may be formed in truths of importance for the conduct of life ; and by producing that belief , we not only do what is necessary for the right
direction of childhood and youth , but we in reality give the best preparation for what is emphatically called a rational faith . And this will be easily formed , if we have been careful to communi
cate truth only . The proofs of the being and attributes of God , may be made intelligible even to children . They may early be taught some of the grounds of our belief in tbe divine authority of
Jesus , and at a subsequent period , of our belief in the genuineness of the Scriptures . As they advance in life , books may be put into their hands , which will most materially assist in forming a rational conviction ; and in this point
of view , I cannot but seriously recommend Priestley ' s Institutes , and Paley ' s Evidences of Natural Theology and of Christianity . And if parents with a view not only to
their own improvement , but to the improvement of their children , would make these books , ( or even Dr . Priestley ' s Institutes alone ) familiar to themselves , they would thus obtain the power of
communicating to them , at comparatively an early age , the grounds of their belief , and give to their convictions of the most important truths , a firmness which nothing could afterwards shake .
I cannot flatter parents by saying that the religious instruction of the young can be conducted without steady efforts on their parts ; but their duty is plain and their reward will be great . —The opportunities of parents may b «
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1811, page 279, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2416/page/23/
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