On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
than the information contained in your letter , that the passages referred to in the 1 66 th , an < 3 in the 43 d pages of my Discourses on Universal Restitution , had been applied by you to yourself .
That such an application was never contemplated by me is evident from this circumstance—I always considered you as a believtr in the doctrine . That such
an application tr « 7 / not in any future period be made by me , is evident from this ciicumstance , that however slight may have been
the impression which these Discourses made upon your mind , yet from your determination to re-consider the subject , I feel a perfect confidence that you will be a believer in the doctrine . And
whatever may have been yoursentirpents at the moment of your writing , I indulge the pleasing expectation that the time is not far distant when the arguments will be presented in a form less exceptionable to some , by your
more chastened pen * In the composition—in the delivery—and in the publication of these Discourses if I know my own heart , not one unkind sentiment towards any individual mingled itself with af * fectionate wishes for the best
interests ot a society with which I had been connected for more than forty years , and with a concern for the honour of God , the character of his administration , and the cause of human virtue and
happiness . Confident I certainly wasi , and confident I still am , but that confidence is not in myself , but in the goodness of God , and in the gracious declarations of his wor ^ U In pages 136 ^ nd 137 I ha ^ re ^ i ven you jny reasons for
Untitled Article
22 Letters between Dr * Toulmin and Dr . Estlin .
Untitled Article
thinking that the manner in which this doctrine is taught in scripture is most agreeable to the wisdom of God as being best adapted to the circumstances of mankind . The Jews , although they
probably believed , yet seldom adverted to , a future state . Their minds seem not to have been capable of that degree of expansion which is necessary to render this belief a
permanent principle of action . In the early periods of Christianity the belief of eternal life was an operative principle . At a pe * rioll
when false notions of future punishment and of the means of escaping it had rendered the threatening either a dead letter or all instrument of mischief ^ -at fi / pe * riod when crimes unknmvft before were considered as no bar to fu * tire happiness—when the belief of a restoration to virtue at * d the favour
of God , after unavoidable and- efu iicient punishment , would be found to be the best cure for the moral disorders which prevailed in the world—that precisely at this period , the doctrine , like a star which had been long obscured by clouds , should be seen in a
clearer light than ever it was before ; -, and become a general , influential principle , appears to me to be analogous to the wisdom and goodness of the Divine Dispensations . Suffice it that neither the doetrine of a resurrection to endless
torment , nor to long protracted torment and final death , iVtaught in scripture at all—suffice it , ^ hat this doctrine is taught by diredt inference from all the moral perfections of God ; and that it foli lows as a necessary corollary frotti innumerable declarations of scripture , and particularly from every
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1814, page 22, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2436/page/22/
-