On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (3)
-
Untitled Article
-
Gleanings. 95
-
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
« , 1 ; JLNINGS ; OR , SELECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE OF GENERAL READING . No . CCXLIIL Death of Truth in order to a Revival . The Great Mr . Howe , in his Funeral Sermon for the silver-tongued
Dr . Bates , has the singular supposition of Truth being destined to die and then to experience a resurrection . His text , which he judiciously explains and happily applies , is John xi . 16 , " L « et us also go that we may die with him : " referring to Dr . Bates , he says , in conclusion .
" But be it far from us to say , ** Let us die with him , ' as despairing of our cause . If our cause be not that of any self-distinguished party , but truly that common Christian cause ,
of which you have heard . While it is the divine pleasure to continue us here , let us be content and submit , to live and own it , to live and serve it to our uttermost . If ever God
design good days to the Christian church on earth , this is the cause that must prevail , and triumph in a glorious conquest over death . "But I must freely tell you my apprehensions , which 1 have often hinted , that f fear it must die first : I mean
a temporary death ; I fear it , for it hath been long * gradually dying already : and spiritual diseases which have this tendency are both sinful and penal . LazaruVs death and resurrection , I think to have been meant , not only for a sort of prolusion to the death and resurrection of Christ , both
personal , but mystical . I only say this for illustration , not for proof . " That sickness and death of his was not in order to a permanent death but for the glory of God , that when the case was deplorate and hopeless , and he four days buriecl , he might surprisingly spring up agaiu alive .
" I know not but the sickness and death of this ou , r incomparably worthy friend and ( for ought I know of many H * ore of us ) may be appointed the same way to be for the glory of God ; that
is , as tending to introduce that death which is to pass upon our comjtton cause 3 which such men help to keep alive , by their earnest strugglings , though in a languishing , fainttag condition every hour . 4 € Think me not so vain as to reckon exclusively the cause of Dissenters ,
Untitled Article
the cause I now speak of : No , no ; I speak of the common cause of all serious , sober-minded Christians , within the common rule or without it . I neither think any one party to include all sobriety of mind or to exclude all insobriety .
•• But though it should seem generally to have expired , let us believe it shall revive . When our confidences and vain boasts cease , The Temple of the Lord ! The Temple of the Lord ! Lo 9 here is Christ , and there is Christ / And one sort ceases to magnify this
Church , and another that , and an universal death is come upon us , then ( and I am afraid , not till then ) is to be expected a glorious resurrection , not of this or that party ; for living , powerful religion , when it recovers , will disdain the limits of a party . Nor
is it to be thought that religion , modified by the devised distinctions of this or that party , will ever be the religion of the world . But the same power that makes us return into a state of life , will bring us into a state of unity , in divine light and love . Then will all the scandalous marks
and means of division among Christians vanish ; and nothing remain as a test' or boundary of Christian communion , but what hath its foundation as such , in plain reason or express revelation .
* ' Then as there is one body and one Spirit , will that Almighty Spirit so animate and form this body , as to make it every where amiable , selfrecommending and capable of spreading and propagating itself , and to ' increase with the increase of Gx > d / ' Then shall the Lord be One , and his name One , in all the earth . * "
Howe ' s Worhs . ( 2 Vols . Fo . 1724 . ) II . 458 , 9 .
Gleanings. 95
Gleanings . 95
Untitled Article
No . CCXLIV . / demoralising effect of War . Ten or twelve generations of the world must go to the making up of one wise man or one excellent art :
and in the succession of those ages there happen so many changes aad interruptions , so many wars and violences , that seven years' * fi ghting sets a whole kingdom back in learning and virtue , te < which they were creeping , it may be a whole age . Jere . Taylor . H . Dying .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1816, page 93, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2449/page/29/
-