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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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$ 79 Marriage not discouraged in the New Tcsfam&nt .
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more than the burthen of an old snjig , « r ewn tiie darrmaidry clauses , of | he Athanasian creed . . 'fihere was a time , Sir , when vour portrait of LTnitarianism would Ii ; ive been very different from that which you have recently drawn . If we now * see you joining with a far inferior race
to represent our principles as shocking or absurd , it affords us some consolation to remember that you were once their advocate . You tnought and fell with ns in the vernal freshness of your genius . Of this remembrance no efforts of your ' scan deprive us . You too must recollect the " Religiou 3 Musings , " or you are the only one who could ever Forset them . * They are a living—may
they be an immortal !—proof of what you felt and thought in some of the brightest moments of your earthly being . I allude not to these evidences of your former creed for the purpose of reproaching yOu with the change . He wno upbraids another for an alteration in his sentiments , must supj > ose that all knowledge is intuitive , and that , in the progress of human life , the same
Unvarying scenery is perpetually around us . But at the close of these animadversions I would fondly dwell on the memory of what you were , and console myself-for the present animosity you bear to our creed with the thought , that in estimating the whole man , i £ the Church of England should be found to have numbered you among
? This beautifulv poem exhibits the most Striking indications of a brilliant though youthful genius . It is full of bright v i sions , half unveiled—of unbounded a . nd indistinct prospects—of noble aspirations after all kinds of imaginary excellence . As a system of religion or metaphysics , it is neither very intelligible nor \ ery consistent ; but it is decidedly opposed to most of those sentiments which the author has since learned to admire . The following is the tribute paid to the great Reviver of Unitarianism in England :
' * Lo Priestley there . Patriot and Saint and Sage , Him full of years from hit lov'd native land Statesmen blood-stain' d , and priests idolatrous By dark lies ma ddening the blind multitude * « &tovc with vmin hate . Calm , pitying , he retlr'd And niusM expectant on these promts'd years . "
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her sons in the maturity of ymip intellect and the plenitude of your knowledge , your youngest and brightest hopes , your earliest aspirations , your first religious loves were entirely ' ours . But , after all , it is not to us , but to poetry that 1 should most cordially hail your return . In the lower walks of
controversy , political or religious , the light from heaven serves only to lead astray . You are bewildered by the splendours o ' f your own genius . Your mind is like the throne in Milton ' s heaven , ' * dark with excessive bright /' Why , I ask with fond impatience , is .
not this light carried into the pure regions of the imagination , where it mav shine unveiled for ever ? Surely it will not pass away from the eirth behind the clouds of mysticism and politics- — only leaving on them its golden tinge . They must fade away , and the temporary lustre lent them will sink when they disappear . But surely this can never be the lot of one ** whose fame
should ^ ha re in nature ' s immortality , a venerable thing *' —of one who can be entangled only in the nlmy nets which his own fancy spreads—of one whose proper sphere is above this world and not amidst its storms—<> f one who may live in the hearts and imaginations of brighter ages , when the very names of those whose cause he now condescends to gild over are utterly forgotten , S . N . D
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Sir , April 21 , 181 7-HOMO [ p . 152 ] will permit me to point out what 1 conceive to be an undoubted error in his statement , that Christ and his apostles discouraged marriage , and only sanctioned it as a prevention of immorality . The gospel opinior * s as to marriage have a particular , not a general reference . They respect the peculiar circumstances of
the early Christians , and especially apostles or missionaries , living in a time of persecution and various trial , when marriage would be inexpedienty and when celibacy , from the motive of entire devotion to the gospel interests , would be meritorious . Paul , however , expressly disclaims having any
authority for his injunctions on the subject : " Now as to virgins , I have no commandment from the Lord , yetl speak according to my judgment . " It is remarkable that . " the forbidding to sparry" is pointed out as the mark -of
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1817, page 272, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2464/page/16/
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