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— -^^p^™-~ Anecdote of Dr. John Taylor and Mr. Newton.
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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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gleam of the brightness which has passed away . Nature appears to our eyes covered with a new radiance , the green is softer , the white
blossoms are purer , and the murmurs of the breeze are more harmonious . Existence seems lightened , the £ vils of the world are forgotten , and life appears a holy-day dream . The soul discovers beauty every where , and " good in every thing . " It looks beyond death and the grave , for
affection tends to its native regions , and unites the enjoyments of earth and heaven . This feeling has even now the stamp of its immortality upon it . Thus it has joys too celestial to be expressed in human language , hopes too rapturous for smiles , and thoughts •* too deep for tears /'
As this affection tends to produce so many intellectual pleasures , it is absurd to suppose that the only happiness of those who experience it is to be found in an immediate union . As soon as it is known to be mutual , all the desires of the heart are
satisfied ; and is this to be regarded as nothing ? The mind then has its inward paradise , on which its imagination will never be weary of reposing * One form seems to stand in the centre of all whom the individual
loves or reveres , aud to beckon him onward to virtue and to joy . Often in silence and solitude that beatific vision steals over him in the midst of anxieus labour—not to enfeeble his spirit , but to impel him to fresh exertions . JEveu the desire of fame , and the ambition of advancement in the
world , become soft and genial emotions when they are subservient to the pleasures of one whom he loves ; while that idea increases the stimulus which they are of themselves calculated to supply . In the course of daily life , a holy light is shed on all around him from the object of his affections , like that which circled Uria h s face divine , * And madea sunshine in the shady place . ' *
If I have sJiewn that love belongs , in a high degree , to the spiritual part of our nature , it is obviously very different from the passion which the scheme of Malthus supposes . It is beyond the reach of his calculi . As ¦ Wel l might lie attempt to measure a
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sunbeam with a hae , as to estimate the noble emotions of the soul by his philosophy . And all his theory falls if his first calculation be shaken . [ To be continued , ]
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474 Anecdote of Dr . John Taylor arid Mr . Newton .
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Sir , July 4 , 1817-rjHRAVELLlNG in a stage coach B a few weeks ago , between Birmingham and Shrewsbury , I had a long theological discussion with a gentleman who appeared well acquainted with many of the conspicuous
supporters of what is termed orthodoxy in the present day , including some distinguished members of the episcopal body . Finding that I materially differed from him in my religious opinions , he brought forward
several texts which are thought to favour the strange doctrines , that " the sin of Adam is by a just and holy God imputed to all his innocent posterity , ' that ** the man Christ Jesus is the One Supreme Jehovah /" and that " an atonement has been
made by his blood for the sins of all who , upon the merely inferential intimations supposed to be given respecting them in the Scriptures , can believe things contradictory to hundreds of passages that are too plain to be possibly misunderstood , and in direct opposition to that reason which is ' * the candle of the Lord" withia
us , and without the free exercise of which even the Calvinist must allow that we could not be competent to distinguish between Judaism and Heathenism , between the Bible and thet Koran .
He lamented the spread of Unitananism , as a doctrine of all others most to be dreaded , and when I asked him whether he had examined the arguments by which it is supported , he said he had looked into some of
them ! and to justify his not having done more , he begged to relate the anecdote which induced me to send you this , and which I wiH give you as nearly as I can recollect in his own words :
* ' You have , doubtless , heard of Mr , Newton , of Olney , the friend of the poet Cowperj you have no doubt also heard of the late Dr . Taylor , of Norwich , aud probably read same
— -^^P^™-~ Anecdote Of Dr. John Taylor And Mr. Newton.
— - ^^ p ^™ - ~ Anecdote of Dr . John Taylor and Mr . Newton .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1817, page 474, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2467/page/26/
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