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j ) r . Price and ^ Messrs . Southetj and Coleridge . [ From the Monthly Review for September , 1821 Review of " Southey s Life of Wesley . " ] MR . SOUTHEY also deems it __ proper to fall on a pamphlet ,
written by Dr . Price , which he tells us effected its share of mischief in its day ; and he gives us a quotation from Mr . Coleridge , who terms It , " the
blundering work of the worthy Doctor . " We might well refrain , in scorn , from replying to such a remark . Dr . Price was , at least , always honest in his intentions , and , in general , was not a remarkable blunderer in reason . Mr .
Coleridge may be told that Dr . Price never acted or wrote in a manner that was deserving * of contempt ; never preached sermons as an itinerant , in the garment of a layman ; nor delivered an y ^ " concio ad populum ,, " to inflame the lower orders against the
higher , or any " Lay-Sermon" to inflame the higher orders against the lower . Nor was he a mystic whose head was crazed with the jargon of Plotinus in some s € new-fangled " translation , or with that of Kant , in the original . That which he believed ,
he understood ; that which he professed , he practised ; if he wanted Rousseau ' s tinsel eloquence , he was at least free from Rosseau ' s benevolence of imagination and selfishness of heart : and he was never either a vagrant or sycophantic vaunter of independence ,
or a prevaricating champion of truth Mr . Southey also might have respected his industry , and sympathized in his domestic virtues , although the Doctor could not borrow experience from age , and accommodate himself to new doctrines in vogue , when he found the inconvenience of popular opinions .
We must admit that Dr . Price was deficient in some sorts of invention , to the last ; and that he never made th ^ t discovery which Mr . Southey communicates , as his own conviction , in tlie work before us , " that a man ' s faith depends much more on his will , than the world generally imagines . "
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Sir , INHERE is , I ftad by the discussion *• that has just begun in your pages , a descri ption of persons amongst us
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under the denomination of Lay-preach ers , andjwe are ealled upon to set then aside , ajid to depend upon the services of persons of another description , butt whose designation is not given to us * Now it so happens , that with this terqa Lay-preachers I was not acquainted , nor
do I exactly know to whom it applies , and by what marks I am to distinguish them . Before then I give my consent , that the Unitarians should be deprived of the services of these Lay-preachers , I should be glad to know in what they are deficient to their brethren who are
not Lay-preachers . One circumstance was pointed out to me , by which . I might know them , namely , that they employed , during six days of the week , their time in occupations , such as keeping shop , &c . &c . &c . This was very unlucky > for it happened that the
Sunday beforeHHieard a sermon from one of the most respectable preachers we have , and he keeps a shop ; and I cannot possibly conceive , what objection can lie to a person ' s keeping a shop , if he is capable of communicating Christian instruction , and speaks to edification . I do not find that Paul
was less fitted for his , office of Apostle , because he employed himself during the six days of the week , at his needle , as a tent-maker ; and , if this was no objection in the apostolical age , I cannot conceive , why it should be an objection now . This distinction seems to
me , to arise more from a worldly spirit , than that which ought to manifest itself among Christians . I was once in company , where one of the most valuable members in our community was spoken of with a considerable degree of disrespect ^ and the reason was , because he was not a learned minister . I soon found ,, that our
ministers might be divided into two classes , the learned and the unlearned This distinction I understand ; and taking- learning in the usual sense of the word , I presumed that the learned ministers were those who understood the Scriptures in the original languages , whilst the unlearned ministers were
those who , not having the same advantages of education , gathered their knowledge from meditations on the Holy Scriptures , as they find them translated in the vulgar tongue . But hqre I found myself under a mistake * as , on several of the learned ministers , as they were called , being named , I
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Mr Frend on € i Lay-PreaeftersS * 595
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1821, page 595, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2505/page/27/
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