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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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to syrapa&hifee with the feeling wliich would reftdei" them absolutely essential to the performance of the services of religion , and exclude all others , in their absence , from the exercise of their functions . It is surely as disgraceful as it is inconvenient , that
when a minister is prevented by sickness , or any unavoidable engagement , from performing his stated duties , there should be in a Christian congregation , in the present day , no Christian man both able and willing to fill the office of his pastor with edification to the church . And were the
excellent plan which has been stated , to become at all general in our congregations , such a state of things could not possibly exist . In the last place , this plan is obviously capable of being applied to the acquisition of any kind of knowledge whatever . Literature , science and
philosophy might be cultivated in this manner with the greatest success , and without any material inconvenience by those who are actively engaged in the business of life . In a word , the more
it is examined , the more it will probably appear to be one of the most simple and effectual means of unlearning what is erroneous , of acquiring * what is true , and of diffusing the blessings of knowledge over the face of the whole earth , which the wise
have yet projected , or the benevolent attempted to carry into execution . £ 5 . o .
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I know not what else his meaning could be than this , —Do not debase religion by spreading it ostensibly over the ordinary concerns of life , and , by making it of trite occurrence , lessen the veneration which would be attached
to it , if less familiarly introduced arid appealed to . As a man of real courage does not " wear his dagger in his mouth , " neither is it , in my humble apprehension , requisite for a Christian , —habitual as his sense may be of
the Divine presence , and of the necessity of conforming all his actions to the will of that Being whose inspection of them he is conscious of , —to make that consciousness the burthen of his hourly song . Religion is a subject that no man ought to shrink from , but , when superinduced upon
all others , and as it were mechanically , it is apt to become a lambent flame , neither lighting nor warming . A talkative piety , in what differs it from that of the Pharisees ? A deep and settled piety will be more felt than expressed . Religion is a concern chiefly between man and his Maker— * I had almost said a confidential
oneand though a Christian should not be slow to avow the intimacy which he humbly cultivates in that quarter , when required by any serious occasion foi ? it , I do not think those the best Christians , who are in the habit of
professing to dp all and every thing to the glory of ( iod , wliich ( whatever be meant by it ) can have no connexion with a great majority of the transactions of life , and can only be implK cated in such as involve morality of conduct . "
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Sir , July 8 , 1822 . IT is a practice to which I have long adhered , to search for knowledge wherever it is to be found ; and if I can discern any chance of meeting with a satisfactory answer to my in- »
quiries , I would consult the pages of the Unitarian Repository , or of the Evangelical Magazine , with as much readiness as the more imposing toines of orthodox theology . Locke ' s Essay on the Understanding , you may probably know , is o » e of our standard books of examination at Cambridge , and hence the members of this University are sometimes found to indulge in metaphysical speculations which
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voju . xvn . 3 i
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Brtef Notes on the B ^ e . No . XX ; 4 % &
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Brief Notes on the Bible . No . XX . " Be not righteous overmuch . " HAVE been favoured with the I perusal of " Influence , a Moral Tale , " the production of a very amiahle lady . It is from the school of
sanctity ; and , on returning the work , I took the liberty of appending to it the following note , which perhaps may he honoured , as of general application , by a place iu your Repository . BREVIS .
Religion is incomparably the greatest of man ' s earthly comforts , but , when Solomon delivered the injunction ,
* Be not righteous overmuch , ' * * Eccles , vii . 16 .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1822, page 425, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2514/page/33/
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