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A Friendly Correspondence between an Unitarian and a Calvinist . ( Continued from p . 281 . ) I to N . Dear N . 7 th October .
I was coming in due course to your queries , which involve the whole question , and therefore called for much preliminary explanation . But I see that you are much too sore to relish any thing in the style of discussion usual among men , who reason with
each other on grounds of equality . You are seated in St . Peter ' s chair , and I must make my approaches with becoming humility . If the question between us had respected personal attainments in practical religion , I should l > e most willing to humble
myself even to a worm ; but this is not professedly the point in view . It relates to the general sense of the sacred Scriptures in respect to the duration of future punishment—a question in
which I honestly confess that / feel myself a party interested , and which therefore I cannot regard with the same degree of sang * jroid which you , who are one of the elect , can do .
This distinction m our respective c ^ s ^ s you constantly overlook , I should like much to know whether or not your object is to hear wji&t I have to say , or whether it be merely to give me lectures , If the latter , 1 will he ^ r them , and , what is more , I will weigh and consider them ; but then you iriUHt
not sew pie queries with spaces for iny answers , because this is placing temptation io my way . If we are doing wrong in discussing the decrees of heaven ^ the bi&me lies at your door for you know I would have eowe to a period lopg ago ; aud moreover the discussion originated with you . You U&ve i > uly to pay desist , and sjlcwe ensues . You say we are running away from
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ourselves , and hardening our hearts fearfully . In one sense I wish I could run away from myself and lose myself in divine contemplations ; but I understand you to mean that our
sense of the importance of spiritual things is evaporating in talk : this is very possible . As for the effect upon the heart of searching humbly into the divine counsels , I have' found it
very salutary ; and I hope to prosecute my inquiries with increasing fervour . I , of course , cannot answer for you . I shall now turn to your queries , but will not promise to take them in chronologicatordeF . ** The condition / 1 you say , * of departed spirits cannot be affected by any thing that we can say , or think , or feel respecting them . "
This the Church of Rome would deny in toto ; and , as you seem very adverse to the exercise of reason in matters of religion , you ought , to be consistent , to abide by the authority of that church , from which you are a heretical dissenter . They pray for
the dead , and allege scripture for the practice . They tell you that Christ after his resurrection preached the gospel to the Antediluvian sinners , and that the phrase " who were sometimes disobedient , " implies that they had then become obedient . But let
that pass . Whether or not the condition of departed spirits can be affected by our thoughts or feelings , is more than I know ; but this I do know , that no man of sensibility , who has
lost a near and dear relative , can possibly refrain from thinking of their state and condition , and feeling a deep anxiety for their welfare . But placing this out of view , since the Scriptures have adverted to the state of the
dead , it is highly proper that we should clearly understand what they teach upon that awful subject . Your people have taken it upon them to enter largely into it , and you can scarcely hear a sermon that does not more or Ies 3 advert to the
never-ending duration of future punishment . When therefore a set of men , professing to speak the words of God , and to make known his will , take upon them thus to define it , others who have free access to the oracles
of God , hwe an undoubted right to search and inquire whether or not they are correctly explained , and , if not , to stand up boldly for the true sense .
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** Say , impious Herod i sanguinary king I Why shakes thy guilty soul with coward fe ^ r ? What tho * the Christ , wham ancient propbets sing , Within these realms in mortal guise appear ; Yet learn , the hands that heavenly crowns bestow , Stoop not to seize the dross of those below . *'
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334 A Friendly Correspondence between an Unitarian and a Calvinist .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 334, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/14/
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