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service of ordination . If any superstitious and corrupt ceremonies have been mingled with it , let them be condemned and omitted ; but let an enlightened discrimination preserve what is scriptural and beneficial . In the present manner of conducting the service , nothing like usurpation or
dominion is exercised over the mind , unless the terms be applied to an act of devotion , or to " language of fraternal equality and affection . * Nor , in my opinion , is any undue authority attached to the clerical office and
character . If they bq raised in the estimation of mankind by this service , it is only by a statement of the duties connected with them , and the obligations to fulfil them . No end can be more legitimate than this ; for while
it impresses upon the mind of the minister the important character he has to sustain , it also solicits from his congregation that allowance for imperfections which must necessarily appear in the prosecution of a work so arduous .
So far , Sir , in my view , is the service of Ordination from lying under the above objections , that it appears to me eminently scriptural in its origin , reasonable in its object , and beneficial in its tendency . After a new connexion is formed between a
minister and a congregation , there is something peculiarly proper in their uniting to solicit the prayers and exhortations of experienced pastors to strengthen and consecrate the union so lately formed . The duties which relate to
their mutual relation may have been acknowledged by them ; but by the minister especially , young and inexperienced , there will be felt many difficulties which only his more advanced brethren can remove , because
they only have known them . The very relation in which he stands to his people , while it enables him to enter at some length into their duties , places him in a delicate situation with respect to the nature and extent of his own .
While he is fearful , on the one hand , of promising more than he is able to perform ; and , on the other , of not promising so much as hi » people have been
accustomed to receive , or aa they have a right to expect;—what eau be so satisfactory as to be told , by the voice of encouragement and affection , what those duties are which
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really belong to the office of a minister , and to be toM them by one who has himself performed them in an exemplary manner , who is himself a pattern of those virtues aad acquirements which are so indispensable to
the due discharge of those ditties ? What can be a greater excitement to virtuous exertion , in both minister and congregation , than the presence and blessing of those excellent servants of Christ who have devoted their
talents and labours to the diffusion of Christianity , and who may come to strengthen the hands © f their brother , to give him and his people affectionate counsel , and to solemnize their mutual connexion ?
With such views of this service , I cannot better conclude this letter , which has run out to a much greater length than I expected , than by quoting a passage on the subject from Dr . Priestley : * ' Wben the design of OrdJnation , a 9 above explained , is well
understood ; when the person ordained shall have performed every part of the ministerial duty before , as well as after , his ordination , though the name given to the serviee no longer suggests tlie idea that was formerly annexed to it , bo superstition is encouraged . And since the connexion between a
minister and his congregation , and especially the first that he forms , is a very serious concern , there cannot surely be any impropriety—but , on the contrary , the greatest propriety—in making it an occasion of solemn prayer ; and then exhortation or admonition
from a imnister of greater age and experience to one who has but lately entered upon the office , is particularly seasonable . I cannot help , therefore , expressing my wish , that some
service , to which the name of Ordirtation may well enough be given , may be kept up among us ; at the same time , that every precaution is taken to prevent superstition with respect to it , " FRANKLIN BAKER .
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*/ su $ the Son of God in a peculiar Sense . S 3
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Sir , THE more I review the statements of Locke in his " Reasonableness of Christianity , " the mqrv I » m sometimes tempted tQ incline % q wtuu seems to me to have been his convic- *
1 « t I » . 'IT 'I I = r " ^ « - >~ w ' - * * See Preface to the Discourse containing a View of Revealed Religfcm .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 83, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/19/
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