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A man may be brought to profess what is in open rebellion against every dictate of the heart . Awed by a great name , or terrified by the awful denunciations of those that are teaching falsehood , the mind may crouch and humble itself before an earthly god ,
and may in an agony , induced b y the conflict of his feelings , be reacfy to cry out , / believe—help thou my unbelief . There is nothing deep in such a profession ; there is nothing warm in the feeling with which it is uttered . All is shallow as the noisy stream ; ail is cold and wretched as the boreal
mountain : it is as barren too ; as barren of every thing on which human nature can live ; as far removed from all social regards , as the wilderness is removed from the cr garden of God , " How miserably cold and coinfortless
has life been often made by a gloomy view of those eternal decrees upon which the happiness and misery of an eternity have been supposed to depend ! The language of many a poor deluded Calvinist has been , Oh ! that
I could but believe what I am tateg-ht , is false . The judgment has refused its assent . All the best feelings of their frame have revolted against their doctrine . For not one moment would their sympathies grant their approbation ; and not one single principle of their entire frame has been engaged in the formation of their creed but
their fear : they have been afraid to deny what has been enjoined upon them by an authority they dared not call in question , enforced by arguments they were not prepared to confute .
To many a one within the knowledge of your readers does this description apply . To one , worthy and excellent , does the eye of my memory now carry me , to whom the duties of
life , under these painful impressions , were a drudgery , because they led to nothing but tribulation and anguish ; to whom the services of religion could do no more than add fuel to the fire
of despair ; and who could behold in him who was the Author of a present miserable existence , and of that more wretched state for which he is in cruelty training his intelligent offspring , nothing but a stern determination to fulfil his merciless decrees . It is well if , with such views , men can call it
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justice ; even then the heart telte them it is cruelty . But let us suppose the disciple of Calvin is one of his more fortunate
followers , who has persuaded himself that he has the light within him , that he is renewed by grace , that for him Christ has died , and that his * way is clear and his end will be happy . By some fortunate combination or other , this is , I suppose , the more common
case : flattering hope will kindle in the human breast , as well in spiritual as in temporal concerns . Does Iris heart approve the dictates of his religion as they respect the great body of his fellow-creatures ; ' of those , especially , who profess a different faith , and who , on that account alone , he
must think will be eternally damned } Does his heart approve of such an opinion ? Can he reall y bless the name of his God , who , with a justice so severe , has singled him out of a large family , and condemned all the others— as good as himself , perhaps a great deal better , and more useful in the stations he has directed them to
fill ; or , if he has not fiercely condemned them , has passed them by , and suffered them to remain where mercy cannot reach them ? Such a man is in general careful not to consult his heart upon such knotty points ,
and is , above all things , determined to subdue the dictates of nature , and check those risings of compassion which are sometimes too powerful even for his strongest convictions . And then he rebels against his creed , and has recourse to some kiud of subterfuge , which will either soften the severity of his doctrine or smother the tender thoughts which spr ing up . Indeed , of the man that is led away by the delusions of falsehood in his religious profession , it may , according * to our views of truth , be said , that
either with his heart he does not believe unto righteousness , or that he is in a fluctuating state , suspended between the cruel decisions of his religion and the kind dictates of his heart . Other reflections might be added to the above to illustrate this most aVvfiil
subject , but I shall be drawn out'to too jajreat a length , and will therefore withhold them , anxious still to offer a solution of what has ever seemexl problematical in the character of many
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The " Faith vfthe Heart * 71
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 71, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/7/
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