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but by all Christian readers , if these were Dr . Chalmers ' s greatest defects ; but Unitarians cannot forget , that if all his strength and all his genius have been put forth in illustrating some of the noblest religious truths— -these
truths have yet been blended with errors of no trivial magnitude . The following passage , in one of the sermons , appears to me to convey a caution
which it is never unprofitable to apply to our own hearts , when , in the course of our Sabbath ministrations , we have the happiness to listen to eloquent and powerful preachers , whose " praise is in all our churches .
' * All the descriptions we have of heaven in the Scriptures are general , very general . We read of the beauty of the heavenly crown , of the unfading nature of the heavenly inheritance , of the splendour of the heavenly city . And these have been seized upon by
men of imagination , who , in the construction of their fancied paradise , have embellished it with every image of peace and bliss and loveliness : and , at all events , have thrown over it that most kindling of all conceptions , the
magnificence of eternity . Now , such a picture as this has the certain effect of ministering delight to every glowing and susceptible imagination . And here lies that deep-laid delusion , which we have occasionally hinted at . A man listens , in the first instance , to
a pathetic and highly-wrought narrative on the vanities of time , and it touches him even to the tenderness of tears . He looks , in the second
instance , to the fascinating prospect of another scene , rising in all the glories of immortality from the dark ruins of the tomb , and he feels within him all
those ravishrneuts of fancy which any vision of united grandeur and loveliness would inspire . Take these two together , and you have a man weeping over the transient vanities of an
evershifting world , and mixing with all this softness , an elevation of thought and of prospect as he looks through the vista of a futurity losing- itself in the mighty range of thousands and thousands of centuries . " And at this point the delusion comes in , that here is a man who is all
that religion would have him to be ; a man weaned from the littleness of the paltry scene that is around him , Briaring high above all the evanescence of
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things present , and things . sensibk * and transferring every affection of his soul to the durabilities of a pure and immortal region . It were better if this high state of occasional impressment on the matters of time and of
eternity , had only the effect of imposing the falsehood on others , that the man who was so touched and so transported , had , on that single account , the temper of a candidate for heaven . But the falsehood takes possession of his own heart . The man is pleased with his emotions and his tears : and
the interpretation he puts upon them is , that they come out of a heart ail alive to religion , and sensibly affected with its charms , and its seriousness , and its principles . " O , my brethren , we fear it , we greatly fear it , that while busied with
topics such as these , many a hearer may weep , or be elevateJ > or take pleasure in the touching imagery that is made to play around him , while the dust of this perishable earth is all that his soul cleaves to , and its cheating vanities are all that his heart cares
for , or Ms footsteps follow after . "— - P . 157 . Another and more fanciful and characteristic passage I have selected from the Sermon on " The expulsive Power of a new Affection : "
** To do any work , in the best manner , you would make use of the fittest tools for it . And , we trust , that what has been said may serve in some degree for the practical guidance of those who would like to reach the
great moral achievement of our text , but feel that the tendencies and desires of nature are too strong for them . We know of no other way by which to keep the love of the world out of the heart , than to keep in our hearts the love of God . * * * * Nothing
can exceed the magnitude of the required change in a man ' s character when bidden , as he is in the New Testament , not to love the world , nor the things in the world ; for this so comprehends every thing dear to him in existence , as to be equivalent to a command of self-annihilation . But
the same revelation which dictates so mighty an obedience , places within our reach as mighty an instrument of obedience . It brings , for admittance , to the very door of our hearts , an affection which , once seated on itfe
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136 Dr * Chalmerses late Volume of Sermons .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1825, page 136, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2534/page/8/
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