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and I have done ; I have perused it with intense interest , with undivided attention . It is a human production and has its errors . But its prime excellence is , and an excellence which
attaches itself to no other body of divinity that I have ever seen , that the personal unity of God constitutes the central poui $ ~ beaqaing reftilgently throughout its pages like the sun in the firmament , whilst the other minor
doctrines , resembling so many satellites , revolve around in their several orbits with an attractive but subordinate glory ! Be it ever remembered , that one volume alone merits the wellknown encomium of Locke , " It has God for its author , salvation for its
end , and truth without any mixture of error for its subject-matter . " Infallibility is the sole prerogative of Deity . I conclude my notice of this work just resuscitated from its long entombment , with the mention of a
curious feet respecting its author , not generally known , He died November , 16 ^ 4 , and was interred in Cripplegate Church , where , in 1793 , the late Samuel Whitbread , Sen ., placed a marble tablet to his memory . About the year 1800 r the spot where the
poet lay buried was opened , and an imperfect skeleton , supposed to be his , was subjected to public inspection . Great doubt , however , has been entertained respecting the identity of these remains , nor can the contemplation of them be denominated a laudable
curiosity . " But whether / ' said the late ingenious though eccentric Cap el Lofft % " the rerqains of that body which oiice was Milton ' s , or those of
any other person , were thus exposed and set to sale , death and dissolution have had their empire over these . The spirit of his immortal works
survives invulnerable and must survive These are his best image , these the reliques which a rational admiration way cherish and revere . The memory of the perfections which we esteem effaces the humiliation and
horrors of the tomb , and instead of ransacking the sepulchre with idolatrous superstition for the mouldering and undistinguished fragments which j * deceutly conceals , such a resemblance operates no weak spell with bones and dust ; its holier and diviner ^ iigic invests its object with antici-
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pated in ) mortality and loses every frail and perishable idea in those contemplations which pursue the future progress of renovated and exalted existence through the ages of eternity !" J . EVANS .
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A " Long-Lost Truth . " 713
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A" Long-Lost Truth . ' Letter II . Sir , IT now only remains , as it was proposed , to offer a few remarks on this important subject , in a more direct and positive point of view .
And let it be observed , 1 , that all essence i 3 of God , and has its foundation in him ; or , according to the Apostle , € t AH things are of God , of whom are all things ; " and as they all existed in his eternal idea , so he could
have no immediate regard to himself in producing them . Goodness , therefore , or benevolence , must have been the chief spring of action in the Deity , in the work of creation , and especially that of his rational offspring . *
Secondly . If we should entertain any doubt of the infinity of the Divine Goodness , from the present prevalence of natural and moral evil ,
revelation expressly assures us that " God is love . * ' This is abundantly sufficient to calm the mind of every truly religious and reflecting person , and to abolish at once every idea and every doctrine inconsistent with this
sublime principle , when he meditates upon it in all its glorious and infallible consequences and effects ; for we are to consider that " God is love " — " not only as he is said-to be light y or denominated from any other single property or attribute , but as to his
nature , or the divine form of his substance or essrence ; the result of all his other perfections , that to which they tend , and in which they concentre , as their end and crown * , all conspiring to exalt ami eternize the sublime joy and glory of his one divine , natural and vital act of triumphant and consummate love . " -h
Hence it follows , that all the other attributes of the Deity are to be regarded as exercised in strict unison with this transcendant perfection , of
* See Spect . Vol . VIII . f Roach .
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vol . xx . 4 y
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1825, page 713, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2543/page/9/
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