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started back with terror . I have long been convinced that the man who is prepared for bowing his knees in prayer ? at the footstool of the Eternal , is prepared for sitting down at the table of his Lord , and for shewing forth his death till he come again . If we believe Scripture , the great end for which the Supper of our Lord was instituted , was to commemorate the consummation of that
obedience which accomplished the great work of our redemption from sin . Aa the last act in the great drama of his mortal existence , it is impossible to contemplate his death as a solitary , as au insulated event . Every other action or event of his life , however fraught with instruction it may be , may be contemplated alone ; nor does it irresistibly summon the rest before us . But it is
impossible , at least I have always found it impossible , to contemplate the last scene of our Saviour ' s sufferings in this manlier . His death is , as it were , the centre , where the various rays of moral excellence that adorned and dignified his character all meet , and shine with a glory more than human . His death is the chord which , when touched , awakens in our recollection all the
charities , all the affections which he felt for us , and vibrates in unison with the finest feelings , with the most exalted sentiments that inhabit the human heart . His death is an event which , by its bearings and associations , brings m solemn review before us all the actions , all the vicissitudes , which were crowded into the most eventful life which was ever exhibited . The man who does not
perceive , nay , I would rather say , the man who does not fte \ , the propriety of the apo&tles of our Lord dwelling so much upon his death , the propriety of our coimnemoratiug the circumstances which attended it , must have a narrow understanding and a cold heart . For my own part , I confess that I could
never contemplate the sufferings of Jesus without admiring his character - that I could never admire his character without loving his person ; and that I could never love his person without inhaling his spirit . To think upon his death , therefore , is uot only the means of becoming virtuous , but the very thought is virtue . "—Pp . 401—403 .
Ah anonymous critic ( in the Quarterly Review , No . LXVI . ) is pleased to charge Mr . Nicol with having left works ( meaning the MSS . which I had described in the Biographical introduction ) as posthumous proofs of his gross insincerity and want of principle . No one will sus-
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pect such a writer of attachment to the well-known maxim , De mortuis nil nisi bonum ; but I should have been inclined to think that one who assumes the office of a censor , should hare had some esteem for the proposed emendation > nil nisi verum . The evidence which the Reviewer adduces for this harsh censure will not screen him from the imputation of either
a thoughtless or deliberate falsehood . " 1 he conduct of the man who ministers at the altar , and professes to teach his flock doctrines to which he neither gives credit nor attaches importance , is sufficiently flagitious ; but the mean guilt is greatly aggravated , if , as was the case with Mr . Nicol , he deliberately avails himself of the opportunities afforded by his station , and devotes the retirement and leisure
secured to him by his clerical appoints ment in the promulgation of doctrines subversive of the church that feeds him . This man continued from the pulpit to hold the usual language of his brethren , from whom in his closet he entirely dissented : and after living in the unreeauted
profession of The Confessiou of Faith , without signing which he would not have been admitted to the duties of his office , died and left behind him convincing proofs that he had long regarded his church as heretical , and her faith absurd . "
Mr . Nicol regarded himself as a minister of the church of Christ . He eutered the Establishment of his native country with a scrupulous adherence to the dictates of conscience ; he laboured , by a constant application to the proper sources of truth , to grow in the knowledge of God , and of the Lord Jesus Christ . In the course of his investigations he embraced the doctrines of the undivided
uuity of God , the pure humanity of Christ , and the universal love of our Creator . In the establishment of the scriptural authority for these opinions , and in the exhibition of them in elaborate treatises , he spent his bodily and mental strength , and ultimately hastened his dissolution . It was * ' in his heart " to publish his treatises within a short period of the time when that event
occurred , though he knew that secession from the Establishment must be the inevitable consequence . His public prayers , as all who are acquainted with the Presbyterian service know , were the effusions of his own pious and benevolent heart . His sermons , which were , as to diction , extemporaneous , but as to the matter , the result of his daily and hourly reflection , were strictly Unitarian , in agreement with the opiniom which he has deliberately .
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4 # 8 Occasional Correspondence .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1828, page 488, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2562/page/56/
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