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Untitled Article
She is told in reply : " This is just as you should feel , but * as few people except young children do feel , because as we grow up almost all of us do something to forfeit our self-esteem , which makes us fear the just displeasure of God ; and though we may repent and amend , we cannot be exactly sure of the just degree of punishment we deserve , and this makes us unhappy , and fear God as well as love him . "
The fear of punishment is confounded with the fear of God in this passage , and it is altogether an unfortunate specimen of the author ' s , or Sister Anne's , logic . We have first the assertion , that " as we grow up most of us do something to forfeit our self-esteem , " implying that children are faultless , or that " most of us as we grow up , " instead of improving , are growing less worthy , which is not very judiciously suggested . The difficulty would have been avoided , and a better impression produced , by observing ,
that as we grow older we become more aware of our faults—which , it is to be hoped , is equally true . We have now the consequence , which implies a common , but a very incorrect , notion of punishment : " Though we may repent and amend , we cannot be exactly sure of the j ust degree of punishment we deserve , and this makes us unhappy . " Punishment , as awarded by God and a part of his final dispensations , is rather required than deserved ; and a fault that is " amended , " neither requires nor deserves that correction
should follow . We learn to speak and to think incorrectly on this subject , from a false analogy with human laws , and the penalty annexed to specific acts , for the good not so much of the individual as of the whole . If we must needs be unhappy when we have both repented and amended , it must be , at least it should be , from regret that we could ever fix a stain on the
soul ; and this will contribute to the fear of God in the scriptural sense , but not to the dread of his judgments towards us . " The fear of the Lord , " says Sister Anne , " is called the beginning of knowledge , which teaches us that we should proceed farther ; viz . from his fear to his love . " What would Solomon have said to such an exposition of the " beginning" ( the first principle , that is , or foundation ) of wisdom ?
Two chapters on the fall of Jerusalem are interesting , and the subject is well selected , as it illustrates prophecy , and is too full of horrors to be desirable in a more detailed account . The same may be said of the sufferings of the early Christians . In the conversation " on the Superintendence of Divine Providence , " we have , by way of illustration , a history of the loss of the Kent Indiaman .
" I will try to recollect , " says Anne , " some instances of persons who have been preserved in circumstances which may be truly called providential . The first which occurs to me is the loss of the Kent Indiaman . During a severe gale , I think in . the Bay of Biscay , an officer , accompanied by a seaman , went below to replace some furniture that was likely to be injured by the violence with which the ship rocked from side to side . As there would
have been danger from a candle , they took the precaution of securing the light in a lanthorn ; but as soon as they had reached the hold , ( as that part of the ship is called , ) a violent shock which the ship just then received , broke the lanthorn ; and a , tub which contained spirits having been burst open by the same shock , the spirits caught fire , and the place was full of flames in an instant . " The expedient of making a hole in the ship was then tried with partial success , but the storm continued , and we are told , " it was soon perceived
Untitled Article
696 A Sister ' s Gift .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1828, page 696, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2565/page/40/
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