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CRITICAL NOTICES.
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Art * L—A Sermon , with the Devotional Services % delivered at Norton , on the l € tk of November , 1828 , on occasion of the Death of Samuel Shore , Esq ., of Meershrooh , Derbyshire . By Henry Hunt Piper . To which are added , Biographical Notices of the Deceased . London : R . Hunter . Sheffield , G . Ridge . 8 vo . pp . 40 . 1829 .
Mr . Pip £ R has , in this discourse , paid a worthy tribute to the memory of a Biost worthy individual . The subject of it is the character of the just man ( from Prov . iv . 18 ) , and the delineation is as able and beautiful as the theme was appropriate . It well deserves attentive perusal beyond the circle , and that must be a large one , of those to whom it is recommended by the occasion which called it forth . Justice is at the very
foundation of moral excellence , and can alone secure the permanence and the value of more shining qualities . And although it may not , to common and superficial observation , seem so lovely and desirable as they are , yet it blends with them harmoniously , and naturally tends to generate them , and by guiding their exercise renders them efficient to the production of individual and social happiness . This is well illustrated by the author in the following passage :
< c Strict and inflexible in its obedience to the dictates of an enlightened mind , it may be thought that justice is of a stern and forbidding character ; that it may form an integrity which you are bound to respect , but will never constitute a moral and intellectual being that you can
at once admire and love . Not more belieficial to the earth which it enlightens and warms , not more grateful to the eye which it enables to see all the beauty of form and colour , is the sun , the source of light and heat , than benign and affectionate a « d benevolent is the influence of
justice iu its unlimited operation upon the Whole character of the upright man . It does not subdue and eradicate the affections ; it is the duty of justice to urge and direct their most amiable exhibition in all that is animating , kind , and endearing . Do we possess the power to soften the cares of life , to open new and perpetual sources of grateful emotion , to make domestic and social intercourse
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cheering and refreshing , to calm mental anxiety , and to sooth bodily suffering and affliction , by tire display of love aud kindness and sympathy and compassion and tenderness ; what more indisputably just than that we should exercise this power and diffuse as widely as we can the grateful agency of these winning af- o fections ? Can it be just to * shut up our bowels of compassion * when misery implores—to preserve a cold indifference when circumstances call for warmer
feelings—to stifle the dictates of benevolence and affection by the repelling selfishness of pride aad disdain ? Can we doubt whether it is just to be , if we are able , the source of pleasure and happiness to others as well as to ourselves , or to be carelessly neglige " nt of our power to please and to increase the sum of social enjoyment > And as nature has wisely
furnished us with the power of inflicting pain , can we regard the dictates of justice aud not check this power so as to create no unnecessary suffering , so as not to exercise it injuriously , so as to confine it to its sole proper province , to be the discouragement of evil and the check upon the lawless aggression of those who can be restrained by severity and fear and punishment alone ? If the
just man will be cautious as to the purity and correctness of his sentiments , care * ful of the conformity of his life to their dictates , as observaut of the rights and claims of others as of his own , he "must be equally anxious to govern his affections , which are the motives to many of the actions of his life ; nor can he comply with the best and fairest Claim upon his power to do good if he withhold his heart aud all its sacred treasure from
those who are so placed iu relation to him as to be entitled to this gift , and able , by a like return , to repay the kindness which a just sense of duty has prompted him to show . So powerful is the influence of justice over the best affections of our nature , that if they are exercised without any regard to its
dictates , they are often misplaced , and almost always transient in their existence , and productive of misery instead df happiness : while just affections are like just actions—the permanent source of grateful enjoyment , the foundation of a placid retrospect , and of hopeful expectation in what lies before us of action , feeling , and life—Pp . 17—19 .
Critical Notices.
CRITICAL NOTICES .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1829, page 336, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2572/page/40/
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