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Wbat many of us have chiefly to dread from society , is , not that we shall acquire a positive character of vice , but that it will impose on us a negative character , that we shall live and die passive beings , that the creative and self-forminer energy
of the soul will not be called forth in the woTk of our improvement . Our danger Is , that we shall substitute the consciences of others for our own ; that we shall paralyze our faculties through dependeuce on foreign guides ; that we shall be moulded from abroad instead of
determining ourselves . The pressure of society upon us is constant , and almost immeasurable ; now open and direct in the form of authority and menace , now subtle and silent in the guise of blandishment and promise . What mighty power is lodged in a frown or a smile , in the voice of praise and flattery , in scorn or
neglect , m public opinion , in domestic habits and prejudices , in the state and spirit of the community to which we belong ! Nothing escapes the cognizance of society . Its legislation extends even to our dress , movements , features ; and the individual bears the tTaces , even in countenance , air , and voice , of the social influences amidst which he has been
plunged . We are in great peril of growing up slaves to this exacting , arbitrary sovereign ; of forgetting , or never learning , oar true responsibility ; of liviag in unconsciousness -of that divine power with which we are invested over ourselves , and in which all the dignity of our nature is concentered ; of overlooking the sacred ness of our minds , and
laying them open to impressions from any and all who surround us . Resistance of this foreign pressure is our only safeguard , and is essential to virtue . All virtue lies in individual action , in inward energy , in self-determination . There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd , even towards the best objects . We must act from an inward spring .
The good , as well as the bad , may injure us , if , through that intolerance which is a common infirmity of the good , they Impose on us authoritatively their own convictions , and obstruct our own intellectual and moral activity . A state of society , in which correct habits prevail , may produce in many , a mechanical
regularity and religion , which is any thing but virtue . Nothing morally great or good springs from mere sympathy and imitation . These principles will only forge chains for us , and perpetuate our infancy , unless more and more controlled and subdued by that inward law-giver aud judge , whose authority is from God ,
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and whose sway over our whole nature , alone secures its free , glorious , and everlasting expansion . " The truth is , and we need to feel it most deeply , that our connexion with society , as it is our greatest aid , so it is our greatest peril . We are in constant danger of being spoiled of our moral judgment , and of our power over
ourselves ; and in losing these , we lose the chief prerogatives of spiritual beings . We sink , as far as mind can sink , into the world of matter , the chief distinction of which is , that it wants self-motion , or moves only from foreign impulse . The propensity in our fellow-creatures , which we have most to dread , is that , which , though most severely condemned
by Jesus , is yet the most frequent infirmity of his followers ; we mean , the propensity to rule , to tyrannize , to war with the freedom of their equals , to make themselves standards for other minds , to be lawgivers instead of brethren and friends to their race . Our great and most difficult duty as social beings , is , to derive constant aid from society without
taking its yoke ; to open our minds to the thoughts , reasonings , and persuasions of others , and yet to hold fast the sacred right of private judgment ; to receive impulses from our fellow-beings , and yet to act from our own souls ; to sympathize with others , and yet to determine our own feelings ; to act with others , and yet to follow our own consciences ; to unite social deference and
self-dominion ; to join moral self-subsistence with social dependence ; to respect others without losing self-respect ; to love our friends , and to reverence our superiors , whilst our supreme homage is given to that moral perfection which no friend and no superior has realized , and which ,
if faithfully pursued , will often demand separation from all around us . Such is our great work as social beings , and to perform it we should look habitually to Jesus Christ , who was distinguished by nothing more than by moral iudepeiidence , than by resisting and overcoming the world . "—Pp . 8—10 .
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Art . IV . — The Christian Beatitudes . A Discourse on the Commencement of Christ ' 8 Sermon on the Mount : preached in Carter-Lane Chapel , Doctors Commons . By John S . Porter . London : Hunter , Eaton , arid Teulon and Fox . Qvo . pp . 44 . 1829 . The first twelve verses of the Sermon on the Mount afford « o large a variety of
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J 20 Critical Notices . —Theological .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1830, page 120, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2581/page/48/
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