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finished his course , having kept the faith , and never forfeited his trust by either carelessness or cowardice . This was good and faithful service . There should be a response in our hearts to the approving voice of his Master and Judge , pronouncing , as we trust , his welcome into the joy of his Lord * " It was Mr . Belsham ' s decided conviction / ' says the author of the "
Humble Tribute , " " that religious teachers should be men of education . He thought that the value of learning and intelligence in a Christian minister can scarcely be overrated . Upon these qualifications , with a divine blessing , be mainly rested his hopes of the speedier diffusion of pure Christian truth , and he esteemed them the best securities against a narrow-minded and repulsive bigotry on the one hand , and a wild and mischievous fanaticism on the other . " —P . 15 .
The situation which Mr . Belsham occupied as a preacher demanded of him a very different selection , and a much more extensive range of subjects , from that which the same sense of duty and desire of usefulness would have prescribed in a humbler sphere of exertion . We know that the gospel is the same to the ignorant and the educated , those who by habit or circumstances are precluded from much mental labour , and those who live in the continued and vigorous exercise of their intellectual faculties . But we also know that the public instructor , of the latter class , or of a congregation in
which they form a large proportion , will prove himself incompetent or unfaithful if he restrict himself to the elementary topics , the obvious reasonings , the simple style , and the homely illustrations , which are most , or only , appropriate in discourses addressed to the former class . Very different were the weapons with which Paul " fought with beasts at E p hesus , " and those with which , at Athens , he confronted the master spirits ot the age . Seldom , indeed , can an auditory be collected occupying a higher rank in the intellectual scale than that which habitually assembled to attend Mr . Belsham ' s ministrations . And he " fed them with food convenient for
them . " He adopted the modes of reasoning , so far as they are fair and just , in which such minds delight , and with which they are conversant . He grappled with the difficulties to which such minds are most exposed in connexion with the general truth and the particular doctrines of natural and revealed religion . Nor was his preaching less moral for being intellectual , less practical for being speculative , less spiritual for being argumentative ,
or less devotional in its tendency for being excursive miU topics . The way to the hearts of such hearers is through their heads . Their understandings must be enlightened before their feelings can be moved , and their judgments must be convinced before their lives can be influenced . His very manner had its peculiar propriety , and contributed to the unity and power of the result . We subjoin the descriptions of it given by Mr . Aspland and Mr . Kentish .
" In the pulpit , there was in our friend the dignity that belongs to manly simplicity . He practised no arts in preaching . 1 here was an interesting repose in his manner . A distinct enunciation , and a clear and steady tone of voice , allowed the hearer to receive calmly and to meditate freely upon the matter of discourse . "—Aspland ' s Sermon , p . 49 . u As a preacher , " says Mr . Kentish , " Mr . Belsham wag truly eminent . Witness those occasional and thos « collected sermons , which are either in
your possession , or to which you have the means of ready access : witness , too , the numerous individuals , and among these many of you class , whose privilege it has been to have heard , at any time , the yet living teacher . Independently on the singular excellencies ot his style and his arrangement , on
Untitled Article
On the Character and Writing * of the Rev . T . BeUham . IS 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1830, page 167, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2582/page/23/
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