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Untitled Article
since the mercy of God gave me time for repentance , I would repent , con . fess , and sin no more . But my distress of irjind reached its extreme point , and at the same time the first ground of my conversion was laid , when the good Franciscan proceeded to say , * How happy are we Catholics who were born in the true faith ; for all Jews , Turks , Pagans , Lutherans 9 Calvinisis , especially all Heretics , without doubt perish everlastingly , ' A
malefactor expecting every moment the fatal stroke does not suffer greater mental agony than I endured . In our library were Gellert's Fables , Sturm ' s Reflections , Stilling ' s Lives . I knew that the authors were Protestants , and I held them to be good and p ious men ; and these are children of hell , because they have not the true faith . And who are there of the Catholics that have pever committed a deadly sin ? Who then shall be saved ? In my distress I was tempted to curse existence ; 1 lamented our wretched race ,
and thought the beasts were happy . Peace of mind was gone for ever ; and Jf a thought of pleasure entered , I dismissed it with dismay . That faith in the God of our fathers which I had in childhood , when surrounded by the glorious scenes in nature , existed in me no more . Not that I really considered God as a most cruel tyrant ; this my conscience forbade ; but the conflict between piety to God and my present faith , was a source of such misery as one would pity in the worst of criminals . When I expressed a
doubt , and sought relief from the Professor , his sole reply was , * You are an inquirer , you must believe ; would you be wiser than the church , and so many thousands of the most learned and pious of men ? Do you not know that it is written , ' has not the potter power over the clay to make one vessel to honour and the other to dishonour ? ' And what are you that you should dispute the right against God ? The judgments of God are unsearchable . Believe , and explore not . ' I did indeed believe , but as doubts continually
returned , the conflict within me still existed ; and it was the more alarming because it was no longer limited to this single point , but extended by degrees to many others , " The writer proceeds to state that his mental agony was too strong for his health , and that he suffered long under its effects in his chest and stomach . Thus passed his youth , spoiled of eveiy pleasure . During seven years of misery , he often wished for death in vain . In Ins twentieth year , hoping to 6 nd rest in solitude , he entered on a noviciate in a
monastery , and for the first year he found what he sought ; but in the second he became weary of the uniformity of his life , and felt that his health was not restored as he had hoped . He left his cloister , and after some time went to Munich and became preacher there at St . John ' s . " In this character , he says , I thought it right to examine more nearly the doctrines of the Catholic Church , that I might be the better qualified to explain and to defend them ; and again the doctrine of eternal torments took possession of
my thoughts . " The result of his reasoning " was a persuasion , that since God is our Father , and all religion stands upon this universal relation , a relation which reason and nature declare to us ; agaipst this great truth , no writing , which is always capable of a different interpretation , inay be considered as valid . Thus , " he says , . " 1 reasoned , and there was light in my soul , and God stood before me again as a benevolent parent . My heart was again open , embracing ajl things with ajrTection , and through my darkness I lqoked out jpyfuj to the starry heavens , and exclaimed , No ! there is not such a bell as I have been taught to believe , '' Tfre qhange had now begun which was to ei > 4 m ' better views of ( the government of God and the doctrine of Christ . At length , after more than twelve years of mental suffering and conflict , he resolved Hq separate himself from { he Roman Catholic Church ; and he con-
Untitled Article
$ 46 Conversion of a Catholic Priest .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 546, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/42/
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