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little care to dispose my business , to redeem my time , to manage iny expenses . I Lave been extremely negligent in reading the Scripture , and in attending to the exercises of secret devotion . I have not a heart to lament it . The spirit of God has justly deserted me , and left me under the conviction of the most aggravated guilt , " without the least emotion of tender sorrow . O God , I hiimblv own that thou art just , and wilt be so , if I am hardened in this world and condemned in the next . "—P . 286 .
What wonder that there was an indisposition to secret devotion and to studying the Scriptures , if the one was to be pervaded with remorse , and the other defiled with injurious conceptions of the Giver of grace ? What charm can the Scriptures have while they are believed to teach that it may be jnst to harden men in this life , and condemn them to all eternity in the next ? We will make but one more extract from the copious records of the wearing griefs of tbis gentle , tender-spirited being , who needed and ought to have enjoyed the most animating and soothing influences of the gospel to whose service be had devoted himself . These records bear a mournful character
from the first page , with few intermissions , till the last : " ... Notwithstanding all this , my conduct has been very ungrateful and thoughtless . I must confess that , in one respect , I have been more cautious than usual , for I have read a chapter in the New Testament every morning and evening . I have preached several times , and now and then with some spirit , though generally ill . But as to keeping up a lively sense of God upon my spirit , I must confess that I have exceedingly failed , and that my soul has
been strangel y sunk into carnality . I am ashamed to think how much I have been attacheu to flesh and sense ; in how irregular a manner I have indulged my inclinations and passions ; and how total a neglect there has been of inward communion with God . Since my return home , I have most shamefully trifled away my time by lying in bed b y far too late , by meddling with books in which I had no concern , by neglecting self-examination , and making
proper memorandums . And even now , in the reflection upon these thing's , my heart is strangely cold and unaffected . The Lord mercifully forgive me , and pour forth something of his grieved and forfeited spirit to cause me this day to approach him in his worship , and to enjoy communion with him , which is a thing I now seldom taste , and only know by report and by remembrance . " —P . 310 .
How was it forgotten in the midst of this self-reproach that there is communion , close communion , with God in every emotion of joy which attends the vicissitudes of sunshine and shade , or echoes the melodies of the groves , and in every thrill of gratitude which is excited by domestic endearments and social pleasures ? Such emotions , such gratitude , were ever stirring in the bosom of Doddridge ; and it was never , therefore , true that he knew nothing of communion with God but by report and remembrance . His false theology deceived him , by giving him wrong notions of the nature of communion with God .
We have referred to intermissions of his remorse and fear . There are such ; but they are few , very few j and they are made up of rapturous emotions whose very nature is to be transient . We look in vain for the record of any one occasion of tranquil enjoyment of religious services . We do not , of course , suppose that there never were such . The composed
spirit of some of his letters on religious subjects assures us that he found rest and peace in his dependence on God : but the private record before us bears no traces of such repose . We imagine that he had recourse to his Diary as a relief to his excited feelings , and that he was unwilling to disturb his calm states of mind by putting himself under the power of agitating associations . In other words , the substantial goodness of nis religion was testified in the
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Dr . £ > oddridge * s Correspondence and Diartfi 323
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 323, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/35/
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