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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
awake from so early a period . The light of holiness is but beginning to dawn , and another morning slumber must be permitted to the weakness of the infant conscience . But by add by there is a louder call . This' second appeal comes sometimes through the rebuke of a friend , sometimes through unexpected praise * but oftener through a change of scene or society , which , by inducing a comparison of the varieties of things as they are , suggests the imagination of what they were intended to be . Much and long-continued pain attends this process in a mind of sensibility , a pain not comnensated bv the vivid but transient pleasures which enter with the perception
of invisible things . But pain is the most powerful agent of Providence in deepening , strengthening , and animating all emotions which are to constitute the elements of character : and the consciousness of weakness , the sense of sin , shame for the past , dread of the future * alternate , fitly and efficaciously , with the vivid hopes , the passionate trust , the highly wrought love , in which the undisciplined spirit finds its occasional delight . This is the period which usually determines the lot for good or evil of the spirit through life ; and , as one consequence of this , whether there shall be more revelations or not . If the spirit be not now quenched , its light will beam in from time to time in an illuminating blaze , as well as shed a steady lustre over the daily life . If this period be turned to right account , there will be no permanent ignorance or self-deception respecting the state of the soul . Any lapse of , weakness , any deed of strength , any connexion formed or dissolved , anv visitations of sickness , or sorrow , or rejoicing :,
will henceforth touch the springs of the thoughts , and lay open the workings of principles and emotions within , till attainments can be estimated , and aims formed , and the powers calculated by which those aims must be reached . Thus , on the basis of self-knowledge , may gratitude and trust stand firm , while doubt and fear grow weaker day by day . Then and then only may the forms be relinquished through which this state was attained * then may the rules be lost sight of by which the spirit was guided while it had not faith to depend on a better guidance ; then may its holiness be perfect freedom , and its joy as perpetual and boundless as its objects of rejoicing . Then may the spirit once more trust to its impulses—not to be their sport , as in its days of careless weakness , —but to be carried on in an equable career , true to its best aims , and rapid as the growth of its desires . If so advanced a state as this be ever attained in the present life , no express religious teaching but that of the gospel can be appropriate to it .
It is true that they who have thus attained are not beyond the reach of discipline and instruction : but they must find it for themselves , and appropriate it as they need . They are the pupils of God and of Christ : and however the brethren who follow them may love and sympathize with them , they will scarcely offer to instruct them . More eager than ever to learn , more meek to follow where led , more humbly dependent in pro-
Untitled Article
806 On the Formation of the Christian Character .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 806, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/10/
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