On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    subjection but to Him whose yoke is easy and his burden light . The author begins by anxiously bespeaking the reader ' s attention to his explanation of the purpose for which his work was prepared , and of the persons to whom it is offered : he recurs frequently in his subsequent chapters to the danger of false dependence , and of a superstitious regard to forms , and ends with a representation of a more advanced state , when the discipline of life may be allowed to supersede in part that which is self-imposed .

    The object of the work , —to aid those who are weak in the faith , —is sufficiently shewn by the " author ' s choice of his first topic . He begins by explaining the nature of religion , and exhibiting the true aim of those who inquire after it : and he then inquires into the power possessed by each individual to achieve this aim . No part of the volume has interested us

    more than that which treats of the state of mind in which the pursuit should be embraced ; of the means by which the infant emotions of piety should 4 > e cherished , while they are preserved from the weakening excitements of publicity , and the depraving influences of a sympathy too extensive for their limited powers . The directions as to the conduct of religious reading and meditation are useful and unexceptionable . We should say the same

    for the portion on prayer , but that we question whether it be not somewhat too minute in some of its directions , —such as those from pp . 94—96 . We highly approve the remarks and directions respecting public worship , though they help to prove , perhaps unconsciously to the author , that a great change must take place in the conduct of public worship before it can be made so powerful a means of influence as it might become . We are rather surprised at the importance Mr . Ware appears to attach to the rite of the Lord ' s Supper , as a means of religious advancement . We know how important it is to some ( we hope but a few ) to be taught that it is a

    tneans and not an end $ but we should scarcely have described its influences so as to imply ( as this part of the work appears to us to do ) that it may be made of equal efficacy with the public and private offices of worship which have the Father for their sole object . Of the temper of this little volume we cannot speak too highly , —of the piety , the benevolence , the meekness , which pervade its entire texture . It in no cases falls below its very modest pretensions ; and if the enlightened and advanced Christian should find nothing new in a treatise which was not designed for such as he , he cannot but be touched by the congeniality of spirit which he will feel breathing from every page . Society owes much to Mr . Ware for thus aiming to direct the formation of the Christian character : perhaps the debt would be more than doubled if he would next illustrate its progression * Such illustrations we are perpetually furnished with , in a partial manner , by the sermons we hear and read ; but there is ample room yet for a display of the various aspects under which Christian progression manifests itself amidst the varieties of circumstance in which

    Untitled Article

    808 On the Formation of the Christian Character .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1831, page 808, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2604/page/12/