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Untitled Article
diate agency of the spirit of God , was necessary to salvation , and not being * able to satisfy myself that I had experienced anything of the kind , I felt occasionally such distress of mind a 9 it is not in my power to describe , and which I still look back upon with horror .
Notwithstanding * I had nothing very material to reproach myself with , I often concluded that God had forsaken me , and that mine was like the case of Francis Spira , to whom , as he imagined , repentance and salvaiipn were denied . In that state of mind I remember reading the account of' the man in the iron cage , ' in the * Pilgrim ' s Progress / with the greatest perturbation .
' I imagine that even these conflicts of mind were not without their use , as they led me to think habitually of God and a future state . And though my feelings were then , no doubt , too full of terror , what remained of them was a deep reverence for divine things , and in time a pleasing satisfaction which can never be effaced , and , I hope , was
strengthened as I have advanced in life , and acquired more rational notions of religion . The remembrance , however , of what I sometimes felt in that state of ignorance and darkness , gi * es me a peculiar sense of the value of rational principles of religion , and of which I can give but an imperfect description , to others .
' As truth * we cannot doubt , must have an advantage over error , we may conclude that the want of these peculiar feelings is compensated by something of greater value , which arises to others from always having seen things in a just and pleasing light ; from having always considered the Supreme Being as the kind parent of all his offspring This , however , not having been my case , I cannot be so good a judge of the effects of it . At all events , we ought always to inculcate just views of things , assuring ourselves that proper feelings and right conduct will be the consequence of them . '—pp . 12 , 13 .
* Though , after I saw reason to change my opinions , I found myself incortimdded by the rigour of the congregation with which I was connected , I shall always acknowledge , with great gratitude , that I owe much to it . The business of religion was effectually attended to in it . We were all catechised in public till we were grown up , servants as
well as others : the minister always expounded the Scriptures with as much regularity as he preached ; and there was hardly a day in the week in which there was not some meeting of one or other part of the congregation . On one evening there was a meeting of the young men for conversation and prayer . This I constantly attended , praying extempore with others , when called upon .
• At my aunt ' s there was a monthly meeting of women , who acquitted themselves in prayer as well as any of the men belonging to the cdngfegaiion . Being at first a child in the family , I was permitted to attend their meetings , and growing up insensibly , heard them , after I was capable of judging . My aunt , after the death of her husband , prayed every morning and evening in her family , until I was about setenteen , when that duty devolved upon me .
* The Lord ' s-day was kept with peculiar strictness . INo victuals were dressed on that day in any family . No member of it was permitted to walk out tor recreation , but the whole of the day was spent at the public meeting , or at home in reading , meditation arid prayer , in ( he family of the closet/—p . 15—17 .
Untitled Article
On the Life , Character , and Works of Dr . Priestley . 2 $
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1833, page 23, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2606/page/23/
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