Perhaps no work was
ever offered to the public in which the kindness and providence of
God have been set forth by more striking examples, or the
machinations of priestcraft been more truly and lucidly exposed, or
the dangers which result to a nation when it abandons itself to
effeminacy, and a rage for what is novel and fashionable, than the
present.
With respect to the kindness and providence of God, are they not
exemplified in the case of the old apple-woman and her son? These
are beings in many points bad, but with warm affections, who, after
an agonizing separation, are restored to each other, but not until
the hearts of both are changed and purified by the influence of
affliction. Are they not exemplified in the case of the rich
gentleman, who touches objects in order to avert the evil chance?
This being has great gifts and many amiable qualifies, but does not
everybody see that his besetting sin is selfishness? He fixes his
mind on certain objects, and takes inordinate interest in them,
because they are his own, and those very objects, through the
providence of God, which is kindness in disguise, become snakes and
scorpions to whip him. Tired of various pursuits, he at last
becomes an author, and publishes a book, which is very much
admired, and which he loves with his usual inordinate affection;
the book, consequently, becomes a viper to him, and at last he
flings it aside and begins another; the book, however, is not flung
aside by the world, who are benefited by it, deriving pleasure and
knowledge from it: so the man who merely wrote to gratify self,
has already done good to others, and got himself an honourable
name.
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