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1148 NOTES TO VOLUME II.
self, which is printed in the Appendix to the "New Jerusalem
Magazine" for 1790 (pp. 264 and 265) : "I may further add what I
believe I have told you concerning myself, viz., that in my childhood
and youth I was religiously brought up by my parents, who never
set me any evil example. My tutor having compelled me to learn
by heart and without judgment the whole of the orthodox system
of divinity, I was at that time more afraid of God than of the
Devil, and when I went to the University I abhorred going to
church, and hated even the very name of it. In my youth I was
of a lively and gay disposition : the first time I read in the Bible
the history of the patriarchs, I could not help thinking Jacob was
a kind of impostor, and Esau a good man ; and I could never ap
prove of the general explanation of the articles of faith, which after
wards nearly reduced me to a state of unbelief, especially on reading
Voltaire’s epistle to Urania, which (with the exception of two un
necessary lines) I considered as a masterpiece. But God shewed
me His mercy, for as I was once walking in the street, the idea
started into my mind, When Idie, I shall be annihilated ! This thought
did so much to terrify me that I got the better of my infidelity,
and in my riper years, reading on a time some things in Voltaire’s
’Dictionnaire Philosophique,’ I put it by, and never afterwards
looked into it, on account of his seductive and specious criticisms ;
all parts of which we find resolved and refuted by the explanation
of the internal sense of the Word, in the writings of our late great
friend. These confirmed me in my own ideas respecting the Last
Judgment, which agreed with what he teaches on that subject. I
confess, when I first began to read his works, and just cast my eye
on the following passage, that a horse signifies the understanding
of the Word, that I found myself, as it were, repelled, and not very
well pleased: but afterwards when I read his works in series from
the beginning, and with attention, though I found many things which
surpassed my understanding and knowledge, yet happily I recollected
at the same time the answer of Socrates to the other Athenian
philosophers, who asked his opinion on the writings of Heraclitus,
viz. That he did not understand them everywhere, but what he
did understand was so excellent and good, that he did not doubt
but the rest which he understood not, was equally so.’ This encouraged
me to read more and more, and what I understood I found for my
own advantage ; and it appears to me that no system of divinity is
more worthy of the dignity of God, or more consolatory to man ;
and by the Divine help I will always retain this thought in my
mind, until I can be convinced that any part thereof is either
contrary to the Word and Scriptures of God, or to sound reason."
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