The Light of Nature Pursued (Volume 3) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1831. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAP. V. HOLINESS. Holiness, in its greatest latitude, implies an exemption from all tastes, desires, and trains of thought, excited in us hy our corporeal appetites or the allurement of sensible objects. Now this exemption in ourselves can be no more than temporary: for our situation here upon earth renders it necessary and our duty to have continual intercourse among the things external round about us, and the constitution of our nature obliges us to attend to the calls of Bodily appetite. While busied in these occupations, our conduct is not holy, neither is it yet profane, but in a middle state of indifference between both; but we are not so tied down to external objects or the imaginations springing from thence, but that we may sometimes separate everything of that kind from our thoughts, in order to contemplate the constitution of universal nature and character of its Author, to consider ourselves as citizens of the world, inheritors of a country where nothing terrene or carnal finds place. Now it is this separation from ordinary conjunctions that constitutes the idea of holiness: for places are holy when separated from all common uses, and reserved for our reception, when we assemble to raise our minds above sublunary scenes. Rites, ceremonies, and institutions are holy, when contrived to turn imagination out of her familiar courses, and introduce a solemnity suitable for religious purposes. Holy vestments and utensils are those employed only in sacred offices. Holy days are those set apart for the attendance upon our spiritual concerns. And men are called holy and divine, who make it their profession to study and practise the methods of leading their fellow-creatures into just notions of their Maker, and of their duties as well towards him, as them...