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Untitled Article
which gave rise to it . Intending to prepare a sermon for Easfef day * 1777 , he chose the doctrine of the resurrection , and fixed on the xv . chap , of St . Paul's lsfe Efnstle to the Corinthians for his iext * He S 3 i down , as was his cust 6 m , to study that chapter
with particular attention , and although in the burial service he hid read it some hundred times , * and perhaps" says he , " my having it early by rote was the cause of my inattention , " he was exceedingly struck with observing * that instead of teaching that mankind are to rise to a future life with the saine bodies with
which they die , the sole and obvious scope of St . Paul ' s argument is to assure ns , that we sh&ll rise with very different bodies ; and from that time , and never before , ( says he ) I exchanged the word
* body / for * dead / in the apostles' creed , because I could not understand the words c resurrection of the body / to mean any but the same bod y > and after this I must have asserted a falsehood , if I had said £ believed any such thing . ' *
From this time the maliciotrs spirit of this intolerant party began to work until November ^ 1773 ,- wheri a prdseeution wag commenced in the consistory court of the diocese . The particular crirninal facts charged against Mr ; E . were that in two private coriversatioils , in a sermon preached on Easter day , 1771 , in hfe pamphlet on the doctrines of a Trinity , &c . and also in an answer to a menacing letter sent him by the prosecutor ^ " he had offended againt the 4 th * 5 th ^ and 6 th canons , and against the statute of the 13 th of Elizabeth , and bv two
alterations and two omissions in the ptiblie service against the 14 th and 38 th cations / ' These were the heavy charges , exhibited at the distance of almost two years after the facts to which they referred had taken place , on which the prosecution was grounded * So much was Mr . Evanson adiriired as a preacher , and beloved a&
a man , that as soon as the prosecution was commenced , a public meeting : of the principal inhabitants of the town was called , who cheerfully entered into a very liberal subscription to defray the expences of his defence . The prosecution was carried on with all the rancour of bigotry , and every means that could be devised was taken to swell the expences of the suit , so confident were the prosecutors of success , and of fixing the whole of the expences
on Mr . E , ; but after keeping it alive by a tedious and vexatious process for four years , it was quashed from some very irregular proceedings of the prosecutors , so that they fell into the pit they had dug-for Mr . E . ; for besides the mortification they suffered by their defeat , the whole of the expences , amounting to HO less than 1 O 00 L fell upon their own shoulders , a just retributicm for their folly and wickedness ! So great was the jov in Tcwkesbury , at this termination of the suit , that the inhabitants would have rung the bells three days successively , had not Mr , E . frou *
Untitled Article
4 ftei ) . Mtitward jtfvansori , A . M *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1806, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1720/page/4/
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