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Untitled Article
he asks , that philosophy and literature should not , in ancient times , have produced the sairie effects ? 6 * The more the ancients advanced in letters and the fine arts—^ -the more savage ^
oppressive , and tyrannical they became *" - — < 6 The great lead * ing principles and characteristic precepts of the Christian religion are exactly such as would naturally produce , these very very effects /'— " That this is a just and well-grounded conclusion will appear , beyond all doubt , from ari appeal to history and to fact /'— < c The predominant feature / ' says the good bishop , cc of paganism , or what is now called -. philosophy ( which is nothing more than paganisra without idolatry ) , U cruelty in the extreme / ' The object of worship in one of the most powerful kingdoms of Africa is a tiger ; the origin of this worship the Bishop ascribes to the devil . He concludes with ,
directing the eye ot the reader to France and England /* in one of which philosophy has usurped the throne of God—in the other Christianity has long established its empire . After contemplating bothj he ad < ls a let us then say , whether " the tree ( planted on each of these neighbouring shores ) is not known hy its fruit : " whether the fruit of philosophy is not now , what
it has always been , unrelenting cruelty <> and the fruit of the cospel unbounded benevolence and universal love " We know not on what authority the Bishop uses the ternpi cC philosophy " in so peculiar and whimsical a sense , meaning by it , as far as we understand his meaning , infidelity in unioi $ with republicanismy that is , neither more nor less than
Jacobinism ! nor do we see the propriety of calling a government republican and infidel ^ which is as regular and as Christian as any in Europe i
Our readers will &ee in this pamphlet an instance of that unfairness into which their eagerness to serve a good cause has frequently precipitated the apologists of Christianity—the un « - fairness of contrasting the conduct of Pagans with the moral system of Christians . Why refuse to compare system witf * system , and conduct with conduct ? It is readily conceded to the Bishop that the oppressions ^
wars , and cruelties which prevailed among the Pagans , prove the insufficiency and imperfection of their codes of morality ^ because , generally speaking , their sense of morality , as avowed in their public institutes , was not at variance with their conduct . But has the conduct of Christian nations , from the time of the incorporation of Christianity with the civil power , been better : ?
more just , more pacific , more humane ? What species p i wickedness does the Pagan history exhibit which equals in guilt or in mischief the phrenzy of religious persecution , which has raged , with little intermission , in Christian states for nearly
Untitled Article
SIS Bishop Portends PdmphleU
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1806, page 376, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1726/page/40/
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