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of the framers and promoters of the Schism Bill , ( providentially smothered by ( he seasonable death of Queen Anne ) , by which - no man was to have been allowed
to educate his children , without subscribing the 39 articles . Gibbon , too ., hated equally Christianity and civil and religious liberty . —Away , then , the plea that infidelity would abolish priestcraft , —it tends directly to favour it ,
by providing a license f 6 r deceit and wicked-ness , ;—and that it is not more prevalent , is owing , not to infidels but , to Christians , unclerstandingChristianity . The New Testament is the Magna Charta of the c Rights of Man : *—in everv xne mgnts or lvian ?—in every
ag' * , it ha ^ . inspired and embol - dened our Hampdensand Hollises , our Russels and ISydneys , our Washi » igtons , our Palmers and our Priest leys , to expose and resist hypocritical churchmen and infidel ministers of state . The
Christian has a reason , a motive for patriotism ; he is called to glory . . Cw It is not meant to be insinuated by the foregoing remarks , that unbelievers are necessarily
bad men ; their habits are , liappily , formed before their principles ; ¦ and , to that religion which they despise they owe it , perhaps , that they are not pilferers or ruffians , voluptuaries or sots . But the history of mankind warrants me in saying that , there is no instance
on record , of heroic virtue atchieved by an infidel . Men cannot become heroically virtuous hy habit ; or because their judgment coolly approves of heroism z they can attain this mora ^ height only by the force of som « great principle , some sense of duty .
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X . some expectation of reward , me t * ing constantly upon their minds ; 46 If a man has a vicious habit , what motive to correct it , will he find in infidelity ? say that he
is inclined to intemperance ; and what will bd his motto , but that of the Epicureans , rebuked by the Apostle Paul— Let us eat and drink , for to-morrow we die 'we perish . It is not contended that infidel principles impel a man at once into vice ; but that if he
fall into vice , they have no power to raise him from ifc . Who can say that Mr . Paine would not have been a temperate man , if he had lived under the influence of the powers of the world to come ! and who but must lament that
intemperate indulgence should have brought on , in his case , such wellknown , premature dotage , —that dotage in which this book was written , and of which it exhibits so many melancholy tokens .
" What then is the great gain of infidelity ?—This : that it takes off all moral excitements and restraints in life , and extinguishes all hope in death ; in other words , that it enables -a man to sin
without fear , and rewards him with the assurance that he shall perish like a beast ! x ** The greatest prostitution of terms—next to the foul calumnies cast upon religion—is the cabling of such a wretched , debasing , corrupting system , * s infidelity , a fruit of Reason /*
So far , Sir , the aunnotatoi * : some of bis remarks may be deemed too strong , some of his allusions too . particular ; but it will be remembered that lie wrote for the private reader of Paine ' s book and not for the public : J judged hh
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14 B - Comments on Fame ' s Age of Reason .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1812, page 148, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1746/page/12/
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