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Extracts from the Bishop of London s Charge . [ The following passages from the Bishop of London ' s Charge ( 18 14 ) ,
are curious ' and important . Designing in our Review department to take notice of them and of the strictures which they have drawn from the press , we give them at length and entire . The reader ' s attention is
irioted particularly to the paragraph relating to the Unitarians . Ed , ] FtO M these considerations of domestic prudence our attention is bow called to concerns of universal importance to the interests of the Christian world . The convulsions
which threatened to subvert the hallowed and ancient fabrics of religion , of social order , and of civil and political liberty , are happily allayed . The storm has ceased to roar . In the sight of the nations assembled from the ends of the earth to be the ministers
of God ' s justice , and the witnesses of his power , the pillar of usurped domination , erected on the ruin of thrones and the wreck of principles , has crumbled , at the bidding of the Almighty , into dust , and the tyranny , which made the world as a wilderness , « ad destroyed its cities , * exists only in recollection , like the horrors of an
oppressive dream . The restoration of Peace has . followed the triumph of truth and justice ; and the moderation which has tempered the ' .. glories tf victory with a milder radiance , may be hailed as an auspicious presage of * Wed and durable tranquillity . But
Prosperit y has its dangers : the Spirit # evil is always busy : —though often ^ nfounded , . he is never dismayed ; j wugh bafHed , he returns to the eonp * with new arms ; prepared alike JO D seduce or to intimidate , to succeed y yiolepce or by fraud . At &o momentous a crisis , which I
* Isaiah xiv . 17 .
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would willingly consider as the commencement of a happier age , in which righteousness and truth shall flourish , it will not be amiss to reflect on the mischiefs which lurk in the bosom of peace , and which may eventually
poison the sources of our national prosperity and grandeur . Of these the most obvious , though perhaps the least formidable in realitv , is the infection of vice and infidelity from the renewal of intercourse with the
continent . On this head I conceive we have little to apprehend for the sound , or even the reclaimable part of our population . There is indeed but too-much reason to fear that the state of religion and morals in a neighbouring country is by no means satisfactory to the friends of piety and virtue- The French Revolution was not an
accidental explosion " , a * burst of momentary passion or frenzy , but a deliberate and premeditated rebellion against authorit y human and divine : It was the struggle of desperate wickedness to shake oflf the salutary restraints
imposed by religion and law on the worst passions of human nature . The conception , and still more the successful accomplishment , of a project thussingular in atrocity , bespeaks an unexampled inveteracy of corruption diffused through the vitals of the
community ; and it is not unnatural to infer , that the . evil has derived an accession of extent and malignity from , the systematic encouragement of licentiousness by a despotic government ; from the destruction of churches ; the neglect of public
worship ; and , above all , from the abolition of the Sabbath , and the blasting influence of an unchristian education on the minds of youth . But the grossness of vice without disguise will be rejected with disgust by the habitual feelings of virtuous decency incorporated with our national character .
The common sense of the nation will form a security equally strong against the deadly contagion of irreligious principle The cause of avowed infidelito has never prospered in this country : Attached by reflection and
feeling to the interests . of religion and virtue , we smile with contempt at the sophistries and sarcasms of the wretched literati , who , prostituting the powers of a dazzling wit and seductive eloquence to tJie gratification of public depravity , obtained a cele-
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Extracts from the Bishop of London ' s CJiarge . 305
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reflect upon all this curious apparatus If the sense of hearing , and not give the jrreat Creator his due praise ? yfbQTcan survey all this admirable irork , and not as readily own it to w * work of an omnipotent and
infinitely-wise and good Being , as the most artful melodies we hear , are the voice or performances of a living creature . "
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T * fc-x . < & R
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1815, page 305, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1760/page/41/
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