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period , an unprecedented number of translations of it , from the pens of individuals , have made their appearance . The Bible Society confines itself to a diffusion of the records of revealed religion : a revisal of the public version of them , must have the authority of the state 1
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tions time after time , and to plate the truth of each disavowal in the light of noon-day * , for , in the nineteenth century , it is thought safe from the charge of absurdity , to reiterate these calumnious aspersions . It is thought feasible even now , to injure the reputation of the Baptists , by imoutiu < r to
them " the vices and extravagancies of a sect which ages ago , glare d like the passing meteor , and then became extinguished in eternal darkness There are , at this moment , men who are not ashamed to revive a calumny that was detected and exploded , long ere they themselves were born . "
As Dr . Robertson in fact never pretended to write a " History of the Baptists / 7 and as there is no such thing in existence , the author of the tract under our examination , censures
" the paper which bears that title as a literary fraud , an attempted imposition on the public , perpetrated by the person who published the tract , and to which the reviewer in the
Evangelical Magazine for September , 1814 , by affirming its genuine ness , an ( J the editor of that work , by giving it currency , ^ are accessaries after the fact . " The leading design of the present piece is " to unveil the impostute and
repel the charge" insinuated and even advanced , in the tract , which it is attempted to pass on the public is D r . Robertson ' s " History of the Baptists / ' This design is executed with vivacity and ability \ by candid reasoning , spirited but not harsh
remonstrances , and fair historical detail " The Baptists , " he says , " far from resembling the Anabaptists of JVIunster , have scarcely one opinion m common with them / ' As it has been much the fashion to reproacb this denomination of Christians under
the term Anabaptists , and to cry out Anabaptisin ! Anabaptism ! some pages are spent in shewing that tnis conduct is uncandid , and the calumny intimated in the . cry unfounded " Anabaptism , " he argues , " " . where to be found . Like the appa ritions with which nurses are wont w nctwn
terrify children , it is a mere , ^ bugbear , a chimera , a non-e ntityis a term of reproach , which w * employed to vilify th £ P riUlt ^ i ) V J others , but w-a « never assumed ^ ny sect . In former day s the na was rung an the tocsin of perse cutor
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372 Review . —Thoughts on Persecution and Anabaptism ,
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Art , II . — Tlioughts on Persecution and Anabaptisin : suggested by certain Passages which have recently appeared in a popular Periodical Publication . " -Pp . 36 . 8 vo . 1815 . Gale , Curtis and Fenner , Paternoster-Row .
fjlHE occasion of this anonymous _ JL tract is , that the editor of * ' the Evangelical Magazine , " by an article in the department of it assigned to the review of books , not only announced , but gave a stamp and sanction to a piece entitled " the History of the Baptists , by William Roberston , D . D .
Principal of the University of Edinburgh , &c- " This title excited-attention and awakened curiosity . " All ^ ars were erect , all eye-licjs , " says the author before us , " were exteuded to the greatest possible degree , and the general cry was , ' Where can he have found it ? How was it concealed so
long ?'—silent , arrectisque auribus astant . " When it turns out , that this piece is , ci in truth , only an extract from that part of Robertson ' s History of the Reign of Charles V * , in which , with a brevity consistent with his maiitdesign , Jie describes the rise , excesses and extinction of the
insurrectionists of Munster . The design avowed by the publisher of this tract is to deduce the origin of the English Baptists from that body of fanatics , and its evident tendency is to fix upon the Baptists the stigma of those excesses
or as they arc called by the person who reviewed this publication in the Evangelical Magazine , " vices and extravagancies . It is justly observed by our author , " There is nothing novel in this design , or in these accusations ; they have l ^ een ur ged agai n and again , and
as often repelled . Readers on this controversy have been whirled round and round this miserable circle of charges and expostulations , till their heads are almost giddy and their hearts are almost sick . Jit seems , that it is vain to disavow these imputa-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1815, page 372, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1761/page/44/
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