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his conscience taught him to be truth . Mr . Fox concluded with intreating the House to reflect on the injustice of preventing any man from interpreting the scripture in his own way , on the barbarous , inhuman cruelty of saying to a man , " Read the scriptures , study them , make them the
guide and rule of your action and opinion 3 but take care you interpret them as the professors of the Church of England do , or else you shall be deprived of all the enjoyments which belong to a man in a social state . Read attentively , and understand
clearly the whole of the scriptures j but take care , in understanding them , you understand exactly as we do , or else you shall lose all the benefits of a member 0 / society , every thing that is dear and valuable to you . " This
was more unjust than even the practice of the ancient Catholics , praying in an unknown tongue , and refusing to the professors of the Christian religion a perusal of the book on which Christianity was founded . The Church of Rome directed us to obey the
precepts of a mild religion , which tended to make us good citizens without reading . The Church of England compelled us to read , but forbad us to judge . He should now move for the repeal cf many of those statutes . Many more remained , he had no
doubt , and would hereafter be repealed . The reason why lie preferred this mode to that of bringing forward any particular enacting law , was , that in makis ) £ a new law , we knew not
what would be the effect , but in repealing-a bad law , we knew we did nothing more than justice . He then moved , -first , "That the different Statutes of the 9 th and I Oth of King William , entitled An Act for the more
effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness , the 1 st of Edward VI . chap . 1 . ; the 1 st of Queen Mary , chap . 3 . j the 14 th and 15 th of Elizabeth , &c . &c be read " which being done , he then moved , " That
leave be given to bring in a bill to repeal and alter sundry provisions of the said acts . " The motion was strongly opposed by Mr . Burke and Mr . Pitt ; and supported by Lord North , Mr . W . Smith , and others . Mr . Fox rose to reply . He said , he never was so happy as in having
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that day" an opportunity to avail himself of the indulgence which the House generally gave to the mover of a question ; at the same time , he had been very uneasy during the greater % > art of the debate , and particularly
towards the close of it . He had , indeed , heard , before he came in , that his motion was likely to be opposed but what the grounds of opposition -were to be , he had not the least idea of . Now , however , all was out : for
the right honourable gentleman on the bench with him ( Mr . Burke ) had , circuitously , and the right honourable gentleman opposite , directly , opposed every principle and system of toleration , in a manner that he never could have expected from either of them in that House . It was not his
intention to follow the first right honourable gentleman through all the extraneous matter he had introduced ; for , certainly , his motion had nothingto do with France , which it was the fashion with some gentlemen to cram into every debate . His opinions , of
the French Revolution were precisely the same now that they . ever had been . He considered that event as highly important and advantageous to this country , and to the world in general ; and that right honourable gentleman
knew his disposition too well , to suppose that any temporary or accidental defeat that the French might suffer in their struggle for liberty would stagger his mind with regard 1 o their success in j lie result . Such
accidental defeats were to be expected at the commencement of such wars , and when attacks were made by raw and undisciplined troops ; but those defeats would not be decisive ; and such had been , as the right honourable gentleman well knew , their mutual
opinions during the American war . lie had heard of treachery , perfidy , and unprovoked rebellion , and the demolition of one of the king ' s fortresses , in high terms , and though he had been told that no two-legged animal could be found , who would credit the old women ' s stories about
the Bast He , he would acknowled ge himself to be that animal . He knew the right honourable gentleman ' s taste for poetry , and when the Bastile was mentioned , a description of it came to his mind , as given by one of the first of our modern poets , the amiable Cowper , in his poem of The Ta * k :
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684 ' diaries James Fox .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1815, page 684, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1766/page/20/
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