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Untitled Article
The contents of the two nett Sections , are , VI * " Leng& ot Human Life , tVe-existence * The Flood . Renovation of Mankind , with Life shortened . " VII . « Laws of God for renovated Mankind . Extensive Wickedness . A
Family , to produce a Nation , selected . Severe Probation of the Selected . ' * It appears to the author beyond reason to imagine any other origin for the rite of sacrifice than the Divme command , as already explained by him , or any other cause for its extension over the globe than the derivation of all mankind from one family holding it sacred , as reported not by Moses only , but also by heathen tradition / ' ( P 70 . )
He thinks that the Old Testament , whilst it reinarkably avoids giving direct assurance of a future life , nevertheless abounds with intimations of it ; amongst which he reckons the severe punishment of the whole Egyptian people on account of the fault of their king * ( P . 74 . ) Admitting the Divine justice * an argument may be founded upon this case for a life to come ; but where is the " intimation" ?
Section VtIL is of "Laws for the selected Nation . " Here Mr . Mitford declares his faith in the divine origin of letters , which cannot , any more than that of the invaluable grain , wheat , be traced up to a human source : * ' The delivery of the Decalogue being the first occasion on which writing h found mentioned by any author , it has been supposed by some that letters then had their origin , graciously communicated by God himself . But it is observable that writing is not mentioned by the inspired historian as a novelty ;
on the contrary , mention of it , several times repeated in his following narra * tive , rather marks it as already well known and in practice among the Jews , and , almost consequently , also among the Egyptians . Its real origin thus remains equally unknown with the origm of that invaluable grain ^ wheat , which , though , under cultivation , flourishing in widely-varying climates , has never yet been found indigenous in any part of the earth . I will venture to own tiuU ; no supposed origin of alphabetical writing appears to me so probable , so little loaded with difficulty , or even impossibility , as that it was , equally with language , the gift of the Creator to the antediluvian world , and thence , together with wheat , transmitted to following mankind . "—Pp . 76 ,
77-* He speaks in terms of high , but in our judgment not extravagant , admiration of the character and authority of the Decalogue : " The character of this compendious digest , the Decalogue , assorts with the account of its origin . Like the Lord ' s Prayer , it may be most advantageously compared with all that has reached us , concerning the duties of man , from Greek and Roman philosophers , * and , if any may think the addition respectable , Indian and Chinese . It is not likely to have been unknown to the great heathen critic , nor out of his view , when , as formerly noticed , he declared his opinion of the lawgiver of the Jews , that he was no ordinary man . *
" The accordance then , such as it is , of heathen memorials with the Pentateuch , concerning the origin of the world , the early state of mankind , the deluge , and what followed the deluge , together with the doctrine of some of the earliest Grecian poets concerning the Godhead and the duty of man , both to his God and his nei g hbour , strongly marks * to my mind , tradition from antediluvian times , and is altogether to me highly gratifying . That letters ,
defective us were the ancient materials for using them , should have been lost in migration and ensuing contests for settlements , While the traditions were preserved in memory , is nothing wonderful . The early poets , the philosophers of their day , were , both for notions of the Deity and for moral precept , no unworthy predeoeasore of the best following , in me best times of Grecian Bcience . Poetical measure was their resource for supplying , by its assistance to memory , the want or the failure of convenient materials for any extensive
* " h < m& \ ti . de siitHim . "
Untitled Article
llevww . —Mitford's Observations # n Christianity . 815
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1827, page 215, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1794/page/55/
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