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Untitled Article
him , his religious reformation alone would con-titute him an eminent precursor of the promised glorious period . At the highest crisis of the apostacy when the great and gloomy fabric of superstition had been thrown down by a mighty earthquake or revolution ;
when a combination of Kings and Emperors was formed to restore or preserve the dogmas of the dark ages ; who , it may be asked has been able to abide the coming of this Baptize * of the cations ? Vvho has endured the appearance of him who is like a purifying fire ,
or fu ler ' s soap , and wjbo ha ^ also purified the sons of Levi , and purged them as gold and silver , that they mi ^ ht bring © firings to the Lord in righteousness ; smd that the offerings ,, or worship of Judah and Jeru alem , should hence Jforth be pica ant unto the Lord , as in ihe days of old ?
We have all read of a period when Jfcings and queen should become the foster fathers and mothers of the Church « &f Israel , an ^ now we > ce it has arrived . We see a power who is willing to afford iliem protection , and who if any refuse ,
< &r still hanker after the bondage , the sacred onions , and the flesh-pots of Egypt , 5 s able to compel them to come in also ; but happily we shal * fL ; d that wh re example prevail , there will be noot casion ven for the semblance of perse ution .
I could here enlarge upon the manner of this hut judgment upon the nations , and shetv how far the true uorhippers # f OntGodhave contributed to , and cooperated in his great work—but considering ^ rour limits , I remain your ' s &c . ANTE M £ RCATOR . coBB ^ rr ,
The POO ft , and the BIBLE . A notorious politi al journali t , -who is distinguished for the hardihood of his assertions and the fierceness of his paper assaults , has lately canvassed Mr JVhit-Iread > projected " Poof Bilh" He denies
with the usual effrontery of thedisciplcs of the Windham or Bull-baiting school , that enabling the poor to read would increase their happiness , and maintains the brutal rnaxim , jthat knowledge generates more fice than virtue . In the coux&e of his
paper he as led to notice the obvious argument that a capability of reading would ntake a poor man master of the Bible , and thereby promote hi * -real com-Sort . Vis reply to it is as follows : — i At the probable effect of reading the
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Bible , I before hinted ; and , I think , ft must be clear to every man who attentive y con iders the matter , f £ . t < ucb rtading * if uni-vcrsaly could le- * d . c nothing short ©/ " U \ iverSAL SCHISM , ivbich at prrstnt , is prevented Only by the general want < . f
wbett ma's be called STUDT in reading /' * . —• Those , among t the / r&ss of the people , who read the Bible , read it because they are told it is their duty so to do Haying gone over the words , they think they have done their duty , without troubling themseives as to the sense . This is an
evil , because they are apt to regard it as a w rh of pr&pitiationy and the effect is much about the same as that produced by the Roman Catholic ' s bidding of his beads . The Bible is a book for learned historians and pro ound bi kers to read . It h undeniably a b ok of Mys eriesj and Is it f I ask any man who will speak
sincerely , possible for those ivbo van barel y read Words , to derive any real profit from the perusal of such a book ? No , it is from the exposition and appli ation of the contents of the Bible , given by 4 earned men , or by others -who make use
of those exposit'ons and applications that people in general are to profit : these exposition ^ and applications they will hear at church , and for my part , I cannot perceive how the capacity of reading would tend to make them cither more attentive *
or more docile . ' Cobbett ' s W . P . R . Sept . % 6 ,, 1807 . This is the cant of vulgar infidelity , of all cant the mo , t loathsome . 1 here if nothing disgraceful , nothing that requires concealment , ( in our opinion , at least ) , in a man ' s withholding his absent from
the Ch istian story ; but we cannot sec without disgust and abhorrence , a man professing to receive the Bible and yet avowing that he regards it as mysterious and incomprehensible , except to that learn " ins * tvbicb be is known to hold in derisi 6 ny
and denying that it is useful for the purpore , for which it piofesses to l > e cLitfly given , the instructing ?; and comforting of the p oor , in other words , the mass tfman ' hind , and denying this , for the sake of supporting the burbarising principle , that knowledge does not conclude to happiness . Paine * s deism was manjy ; there
was indeed a generosity in * fc ; it \ v a * associated ( falsely or not , it does not matter ) with the idea of jLiberty ; it was the opposite less of Christian ' ty than of popery ; it was a disavowal of the right of priests to hoodwiiik and tyr » -
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61 % Cobhtft . the . Poor , and the Bihle
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1807, page 614, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2386/page/50/
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