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I hope , be amused , rather than offended , by the following declamation , in which my author has been solicitous to bear his testi «
mony against sectaries and airtiroyalists . The passage is introduced as a sort of palmary argument , one single instance" / to shew cC the fatal consequence of a prejudice grounded on religion . " 4 C Did not our grand rebellion against king Charles the First , take its rise from the pretence of consciertce and religion ? When the zeal of the fanaticksgrew so potent ,
that it devoured the house of the Lord , instead of eating up him that professed a reverence due to his name and adoration to his person . They threw down our altars and destroyed our churches
at least by sacrilegious hands , so despoiled them , that in the language of the scripture , the houses of God became an habitation of owls and bitternsj and too notoriously a den of thieves .
" Now all this was don 6 under the colour and pretext of religion , which to this very day , we may observe has been the real ground and foundation : of most different
parties in Englahd , atad by many justified too , although that pretended purity of religion centered ila the most unparalleled , barbarous murder of their lawful prince ,
by a prosperous villainy . This instance I have fnentioned , not only to shew the sad effects a jKetence of conscience , ajid a wron £ zeal for religion bring on a nation , but also to give the world this intimation or remark , to show how . strong the prejudice of that pfaitty ,. ( although it can be called only a successful villainy , ' though sdme styled it tTie cause of tAe Lord df hosts ?) does e % ttt 1 to this day
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appear , insomuch that , MotwriL standing the heinoushess of the crime , and barbarity thereof , tfce son , nay , grandson , ( persons oft wholly unconcerned in that fatal
tragedy , thorough seasoned with a Puritanic education , ) abets the villainy and justifies the murder with as great confidence and effrontery as another would the killing of a wild beast . Nay , never \ u \ l be convinced that those who acted
m it were in the wrong . This observation is a confirmed truth , and I can testify ' tis so by my own e _\ petienee , and I doubt not but man y others have observed it besides nw .
self . Which seems tome such a monstrous riddle as admits of no other solution than that of a strong prejudice grounded en education . Hence they conceive a perfect odium against the church of England and its members , because by their pious doctrine and preaching they remind them of that horrid barbarity , forewarn them not to tread in the steps their forefathers went in arid join in fasting and
repentance to make&n atotteniem for the nationy for the murder that day committed ty the power ot these sons of Belial , and unrtasonablb men , '' ( Second Thoughts , pp . 20—22 . )
And now , lest Coward should appear a royalist , singularly romantic , I cannot refrain to add , from a lawyer of the seventeenth century , this truly delectable passage >—
« The Severn , Thames ,-Trent , and Humber , four of th& g reatest rivers of the kingd-oniy with ¦ ¦ ftl ' their lesser running streams of tht island in their continual tfoursefe ,
and those huge -hd » p& > of water the ocean ind . girdle of it j i n t heir * mW * s agitoatiodi « * M mure * b «
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% 16 Writers on Materialism . —Dr . Coward * — Letter II .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1811, page 216, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2415/page/24/
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