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No . VII . Over-strained Faith * Some experience makes me fear that the faith of considering and discoursing men is like to be cracked wiih too much straining : and being possessed with this false principle , that it is vain to believe
the gospel of Christ , with such a kind or degree of assent , as they yield to other matters of tradition : and finding that their faith of it is to them undiscernable , from the belief they give to the truth of other stories * are in danger not to
believe at all , thinking not at all as good as to no purpose , 01 else , though indeed they do believe it , yet to think they do not , and to
cast themselves into wretched agonies and perplexities , as fearing they have not that , without which it is impossible to please God and obtain eternal happiness .
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No . VIII . Treatment of the Scriptures by the Church of Home . He that would usurp an absolute lordship and tyranny over any people , need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of
abrogating and disannulling the * laws , made to maiutain the common liberty ; for he may frustrate their intent and compass his own
design as well , if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases , and add to them what he pleases , and to have his interpretations and additions stand for laws : if he can rule his
people by his laws , and his laws by his lawyers . So the Church of Rome to establish her tyranny over men ' s consciences , needed
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not either to abolish or corrupt tfcfrholy scriptures , the pillars and supporters of Christian liberty , ( which in regard of the numerous multitudes of copies dispersed through all places , ttartsletted into almost all languages , guarded with
all solicitous care and industry , had been an impossible attempt : ) But the more expedite way , and therefore more likely to be successful , was , to gain the opinion and
esteem of the public and authorized interpreter of them , and the authority of adding to them what doctrine she pleased , under the title of traditions or definitions .
For , by this means , she might both serve herself of all those clauses of scripture which might be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon her ambitious pretences , which in case the scrip-, ture had been abolished she could
not have done ; and yet be secure enough of having either her power limited , or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them ; this being once settled in the minds of
men , that unwritten doctrines , if proposed by her , were to be received with equal reverence to those that were written ; and that the sense of scripture was not that which seemed to men ' s reason and
understanding to be so , but that which the Church of Rome should declare to be so , seemed it never so unreasonable and incongruous . The matter being once thus ordereJ , and the Holy Scrip tures
being made in effect not your directors and judges ( no farther than you please ) , but your servants and instruments , always pressed and in readiness to advance your designs , and disabled wholly Vrith minds so qualified to preju-
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414 Ck illingworth .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1814, page 414, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2442/page/30/
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