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Untitled Article
and impiously transgress the dictates of nature , which like a common parent has begotten and educated all men alike , and made them brethren not in name only but in sincerity and truth : but avarice conspiring against nature burst her bonds , having produced alienation for affinity , and hatred in the room of friendship .
44 They evince their attachment to virtue , by their freedom from avarice , from ambition , from sensual pleasure ; by their temperance and patience , by their frugality , simplicity , and contentment ; by their humility , their regard to the laws .
and other similar virtues . Their love to man is evinced by their benignity , their equity , and their liberality ; of which it is not improper to give a short account , though no language can adequately describe it .
In the first place , there exists among them no house , however private , which is not open to the reception of all the rest ; and not only the members of the same society assemble under the same domestic roof , but even strangers of the same persuasion have free admission to join them . There is but one treasure , whence all derive subsistence : and not
only their provision but their clothes are common property . Such mode of living under the same roof , and of dieting at the same table , cannot , in fact , be proved to have been adopted by any other descr iption of men . And no wonder ; since
even the daily labourer keeps not for his own use the produce of his toil , but imparts it to the common stock , and thus furnishes each member with a right to use for himself the profits earned by others .
" The sjek are not despised or neglected because they are no longer capable of useful labour ; but they live in ease and affluence , receiving from the treasury whatever their disorder or their exigencies require . The aged , too , among them are loved , revered , aud attended as parents by affectionate children ; and
a thousand heads and heaits prop their tottering years with comforts of every kind . Such are the champions of virtue which philosophy , without the parade of Grecian oratory , produces , proposing , as the end of their institutions , the performance of those laudable actions which destroy slavery and render freedom invincible" *
* A Series of Important Facts demonstrating the Truth of the Christian Religion , by J # Jones , LL . D . 1820 , pp . 40—43 .
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Does not this account lead us to suppose that the Essenes preserved in its purity the mode of life instituted by the apostles ? Many learned Protestant writers , with the ^ illustrious exception , however , of Vossius and
some others , have denied the Essenes to be Christians , being loth to ascribe so high an antiquity to monastic institutions . Perhaps the truth is , that these institutions are but relics of the
Coenobitie institute , which was indeed founded by the apostles , but grossl y perverted by the prevalence of asceticism , celibacy , ? and superstition , but especially by its restriction to a privileged order , instead of being adopted by all Christians , and by the ample
endowments which the religious orders received after the church began its adulterous connexion with the state , in consequence of which they became i * the greatest monopolizers of landed property , living an indolent life upon the fruits of other men ' s labour . J
That this , however , was never contemplated by the founders of what are called the religious orders , but that it was intended the monks should live upon a plan of joint labour and common property , we may learn from many of their Rules . § The Rule of
* Forbidding marriage is one of the corruptions of the apostate church expressly predicted by Paul . f Ridley , Civil Law , 261 . X This deviation from the original design of their foundation drew upon them the severe reprehension of the Friars , who ,
however , in the mode which they adopted of complying with the requirement of voluntary poverty , fell into an error of a different kind , by confounding it with a mendicant life . Parker , Holden , &c .
Carmelite and Black Friars , and Milverton , provincial of the Carmelites , were imprisoned in the 15 th century for preaching against the pride of prelates and the riches of the clergy . To the last , the friars had no other real estates in
England than the sites of their convents . § Passages extracted from the Rule of St . Benedict . Respecting Community of Goods . " neque aliquid habere proprium .
—Omniaque omnibus sint comraunia , ut scriptum est , nee quisquam suum ease aliquid dicat , aut praesumat . ^ Quod si quisquam hoc nequissimo vitio deprehensujr fuerit , " &c . —Regula Sancti Bene-
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The Nonconformist * No . XX- 93
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 93, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/29/
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