On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
St . Benedict , cap . xlvni . concerning daily manual labour , prescribes the proportions of time to be employed in labour , in study , and in devotion ; and adds , " -But if poverty or local causes require them to labour by themselves in harvest-work , &c , let them not think it a grievance , for then are they truly monks , if they live by the labour of their own hands , as did also our fathers and the apostles : " and , greatly as they departed from the design of
their institution , the monastic orders may nevertheless , furnish valuable proofs of the success with which the affairs of communities may be madicti , Cap . xxiii . " Si quid debeant Mo-7 iachi proprium habere . "
" Sicut scrip turn est : Dividehatur singulfs , prout cuique opus erat , ubi non dicimiivS , ut personarum , quod absit , acceptio sit , sed innrmitatum consideratio . Ubi qui minus indiget agat Deo gratias , et non contristetur . Qui vero plus
indiget humilietur pro innrmitate , et non extollatur pro misericordia : et ita omnia membra erunt in pace . "—Ibid . Cap . xxiv . " Si omnes cequaliter debeant necessaria accipere " Respecting Labour .
" Quod si labor forte facttis fuerit major , in arbitrio Abbatis erit illiquid augere , remota prae omnibus crapula : ut nunquam subrepat Monacho indigenes : quia nihii sic contrarium est onini Christiano , quomodo crapula , sicut ait Dominus ijoster : * Videte negraventur corda vestra in crapula et ebrietate . '" Ibid . Cap . xxxix . " De Merumra Ciborum . " " Quod si aut loci necessitas , vel labor , aut ardor zestatis amplius poposcerit , " &c . —Ibid . Cap . xl . " De Mensura Potus . " " Si labores agrorum non habent Monachi si opera in agris habuerint r Ibid . Cap . xli . ; see also xlvi .
" Certis temponbus occupari debent fratres in labore inanuum ; certis horis in lectione divina . [ Then follows a division of their time . ] Si autem necessitas loci , aut paupertas exegerit ut ad fruges
colligendas per se occupentur , non contristentur : quia tune vere monachi surd , si labore manuum suarum vivunt : sicut et Patres nostri et Apostoli . Omnia tamen mensurate fiant , propter pusillanimes . "—Ibid . Cap . xlviii . " De Opere Manuum quotidiano " " Fratres qui oninino longe sunt in labore , et non possunt occurrere hora competent ! ad Oratorium , —agaut ibidem opus Dei ubi opcrantur , cum trcmore
Untitled Article
naged , * and how literature , science and the arts may thrive without any stimulus of private emolument . Let it also be remembered , that while in the middle ages the care of the poor ,
and of education , and the duties of hospitality , devolved principally upon them , they were eminently successful in agriculture , drainage and embankment , architecture , and various works of public utility . +
Disgust at the corruption of the monks might well create in the minds of the first favourers of the Reformation an aversion to Cocnobitism or conventual life , which scarcely retained any traces of its first design : although , having continued in the church from the institute of the apostles in a cop
stant succession , its perversions were no better reason for rejecting it as a Christian ordinance , than those of the mass for rejecting the Lord ' s Supper . The religious revolution in this country , indeed , was mainly assisted by
the division of the spoils of the Church among its partisans , which seems to have given rise to a system of public robbery and embezzlement of endowments that has continued to the present time . And under this head may also be ranked the conversion of the
common lauds into private property , by inclosure bills , to which may be justly applied the words of holy writ : " Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees , and that write grievousne . ss which they have prescribed ; to turn aside the needy from judgment ,
and to take away the right from the poor of my people . —Hear this , O ye that swallow up the needy , even to make the poor of the land to fail . Woe unto them that join house to house , that lay field to field , till there is no place ; that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth I What
divino flectentea genua . "—Ibid . Cap . 1 . ' * De Fratribus qui longe ab Oratorio labor ant . " * The great accumulation of theirwealth is to be attributed to the advantageous plan of a community , more than to any other cause .
+ ¦ " In the monastic institutions , m my opinion , was found a great power for the mechanism of politic benevolence . "Burke ' s Reflections on the Revolution in France .
Untitled Article
94 The Nonconformist . No . XX .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1821, page 94, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2497/page/30/
-