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Bible Controversy in Ireland.
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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.
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Bible Controversy In Ireland.
Bible Controversy in Ireland .
County Cavan , Ireland , Sir , Oct . 7 , 1826 . YOUR valuable pages have , for the last twelve months , come regularly into my hands — a proof , without saying more , that I duly appreciate the spirit ia which they are conducted .
That spirit ( however distinct their support of a religious persuasion which , though rapidly gathering strength , is still comparatively unpopular in this kingdom ) I conceive to he eminently impartial ; and I can regard nothing ; more truly useful
than a repository in which writers of opposite sentiments ( witness the controversy between Dr , J . Pye Smith and Mr . Bakewell ) may record their opinions on men . and things in a few
short pages , at the convenient intervals which your work admits of . Many a man may condense in the space of not many lines some valuable thoughts which he could neither afford time nor expense to enlarge into a form for separate publication , and which , were it not for such a
welcome Miscellany as yours , must perish for ever , or lie forgotten in his desk , without so much as one friend , perhaps , of sufficient penetration , or exemption from prejudice , to do them any sort of justice .
I must say that such lias not unirequently been the predicament in which I stood myself—more especi living as I do , in a quarter ) vnere mental excitement is
exceed" W limited , or wretchedly bigoted . n this country , where there has happed to exist any occasional channel or ll ^ rary communication , it has
» een found impossible to gain inser-„ . any views which did not liarln ze , to the fullest extent , with the politics , or the orthodoxy , or the zeal son u lnedlum through which it was ' I Jip t to make them public . This erjaps Was to bc expecled . but u ig criKi , \ ° dc"ionstrate how much it u es thought iu Ireland , where ¦
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almost every thing which is not orthodox is factious and ferocious , and where a lore of the genuine liberty oil the understanding can scarcely , indeed , be said to exist . I have been led to these remarks from some intercourse which I have had with a Review entitled the
" Christian Examiner and Church-of-Ireland Magazine , " which has been for a year or two established in this country . You are aware of the contest whiclJ has been waging throughout Ireland , between the advocates for the
unrestricted dissemination and perusal of the Scriptures , on the one hand , and the Roman Catholic Priesthood on the other . It will be admitted by none more readily than by you , Sir , that the pretensions assumed by the latter , as they are in no degree different from those which their Church
has maintained in the darkest and most tyrannical ages , have been not less abhorrent than they ever were , from the feelings and reasoning oi every individual who is unaffectedly concerned for the dignity and freedom of the human kind .
Most honourable was the task of vindicating the insulted understanding of man from such odious and unaltered pretensions ; but it soon became plain that this task had fallen into hands too feeble for a victory over assailants to whom nothing but the force of immutilated truth
could be formidable , lhis , however , was a weapon which the Bible advocates bad not the force or spirit to wield ; the mightiest shaft in their quiver was pruned and stunted till it
became a telum imbcllc in their hands , and their enemies , at the close of the encounter , if not left masters of the field , were at least not driven from their position . Truth , Sir , is mighty ; hut it must be the whole truth .
By appearing as zealots ior any species of constructive doctrine , and denying the title of Christian and the
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" ^ oT ' cClJ OCTOBER , 1826 . ~ [ Vol . XXL
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THE
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1826, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2553/page/1/
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