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Untitled Article
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REVIEW.
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Untitled Article
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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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Untitled Article
Art . L— 'Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry , By John Josias Conybeare , M . A ., &c . Edited ; together with additional Notes , Introductory Notices , &c , by his Brother , William Daniel Conybeare , M . A ., &c . London . An Account of the Indexes , both Prohibitory and Expurgqtory , of the Church of Rome . By the Rev * Joseph Mendham , JJ . A . London .
The principle on which these two works have associated themselves for our present purpose , may not be very obvious to our readers . Yet no one has gone even superficially into the literature of the middle ages without feeling the extent of its obligations to the church , that same church which he afterwards finds to a considerable extent hostile to its progress , and which persons of Mr . Mendham ' s turn of thinking would seek to persuade us to view as nothing less than the p rinciple of darkness , ignorance , and fraud personified , as necessarily and instinctively opposed to the progress of thought , of knowledge and civilization .
Mr . Mendham ' sbook , so far as its execution is concerned , may be dismissed in a few words . It breathes the worst spirit of that ecclesiastical system against which it is levelled . It gives an account , interesting in many respects , ( though ill arranged , rambling , and often incorrect , ) of those eurious devices to which the church bad recourse fop defence against the attacks which the increasing diffusion of literary inquiry and curiosity poured in upon the faith and practices of its professors : but the whole is made subservient to the polemics of one side of the great combat for
ecclesiastical supremacy . Mr . Mendham belongs to that school which would as unwillingly allow free range for popular discussion and inquiry , as the Church of Rome would . The dispute is only in whose hands the powers of priestcraft should be lodged , and he does not hesitate to admit the Catholics assertion of the right of some authority , civil or religious , to say what productions are or what are not suitable for circulation among the community , and to allow that ?* the whole or main question turns upon the justice or injustice of the instances in which it is exercised ; in other words , how
far the condemned party , the prohibited or mutilated books , are really innocent or guilty , false and pernicious , or sound and beneficial . " In this way of arguing the matter , the question comes fairly to this , whether the Catholic plan of judicial proscription , or tfre Protestant plan of burnings by the hands of the common hangman , is best ; whether we are to have our libraries purified by Calvinists or Catholics ; and , with all deference to Mr . Mendham , we like one set of censors in much about the same degree as we do the other .
One other instance of Mr . Mendham ' s spirit , and we leave him for the purpose of proceeding to the more immediate subject of our observations . The Reverend gentleman is pressed with the argument , that by perpetuating disabilities and exclusions , we furnish the oppressed with a bond of union , and strengthen the point of honour , which would alone be often sufficient to attach the adherents of Rome to her communion ; and that , the $ e removed , converts would fall in ^ p the jap of Protestantism . What
Review.
REVIEW .
Untitled Article
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1828, page 311, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2560/page/23/
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