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Untitled Article
| t solemn and binding natiu& . If you ma&y , ytfu will both incur the detestation of good men , the shame of a br 6 ken faitfa * &pd the sin of perjury . These would brand your names With infamy , and sink your burthened souls to hell ! ' - > - * ' That vow / continued Zuinglius , ' taken in the house , sworn tX the altar
of God , witnessed of men , and recorded of angels , may not and cannot be lightly broken . There is sin , mortal sin , in the very thought /—* All vows , ' observed Erafcuius , are irrevocable , for where can a reformer apply for indulgence ? and whence for him can a dispensation be obtained V € My children / said Martin , with composure , ' ye are feeble
and weak as the Evil One who sent you on this most idle errand * , Beware , lest ye prove as malignant . Ye talk ot * vows and c *> ye-Taants , and deem them unalterable and infallible , as if resolutions based on error , and made in ignorance , Were not weaker than the worthless cords that vainly fluttered the wrists of S&mson . By no vow , however peremptorily imposed by
intdlerance , and however deeply sworn to by erring superstition , may the free and awakened soul be bound ! Ye mock the Holy Orte of Israel when ye call yon tottering den of thieves his house ! yon crazy table , which even now crumbles beneath the fangs of a feeble worm , his altar . Know ye not that the time cometh when this monstrous imposition , this hideous cant , shall be hissed from the ears of honest men ; the time when the
universe , with all its glories !—the heart of man , with all its capacities !—the soul of man , with all its endowments !—shall alone be acknowledged- as the house and the altar of the Living God ! Man has not , man cannot have , the power to bargain with , or make a property in , God ' s image . We dfrre not do it fdr ourselves : we cannot do it for others . The soul w&s , is , and evdr
must be free !' Bat / interposed Erasmus , ' ye were not wont to think and talk after this most heretical fashion . ' ' Nay / said Martin , ' for when we were yet children we thought , felt , and understood even as children are wont to do . That day is past : the memory of former weakness is a vain restraint on present strength . The
chains have fallen from our minds , and by no power of earth or hell shall they again be fettered ! Our Zion mourns , ye say , apicj truly fche hath ample cause for mourning , —in her own weaknesa , her own blindness ! Men pray and doubt concerning their brethren ; better it were , and more comely , if their praydrs and sorrows were pdured forth for the evils of their own dinful lives . I have no confession tt > make . I have fallen into no sin .
Go back to the brethren and ask them to rejoice with me , for ere many days arto past I shall be wedded to the woman *» %¥# 4 ^ bo * en / 0 ichabod ! ' dxolaimed the infuriated Ztilngliufo , gnkfeliing
Untitled Article
4 t 8 Tte Marriage efHutl&r .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 618, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/30/
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