Five Pebbles from the BrookEnglish, George Bethune
Religion
Five Pebbles from the Brook
English, George Bethune
Everett, Edward, 1794-1865. Defence of Christianity; Rationalism
[fn18 Mr. Everett says page, 107. with great gravity, "to hear the
Evangelists charged in vulgar terms with misquoting and changing
words, by one, who could himself fall into the errors and the
misrepresentations we have just exposed, has moved me to a
warmth of language, which I did not think to have used. But, I beg
pardon: it is the New Testament which teaches us, that we
"beware lest we condemn ourselves, in what we judge another."
And Mr. English has let us know that the New Testament morality
is pernicious to society. Justly, most Justly, does Dr. Leland
observe, that "it would be hard to produce any persons whatever,
who are chargeable with more unfair, and fraudulent management
in their quotations, in curtailing, adding to, and altering the
passages they cite, or taking them out of their connexion, and
making them speak directly contrary to the sentiments of their
authors than the Deistical Writers!!" They are indeed sad dogs, it
must be allowed, Mr. Everett.]
[fn19 See Appendix B]
[fn20 Mr. Everett considers the happy reign of the Messiah as
having actually commenced with the era of Jesus Christ, and that
we are actually enjoying its blessings. Of course he must consider
his being whipped, and gibbetted by his own subjects, and leaving
the world in the hands of those holy men, Tiberius, Nero, Caligula,
Domitian, and Heliogabalus, kingdom rising against kingdom, and
nation against nation; (though the prophets declare that in the
reign of the Messiah "nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more,") famines, earthquakes, and
pestilences in divers places, (though the prophets declare that in
the reign of the Messiah, the earth shall become a Paradise, and
that God shall wipe all tears from off all faces, and sorrow and
sighing shall flee away,) that horrid Jewish war in which perished
more than eleven hundred thousand of the Jewish nation, while
the rest were dispersed and enslaved, (though the prophets say,
that in the reign of the Messiah the Jews should enjoy the most
perfect and endless happiness,) the theological quarrels, frauds,
forgeries. Councils, and Excommunications, and an endless detail
of Battle and Murder, the irruptions and devastations of the Goths
Huns and Vandals, the rise and establishment of "these venerable
institutions," the Popedom and the Inquisition, the persecutions
and wars excited by St. Dominic, the wars of Charlemagne, and
the Teutonic Knights upon the Germans, giving them no
alternative but the Gospel or the Sword, the Crusades, the pious
exploits of Cortez and Pizarro in America, the comfortable state of
things during the dark ages, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
and the wars carried on by the Catholicks against the Protestants,
and the wars since carried on by the Protestants and Catholicks,
indiscriminately with each other, as among those "blessed events,
and happy changes," I use Mr. Everett's words, intended by "the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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