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VIII Church
Church VIII

Clergy Functions
Indelible character

The Apostles Peter John & James were
not Clergymen —
they were not in
orders. If they
preached preaching one day
they fished another.

A Clergyman
a School master
for grown children
is a Reader or
E

If the Apostles
had been Clergymen
it would
not prove that there
ought to be any
now — They had
a new system to
propagate — intelligence
— good news
to spread

Evangelium
Goodespel — Godspel
Good news —
It is no news now
One man can
tell no more about
it than another.

Ought not to
have any other
employ — because
ought to fill up
their whole time.


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Abuses — Anti-christian
inconsistencies —

1 Breach of the injunction
of poverty

2. of humility

3. Erection of creeds
&.

4. Mixing im
prayer
(affectation of teaching
God Divinity)

5. Prayers other
than Deistical

6. Long-winded prayers.

7. of Christain
charity in the state
of controversy.

Intolerance — Modes
Disabling

Lawyers admitted
a Gentoo's oath, yet
will not a Quaker's
affirmation in criminalibus.

The most important
have been left open to
dispute: G. chr
of hell-torments.


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Intolerance Mode of
Imputat. of Defines Atheism

What can Atheists
get by purifying
the system and
rendering it according
to their
conception more
less pernicious &
contemptible more respectable

Either such persons
are not Atheists,
or Atheists
are zealous friends
of other species as
polemics are its
enemies.

Polemics exasperates
under by the last susestism
of intolerant
laws are
susp vipers with
their teeth undrawn:
polemics
in under the
shade of equal
liberty are serpents
without teeth.

— Shutting up
Schools

What if among the same
persons who refused
to let Dissenters keep
schools one should
find the promoters
of Sunday Schools —
What could they say
in behalf of Sunday
Schools that ought not
to cover them with shame.


---page break---

Intolerance
Arguments pro

1. Preserving the
people from the
poison of infidelity

2. — of erroneous heresy
doctrines bred in
the bosom of the Church
or

3. Preserving the
peace.

4. Preventing differences
of opinion

5. Preserving uniformity
in worship

6 or 7 Punishing him
who would overthrow
the Church

7. or 6. Preventing the
enemies of the
Church from
overthrowing it.

2* — from the person
of immorality.
Drinking dregs.

8 It is not a time
for toleration.

9. No intention to
execute the laws.

[+] You distract mens
minds Or say they,
with vain false terrors,
of from which no beneficial
influence can
be proved, and to
which tho what hope
are mixed with them
afford no adequate
compensation (a)

(a) Those terrors and
those hopes, say the
Christian have a
real object to which with
the importance of which
most of the influence of them
in this life, though
it were all on the
evil side would bear
no comparison


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1: Answers

Unbeneficial?

1. Whether it be
a poison or no not
to be known but by
free argument — the
best most useful medicines are
rank poisons

2. No poison so can
bad as intolerance be so mischievous as
this antidote which infidels
have contributed more
to quell than any

3. Ask Infidels say that they will tell you
religion is a poison

[+]

All men have an
equal right to judge
for themselves. None
have a right to
judge for others.

In combating practical
crimes the
magistrate follows
the judgment of
every body even of
those whom he punishes
— They Thieves do
not dispute the evil
tendency of theft &c

The K. of Prussia
had as firm a
persuasion of the
mischievousness of
religion as any religionists
of the utility
of it. || If persuasion
of being in the right
were a justification
for persecution,
the K. of P. would
have been justified
in persecuting his
subjects to convert
them to Atheism.

|| See his Correspondence
with d'Alembert & Voltaire
& d'alembert passim.


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Too expensive

4. It is impossible to
draw the line between
infidelity and heresy
between open opposition
and nation on
the other.

A straw, the wing of a butterfly
Every thing is an a argument
proof for Theism
in the eye of a Theist,
every thing for Atheism
in the eye of an Atheist.

Can you consider says
one that a watch should that shall
make itself? Which do you think then is easiest to make made, says the other, the Watch or the Watchmaker? Here the
Christian triumphs, &
produces positive evidence
to solve the difficulty.

Divine

5. Allow people to
punish infidels &
they will punish
under that name every
body they quarrel that disagrees
— contradicts them. There
has never been known
a quarrel about a
point of divinity, but
each side has charged
the other with infidelity.
The utmost It is a great
stretch of candour if
they admit that the
adversary is not an
infidel or did not
design to promote
the cause of infidelity:
at any rate his arguments
tend to promote
that cause, &
for that reason he ought
to be at least made
to retract them, if not
punished for giving having
them vent

Insecudum v.


---page break---

Locke with his negative innate
ideas passes
to this hows with
multitudes for an
atheist. His voluminous
comments
on the Epistles
and all his zeal
for the cause of
Charity have not been
able to save him
from the imputation.

Inefficacious

5. Even supposing
the end a good one
the accomplishment
of it now
would be impracticable.
Books of
infidelity, and
even Atheism, are
already in the hand
of any body that
chooses to read them.
To pretend To punish
such publications
at this time
of day, would
produce all the bad
effects of persecution
without accomplishing
the end what it deems
a good one X

It would be to
little purpose to
prosecute written
instances of this
offence, unless you
prosecuted discourse:
and this would open
such a scene of persecution
that nobody
would be safe.


---page break---

Dangerous or
& unjust

8. If Ath Infidels Unbelievers
were to be persecuted
with effect,
they might rise
in desperation as other persecuted
men have done: or
if they forebear doing
so, it would
only shew they had
more prudence &
moderation than
believers.

Too expensive

9. If you punish
one unbeliever in Christ, for
the same reason you
ought to punish
another. The English
ought to convert
or extirpate
the inhabitants of
Bengal. An English
Deist has
it no more in his
power to believe
in Christ, than a
Bengal Mahomitan
or Hindoo.

Inefficacious or
unjust

10. Every punishment
inflicted on
unbelief is a tacit
confession of its
rectitude, and tends
to promote it one
way as much as it
tends to crush it in
another. The worse
grounded an opinion
is the less need
it has to be attacked
in this way. It is
the


---page break---

7 A few prosecutions for
such an offence would
only give it the greater
eclat, and diffuse the
poison still further.
The publication would
excite general attention
and the person prosecuted
could not be
debarred the liberty
of defending it. Voluntus
defenders
would be produced stand forth: &
without number for one public offence you attempted
to prosecute, you
would give birth to
twenty.

Multiplied prosecutions
would raise
such a ferment an odium, as
no one at this time
day
, however well
disposed would think
it prudent advisable to venture to expose
himself to.

10 continued

the known and distinguishing
characteristic
of truth — to
need no support but from
force: whereas that
support is all that
error has to trust to.
The only resource to
suppose on the part
of mankind in general
an incurable perversity
and propensity to embrace
falsehood in preference
to truth. But
who are you that take
upon you to impute to
your fellow creatures such
a


---page break---

a perversity? charge such a perversity
upon the bulk of your fellow-creatures?

and to
any third impartial person
will it not appear
more likely that the
perversity should be
on your side?

From Col. VII

Inefficacious

Along with infidel
publications you must will
do this work very ineffectually
if you
do not suppress &
to that purpose punish
the answers.
For the answers convey
an intimation of the
arguments they answer:
and the impression
made by
the former may not
always be done away
by the latter.

These considerations
amongst many others
seem to afford some ground
for the suspicion, that
though religion owes
its claim to assistance countenance
on the part of the magistrate
solely to its
temporal utility, yet
the title claim
namely to be considered
as possessed of that property depends principally as when Paley has observed, upon its treble: a quality of which the Magistrate as Bp
Warburton has so well proved, can never be a proper Judge. Quote.





Identifier: | JB/005/055/001
"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 5.

Date_1

Marginal Summary Numbering

Box

005

Main Headings

church of englandism

Folio number

055

Info in main headings field

church

Image

001

Titles

Category

rudiments sheet (brouillon)

Number of Pages

2

Recto/Verso

recto

Page Numbering

Penner

jeremy bentham

Watermarks

[[watermarks::l munn [britannia with shield emblem]]]

Marginals

Paper Producer

benjamin constant

Corrections

Paper Produced in Year

Notes public

ID Number

2472

Box Contents

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