History of England, from the Accession of James the Second, the — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 965 pages of information about History of England, from the Accession of James the Second, the — Volume 4.

History of England, from the Accession of James the Second, the — Volume 4 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 965 pages of information about History of England, from the Accession of James the Second, the — Volume 4.
inquirer turned in disgust from these advisers to the Dissenters, and found them also blind guides.24 After some time he came to the conclusion that no human being was competent to instruct him in divine things, and that the truth had been communicated to him by direct inspiration from heaven.  He argued that, as the division of languages began at Babel, and as the persecutors of Christ put on the cross an inscription in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, the knowledge of languages, and more especially of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, must be useless to a Christian minister.25 Indeed, he was so far from knowing many languages, that he knew none; nor can the most corrupt passage in Hebrew be more unintelligible to the unlearned than his English often is to the most acute and attentive reader.26 One of the precious truths which were divinely revealed to this new apostle was, that it was falsehood and adulation to use the second person plural instead of the second person singular.  Another was, that to talk of the month of March was to worship the bloodthirsty god Mars, and that to talk of Monday was to pay idolatrous homage to the moon.  To say Good morning or Good evening was highly reprehensible, for those phrases evidently imported that God had made bad days and bad nights.27 A Christian was bound to face death itself rather than touch his hat to the greatest of mankind.  When Fox was challenged to produce any Scriptural authority for this dogma, he cited the passage in which it is written that Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace with their hats on; and, if his own narrative may be trusted, the Chief Justice of England was altogether unable to answer this argument except by crying out, “Take him away, gaoler."28 Fox insisted much on the not less weighty argument that the Turks never show their bare heads to their superiors; and he asked, with great animation, whether those who bore the noble name of Christians ought not to surpass Turks in virtue.29 Bowing he strictly prohibited, and, indeed, seemed to consider it as the effect of Satanical influence; for, as he observed, the woman in the Gospel, while she had a spirit of infirmity, was bowed together, and ceased to bow as soon as Divine power had liberated her from the tyranny of the Evil One.30 His expositions of the sacred writings were of a very peculiar kind.  Passages, which had been, in the apprehension of all the readers of the Gospels during sixteen centuries, figurative, he construed literally.  Passages, which no human being before him had ever understood in any other than a literal sense, he construed figuratively.  Thus, from those rhetorical expressions in which the duty of patience under injuries is enjoined he deduced the doctrine that selfdefence against pirates and assassins is unlawful.  On the other hand, the plain commands to baptize with water, and to partake of bread and wine in commemoration of the redemption of mankind, he pronounced to be allegorical.  He long wandered from place to place, teaching this
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History of England, from the Accession of James the Second, the — Volume 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.