But there are some living in the country, who say "we approve of the plan pursued by the Freethinking Christians We really think it the best, but we are placed in different cir cumstances; our numbers are few, and they are not competent to teach." All this is nothing to the purpose, it is pulpit preaching that keeps them thus ignorant and supine-practice makes perfect-let it be every man's duty and privilege to teach, and things will soon be altered. But admitting all that is advanced to be true, surely it will not justify our dissenting from a plan authorised by Deity himself, to substitute one that we only think better; but not only so, I apprehend most Christians can read, and if they cannot teach them. It would surely be a more useful work than preaching to them. Read the Bible at your meetings, let each make his comment, or ask a question. This will lead to greater ability, so that the evil will soon be remedied; but if at last you get no men of talent, is that absolutely necessary? Will not your holy lives and conversation in the world, and your statedly meeting to read the sacred writings as a Christian church, make it known that you are .Christians? And will not this be sufficient to draw the attention of every man who sincerely desires to be a Christian? Besides, surely if you have had a preacher before, the mere preventing him from ascending the pulpit, or ingrossing the whole right of teaching to himself, will not stop his mouth! You will still have the advantage of his instruction if he is a Christian; and if he is not, then indeed you are better without him than with him. The only difference you could find, if he continued among you, would be, you would have less of his preaching, but you would read and hear more of the scriptures; and were he to preach for ever, he could tell you nothing more than they con. tain that would be worth your hearing and I have the authority of Mr. Belsham for saying "That the Christian doctrine is so clearly revealed in the New Testament, that no honest enquirer can greatly mistake!" Thus having proved that the apostles did appoint the means of perpetuating the knowledge of Christianity-that the church alone ought to be the teachers of Christianity-that the New Testament is plain, decisive, and perspicuous, on the subject I shall conclude, and anxiously expect if there are any honest men among the clergy (as they are called), or their advo cates, who read this, that they will immediately attempt to answer it, or quit their unlawful practice, with its gains. In my next I purpose shewing the constitution and discipline of the Christian church; and for the present remain, Your's, &c. A FREETHINKING CHRISTIAN. STRICTURES ON THE PRAYER BOOK AND HOMILY SOCIETY. I To the Editor of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine. SIR, HAVE in my possession one of the circular letters issued by" The Prayer Book and Homily Society," of so curious a nature, that it deserves to be framed and glazed. Had the society in question, Sir, been sure that all men are fools, they might have distributed their letters without fear of opposition; as it is, 1 cannot but feel surprised that they should suffer a single copy of this "Herculean" production to escape the pale of the church. As you, Sir, have always shewn a readiness to insert my humble lucubrations, I doubt not but you will publish my remarks on this mushroom spawn concern those baronets, and M. P's, and Esquires, who have stepped forward to support a tottering fabric. "As a member of our excellent establishment (says the letter), you will hear with pleasure that a meeting was held, &c. to consider the propriety of establishing a society for encouraging a wider circulation of the Prayer Book and Homilies of our church." 1 beg you will bear in mind the words "excellent establishment;" for no doubt, the writer wished this part of the letter to be peculiarly enforced. There are many reasons why the church of England may be called an "excellent establishment;" one of which I will attempt to illustrate, viz. because it keeps nearly 20,000 individuals in idleness, at the expence of those who work very hard! According to Simpson, Sir, there are twenty-six bishops, who annually receive £72,000, some say £92,000! and who will not say they are useless beings! There are twenty-eight deaneries and chapters, who together receive yearly £140,000, The income of the two universities is £180,000, and the 10,000 clergy (all reverend gentlemen) have £1,180,000 ayear among them; consequently the eighteenth part of the nation may rub down their glutted stomachs, and say, oh! what an excellent establishment!" Let us for a moment reverse the scale. We will at present, only trouble the twenty-six bishops. Let us suppose, then (not to change the colour of their cloth), that they were obliged to work at coal-heaving "six days in the week," and preach gratis on the seventh; where then would be the "excellent establishment!" Chaos would come again! "Such an institution (says the letter) is greatly needed!" Upon my word, I cannot believe this. You shall call at every house from St. James's in the West, to St. George's in the East, and not find one family, out of five, who do not possess a Prayer Book. The fact is, Sir, people have Prayer Books, but they do not read them; and why? because, thanks be to God, the mind of man is becoming too much enlightened to bear any nonsense which may be put into his hands; then, 1 ask, on what ground is such an institution "greatly needed?" We are told," although the circulation of Prayer Books has been much augmented of late years, yet the supply is still found inferior to the demand." It would not appear so, Sir, if we examine even the book-stalls abounding with old Prayer Books, many of which I have seen offered for sale, at sixpence each; and, to come to the point, I will undertake to furnish "the Prayer Book and Homily Society," with a cart load, ready bound to their hands, at lower prices than they propose to sell them for in sheets! I have three in my own private library-they may have them all for a shilling, and I will not go out of the street where I live, to find two or three persons who will do the same. 66 It is not merely supplying "people with Prayer Books, and Homilies," that will strengthen the cords, or lengthen the stakes of the united church of England and Ireland;" no, Sir, the people must be made to read them-must be obliged to believe in them, or these efforts of this "excellent establishment," must come to nothing! The letter says, "nor is any adequate provision made for the supply of the long-subsisting and still-increasing wants of the army and navy." It will readily be allowed, Sir, that our soldiers and sailors, when in immediate want of paper, do not stick at tearing up the Prayer Book, or any other book; and this may in some degree account for their" long-subsisting, and still-increasing wants; nor is it likely that the army or navý should encrease much in wisdom, as, I presume they are not allowed to carry many books beside the Prayer Book-a thing which no man who possesses a Bible, has any occasion for! It is not impossible that we may presently have societies trying to enforce the old statutes of Elizabeth; such, for instance, as "persons not attending the common prayer at church or chapel, shall forfeit twelve pence for each offence." If so, my fine will be upwards of £10, for I have not been at church these four years and what is more, I don't feel any inclination to go again! Priestcraft may do very well for some people; I can live without it. This society informs us that "a well-founded expectation is entertained, that as an increased attention to the Bible is excited, a regard to the Prayer Book, justly and eloquently styled, THE DAUGHTER OF THE BIBLE, will encrease also.” They may regard this encyclopædia of creeds and ceremonies, if they please; but whoever carefully reads the Liturgy will find out, that the daughter is a bastard! That I may not prevent the insertion of more important matter, I shall add no more; but will resume the subject Your's, &c. next month. Kussell Court, Aug. 1812. JOHN MOOR. REMARKS ON THE FIFTEENTH CHAPTER OF PAUL'S FIRST EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS. To the Editor of the Freethinking Christians' Magazine. SIR, ON perusing, some short time since, the apostle Paul's well known remarks on the resurrection (1 Cor. chap. xv.), I was struck with an apparent impropriety in the common acceptation of the 51st verse-"behold I shew you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."-Now the expression we shall not all sleep," has been generally understood to refer to those, who, being alive, and on the earth, at the day of judgment, should not suffer death, but be at once transported into a state of immortality. Any such reference, however, is so wholly foreign to the matter at the time under the writer's consideration, as to render the reality of it's existence, at the best, but extremely suspicious; the more particularly, as it appears that the connection with the context, and the coherence of the whole argument, though destroyed by such an interpretation, may be fully preserved by another, of which the words are fairly, and perhaps, all the circumstances considered, exclusively susceptible, which is this, viz. we shall not all, or always, sleep (i. e. continue thus subject to the sleep of death), and, we shall all be changed, or altered, in our natures. An examination of the whole passage will, I think, confirm the propriety of this, or some such reading; but the fact is, that the whole chapter appears to have been very generally misunderstood, it being frequently regarded and quoted by some as a description, and by others, less enlightened, as a revelation of the fact of the resurrection itself, and being used as such in the burial service of the church of England, who probably borrowed the custom from the mother church of Rome; whereas that fact can, at the best, be but incidentally implied, as the whole passage, in reality, consists of a series of arguments made use of by Paul, to remove the objections, and disprove the assertions, of certain of the Corinthians, who, it appears, had suggested doubts and difficulties on the subject. A brief exposition of the reasonings of the apostle, as important in themselves, and corroborative of what has been suggested, may, perhaps, not be wholly misplaced, or unac ceptable. But, says the apostle (v. 35.) "some men will say, how are the dead, &c. raised up," after we have plainly seen the vital principle extinct, and, even if revivified," with what body shall they come," expecting to exist for ever, when we know their earthly one must necessarily continue to be exposed to decay and dissolution? Both these objections, he answers by a comparison to wheat, where, not only life, but life in a more expanded form, and more perfect state, follows the death or decomposition of the germ which is sown in the ground-" God giving it a body as it pleaseth him, and to every thing (he says) its own body," according to its various circumstances, or regular stages of existence; for, he goes on to argue, do we not see, that even here in this life, "all flesh is not the same flesh; but" ac cording to the nature and wants of each individual species, "there is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds," the celestial bodies themselves "differing from each other in glory," and they again according to their several peculiar destinations, being all materially distinct from the objects of our terrestrial globe? Another state of being then, with other modes of feeling and of exis tence, must necessarily require a completely different form of constitution to support it. In this world we have been weak and subject to corruption, in another we must be strong and susceptible of immortality-the objects of dishonour here, we are there to be the heirs ofglory-weak now, we shall then be endued with power-to bring about this change, however, one thing is necessary, and it is this, "that as we have here borne the image or body of the earthly, so should we also then bear the image, or body, of the heavenly. Now then, adds the apostle (v. 50.), summing up, as it were, into one sentence, the purport of all his former arguments, thus much I will say, brethren, these two points I will allowfirst, that the mere flesh and blood, which, as they truly say, we have seen decomposed, cannot, of itself, enter into the kingdom of heaven; and secondly, that a body, by its very nature liable to corruption, can, under no circumstances, expect to inherit incorruption (i. e. líve for ever); but then behold, (v. 51.) I shew, or explain to you this mystery; for, in the first place, I say, "we shall not all sleep," or continue thus to sleep for ever; and in the second, that, when we rise, we shall be changed, or altered in our natures; and this shall be done in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the time of the last summons; for the summons shall be given, and the dead shall be raised with a new body, not as before subject to dissolution, but incorruptible in its nature; for the very constitution of our bodies shall be |
