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Daniel Defoe: his life and recently discovered writings
Daniel Defoe his life and recently discovered writings Author:Daniel Defoe Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 1704.] ANSWERS ASGILI/g r 1 I'll I.I: r. 77 and ever will be pleased to have the Power rest in the hands of the Church." So little heed, however, did the Hou... more »se of Commons pay to the Queen's exhortation, that not many days elapsed before they revived the Bill for preventing Occasional Conformity. It passed on the 7th of December, and was sent up to the House of Lords, where, however, it met with so much opposition that it was rejected on the second reading. Mortified by their defeat, the Tories made another effort, by tacking the measure to a bill of supply, but public opinion was on the side of the Lords, and it was not carried. I must now return a little to notice another of Defoe's early prison labours upon a question of purely religious controversy. John Asgill, Esq., a Barrister in the Temple, was a man of piety, and of great learning and intellectual power, but an enthusiast. During a voluntary seclusion in his chambers, studying the Bible more than books of Law, he was deeply arrested by the words of our Saviour in St. John xi. 25, 26, and his eccentric imaginings ultimately took the form of a pamphlet, with the following title :—" An Argument proving, that according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life, without passing through Death, altho' the Humane Nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed through Death. Anno Dom. 1700." This was reprinted, and the Author having become a Member of the Irish Parliament, he was by vote, on the nth of October, 1703, expelled for this innocent delusion, and was declared incapable of being chosen, returned, or sitting again. On the first appearance of Asgill's book Defoe had written, and actually printed an answer to it; but...« less