Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy
and the Legislature has, for many years, been actuated by what they perhaps have thought a pious zeal, to exterminate the imitators of the Chanaanites! They may have listened too attentively to the intolerant institutor of the love-feasts, (who seems, nevertheless, to threaten the overthrow of the established church) and who, in the excess of his zeal, exclaims, "I insist upon it that no government, not Roman Catholic, ought to tolerate men of the Roman Catholic persuasion." (Letter written 1780, a short time before the riots.) They must then be murdered, banished, or forced into the church, that little society which began in the evening of the 1st of May, 1738, in Fetter-lane; (Journal i.) for Methodists assert, that the God of this world has hitherto triumphed over every revival of true religion, (Dedic. prefixed to the Life of J. Wesley, by Drs. Coke and Moore) and consequently over the reformed Church of England; so that they can hardly insist, that we should embrace her doctrine, and thus increase the triumph of the devil. We have therefore no alternative left, but either to abandon our country or our religion. These are the apostles, worthy of Mahomet, who would have us believe that they are inspired by the Holy Ghost, and divinely commissioned to raise another holy temple out of the scattered lively stones of that once beautiful building, which was erected by Jesus Christ, against which they say (Ibid.) the gates of hell have never wholly prevailed. These are the teachers whom they have heaped up to themselves, having itching ears, 2 Timothy iv. 3. These are the interpreters of the sacred oracles! Both Wesley and Coke have, at least, acquired great celebrity with their adherents, by their labours in this way; but how much their explications may be depended upon, we may form some judgment from the preceding remarks. The character of bishop, which Dr. Coke extorted from the hands of his great master, 10th of Sept. 1784, at Bristol, will not give us any higher idea of the sagacity of either. It disgusted all thinking men, as a similar action of Luther, a fallen priest, consecrating a bishop had done long before. Mr. Charles Wesley upon hearing of his brother having ordained a bishop, being but a presbyter himself, is said to have exclaimed,
"So easily are bishops made, by man's or woman's whim;
Wesley his hands on Coke has laid---but who laid hands on him?"
See Nightingale, &c., for further information on Methodism, which now makes such a noise, though its novelty, variations, acknowledged mistakes, calumnies, spirit of persecution, want of lawful pastors, &c., here briefly instanced, might suffice to put people upon their guard. (Haydock)
Bible Text & Cross-references:
The three principal solemnities to be observed: just judges to be appointed in every city: all occasions of idolatry to be avoided.
1 Observe *the month of new corn, which is the first of the spring, that thou mayst celebrate the Phase to the Lord thy God: because in this month the Lord thy God brought thee out of Egypt by night.
2 And thou shalt sacrifice the Phase to the Lord thy God, of sheep, and of oxen, in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may dwell there.
3 Thou shalt not eat with it leavened bread: seven days shalt thou eat without leaven, the bread of affliction, because thou camest out of Egypt in fear: that thou mayst remember the day of thy coming out of Egypt, all the days of thy life.
4 No leaven shall be seen in all thy coasts for seven days, neither shall any of the flesh of that which was sacrificed the first day, in the evening, remain until morning.
5 Thou mayst not immolate the Phase in any one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God will give thee:
6 But in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may dwell there; thou shalt immolate the Phase in the evening, at the going down of the sun, at which time thou camest out of Egypt.
7 And thou shalt dress, and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, and in the morning rising up thou shalt go into thy dwellings.
8 Six days shalt thou eat unleavened bread: and on the seventh day, because it is the assembly of the Lord thy God, thou shalt do no work.
9 Thou shalt number unto thee seven weeks from that day, wherein thou didst put the sickle to the corn:
10 And thou shalt celebrate the festival of weeks to the Lord thy God, a voluntary oblation of thy hand, which thou shalt offer according to the blessing of the Lord thy God:
11 And thou shalt feast before the Lord thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, who abide with you: in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, that his name may dwell there:
12 And thou shalt remember that thou wast a servant in Egypt: and thou shalt keep and do the things that are commanded.
13 Thou shalt celebrate the solemnity also of tabernacles, when thou hast gathered in thy fruit of the barn-floor and of the wine-press:
14 And thou shalt make merry in thy festival time, thou, thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, the Levite also, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.
15 Seven days shalt thou celebrate feasts to the Lord thy God, in the place which the Lord shall choose: and the Lord thy God will bless thee in all thy fruits, and in every work of thy hands, and thou shalt be in joy.
16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose: in the feast of unleavened bread, in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles. *No one shall appear with his hands empty before the Lord:
17 But every one shall offer according to what he hath, according to the blessing of the Lord his God, which he shall give him.
18 Thou shalt appoint judges and magistrates in all thy gates, which the Lord thy God shall give thee, in all thy tribes: that they may judge the people with just judgment,
19 And not go aside to either part. *Thou shalt not accept person, nor gifts: for gifts blind the eyes of the wise, and change the words of the just.
20 Thou shalt follow justly after that which is just: that thou mayst live and possess the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee.
21 Thou shalt plant no grove, nor any tree, near the altar of the Lord thy God:
22 Neither shalt thou make, nor set up to thyself a statue: which things the Lord thy God hateth.
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*
16: Exodus xxiii. 15. and xxxiv. 20.; Ecclesiasticus xxxv. 6.
19: Exodus xxiii. 8.; Leviticus xix. 15.; Deuteronomy i. 17.; Ecclesiasticus xx. 31.