Why need I refer to Isaiah or Micah?
Ib. p. 34.
Thus it was that this moral preacher explained and enforced the duty
of repentance, and thus it was that he prepared the way for the
greatest and best of teachers, &c.
Well then, if all this was but a preparation for the doctrines of
Christ, those doctrines themselves must surely have been something
different, and more difficult? Oh no! John's preparation consisted in a
complete rehearsal of the 'Drama didacticum', which Christ and the
Apostles were to exhibit to a full audience!--Nay, prithee, good
Barrister! do not be too rash in charging the Methodists with a
monstrous burlesque of the Gospel!
Ib. p. 37.
--the logic of the new Evangelists will convince him that it is a
contradiction in terms even to 'suppose' himself 'capable of doing any
thing' to help 'or bringing any thing to recommend himself to the
Divine favour'.
Now, suppose the wisdom of these endless attacks on an old abstruse
metaphysical notion to be allowed, yet why in the name of common candour
does not the Barrister ring the same 'tocsin' against his friend Dr.
Priestley's scheme of Necessity;--or against his idolized Paley, who
explained the will as a sensation, produced by the action of the
intellect on the muscles, and the intellect itself as a catenation of
ideas, and ideas as configurations of the organized brain? Would not
every syllable apply, yea, and more strongly, more indisputably? And
would his fellow-sectaries thank him, or admit the consequences? Or has
any late Socinian divine discovered, that Do as ye would be done unto,
is an interpolated precept?
Ib.
Pages:
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328