The greatest loss which modern
philosophy has through wilful scorn sustained, is the grand distinction
of the ancient philosophers between the [Greek: noumena], and [Greek:
phainomena]. This gives the true sense of Pliny--'venerare Deos' (that
is, their statues, and the like,) 'et numina Deorum', that is, those
spiritual influences which are represented by the images and persons of
Apollo, Minerva, and the rest.
Ib. p. 17.
Religion has for its object the moral care and the moral cultivation
of man. Its beauty is not to be sought in the regions of mystery, or
in the flights of abstraction.
What ignorance! Is there a single moral precept of the Gospels not to be
found in the Old Testament? Not one. A new edition of White's
'Diatessaron', with a running comment the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman
writers before Christ, and those after him who, it is morally certain,
drew no aids from the New Testament, is a grand 'desideratum'; and if
anything could open the eyes of Socinians, this would do it.
Ib. p. 24.
The masculine strength and moral firmness which once distinguished the
great mass of the British people is daily fading away. Methodism with
all its cant, &c.
Well! but in God's name can Methodism be at once the effect and the
cause of this loss of masculine strength and moral firmness?--Did
Whitfield and Wesley blow them out at the first puff--these grand
virtues of masculine strength and moral firmness? Admire, I pray you,
the happy antithesis.
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