What! Is the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel so distinct and specific
in its design, that any modest man can wonder that the best and most
learned men of every age since Christ have deemed it mysterious? Are the
many passages concerning the Devil and demoniacs so very easy? Has this
writer himself thrown the least light on, or himself received one ray of
light from, the meaning of the word Faith;--or the reason of Christ's
paramount declarations respecting its omnific power, its absolutely
indispensable necessity? If the word mean only what the Barrister
supposes, a persuasion that in the present state of our knowledge the
evidences for the historical truth of the miracles of the Gospel
outweigh the arguments of the Sceptics, will he condescend to give us
such a comment on the assertion, that had we but a grain of mustard seed
of it, we might control all material nature, without making Christ
himself the most extravagant hyperbolist that ever mis-used language?
But it is impossible to make that man blush, who can seriously call the
words of Christ as recorded by St. John, plain, easy, common sense, out
of which prejudice, artifice, and selfish interest alone can compose any
difficulty. The Barrister has just as much right to call his religion
Christianity, as to call flour and water plum pudding:--yet we all admit
that in plum pudding both flour and water do exist.
Ib. p. 7.
Socinus can have no claim upon my veneration: I have never concerned
myself with what he believed nor with what he taught &c.
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