Barrister, the Socini not
excepted, who were prepared to inflict the very same punishment on F.
Davidi for denying the adorability of Christ. If to wish, will, resolve,
and attempt to realize, be morally to commit, an action, then must
Socinus and Calvin hunt in the same collar. But, O mercy! if every human
being were to be held up to detestation, who in that age would have
thought it his duty to have passed sentence 'de comburendo heretico' on
a man, who had publicly styled the Trinity "a Cerberus," and "a
three-headed monster of hell," what would the history of the Reformation
be but a list of criminals? With what face indeed can we congratulate
ourselves on being born in a more enlightened age, if we so bitterly
abuse not the practice but the agents? Do we not admit by this very
phrase "enlightened," that we owe our exemption to our intellectual
advantages, not primarily to our moral superiority? It will be time
enough to boast, when to our own tolerance we have added their zeal,
learning, and indefatigable industry. [7]
Ib. p. 13, 14.
If religion consists in listening to long prayers, and attending long
sermons, in keeping up an outside appearance of devotion, and
interlarding the most common discourse with phrases of Gospel
usage:--if this is religion, then are the disciples of Methodism pious
beyond compare. But in real humility of heart, in mildness of temper,
in liberality of mind, in purity of thought, in openness and
uprightness of conduct in private life, in those practical virtues
which are the vital substance of Christianity,--in these are they
superior? No.
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