sy, grief, and repentance. 3. In like manner, our Lord spoke
harshly to the Syro-Phoenician woman, whose daughter He was about
to heal, and made as if He would go further, when the two disciples
had come to their journey's end. 4. Thus too Joseph "made himself
strange to his brethren," and Elisha kept silence on request of
Naaman to bow in the house of Rimmon. 5. Thus St. Paul circumcised
Timothy, while he cried out "Circumcision availeth not."

It may be said that this principle, true in itself, yet is dangerous,
because it admits of an easy abuse, and carries men away into what
becomes insincerity and cunning. This is undeniable; to do evil that
good may come, to consider that the means, whatever they are, justify
the end, to sacrifice truth to expedience, unscrupulousness,
recklessness, are grave offences. These are abuses of the economy.
But to call them _economical_ is to give a fine name to what occurs
every day, independent of any knowledge of the _doctrine_ of the
Economy. It is the abuse of a rule which nature suggests to every
one. Every one looks out for the "mollia tempora fandi," and "mollia
verba" too.

Having thus explained what is meant by the economy as a rule of
social intercourse between men of different religious, or, again,
political, or social views, next I go on to state what I said in the
Arians.

I say in that volume first, that our Lord has given us the
_principle_ in His own words--"Cast not your pearls before swine;"
and that He exemplified it in His teaching by parables; that St. Paul
expressly distinguishes between the milk which is necessary to one
set of men, and the strong meat which is allowed to others, and that,
in two Epistles. I say, that the apostles in the Acts observe the
same rule in their speeches, for it is a fact, that they do not
preach the high doctrines of Christianity, but only "Jesus and the
resurrection" or "repentance and faith." I also say, that this is
the very reason that the Fathers assign for the silence of various
writers in the first centuries on the subject of our Lord's divinity.
I also speak of the catechetical system practised in the early
Church, and the _disciplina arcani_ as regards the doctrine of the
Holy Trinity, to which Bingham bears witness; also of the defence of
this rule by Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostom, and Theodoret.

And next the question may be asked, whether I have said anything in
my volume _to guard_ the doctrine, thus laid d