r rather may have been, in Scotland, and the contrary
in England? Wise or unwise, this is not discipline, not Christian
discipline, enforced only by spiritual motives, enacted by spiritual
authority, and submitted to for conscience' sake.

Ib. p. 446.

Be this as it may, the foreknowledge and the decree were both eternal.
Here now it is a clear point that the moral actions of all accountable
agents were, with certainty, fore-known, and their doom unalterably
fixed, long before any one of them existed.

Strange that so great a man as Skelton should first affirm eternity of
both, yet in the next sentence talk of "long before." These Reflections
[5] are excellent, but here Skelton offends against his own canons. I
should feel no reluctance, moral or speculative, in accepting the
apparent necessity of both propositions, as a sufficient reason for
believing both; and the transcendancy of the subject as a sufficient
solution of their apparent incompatibility. But yet I think that another
view of the subject, not less congruous with universal reason and more
agreeable to the light of reason in the human understanding, might be
defended, without detracting from any perfection of the Divine Being.
Nay, I think that Skelton needed but one step more to have seen it.

Ib. p. 478.

'In fine.'

To what purpose were these Reflections, taken as a whole, written? I
cannot answer. To dissuade men from reasoning on a subject beyond our
faculties? Then why all this reasoning?

Vol. IV. p. 28. Deism Revealed.

'Shepherd'. Were you ever at Constantinople, Sir?

'Dechaine'. Never.

'Shep.' Yet I believe you have no more doubt there is such a city,
than that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right ones.

'Temp.' I am sure 1 have not.

'Dech.' Nor I; but what then?

'Shep.' Pray, Mr. Dechaine, did you see Julius Caesar assassinated in
the Capitol?

'Dech.' A pretty question! No indeed, Sir.

'Shep.' Have you any doubts about the truth of what is told us by the
historians concerning that memorable transaction?

'Dech.' Not the least.

'Shep.' Pray, is it either self-evident or demonstrable to you, at
this time and place, that there is any such city as
Constantinople, or that there ever was such a man as Caesar?

'Dech.' By no means.

'Shep.' And you have all you know concerning the being of either the