reconcile with
mercy and justice the condemnation to hell-fire of poor wretches born
and bred in the thieves' nests of St. Giles, as the Methodists the
condemnation of those who have been less favoured by grace? I have one
other question to ask, though it should have been asked before. Suppose
Christ taught nothing more than a future state of retribution and the
necessity and sufficiency of good morals, how are we to explain his
forbidding these truths to be taught to any but Jews till after his
resurrection? Did the Jews reject those doctrines? Except perhaps a
handful of rich men, called Sadducees, they all believed them, and would
have died a thousand deaths rather than have renounced their faith.
Besides, what is there in doctrines common to the creed of all
religions, and enforced by all the schools of philosophy, except the
Epicurean, which should have prevented their being taught to all at the
same time? I perceive, that this difficulty does not press on Socinians
exclusively: but yet it presses on them with far greater force than on
others. For they make Christianity a mere philosophy, the same in
substance with the Stoical, only purer from errors and accompanied with
clearer evidence:--while others think of it as part of a covenant made
up with Abraham, the fulfilment of which was in good faith to be first
offered to his posterity. I ask this only because the Barrister
professes to find every thing in the four Gospels so plain and easy.

Ib. p. 106.

The Reformers by whom those articles were framed were educated in the
Church of Rome, and opposed themselves rather to the perversion of its
power than the errors of its doctrine.

An outrageous blunder.

Ib. p. 107.

Lord Bacon was the first who dedicated his profound and penetrating
genius to the cultivation of sound philosophy, &c.

This very same Lord Bacon has given us his 'Confessio Fidei' at great
length, with full particularity. Now I will answer for the Methodists'
unhesitating assent and consent to it; but would the Barrister subscribe
it?

Ib. p. 108.

We look back to that era of our history when superstition threw her
victim on the pile, and bigotry tied the martyr to his stake:--but we
take our eyes from the retrospect and turn them in thankful admiration
to that Being who has opened the minds of many, and is daily opening
the minds of more amongst us to the reception of these most important
of all truths, that t