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. Public observation is against the fact, and the
conclusion to which such observation leads is rarely incorrect. * *
The very name of the sect carries with it an impression of meanness
and hypocrisy. Scarce an individual that has had any dealings with
those belonging to it, but has good cause to remember it from some
circumstance of low deception or of shuffling fraud. Its very members
trust each other with caution and reluctance. The more wealthy among
them are drained and dried by the leeches that perpetually fasten upon
them. The leaders, ignorant and bigoted--I speak of them collectively
--present us with no counter-qualities that can conciliate respect.
They have all the craft of monks without their courtesy, and all the
subtlety of Jesuits without their learning.

In the whole 'Bibliotlieca theologica' I remember no instance of calumny
so gross, so impudent, so unchristian. Even as a single robber, I mean
he who robs one man, gets hanged, while the robber of