rs
might have said, all who repeat the Nicene Creed. N. B. I do not
approve, or defend, nay, I dislike, these "United Theological
Booksellers": but this utter Barrister is their best friend by attacking
them so as to secure to them victory, and all the advantages of being
known to have been wickedly slandered;--the best shield a faulty cause
can protend against the javelin of fair opposition.

Ib. p. 56.

Our Saviour never in any single instance reprobated the exercise of
reason: on the contrary, he reprehends severely those who did not
exercise it. Carnal reason is not a phrase to be found in his Gospel;
he appealed to the understanding in all he said, and in all he taught.
He never required 'faith' in his disciples, without first furnishing
sufficient 'evidence' to justify it. He reasoned thus: If I have done
what no 'human power' could do, you must admit that my power is 'from
above', &c.

Good heavens! did he not uniformly require faith as the condition of
obtaining the "evidence," as this Barrister calls it--that is, the
miracle? What a shameless perversion of the fact! He never did reason
thus. In one instance only, and then upbraiding the base sensuality of
the Jews, he said: "If ye are so base as not to believe what I say from
the moral evidence in your own consciences, yet pay some attention to it
even for my works' sake." And this, an 'argumentum ad hominem,' a bitter
reproach (just as if a great chemist should say;--Though you do not care
for my science, or the important truths it presents, yet, even as an
amusement superior to that of your jugglers to whom you willingly crowd,
pay some attention to me)--this is to be set up against twenty plain
texts and the whole spirit of the whole Gospel! Besides, Christ could
not reason so; for he knew that the Jews admitted both natural and
demoniacal miracles, and their faith in the latter he never attacked;
though by an 'argumentum ad hominem' (for it is no argument in itself)
he denied its applicability to his own works. If Christ had reasoned so,
why did not the Barrister quote his words, instead of putting imaginary
words in his mouth?

Ib. 60, 61.

Religion is a system of 'revealed' truth; and to affirm of any
revealed truth, that we 'cannot understand' it, is, in effect, either
to deny that it has been revealed, or--which is the same thing--to
admit that it has been revealed in vain.

It is too worthless! I cannot go on. Mercif