dering Religion as a principle of universal
application and command. Robbed of its best energies, Religion now takes
the form of a cold compilation of restraints and prohibitions. It is
looked upon simply as a set of penal statutes; these, though wise and
reasonable, are however, so far as they extend, abridgments of our
natural liberty, and nothing which comes to us in this shape is
extremely acceptable:

Atqui nolint occidere quemquam, posse volunt.

Considering moreover, that the matter of them is not in general very
palatable, and that the partiality of every man where his own cause is
in question, will be likely to make him construe them liberally in his
own favour, we might beforehand have formed a tolerable judgment of the
manner in which they are actually treated. Sometimes we attend to the
words rather than to the spirit of Scripture injunctions, overlooking
the principle they involve, which a better acquaintance with the word of
God would have clearly taught us to infer from them. At others, "the
spirit of an injunction is all;" and this we contrive to collect so
dexterously, as thereby to relax or annul the strictness of the terms.
"Whatever is not expressly forbidden cannot be _very_ criminal; whatever
is not positively enjoined, cannot be indispensably necessary--If we do
not offend against the laws, what more can be expected from us?--The
persons to whom the strict precepts of the Gospel were given, were in
very different circumstances from those in which we are placed. The
injunctions were drawn rather tighter than is quite necessary, in order
to allow for a little relaxation in practice. The expressions of the
sacred Writers are figurative; the Eastern style is confessedly
hyperbolical."

By these and other such dishonest shifts (by which however we seldom
deceive ourselves, except it be in thinking that we deceive others) the
pure but strong morality of the word of God is explained away, and its
too rigid canons are softened down, with as much dexterity as is
exhibited by those who practise a logic of the same complexion, in order
to escape from the obligations of human statutes. Like Swift's
unfortunate Brothers[74], we are sometimes put to difficulties, but our
ingenuity is little inferior to their's. If totidem verbis[75] will not
serve our turn, try totidem syllabis; if totidem syllabis fail, try
totidem literis: then there is in our case, as well as in theirs, "an
allegorical sense" to be ad