3. Religious Intolerance no Part of the General Plan either of the Mosaic or Christian Dispensation.
4. A brief and dispassionate View of the Difficulties respectively attending the Trinitarian, Arian, and Socinian Systems.
To be published in the Course of the ensuing Winter.
A Volume of select Sermons on interesting and important Subjects.
All by the same Author.
Footnotes:
[1] In the Year of the Rebellion 1745, and for many Years afterwards, the London Evening Post (now a republican) was then a flaming Jacobite Paper: During which Period the Author of these Tracts had frequently the Honour of being abused by him, under the Character of a low-church, fanatical, Oliverian Whig. Once in particular (above 20 Years ago) he was complimented in the high-flown Strain of Josiah ben Tucker ben Judas Iscariot. The Times are now greatly altered; and so is the Tone of the Abuse. But the Author is perfectly resigned to these Vicissitudes of human Affairs: And he has no other Favour to ask of this, and of all his Brother-Scribblers, whether weekly or monthly, in Sheets, or in Pamphlets, than that they would never praise him, because that, and that only, he should look upon to be a real Disgrace. But it is not the London Evening Post alone, who from a violent Jacobite has commenced a fierce Republican. Many like Instances may be recollected. And indeed the Transition is natural enough; for if a Man can be so absurd as to think that there is an indefeasible Right in any one Family, when that Family becomes extinct, he turns a Republican.
[2] The late Dr. Butler, Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards of Durham had a singular Notion respecting large Communities and public Bodies;—a Notion which perhaps is not altogether unapplicable to the present Case. His Custom was, when at Bristol, to walk for Hours in his Garden in the darkest Night, which the Time of the Year could afford; and I had frequently the Honour to attend him. After walking some Time, he would stop suddenly, and ask the Question, “What Security is there against the Insanity of Individuals? The Physicians know of none: And as to Divines, we have no Data either from Scripture, or Reason to go upon relative to this Affair.”—True, my Lord, no Man has a Lease of his Understanding, any more than of his Life. They are both in the Hands of the Sovereign Disposer of all Things. He would then take another Turn, and again stop short. “Why might not whole Communities and public Bodies be seized with Fits of Insanity, as well as Individuals?” My Lord, I have never considered the Case, and can give no Opinion concerning it. “Nothing but this Principle, that they are liable to Insanity, equally at least with private Persons, can account for the major Part of those Transactions, which we read in History.” I thought little of this odd Conceit of the Bishop’s at that Juncture: But I own I could not avoid thinking of it a great deal since, and applying it to many Cases.