"For preaching up predestination; or for preaching up free will.
"Now," continues our writer, "barely to hate one's neighbours for such notions as these, were enough, one would think, to make any common d——l blush; but these christians, as if to out-d——l Satan himself, can not only hate, but actually murder one another for these contradictory notions! yes; and oh, horrible to think! not only murder, but even glory in it: at every shower of cruel bullets on their flying victims; or at every plunge of the reeking spear into the bodies of shrieking mothers and infants, they can cheer each other to the glorious spot with animating huzzas! and even when the infernal tragedy is closed, they can write congratulatory letters, and sing Te Deums, giving glory to God that the Monsters—the Beasts—the Heretics, are rooted out."
Such was the prince of infidels. And it was the very argument to stagger Ben, even the dangerous argument of example, which young as he was, he had learned to consider as a short way of coming at men's real principles.
"Example is a living law, whose sway
Men more than all the living laws obey."
Or as Hudibras has it,
"Men oft prove it by their practice:
No argument like matter of fact is.
And we are, best of all, led to
Men's principles, by what they do."