[Hatred of Injustice]
It is the mark of a noble nature to be more shocked with the unjust condemnation of a bad man than of a virtuous one; as in the instance of Strafford. For in such cases the love of justice, and the hatred of the contrary, are felt more nakedly, and constitute a strong passion per se, not only unaided by, but in conquest of, the softer self-repaying sympathies. A wise foresight too inspires jealousy, that so may principles be most easily overthrown. This is the virtue of a wise man, which a mob never possesses, even as a mob never, perhaps, has the malignant finis ultimus, which is the vice of a man.
[Religion]
Amongst the great truths are these:
I. That religion has no speculative dogmas; that all is practical, all appealing to the will, and therefore all imperative. I am the Lord thy God: Thou shall have none other gods but me.
II. That, therefore, miracles are not the proofs, but the necessary results, of revelation. They are not the key of the arch and roof of evidence, though they may be a compacting stone in it, which gives while it receives strength. Hence, to make the intellectual faith a fair analogon or unison of the vital faith, it ought to be stamped in the mind by all the evidences duly co-ordinated, and not designed by single pen-strokes, beginning either here or there.
III. That, according to No. I., Christ is not described primarily and characteristically as a teacher, but as a doer; a light indeed, but an effective light, the sun which causes what it shows, as well as shows what it first causes.
IV. That a certain degree of morality is presupposed in the reception of Christianity; it is the substratum of the moral interest which substantiates the evidence of miracles. The instance of a profligate suddenly converted, if properly sifted, will be found but an apparent exception.
V. That the being of a God, and the immortality of man, are every where assumed by Christ.
VI. That Socinianism is not a religion, but a theory, and that, too, a very pernicious, or a very unsatisfactory, theory. Pernicious, for it excludes all our deep and awful ideas of the perfect holiness of God, his justice and his mercy, and thereby makes the voice of conscience a delusion, as having no correspondent in the character of the legislator; regarding God as merely a good-natured pleasure-giver, so happiness be produced, indifferent as to the means: Unsatisfactory, for it promises forgiveness without any solution of the difficulty of the compatibility of this with the justice of God; in no way explains the fallen condition of man, nor offers any means for his regeneration. "If you will be good, you will be happy," it says: that may be, but my will is weak; I sink in the struggle.
VII. That Socinianism never did and never can subsist as a general religion. For
1. It neither states the disease, on account of which the human being hungers for revelation, nor prepares any remedy in general, nor ministers any hope to the individual.
2. In order to make itself endurable on scriptural grounds, it must so weaken the texts and authority of scripture, as to leave in scripture no binding ground of proof of any thing.
3. Take a pious Jew, one of the Maccabees, and compare his faith and its grounds with Priestley's; and then, for what did Christ come?
VIII.
That Socinianism involves the shocking thought that man will not, and ought not to be expected to, do his duty as man, unless he first makes a bargain with his Maker, and his Maker with him. Give me, the individual me, a positive proof that I shall be in a state of pleasure after my death, if I do so and so, and then I will do it, not else! And the proof asked is not one dependent on, or flowing from, his moral nature and moral feelings, but wholly
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