omnium-gatherum
expansion and consequent extenuation of the word, Idea and Ideas, may be regarded as a calamity inflicted by Mr. Locke on the reigns of William III. Queen Anne, and the first two Georges.
Ib. p. 237.
Sacrifice was one instance of worship required under the Law; and it is said;—He that sacrificeth unto any God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed (Exod. xxii. 20.) Now suppose any person, considering with himself that only absolute and sovereign sacrifice was appropriated to God by this law, should have gone and sacrificed to other Gods, and have been convicted of it before the judges. The apology he must have made for it, I suppose, must have run thus: "Gentlemen, though I have sacrificed to other Gods, yet I hope you'll observe, that I did it not absolutely: I meant not any absolute or supreme sacrifice (which is all that the Law forbids), but relative and inferior only. I regulated my intentions with all imaginable care, and my esteem with the most critical exactness. I considered the other Gods, whom I sacrificed to, as inferior only and infinitely so; reserving all sovereign sacrifice to the supreme God of Israel." This, or the like apology must, I presume, have brought off the criminal with some applause for his acuteness, if your principles be true. Either you must allow this, or you must be content to say, that not only absolute supreme sacrifice (if there be any sense in that phrase), but all sacrifice was by the Law appropriate to God only, &c. &c.
How was it possible for an Arian to answer this? But it was impossible; and Arianism was extinguished by Waterland, but in order to the increase of Socinianism; and this, I doubt not, Waterland foresaw. He was too wise a man to suppose that the exposure of the folly and falsehood of one form of Infidelism would cure or prevent Infidelity. Enough, that he made it more bare-faced—I might say, bare-breeched; for modern Unitarianism is verily the
sans-culotterie
of religion.
Ib. p. 239.