Ib. p. 107.
Lord Bacon was the first who dedicated his profound and penetrating genius to the cultivation of sound philosophy, &c.
This very same Lord Bacon has given us his
Confessio Fidei
at great length, with full particularity. Now I will answer for the Methodists' unhesitating assent and consent to it; but would the Barrister subscribe it?
Ib. p. 108.
We look back to that era of our history when superstition threw her victim on the pile, and bigotry tied the martyr to his stake:—but we take our eyes from the retrospect and turn them in thankful admiration to that Being who has opened the minds of many, and is daily opening the minds of more amongst us to the reception of these most important of all truths, that there is no true faith but in practical goodness, and that the worst of errors is the error of the life.
Such is the conviction of the most enlightened of our Clergy: the conviction, I trust, of the far greater part * * *. They deem it better to inculcate the moral duties of Christianity in the pure simplicity and clearness with which they are revealed, than to go aside in search of doctrinal mysteries. For as mysteries cannot be made manifest, they, of course, cannot be understood; and that which cannot be understood cannot be believed, and can, consequently, make no part of any system of faith: since no one, till he understands a doctrine, can tell whether it be true or false; till then, therefore, he can have no faith in it, for no one can rationally affirm that he believes that doctrine to be true which he does not know to be so; and he cannot know it to be true if he does not understand it. In the religion of a true Christian, therefore, there can be nothing unintelligible; and if the preachers of that religion do not make mysteries, they will never find any.
Who? the Bishops, or the dignified Clergy? Have they at length exploded all "doctrinal mysteries?" Was Horsley "the one red leaf, the last of its clan," that held the doctrines of the Trinity, the corruption of the human Will, and the Redemption by the Cross of Christ? Verily, this is the most impudent attempt to impose a naked Socinianism on the public, as the general religion of the nation, admitted by all but a dunghill of mushroom fanatics, that ever insulted common sense or common modesty! And will "the far greater part" of the English Clergy remain silent under so atrocious a libel as is contained in this page? Do they indeed solemnly pray to their Maker weekly, before God and man, in the words of a Liturgy, which, they know, "cannot be believed?" For heaven's sake, my dear Southey, do quote this page and compare it with the introduction to and petitions of the Liturgy, and with the Collects on the Advent, &c.