To which we may add another sort of obstinate ill-natured persons, who are not to be brought by any one's guilt or greatness to speak or write, or to swear or lie, as they are bidden, or to give up their own consciences in a compliment to those who have none themselves.
And lastly, there are some so extremely ill-natured, as to think it very lawful and allowable for them to be sensible, when they are injured and oppressed, when they are slandered in their own good names, and wronged in their just interests; and, withal, to dare to own what they find and feel, without being such beasts of burden as to bear tamely whatsoever is cast upon them; or such spaniels as to lick the foot which kicks them, or to thank the goodly great one for doing them all these back-favours.
[301]: I thought it necessary to look into the Socinian pamphlets, which have swarmed so much among us within a few years.
(Stillingfleet, In vindication of the doctrine of Trinity. 1697.)
[302]: Il examine entre autres «le péché contre le Saint-Esprit.» On aurait bien voulu savoir en quoi consistait ce péché dont parle l'Évangile. Mais rien de plus obscur; Calvin et les autres théologiens en donnaient chacun une définition différente. Après une dissertation minutieuse, John Hales conclut ainsi: «And though negative proofs from scripture are not demonstrative, yet the general silence of the apostles may at least help to infer a probability that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is not committable by any Christian who lived not in the time of our Saviour (1636).»—Cela apprend à raisonner. De même, en Italie, les intrigues pour donner ou ôter des culottes aux capucins développaient l'habileté politique et diplomatique.
[303]: «The scripture is a book of morality and not of philosophy. Every thing there relates to practice.... It is evident from a cursory view of the Old and New Testament that they are miscellaneous books, some parts of which are history, others writ in a poetical style, and others prophetical, but the design of them all is professedly to recommend the practice of true religion and virtue.»
(John Clarke, chapelain du roi, 1721.)
[304]: Burke, 133, Réflexions sur la Révolution française.
[305]: Ray, Boyle, Barrow, Newton.
[306]: Bentley, Clarke, Warburton, Berkeley.