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And the value of the service which he thus rendered to popular philosophy is not much diminished, although we may hold, with Brown, that he went too far in imputing the “ideal theory” as an actual tenet, to the generality of the philosophers who preceded him, and especially to Locke and Hume; for if they did not themselves consciously fall into the error, unquestionably they often led their readers into it.
The tendency manifested in this conduct, the spirit of this and the preceding century, on which, not indeed the tenet itself, but the obstinate adherence to it against the clearest light of reason and experience, is grounded this it is which, according to my conviction, gives the venom to the error, and justifies the attempt to substitute a juster view.
If, with exception of the passages already excepted, namely, the recorded words of God concerning which no Christian can have doubt or scruple, the tenet in this sense be inapplicable to the Scripture, destructive of its noblest purposes, and contradictory to its own express declarations, again and again I ask: What am I to substitute?
As it will now probably be admitted, that the early Christians refused to enter into the army, and that they left it after their conversion, on account of one, among other persuasions, that it was unlawful for them to fight, I must examine their practice, as it related to this subject, still farther, or I must trace it down to a later period, before I can show how the Quakers make the practice of these early times support the meaning of the scriptural passages, which they advance in favour of their tenet on war.
Supposing, then, it is the main tenet of the School in question, that the study of Religion as a science has been the bane of philosophy and knowledge, what remedy will its masters apply for the evils they deplore? Should they profess themselves the antagonists of theology, and engage in argumentative exercises with theologians? This evidently would be to increase, to perpetuate the calamity.
This persuasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is believed they have embraced, that as Christians have the precepts of the gospel of Christ, and the spirit of God to guide them, all human governments, as necessarily including the idea of force to secure obedience, are not only superfluous, but unlawful encroachments on the Divine government as ascertained from the sources above mentioned.
The King replied: "That in the Mahometan religion it was an established tenet that the more the glory of the Prophet was exalted, and the more his followers exerted themselves in the subversion of idolatry, the greater would be their reward in heaven; that therefore it was his firm resolution, with the assistance of God, to root out the abominable worship of idols from the land of India: why then should he spare Tannasar?"
This too has been already the actual course of Evangelical doctrine both on the Continent and in America. The Protestants of Geneva, Holland, Ulster, and Boston have all, I believe, become Unitarians, or the like. Dr. Adam Clarke too, the celebrated Wesleyan, held the distinguishing Sabellian tenet, as Doddridge is said to have done before him.
Matrimony was always one of my favourite topics, and I wrote several sermons to prove its happiness: but there was a peculiar tenet which I made a point of supporting; for I maintained with Whiston, that it was unlawful for a priest of the church of England, after the death of his first wife, to take a second, or to express it in one word, I valued myself upon being a strict monogamist.
Even in this, however, they were not let off lightly, for the Siou men invented as a tenet of their religion the saying that "Women who hang themselves are the most miserable of all wretches in the other world". On the other hand, the kind treatment of children by fathers as well as mothers is an "Indian" trait commented on by writer after writer.
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