Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 22, 2025
Thou may perceive a company of self-deceiving speculatists, who make broad the phylacteries of their garments, and boast of some high attainments in religion; yea, would have others look upon them as arrived at the very porch of heaven, and advanced to a high pitch of proficiency in the ways of God, because they can discourse a little of the mysteries of salvation, and without ever diving farther into the depth and true nature of religion, dream themselves into a consideration of being saints, and conclude themselves candidates for glory.
I assure him that the Frenchified faction, more encouraged than others are warned by what has happened in France, look at him and his landed possessions as an object at once of curiosity and rapacity. He is made for them in every part of their double character. As robbers, to them he is a noble booty; as speculatists, he is a glorious subject for their experimental philosophy.
Our author is certainly entitled to take his place at the very head of this class of speculatists. In accounting for the work of creation by the natural and unassisted development of the inherent qualities of brute matter, the great difficulty is found at the first link in the chain of animated being. How can we explain the commencement of life?
This is indeed a general truth nay, for what I know, these same bold speculatists will bring it even as an argument for their not being in error, that Antiquity says nothing at all, good or bad, about their opinions.
The objections of these speculatists, if its forms do not quadrate with their theories, are as valid against such an old and beneficent government as against the most violent tyranny or the greenest usurpation. They are always at issue with governments, not on a question of abuse, but a question of competency and a question of title.
May I deny that I am a moral being, the very glory of my nature, because I cannot change my character at will?” If this judicious sentiment had been observed by speculatists, it had been well for philosophy, and still better for religion. The heresy of Pelagius, and the countless forms of kindred errors, would not have infested human thought.
On a mere sandbank, unsupplied either with arms or tools, the only edifice that can be built is one of sand, and sand affords the only means for its destruction. The fallacy to which such speculatists constantly have resort is, that the weakness or the entire absence of all considerations against their theory constitutes a positive argument in its support.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking