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W. Blackwood and sons, 1881 - 177 sider
 

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Side 99 - It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry ; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious. And, accordingly, they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.
Side 79 - The Wise Man observes, that there is a time to speak, and a time to keep silence. One meets with people in the world, who seem never to have made the last of these observations. And yet these great talkers do not at all speak from their having any thing to say, as every sentence shows, but only from their inclination to be talking.
Side 162 - Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be : Why then should we desire to be deceived?
Side 129 - Indeed, if in revelation there be found any passages, the seeming meaning of which is contrary to natural religion, we may most certainly conclude such seeming meaning not to be the real one.
Side 112 - But going over the theory of virtue in one's thoughts, talking well, and drawing fine pictures, of it; this is so far from necessarily or certainly conducing to form a habit of it, in him who thus employs himself, that it may harden the mind in a contrary course, and render it gradually more insensible ; «. e. form a habit of insensibility to all moral considerations.
Side 57 - ... benevolence, and the want of it, singly considered, are in no sort the whole of virtue and vice. For if this were the case, in the review of one's own character, or that of others, our moral understanding and moral sense would be indifferent to every thing, but the degrees in which benevolence prevailed, and the degrees in which it was wanting. That is, we should...
Side 50 - But there is a superior principle of reflection or conscience in every man, which distinguishes between the internal principles of his heart, as well as his external actions; which passes judgment upon himself and them ; pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good; others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust : Which, without being consulted, without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or condemns him, the doer of them, accordingly...
Side 52 - Yet, let any plain, honest man, before he engages in any course of action, ask himself, Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong ? Is it good, or is it evil ? I do not in the least doubt but that this question would be answered agreeably to truth and virtue, by almost any fair man in almost any circumstance.
Side 99 - Origen* has with singular sagacity observed, that he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded from him who is the Author of Nature, may well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it, as are found in the constitution of Nature.
Side 14 - It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For it is easy to show in a short and lively manner that such and such things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little weight in jtself, but impossible to show in like manner the united force of the whole argument in one view.

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