amendment; till which time, particular men should be quiet.
To remove opinions fundamental in religion, is impossible, and the attempt wicked, whether those opinions be true or false; unless your avowed design be to abolish that religion altogether. So, for instance, in the famous doctrine of Christ's divinity, which has been universally received by all bodies of Christians, since the condemnation of Arianism under Constantine and his successors: wherefore the proceedings of the Socinians are both vain and unwarrantable; because they will be never able to advance their own opinion, or meet any other success than breeding doubts and disturbances in the world — Qui ratione suâ disturbant mœnia mundi.
The want of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed, when it cannot be overcome.
The Christian religion, in the most early times, was proposed to the Jews and heathens without the article of Christ's divinity; which, I remember, Erasmus accounts for, by its being too strong a meat for babes. Perhaps, if it were now softened by the Chinese missionaries, the conversion of those infidels would be less difficult: and we find, by the Alcoran, it is the great stumbling block of the Mahometans. But, in a country already Christian, to bring so fundamental a point of faith into debate, can have no consequences that are not pernicious to morals and publick peace.
I have been often offended to find St. Paul's allegories, and other figures of Grecian eloquence, converted by divines into articles of faith.
God's mercy is over all his works; but divines of all sorts lessen that mercy too much.
