Connected Essays and Tracts, being a series of inferences, deduced chiefly from the principles of the most celebrated sceptics ... And an Appendix of two dissertations, etc

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Page 48 - Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living ? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it :— therefore I'll none of it : Honour is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.
Page 136 - Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
Page 15 - If he had been indifferent about our happiness or misery we must impute to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded) both the capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects fitted to produce it. But either of these (and still more both of them) being too much to be attributed to accident, nothing remains but the first supposition, that God, when he created the human species, wished their happiness; and made for them the provision which he has...
Page 303 - Lord's Supper. The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another ; but rather it is a Sacrament of our redemption by Christ's death. Insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.
Page 42 - ... familiar, the hearing of the sounds, or sight of the characters, is oft immediately attended with those passions which at first were wont to be produced by the intervention of ideas that are now quite omitted. May we not, for example, be affected with the promise of a good thing, though we have not an idea of what it is ? Or is not the being threatened with danger sufficient to excite a dread, though we think not of any particular evil likely to befall us, nor yet frame to ourselves an idea of...
Page 212 - The belief of invisible, intelligent power has been very generally diffused over the human race, in all places and in all ages...
Page 211 - The whole frame of nature bespeaks an Intelligent Author ; and no rational inquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion.
Page 237 - The whole chorus of nature raises one hymn to the praises of its Creator. You alone, or almost alone, disturb this general harmony. You start abstruse doubts, cavils, and objections; you ask me what is the cause of this cause? I know not; I care not; that concerns not me. I have found a Deity; and here I stop my inquiry. Let those go farther who are wiser or more enterprising.
Page 16 - The method of coming at the will of God, concerning any action, by the light of nature, is to inquire into " the tendency of the action to promote or diminish the general happiness.
Page 15 - If he had wished our misery, he might have made sure of his purpose, by forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment ; or by placing us amidst objects, so ill suited to our perceptions as to have continually offended us...

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