on of the rest of the world, I shall think that
land happy that hath but bare liberty to be as good as they are
willing to be; and if countenance and maintenance be but added to
liberty, and tolerated errors and sects be but forced to keep the
peace, and not to oppose the substantials of Christianity, I shall not
hereafter much fear such toleration, nor despair that truth will bear
down adversaries.

What a valuable and citable paragraph! Likewise it is a happy instance
of the force of a cherished prejudice in an honest mind--practically
yielding to the truth, but yet with a speculative, "Though I still
think, &c."

Ib. p. 128.

Among truths certain in themselves, all are not equally certain unto
me; and even of the mysteries of the Gospel I must needs say, with Mr.
Richard Hooker, that whatever some may pretend, the subjective
certainty cannot go beyond the objective evidence. * * * Therefore I
do more of late than ever discern the necessity of a methodical
procedure in maintaining the doctrine of Christianity. * * * My
certainty that I am a man is before my certainty that there is a God.
* * * My certainty that there is a God is greater than my certainty
that he requireth love and holiness of his creature, &c.

There is a confusion in this paragraph, which asks more than a marginal
note to disentangle. Briefly, the process of acquirement is confounded
with the order of the truths when acquired. A tinder spark gives light
to an Argand's lamp: is it therefore more luminous?

Ib. p. 129.

And when I have studied hard to understand some abstruse admired book,
as 'de Scientia Dei, de Providentia circa malum, de Decretis, de
Praedeterminatione, de Libertate creaturae', &c. I have but attained the
knowledge of human imperfection, and to see that the author is but a
man as well as I.

On these points I have come to a resting place. Let such articles, as
are either to be recognized as facts, for example, sin or evil having
its origination in a will; and the reality of a responsible and (in
whatever sense freedom is presupposed in responsibility,) of a free will
in man;--or acknowledged as laws, for example, the unconditional
bindingness of the practical reason;--or to be freely affirmed as
necessary through their moral interest, their indispensableness to our
spiritual humanity, for example, the personeity, holiness, and moral
government and providence of God;--let these be