Ib. p. 129.

  —­the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.

Were the Nicolaitans a sect, properly so called?  The word is the Greek rendering of ‘the children of Balaam;’ that is, men of grossly immoral and disorderly lives.

Ib. p. 130.

  For if he who ’shall break one of the least moral commandments, and
  shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven’,
  (Mat. v. 19,) it must be a very dangerous experiment, &c.

A sad misinterpretation of our Lord’s words, which from the context most evidently had no reference to any moral, that is, universal commandment as such, but to the national institutions of the Jewish state, as long as that state should be in existence; that is to say, until ‘the Heaven’ or the Government, and ‘the Earth’ or the People or the Governed, as one ‘corpus politicum’, or nation, had ‘passed away’.  Till that time,—­which was fulfilled under Titus, and more thoroughly under Hadrian,—­no Jew was relieved from his duties as a citizen and subject by his having become a Christian.  The text, together with the command implied in the miracle of the tribute-money in the fish’s mouth, might be fairly and powerfully adduced against the Quakers, in respect of their refusal to pay their tithes, or whatever tax they please to consider as having an un-Christian destination.  But are they excluded from the kingdom of heaven, that is, the Christian Church?  No;—­but they must be regarded as weak and injudicious members of it.

Chap.  V. p. 140.

Accordingly it may be observed, how the unbelievers caress and compliment those complying gentlemen who meet them half way, while they are perpetually inveighing against the stiff divines, as they call them, whom they can make no advantage of.

Lessing, an honest and frank-hearted Infidel, expresses the same sentiment.  As long as a German Protestant divine keeps himself stiff and stedfast to the Augsburg Confession, to the full Creed of Melancthon, he is impregnable, and may bid defiance to sceptic and philosopher.  But let him quit the citadel, and the Cossacs are upon him.

Ib. p. 187.

And therefore it is infallibly certain, as Mr. Chillingworth well argues with respect to Christianity in general, that we ought firmly to believe it; because wisdom and reason require that we should believe those things which are by many degrees more credible and probable than the contrary.

Yes, where there are but two positions, one of which must be true.  When A. is presented to my mind with probability=5, and B. with probability=15, I must think that B. is three times more probable than A. And yet it is very possible that a C. may be found which will supersede both.

Chap.  VI. p. 230.