viii THEISM; EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 169 



prove deceitful, philosophy will very soon find herself very 

 unequally yoked with her new associate; and instead of 

 regulating each principle, as they advance together, she is 

 at every turn perverted to serve the purposes of supersti- 

 tion. For besides the unavoidable incoherences, which 

 must be reconciled and adjusted one may safely affirm, 

 that all popular theology, especially the scholastic, has a 

 kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction. If that 

 theology went not beyond reason and common sense, her 

 doctrines would appear too easy and familiar. Amaze- 

 ment must of necessity be raised : Mystery affected : 

 Darkness and obscurity sought after: And a foundation 

 of merit afforded to the devout votaries, who desire an 

 opportunity of subduing their rebellious reason by the be- 

 lief of the most unintelligible sophisms. 



" Ecclesiastical history sufficiently confirms those re- 

 flections. When a controversy is started, some people 

 always pretend with certainty to foretell the issue. Which- 

 ever opinion, say they, is most contrary to plain reason is 

 sure to prevail ; even when the general interest of the sys- 

 tem requires not that decision. Though the reproach of 

 heresy may, for some time, be bandied about among the 

 disputants, it always rests at last on the side of reason. 

 Any one, it is pretended, that has but learning enough of 

 this kind to know the definition of Arian, Pelagian, Eras- 

 tian, Socinian, Sabellian, Eutychian, Nestorian, Mono- 

 thelite, &c., not to mention Protestant, whose fate is yet un- 

 certain, will be convinced of the truth of this observation. 

 It is thus a system becomes absurd in the end, merely from 

 its being reasonable and philosophical in the beginning. 



" To oppose the torrent of scholastic religion by such 

 feeble maxims as these, that it is impossible for the same 

 thing to be and not to be, that the whole is greater than a 

 part, that two and three make five, is pretending to stop the 

 ocean with a bulrush. Will you set up profane reason 

 against sacred mystery? No punishment is great enough 

 for your impiety. And the same fires which were kindled 



