- All national institutions of churches appear no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind , and mobilize power and profit.
- Infidelity does not consist in believing or in disbelieving;it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe .
- When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.
- It is a contradiction in terms and ideas , to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand , either verbally or in writing.
- The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue;and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.
- The more unnatural something is, the more it is capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration.
- For the internal evidence is, that the theory or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary justice , and not that of moral justice.
- It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any end , be equal to the accomplishment of that end , or the end cannot be accomplished.
- And, incomprehensible and difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is , he arrives at the belief of it, from the ten fold difficulty of not believing in it.
- Natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place , is the study of the works of God , and the power and wisdom of God in His works , and it is the true theology.
- Every principal art has some science for it's parent, though the person who mechanically performs the work does not always, and but very seldom , perceive the connection.
- Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.
- It is from the study of the true theology that all our knowledge of science is derived , and it is from that knowledge that all the arts have originated.
- Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something that his eye is endowed with the power of beholding , to an incomprehensible distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space?
- Learning does not consist, as the schools now make it consist, in the knowledge of languages, but in the knowledge of things to which language gives names. It is the knowledge of the things that science and philosophy teach, that learning consists.
- If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, it would make no part of theiral duty of man to oppose and remove them.
- It is then that the truth , though otherwise indifferent itself, becomes an essential, by becoming the Criterion, that either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies by contradictory evidence, the reality of religion.
- Any person , who has made observations on the state and progress of the human mind , by observing his own, must have observed, that there are two distinct classes of thoughts;those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those that bolt into our minds of their own Accord.
- A practical imitation of the moral goodness of God , is no other than our acting towards each other as he acts benignly towards all.
- The only idea we can have of serving God, is that of contributing to the happiness of the living creation that God has made.
- As we don't know the extent to which either nature or art can go, there is no criterion to determine what a miracle is.
- The success of one imposter gave encouragement to another, and the quieting salvo of doing some good by keeping a pious fraud protected them from remorse.
- The idea or belief of a word of God existing in print , or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent.
- The creation we behold is the real and ever existing word of God, in qhich we cannot. E deceived. It proclaims his power, it demonstrates his wisdom , it manifests his goodneaa and beneficence.
- The moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodnes and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards wll creatures.
- It is not because right principles have been violated , that they are to be abandoned.
- Though the moral is in general just, the fable is often cruel;and the cruelty of the fable does more injury to the heart, especially in a child, than the moral does good to the judgement.
- No regard has been paid to time, place, and circumstance:and the names of persons have been affixed to the several books , which it was as impossible they should write, as that a man should walk in procession at his own funeral.
- It is imposible to derive happiness from the company of those whom we deprive of happiness.
'The idea or belief of a word of God existing in print , or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent. '
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