Either simply and officiously, or insidiously, some individuals are fond of pushing forward this sentiment, as if it were a discovery, or denied. It is far from either. With every charity to such names as the familiar ones of Pascal, Fénélon, Flechier, and others, be it known, that they were all distinguished, not only by bigoted intolerance against presumed heretics, but by mutual condemnations, and by the condemnation of what was good in them by their own Church, which is thus quit of all the benefit which she might derive, and is perversely made to derive, from their Christian excellence, for which they were indebted, not to their Church, but to that unextinguished Christianity, which their Church denounced and persecuted, and does so still. All the three who are named were respective persecutors, bigots, and enemies to the free circulation of the Scriptures: and they were all material idolaters. We believe, however, that a God of mercy regards circumstances; and that offences in the midst of darkness, and offences in the midst of light, will be visited by him in a very different manner.
Every sincere and feeling Christian catches with eagerness at the supposition of so happy an inconsistency as that presented in the instances just produced. He cannot but detest fundamental error and corruption introduced into, and, as far as it prevails, poisoning, the religion which is all his hope,
