The Princeton Review, Vol. 12

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Excerpt from The Princeton Review, Vol. 12: October, 1840Professed for twenty years without believing them. In the fourth place, he will try to throw the blame of his apparent insincerity, not on himself, but on the creed, which he was so deluded as to think that he believed. So when men grow weary of the restraints of civilized society, the fault is always in society itself, and not in those who leave it. When chil dren meddle with edged tools and cut their fingers, the fault is always in the naughty knife. In the fifth place, when he has renounced and denounced his old connexions, uneasiness of conscience, with or without a love of notoriety, will gene rally lead him' to announce and vindicate the change in print, although, in his simplicity, he may believe that, in so doing, he is-yielding to necessity, and silencing the clamours of an inquisitive and agitated public. In the sixth and last place, his abhorrence of alljudgments upon men's Opinions will be apt to make him think that all who differ from himself are sanguinary persecutors, and that his position, as the solitary member of his own true church, is equal in pathos and sab limity to that of an ancient martyr at the stake. Lf this is Dr. Wylie's case, we would not disturb him in his dream of sufi'ering for conscience sake. As to his doctrines - we beg pardon, his Opinions - the perusal of a large part of the pamphlet left us painfully convinced that he was virtually an infidel. This impression was removed by the explicit statement of his creed (p. Which however did not alter our belief, that he rejects the doctrines of the Trinity, Atone ment, and Regeneration. The pamphlet, notwithstanding its tone of defiance is by no means indicative of moral courage, for it betrays opinions which the author evidently shrinks from avowing. To those whose faith in the great doctrines of the Bible is already wavering, the sophistry and misrepresentations of the book will be highly dangerous, as tending to cut them off from the restraints and other salutary in¿uences of the church with which they are connected. But to those who are enlightened and well grounded in their doctrinal belief. The mere sectarianism of the pamphlet will be very harmless. The best preservative against infection is a thorough training in the system of true doctrine, and we trust that every outbreak of this nature will result in good, by inspiring all our pastors with new zeal and diligence in this good work. Having now said all of Dr. Wylie's book that we believe it to deserve, we beg leave to indulge a few re¿ections ofour own upon the general subject, without any.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.