Are exercises of mind, which end so diversely, one and all pleasing to
the Divine Author of faith; or rather must they not contain some
inherent or some incidental defect, since they manifest such divergence?
Must private judgment in all cases be a good _per se_; or is it a good
under circumstances, and with limitations? Or is it a good, only when it
is not an evil? Or is it a good and evil at once, a good involving an
evil? Or is it an absolute and simple evil? Questions of this sort rise
in the mind on contemplating a principle which leads to more than the
thirty-two points of the compass, and, in consequence, whatever we may
here be able to do, in the way of giving plain rules for its exercise,
be it greater or less, will be so much gain.
1.
Now the first remark which occurs is an obvious one, and, we suppose,
will be suffered to pass without much opposition, that whatever be the
intrinsic merits of Private Judgment, yet, if it at all exerts itself in
the direction of proselytism and conversion, a certain _onus probandi_
lies upon it, and it must show cause why it should be tolerated, and
not rather treated as a breach of the peace, and silenced _instanter_ as
a mere disturber of the existing constitution of things.
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