Essays on the Characteristics

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C. Davis, 1751 - 134 pages
 

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Page 3 - Are many lesser Faculties that serve Reason as chief; among these Fancy next Her office holds ; of all external things, Which the five watchful Senses represent, She forms Imaginations, Aery shapes, Which Reason joining or disjoining, frames All what we affirm or what deny, and call Our knowledge or opinion; then retires Into her private Cell when Nature rests.
Page 317 - He is not so tied to the affairs of this life, nor is he obliged to enter into such engagements with this lower world, as are of no help to him in acquiring a better.
Page 233 - ... liberal, polished, and refined part of mankind ; so far are they from the mere simplicity of babes and sucklings, that, instead of applying the notion of a future reward or punishment to...
Page 99 - ... and harsh, the agreeable and disagreeable in the affections; and finds a foul and fair, a harmonious and a dissonant, as really and truly here as in any musical numbers or in the outward forms or representations of sensible things. Nor can it withhold its admiration and ecstasy, its aversion and scorn, any more in what relates to one than to the other of these subjects.
Page 345 - Goodnefs in the religious founder''. Whatever ambitious fpirit may infpire him; whatever favage zeal or perfecuting principle may lie in referve ready to difclofe itfelf when authority and power is once obtained; the firft...
Page 62 - There, doubtless, their strange voices and involuntary agitations are admirably well acted, by the motion of wires and inspiration of pipes. For the bodies of the prophets in their state of prophecy, being not in their own power but...
Page 324 - And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye ? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
Page 146 - Men have not been content," he says, " to show the natural advantages of honesty and virtue. They have rather lessened these, the better, as they thought, to advance another foundation. They have made virtue so mercenary a thing, and have talked so much of its rewards, that one can hardly tell what there is in it, after all, which can be worth rewarding. For to be bribed only or terrified into an honest practice, bespeaks little of real honesty or worth.
Page 62 - Fair is in possession of this privilege, I dare stand security to our national Church that no sect of enthusiasts, no new venders of prophecy or miracles, shall ever get the start or put her to the trouble of trying her strength with them, in any case.
Page 239 - ... such a one and, like new-born creatures who have never seen their dam, will fancy one for themselves and apply (as by nature prompted) to some like form for favour and protection.

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