Weak minds, he said, would be "ever
learning, and never coming to the knowledge of the truth," and the best
disposed would be most apt to fall into error from extreme solicitude to
be right. The differences between Christians chiefly consist in
mysterious or speculative points; hence the perpetual controversies of
those who were struggling to enlarge their communities, would divert the
attention of mankind from moral duties. Every preacher would become, as
it were, a religious prize-fighter, drawing round him an auditory as a
means of subsistence, instead of instructing a congregation in their
duty to God. So there would be endless dispute, nice sifting of abstract
ideas, and censorious inquisitiveness into the spiritual state of our
neighbours, but little humility, charity, or true piety; which consist
in grateful adoration of, and sincere obedience to our Creator,
Redeemer, and Sanctifier, and not in speculations on the
incomprehensible nature and unfathomable purposes of God. From such
unedifying pursuits our church, in her articles, dissuades even her
riper members; how much more then must she, in her elementary
instructions, avoid exciting a taste for them in the tender minds of her
catechumens.
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