A mean between the two
extremes still remains to be taken.
* * * * *
Party men always hate a slightly differing friend more than a downright
enemy. I quite calculate on my being one day or other holden in worse
repute by many Christians than the Unitarians and open infidels. It must be
undergone by every one who loves the truth for its own sake beyond all
other things.
* * * * *
Truth is a good dog; but beware of barking too close to the heels of an
error, lest you get your brains kicked out.
_June_ 10. 1830.
SOUTHEY'S LIFE OF BUNYAN.--LAUD.--PURITANS AND CAVALIERS.--PRESBYTERIANS,
INDEPENDENTS, AND BISHOPS.
Southey's Life of Bunyan is beautiful. I wish he had illustrated that mood
of mind which exaggerates, and still more, mistakes, the inward
depravation, as in Bunyan, Nelson, and others, by extracts from Baxter's
Life of himself. What genuine superstition is exemplified in that bandying
of texts and half texts, and demi-semi-texts, just as memory happened to
suggest them, or chance brought them before Bunyan's mind! His tract,
entitled, "Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners"[1] is a study for a
philosopher.
[Footnote 1:
"Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners, in a faithful Account of the Life
and Death of John Bunyan, &c.
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