Notes and Additions to Dr. [D.] Hartley's Observations on Man, Transl - Tapa blanda

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This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1801. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... the established systems of religion of whole nations, not weakened and disfigured by fables, not resting on doubtful traditions, but clad in their original purity, and supported by rational principles. The most specious objection that can be made to the orthodoxy of my idea of faith, and which has actually been made by an ingenious friend of mine, is taken from the opposition betwixt faith and the law, betwixt the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, which occurs in different parts of Sr. Paul's Epistles, and particularly Galatians iii. If faith, observed my friend, be a confidence in the judgment of a superior guide, under the law it must have applied eminently to the Israelites, who were led by Moses. How then can the law be opposed to faith, or the Mosaic dispensation to the Christian, as the principle of faith was equally necessary in both, and the Israelites were led by faith in Moses, as the Christie ans by faith in Christ? Before I proceed to explain the passage on which this objection is chiefly grounded, permit me to observe that it does not follow from the apostle's opposing them to each other, that faith and the law are totally discrepant, and exclude each other, and that faith could not possibly subsist under the law. This opposition the apostle took from the notions and opinions of the Jews, with whom he was disputing. They had made a distinction betwixt faith and the law; and it seems to me that St. Paul, in his dispute With them, took up his ground on their mistaken ideas, and not on the true nature of the case. For it is undeniable that obedience to the law, delivered from mount Sinai, was less founded on the proper knowledge of its followers, than was obedience to the precepts of the gospel. Still that faith, that filial confidence which the gosp...