The Works of John Locke, in Nine Volumes (Volume 6); In Nine Volumes - Softcover

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1824. Excerpt: ... A SECOND VINDICATION OF THE REASONABLENESS OF CHRISTIANITY, &c. A Cause that stands in need of falsehoods to support it, and an adversary that will make use of them, deserve nothing but contempt; which I doubt not but every considerate reader thought answer enough to "Mr. Edwards's Socinianism unmasked." But, since, in his late "Socinian creed," he says, "I would have "answered him if I could," that the interest of christianity may not suffer by my silence, nor the contemptibleness of his treatise afford him matter of triumph among those who lay any weight on such boasting, it is fit it should be shown what an arguer he is, and how well he deserves, for his performance, to be dubbed, by himself, "irrefragable." Those who, like Mr. Edwards, dare to publish inventions of their own, for matters of fact, deserve a name so abhorred, that it finds not room in civil conversation. This secures him from the proper answer, due to his imputations to me, in print, of matters of fact utterly false, which, without any reply of mine, fix upon him that name (which, without a profligate mind, a man cannot expose himself to) till he hath proved them. Till then, he must wear what he has put upon himself. This being a rule, which common justice hath prescribed to the private judgments of mankind, as well as to the public judicature of courts, that all allegations of facts, brought by contending parties, should be presumed to be false, till they are proved. There are two ways of making a book unanswerable. The one is by the clearness, strength, and fairness of the argumentation. Men who know how to write thus, are above bragging what they have done, or boasting to the world that their adversaries are baffled. Another way to make a book unanswerable, is to lay a stress on matters of fact foreign to the q...