previous next
[236] of his diligent and habitual study. He valued no society more highly than that of those learned men with whom he could enter fully into the interesting and important questions which arose in pursuing the studies to which they were alike attached; and when, as was frequently the case, one or more such men as Hunt, or Lardner, or Chandler, or Benson, were among his visitors—men who would have been an ornament to any church, both for their learning and for the other graces which we desire to see united in divines and ministers of Christ—it was their custom to discuss such topics with that openness and freedom which is the peculiar privilege of enlightened and well-instructed minds, untrammelled by the arbitrary restrictions of any human authority, and free to follow the light of truth into whatever path it appeared to lead.

They had also the occasional company at these learned conferences of one of the most remarkable of the freethinkers of that period, Mr. Anthony Collins, who was a neighbour of Lord Barrington's in Essex, and a frequent visitor at his house. In one of their conversations, Mr. Collins is said to have observed, that he had a very great respect for the memory of St. Paul; and added, ‘I think so well of him, who was both a man of sense and a gentleman, that if he had asserted he had worked miracles himself, I would have believed him.’ Lord Barrington immediately produced a passage in which that Apostle asserts his having wrought miracles; (perhaps 1 Cor. XIV. 18;) Mr. Collins appeared somewhat disconcerted, and soon after took his hat and quitted the company. When Lord B. in another conversation, asked Mr. Collins

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Essex (United Kingdom) (1)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Anthony Collins (4)
Nathniel Lardner (1)
Jeremiah Hunt (1)
Jesus Christ (1)
Samuel Chandler (1)
George Benson (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: