Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/378

 to preserve. But this bears hard on human pride, and human pride is fruitful in resources. By picking out particular passages, and giving to them such explanation as may afford a basis for peculiar tenets, pride is gratified; and when it can thus form a party, and obtain distinction, the gratification is complete. Whether in religion or in politics, all the individuals who compose a party become, in their own minds, identified with the party they have espoused. Pride, in this way, operates without alarming the conscience; hence the zeal of methodists in making converts. Nor, when we preach against them in the same spirit, are we one whit better than they. It is not for the safety of our church establishments, nor for their honour, that we ought to sound the alarm, but for the integrity of the whole Gospel truths, which are torn and disfigured by being partially set forth, to the great danger of weak minds, the