These are very
different from _clergymen_, who are set apart to the care of sacred
matters, and the conducting our public devotions with greater decency
and order. There is no rank of men more to be respected than the
latter."--(III. p. 83.)
[29] It is needless to quote the rest of the passage, though I cannot
refrain from observing that the recommendation which it contains, that a
"man of letters" should become a philosophical sceptic as "the first and
most essential step towards being a sound believing Christian," though
adopted and largely acted upon by many a champion of orthodoxy in these
days, is questionable in taste, if it be meant as a jest, and more than
questionable in morality, if it is to be taken in earnest. To pretend
that you believe any doctrine for no better reason than that you doubt
everything else, would be dishonest, if it were not preposterous.
[30] A perplexity which is increased rather than diminished by some
passages in a letter to Gilbert Elliot of Minto (March 10, 1751). Hume
says, "You would perceive by the sample I have given you that I make
Cleanthes the hero of the dialogue; whatever you can think of, to
strengthen that side of the argument, will be most acceptable to me. Any
propensity you imagine I have to the other side crept in upon me against
my will; and 'tis not long ago that I burned an old manuscript book,
wrote before I was twenty, which contained, page after page, the gradual
progress of my thoughts on this head.
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