Bolingbroke, Voltaire, Lessing,
Kant, De Maistre, and all the representatives of skeptical thought
communed in friendly society, regardless alike of disparity in
particular opinions and of difference in the time when they flourished.
On this very account M. Quinet infers the great popularity of the
enterprise. Because it was a grouping of all heterodox doctrines of the
person of Christ, the adherents of Rationalism saw whither their
principles were leading them, and their opponents learned more of the
desperate character of their foe than they had ever acquired from all
other sources. It was a crystallization of the imputations and insults
cast upon the gospels for more than seventy-five years. Then, for the
first time, did the votaries of error, mass themselves. It was then,
too, that the evangelical school were first able to count the number of
their opponents.
The scene before the publication of the _Life of Jesus_ was quite
different from the one presented subsequently. Formerly the Rationalists
said what they chose about Christ, and they suffered little from their
rashness.
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