Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
The law of Mahomet claimed to be a revelation from Heaven, and though, in accordance with its pretensions, it demanded faith, yet, as it presented no rational grounds of conviction, its policy was to intimidate or bribe the understanding, according as fear, prejudice, or lust was the predominant principle of action.
Where it could not extort a blind credulity, it made the passions the vehicles of its doctrines—the timid it frightened to submission, the profligate it allured to acquiescence, and the heretic and skeptic it wheedled and cajoled by a partial patronage of their errors. Exclusively a system of authority, it gave no scope to discussion. Its great argument was the word of its Prophet, its decisive sanction the sword of its soldiers, and its strongest attractions, the licence it gave to voluptuous indulgences. Paganism wore the “face of error, and Mohammedanism of imposture.” [Lord Bacon] ...
For more, see James Henley Thornwell on Islam and reason.
Where it could not extort a blind credulity, it made the passions the vehicles of its doctrines—the timid it frightened to submission, the profligate it allured to acquiescence, and the heretic and skeptic it wheedled and cajoled by a partial patronage of their errors. Exclusively a system of authority, it gave no scope to discussion. Its great argument was the word of its Prophet, its decisive sanction the sword of its soldiers, and its strongest attractions, the licence it gave to voluptuous indulgences. Paganism wore the “face of error, and Mohammedanism of imposture.” [Lord Bacon] ...
For more, see James Henley Thornwell on Islam and reason.
