"We may now proceed to take notice of the capital absurdity of the popular doctrine. It leads us to read the New Testament backwards. It sets before us the several effects or fruits of faith, or rather certain operations of its own, under the sacred names of these effects; and then prompts us to work our way to faith, by first attaining or feeling these effects. Hence it is, that we have so many treatises describing to us the previous steps necessary to be taken in order to conversion. Long and dreary indeed is the path which they prescribe to us. So that, while men continue obsequious hearers of this doctrine, they may indeed be ever learning, but they shall never be able to come to the knowledge of the truth. - The writers of these treatises do, in one respect, often resemble the writers of romances. The latter, when, after various difficulties, they have at length got the hero and his damsel married; have generally little more entertainment to give us. The former exhaust their genius in leading the serious soul to the wished for period of what they call conversion, and after that they give us little more than insipid repetition.
The matter stood quite otherwise with the apostles and their converts. The apostles, in their first addresses to men, declared the saving truth. Some believed, others contradicted and blasphemed." - Robert Sandeman, Letters on Theron and Aspasio
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