We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed
with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see
it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned.
They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have
interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible
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Physician. Witness how they have entangled all
men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices.
They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have
they any knowledge of the remedy. They have conceived
the straight to be crooked, and have imagined their friend
an enemy.