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you acknowledge it as well as I) that if God judge the World at all, he will judge it in Righteoufnefs, whether he judge by himself or a Substitute.

Very well then; I am safe, if God judge the World in Righteousness: And if he had never revealed his Will to Mankind, but left all of us to follow the Light of our Reason as well as we can, he will not condemn me for following the Traditions of the Fathers, nor be angry with me, because Reason fhines not fo bright in me as it does in you: I can not imagine, that God will be displeased with me for being a Chriftian, and worshipping the God of my Fathers, after the Manner I have been taught from my Youth up.

Our Faith then in Jefus Chrift can be no Obftruction to our future Happiness; it will be at least a pardonable Error, for I think no Deift ever yet pretended, that the Belief of Christianity would be an Impediment to any Man's Salvation.

But

But if there be Truth in the Gofpel, what may then be the Confequence of your Mistake?

your

Ought not this Confideration to take off fomething from Confidence? Ought you not seriously to confider the Danger to your everlasting Happiness?

If the Point was really doubtfull, and the Truth of the Chriftian Religion not fo clearly proved as you may think it should be, might not this Conclufion be as reasonably drawn, as most of the Confequences in your Book? viz. That (as many fenfible Men have thought) God is well pleased with every National Religion, which he permits to be profeffed in all Parts of the World; and then confequently, it must be an unjust and immoral Proceeding, for any private Perfons to disturb the Community with their Speculations and Opinions. For you will have to answer not only for your own Errors, but for drawing a Multitude after you to do Evil, by publishing your Books: How many weak the otherwise well-meaning Perfons may be made unhappy by your Means?

And

And if you hould hereafter be convinced (as many Men, who have been as confident as you can be, while they were in Health and Profperity, have in the Time of Sickness or Affliction alter'd their Minds, and began to cry Lord, Lord, if you, I fay, fhould hereafter be convinced) of your Errors, and defire to recant, will your Recantation reach to all the Perfons who may have been tainted with the Poison of thofe Errors? It will therefore be very difficult, if not impoffible, for you to make a full Atonement for all the Mischief you are now doing.

But you may perhaps be able for the prefent to filence all Doubting and Distrust, and fatisfy yourself with a fteady Affurance, that you are and must be in the right, and can be in no danger of being mistaken. Strange Affurance! when we daily experience fo much of the Infirmity of our Nature, and when every Man can fee clearly that other Men are obftinate and pofitive in the groffest Errors, and yet that any, who pretend to Reason, should be fo very confident in their own Opinions.

You

You that deny all Revelation can have no fupernatural Affistance to prove against Christianity. Can you demonftrate, that it was impoffible for God to beget a Son? Or can you prove that God could not reveal his Will to Mankind, if it so pleased him?

No but, you will fay, it does not follow that because God can, therefore he has reveal'd himself.

And then we fay, it is no juft Conclufion, that because God may chufe whether he will reveal himself or not, therefore he has not done it.

We, by the Use of our Reason, are fatisfy'd with the Evidences which prove the Truth of the Sacred Writings: And we think we have as good Reafon to believe the Gofpel, as you can poffibly pretend to for rejecting it. So that the utmost you can rationally pretend to, is to be doubtfull in the Matter: And the Danger of obftinately rejecting the true Faith, we apprehend to be infinitely greater, than that

of

of embracing a mistaken Faith, if it were fo;

especially if every one of us were left to follow our own Natural Reafon.

Let us fuppofe then, for a little while, that you may be in the right, and we in the wrong, what Advantage would it be to us, to be set right your Way? What Good would it do us, in this World, or the World to come? None at all: But it would rob us of all our pleasing Hopes and Expectations of future Blifs; and leave us nothing in the room of it but Perplexity and Doubting. Truely a very bad Exchange!

But if we fuppofe (which we think not only the more rational Supposition, but an absolute Certainty) that we are in the right and you in the wrong; then to convince you, and draw you from your dangerous Errors, would be rescuing you from eternal Destruction and Mifery, and recovering you into the Way of everlasting Happiness and Glory.

The Difference is prodigious: No Danger at all on one side; and Danger Infinite, Immenfe, on the other.

Can

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