Can it be made a Question, which to chufe?

You yourself have acknowledged, that you are fallible and may err. Let me then earnestly exhort you, feriously to confider, how dreadfull muft your Condition be, if you fhould find yourself mistaken at last. Confider how many great and wife Men have been of the different Opinion, Laymen as well as Clergy, who in all Appearance firmly believed the Doctrines as well as practifed the Precepts of Christianity.

Why should

you then be fo vain and conceited, and fo very pofitive on the wrong Side, where the Question is of fuch infinite Concern to your everlafting Welfare?

Why should you be fo tenacious of Opinions which can do you no Good, but may be to your eternal Prejudice?

Ought you not to queftion your own Heart again and again, and to humble yourself before God, and beg his Grace and Heavenly Affiftance? For God giveth Grace to the Humble, but refifteth the Proud. And

4.

And still, if you cannot fatisfy yourself, but fome Doubts and Scruples will be lurking in your Mind; Mind; fhould you not take heed that -you do not aggravate your ownGuilt, by drawing many others into eternal Deftruction after you?

... You should endeavour to set yourself right, by Difcourfe or private Epiftolary Correfpondence with the moft learned, fober, and ju dicious of your Friends; and not publish your Notions, and throw all your Cavils and Scruples in the Way of every fuperficial Reader, who may chance to meet with 'your Books.

In

many of our common Affairs, a Miftake may be a Matter of no Confequence, aTrifle; but in this Cafe it is not fo: Here a Mistake is of the most dangerous and fatal Confequence; to a private Perfon it is worse than the Lofs of Eftate, or even of Life; to the Publick, it is worse than setting our Houses or our Cities on fire.

Remember,

Remember, Sir, what you have said, viz. That "As you apprehend it to be the proper Bufinefs of the Understanding, to be chiefly employed in the great Affairs of Religion,

cc.

because this is the only rational Means of obtaining the fole End of Being, viz. Happinefs; fo in your Exercifes of this Kind you "have deemed it your Duty to endeavour to acquire, and therefore have paid a steady Regard to, Truth."

m

Now if this Declaration be fincere, as I am willing to hope it is, then I would reccmmend it to your Confideration, and earnestly perfuade you to examine yourself over again, and that very strictly, whether you don't fet yourself to read the Works of those who have written in Defence of Chriftianity, with strong Prejudices, with a Mind as it were bar'd against all Approaches of Conviction, and with a ftrong Bias and Difpofition to pick out every thing that you can cavil at.

Laftly, As in your Conclufion you fay, That "You acknowledge yourself to diffent from the current and generally received Opi"nions of the Times, and from the Tenets you “were educated in, and have fhewn the Grounds cc upon which you have acted in fo doing; yet, notwithstanding, if your Friend or any judicious Chriftian can, and will be pleased,· "in the Spirit of Meekness, to fhew you

other

that

hereby you have departed from the Principles › of Reafon, Truth and Soberness; you affure your Friend, that you are fully determined, "like the ever memorable Mr. CHILLING WORTH, to take the Shame of another Change.""

Now thofe Grounds, upon which you fay you have acted, being (I hope) fufficiently fhewn to be no good Foundation for your Diffent: And I think I have not tranfgreffed against the Spirit of Meekness [if I have, I am forry for it] in fhewing you, that you have departed from the Principles of Reason,

• P. 99

Truth

Truth and Sobernefs: I hope when you have confidered these Points attentively and coolly over again, you will then, as you have promised, make another Change; which I apprehend will not be to your Shame, but very much to your Honour and Reputation in this World, and your everlasting Glory in the World to come: Which shall be the Prayer of,

SIR,

Sept.25.1746.

Your Sincere Well-wisher,

A Christian Philofopher.