them like God; lovers of all; contented in their lives; and crying out at their death, in calm assurance, "O grave, where is thy victory! Thanks be unto God, who giveth me the victory, through my Lord Jesus Christ."

20. Will you object to such a religion as this; that it is not reasonable? Is it not reasonable then to love God? Hath he not given you life, and breath, and all things? Does he not still continue his love to you, filling your heart with food and gladness? What have you which you have not received of him? And does not love demand a return of love? Whether, therefore, you do love God or not, you cannot but own it is reasonable so to do; nay, seeing he is the Parent of all good, to love him with all your heart.

21. Is it not reasonable also to love our neighbour? Every man whom God hath made? Are we not brethren? The children of one Father? Ought we not then to love one another? And, should we only love them that love us? Is that acting like our Father which is in heaven? He causeth his sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. And can there be a more equitable rule of our love, than “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself?" You will plead for the reasonableness of this; as also for that golden rule, (the only adequate measure of brotherly love, in all our words and actions,) "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do unto them.”

Is it not reasonable then, that "as we have opportunity, we should do good to all men?" Not only friends, but enemies, not only to the deserving, but likewise to the evil and unthankful. Is it not right that all our life should be one continued labour of love? If a day passes without doing good, may one not well say, with Titus, *Amici, diem perdidi! And is it enough, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit those who are sick or in prison? Should we have no pity for those

"Who sigh beneath guilt's horrid stain,

The worst confinement, and the heaviest chain ?”

* My friends, I have lost a day!

Should we shut up our compassion toward those who are of all men most miserable, because they are miserable by their own fault? If we have found a medicine to heal even that sickness, should we not, as we have freely received it, freely give? Should we not pluck them as brands out of the fire? The fire of lust, anger, malice, revenge? Your inmost soul answers, It should be done; it is reasonable in the highest degree. Well, this is the sum of our preaching, and of our lives, our enemies themselves being the judges. If therefore you allow, that it is reasonable to love God, to love mankind, and to do good to all men, you cannot but allow, that religion which we preach and live, to be agreeable to the highest reason.

23. Perhaps "all this you can bear. It is tolerable enough and if we spoke only of being saved by love, you should have no great objection: but you do not comprehend what we say of being saved by faith." I know you do not. You do not in any degree comprehend what we mean by that expression; have patience then, and I will tell you yet again. By those words, we are saved by faith, we mean, that the moment a man receives that faith which is above described, he is saved from doubt and fear, and sorrow of heart, by a peace that passes all understanding; from the heaviness of a wounded spirit, by joy unspeakable; and from his sins, of whatsoever kind they were; from his vicious desires, as well as words and actions, by the love of God and of all mankind, then shed abroad in his heart.

24. We grant nothing is more unreasonable, than to imagine that such mighty effects as these can be wrought by that poor, empty, insignificant thing which the world calls faith. But supposing there be such a faith on the earth, as that which the apostle speaks of, such an intercourse between God and the soul, what is too hard for such a faith? You may easily conceive, that "all things are possible to him that thus believeth:" to him that thus walks with God, that is now a citizen of heaven, an inhabitant of eternity. If therefore you will contend

with us, you must change the ground of your attack. You must flatly deny, there is any faith upon earth: but perhaps this you might think too large a step. You cannot do this, without a secret condemnation in your own breast. O that you would at length cry to God for that heavenly gift! whereby alone this truly reasonable religion, this beneficent love of God and man can be planted in your heart.

25. If you say, "But those that profess this faith, are the most unreasonable of all men;" I ask, "Who are those that profess this faith?" Perhaps you do not personally know such a man in the world. Who are they that so much as profess to have this evidence of things not seen? That profess to see him that is invisible? To hear the voice of God, and to have his Spirit ever "witnessing with their spirits, that they are the children of God?" I fear you will find few that even profess this faith, among the large numbers of those who are called believers.

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26. However, there are enow that profess themselves Christians." Yea, too many, God knoweth; too many that confute their vain professions, by the whole tenor of their lives. I will allow all you can say on this head, and perhaps more than all. It is now some years since I was engaged unawares in a conversation with a strong reasoner, who at first urged the wickedness of the American Indians, as a bar to our hope of converting them to Christianity. But when I mentioned their temperance, justice, and veracity, (according to the accounts I had then received,) it was asked, '' Why, if those heathens are such men as these, what will they gain by being made Christians? What would they gain by being such Christians as we see every where round about us?" I could not deny, they would lose, not gain, by such a Christianity as this. Upon which she added, "Why, what else do you mean by Christianity?" My plain answer was, What do you apprehend to be more valuable than good sense, good nature, and good manners? All these are contained, and that in the highest degree, in what I mean by Christianity. Good sense (so called) is

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but a poor, dim shadow of what Christians call faith. Good nature is only a faint, distant resemblance of Christian charity. And good manners, if of the most finished kind that nature assisted by art can attain to, is but a dead picture of that holiness of conversation, which is the image of God visibly expressed. All these put together by the art of God, I call Christianity. "Sir, if this be Christianity, (said my opponent in amaze,) I never saw a Christian in my life."

27. Perhaps, the case is the same with you. If so, I am grieved for you, and can only wish, till you do see a living proof of this, that you would hot say, see a Christian. For this is scriptural Christianity, and this alone. Whenever therefore you see an unreasonable man, you see one who perhaps calls himself by that name, but is no more a Christian than he is an angel. So far as he departs from true, genuine reason, so far he departs from Christianity. Do not say, this is only asserted, not proved. It is undeniably proved by the original charter of Christianity. We appeal to this, to the written word. If any man's temper, or words, or actions, are contradictory to right reason; it is evident to a demonstration, they are contradictory to this. Produce any possible or conceivable instance, and you will find the fact is so. The lives, therefore, of those who are called Christians, is no just objection to Christianity.

28. We join with you then in desiring a religion founded on reason, and every way agreeable thereto. But one question still remains to be asked, What do you mean by Reason? I suppose you mean the eternal reason, or, the nature of things: the nature of God and the nature of man, with the relations necessarily subsisting between them. Why, this is the very religion we preach: a religion evidently founded on, and every way agreeable to eternal reason, to the essential nature of things. Its foundation stands on the nature of God and the nature of man, together with their mutual relations. And it is every way suitable thereto: to the nature of God; for it begins in knowing him, and where, but in the true knowledge of God, can

you conceive true religion to begin? It goes on in loving him and all mankind, (for you cannot but imitate whom you love :) It ends in serving him; in doing his will; in obeying him whom we know and love.

29. It is every way suited to the nature of man: for it begins in man's knowing himself; knowing himself to be what he really is, foolish, vicious, miserable. It goes on to point out the remedy for this, to make him, truly wise; virtuous, and happy; as every thinking mind (perhaps from some implicit remembrance of what it originally was) longs to be.

It finishes all, by restoring the due relations between God and man; by uniting for ever the tender Father, and the grateful, obedient son; the great Lord of all, and the faithful servant, doing not his own will, but the will of him that sent him.

30. But perhaps by reason you mean, the faculty of reasoning, of inferring one thing from another. There are many, it is confessed, (particularly those who are styled Mystic Divines,) that utterly decry the use of reason, thus understood, in religion: nay, that condemn all reasoning concerning the things of God, as utterly destructive of true religion. But we can in no wise agree with this. We find no authority for it in holy writ. So far from it, that we find there both our Lord and his Apostles continually reasoning with their opposers. Neither do we know, in all the productions of ancient and modern times, such a chain of reasoning or argumentation, so close, so solid, so regularly connected, as the Epistle to the Hebrews. And the strongest reasoner whom we have ever observed (excepting only Jesus of Nazareth) was that Paul of Tarsus; the same who has left that plain direction for all Christians, “In malice,” or wickedness, "be ye children; but in understanding," or reason, "be ye men.

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31. We therefore not only allow, but earnestly exhort all who seek after true religion, to use all the reason which God hath given them, in searching out the things of God.