well being of individuals and fociety, but is alfo the brightest ornament of human reafon.

2dly. CONSIDER, that it is not a sufficient proof of the falfhood and impofture of any religion, either that it is the publick religion of our country, or that we have received it from our ancestors; or that it has been taught us by priefts and nurses; or that fome hypocrites and wicked men profefs it; or that many who pretend to wit and reafon difbelieve it, and hold it in contempt. All these things may happen to a religion, and yet at the same time it may be very true and excellent. The marks of truth or falfhood in any religion, are not to be fought for merely from the opinions of men, or from the univerfality of its reception, or the contrary; but from its nature, fpirit, design and tendency, and the external evidences which accompany it.

3dly. CONSIDER that although your having received the Chriftian religion from your anceftors, its being the publick religion of your country, and your having been baptized into it, are not in themselves fufficient reasons why you should not reject it, upon a full and rational conviction of its falfhood; yet they are reasons why you should not wantonly reject it, without fuch a conviction. There is certainly fuch a respect due to the memory of our forefathers, to the publick faith of our country, and to the vows of our baptifm, as fhould make us cautious of publickly renouncing our Chriftian faith, without very folid and substantial reasons for fuch a conduct. In my opinion, a rational and valid plea for infidelity in a Chriftian country; can be founded in nothing lefs, than a firm

perswasion

perfwafion of the falsehood of Christianity, and that upon a thorough and impartial examination of its evidences. A man who would renounce the religion of his forefathers and of his country, although a falfe one, upon any other ground than this, would certainly act against reason, and therefore could never justify his own conduct. Be therefore perfwaded,

4thly. THAT you can never answer it at the bar of your own reafon and confcience, to renounce the Chriftian religion into which you have been baptized, without a previous, due and impartial examination of the validity of its evidences and pretenfions. In order to confirm you in this perfwafion, confider that if the Christian religion should happen to be true and divine, your guilt in renouncing it will be unfpeakably great, and your cafe inexpreffibly deplorable. He that believeth not, fays the founder of Christianity, shall be damned. If our gofpel be hid, fays one of his apoftles, it is hid to them that are loft. They who deny the Lord that brought them, fays another, bring upon themselves fwift deftruction. On the fuppofition, therefore, that the Chriftian religion is divine, this damnation, this deftruction, and this perdition must belong, in a peculiar manner, to those who, although they live in Christian countries, either through floth, will not enquire into the validity of its pretenfions, or through prejudice, but their eyes against the evidences of its divine original. As therefore, in rejecting Christianity, you run the hazard of incurring the higheft difpleasure of GOD, if it fhould prove to be from him; this fhould reasonably engage you to the most ftrict and impartial examination

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examination of its evidence, before you can

venture to reject it. This examination ought therefore to be made with the utmost solicitude to know the truth, and with all that care and folemnity of spirit, which the importance of the matter requires. If it has been made in early youth, without obtaining the defired fatisfaction, a decifive judgment fhould be fufpended for a time, and the inquiry should be carefully renewed, at an age when the powers of the mind have arrived to a greater degree of ftrength and maturity; and no help or affistance fhould be neglected, where a matter of fo great importance, as the choice of our religion, is depending.

IT is a juft and folid maxim, that no man fhould be condemned before he is heard. You will therefore be wholly inexcufable, if you pafs fentence against Christianity before you give an attentive and impartial hearing to its friends and advocates as well as to its enemies. To put you upon your guard in this matter, the following directions and remarks may be of fome ufe.

ift. IF you muft needs have your clofet furnifhed with the writings of a Collins, Tindal, Morgan, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, D'Argens, &c. be fure you confront them with a Grotius, Stilling fleet, Sherlock, Leland, Lardner, Fofter, Sykes, Fortin, &c. and be fure that you read these two kinds of authors with the fame unbiaffed view, namely, to discover truth. Christianity demands, it requires no more than a fair and unprejudiced hearing. Ufe the antidote together with the poifon, and there is little danger of its proving mortal. Believe, at least, that

the

the Christian apologists may be as honeft men as their deistical opponents, and this will help you to read their apologies without prejudice or prepoffeffion; which is the only temper of mind in which you can hope to discover on which fide the truth lies.

2. THE deifts will not permit you to take the doctrines of Mofes and the prophets, or of Chrift and his apoftles, upon the authority of their authors; they are calling you every moment to try the credibility of facred hiftory, and the fpirit and tendency of fcripture doctrines and precepts by the touchstone of reafon. They profefs to treat the facred records with no other kind of refpect than what is due to their intrinfic merit. Let this be a caution to you, to treat their own writings with the fame degree of freedom and feverity. Let not the title of a nobleman, a philofopher, or a minister of ftate warp your judgment, or bias you in favour of the arguments of the writer. Suffer not your understanding to be dazzled, or your judgment to be feduced by a flash of wit, or by a flow of rhetorical language, and well turned periods. Strip the arguments of infidels of their flowery ornaments, and try their weight and folidity in the fcales of cool and deliberate reafon. Try alfo the spirit and temper of thefe writers. They are perpetually complaining of the want of temper and charity in Chriftians, both towards each other, and those who differ from them. Would to GOD there were less juftice in this charge; but with how bad a grace does it come from the mouths or pens of the deifts, the general ftrain of whole writings confifts in ridicule, farcafm, VOL. I.

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and

and even the loweft fpecies of fcurrility, not only against the priests, but even the doctrines and myfteries of a religion, which has been long held facred and refpectable by the wifest and beft of men? And judge from that spirit of rancour and malevolence which characterizes by much the greatest number of the deiftical writers, whether these are the men with whom we are likely to be fet right in our moral and religious opinions. I will not fay indeed that grofs fuperftitious and glaring abfurdities in religion, are not proper objects of fatire and ridicule; but when a man has a fincere intention of setting the world right in a matter of such importance as religion, methinks he should first feriously attempt to convince them that they are fools, before he takes the liberty publicly to laugh at their folly. Publicly to ridicule a religion which is had in high and general esteem is unmannerly: But, together with ridicule, to employ fcurrility and rancour against fo refpectable a body as the Chriftian world, betrays great badness of heart, and is wholly inconfiftent with the true fpirit of philofophy. Ex pede Herculem; by their fruits therefore ye may know them; and the nature of their cause may be, in fome meafure, judged by the arts with which they generally endeavour to manage and fupport it. Again,

CAREFULLY examine and confider the fcope and tendency of the deiftical writings. Judge for yourfelves, but do it impartially, whether the general tendency of them be not to unfettle mens minds in moral and religious principles of every kind. They indeed pretend to have a great veneration for natural religion, and for

the.