room, I should have enlarged (what some may think least to the purpose) the first chapter of the Essay because I believe that one grand reason why many reject the New Testament, is because they are ignorant of its principles, and have taken up false ideas of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If the arrangement be perspicuous and easily remembered, it will answer the author's wish. The divisions may appear formal; but he thought they would render an Essay of this kind more distinct; and likewise that a person who would not venture on an undivided book, might be induced to read a short section, and from one be led on to another. As to language, his endeavor has been to render the ideas as plain and as obvious as he could, to minds unaccustomed to religious enquiries; and to comprise as much useful matter in as few words, as could be done without obscurity. Whether he has been able to render it interesting must be left to the judgment of others. A more adorned style might have been agreeable to many; but one man has his gift and taste in one way, and another in another.

Readers need to be reminded of this diversity of taste in composition; and that on account of it, all cannot possibly have their own gratified irany one performance. How differently do

men convey their ideas! We perceive a difference as to the matter, the form, the arrangement, the length and manner of illustration, the style and degree of decoration. Very many persons who read, but never wrote books, are not sufficiently considerate as to this point. They expect a greater conformity to their taste, than it is in the power, were it the inclination, of a writer to comply with; and if they do not find their own favorite mode of composition, they condemn the work. But a man might as well insist, that others should have the same contour of face, and eyes and hair of the same color with his own. It should be remembered, that every man has his manner; and if a person write a book, provided it be composed so as to answer the purpose in a suitable degree, impartial and candid readers should allow him to do it, and indeed should expect him to do it in his own manner; and they have no just reason to complain on this account.

It has been, as you will observe, my study to address deists, without bitterness and without contempt. I have made use of no harsh terms nor furious invectives, being convinced "that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God" but I have treated them fairly, as I wish them to treat the gospel and its advocates. A person who is conscious of truth on his side, is under no necessity of having recourse to

scurrility and abuse. Some writers on the subject have taken very high ground, and always speak of deists with the most sovereign contempt, and the most pointed virulence, as men destitute of the shadow of a pretence for their infidelity. One would imagine from their representations, that those who profess to be christians are all angels; and those who reject it are all devils. With respect to the fulness of evidence from the scriptures for the truth of christianity, we perfectly accord: but when we consider from what premises men frequently draw their conclusions, and form their judgment; and that they look at the effects of a religion more than at its principles, there is reason to lament that they have had so much to offer as an excuse for their unbelief. The superstitious worship of the church of Rome, combined with the absurdity of her peculiar tenets, and rendered more offensive by the impure or ambitious lives of many of the most dignified of her clergy, have proved a stumbling block to millions, and produced a rejection of the gospel. In protestant countries, though the creeds of the different churches be pure, have not deists had too much to alledge against the conduct of those who profess the christian religion, and still more against the worldly spirit (I speak it with grief) of too many of its ministers? What indecorous means are often publicly employed to obtain ecclesiastical pre

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ferments and when obtained, though presenting full employment for the utmost exertions of an individual; in every lounge of idleness, in every scene of amusement, in every haunt of pleasure, are they to be daily found. What influence may such conduct be expected to have on those who witness it, and especially on those who associate with them?" These men,” they will say, "know the gospel better than we but it is plain from their life and conversation, that they do not believe it: and why should we?" These excuses will not avail for their acquittal in the sight of God; but they should influence the defenders of christianity to treat them with less severity.

It may be said, they have treated christianity in the most shameful manner." True: but if their religion warrants them in such unbecoming dispositions of mind, let us act according to the tenor of ours, and defend the gospel in its own spirit. "The servant of the Lord, while he contends earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, in meeknes instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth." Many deists, considered as members of civil society, are respectable men: let them too as immortal creatures be treated with respect. Their situation

is dangerous beyond expression; let them be treated with the tenderest pity: they need it. Christianity loses nothing by being defended with her own weapons alone.

I am not at all astonished at the increase of infidelity but let it ever be remembered, the causes were not of yesterday. In France, after the persecution and banishment of the protestants with a thousand circumstances of worse than Robertspierrean cruelty, and the entire destruction of their public worship, there remained nothing but the vast mass of superstition, which covers the Romish church from head to foot. Such a figure may be worshipped among a grossly ignorant people, as in Austria, and Bavaria, and Portugal, and Spain; but knowledge was rapidly increasing in France; and men enlightened by science could not view the tricked up harlot, but with contempt and with disgust. As the New Testament was not a book in common use as here, they fell into the same mistake with their descendants, concerning whom an author who wrote not long ago at Paris, in her description of the literary deists, says, "It never entered into their mind to conceive that popery and christianity are two different things." Imagining what they saw was the very religion which Jesus and his apostles published to the world, they despised it, and they rejected it. After having seen