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my reafon in the fcriptures of revelation, I had committed my religious faith, not only to the keeping, but to the difpofal of others; I was wont to refolve every doubt by human authority, and was most reluctant to fuffer either others or myself to traverse thofe regions of liberty, which are discovered in the gofpel, and prefented to our view and contemplation; wherein reafon is the guide, and private judgment, uncontrouled, the fole arbiter of opinion.

THEOPHILUS. Your ready conviction, and generous avowal of it, do equal honour to your head and heart; and befpeak you to be all that I wish to fee you. Names are indifferent, except for the purpose of distinguishing the parties to whom they are given. That of " unitarian," however, continues to belong to me with the fame propriety as heretofore; but in accommodation to the present turn of our discourse, in confequence of the change in your mind, I have affumed the name of Theophilus, wishing to be approved no less the friend of God, than a believer in his unity, and a worshipper of him, in spirit and in truth.

Believe me, my friend, I am moft folicitous that mankind should inquire into the fcriptures, and judge for themselves; for in the maintenance and exercise of this liberty alone will they ever be able to arrive at the truth. Particular doctrines are of inferior confequence; but thefe will come nearer the truth, in proportion as men inquire and judge

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for themselves, and profefs their respective opinions with more charity for those who differ from them. All restraint upon that liberty, wherewith Chrift hath made us free, precludes the admiffion of that light and information which he came to reveal: free inquiry opens the only acceffible road to the true and faving knowledge of our bibles.

EUGENIUS. This doctrine I am now ready to admit in its full extent. I was convinced by you, at our last interview, and have fince availed myself of that examination of the fcriptures which fuch conviction prefumes, and ought to oblige us to pursue. Before that time, though I always read my bible with the highest reverence for its authority, and with that ferioufnefs which its importance deferves, I will frankly confefs that I read it under that cloud of prejudice, that gloomy diftrust of my own understanding, and that abject fubmiffion to the opinions of others, as to derive less information from its facred pages, than from many other books, although they were intended to make us wife unto falvation, and were written for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for inftruction in righteousness.

THEOPHILUS. As the doctrine of implicit faith in the judgment of other men, or in the decifions of councils and fynods, is the disgrace of the papal, fo it remains the ftill greater reproach of the proteftant church. It is, at once, the hot-bed and the nursery of error, Religion is a perfonal concern;

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and I cannot fufficiently applaud your difcernment and fpirit, fince you affume the denomination of a "proteftant," in making and maintaining that confiftent proteft against all authority of man in the great affairs of religion, which can alone juftify the reformation; and that in confequence thereof you are finally refolved to be directed by your own improved understanding and judgment.

EUGENIUS. I am not lefs fenfible of the fatisfaction which I derive from the exercife of the liberty I have affumed, than I am convinced of the right that appertains to every reasonable creature of God.

THEOPHILUS. The right which you have claimed, and which you have juftly reprefented as too valuable to be fuffered to lie dormant; or, rather, which you cannot permit to be vested in an empty affumption of your freedom to examine for yourself, without great criminality; has probably carried you fomewhat nearer to the verge of, what churchman may ftyle, "heretical pravity," than when we last parted.

EUGENIUS. I know not how to give a decifive answer to your question, and I wifh not to make. you an equivocal one. Thus far I have certainly advanced I have improved and extended my charitable fentiments of cthers, and have feen occafion to doubt of many things, which I had confidered as true, upon the venerable authority of the church. THEOPHILUS..

THEOPHILUS. The change of our fentiments upon particular points, naturally leads us to the extenfion of our charity; for when we find that the revolutions in our own minds require indulgence and forbearance, we are more readily difpofed to allow to others that liberty which we find fo effential to our own happiness. In the progreffion from error to truth, there are many gradations; and the advancement being infinite, who fhall fay to the other, "thus far fhalt thou proceed, and no farther."

EUGENIUS. I apprehend that you are now dif pofed to confider my confeffion, as evidence of a greater progress than I have really made. Excufe me; the very phrafe, "confeffion," is objectionable, and offenfive; and has no business in the church of Chrift, except in the qualified fenfe, you will here understand me to use it, in this our friendly converfation.

THEOPHILUS. You have, it feems, made fuch proficiency in the spirit of protestantism, as to find out that words, innocent in themselves, have been made the engines of much mischief in the chriftian world. But, all pleasantry apart, I may, I think, now inquire whether you have not been seriously offended, in the courfe of the free exercife of your own judgment in the ftudy of the fcriptures, at the dogmatical air with which most chriftian churches have decided upon matters of faith and doctrine;

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and whether, among thefe, it has never occurred to you that the church of England has partaken much of the fame fpirit, and shared largely in the fame practice; and thereby contributed, notwithstanding her protestant profeffions, to scandalize the purity of the gospel. EUGENIUS.

The conduct of the church of England, I do conceive to be reprehenfible in feveral refpects. Some of the doctrines fhe maintains, I confider as unfcriptural; and the impofition of them upon the confciences of her minifters, I think inconfiftent with the principles of the proteftant reformation. But fhe is countenanced, in both these respects, by the conduct of all the other reformed churches. Her doctrines were the doctrines of the reformers, in whom we make much boast; and as to the impofition of certain articles of faith, they are chiefly confined to minifters, and graduates of the two univerfities, and affect not the people at large. And in the expunging of particular doctrines out of her formulas, there might be fo little agreement among thofe who are diffatisfied with them, that I feel fome reluctance to hazard the experiment of another reformation.

THEOPHILUS. There is much candour and ingenuousness in your obfervations; and your own natural forbearing temper correfponds with them. Without intending any depreciation of thefe excellent qualities, I cannot but think that they may

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