viour in other men, though actuated by very different motives.

If you cannot enjoy the benefit of social worship in the established church of your country, by rendering your praises and thanksgivings, and offering your fupplications to the one infinite, eternal, and only God; there may be other places where this acceptable and grateful fervice may be conducted after a form which may intirely harmonize with the ingenuous convictions of your own mind. The apostle Paul hath not qualified, with any restriction, his exhortation, to flee from idolatry (1 Cor. x. 14.); and if words are capable of a determinate meaning, the nature of the offence, and our duty to avoid it, are equally clear.

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If no other public place fhall offer, and no means fhould prefent themselves of opening one of greater extent, you may convert a room your own house to an house of prayer. There may be other persons in your neighbourhood, who may, from principle and fimilar fentiments, be glad to join you in fo good a work; and even this little church may, in the course of a few years, be the occafion of planting a much larger one. Nor are you, or any man, unprovided with very good fervices for fuch religious focieties.*

EUGENIUS. I am not infenfible of the rectitude of the line of conduct which you have pointed out,

See p. 39. note.

or

or of the advantage which the pursuing of it might produce to the true interefts of religion and virtue ; but it would expofe me to fo much obfervation and reproach, as may bear down my fpirit, and defeat the very end defigned; I may not be able to meet the fate of a reformer.

THEOPHILUS. This is to relinquish the poft of duty, upon a plea every way inadequate and inadmiffible, and very unworthy of a faithful fervant and foldier of Jefus Chrift. Perfonal privacy and ease are the least we can facrifice in fo good a cause as the advancement of the worship of the one God, and Father of all. Singular inftances of integrity, in any of the ordinary concerns of life, do not indeed often escape farcaftic obfervations, and fometimes temporary fcandal; but they are, nevertheless approved by the virtuous and the good; and bring, with every act in which they are connected, that peace and fatisfaction which the unprincipled and profligate can neither take away, nor enjoy.*

As for your fearing that you should not be able to meet the fate of a reformer, I trust, for the honour of christendom, that all apprehenfion of being called to any very extraordinary fufferings for publicly maintaining the worship of one God, is entirely groundless.

Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, reft in providence, and turn on the poles of truth."-Lord BACON.

groundless. Pofitive perfecution is difowned on all hands honour and difhonour, good report and evil report, may indeed await you; but furely your christian faith will fupport you under these fluctuations in your pilgrimage, and carry your mind into the contemplation of a crown of glory, and a future blifs that will never end.

EUGENIUS. The pointed force with which you dire your argument will carry conviction to any reasonable and ingenuous mind. The greateft danger is, halting between two opinions, between duty and inclination; and the true ftate of the queftion, as it now lies before me for decifion, is, fhall I obey God or man? Notwithstanding, however, this confeffion of my view of our subject, accompanied with a serious defire to acquit myself in a manner becoming my christian profeffion, I find myself, from a variety of motives (neither excufable, nor yet, I think, abfolutely criminal), ftrongly reluctant to avow my fentiments explicitly before the world, and to fecond them by that conduct which they should feem to demand.

THEOPHILUS. The prefent ftate of your mind, my dear friend, leaves your conformity to the worfhip of the established church, or a filent, unobferved, clandeftine retreat from it, equally inexcufable, Your laft declaration amounts to a formal furrender of the question; therefore, it now becomes more proper for me to leave you to your own reflections,

which cannot fail to determine you to adopt that open and upright conduct which will best advance the glory of God, and can alone meet with his approbation. Every day's continuance in your present indecision, adds danger and criminality to your fituation. You will recollect the exhortation in the book of revela tion, to quit Babylon, and I know that you allow the application: come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her fins, and that you receive not of her plagues.

A mind like yours, informed by voluntary and patient inquiry (in the midst of your prudent atten tion to your great fecular concerns), will not long remain in your pretent reluctant and diftreffing inactivity. Where duty calls, I know your heart difpofes you to obey. And the fame course of study which has difcovered to you the truth, will have fufficiently impressed you with its importance before all other confiderations.

That knowledge which you have acquired, and which has lei you out of intellectual darkness, will naturally point out that line of conduct infifted upon in the gofpel, and which is made the condition of its promifes. Having firft convinced your understanding, it will animate your refolution to walk in that plain direct road, which turns neither to the right hand, nor to the left. Nor will your high fenfe of duty, or the goodness of your own heart, fuffer you to rest, until you have made the last advance in this

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journey of religious and moral integrity, by fhaking off every remaining fhackle of religious bondage which any prejudice, timidity, or deference to others, may have faftened around you. In the perfect love and fear of God, in ftrict integrity and principle towards him, and in love and brotherly affection for all mankind, fhall we alone find that peace of mind in this world, which is only to be exceeded by the happiness of another.

EUGENIUS. Our friendly and improving converfation upon the important fubject which has engaged our attention, and really interested our affection for each other, may now be clofed, fince we are both become of one mind. Mutual acknowledgments of kindness have been received, and returned, between us. And the refult of your victory, is liberty to the vanquished.

There requires so very little time to form a right decifion of conduct, where the judgment is already convinced, and the mind is awakened to receive the force and impreffion of truth, that I do not hesitate a moment to acknowledge my entire fatisfaction in your arguments; and to affure you that I will, from this hour, withdraw myself from a church, whofe foundation is laid in exacting impofitions upon the confciences of men, and whofe conftituent doctrine is idolatry.

There are, indeed, certain appendant circumftances in every man's fituation with respect to his

prejudices,