< SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 



paid to Biblical and theological subjects ; I have the fullest conviction of 

 your sincerity and desire to promote what you believe to be the great cause 

 of truth and Christianity ; but I feel severely that our minds are not con- 

 stituted alike ; and being totally incapable of entering into that spirit of 

 skepticism which you deem it your duty to inculcate from the pulpit, I 

 should be guilty of hypocrisy if I were any longer to countenance, by a 

 personal attendance on your ministry, a system which (even admitting it to 

 be right in itself) is, at least, repugnant to my own heart, and my own 

 understanding. 



" Without adverting to subjects which have hurt me on former occasions, 

 I now directly allude to various opinions delivered in your very elaborate 

 and, in many respects, excellent sermon of Sunday last ; and especially to 

 the assertion that it is impossible to demonstrate the existence and attributes 

 of a God ; that all who have attempted such demonstrations have only in- 

 volved themselves in perplexity ; and that though a Christian may see 

 enough to satisfy himself upon the subject, from a survey of the works of 

 nature, he never can prove to himself the being and attributes of a God, 

 clearly and free from all dpubt. 



" I mean merely to repeat what I understood to be the general sense of 

 tin* proposition ; and not to contend that my memory has furnished me with 

 yjur own words. And here permit me to observe, that I have been so long 

 taught a different creed, not only from the reasonings of St. Paul, Rom. i. 20, 

 and elsewhere, but from many of the best theologians and philosophers of 

 our own country, from Sir I. Newton, Clarke, Barrow, and Locke, that I 

 cannot, without pain, hear what appears to me a principle irrefragably esta- 

 blished, treated with skepticism, and especially with such skepticism circu- 

 lated from a Christian pulpit. 



*' I have thus, privately, unbosomed my motives to you, because, both as a 

 minister and as a gentleman, you are entitled to them ; and because I should 

 be sorry to be thought to have acted without motives, and even without 

 sufficient motives. My esteem and best wishes, however, you will always 

 possess, notwithstanding my secession from the chapel ; for I am persuaded 

 of the integrity of your efforts. I am obliged to you for every attention 

 you have shown me, and shall, at all times, be happy to return you any 

 service in my power. 



" I remain, Dear Sir, 

 " Your obliged and faithful friend and servant, 



" J. M. GOOD." 



44 To JOHN MASON GOOD, ESQ. CAROLINE PLACE. 



" , Jan. 27th, 1807. 



" Dear Sir, 



" I am obliged to you for your polite communication of your intention to 

 withdraw from chapel, and of your motives for that deter- 

 mination. Having myself exercised to so great an extent the right of pri- 

 vate judgment, I would be the last person to object to the exercise of that 

 right in others. 



" I cannot, however, help considering myself as peculiarly unfortunate, 

 that after all the pains which I have taken to establish the truth of the 



