LIBERTY OF REASONING 



praifewortliy in a magistrate, but even one of his molt 

 inherent duties, to protect and encourage all fuch as 

 fey proper metliods labour to Hop the progrefs of fu- 

 perii.ition and fanaticifm, as difeafes of the foul that are 

 always hurtful and often alarming — efpecially when 

 it is Sufficiently obvious that they are beginning to 

 grow epidemicaL 



On the other hand, happy the country, where illu- 

 mination and liberty of belief go hand in hand with 

 equal pace, and where, if not all, yet at leait thofe who 

 are placed as teachers and governors to . the reft, are 

 thoroughly convinced, that religion, or belief in God, 

 is an aftair of the heart, and not of the head ; — - that 

 it does, not confifl in diving into the divine nature and 

 difputing about the deity, but in endeavouring to do 

 the will of God : — that, according to the plain decla- 

 ration of Chrift^ and his favourite difciple, pure and 

 aclive love towards mankind, whom we fee, is the moii: 

 infallible characteristic of our love to God, whom we 

 do not fee ; and that we are commanded to Shew our 

 faith, not by confeiiions and formularies, but by our 

 works:— that God, no where in the holy fcriptures 

 teftifies his good pleafure in our lilly jargon about what 

 lie is and what he is not, in our childifh babble about 

 his eflence, his attributes, his operations, his ccco- 

 nomy, his views, and what he wills or does not will, 

 Uphat he can do and what he cannot; hut, on the con- 

 trary, has declared, in ail poffible ways, that, " lie 

 who feareth him, and worketh righteoumefs is ac- 

 cepted of him and that, in one word, not agreement 

 in religious opinions and formularies — but aclive faitl> 

 in God, and in Chrift whom he lent into the world for 



