Postscript to the Second Edition.-A reply to the following Sermon has just appeared in the form of "Four Letters" to the Author," by an Inquirer." The writer has not exerted himself to controvert my leading positions, but displays some dexterity in carping at detached sentences. A specimen of his logic, of his correctness, and of his candour, will, with impartial readers, exonerate me from the task of commenting at length on his remarks.

He reasons from the exercise of miraculous power in punishing with temporary blindness a hypocrite, false prophet, and sorcerer, (Acts xiii. 6-12,) to the justifiableness of using political power for putting down modern unbelievers; and is of opinion that if the apostle Paul could rise from the dead, and behold an agent of authority manacling, incarcerating and ruining them, he would say, "I set the example"!

He asserts that the language sometimes employed by unbelievers, which I have described as "vilifying Christ," "calumnious," ," "wounding the feelings of pious Christians by insulting all they revere," and so "foul and revolting" that even to palliate it by the adduction of precedents would be a "loathsome task;" that this language I " can listen to with complacency."

His candour represents an admission that moral evidence leaves the bare possibility of mistake, as an attempt to "lead the young, the artless, the unwary into the temple of Deism;" and brands a condemnatory allusion to those who combine a hypocritical zeal against unbelief with an open disregard of the injunctions of Scripture to command our passions, and not to take the name of the Lord our God in vain, as a railing accusation against his erring brethren."

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The Inquirer" has not shewn that Deists are excepted from the Christian law of doing to others as we would that they should do to us; and, of the necessity of enforcing its application to our conduct towards them, his pamphlet is an additional and melancholy proof. How long will there be occasion for the Saviour to offer, in heaven, for his disciples, the prayer which he offered, on the cross, for his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"?

December 24, 1819.

LUKE vi. 31:

And as ye would that men should do to you, do also to them likewise.

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THIS maxim is the foundation of the morality of the New Testament. We are bound, as Christians, to regulate our conduct by it; and my present purpose is to shew in what way it should affect our behaviour towards those by whom the religion which we esteem of divine authority is disbelieved, attacked, and even reviled.

You will readily suppose that my attention has been directed to this subject by the recent prosecutions of an individual for the republication of Paine's Age of Reason, and of Palmer's Principles of Nature; and such is certainly the fact. If any have come, however, with the expectation of hearing remarks, of a political or personal nature, on the proceedings of a Court of Justice, or on those who presided over, or

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were parties in those proceedings, they will be disappointed. I know too well the legitimate boundaries of pulpit discussion to enter upon such a field, and shall consider the subject only in a general view, as it relates to the regulation of your feelings, and the discharge of your duties towards unbelievers.

It has long appeared to me that the liberality which has unquestionably advanced amongst Christians, and moderated the asperity of sectarianism, has by no means been proportionably extended towards Deists. Aliens from the household of faith, they have been considered as without the pale of charity. Their continued and almost solitary exclusion is not altogether unaccountable. Liberality has been increased by various causes in which they had no share. Missionary and Bible Societies, and a number of similar institutions, by bringing partisans together upon common ground, and uniting them cordially in the pursuit of a common object, have opened their eyes to each other's virtues, and removed a thousand prejudices which were the food of bigotry. But prejudices have only been removed as to the parties thus uniting and co-operating. While they have drawn closer to each other, the Deist has been left at his original distance. Unconcerned in the cause, or concerned only as an opponent,

more or less active, he has not been privileged to participate in the beneficial results. While the once alienated children of the Christian family were reunited, he, excluded from their social endearments, as unwelcome to their sight as ever, shunned by all, hated by some, stood far aloof, a solitary orphan. Even Unitarians, outcasts as they themselves are from the fraternities of reputed orthodoxy, and pledged by the character of their religious system to the most extensive liberality, have but too often been deficient in the duties which I intend this evening to state and enforce. Goaded by the calumny which would identify them with those who reject the Saviour, they have, in repelling so unjust an accusation, caught too much of the tone of their opponents, and given the most undesirable proof of their affinity to other Christians, by that unfairness towards the disbeliever which does not become any Christian. However it be accounted for, I have a painful conviction of the fact, that Christians, as a body, do not in their writings, preaching, conversation, and behaviour on public occasions, or in private life, treat Deists in that way which charity should prompt, or even which is demanded by justice, to which, as fellow-men, they have a right, and which is by far the best calculated to win their attention, disarm their opposition, and

correct the aberrations of their minds. This conviction has been much increased by observing the manner in which religious people were affected by the late trials, and the emotion, which would otherwise have been uppermost, of disgust at seeing Christianity under the protection of law-officers, and its insults avenged by legal penalties, was lost in regret that Christians could witness such, proceedings with pleasure, applaud the verdict which pronounced open unbelief a crime, and find in the imprisonment of a Deist matter for congratulation.

I anticipate the misconstruction, by some, of my motives for making this effort, and am prepared to brave it. "Strike, but hear!" The subject is of importance, and never did I enter the pulpit under a more imperious sense of duty. I am no sceptic, as to the essentials of Christianity. Its truth is my trust; its evidences are, to my mind, most convincing; its moral loveliness charms my heart; to its holy precepts I would yield unreserved submission; in the removal of its corruptions and the extension of its influence I would exert all my powers and spend all my days; and its promises I regard as a sure foundation for the immortal hopes of man. Why is so divine a religion, invulnerable to the. darts of hostility, wounded in the house of its friends? Why are not those friends more tho