vindicated from
absurdity, from self-contradiction, and contradiction to the pure
reason, and restored to simple incomprehensibility. He who seeks for
more, knows not what he is talking of; he who will not seek even this is
either indifferent to the truth of what he professes to believe, or he
mistakes a general determination not to disbelieve for a positive and
especial faith, which is only our faith as far as we can assign a reason
for it. O! how impossible it is to move an inch to the right or the left
in any point of spiritual and moral concernment, without seeing the
damage caused by the confusion of reason with the understanding.

Ib. p. 181.

My soul is much more afflicted with the thoughts of the miserable
world, and more drawn out in desire of their conversion than
heretofore. I was wont to look but little further than England in my
prayers, as not considering the state of the rest of the world;--or if
I prayed for the conversion of the Jews, that was almost all. But now
as I better understand the care of the world, and the method of the
Lord's Prayer, so there is nothing in the world that lieth so heavy
upon my heart, as the thought of the miserable nations of the earth.

I dare not not condemn myself for the languid or dormant state of my
feelings respecting the Mohammedan and Heathen nations; yet know not in
what degree to condemn. The less culpable grounds of this languor are,
first, my utter ignorance of God's purposes with respect to the
Heathens; and second, the strong conviction, I have that the conversion
of a single province of Christendom to true practical Christianity would
do more toward the conversion of Heathendom than an army of
Missionaries. Romanism and despotic government in the larger part of
Christendom, and the prevalence of Epicurean principles in the
remainder;--these do indeed lie heavy on my heart.

Ib. p. 135.

Therefore I confess I give but halting credit to most histories that
are written, not only against the Albigenses and Waldenses, but
against most of the ancient heretics, who have left us none of their
own writings, in which they speak for themselves; and I heartily
lament that the historical writings of the ancient schismatics and
heretics, as they were called, perished, and that partiality suffered
them not to survive, that we might have had more light in the Church
affairs of those times, and been better able to judge between the
F