operation of the Divine spirit; and that the effusion of the spirit, both as to instruction and evidence, was not peculiar to the infancy of christianity? This appears to my understanding. The very essence of the christian religion I think from these scriptures consists in the power and efficacy of the spiritual principle.
The state of religion from the creation to this time.
What you have said madam, (I replied) seems strong indeed in defence of the weakness of man, and the operation of the spirit, and I should be of your way of thinking as to the manifestation of it, but that I imagine the thing may be explained in a different

manner. Let us review our religion, if you please, and perhaps we may find, that another account may be given of sanctification, and the renewing the mind into a state of holiness.
When God called this world into being, his purpose was without all peradventure, that his rational creatures might enjoy the noblest pleasures, and by conforming their conduct to the fitness and relation of things, from a due regard to the authority of the first cause, by whom this fitness and relation were wisely constituted, secure all the blessings of this life, and honour, and glory, and immortality, in some future state of existtence. This I think was the case. True religion was to form and fix every good principle in the human mind, produce all righteousness in the conversation, and thereby render mankind the blessed of the universal Father. They were to worship the one true God; the possessor of all being, and the fountain of all good; to believe in him, and have their trust and dependence always on him; to be pure and peaceable, gentle and full of mercy, without partiality, without hypocrisy, and so devoted to holiness and obedience, to every virtue and every good work which the law of reason can require from men; that after a long life spent in acting a part the most honourable to God, and the most

advantageous to mankind, in obeying the dictates of reason, and thereby imitating the example of God; they might be translated to the regions of immortality and day, where the first and great original displays as it were face to face the perfections of the Deity, and from an all-perfect and holy being receive the vast rewards he has prepared for those, who, in this first state, have been to all the purposes of life and religion, perfect as he is perfect. For these reasons did the supreme director, the greatest and the best Being in the universe, command the