fatisfactory enquiry concerning his difpofitions towards us and our expectations from him.

He was alfo perfuaded, that he should speak the fentiments of all present as well as his own, by fuggefting, that if they could but engage the friend, to whom they already owed fo much, to favour them with those farther thoughts which they knew he had well digested upon this very weighty fubject, there would be nothing more for them to defire, and therefore he would take the liberty to be their spokefman and entreat his compliance.

To this Photinus frankly replied, that to take fuch a tafk upon him on fo formal an invitation was quite formidable to a plain man, and implied too much expectation; but if they could be contented with knowing in what manner he had endeavoured to fatisfy his own mind in a matter of fo much importance, he should not be unwilling to gratify them. But as they all might well be wearied with fuch a long grave difcourfe, he should propofe

C 4

propose their taking up the subject again at their next meeting. To this the company affented, and the refult of our future converfation I shall take the firft opportunity of communicating.

CON

CONVERSATION II.

SECTION I,

ON the day fixed, the company being affembled, Volufian, who during, the former converfation, had been very attentive, expreffed much fatisfaction that all the party had been punctual to the appointment; and addreffing his discourse particularly to Photinus, told him, that he had liftened with much fatisfaction to all that had fallen from him, but might probably have misunderstood what he had advanced concerning those who rejected all divine revelation, as being commonly induced to it from dark views of the prefent fcene of things and of the ways of providence, which indifpofed them towards the Deity, and all communications from him. This might be true in fome inftances, but there were many exceptions to it, and one of great note, the noble author of the Cha-racteristicks, who was well known to have admirably pleaded the cause of a God and a providence; that in the world we inhabit, the

con

constitution of things is perfectly moral, vice the road to mifery, and the virtuous of mankind happy although at times he was held too plainly to intimate his little value for the facred volumes, efpecially that of the Old Teftament.

Photinus thanked him for his obfervations, and for giving him an opportunity of further xplaining his fentiments. He had no doubt himself of the character of unbelievers of the prefent day being pretty much as he had defcribed it. But he was not infenfible that there were fome of a very different clafs, who acknowleged on all proper occafions, and fhewed a profound reverence for the Deity, and gave reason to believe that they endeavoured in their actions to approve themselves to him. If the author of the Characteristicks is to be reckoned in that clafs, few chriftians, it must be confeffed, feemed impreffed with fo full and conftant a sense of the divine prefence and benignity, and those chearful expectations of favour hereafter, with which it might be gathered that he was penetrated, from innumerable paffages in his writings,

where

where it is evident he spoke from the heart, and from the most serious conviction,

One paffage, which I hope never to forget, in his " Inquiry concerning virtue," p. 57, befpeaks this in a high degree; and I shall gratify you, I am perfuaded, by repeating it; "Where the theiftical belief," fays he, "is entire and perfect, there must be a fteady opinion of the fuperintendency of a supreme Being, a witness and fpectator of human life, and confcious of whatever is felt or acted in the univerfe: fo that in the perfecteft recess, or deepest folitude there must be ONE still prefumed remaining with us; whofe prefence fingly must be of more moment than that of the most auguft affembly upon earth. In fuch a Prefence 'tis evident, that as the fhame of guilty actions must be the greatest of any, fo must the honour be of well doing, even under the unjuft cenfure of a world." Of one thing however I cannot doubt, that if he ever relinquifhed his belief of chriftianity, which is a thing by no means certain, he was much indebted to it for thofe leffons of the moft pure and fublime morality, for which his writings are juftly admired.

But