Let the prayers of the Christian reader be also offered up for the success of this feeble endeavour in the service of true Religion. God can give effect to the weakest effort; and the writer will feel himself too much honoured, if by that which he has now been making, but a single fellow creature should be awakened from a false security, or a single Christian, who deserves the name, be animated to more extensive usefulness. He may seem to have assumed to himself a task which he was ill qualified to execute. He fears he may be reproached with arrogance and presumption for taking upon him the office of a teacher. Yet, as he formerly suggested, it cannot be denied, that it belongs to his public situation to investigate the state of the national Religion and morals; and that it is the part of a real patriot to endeavour to retard their decline, and promote their revival. But if the office, in which he has been engaged, were less intimately connected with the duties of his particular station, the candid and the liberal mind would not be indisposed to pardon him. Let him be allowed to offer in his excuse a desire not only to discharge a duty to his country, but to acquit himself of what he deems a solemn and indispensable obligation to his acquaintance and his friends. Let him allege the unaffected solicitude which he feels for the welfare of his fellow creatures. Let him urge the fond wish he gladly would encourage; that, while, in so large a part of Europe, a false philosophy having been preferred before the lessons of revelation, Infidelity has lifted up her head without shame, and walked abroad boldly and in the face of day; while the practical consequences are such as might be expected, and licentiousness and vice prevail without restraint: here at least there might be a sanctuary, a land of Religion and piety, where the blessings of Christianity might be still enjoyed, where the name of the Redeemer might still be honoured; where mankind might be able to see what is, in truth, the Religion of Jesus, and what are its blessed effects; and whence, if the mercy of God should so ordain it, the means of religious instruction and consolation might be again extended to surrounding countries and to the world at large. FINIS. INDEX. A _Abuse_ of things, unfairness of arguing from it against their use, 53. _Acceptance_ with God, commonly prevailing notions respecting it, 85-88. --Scripture, and Church of England, doctrine respecting it, 88-92. --practical consequences, of common notions respecting it, 89. --true doctrine vindicated from objection, 93-94. _Addison_, quoted, 162.