is render’d useless to her? Or censur’d for relinquishing a course of Life, whole Prerogatives she was never acquainted with, and tho’ highly reasonable in it self, was put upon the embracing it with as little reason as she now forsakes it? For if her Religion it self be taken up as the Mode of the Country, ’tis no strange thing that she lays it down again in conformity to the Fashion. Whereas she whose Reason is suffer’d to display it self, to inquire into the grounds and Motives of Religion, to make a disquisition of its Graces and search out its hidden Beauties; who is a Christian out of Choice, not in conformity to those among whom she lives; and cleaves to Piety, because ’tis her Wisdom, her Interest, her Joy, not because she has been accustom’d to it; she who is not only eminently and unmoveably good, but able to give a Reason _why_ she is so, is too firm and stable to be mov’d by the pitiful Allurements of sin, too wise and too well bottom’d to be undermin’d and supplanted by the strongest Efforts of Temptation. Doubtless a truly Christian Life requires a clear Understanding as well as regular Affections, that both together may move the Will to a direct choice of Good and a stedfast adherence to it. For tho’ the heart may be honest, it is but by chance that the Will is right if the Understanding be ignorant and Cloudy. And what’s the reason that we sometimes see persons unhappily falling off from their Piety, but because ’twas their Affections, not their Judgment, that inclin’d them to be Religious? Reason and Truth are firm and immutable, she who bottoms on them is on sure ground, Humour and Inclination are sandy Foundations, and she who is sway’d by her Affections more than by her Judgment, owes the happiness of her Soul in a great measure to the temper of her Body; her Piety may perhaps blaze high but will not last long. For the Affections are various and changeable mov’d by every Object, and the last comer easily undoes whatever its Predecessor had done before. Such Persons are always in extreams, they are either violently good or quite cold and indifferent; a perpetual trouble to themselves and others, by indecent Raptures, or unnecessary Scruples; there is no Beauty and order in their lives, all is rapid and unaccountable; they are now very furious in such a course, but they cannot well tell why, and anon as violent in the other extream. Having more _Heat_ than _Light_, their Zeal out-runs their Knowledge, and instead of representing Piety as it is in it self, the most lovely and inviting thing imaginable, they expose it to the contempt and ridicule of the censorious World. Their Devotion becomes ricketed, starv’d and contracted in some of its vital parts, and disproportioned and over-grown in less material instances; whilst one Duty is _over-done_ to commute for the neglect of another, and the mistaken person thinks the being often on her knees, attones for all the miscarriages of her