Franklin was not a member of the visible Church, nor did he ever become the adherent of any sect. He was three years younger than Jonathan Edwards, and in his youth heard his share of the then prevailing theology of New England, of which Edwards was regarded, and perhaps justly, as the most eminent exponent. The extremes to which Edwards carried those doctrines at last so shocked the people of Massachusetts that he was rather ignominiously expelled from his pulpit at Northampton; and the people of Massachusetts, in very considerable proportions, gradually wandered over into the Unitarian communion. To Jonathan Edwards and the inflexible law of action and reaction, more than to Priestley or any one else of their generation, that sect owes to this day its numerical strength, its influence, and its dignity, in New England. With the creed of that sect Dr. Franklin had more in common than with any other, though he was much too wise a man to suppose that there was but one gate of admission to the Holy City. He believed in one God; that Jesus was the best man that ever lived, and his example the most profitable one ever given us to follow. He never succeeded in accepting the doctrine that Jehovah and Jesus were one person, or that miracles attributed to the latter in the Bible were ever worked. He thought the best service and sufficient worship of God was in doing all the good we can to his creatures. He therefore never occupied himself much with ecclesiastical ceremonies, sectarian differences, or theological subtleties. A reverend candidate for episcopal orders wrote to Franklin, complaining that the Archbishop of Canterbury had refused to ordain him unless he would take the oath of allegiance, which he was too patriotic a Yankee to do. Franklin, in reply, asked what necessity there was for his being connected with the Church of England; if it would not be as well were it the Church of Ireland. Perhaps were he to apply to the Bishop of Derry, who was a man of liberal sentiments, he might give him orders, as of that Church. Should both England and Ireland refuse, Franklin assumed that the Bishops of Sweden and Norway would refuse also, unless the candidates embraced Lutheranism. He then added:--