In reading your sermons, it evidently appears that you have imbibed the notions of a sect, who attribute much more to reason, than any other christian society, and you have asserted that you are unable to believe any thing which you cannot bring down to the level of your own understanding;[8] yet you believe in direct revelation, and with singular inconsistency assert that all your discourses are from its immediate dictates, and without the intervention of any other cause; thus calling upon your auditors to assent to that which you assert to be impossible; for by no process of human reason can the reality of your revelations be tested, and if they are assented to, it must be by faith alone. Footnote 8: See Letter to Dr. Atlee. "I admit that I did assert and have long done it, that we cannot believe what we do not understand." This assertion is in curious contrast to some others which he has made. In a discourse before alluded to, he has declared the miraculous birth of our Saviour to be impossible; and in his letter to Thomas Willis, he says, that after believing in the miracle for many years, he has read the ancient History of the Church and the Evangelists with a view to this subject, and that according to his best judgment, Jesus Christ is the son of Joseph; yet he declares in the same letter, that he still retains his original belief: thus proving that he has a mind capable of believing not only what he does not understand, but also against the convictions of his understanding. I know that you have been hailed as an _efficient fellow labourer_ in destroying our belief in some doctrines which are considered as fundamental by almost every christian sect, and I am apprehensive that this applause has stimulated you to greater daring: but you ought to recollect how much easier it is to destroy than to build up, and you may be assured that when the work of destruction is accomplished, your services will be at an end: your coadjutors have too much understanding not to perceive, that you have not sufficient knowledge to aid in erecting the building which is to be raised on the ruins, and that you are without the skill necessary to give uniformity to its appearance, or embellishment to its parts. When the temple of reason is finished and dedicated, you may be permitted to worship in its vestibule, but will never be called upon to administer the rites at its altar. It seems, however, that you are not quite ignorant of the apparent inconsistency of these contradictory assertions, and it is proper that your explanations should be fairly examined, that we should endeavour to ascertain what you really mean by the word _reason_, and how it is to be applied to your own inspirations: in order to do this, it will be necessary to quote your own words.