All this confusion arises from your not having formed any precise idea of the terms you apply. With the words _reason_ and _rational_ continually in your mouth, you have never enquired into the nature and operation of that distinguishing faculty of man, nor of the manner in which alone it can be properly applied to the truths of our religion. You appear to consider it as of physical organization; an instinct of our nature which is perfected without care or cultivation, and that like one of our natural senses, it may be summoned to our aid without fear of error in its perceptions. You cannot be ignorant of the great inferiority of the reasoning powers of man in his savage state, and a little enquiry would have taught you, that observation and experience are the foundation of all knowledge, and that as we can only reason from the ideas existing in our own minds, it is by their increase alone that our reasoning faculty is extended. Hence it must follow, that as it is the noblest gift of the Almighty to man; a germ which without cultivation can never flourish, it is our duty to promote its growth and expansion by every means in our power. I am not insensible of the evils which have arisen from the presumption with which some learned men have endeavoured to destroy that religion which is the foundation of our hope; but we ought to recollect that such is the perversity of man, that if the abuse of the blessings of Providence can be adduced as an argument against their enjoyment, there are few indeed in which we can innocently indulge. Nor is ignorance any security against this presumption; on the contrary its decisions are always more bold and dogmatic; and if they are less injurious, it is only because they are more foolish.