Yet in the most abandoned days, he was never fond of intemperate drinking, from which he used to think a manly pride might be sufficient to preserve persons of sense and spirit; so that if he ever fell into any excesses of that kind, it was merely out of complaisance. His frank, obliging, and generous temper, procured him many friends; and those principles, which rendered him amiable to others, not being under the direction of wisdom and piety, sometimes made him more uneasy to himself than he perhaps might have been if he could entirely have outgrown them, especially as he was never a confirmed sceptic, but still retained a secret apprehension, that natural and revealed religion was founded in truth. With this conviction, his notorious violation of the most essential precepts of both, could not but occasion some secret misgivings of heart. His continual neglect of the great Author of his being, to whom he knew himself to be under daily and perpetual obligations, gave him, in some moments of involuntary reflection, inexpressible remorse; and this, at times, wrought upon him to such a degree, that he resolved he would attempt to pay Him some acknowledgments. Accordingly, for a few mornings he did it; repeating in retirement some passages out of the Psalms, and other Scriptures, which he still retained in his memory; and owning, in a few strong words, the many mercies and deliverances he had received, and the ill-returns he had made for them. But these strains were too devout to continue long in a heart as yet unsanctified: for how readily soever he could repeat such acknowledgments of the divine power and goodness, and confess his own follies and faults, he was stopt short by the remonstrances of his conscience, as to the flagrant absurdity of confessing sins he did not desire to forsake, and of pretending to praise God for his mercies, when he did not endeavour to live to his service. A model of devotion, where such sentiments made no part, his good sense could not digest; and the use of such language before a heart-searching God merely as a hypocritical form, while the sentiments of his soul were contrary to it, appeared to him such daring profaneness, that, irregular as the state of his mind was, the thought of it struck him with horror. He therefore determined to make no more attempts of this sort; and was one of the first that deliberately laid aside prayer, from some sense of God’s omniscience, and some natural principle of honour and conscience.