The fifth and last part of Dr. Chauncy’s book contains “the best expedients to promote the interest of religion at this day.” He quotes, with approval, some of Jonathan Edwards’s recommendations, such as “confessing of faults on both sides;” “the exercise of extraordinary meekness and forbearance;” “prayer with fasting;” “care taken that the colleges be so regulated as to be nurseries of piety;” and “taking heed that, while fulfilling the external duties of devotion――as praying, hearing, singing, and attending religious meetings――there must be proportionable care to abound in _moral duties_, as acts of righteousness, truth, meekness, forgiveness, and love towards our neighbour.” To these recommendations, Dr. Chauncy adds some of his own, namely: 1. “The putting a stop to _itinerant preaching_.” 2. “So to guard church pulpits, that no raw, unqualified persons might be suffered, upon any terms, to go into them.” 3. To guard “against a wrong use of the passions.” 4. The exercise of a “_strict discipline_ in our churches.” 5. “A due care to prove all things, that we may hold fast that which is good.” These are lengthy, though imperfect, extracts; but, if an apology be needed, it may be found in the facts that Dr. Chauncy was one of the most influential men in New England, and that the effects produced by his book were greater than can be well imagined. He prefixes to his work a list of nearly eight hundred subscribers, including four governors of colonies, twenty-seven “honourables,” and a hundred and forty-seven “reverends.” Whitefield published a reply to Chauncy’s book; but, strangely enough, the reply is not in his collected works, and seems to have been unknown to all his biographers. The following was its title: “A Letter to the Rev. Dr. Chauncy, on account of some passages relating to the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, in his book entitled, ‘Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England.’ By George Whitefield, A.B., late of Pembroke College, Oxon. Boston, 1745.” (4to. 14 pp.) The letter is dated, “Portsmouth, Piscataqua, November 19, 1744;” and the preface to it, “Boston, January 18, 1745.” The spirit breathing in Whitefield’s pamphlet is beautifully Christian; and, wherever he defends himself, he does it most successfully. He confesses, however, that he was wrong, when he said, “_Many_, nay, _most_ of the New England preachers did not experimentally know Christ;” and, in reference to Tillotson, he says, “I acknowledge that I spake of his _person_ in too strong terms, and too rashly condemned his _state_, when I ought only to have censured his _doctrine_.” The following is Whitefield’s concluding paragraph:――