“I returned you my thanks for the kind present of your Logic soon after I received it. I can now do it on much better grounds, for since I have read it, I do not barely thank you for the civility, or the satisfaction I have received on reading a book finely written on a noble and useful subject, or for the profit I have reaped by it, but for a book, by which, I expect, not only the youth of England, but all, who are not too lazy, or too wise to learn, will be taught to think and write better than they do, and thereby become better subjects, better neighbours, better relatives, and better christians; for as wrong reasoning helps to spoil each of these, so far will putting us in a right way of thinking, help to mend us. I think your book so good an help to us in this way, that I shall not only recommend it to others, but use it as a manual of its kind myself, and intend, as some have done Erasmus or a piece of Cicero, for another purpose—to read it over once a year.” The author of the Meditations among the Tombs, and the Dialogues between Theron and Aspasio, in a letter of acknowledgment for the present of his discourses on the glory of Christ, says—“To say your works have long been my delight and study, the favourite pattern by which I would form my conduct and model my style, would only be to echo back in the faintest accents what sounds in the general voice of the nation. Among others of your edifying compositions, I have reason to thank you for your sacred songs, which I have introduced into the service of my church; so that, in the solemnities of the sabbath, and in a lecture on the week day, your muse lights up the incense of our praise, and furnishes our devotion with harmony.” The Countess of Hertford, afterwards Duchess of Somerset, writes to him in a strain of peculiar admiration and thankfulness, on reading his Theological Works. “Almost all the hours I passed alone, I have employed in reading your works, which for ever represent to my imagination the idea of a ladder or flight of steps, since every volume seems to rise a step nearer to the language of heaven, and there is a visible progression toward that better country through every page, so that, though all breathe piety and just reason, the last seems to crown the whole, till you shall again publish something to enlighten a dark and obstinate age, for I must believe that the manner in which you treat divine subjects, is more likely to reform and work upon the affections of your readers, than that of any other writer now living. I hope God will, in mercy to many thousands, myself in particular, prolong your life many years. I own this does not seem a kind wish to you, but I think you will be content to bear the infirmities of the flesh some years longer, to be an instrument in the hands of God, toward the salvation of your weak and distressed brethren.”