*10. May not your own experience teach you this? Can you give yourself this faith? Is it now in your power to see, or hear, or taste, or feel God? Have you already, or can you raise in yourself any perception of God, or of an invisible world? I suppose you do not deny, that there is an invisible world: you will not charge it in poor old _Hesiod_, to Christian prejudice of education, when he says, in those well known words, Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth Unseen, whether we wake, or if we sleep. Now, is there any power in your soul, whereby you discern either these, or him that created them? Or, can all your wisdom and strength open an intercourse between yourself and the world of spirits? Is it in your power to burst the veil that is on your heart, and let in the light of eternity? You know it is not. You not only do not, but cannot (by your own strength) thus believe. The more you labour so to do, the more you will be convinced, _it is the gift of God_. *11. It is the _free gift_ of God, which he bestows not on those who are _worthy_ of his favour, not on such as are _previously holy_, and so _fit_ to be crowned with all the blessings of his goodness: but on the ungodly and unholy; on those who till that hour were _fit_ only for everlasting destruction; those in whom was no good thing, and whose only plea was, _God, be merciful to me a sinner_. No merit, no goodness in man precedes the forgiving love of God. His pardoning mercy supposes nothing in us but a sense of mere sin and misery: and to all who see, and feel, and own their wants, and their utter inability to remove them, God freely gives faith, for the sake of him _in whom he is always well pleased_. 12. This is a short, rude sketch of the doctrine we teach. These are our fundamental principles: and we spend our lives in confirming others herein, and in a behaviour suitable to them. Now, if you are a reasonable man, although you do not believe the Christian system to be of God, lay your hand upon your breast, and calmly consider, what it is that you can here condemn? What evil have we done to _you_, that _you_ should join the common cry against us? Why should _you_ say, _Away with such fellows from the earth: it is not fit that they should live_? 13. ’Tis true, your judgment does not fall in with ours. We believe the scripture to be of God. This you do not believe. And how do you defend yourselves against them who urge you with the guilt of unbelief? Do you not say, “Every man _must_ judge according to the light he has, and that if he be true to this, he ought not to be condemned?” Keep then to this, and turn the tables. _Must_ not _we_ also judge according to the light we have? You can in no wise condemn _us_, without involving _yourselves_ in the same condemnation. According to the light _we_ have, we cannot but believe the scripture is of God; and, while we believe this, we dare not turn aside from it, to the right hand, or to the left.