People professing to be converted can never give a satisfactory explanation of their state, either to others or themselves, so as to do away all apprehension that they may not be actuated by impulse, fear, affections, &c., with a variety of other natural causes which every day make astonishing alterations in the minds of men. We sometimes meet with individuals who at one time considered themselves to be inspired, and shewed every outward sign, and afterwards declare they conceive they never were. Sudden and extraordinary changes frequently take place for the worse; but these are never accounted as supernatural. It appears that conversions most frequently take place after some circumstances which naturally have a tendency to fix the attention, soften the affections, affect the passions, and subdue the will; such as attending religious discourses, the deathbed of a friend, extreme pain, poverty, and distress, &c. Now, may not these be said to account for the first natural link? Then why should the rest of the chain be miraculous? If these observations were untrue, we might expect to find conversions occur as frequently among one sort of society as among another; but that is not the case. It is observable in religious as well as in other operations of the mind, that those alterations which are the most sudden and vehement, are generally more transient than those which take place more gradually and after accountable associations. We might naturally expect that those divinely inspired would be superior to the weaknesses of passion and imperfections of nature incidental to others; but our converts appear not to be. These supernatural affections are unattended with any discernibly supernatural effects; the possessors of them never perform miracles! From these observations it is presumed, that there is abundant reason for apprehending that those conversions termed supernatural are nothing more than nature acting upon the mind of man, agreeably to those wise and immutable laws laid down by the adorable Maker of all things; and the reason of our terming them miraculous is, because we are unable with our weak faculties to trace the wonderful concatenations, and view the infinite variety of shades of which the intellectual part of man is susceptible. At the same time it is confessed, that it being a matter of internal feeling, and what cannot perhaps be demonstrated either way, no arguments on the subject can be hoped of any material benefit, either to the person who supposes himself to have it, but cannot explain it, or to him that has it not, and cannot conceive it. Bristol, THEOPHILANTHROPIST. Feb. 18,1819. A FEW IDEAS ON THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.