I began to doubt of revelation itself. Some volumes against deism fell into my hands. They were faid to be the substance of fermons preached at Boyle's lecture. It happened that they produced on me an effect precisely the reverse of what was intended by the writers; for the arguments of the deifts, which were cited in order to be refuted, appeared to me much more forcible than the refutation itfelf. In a word, I foon became a perfect deift. My arguments perverted fome other young perfons; particularly Collins and Ralph. But in the fequel, when I recollected that they had both used me extremely ill, without the fmallest remorfe; when I confidered the behaviour of Keith, another freethinker, and my own conduct towards Vernon and Mifs Read, which at times gave me much uneafiness, I was led to fufpect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful. I began to enter tain tain a lefs favourable opinion of my Lon. don pamphlet, to which I had prefixed, as a motto, the following lines of Dry den; Whatever is, is right; though purblind man and of which the object was to prove," from the attributes of God, his goodness, wifdom, and power, that there could be no fuch thing as evil in the world; that vice and virtue did not in reality exist, and were nothing more than vain diftinctions. I no longer regarded it as fo blameless a work as I had formerly imagined; and I fufpected that fome error muft have imperceptibly glided into my argument, by which all the inferences I had drawn from it had been affected, as frequently happens in metaphyfical rea fonings. In a word, I was at laft convinced 2 vinced that truth, probity, and fincerity, in transactions between man and man, were of the utmost importance to the happiness of life; and I refolved from that moment, and wrote the refolution in my journal, to practise them as long as I lived. Revelation indeed, as fuch, had no influence on my mind; but I was of opinion that, though certain actions could not be bad merely becaufe revelation prohibited them, or good because it enjoined them, yet it was probable that thofe actions were prohibited because they were bad for us, or enjoined because advantageous in their nature, all things confidered. This perfuafion, divine providence, or fome guardian angel, and perhaps a concurrence of favourable circumftances co-operating, preferved me from all immorality, or grofs and voluntary injuftice, to which my want of religion was calculated to expose me, in the dangerous dangerous period of youth, and in the hazardous fituations in which I fometimes found myself, among strangers, and at a distance from the eye and admonitions of my father. I may fay vòluntary, because the errors into which I had fallen, had been in a manner the forced refult either of my own inexperience, or the dishonesty of others.. Thus, before I entered on my new ca reer, I had imbibed folid principles, and a character of probity. I knew their value; and I made a folemn engagement with myself never to depart from them. I had not long returned from Burlington before our printing materials arrived from London. I fettled my ac counts with Keimer, and quitted him, with his own confent, before he had any knowledge of our plan. We found a houfe to let near the market. We took it; and to render the rent lefs burthenfome (it was then twenty-four pounds a-year, but I have fince known it let for seventy), we admitted Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, with his family, who eased us of a confiderable part of it; and with. him we agreed to board. We had no fooner unpacked our letters, and put our prefs in order, than a perfon of my acquaintance, George Houfe, brought us a countryman, whom he had met in the streets enquiring for a printer. Our money was almoft exhausted by the number of things we had been obliged to procure. The five fhillings we received from this countryman, · the first fruit of our earnings, coming fo feasonably, gave me more pleasure than any fum I have fince gained; and the recollection of the gratitude I felt on this occafion to George House, has ren-> dered me often more difpofed, than per haps |