his genius or his application ever so great, should be able to carry on a work of this nature, alone, to its proper extent, and with due accuracy in its particular parts. I plainly perceived, sir, that you were fully apprehensive of this by your readiness to admit me as an assistant in your design. But indeed, sir, though I am heartily ready to serve you, it is but little help that I shall be able to give you. I have before stated, that I have no considerable library near me, and, though my circumstances be so easy as to set me above the anxiety of poverty, they are by no means so liberal as to enable me to buy any considerable number of new and costly books, merely to read them over, and judge of their characters, without knowing how far they may be serviceable to me in private life; and if I were ever so well furnished with the means, my proper business, which is too important to give place to any other, requires a very large share of my time, and permits me to use such books as you will chiefly be concerned with, but very sparingly, and as the entertainment of my hours of recreation; and the most therefore that you are to expect from me is that about the middle of every month, if nothing more than ordinary prevent, I shall send you the account of some good book, drawn up as nearly as I can according to the method that I have here proposed. I am now about Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology, and intend to send you an account of it by the latter end of the next week; in which, after a general character of the book, I shall enumerate some of the principal maxims which

he lays down as the foundation of his calculations, and mention some remarkable events, the periods of which he has attempted to adjust by such rules ; to which I shall add an abstract of some of the most remarkable incidental passages. I may afterwards send you some remarks on the Organ of Arts and Sciences, the Interpretation of Scriptural Prophecies, and on Burnet's De Statu Mortuorum et Resurgentium, et De Fide et Officiis Christianorum, and on Hutcheson's Conduct of the Passions. In case you think it proper to give any to give any of my notices of these books, which are all new, curious, and important, a place in your work, I beg it may not be till you have diligently examined them, and made all necessary improvements in them; and, that you may judge of them the better, I desire that you would give yourself the trouble of reading the books I have undertaken; or, if you have not time for this, that you would put my papers into the hands of some judicious friend, who has read the works they relate to, and be as free in your remarks upon my performances as you desire that I should be in my reflections upon yours. I desire that my name may be concealed, for it can add no credit to the pamphlet in which it appears; nor am I at all sure that my performance would add any honour to the name. However, you may be pleased to distinguish my papers by the addition of an H. at the end, or any other capital letter, except the initials of my name.

I

except these, for though very few people would know the name in London, yet my friends here might

find it out by any little hint, or by recollecting our former discourse.

If you imagine that a personal acquaintance might render me in any respect more capable of serving you, I shall willingly embrace it; and as I shall be heartily glad to see you at my lodgings, if your business calls you to Harborough, so I shall be ready to wait upon you when I come to town, which will probably be very shortly. But, if this should be inconsistent with your purpose of remaining unknown, I urge it no further, and shall not be so unreasonable as to take it in any way amiss.

I have reason to beg your pardon for having detained you so long; I will not, therefore, increase my fault by the addition of an apology, but conclude with telling you, that I shall be glad of a speedy answer, and that

I am, Sir,

Your most humble Servant,

PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

I have not yet seen your first number, which might, perhaps, have superseded a great deal which I have now written.

TO MR. WHITTINGHAM *.

Harborough, Feb, 18, 1728.

Ir was with a great deal of pleasure, that I saw the name of my very agreeable friend, Mr. Whittingham, at the bottom of a letter which I received on Wednesday morning; and I am not at all "disgusted at the subject" he proposes to be debated in our future correspondence.

It does not "terrify me" to hear, that a person whom I sincerely love, and for whose character I have the truest regard, has entertained some doubts, which he cannot entirely get over, concerning a book which his earliest instructors recommended to him as the word of God. It is certainly the duty of every rational creature to bring his religion to the strictest test, and to retain or reject the faith in which he has been educated, as he finds it capable, or incapable, of a rational defence. I perfectly agree with my Lord Shaftesbury in his judgment, that religion has not so much to fear from its weighty adversaries, who give it exercise, as from its fond nurse, who overlays it out of an excess of tenderness. I therefore do not only allow, but entreat you, to urge all your strongest objections against Christianity, and to represent them in the most forcible light; and if then, upon the whole, I am convinced in my judgment that they are more than a balance to those

* On his entertaining some scruples relative to the Christian religion.

arguments which support it, I will be a Christian no longer, but will frankly confess myself a Deist, and rather throw myself on Providence, and the charity of my new brethren, than purchase the most comfortable maintenance at so dishonourable a price as contradicting the conviction of my conscience, and speaking lies in the name of the Lord. On the other hand, I must entreat you, sir, to enter upon the inquiry with a solemnity and composure of mind answerable to its awful importance; remembering that we are searching into a matter in which our views for immortality are concerned; those pleasing, or dreadful views, before which all the hopes and fears that relate only to this transitory life fade away and disappear, like twinkling stars in the blaze of the meridian sun: considering also, that if it be really true, that God has sent his own Son into the world to recover a race of degenerate creatures at the expense of his own blood, and to fix them in a state of everlasting perfection and glory, it must be infinitely fatal to desert his religion, and to treat him like an impostor, without the most serious and impartial examination of the cause. Nay, though after all, Christianity should only prove an agreeable dream, yet, as it pretends to the authority of the Supreme Being, and is supported with arguments which have at least some plausible appearance, it will argue a want of reverence to Him, and consequently may expose us to His high displeasure to reject it lightly, before we clearly see into the falsehood of its pretensions. Persist therefore in your