to charge tenets which he thought so pernicious on any, especially where he saw the appearances of a good temper and life, which he always reverenced and loved in persons of all sentiments and professions.  He severely condemned causeless jealousies and evil surmisings of every kind, and extended that charity, in this respect, both to clergy and laity, which good Bishop Burnet was so ready, according to his own account, to limit to the latter, “of believing every man good till he knew him to be bad, and his notions right till he knew them wrong.”  He could not but be very sensible of the unhappy consequences which may follow on attacking the characters of men, especially of those who are ministers of the gospel; and if, through a mixture of human frailty, from which the best of men, in the best of their meanings and intentions, are not entirely free, he had ever, in the warmth of his heart, dropped a word which might be injurious to any on that account, (which I believe very seldom happened,) he would gladly retract it on better information; and this was perfectly agreeable to that honest and generous frankness of temper in which I never knew any man who excelled him.

On the whole, it was indeed his deliberate judgment that the Arian, Socinian, and Pelagian doctrines were highly dishonourable to God, and dangerous to the souls of men; and that it was the duty of private Christians to be greatly on their guard against those ministers by whom they are entertained, lest their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.  Yet he sincerely abhorred the thought of persecution for conscience sake; of the absurdity and iniquity of which, in all its kinds and degrees, he had as deep and rational a conviction as any man.  Indeed the generosity of his heroic heart could hardly bear to think that those glorious truths which he so cordially loved, and which he assuredly believed to be capable of such fair support both from reason and the word of God, should be disgraced by methods of defence and propagation common to the most impious and ridiculous falsehoods.  Nor did he by any means approve of passionate and furious ways of vindicating the most vital and important doctrines of the gospel; for he knew that to maintain the most benevolent religion in the world by such malevolent and infernal methods was destroying the end to accomplish the means; and that it was as impossible that true Christianity should be supported thus, as it is that a man should long be nourished by eating his own flesh.  To display the genuine fruits of Christianity in a good life—­to be ready to plead with meekness for the doctrines it teaches, and to labour, by every office of humanity and goodness, to gain upon those who oppose it, were the weapons with which this good soldier of Jesus Christ faithfully fought the battles of the Lord.  These weapons will always be victorious in his cause; and they who have recourse to others of a different temper, how strong soever they may seem, and how sharp soever they may really be, will find them break in their hands when they exert them most furiously, and are much more likely to wound themselves than to conquer the enemies whom they oppose.