Page:Life of the honourable Col. James Gardiner (1).pdf/13

 folly and madness, unworthy a rational creature: and much more unworthy persons calling themselves Christains, And he set up his standard, upon all occasions, against infidelity and vice as determinately as ever he planted his colours in the field. There was at the time at Paris a certain Inly who had imbibed the principles of deism, and valued herself much upon being the avowed advocate for them.

The Major, with his usual frankness, (though with that politeness which was habitual to him,) answered like a man who perfectly saw through the fallacy of her arguments, and was grieved to the heart for her delusion. On this, she challenged him to debate the matter at large, and to fix upon a day for that purpose, when he should dine with her, attended with any clergyman he might choose. A sense of duty would not allow him to decline his challenge; and yet he had no sooner accepted it, that he was thrown into great perplexity and distress, lest, being only a Christian of six weeks old, he should prejudice so good a cause, by his unskilful manner of defending it. However, he sought his refuge in earnest and repeated prayers to God, that he would graciously enable him, on this occasion, to vindicate his truths in a manner which might carry conviction along with it. He then endeavoured to marshal the arguments in his own mind, as well as he could; and apprehending that he could not speak with so much freedom before a number of persons, especially before such whose province he might in that case seem to invade, he waited on the lady alone upon the day appointed.

The Major opened the conference with a view of such arguments of the Christian religion as he had digested in his own mind, to prove that the Apostles were not mistaken themselves, sad that they could not have intended to impose upon us in the accounts they give to the grand facts they attest with the truth of which facts that of the Christian religion is most apparently connected. And it was a great encouragement