I beg your Pardon for making you so slow a return of my H. T. for your exc. Letter of the 26 of Dec. & I shud have needed your pardon much more, had your favors in it been lesse: The excesse of them in such variety of obligations; justifys me in the leisure I take to taste & enjoy ech endearing Circumstance a part: weighing & comparing with one another the several Delights I owe you.

I shud despaire of efficacy to convince you by anything that can flow from a Pen annimate but with such Dull reflections as mine.

Lest I shud incurre the Taxe, either of Hyp. if I shud by Sil. confesse an assent in matters of Rel. where I am not convinc't: or of Perversenesse shud I dissent without showing cause for it.

Could I admit of such a Doctrine, that in the Affaire of our Faith I ought to be swayed by any humane Auth. either of one or many; I shud at this instant publish a Valediction to my Op. what great wits soever <may>[replacing 'do'] sustayne them; as willingly as I do here grant you the Preheminence above the hihest I have knowne.

Their veracity I attribute infinitely unto, from a due Cons. of all those happie Circ. wherewith your Eloq. authorizes it.

You cannot aggravate their Impiety enough.

If any former slip of my Pen can be but wrested to such an injustice, let me purge my selfe by a solemn Rec. But I hope my words imported not any such sense, I am sure my sense intended not any such words.

Wherein by 2 restrictions I am safely protected from any just Imp. of so injust a Negative. The one by the very Exc. of many Cases attributes to their Test. a Validity in many: the other allowes it an induceing Power in the very denying it a Convincing one: & tends no way to an Exclusion but onely to a Qualification of their Evidence.