FIRST, Though faith be a duty, the requirement of it is not to be considered as a mere exercise of AUTHORITY, but of INFINITE GOODNESS, binding us to pursue our best interest. If a message of peace were sent to a company of rebels who had been conquered, and lay at the mercy of their injured sovereign, they must of course be required to repent and embrace it, ere they could be interested in it; yet such a requirement would not be considered, by impartial men, as a mere exercise
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