only tell you that I have always
lived, and now die, an unworthy member of the ancient catholic and
apostolic church; and as to my faith and principles, I refer you to my
papers, which, I hope, will in some measure vindicate me against the
reflections you mention."

He had hardly finished his discourse to his sister and her two friends,
and given some short directions relating to his burial, but his speech
left him; and what makes the thing the more remarkable, it went away, in
all appearance, without giving him any sort of pain or uneasiness.

When he perceived that his speech was entirely vanished, and that he was
again in his original state of dumbness, he took his pen as formerly and
wrote to his sister, signifying that whereas the sudden loss of his
speech had deprived him of the opportunity to speak to her and her
friends what he intended, he would leave it for them in writing, and so
desired he might not be disturbed till the return of his fit, which he
expected in six hours at farthest. According to his desire they all left
him, and then, with the greatest resignation imaginable, he wrote down
the meditations following:

PART II

An Abstract of his Faith, and the Principles of his Religion &c., which
begins thus:

Dear Sister; I thank you for putting me in mind to make a declaration of
my faith, and the principles of my religion. I find, as you very well
observe, I have been under some reflections upon that account, and
therefore I think it highly requisite that I set that matter right in the
first place. To begin, therefore, with my faith, in which I intend to be
as short and as comprehensive as I can:

1. I most firmly believe that it was the eternal will of God, and the
result of his infinite wisdom, to create a world, and for the glory of
his majesty to make several sorts of creatures in order and degree one
after another; that is to say, angels, or pure immortal spirits; men,
consisting of immortal spirits and matter, having rational and sensitive
souls; brutes, having mortal and sensitive souls; and mere vegetatives,
such as trees, plants, &c.; and these creatures so made do, as it were,
clasp the higher and lower world together.

2. I believe the holy Scriptures, and everything therein contained, to
be the pure and essential word of God; and that, according to these
sacred writings, man, the lord and prince of the creation, by his
disobedience in Paradise, forfeited his in