IN free and familiar conferences it is never required that such a just accuracy of sentiment or language should be observed, or that men should be confined to such exactness of method, as in a set or studied treatise on any appointed theme. Occasional incidents frequently arise, and turn the conversation aside into an unexpected channel: Or sometimes, perhaps, we recall the same subject, and the same sense may be repeated again. And in the warmth of discourse some freedoms of thought and expression may break out, which stand in need of the candour of those that hear them, and it is ever allowed in such cases. Let it be noted also, that when persons of different characters are introduced in a free discourse, the narrator is not bound to defend all that one or any of the parties present happen to utter: He will not pretend to support everything that Pithander urges in vindication of the insufficiency of human reason in matters of religion; nor dares he venture to make all the concessions on the side of its sufficiency, nor advance all the suppositions that Sophronius the moderator hath done in this dispute.
But, upon the whole, if there be any thing suggested in these conferences which may occasion Logisto and his companions, who are under temptations to infidelity, to bethink themselves a little; if it may awaken any of them so far as to raise some doubts about the sufficiency of their boasted reason, and lead them to see and confess the necessity of divine revelation, in order to reform the world, and to restore mankind to true religion and the favour of God, the writer hath attained his chief design, and shall rejoice in the success.