ers which are not of faith. To exclude reasoning altogether, or to take no other guide, are equally dangerous extremes.

It is

4. Faith affirms many things, respecting which the senses are silent; but nothing that they deny. always superior, but never opposed to their testimony. 5. Some men say, If I had seen a miracle, I should have been converted. But they would not so speak if they really understood conversion. They imagine that conversion consists in the recognition of a God; and that to adore him, is but to offer him certain addresses, much resembling those which the pagans made to their idols. True conversion, is to feel our nothingness before that Sovereign Being whom we have so often offended; and who might, at any moment justly destroy us. It is to acknowledge, that without Him we can do nothing, and that we have deserved nothing but his wrath. It consists in the conviction, that between God and us, there is an invincible enmity; and that, without a Mediator, there can be no communion between us.

6. Do not wonder to see some unsophisticated people believe without reasoning. God gives them the love of his righteousness, and the abhorence of themselves. He inclines their heart to believe. We should never believe with a living and influential faith, if God did not incline the heart; but we do so as soon as he inclines it. This David felt, when he said, Incline my heart, O Lord, unto thy testimonies.

7. If any believe truly, without having examined the evidence of religion, it is, that they have received within, a holy disposition, and that they find the averments of our religion conformed to it. They feel that God has made them. They wish but to love him, and to hate only themselves. They feel that they are without strength; that they are unable to go to God, and that unless he comes to them, they can have no communication with him. And then they learn from our religion, that they should love only God, and hate only themselves, but that being utterly corrupt, and alienated from God, God became man that he might

unite himself to us. Nothing more is wanting to convince men, who have this principle of piety in their hearts, and who know also both their duty and their weakness.

8. Those whom we see to be Christians, without the inspection of the prophecies and other evidences, are found equally good judges of the religion itself, as others who have this knowledge. They judge by the heart, as others do by the understanding. God himself has inclined their hearts to believe, and hence they are effectively persuaded.

I grant that a Christian who thus believes without examining evidence, would probably not have the means of convincing an infidel, who could put his own case strongly. But those who know well the evidence for Christianity, can prove, without difficulty, that this belief is truly inspired of God, though the man is not able to prove it in himself.

CHAPTER XI.

THF CHARACTER OF A MAN WHO IS WEARIED WITH SEEKING GOD BY REASON ONLY, AND WHO BEGINS TO READ THE SCRIPTURES.

WHEN I look at the blindness and misery of man, and at those appalling contrarieties which are apparent in his nature; and when I survey the universe all silent, and man without instruction, left alone, and, as it were, a lost wanderer in this corner of creation, without knowing who placed him here, what he came to do, or what becomes of him at death, I am alarmed as a man is, who has been carried during his sleep to a desolate and gloomy island, and who has awaked, and discovered that he knows not where he is, and that he has no means of escape. I wonder how any one can avoid despair, at the consideration of this wretched state. I see others around me having the same nature : I ask them if they know more on this subject than I;

and they answer, no. And I see that these wretched wanderers, like myself, having looked around them, and discovered certain pleasurable objects, had given themselves up to them without reserve. For myself, I cannot rest contented with such pleasures; I cannot find repose in this society of similar beings, wretched and powerless as I am myself. I see that they cannot help me to die. I must die alone. It becomes me then to act as if I were alone. Now, if I were alone here, I should not build mansions. I should not entangle myself with tumultuous cares. I should not court the favor of any, but I should strive to the utmost to discover what is truth. With this disposition, and considering what strong probability there is, that other things exist beside those which I see; I have inquired if that God of whom all the world speaks, has not given us some traces of himself. I look around, and

see nothing but darkness on every side. All that nature presents to me, only suggests cause for doubt and distrust. If I saw nothing in nature that intimated a divinity, I would determine not to believe any thing concerning him. If I saw every where the traces of a deity, I would cherish at once the peaceful repose of faith; but seeing too much evidence to justify a deninl, and too little to minister assurance, 1 am in a pitiable state, in which I have wished an hundred times, that if a God sustains nature, she might declare it unequivo¬ cally; and that if the intimations she gives are false, they may be entirely suppressed; that nature would speak conclusively, or not at all, so that I might know distinctly which course to take. Instead of this, in my present state, ignorant of what I am, and of what I ought to do I know neither my condition nor my duty. My heart yearns to know what is the real good, in order to follow it. And, for this, I would count no sacrifice too dear.

I see many religious systems, in different parts and at different periods of the world. But I am not satisfied, either with the morality which they teach, nor the proofs on which they rest. On this ground, I must

have equally refused the religion of Mahomet, of China, of the ancient Romans or the Egyptians, for this one reason, that any one of them, not having more marks of verity than another, and nothing which simply and positively determines the question, reason could never incline to one in preference to the rest.

But, whilst thus considering this varied and strange contrariety of religious customs and creeds at different periods, I find in one small portion of the world, a peculiar people, separated from all the other nations of the earth, and whose historical records are older, by several centuries, than those of the most ancient of other nations. I find this a great and numerous people; who adore one God, and who are governed by a law which they profess to have received from his hand. They maintain, that to them only, of all the world, has God revealed his mysteries: that all mankind are corrupt, and under the divine displeasure: that men are all given up to the guidance of their corrupt affections, and their own understandings; and that hence originate all the strange irregularities and continual changes among men, both in religion and manners, whilst they remained as to their rule of conduct, unaltered; but that God will not leave even the other nations eternally in darkness; that a deliverer shall come forth for them; that they are in the world to announce him; that they were prepared expressly as the heralds of his advent, and to summon all nations to unite with them in the expectation of this Saviour.

The meeting with such a people surprises me, and on account of the many wonderful and singular events connected with them, they seem to me worthy of the greatest attention.

They are a nation of brethren; and whilst other nations are found of an infinite number of families, this people, though so extraordinarily populous, are all descended from one man; and being thus one flesh, and members one of another, they compose a mighty power, concentrated in one single family. This is an instance without parallel.

This is the most ancient people, within the memory of man; a circumstance which makes them worthy of peculiar regard, and especially with reference to our present inquiry for if God did in all previous time, communicate with man, then it is to this, the most ancient people, that we must come to ascertain the tra dition.

This people is not only considerable for its antiquity, but for its duration, which has ever continued from its origin till now: for while the nations of Greece, of Italy, of Lacedemon, Athens or Rome, and others that have arisen much later, have long since passed away; this nation still subsists, and notwithstanding the efforts of many mighty kings, who, according to historic testimony, have tried a hundred times to destroy them; an event, also, which is easy to suppose would have occurred in the natural course of events in so many years; yet they have been always preserved; and their history, extending from the primitive times to the present, involves the period of all other histories within its own.

The law by which this people is governed, is at the same time the most ancient, the most perfect, and the only one which has been recognised without interruption in a state. Philo, the Jew, shews this in several places; and so does Josephus against Appion, where he observes that it is so ancient, that even the term (name?) of law was not known by the most ancient nations, till more that 1000 years afterwards; so that Homer, who speaks of so many nations, never uses it. And it is easy to form an idea of its perfection, by sim ply reading it; where we see that it had provided for all things with so much wisdom, equity and prudence, that the most ancient Greek and Roman legislators, have received a measure of its light, have borrowed from it their chief and best institutions. This appears from the twelve tables, and from the other proofs adduced by Josephus.

This law is also, at the same time, the most severe and rigorous of all; enjoining on this people, under