their truth, but to fave the trouble of examination, they will be as readily refigned to fave the trouble of defending them; indeed from incapacity to defend them, fuppofing them to be accidentally right. To an indolent mind any fyftem or any objection will appear plaufible for the moment; but which of them, or whether any of them, is fupported by the degree of evidence which conftitutes proof or probability, it neither knows, nor has ever even confidered in what that degree of evidence confists.

SUCH is the imperfection of the human understanding, fo unaccountable at times are its mifconceptions, arifing either from peculiar habits of thinking, or from fomething which we cannot explain in its original constitution, so strong are the biaffes which it is liable to receive in early life from examples and education, that errors arifing from these causes are fure to and the moft

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moft equitable, the most indulgent allowances from him who knoweth whereof we are made. But the obligations of virtue, the importance of right notions concerning God and their own relation to him, and confequently the obligation men are under to avail themselves of every means of information on thefe fubjects which he may vouchfafe to afford to them, are among the first principles of natural religion. All are apprized of them, it depends on themselves to act suitably to them, and would they but bear in mind that they are even now, though lefs fenfibly, yet not lefs actually in his presence, than they shall be when they are called on to render account of the talents committed to them; that he now fees, as he fhall then enquire, whether they seek the truth with their whole heart, and carefully abftain from all known fin, which is the fureft obftacle to perceiving it, they will then undoubtedly discover in all

points effential to falvation, and hold faft without wavering, that true, and perfect, and acceptable will of God.

IT may not, however, be fuperfluous to add, that, in the profecution of every subject which requires ferious inveftigation, it is important to poffefs juft ideas of the powers and deficiencies of human reafon. Man comprehends no part of nature thoroughly, and in all its details. Of the principle of cohesion in solid substances, or of life in organized bodies; of the attracting force that pervades the planetary system; of the fympathetic union betwen the material and immaterial parts of his own conftitution, he has not any, not even the obfcureft notion. Yet, that fuch principles exift is attefted by their effects beyond the poffibility of contradiction. And not only is their existence afcertained, but the laws by which they act have been affigned on fuch

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fuch just grounds of probability, that nothing less than the production of facts manifeftly inconfiftent with them, or the failure of confequences that must have refulted from them, had they been true, can be allowed to fet them afide. Here the wifeft philofophers have stopped, or, if in any inftance they have been tempted further, have propofed their fentiments with. the diffidence that becomes conjecture. But when, paffing these limits, man would penetrate the inmost recesses of nature, and explain, not only the actual connection of caufes and effects, but the mode in which her mysterious operations are conducted, the means of conviction fail him; he must addrefs his theories to the imagination, not to the understanding; it is well if he can render them intelligible: fooner or later the perplexity and difficulties that attend them will be pointed out by fome ingenious rival, who has, perhaps, new ones

ftill more exceptionable to propofe. By fuch unfuccefsful attempts the credit of what is fufficiently proved is weakened in the minds of these, and they are always the greater number, who do not carefully diftinguish the limit at which evidence ceafes, and conjecture begins.

THE fame general principles are applicable to the conduct of philofophical and of religious inquiries: the contents of the book of revelation are intelligible in the fame degree with thofe of the book of nature: in many points indeed the contents. of both are the fame; fuch parts of the system of the divine œconomy, as were collected by the fages of antiquity from obfervation and reflection, are confirmed as far as they extend by the testimony of fcripture: there are other points which we know from that teftimony alone; that the love of Christ, confpiring with the love of

God