tural instruction be given to men than is abfolutely neceffary to their well being; and where their own reafon and obfervation were able, in any good measure, to anfwer the purpofe, they have been left to its guidance; though in this cafe much error, and much inconvenience, have arifen from the falfe judgments that men, thus left to their own experience and obfervation, will fall into. One reafon of this may be, that knowledge acquired by experience is of much more value than that which is acquired by inftruction. It makes a much deeper impreflion, fo as to be more furely retained, and more effectually applied in the conduct of life. This we fee in all children. One fall, and confequent hurt, will teach them caution infinitely better than any admonitions of their parents or guides.

Now it has pleafed our univerfal parent to trust the whole human race as we, if we act wifely, treat children, i. e. leave them as much as they fafely may be to themfelves, interpofing only to prevent fome

great

great and fatal evil, of which it was impoffible that they fhould be fufficiently ap prized themselves. And if we confider the state of the world in very early ages, deftitute of the knowledge that has fince been acquired by experience and obfervation, and the lights that have been derived from revelation, we fhall be convinced that fome fupernatural inftruction was highly expedient, if not abfolutely neceffary, if it was the ultimate intention of our Maker to train men to virtue here, and happiness hereafter.

It has pleafed divine providence to leave fo many of the human race in this ftate of natural ignorance; and the confequence of it has been fo fatal, that we fee the greatest reafon to be thankful for that fupernatural inftruction which has been afforded to fome, and which has, by their means, been communicated to others. But many perfons in this advanced age of the world have no idea how great the ignorance of the early ages was, or of what mankind have fuffered in confequence of it. It may,

therefore,

therefore, be of use to ftate a few unqueftionable facts, in order to demonstrate this, and to fhew that the greater light we now enjoy did not, in reality, come from the use of reafon, but from another and higher fource.

Whatever the first parents of the human race might have been taught themselves, and endeavoured to teach their posterity, unquestionable hiftory carries us back to a period in which all mankind, with very few exceptions, and thofe not of a people the most famed for their wifdom, imagined there was a multiplicity of fuperior Beings directing the affairs of the world; that these deities were of very different difpofitions and characters, fome difpofed to do good, and others to do evil, to men; and that their favour was to be procured by rites and ceremonies inftituted in their honour, and frequently by actions, fome of which are now univerfally deemed abominable; and others cruel; fo that what was called religion, was far from having any connexion with good morals.

3

Divination,

Divination, magical arts, and necromancy, were alio an important part of the heathen religions. They had a great variety of rules by which to judge of the good or bad fuccefs of their schemes and projects, especially appearances in their facrifices, as the form and pofition of the entrails of the beafts flain, &c. And in order to gain favour, or enfure revenge, they had recourse to various practices, which they had been led to believe had a connexion with the object of their wifhes. Alfo, what to us appears most extraordinary, but it is not the lefs true, is, that the more ingenious, and the more highly civilized, any of these antient nations were, the greater was the number of their fuperftitious obfervances.

The proper cause of these wretched fuperftitions, was, as the apostle justly calls it, ignorance. It was men's ignorance of nature, and of the true caufes of events: but fuch ignorance as it was not in their power wholly to remove. Things were continually happening unexpected by them,

the

the causes of them being what they could not fee or comprehend, and therefore they concluded, that the caufe was fome invifible power, the agency of which no human power or fagacity could control. But, as at first they had no idea of any thing abfolutely invisible, they afcribed these events to the influence of fuch vifible objects as the fun, moon, and ftars, the greatest and moft powerful of the vifible agents in nature; imagining that the good and evil which they did proceeded from defign, and therefore either that they were themselves intelligent Beings, or actuated by intelligent Beings refiding in them, and directing their influence.

Though mankind in general might retain the idea of one fupreme mind, which had been communicated to them by their firft parents, yet not being able to conceive how one mind could fufficiently attend to every thing, they might think there were inferior intelligences, to whom different departments in the government of the world were delegated. And, from this principle,

directing