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in any attempts to accelerate this progress beyond a certain term. For what would a greater comprehenfion of mind, and a greater power of combining ideas, avail us, without a stock of ideas to combine and comprehend? It is well known, that if we expect that boys fhould ever make valuable men, they must continue fome time in the state of boys, or they will never make men worth forming. In the very warmth and impetuofity, and confequently the occafional irregularities, of youth, we often perceive the germ of the most excellent characters. But then these irregularities of youth, by which their minds are stored with a fufficient variety of strong impressions, muft not be continued beyond the season of youth, or that state of peculiar fenfibility, in which fomething ftill more new shall be able, in a great measure, to leffen the effect of preceding impreffions, otherwise habits will be formed which will preclude all farther progrefs. In a course of time the mind acquires an infenfibility to new impreffions. A man is then in a manner incapable of extending his views,

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and thereby he lofes the great privilege of his rational nature. His mind, for want of an acceffion of new ideas, or farther knowledge, may even contract, and he may fink into a state approaching that of a brute animal, and one that is old and intractable.

This, however, I obferve by the way, though I fhall have fome farther use for the obfervation hereafter; my object being to fhew, that for the very fame reason that a man excels other animals, a believer in divine revelation, and especially a Christian, is fuperior to other men; his comprehenfion of mind being enlarged by fuch knowledge as revelation brings him acquainted with, fo that he is capable of being much more happy in himself, and of a more generous ardour in promoting the happiness of others. Alfo, being less sensible to prefent impreffions, he will be more drawn out of himself, and be more free from that anxiety and distress to which perfons who attend to themselves only are neceffarily fubject.

It may not be improper to confider as the first great article of revealed religion, because

cause it is by this means more ftrongly impreffed upon the mind, though it is alfo the dictate of nature, to be the doctrine of the being of a God. It fo much stands or falls with the belief of revelation, that at prefent they generally go together, and they who are unbelievers in revealed religion, though they may retain the belief of a God, have little motive to attend to the fubject, fo that they are generally practical, though not abfolutely fpeculative atheists.

Now the belief, the habitual and practical belief, of the being of God, a Being infinitely wife, powerful, and good, the author of universal nature, and the doctrine of a Providence, which is connected with it, contributes greatly to the enlargement of the mind of man, extending our views beyond what we immediately fee and hear around us. Without this man is comparatively a Being of narrow views, but little advanced beyond the brutes, and has but little motive to attend to any thing beyond himself, and the lowest gratifications. Without this faith he must be liable to be disturbed

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difturbed and unhinged by every cross

event.

But the belief of a God, and of a Providence, of a Being who created all things, who has affigned to every creature his proper ftation, and who fuperintends the whole chain of events, relieves and enlarges the mind, and alfo gives us a lively intereft in the concerns of others. The idea of a God is that of the father of all his creatures, and efpecially of all mankind; and this fuggefts the farther idea, that all men are brethren, the children of one common parent; and with this idea are intimately connected a thoufand other pleafing ideas, and especially a fenfe of a common intereft, and an obligation to promote it by every means in our power. With this favourable impreffion, we are prepared to refpect, and to love, all mankind, as brethren, and to bear with one another as fuch. Whereas, without this idea, we feel as fo many unconnected individuals, turned adrift upon the wide world, where we must each of us fcramble for ourfelves as well as we

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can, and shall seldom think of attending to others, any farther than a regard to our own interest may make it expedient.

Thus, by means of faith in the being and providence of God, we are nobly carried out of, and beyond, ourfelves, and are led to conceive a generous regard for others; and by this we lofe nothing but a mean selfishness, and with it a tormenting anxiety, which is at the fame time the characteristic, and the punishment, of a narrow, contracted mind.

There is no true, well-founded patriotism that has any other foundation than this. Without this there will always be room for fufpicion and diftruft, a suspicion of private and selfish views, fuited to a mind destitute of this great and enlarged principle, of all mankind conftituting one family, under one great head; the idea of an universal parent, who regards us all as his children, and who requires that we regard each other in the fame pleafing light.

Without faith in God, and a belief of his univerfal benevolent providence, men must be liable to be peculiarly diftreffed and dif concerted

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