ness and amiableness of mercy and benevo lence, and are ready enough to declaim. against the cruelties of other men, however, on grounds of necessity or strong provocation, they may attempt to defend or extenuate their own. And thus, incidentally and virtually, they acknowledge the natural unfitness of their own malevolent affections, and substantially, though perhaps reluctantly, they do honour to all the lovely and all the useful qualities which constitute true benevolence, and which, from their adaptation to our common nature, have acquired the name of humanity. But these are the main springs or supporters of all the social affections, of social intercourse, and social happiness. Nature and reason therefore call upon us for the exercise of these, and what nature and reason have suggested in their favour, religion confirms. For in the Gospel, and especially in that awful account of the last judgment given by our Blessed Saviour, the great stress is laid, not on speculative belief, not on harsh mortifications, not on gloomy views of this world or

of

of the world to come, not on indifference to the joys and sorrows nor on severity to the errors and failings of our fellow creatures, but on the exercise of these very virtues, which the commands of Christ have exalted into duties. And if so, then sourness, affected and ostentatious scrupulosity, uncharitableness in our judgments upon the possible mistakes and infirmities of other men, and moroseness in our intercourse with each other, and in the external character of the worship we pay to God, must be contrary to our duty, and therefore so far partake of the nature of sin. Besides, they visibly, and I must say, invariably, tend to narrow the mind with selfishness, to harden it with intolerance, to blind it with bigotry, and to inflate it with pride, all of which are incon-sistent with the vital essence of Christian liberty, and with the natural results of Christian knowledge. For the darker the ignorance and the grosser the corruption of any age has been, the greater have always been the intolerance and bigotry of its reli gionists, and the converse will be found to

be

be equally true, that intolerance and bigotry do naturally lead to ignorance, and slavery, and superstition. Accordingly we find some strong indications of even more than contempt for literature occasionally manifested in the writings and discourses of the fanatics. of the present day, and the sentiments of their puritanical predecessors in the 17th century on this subject are well known. Disgusted we may be, but surely not surprised, at the avowed contempt of learning, taste, and science, and all the intellectual excellencies, which in this place we are peculiarly bound to cultivate and recommend, from their well known subserviencý to the religious as well as the moral improvement, and to the temporal no less than the eternal welfare of mankind. For when men can persuade themselves, that they have within them a divine and infallible guide, the very spirit of knowledge and of truth, they cannot but despise those who pretend not to such divine and unerring illuminations. Having themselves discovered a short and soyal road to wisdom, they cannot but conD

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temn us, whom they see toiling with much anxiety after knowledge, baffled by the diffi culties, the uncertainties and the perplexities attendant upon all human investigations, and after much patient study and fruitless industry, obliged to acknowledge our ignorance in some things, our error in many things, and our fallibility in nearly all. Yet as we proceed in our laborious course, we have opportunities for learning one im portant lesson, in which the holy contemners of erudition and philosophy will rarely vouchsafe to receive us for their instructors. Knowing distinctly and experimentally the limitation of the human faculties; finding almost at every step, that additions to our knowledge are accompanied by the detection of error in ourselves or in other men, rejecting from an honest love of truth, what we once adopted, and led by unexpected and irresistible evidence to adopt what we once were disposed to reject, we cannot but be taught, by the experience of our own imperfections, to make large allowances for those of our brethren, and to tolerate

opinions

opinions which, however widely they differ. from our own, may yet be consistent with sincerity of intention, and general sanctity of life.

When I consider before what enlightened persons I am speaking, I can hardly think it necessary to multiply words for the purpose of averting misinterpretation. I might else observe, that in all I have said on Christian liberty, and on the enjoyment of the various blessings which the Author of all good has prepared for us in the present life, I cannot be supposed to countenance licentiousness. I contend for the use, not for the abuse of these things, and do not forget that the same Apostle who tells us we are called to liberty, exhorts us not to use it for an occasion to the flesh. But still I contend, that bigotry, and intolerance, and censoriousness, and melancholy, and gloominess, and whatever has a tendency to feed the evil passions, must in itself be evil. And that whatsoever nourishes and fosters the social and mild and amiable qualities of the mind, must

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