under the specious garb of liberal sentiment, and scientific enquiry, to plunge thee into the ignoble servitude of vice and error, and thus to despoil thee of thy fairest and best inheritance!

"That there may be infidels who have misled themselves by reasoning, and have continued or become infidels, after enquiries comparatively accurate and honest, I shall not question; being disposed to hope the best of every human being. Some such may now hear me; but I must be allowed, at the same time, to remark, that I have never yet met with one in any country, whose character and modes of thinking I had it in my power to analyse and consider, whose infidelity was not the combined effect of pride, of vice, and prejudiced enquiry. Indeed, there is no subject on which our passions and prejudices are so apt to exert themselves, and to mislead us, as in religion. Because, if true, it most intimately affects us, many partialities must be overcome, before we shall find ourselves willing to consider its evidence with the proper disposition.

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It is from the influence of such partialitics, however artfully that influence may be concealed, that we have so often heard of the insufficiency and doubtfulness of moral evidence, when compared with mathematical, in order, as it would seem with a shew of reason, to account for devious conduct and erroneous opinions. Such objectors forget,

however, that these two kinds of evidence differ only in kind, and that in force the one is equal, in its own place, to the other in its. It is certainly to be granted, that moral truths have been oftener questioned than mathematical; but when the circumstances are considered, this will be found not to be the fault of the evidence, but of men themselves; and therefore to be no just cause for concluding that moral truth does not amount to certainty. The truths of mathematics are all abstract and speculative. They seldom excite either passion or party; and the bulk of men are ignorant and careless whether they be true or not. Moral truth affects us more nearly, and has to contend with more numerous and more partial adversaries. It excites our passions, because it affects our situation, and breeds opposition, because it directs our conduct. When men, by the influence of passion, of lust, or of example, are led into devious conduct, they exert every faculty to excuse themselves; and as they wish to think their conduct right, they persuade themselves that it is so, in contradiction to reason and to evidence. The very same thing occurs also in mathematical subjects, when men are, from a spirit of opposition, or from other circumstances, led into erroneous opinions; and subjects which we think clearly established, on the most abstract and invariable principles, prejudiced, ignorant, or assuming men are.

If a man does not

not afraid to controvert. see, will not acknowledge, or is not aware, of these circumstances, he is ill qualified to judge of moral reasoning, and is certainly not at liberty to invalidate its credit, because he evidently has not attended to the grounds on which it rests, nor to the prejudices it has to oppose.

"If we could conceive a being, such as angels are represented, completely superiorto human partialities, and with faculties so enlarged as to comprehend, with one grasp, the situation of man in this world, and his relation to the next, the bounded extent of his intellect, and the boundless range of objects and existences which surround him, he would doubtless be astonished, he would be moved with anguish, and with pity, at the puny animal, when he found him attempting, by his confined and bounded faculties, to determine what does and what should exist, -as if, instead of being a creature, he were fitted to be the creator of the whole. We come into the world without any exertion of our own, and are unable, of ourselves, to exist a single day. Our bodies gradually increase, and the faculties of our minds expand, not through any care of our own, but by the culture of others. All that we are, and all that we have, is nothing of our own; and what, under the influence of education, and the instruction of those about us, is capable of great exertions, and of large attain

ments, if left from the first to itself, would in all probability be capable of nothing. A greater instance of human pride, therefore, combined with folly and weakness, has seldom been exhibited, than by those infidel writers, who attempt a priori to prove the non-existence of God, and that any revelation, if there were one, is unnecessary. That beings, so weak, so limited, and ignorant, as we are, viewing all the orbs which swim in the immensity of space, and all the works which attract our notice on the surface of our own globe,-should presume to think that our puny understandings can scan the whole, be able to determine what ought to exist, or to comprehend all that does,-is a piece of affectation so truly ridiculous and absurd, as to demand rather pity than confutation. It is impossible for beings, such as we are, to prove any thing a priori. Limited, with respect to the origin of our existence, and in the extent of our faculties,. when existence is conferred, we can know nothing till we acquire that knowledge from actual observation, or from the information of others. From what we see around us on the earth, and in the heavens, we certainly gather the strongest proofs of a superior existence, so vast and dignified, so full of wisdom, and so replete with knowledge and power, that we, and all our faculties, and alb our acquirements, sink into nothing when compared with it. This argument a posteri

ori, because it is more important, and more intimately affects our conduct, has indeed been disputed; but it is notwithstanding equally clear with, and more affecting than, any proposition in Euclid. Finding ourselves to be parts of a great creation, and individual objects of some mighty scheme, in the formation of which we had no hand, and of the origin of which we can of ourselves know nothing, it would be strange folly and pitiable presumption in us, to determine a priori the purpose for which the world was created, or the end for which we ourselves were called into existence. Our capacities are so limited, and our natural means of acquiring information are so few, and uncertain, as effectually to quash the presumption which impotent pride might be apt to excite.

"It is in vain for us to attempt to prove a priori, the certainty or uncertainty of any thing. The attempt, in whatever way we conduct it, unless we were possessed of faculties very different from, and very superior to, those we do possess, will be found to be ineffectual. From the circumstances, however, in which we find ourselves placed, and from the nature of our mental powers, as unfolded by experience, we can most clearly deduce the necessity of a divine, revelation; and, if there be a God, infidels themselves grant its possibility. Without a revelation, or some kind of instruction or other, and left entirely to himself, we find.