may nourish us; perhaps we breathe; perhaps air may assist respiration; perhaps there may be a symmetry in nature and in the elements. We produce these phænomena, and we make them the basis of our reasoning, and of our faith.

3. The third artifice consisteth in the weakening the evidence of known things, by arguments taken from things which are unknown. This is another sort of sophisms intended to support infidelity. It grounds a part of the difficulties which are opposed to the system of religion, not on what is known, but on what is not known. Of what use are all the treasures which are concealed in the depths of the sea? Why are so many metals buried in the bowels of the earth? Of what use are so many stars which glitter in the firmament? Why are there so many deserts uninhabited, and uninhabitable? Why so many mountains inaccessible? Why so many insects, which are a burden to nature, and which seem designed only to disfigure it? Why did God create men who must be miserable, and whose misery he could not but foresee? Why did he confine revelation for so many ages to one single nation, and in a manner, to one single family? Why doth he still leave such an infinite number of people to sit in darkness and in the shadow of death? Hence, the infidel concludes, either that there is no God, or, that he hath not the perfections which we attribute to him. The christian, on the contrary, grounds his system on principles that are evident and sure.

We derive our arguments, not from what we know not, but from what we do know. We derive them from characters of intelligence, which fall under our observation, and which we see with our own eyes. We derive them from the nature of finite beings. We derive them from the united at

testations of all mankind. We derive them" from miracles which were wrought in favor of religion. We draw them from our own hearts, which evince, by a kind of reasoning superior to all argument, superior to all scholastic demonstrations, that religion is made for man, that the Creator of man is the author of religion.

4. The fourth artifice is an attempt to prove a doctrine contradictory and absurd, because it is obscure. Some doctrines of religion are obscure: but none are contradictory. God acts towards us in regard to the doctrines of faith, as he doth in regard to the duties of practice. When he giveth us laws, he giveth them as a master; not as a tyrant. Were he to impose laws on us, which are contrary to order, which would debase our natures, and which would make innocence productive of misery: this would not be to ordain laws as a master; but as a tyrant. Then our duties would be in direct opposition. That which would oblige us to obey, would oblige us to rebel. It is the eminence of the perfections of God, which engageth us to obey him but his perfections would be injured by the imposition of such laws as these, and therefore we should be instigated to rebellion.

In like manner, God hath characterized truth and error. Were it possible for him to give error the characters of truth, and truth the characters of error, there would be a direct opposition in our ideas; and the same reason which would oblige us to believe, would oblige us to disbelieve: because that which engageth us to believe, when God speaks, is, that he is infallibly true; Now if God were to command us to believe contradictions, he would cease to be infallibly true: because nothing is more opposite to truth than self-contradiction. This is the maxim which we admit, and on which we

ground our faith in the mysteries of religion. A wise man ought to know his own weakness; to convince himself that there are questions which he hath not capacity to answer; to compare the greatness of the object with the littleness of the intelligence, to which the object is proposed; and to perceive that this disproportion is the only cause of some difficulties which have appeared so formidable to him.

Let us form grand ideas of the Supreme Being. What ideas ought we to form of him? Never hath a preacher a fairer opportunity of giving a scope to his meditation, and of letting his imagination loose, than when he describes the grandeur of that which is-most grand. But I do not mean to please your fancies by pompous descriptions; but to edify your minds by distinct ideas. God is an infinite being. In an infinite being there must be things which infi nitely surpass finite understandings; it would be absurd to suppose otherwise. As the scripture treats of this infinite God, it must necessarily treat of subjects which absorb the ideas of a finite mind.

5. The fifth artifice attacks the truth by arguments foreign from the subject under consideration. To propose arguments of this kind is one of the most dangerous tricks of error. The most essential precaution that we can use in the investigating of truth, is to distinguish that which is foreign from the subject from that which is really connected with it; and there is no question in divinity, or philosophy, cauistry, or policy, which could afford abstruse and endless disputes, were not every one who talks of it, fatally ingenious in the art of incorporating in it a thousand ideas which are foreign from it.

You hold such and such doctrines, say some; and yet Luther, Calvin, and a hundred celebrated

divines in your communion have advanced false arguments in defence of it. But what does this signify to me? The question is not whether these doctrines have been defended by weak arguments; but whether the arguments that determine me to receive them, be conclusive, or sophistical and vague.

You receive such a doctrine; but Origin, Tertullian, and St. Augustine did not believe it. And what then? Am I inquiring what these fathers did believe, or what they ought to have believed?

You believe such a doctrine; but very few people believe it beside yourself. The greatest part of Europe, almost all France, all Spain, all Italy, whole kingdoms disbelieve it, and maintain opinions diametrically opposite. And what is all this to me? Am I examining what doctrins have the greatest number of partisans, or what doctrines ought to have the most universal spread.

You embrace such a doctrine; but many illustrious persons, cardinals, kings, emperors, triplecrowned heads, reject what you receive. But what avails this reasoning to me! Am I considering the rank of those who receive a doctrine, or the reasons which ought to determine them to receive it? Have cardinals, have kings, have emperors, have triplecrowned heads, the clearest ideas? Do they labor more than all other men? Are they the most indefatigable inquirers after truth? Do they make the greatest sacrifices to order? Are they, of all mankind, the first to lay aside those prejudices and passions which envelope and obscure the truth?

6. The last artifice is this. Objections which are made against the truth, derive their force, not from their own reasonableness, but from the superiority of the genius of him who proposeth them. There is no kind of truth which its defenders

would not be obliged to renounce, were it right to give up a proposition, because we could not answer all the objections which were formed against it. A mechanic could not answer the arguments that I could propose to him, to prove when he walks, that there is no motion in nature, that it is the highest absurdity to suppose it. A mechanic could not answer the arguments that I could propose to him, to prove that there is no matter, even while he felt and touched his own body, which is material. A mechanic could not answer the arguments I could propropose to him, when he had finished his day's work, to prove that I gave him five shillings, even when I had given him but three. And yet a mechanic hath more reasons for his assertions, than the greatest geniusses in the universe have for their objections, when he affirms that I gave him but three shillings, that there is a motion, that there is a mass of matter to which his soul is united, and in which it is but too often, in a manner buried as in a tomb.

You simple, but sincere souls; you spirits of the lowest class of mankind, but often of the highest at the tribunal of reason and good sense; this article is intended for you. Weigh the words of the second commandment, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. You have more reason to justify your doctrine and worship, than all the doctors of the universe have to condemn them, by their most specious, and in regard to you, by their most indissoluble objections. Worship Jesus Christ in imitation of the angels of heaven, to whom God said, Let all the angels of God worship him, Heb. i. 6. Pray to him after the example of St. Stephen, and say unto him, as that holy martyr said in the hour of death, Lord Jesus receive my spirit, Acts vii. 59. Believe on the testimony of the inspired writers,