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In like manner, besides those ideas annexed to such words as God, religion, future life, &c. which can be communicated to others by their definitions, there are what are sometimes called secondary ideas, or feelings, which are aggregate sensations, consisting of numberless other sensations and ideas, which have been associated with them, and which it is absolutely impossible for one person to communicate to another; because the same education, the same course of instruction, the same early discipline, the same or similar circumstances in life, and the same reflections upon those circumstances, must have concurred in the formation of them. They are, however, these infinitely complex and indescribable feelings that often give those ideas the greatest force, and their influence upon the mind and conduct; because dispositions to love, fear, and obey God have a thousand times followed those complex feelings, and pious and worthy resolu tions have been connected with them.

On this account, persons whose education has been much neglected, but who begin to hear of religion and apply themselves to it late in life, can never acquire the devotional feelings of those who have had a religious education; nor can it be expected that they will be uniformly influenced by them. They may use the same language, but their feelings will, notwithstanding, be very different.

The difference is, however, nothing more than is observed in other similar cases. A man, who has from his infancy been conversant with any thing, will have ideas of it very differently modified from those of the person who has acquired them by the information of others, or later in life. A person who has been bred in a camp will have very different ideas of every thing relating to war from those who have only heard or read of such things, or who have seen something of war later in life; and the ideas of the former cannot, in the nature of things, be communicated with precision to others; because the component parts of those ideas, or rather the feelings,

were acquired by passing through a variety of scenes which made a deep impression upon the mind, and therefore left traces proportionably deep.

I shall conclude with observing, that the influence of general states of mind, turns of thought, and fixed babits, which are the consequence of them, is so great, that too much attention cannot be given to education, and the conduct of early life. Supposing the present laws of our minds to continue (and there is no more reason to expect a change in them than in any other of the laws of nature), our happiness to endless ages must depend upon it. It is a necessary consequence of the principle of association, that the mind grows more callous to new impressions continually; it being already occupied with ideas and sensations which render it indisposed to receive others, especially of a heterogeneous nature.

We, in fact, seldom see any considerable change in a person's temper and habits after he has grown to man's estate. Nothing short of an entire revolution in his circumstances and mode of life can effect it. This analogy will lead us to consider the state of our minds at the commencement of` another life (being produced by the whole of our passage through this) as still more fixed, and indisposed to any change for the better or worse. Consequently, our happiness or misery for the whole of our existence depends, in a great measure, on the manner in which we begin our progress through it.

The effects of religious impressions made upon the mind in early life may be overpowered for a time by impressions of an opposite nature, but there will always be a possibility of their reviving in favorable circumstances; i. e. in circumstances in which ideas formerly connected with religious impressions will necessarily be presented to the mind, and detained there. Let a man be ever so profligate, his friends may always have hopes of his being reclaimed, if he had a religious education, and his religious impressions were not effaced very early. But if no foundation of religion has been

laid in early life, many of the most favorable opportunities of being brought to a sense of their duty are lost upon them. For in the minds of such persons there are no religious impressions, not even in a dormant state, and capable of being revived by circumstances that have the most natural and the strongest connections with them. Also ideas of religion, like those of other objects with which we form an acquaintance too late in life, will never make much impression; and being foreign, and dissimilar to all the other impressions with which the mind has been occupied, they will never be able to take place for a sufficient length of time; other associations continually taking place to the exclusion of these.

Besides, as the objects about which we are much conversant are apt to become magnified in our minds, as persons unavoidably value their own professions and pursuits, and the more in proportion as they have less knowledge of others; habits and practices that are really vicious, ultimately pernicious in society, and quite opposite to every thing of a religious nature, will have formed unnatural associations with ideas of honor, spirit, and other things of a similar kind; so that some virtues and religious duties, as humility, modesty, temperance, chastity, &c. will never appear to them respectable and engaging; and, on account of the connexion of these virtues with others, every thing belonging to strict morals and religion will be regarded with aversion and contempt. This turn of thinking may, for want of early religious impressions, be so confirmed that nothing in the usual course of human life shall be able to change it. The very things that are the means and incitements to religion and devotion in previously well-disposed minds, have the very opposite effect on others. Thus we see that the reading of the devotional parts of Scripture, of incidents in the life of Christ and the apostles, the meditation upon which fills the minds of some with reverence and devotion, even to ecstasy, are read by others with ridicule or disgust. No argument can be of any use to such persons, because the thing that is wanting is

a proper set of associated feelings arising from actual impressions, the season for which is over, and will never return. The contempt of religion in such persons is only increased by endeavours to persuade them of its value; so that it is much more advisable, when persons are got to a certain pitch of infidelity and profligacy, to let them alone, and entirely cease to remonstrate with them on the subject. The very discoursing about religion only revives such ideas as they have formerly connected with it, and which renders the subject odious to them,

The plain inference from all this is, that if we wish that religious impressions should ever have a serious hold upon the mind, they must be made in early life. Care, however, must be taken, lest, by making religious exercises too rigorous, an early aversion be excited, and so the very end we have in view be defeated.

INFIDELITY.

IF I be asked why I write so much as I do, on the subject of the Evidences of Christianity (for many of my publications relate to it,) I answer, that both its infinite importance and the extraordinary crisis of the times call for it from every person who conceives that he has any prospect of being heard and attended to. There is no subject whatever with respect to which I am more fully satisfied myself; and few persons, I imagine, will pretend that they have given so much attention to it as I have done. It does not, however, follow from this circumstance, that I have viewed it in every possible light, and that others may not discover what I have overlooked. I have therefore wished to promote the most free and open discussion of it, and have not failed to invite, nay, to provoke, this examination, on every proper occasion.

When, however, we have done all that we can, we must leave the event to a wise Providence, whose instruments we are, and which has, no doubt, the best ends to answer both by the promulgation of Christianity, and the present remarkable progress of infidelity. And believing this, we should not, after doing what we conceive to be our duty, make ourselves unhappy; though influenced, as we necessarily are, by the objects that are nearest to us, it must give pain to every zealous Christian to see so many persons, for whose intellectual and moral improvement he is concerned, and especially his near friends and relations, carried away by the torrent, which he sees to sweep before it every principle that he feels to be most valuable and useful to himself; leaving

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