hazarded on that mysterious and sublime composition, the Apocalypse, are a scandal to the human intellect.-W. B. Clulow.

413.

Credulity, or an easiness to believe without reason or Scripture, is a stranger to wisdom, and the very nurse of superstition.-Dr Whichcote.

414.

It is not to be imagined, when men are once under the power of superstition, how ridiculous they may be, and yet think themselves religious: how prodigiously they may play the fool, and yet believe they please God: what cruel and barbarous things they may do to themselves and others; and yet be verily persuaded that they do God service. -Dr T. Fuller.

415.

I suspect whether that be of any moment in religion which admits of dispute; for methinks it is not agreeable to the goodness of God, to suffer anything of that universal concern to all men, to remain very obscure and controversial.-Dr T. Fuller.

416.

Ignorance and credulity have ever been companions, and have misled and enslaved mankind, philosophy has in all ages endeavoured to oppose their progress, and to loosen the shackles they had imposed; philosophers have on this account been called unbelievers: unbelievers of what?-of the fictions of fancy, of witchcraft, hobgoblins, apparitions, vampires, fairies; of the influence of the stars on human actions, miracles wrought by the bones of saints, the flights of ominous birds, the predictions from the bowels of dying animals, expounders of dreams, fortune-tellers, conjurors, modern prophets, necromancy, chieromancy, with endless variety of folly? These they have disbelieved and despised,

but have ever bowed their heads to truth and nature. -Dr Darwin.

417.

I have seen a harmless dove made dark with an artificial night, and her eyes sealed and locked up with a little quill, soaring upward and flying with amazement, fear, and an undiscerning wing; she made towards heaven, but knew not that she was made a train and an instrument, to teach her enemy to prevail upon her, and all her defenceless kindred. So is a superstitious man, jealous and blind, forward and mistaken; he runs towards heaven as he thinks, but he chooses foolish paths, and out of fear takes any thing that he is told, or fancies and guesses concerning God, by measures taken from his own diseases and imperfections.-Bp. Jeremy Taylor.

418.

Any one who properly considers the subject, will find natural philosophy to be, after the word of God, the surest remedy against superstition, and the most approved support of faith. She is therefore rightly bestowed upon religion as a most faithful attendant, for the one exhibits the will, and the other the power of God. Nor was He wrong who observed, "Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures and

power of God;" thus uniting in one bond the revelation of His will, and the contemplation of His power.-Bacon.

419.

Superstition has many direct sorrows, but atheism has no direct joys. Superstition admits fear mingled with hope; but atheism, while it excludes hope, affords a very imperfect security against fear. Superstition is ever exposed to the dreary vacuities in the soul, over which atheism is wont to mood in solitude and silence: but atheism is sometimes haunted with forebodings scarcely less confused, or less unquiet, than those by which superstition is annoyed. Su

perstition stands aghast at the punishment reserved for wicked men in another state; but atheisin cannot disprove the possibility of such a state to all men, accompanied by consciousness, and fraught with evils, equally dreadful in degree, and even in duration, with those punishments. Superstition has often preserved men from crimes; but atheism tends to protect them from weaknesses only. Superstition imposes fresh restraints upon the sensual appetites, though it may often let loose the malignant passions; but atheism takes away many restraints from those appetites, without throwing checks upon those passions, under many circumstances which may incite them in the minds of its votaries. Superstition is eager from a vicious excess of credulity; but atheism is often obstinate from an excess of incredulity, equally vicious. Superstition is sometimes docile from conscious weakness; but atheism is always haughty from real or supposed strength. Superstition errs, and perverts only in consequence of error; but atheism rejects, and for the most part disdains to examine after rejection. Superstition catches at appearances; but atheism starts back from realities. Superstition may, in some favorable moment, be awakened to the call of truth; but atheism is generally deaf to the voice of that charmer, charm she never so wisely.”—Dr Parr. 420.

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If all proceeds from God, so must the qualities of our minds, as well as the forms of our bodies; and the gifts must be directed by His will, which shews itself in the variety of His works, as well in the moral as the natural world.

That will must also shew itself in the mode of giving, which in man is modified by a due proportion of free agency, to constitute and temper his responsibility, and the retributions which his use of it shall call for. This, I believe, is the limit

of God's predestination, distinct as that must be from his prescience: leaving to Him the full exercise of His attributes, and to man the exercise destined for him of his free agency.-W. Danby.

421.

This is the security of us creatures who live under an irresistible and uncontrollable power, that all the ways and proceedings of that power are in loving kindness, righteousness, and judgment.— Dr Whichcote.

422.

Reason cannot be perfectly satisfied with what it does not comprehend; but there are matters, in which this want of satisfaction may be supplied by the feelings; so it is in religion, which addresses itself to both. If reason were perfectly satisfied, there would be no operation on the feelings, or at least, not of that sort and degree, that would not interfere with our free-agency, or with that trial of our feelings, which depends upon our having the power over them that free-agency supposes. Without that free-agency, or at least, a sufficient degree of it, (for every thing in human nature is limited) there can be no responsibility.-W. Danby.

423.

I think we cannot repeat that passage in Scripture,Surely there is a God who governs the earth," without being sensible that the assurance is derived from a mixture of reason and feeling, which would not have been made to concur, if the action of each had not been necessary, as an aid to the other.-W. Danby.

424.

In matters of sentiment, the grounds of assent or rejection must, I should suppose, differ from those of mere matter of fact; and the manner and degree of assent obtained must probably depend

H

a good deal upon the moral inclination of the person addressed. Now religion is chiefly a matter of sentiment: not merely the judgment, but all the passions are concerned, one way or another, in its reception or rejection.-W. Danby.

425.

Our wills are more to be blamed than Our natures: perverse wills do more harm in the world than weak heads.-Dr Whichcote.

426.

It grieves me more than I can say, to find so much intolerance; by which I mean over-estimating our points of difference, and under-estimating our points of agreement. I am by no means indifferent to truth and error, and hold my own opinions as decidedly as any man; which of course implies a conviction that the opposite opinions are erroneous. In many cases I think them not only erroneous, but mischievous; still they exist in men, whom I know to be thoroughly in earnest, fearing God, and loving Christ, and it seems to me to be a waste of time, which we can ill afford, and a sort of quarrel "by the way," which our christian vow of enmity against moral evil makes utterly unseasonable, when christians suspend their great business and loosen the bond of their union with each other by venting fruitless regrets and complaints against one another's errors, instead of labouring to lessen one another's sins. For coldness of spirit, and negligence of our duty, and growing worldliness, are things which we should thank our friends for warning us against; but when they quarrel with our opinions, which we conscientiously hold, it merely provokes us to justify ourselves, and to insist that we are right and they wrong.- -Dr Arnold.

427.

We may maintain the unity of verity in point of faith, and unity of charity in point of communion,