"phets are gone out into the world!." Such also is the solemn declaration of the Lord of hosts, by the prophet Jeremiah: "Heark"en not unto the words of the prophets, "that prophesy unto you: they make you "vain: they speak a vision of their own "heart, and not out of the mouth of the "Lord.... I have heard what the pro"phets said, that prophesy lies in my "name, saying, I have dreamed, I have "dreamed.... The prophet that hath a "dream, let him tell a dream; and he that "hath my word, let him speak my word "faithfully. What is the chaff to the "wheat? saith the Lord."

Instances are frequently occurring, in which the wisdom of this world is proved to be very foolishness. The success of the most plausible speculations, and of the most consummate schemes of policy, is often counteracted by some secret principle of error in which they are severally conceived; and a system of philosophy, which was at one time received every

i1 John iv. 1. k Jer. xxiii. 16. 25. 28.

where without opposition, is now universally exploded, and shewn to be at variance with the visible operations of nature. And can it excite any just offence or surprise, if in matters in which the senses of men have no concern, and in the interpretation of a volume which many cooperating causes render hard to be understood, the weak should be mistaken, and the designing should deceive; so that the parable is realized, in which the Church is compared with a field in which the enemy is employed in sowing evil seed'. The knowledge that these things have occurred, and the probability that they will continue to occur, suggest the necessity of caution and vigilance; of caution, in examining the claims of the spirits; and of vigilance, in distinguishing the spirit of Truth from the spirit of Error.

II. The principal means of pursuing this important investigation, in subordination to the supreme authority of the word of God, are the reason and philosophy of

Matt. xiii. 24, 25.

men, their written and their unwritten traditions, and the various measures of divine assistance and illumination which some have received, and which many have pretended to receive, in the interpretation of the sacred volume. Each of these has been recommended as an absolute and exclusive standard by men of different tempers and dispositions, by the inquisitive, the superstitious, and the enthusiastic: all; properly restricted and defined, have their use in the exposition and illustration of the Christian doctrine, and in the confutation of error, when they are applied to the advancement of Christian virtue, and in sub, serviency to the great Christian profession, that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.

Reason is not a definitive standard of religious opinions. Wise men are seldom found to ask the advice of another, with+ out being persuaded that the person whom they consult possesses superior judgment and penetration in the difficulty which perplexes them, and which of themselves they are not able to resolve. It is none' but the reasoner who professes to seek in

formation from the Scriptures, and in the issue disallows their authority, who carries a circuitous and childish appeal from himself to another, and from another to himself, from his reason to the Scriptures, and from the Scriptures to his reason again, The will of men is not the measure of the law of God, nor is their knowledge the standard of his truth. The history of the Church of Christ exhibits too many proofs of the effects which a philosophizing spirit has produced on the interpretation of the Gospel, and of the vanity of all attempts to abate the rigour of its precepts, or compromise the sublimity of its doctrines; and it is a fact which cannot be denied, that the writers of the pretended age of reason, acted the part of the sceptic under the assumed character of the philosopher. The effects of a presuming philosophy upon the true religion were foreseen and predicted even in the time of the Apostles: "Beware

lest any man spoil you through philoso❝phy and vain deceit, after the tradition "of men, after the rudiments of the world,

" and not after Christ"." This was the earnest warning of Saint Paul; and Saint John describes men who learned and taught in the world a doctrine which the world was too willing to receive, even the denial of the Incarnation of Christ: and he prescribes the belief of this doctrine as a standard, to guide and regulate the judgment of those whom he exhorted to use their own discretion in trying the seve ral spirits, whether they were of God".

Reason in its proper sphere has nevertheless much occupation in the concerns of Religion. Her province is to examine the evidences of the truth, both internal and external, and to ascertain whether it is not in the highest degree improbable, that our Christian faith is of the invention of man, and whether it is not an indisputable fact, that it is of the revelation of God. Reason and judgment will also be necessary to the his torian, in the illustration, arrangement, and connection of the sacred records; to the interpreter of prophecy in ascertaining its

m Coloss. ii. 8. n.1 John iv. 1; 3. 5. 2 John 7: 10.