ing more just conceptions of the glorious Author of all, and confequently of paying him a more rational obedience and devotion, and of approaching nearer to him; to compare two minds fo immenfely different in their capacities and endowments, what likeness appears to determine us to regard them as of the fame fpecies, and not rather to pronounce the one an angel, and the other a brute?

We fee, therefore, that though there may be no room for pride or felf-conceit on account of our attainments in knowledge, fince the highest pitch we can poffibly foar to, will be but inconfiderable in comparison with what we never can reach; yet there is a great deal of room for laudable ambition; fince we fee it is poffible to excel the bulk of our fpecies, for any thing we know, almost as much as an angel does a brute.

Ail endowments and acquifitions must have a beginning. Time was, when Sir Ifaac Newton did not know the letters of the alphabet. And the time may, and, no doubt, will come, when the meaneft of my readers, if he makes a proper ufe of the natural abilities, and providential advantages given him, and ftudies to gain His favour, in whofe difpofal all gifts and endowments. are, will exceed not only the pitch to which the abovementioned prodigy of our species reached, but will rise to a station above that which the highest archangel in heaven fills at prefent, though the distance muft ftill continue. And no one knows what immenfe advantage it may be of, to have endeavoured, even in this imperfect ftate, to get our minds opened, by the accefs of new ideas and views; to have habituated ourselves to examine, to compare, to reflect, and diftinguish. It is evident that all these exercises of the understanding must be abfolutely neceffary in any future ftate whatever, for enlarging the fphere of our knowledge, and ennobling our minds. And what an advantage muft it be for future ftates to have begun the work here that is to be carried on to eternity? To what end does religion, and even reafon, direct us to mortify our paffions and appetites, to habituate our minds to the contemplation of thofe high and heavenly things we hope to come one day to the enjoyment of? No doubt, it is neceffary in

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the nature of things, that our minds, in their prefent infant ftate (as this may very properly be called) be formed and disciplined, by cuftom and habit, to that temper and character, which is to be hereafter their glory, their perfection, and their happiness. Transfer the view from practice to knowledge, and you will find, that the analogy will hold good there likewife. It is neceffary that we cultivate to the utmost all the faculties of our fouls in the prefent ftate, in order to their arriving at higher degrees of perfection hereafter. And no rational mind ever will, or can, rife to any high degree of perfection in any flate whatever, and continue in ignorance. For if the definition of a rational mind be, "A being endowed with understanding and will,” (I mention only the two principal faculties) there is no doubt but it is equally neceffary to the perfection, and confequently to the happiness of every rational being, that its understanding be enlarged and improved by knowledge, as that its will be formed and directed by a fenfe of duty. To put the matter upon its proper foot, we ought to confider the improvement of every faculty of our minds as a part of virtue, of which afterwards. And in doing fo, we fhall find, that there ought to be no diftinction between the love of knowledge and of virtue; it being evident, that the proper improvement and due conduct of the understanding is an indifpenfable part of the duty of every rational being. Juft fentiments of the fupreme Governor of the world, of our own nature and ftate, of the fitnefs and propriety of moral good, and the fatal effects of irregularity, are the only fure foundation of goodness. Now, to attain full and clear notions of thefe, it will be neceffary to make pretty extensive inquiries, to carry our refearches a confiderable way into the works of God, from whence we draw the cleareft conceptions of his nature and attributes; to ftudy our own nature and ftate, with the various paffions, appetites, and inclinations, which enter into our conflitution; the connections and relations we ftand in to one another; and the different natures and confequences of actions, according to the motives they spring from, and the circumftances which diverfify

them

them. All this, I fay, will be of immenfe advantage for raifing us above vice, and confirming us in a steady course of virtue, which is the direct tendency of all true knowledge, and the effect it never fails to produce in every honeft and uncorrupted mind.

And though it must be owned, that an illiterate daylabourer, who earns his living by hedging and ditching, who is devout toward his God, and benevolent to his neighbour, is a much nobler and more valuable being in the fight of his Maker, than the moft accomplished courtier, who fupports his grandeur by the wages of iniquity; nay, though it is evident, that great knowledge will even make a wicked being the worse, as it enables him to be more extensively wicked; it does not therefore follow, that knowledge is of no confequence to virtue; but only that vice is of fo fatal and deftructive a nature, as to poifon and pervert the best things where it enters. If the above day-labourer, by the mere goodness of his heart, may be acceptable to God, and esteemed by all good men, how much higher might he have rifen, with the addition of extenfive improvements in knowledge? Could ever a Woolafton or a Cudworth have formed fuch juft, or fuch fublime notions of virtue and of fpiritual things? Could they ever have arrived at the pitch of goodness themselves reached, or could they have reprefented it in the amiable lights they have done, fo as to gain others to the ftudy and practice of it, without extenfively-improved abilities?

Enough, methinks, has therefore been faid to invite readers, especially the younger fort, to engage in the truly noble and worthy labour of improving their minds, rather than indulging their fenfes; of cultivating the immortal part, rather than pampering the body; of aspiring to a resemblance of the nature of angels, rather than finking themselves to the rank of the brutes.

It is amazing and delightful to confider, what feemingly difficult things are done by means of human knowledge, fcanty and confined as it is. The wonders performed by means of reading and writing are so striking, that fome learned men have given it as their opinion, that the whole was communicated to mankind origi

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nally by fome fuperior being. That by means of the various compofitions of about twenty different articulations of the human voice, performed by the affiftance of the lungs, the glottis, the tongue, the lips, and the teeth, ideas of all fenfible and intelligible objects in nature, in art, in science, in hiftory, in morals, in fupernaturals, fhould be communicable from one mind to another; and again, that figns fhould be contrived, by which those articulations of the human voice fhould be expreffed, fo as to be communicable from one mind to another by the eye; this feems really beyond the reach of humanity left to itfelf. To imagine, for example, the first of mankind capable of inventing any set of founds, which fhould be fit to communicate to one another the idea of what is meant by the words virtue or rectitude, or any other idea wholly unconnected with any kind of found whatever, and afterwards of inventing a fet of figns, which fhould give the mind, by the eye, an idea of what is properly an object of the fenfe of hearing (as a word, when expreffed with the voice, represents an idea, which is the mere object of the underftanding); to imagine mankind, in the firft ages of the world, without any hint from fuperior beings, capable of this, feems doing too great honour to our nature. Be that as it will; that one man fhould, by uttering a fet of founds no way connected with, or naturally reprefentative of, one fet of ideas more than another; that one man fhould, by fuch feemingly, unfit means, enlighten the understanding, roufe the paffions, delight or terrify the imagination of another; and that he fhould not only be able to do this when present, viva voce; but that he fhould produce the fame effect by a fet of figures no way naturally fit to reprefent either the ideas he would communicate, or (lefs ftill) the articulate founds, which are themfelves but reprefentatives of ideas; and that he fhould affect another perfon at pleasure, at the distance of five thousand miles, and with as much precifion and accuracy as if he were upon the fpot, nay, as if he could open to him his mind, and give him to apprehend the ideas as they lie there in their original flate, is truly admirable. The tranflating

(fo to speak) ideas into founds, the tranflating those founds into vifible objects, the tranflating one set of those visible objects into another, or turning one language into another, as Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, into English; all this, if we were not familiar with it, would appear a fort of magic; but our being accustomed to it does not leffen its real excellence.

Again, if we confider what ftrange things are commonly done by every novice in numbers, we cannot help admiring the excellence of knowledge. To tell an Indian, that a boy of twelve years of age could, by making a few scrawls upon paper, determine the number of barley-corns, which would go round the globe of the earth; would ftrangely startle him! To talk to one unacquainted with the firft principles of arithmetic, of adding together a fet of numbers, as five thousand five hundred and fifty-five, fix thousand fix hundred and fixty-fix, seven thousand seven hundred and feventyieven, and fo on; to the number of twenty or thirty lines of figures, especially, if thofe lines confifted ofa great many places of figures, going on to hundreds of thousands, millions, billions, trillions, and fo on, to tell fuch a perfon, that it was not only poffible, but even that nothing. was more easy or trifling, than to determine the whole amount of fuch a fet of numbers, and that without miftaking a fingle unit, all this would feem to the untutored Indian utterly incredible and impoffible! To tell a Barbarian, that nothing was more common, than for traders in this part of the world, to buy in goods to the value of many thousand pounds, to fell them out again in parcels, not exceeding the value of ten or twenty fhillings each, to receive in their money only once a year, and yet that they committed no confiderable miftake, nor fuffered any material lofs in the dealings of many years together, through error or mifcalculation; he would conclude, that either thofe traders had memories above the usual rate of human nature, or that they had fupernatural affiftance! Yet all that has been hitherto mentioned, and a thoufand times more, is what we find perfons of the meaneft natural endowments, and the narroweft educations, capable of acquiring That by obferving with fo fimple an inftrument

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