practising moral and religious rectitude, so different; that all just and impartial as he is, he can never intend to judge us for our actions alone.

Now, what may be said with respect to benevolence, may be said of all other acts called virtuous, in stimulating to, or dissuading us from the performance of which, constitution has any part: and the same cause which can thus make it possible that the most proper actions shall be without any character of virtue, may give to the same improper actions, different degrees of turpitude.

But lastly, as neither any motives of themselves, nor any actions of themselves are virtuous; so neither are any motives, united with any system of conduct virtuous, if it be within our power to obtain better motives, and a better system of conduct.

For to live ignorant of his will who both made, and will dispose of us, if it be possible for us to know that will, or to have juster notions of it than we at present possess (and this, if we have had no revelation, may, for aught we know, be always possible) is to offer a positive insult to our Creator. He who, with an indolent and easy faith, sits down assured that he knows the will of the Almighty, when he also knows that he has never taken half so much trouble to discover it as he daily takes to discover the best mode of advancing his temporal concerns, is guilty of audacious impiety. He does something less for God's sake, than he does for the promotion of his worlds ly good. He tells us that his conscience is at ease perhaps, that it assures him of his safety; but there is scarcely any conceivable mode of conduct in which, under certain circumstances, conscience may not be at ease. In different Parts and periods of the world, conscience has suffered men unreproached to marry their sisters; to murder their parents; to immolate their children. Nay, not only have suck

the reach of that reason. But let not us sit down sati with such a director, till we have put it beyond all of doubt that we have not, as it is said we have, a be an infallible, a divine one at hand; for if we do, we no more claim to the character of virtue, if I have defined it, than we have to that of angelic purity. So as there remains any probability, that we have at ha sure and never failing guide to moral and religious tude, not to investigate the matter fully, is to manife degree of supineness in God's cause, which can never forgiven us: it is to evince an impious indifference whe we do, or do not possess, a precious, an invaluable gift mitted to us by our heavenly father himself. If ther such a guide as this at hand, to have followed one so tainly fallible as conscience unenlightened but by rea will, if God be at all jealous of his majesty, power, glory, draw upon us no gentle punishment.

To man in a state of nature, i. e, with his re utterly rude, and unimproved by education, natural science, (conscience, i. e. to which the improvemen reason has afforded no foreign light,) is the only rul conduct which he is called to obey. To men in a sta civilization, but not possessed of a divine revelation, science, informed by the best lights in morality and gion, which reason can, under their particular circ stances acquire, is still a paramount and all-suffic principle of action. But, if there be any men are furnished with a rule of conduct certainly divine, therefore, certainly infallible; in them, to regulate t consciences by any thing else; to obey any other rule conduct, is impiously wicked: And if there exist amo any men a rule of conduct reputed to be of divine ori not to employ all the means within their reach, of as

it is to rest satisfied with our particular mode of serving him, when it is reported, and is obviously possible, that a better is at hand.

Conscience is, if 1 may so express myself, the judge to whom reason pleads her cause, and it is through the medium of reason alone that conscience can form any judg ment; the union between them is intimate, complete; they evermore approve and disapprove the same things as each other, and in exact proportion as reason is more or less instructed in moral and religious truth, are the decrees of conscience more or less consistent with moral and religious rectitude. It is the same conscience which sanctions parricide in the Indians of a certain tribe, and leads the more enlightened Persian to doubt the possibility of an act so horrid; and it is the improvement of his reason alone which gives to the conscience of the latter a juster tone than that of the former possesses. But, as reason in

its highest improvement is imperfect, so also the best taught conscience which has reason alone for its guide, must obviously be fallible, and a judge to whose decisions: it is unsafe to trust, if a better be at hand. It is the fashion amongst a certain set of men, who, though living in a Christian country, are heathen philosophers in faith, (not such however, in modesty and inquiry) to say, that conscience, untaught by revelation, but enlightened by the inquiries of reason, is an unerring guide to moral and religious rectitude. But it yet remains for these philosophers to tell us, how that can be perfect which is continually contradicting itself: the disciple of philosophy talks much of right reason, but what right reason considered as a perfect guide in morality and religion is, we have still to learn; we still lack a definition of it.

"Ask where's the North ? at York, 'tis on the Tweed;

"In Scotland, at the Orcades; and there,

"At Greenland, Zembla, or the Lord knows where."

Ask in what right reason consists? the Mahometan will tell you in thinking with him; the Hindoo in adopting his opinions; the Chinein espousing his creed. The French philosophers thought that they had certainly discovered what right reason was, and, in the fervour of their joy worshipped the goddess, in whom they believed that they had found an infallible guide. Time has shewn that they were mistaken; but if the English philosophers of the present day, will prove to us that their goddess of reason is really infallible, we will fall down and worship her as they do. Till they do this however, we must beg leave to follow a guide, which, if it be what it professes (and that it is such, it shall be my endeavour in the course of this book to prove) is a perfect one, and as such given to man by his Maker.

"The human mind, it is said, comes immediately from God, and must therefore have an innate power to discover, and an innate disposition to approve, moral and religious rectitude." Now, by the same reasoning, we might prove that the instinct of an elephant must possess this power, and this disposition for it is not a jot less certain that the instinct of an elephant comes immediately from the hand of God, than that the mind of man does.

But to talk of the natural conscience, or of conscience enlightened by reason mercly, as a faculty whose unbor rowed dictates he can know, is nonsense, in one who has been educated in a Christian country. For such an one, having imbibed Christian doctrines almost before he left his mother's breast; having been surrounded with people who agree to take their notions of good and evil from "the Book called the Scriptures, can never, so long as he finds his notions of morality and religion accord with those of Christians, be sure that those notions are not drawn from the Book in quesion, and by no means from the dictates of conscience unenlightened by divine assistOr rather he may be sure of the very contrary if he look abroad, and see what natural conscience, or con

ance.

conduct which the gospel enjoins, gives to his conscience the credit of having dictated such conduct, is in any case guilty of great ingratitude towards that Book from which, ultimately, his knowledge of good and evil springs. He is guilty of pride and disingenuousness, under the supposition most favourable to his safety, viz. that the Book in question has a mere human origin; but what is he guilty of, if it do indeed come from God?

There must always be many modes in which we may offer our services to God; but as, unless we have had some such intimation from him, we cannot know that that particular mode which we have adopted is the best within our reach; as it is always possible, for aught we know to the contrary (if, I mean, God has not revealed his will to us) that a better may be at hand; so we are always bound to be on the search for this better mode: The conviction, that for aught they could know to the contrary, better motives, and a better system of conduct might always be within the reach of imperfect beings to whom God had never declared his will, made the wisest and best amongst the heathens give their days and nights to inquire what God's will was, i. e. what particular mode of conduct he wished from them and what motives to sanctify it. Nor ought we, unless we know that we have a

Since writing the greater part of this Book I have met with a passage in one of Mrs. Carter's Letters so nearly resembling, except as to the superiority of the style, a great part of the present Chapter, that I am induced to transcribe it. "All history bears testimony to the general opinion of mankind that for the proper conduct of life, something more was neces sary than the mere natural powers of the human mind. Universal ex-perience felt the insufficiency of the soul to its own virtue, and to its own happiness, and under all the various modes of religious worship, one principal object, was a search after some external signification of the divine will, and some superior assistance. The whole system of augury,