embrace every Virtue both of the HEART and UNDERSTANDING, and making it to comprehend all MORAL, as well as INTELLECTUAL, Good.

In this more comprehenfive and exalted fense WISDOM was applied by the most illustrious of her children, who, in his animated and almost enthufiaftic descriptions, has adorned this Queen of Virtues with a fplendour and magnificence of diction peculiar to himself, and celebrated her in terms of the fublimeft eulogy" She is the brightness of the everlafting LIGHT, "the unspotted mirror of the POWER of "of God, and the image of his GoodAnd the fame extenfive and divine prerogative was given to her by ONE who was wiser than Solomon, who was himself both the Architype and Exemplar of all Good, "CHRIST THE POWER OF

"6 NESS.

• Πᾶσα ἐπισήμη χωριζομένη ΔΙΑΙΚΟΣΥΝΗΣ καὶ τῆς ΑΛΛΗΣ ΑΡΕΤΗΣ, πανεργία ἀλλ' ἐ ΣΟΦΙΑ φαίνεται. Plato in Epitaph. Princeps OMNIUM VIRTUTUM eft illa Sapientia quæ ZOOIAN Græci vocant. Cic. de Off. lib, ii.

• Wisdom vii. 26.

A 2

"God

"GOD AND THE WISDOM of GOD," whofe Evangelical Difpenfation divides this Univerfal Virtue into two cardinal collateral and co-existent branches, TRUTH and CHARITY,' the foundation and the confummation of all things, corresponding to the two constituent parts of Human Nature, the INTELLECT and the WILL, thofe fingular and fupereminent diftinctions by which Man becomes the fubject of a RELIGION which will make him WISE UNTO SALVATION.

THERE is no expreffion by which our Lord prefents Himself and his Holy Gospel to our apprehenfion, with a more fanguine

1 Cor. ii. 24. and Luke iii. 52.

Ο λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτε, δόξαν ὡς μονογενες παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης ΧΑΡΙΤΟΣ και ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΣ. John i. 14.

Η ΧΑΡΙΣ και ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑ διὰ Ιησε Χριςᾶ ἐγένετο. Ibid. 17.

Ἐν τέτῳ γνώσονται πάντες ὅτι ἐμοὶ μαθηταί ἐσε, ἐὰν ΑΓΑΠΗΝ ἔχητε ἐν ἀλλήλοις. Ibid. xiii. 35.

XAPIE has a more extenfive fenfe than ArañН, and includes its meaning-Gratia, Beneficium, fed in ea fignificatione qua ponitur pro Amicitia feu Benevolentia fratrum geminorum. See Steph. Thef. Ling. Gr.

devotion,

devotion, or which he enforces with a ftronger emphafis, than that of TRUTH. Sanctify them through thy TRUTH. Thy WORD is TRUTH." He joins it

with LIFE, as connected by a close and neceffary tie, and as conftituting the WAY which leads immediately to the End of his Religion. "I am the WAY, and the TRUTH, " and the LIFE; no man cometh to the "Father but by ME."

Defcended from a celeftial parent, and allied to a fifter of such purity and perfection, for its own fake, and more especially for the fake of HIM who had all Truth, who, "from his good-will to men," hath given us thofe fublime and fupernatural portions of it, which are moft accommodated to our neceffities, and who, "knowing what " is in man," hath conveyed them to us in a manner in which we can receive and improve them to our best advantage, this branch of WISDOM is a fubject at all times most deferving our cultivation and regard.

It is

• John xvii. 17.

Ibid. xiv. 6.

the

the brightest object and ornament of the Understanding, as its fifter CHARITY is of the Heart.

To open this vaft and important argument of TRUTH IN GENERAL, by a formal, and what is called a logical, Definition, would betray both ignorance and prefumption, and promife little fuccefs in the conclufion. Ariftotle, indeed, is faid to have reproached Democritus as a Teacher and Philofopher, because he dealt in Similitudes, and Analogies, and did not define and difpute in form: And, under the sanction of his authority, the method of defining has been attempted by fome philofophers, perhaps with more confidence than fuccefs. *

TRUTH is of the nature and effence of God, like him Incomprehenfible in the whole, and Ineffable in its fublimer parts. For thefe and other reasons it cannot admit of an adequate Definition: and who, in the beginning

i See Bacon De Augm. Scient. lib. vi. cap. ii.

* How imperfect and illogical is that of Wollafton Kaly Def. 2. Sect. 1. os.

or

of dip of by

tion of Wallstand

of his researches, fhould prefume to define that, which, after all his longest and bestconducted labours, he can only hope partially, and often imperfectly, to comprehend; and of which an important part can neither be directly expreffed, nor directly understood?' We may, indeed, esteem ourselves highly favoured by the author and finisher of all Truth, if, at the end of our researches, we shall be able any way to understand, to define, and to apply, a few particular portions and detachments of it, and to guard them from ERROR and corruption,

When upon a folemn occafion the question was put to our Lord by a Roman Governor, What is TRUTH?" though it was what Brun

1 See Butler's Analogy, p. 84.

'What faculties other species of creatures may have 'to penetrate into the nature and inmost conftitutions of 'things, we know not. This we know, and certainly find, 'that we want other views of them besides those we have, 'to make discoveries of them more perfect, The in'tellectual and fenfible world are in this perfectly alike, that 'the parts which we fee of either of them hold no propor'tion to that we see not; and whatsoever we can reach 'with our eyes, or our thoughts of either of them, is but 'a point in comparison of the reft.' Locke, Hum. Und. B. iii. Ch. 3.

he