they have a self-sufficiency of wisdom, above all want it is to think ourselves possessed of powers, which are beyond that line, which is our boundary; our nature does not reach to this height: Our reason raise o'er instinct as you can; POPE. In our degree we have real perfections both of body and mind; the body has its eye, the mind its understanding; both which are of excellent use and direction but to say of either, that they are so perfect as not in any point to want aid, or assistance, is insupportable and absurd. The eye of the body is able, in many cases, intuitively to distinguish a straight line from a crooked; but shall we say of any man, that he has so sharp and unerring a sight, (however some may excel others in this particular,) as to be able, without line, rule, or measure, by his eye alone, to raise a various fabric, just, straight, upright and regular in all true dimensions? It is the same with the understanding, the eye of the mind: we may be able, by our reason, to deduce and judge aright of many moral duties; but if we say of the best human reason, that it ever did, without any rule but its own direction, raise the true fabric of all moral vir. tue; we must produce something to warrant such assertion, beyond what either the ancient enquirers, or our modern reasoners, have been able to evince. The wisest masters of the Greck learning, could not fix the criterion by which they might know what was only human sentiment, and what more surely was real truth. The Roman philosophy was as indeterminate; the quid est virtus--the very exemplar honesti, was what they were not able indisputably to ascertain. They wanted some test, whereby they might settle, how to distinguish in the several duties of life, wherein reason and right-reason might happen to differ from one another. And it is as n a Ut sine ullo errore dijudicare possimus, siquando cum illo, quod honestum intelligimus, pugnare id videbitur, quod appellamus utile, formula quædam constituenda est, quam si sequemur in comparatione rerum, ab officio nunquam recedemus. Cic. de Offic. lib. 3. c. 4. γ οι μεν νας καὶ δόξα αληθης στον δυο Yeun. Plato in Timæo. φωμεν άνθρωπος δοξάζειν μήποτε μεν άληθη, ποτε δὲ καὶ ψεύδη. Plat. in Theatet. z Sentit domus uniuscujusque, sentit forum, sentit curia, campi, socii, provinciæ, ut quemadmodum ratione, rectè fiat, sic ratione peccetur. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. 3. c. 27. The author of the Book of Wisdom suggests the difference. We may reason, but not aright. Wisdom ii. 1. a The test wanted is, by what shall we know when we reason aright, and when not? A Deo, says the disputant in Tully, rationem habemus, bonam aut non bonam a nobis. Cic. de Nat. Deor. lib. 3. We want a standard whereby to judge when we make our reason the one, and when the other. b remarkable of all our modern moralists, that, however they shew a great want of precision, of determinate and indisputable direction each in one another's rule or standard, they are every one at last exactly as deficient in their own.c The word of God is truth; which was to have been the rule of truth in all moral and religious duty, to our first parents and to their descendants: And a good understanding would have prevailed amongst them, if they had carefully acted according to its direction. Through the precepts of God, as they more and more improved in knowledge, they would have seen the error of every false way; and in time have been able to delineate the true religion of our nature according to it. But al though God gave them his instructions, we must not represent, that he was minutely at their elbow, to leave them in nothing to themselves, in reason to consider things; for Moses in no wise describes them in this manner. God gave our first parents one command to be a rule for them, how they were to walk humbly with him. He gave them one more to be the foundation of their relative duty to one another; and he afterwards gave like precepts in other particulars. If now they Mr. Brown, in his very excellent Essay on the Motives to Virtue, rightly observes, that our modern moralists have said little more than what might be transcribed from the old Greek Philosophers, and from Tully, after them, p. 122. See Mr. Brown's Essay. • Psal. cxi. 10. cxix. 104. * Ver. 24. Psal. cxix. 142. John xvii. 17. Micah vi. 6. Gen. ü. 17. had made these their faith; to receive and believe them, and to square their lives according to them; herein they would have had an abundant direction, and would not have erred, if they would not vary and decline from it. To have added knowledge to their faith, as the incidents arose, which might afford them instruction, would have been their reasonable duty, as it is ours ;h and a great field for them herein to exercise themselves must have opened daily unto them. For we cannot suppose that they were so insensible, as to think nothing to be their duty, but barely to observe literally the points commanded them, and no more. They were to see, and would see every thing to be wrong, which would make their lives run counter to the intention of what was directed. The being forbidden to eat of one par ticular tree, enjoined our first parents not only to abstain from the fruit of a tree;' but in every thing, whenever and whereinsoever God commanded, they were to obey his voice; as the being obliged never to separate from one another, must shew that it was their duty to consi k h2 Peter i. 5. i Were we to conceive that our first parents could have imagined, that if they but abstained from eating of the tree, they duly observed the law of God, though in other points they did not live according to the directions of their Maker; it is evident, that they would herein have kept only the form of their religion, without admitting its power and influence. But nothing can be more contrary to reason than this, or more severely reprimanded in the holy scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament. * Gen, ii. 24. der, and be rationally such in their conduct, as to live suitably to this indissoluble tie; that what God had made the indispensable condition, they should for themselves make the real happiness of their life. Thus it can in no wise be said, that revelation hath superseded reason; but that from the beginning it hath been no more than the necessary aid, without which human nature could not be made perfect. It was given to be a lamp to our feet, and a light to our paths; to give us what, in Tully's language, we might say are the formulæ,' to mark to us the points, which, if we had been made creatures of a higher intellect, we might have intuitively seen for ourselves, in looking into the nature of things. But, if they had not been given to such creatures as we are; if we had nothing to direct our judgment, but the fruits of the tree of our own knowledge of good and evil; we should, not only from the present bias of our appetites, but from (what man was subject to from the beginning) mistakes of understanding, not have found or pursued, so as to be such as we ought, in this world; or be able justly to satisfy ourselves, how we might be meet for a better. 1 Jura, formulæ de omnibus rebus constitutæ, nequis aut in genere injuriæ, aut in ratione actionis errare possit. Cic. Orat. pro Q. Roscio Comodo. |
