which, for the most part, he regulates his actions;

and happy is he who makes that

ence to the revealed will of God.

standard his obedi

Other interests are

often mistaken, but this can never disappoint him.

16. The distance at which our religious interest is placed, does not diminish its magnitude, though it may lessen its credibility, and make it appear less to us. It does not destroy its reality, or alter its proportions ; it only alters its relations to us, in point of space, and our relations to it, in respect to the capacity of apprehending it. The interest of eternity, too vast for our conceptions in our present finite, imperfect state, was wisely made remote, that its proportions might in some measure be suited to our capacity, and accommodated to our situation. Beholding it at a distance, it is but a sparkling star, to which if we would approach nearer, its magnitude would appal our senses. To see it in its natural size, and exact propor tions, our faculties must be changed, our senses made more vigorous; this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal immortality.

F 2

17. Finally. Were the truth of revealed religion a matter of demonstrative certainty, and the rewards connected with obedience to its laws, brought within the sphere of our vision, its brightness would be too strong for our sight. It would likewise be destructive of a state of moral probation. Men's motives would all incline one way, and a bias would be laid on the will too strong to be counteracted. But the wisdom of God appears most eminently bright in his having so arranged the evidences of revelation, as to make faith a matter of choice rather than of necessity, in having just so much obscurity about the reality of the interest, as is fitted to leave it in that state of doubtful light, which does not dazzle the eye, nor put an end to that probationary state, in which divine wisdom has placed us here, and which would be probationary no longer, if the affections were more biassed, or the will more enslaved; if it were not left to our unrestrained choice, either to embrace or reject the truth of christianity.

PART IV. CONTINUED.

RELIGIOUS FAITH, IN PARTICULAR, FURTHER

EXAMINED.

1. RELIGIOUS faith is properly that conviction concerning past, future, or unseen things, relating to God, his will, his counsels, or his providence, which is produced in us by the testimony of prophets, whom he hath sent and authorized.

2. Faith is a reasonable principle. There is nothing dark, mysterious, or unintelligible in it ; nothing that he, who values himself most upon his reason, has any cause to be ashamed of. It is not an enthusiastic principle, that first gives being to dreams and visions, and then supports itself upon imaginations of its own creating. It is not a supernatural impression, proceeding from the immediate agency of God, capriciously bestowed, where he pleases to bestow it, and denied, where he wills it to be denied. It is not an

inexplicable feeling of we know not what, conceived, we know not how, and cherished, we know not why. It is not the persuasion of any thing, whether good or evil, concerning either ourselves or any other being, taken up without reason, and maintained upon principles, that may not be duly specified and explained. It is not any sudden irradiation of the mind, proceeding from whatever cause. For faith is not more the special gift of God than sight. It is equally the natural and necessary result of principles that compose the human frame. To an eye duly formed, present any object of the visible world, and it is seen. To a mind attentive and undepraved, propose the evidence concerning any truth that respects the world invisible, concerning either distant objects, past transactions, or events yet to come, and in proportion to the strength of that evidence it is believed. Whatever persuasion is taken up against evidence, or without it, is blind presumption, or romantic imagination, and not faith.

3. Faith is as much the effect of evidence, as sight is the effect of sensible impression; nor is the one more absolutely dependent on its cause, or more closely connected with it, than the other. It is a law

of our nature, that in such and such circumstances we shall see; and it is as much a law of our nature, that in such and such circumstances we shall believe. If we will be judging of such visible things, as are beyond the sphere of clear and distinct vision, no man would call these presumptuous fancies, however strongly he might be attached to them, sight. And in like manner, if we would be judging of things invisible, to which the light of evidence does not reach, no man should call these visions of imagination, faith. They are both of them the reveries of a capricious and disordered mind; a partial frenzy, which only requires to be extended to a greater multitude of objects, to render the perversion of our understanding both manifest and deplorable. What sight is to the natural world, with respect to things visible and present, faith is in the spiritual world, with respect to things absent and invisible. To believe on sufficient evidence, is as natural as to perceive; and in thus believing, there is nothing more unreasonable, inexplicable, or indefensible, than in seeing with our open eyes the prospect that presents itself before us.