at least allow that no other system of

• Religion could fo effectually contribute

to the heightning of morality.

They give us great ideas of the dignity of • human nature, and of the love which the fupreme Being bears to his creatures, and confequently engage us in the highest acts of our duty towards our • Creator, our neighbour and ourselves. How many noble arguments has Saint Paul raifed from the chief articles of our Religion, for the advancing of morality in its three great branches? To give a fingle example in each kind: what can be a stronger motive to a firm trust and reliance on the mercies of our maker, than the giving us his Son to fuffer for us? What can make us love and efteem even the most in• confiderable of mankind, more than the thought that Chrift died for him? Or what difpofe us to fet a ftricter guard upon the purity of our own hearts, than our being members of Chrift, and a part of the fociety of which that immaculate Perfon is the Head? But thefe are only a specimen of thofe admirable ' enforcements of morality which the Apostle has drawn from the history of our bleffed Saviour.

If

we

If our modern Infidels confidered thefe matters with that candour and ⚫ seriousness, which they deserve, 'fhould not fee them act with fuch a fpirit of bitterness, arrogance, and malice: They would not be raising such infignificant cavils, doubts, and fcruples, as may be started against every thing that is not capable of mathematical de• monstration; in order to unfettle the ' minds of the ignorant, disturb the public peace, fubvert morality, and throw all things into confufion and diforder. • If none of thefe reflexions can have any influence on them, there is one that perhaps may, becaufe it is adapted to their vanity, by which they feem to 'be guided much more than their rea• fon. I would therefore have them confider that the wifeft and beft of men in all ages of the world, have been 'thofe who lived up to the Religion of their country, when they faw nothing in it oppofite to morality, and to the beft lights they had of the Divine Nature. Pythagoras's firft rule directs us to worship the Gods as it is ordained by law, for that is the moft natural in⚫terpretation of the precept. Socrates, 'who

• who was the most renowned among the Heathens both for wifdom and virtue, in his laft moments defires his friends to offer a Cock to Æfculapius; doubtlefs out of a fubmiffive deference to • the established worship of his country. Xenophon tells us, that his Prince (whom he fets forth as a pattern of perfection) <when he found his death approaching, • offered facrifices on the mountains to the Perfian Jupiter, and the Sun, ac•cording to the custom of the Perfians, for those are the words of the Hiftorian. Nay, the Epicureans and atomical Philofophers fhewed a very remarkable modefty in this particular; for, though • the being of a God was entirely repugnant to their schemes of natural Philofophy, they contented themfelves with • the denial of a Providence, afferting at ⚫ the fame time the Existence of Gods in ⚫ general; because they would not shock ⚫ the common belief of mankind, and the • Religion of their country.

L

Qué

Quâ ratione queas traducere leniter avum :
Ne te femper inops agitet vexetque cupido ;
Ne pavor & rerum mediocriter utilium Spes.

H

Hor.

AVING endeavoured in my last Saturday's paper to fhew the great excellency of faith, I fhall here confider what are the proper means of strengthning and confirming it in the mind of man. Those who delight in reading books of controverfy, which are written on both fides of the question in points of faith, do very feldom arrive at a fixed and fettled habit of it, they are one day entirely convinced of its important truths, and the next meet with fomething that fhakes and disturbs them. The doubt which was laid revives again, and fhews itself in new difficulties, and that generally for this reafon, because the mind which is perpetually toft in controversies and difputes, is apt to forget the reasons which had once fet it at reft, and to be difquieted with any former perplexity, when it appears in a new fhape, or is ftarted by a different hand. As nothing is more laudable than an enquiry after

truth,

truth, fo nothing is more irrational than to pafs away our whole lives, without determining ourselves one way or other in those points which are of the laft.importance to us. There are indeed many things from which we may withhold our affent; but in cafes by which we are to regulate our lives, it is the greatest abfurdity to be wavering and unfettled, without clofing with that fide which appears the most fafe and the moft probable.

The firft rule therefore which I fhall lay down, is this, that when by reading or discourse we find ourselves thoroughly convinced of the truth of any article, and of the reasonableness of our belief in it, we fhould never after fuffer ourselves to call it into question. We may perIhaps forget the arguments which occa

fioned our conviction, but we ought to = remember the ftrength they had with us, and therefore ftill to retain the conviction which they once produced. This is no more than what we do in every common art or fcience, nor is it poffible to act otherwise, confidering the weaknefs and limitation of our intellectual faculties. It was thus that Latimer one

of