it becomes our only light and guide; and it must be reasonable to direct our fteps by probability, when we have nothing clearer to walk by; and, if it be reafonable, we are obliged to do it. When there is nothing in the opposite scale, or nothing of equal weight, this in the course of nature must turn the beam

With regard to divine teftimony, though it comes under the denomination of the evidence of teftimony, is of a fuperior nature; and the affent to a propofition upon this evidence is ftiled divine faith, and fo far as we understand the meaning of this word it produces a fupernatural certainty, or an abfolute infallible affurance.

VII. Inspiration is a fort of evidence diftinct from all the former, and that is when fuch an overpowering impreffion of any propofition is made upon the mind by God himself, that gives a convincing and indubitable evidence of the truth and divinity of it. But as this is of the highest kind of evidence, chiefly, if not folely, confined to the prophets, and fome of the earlieft apoftles and firft propagators of chriftianity, it is not fo applicable to our present purpose, to the nature of thofe truths it concerns us to know in the ftate and circumftances in which Divine, Providence hath placed us. This kind of evidence has been fo often pretended to, either as working on the outward fenfes, or by impreffions on the imagination, fpiritual feelings, fudden and powerful impulfes on the mind, whereby. some perfons have fancied a fuperior or divine light and power attending them, which they could neither explain or prove to the fatisfaction of rational and judicious perfons, that fuch pretenfions have been often, and, I think, very juftly exploded, as the effect of weakness and enthusiasm.

The various kinds of evidence upon which we believe any propofition, afford us the following remarks.

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* Wollafton's Religion of Nature, p. 59.

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I. That

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I. That there are fome propofitions that admit of different kinds of evidence, and of which we have an unquestionable certainty, and confequently may be confidered as fundamental truths, to direct our inquiries and conduct.

II. That, though fome of these evidences are fuperior to others in their nature, and give a greater ground of certainty in fome points, more immediately those which are the fubject of divine revelation; yet that reason in its own nature will always lead us into truth in matters within its compafs, if it were used aright, or it would require us to fufpend our judgement where there is want of evidence; and it must, at the fame time, and with equal certainty, be admitted, as the proper means to judge of the reality and degrees of other kinds of evidence, upon which any other propofition may prefent itself to our minds, and claim our affent. But it will alfo follow, that if the judgment be corrupted, and the understanding darkened, with respect to religious principles and moral truths, which concern the rectitude and just conduct and true happinefs of intelligent and free beings, he is then under as great an incapacity of reafoning, and incapable to dif cern the proper difference of actions and characters, as if he had been formed with a natural incapacity of reafoning

Religion is wholly founded in reafon, and directed by it; and therefore, when this light, this facred and divine light, is not attended to; when imagination, paffion, and prejudices and false conceptions, ufurp the place, and are allowed all that authority and influence, which only belong to truth, and the dictates of a fober well informed judgment, it muft unavoidably follow, that the truths of religion will be obfcured by igno

* See the Nature of Moral Evidence, illuftrated in fifteen Propofitions in Ditton's Difcourfe of the Refurrection of Christ, from p. 123 to 164.

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rance and prejudices, and its native beauty fullied by extravagance and enthufiafm.

But as this is a fubject of the utmost importance, I shall here take occafion to inquire into the moft confiderable and general caufes, by which the light of reafon is obfcured, and the judgment perverted and enflaved; caufes that have been the most prevailing in all ages, and which, as long as they are allowed to fubfist, will in all future time have the fame fatal effect.

I. The first of thefe that prefents itself to a most fuperficial obferver, is indolence and inattention: every one must acknowledge, that it is not the mere faculty of reafon that illuminates the mind; but the proper exercife and careful improvement of it, by frequent reflection and impartial inquiry: for a man of the most ftrong and extenfive natural abilities, who never thinks nor never examines, cannot be expected to make half the proficiency in divine knowledge as a more deliberate and ingenious inquirer of a much inferior underftanding; nay, his judgment may be as weak and confufed, for want of proper care to inform it aright, and, thro' a fhameful negligence, his reafon may be as grofly fallacious, and his principles as repugnant to common fenfe, as those that find admittance where human reafon. is in a lower and imperfect ftate; fo that ind.lence, and, which are the neceffary confequences of it, laziness and fuperficial examination, are the certain foundation of error and intellectual darkness.

II. Another common caufe of ignorance and miftakes in our inquiries, is prejudice, which throws a mist before the understanding, and hinders it from difcerning clearly the evidences, and beauties, and advantages of truth. It gives the judgment a particular and ftrong bias towards one fet of principles, which of confequence are readily admitted as the best and most rational; and the contrary truths, though of the most momentous kind, are as naturally difcredited and vilified. The arguments by which they are recommended

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commended are diminished, and confidered as mere trifles; but the objections against them magnified, as decifive and unanswerable. Thus will prejudice, though of the most grofs and malignant kind, engross all the fairnefs, candour, and fkill in argument to itself, and paint on the fide of truth and reafon nothing but fuperficial knowledge, or narrowness of mind. The prejudices by which mankind are influenced, are various, but have all the fame infatuating and blinding quality; for whether it be prejudice arifing from education or intereft, or the prejudice of implicit veneration for great names, whom we have been taught to call Rabbi, or an unreferved fubmiffion to human authority; which foever of these bears the principal sway, it has always tended to the fame point, and the effect of it has been this, making men conceited in ignorance, and obftinate in error.

III. Senfuality is a never-faling means of a darkening and perverting the judgment; for, by inflaming the paffions, it indifpofes the mind for the calm contemplation and pursuit of truth in general. It depreffes the very faculty of reafon, and renders it unfit for fublime exercifes. It introduces a falfe tafte, and destroys the relish of mental pleasures; for fense and reafon are fuch contrary principles, that if the gratification of the first be our furpreme and moft favourite entertainment, we fhall regard the latter fo much the lefs in proportion, and perhaps contract an utter averfion to its employments and exercises. But in an uncommon degree does fenfuality unfit for an impartial study of religious and moral truth, after which it begets a prejudice of which it must needs entertain fome kind of horror, as of a reprover, a condemner, an awakener of guilty fufpicions, and a fcourge of unlawful exceffes. To what a fad condition must that man be reduced, whofe difpofition and conduct in a manner force him to dread and fly from thinking, that he may be the more quietly and ferenely miferable?

IV. Next

IV. Next to fenfuality, the most universal corrupter of good principles, and extinguisher of reason's light, is fuperftition. It alarms with panic terrors, and makes a man afraid of free inquiry, as if honesty, and ingenuity of mind, which are the very effence and genuine fpirit of an acceptable virtue and piety, were crimes that deserved damnation; and an abject slavish credulity, which is a reproach to the character of a man, was however the chief excellence and duty of religion, and the fureft recommendation to the esteem and favour of the Diety. Superftition always proceeds from weakness of mind; it fuppofes the understanding to be disturbed, and fancy or fear, or prefumption, to have the afcendant; and as thefe prevail farther, the judgment will be more and more debased, and the intellectual darkness proportionably increased; and when once a man hath brought himself to believe in earnest that the great God of the univerfe is a weak, capricious Being, pleased and offended with trifles; that the difhonouring human reason, by fubftituting forms, bodily geftures, or penances, in the room of the reformation of evil habits and inward rectitude, and practifing ceremonies of devotion, equally abfurd and useless, is the way in which he chufes to be served and worshipped; when once a man has brought himself really to believe these are great and important points, in which religion confifts, he feems to have loft the common principles of reafon. And it is no wonder to find that fuperftition, which abounds in infinite inftances in a like kind, is loft in confufion, and goes on from one degree of folly and extravagance to another, till, in the end, it quite obliterates all rational fenfe of God, and of his worship, and the very natural confcience of good and evil. Falfe notions of God, the bafis and fupport of fuperftition, are fundamental errors, which destroy the ground-work of all true judgment about virtue and piety, and on which no fuperftructure can be raised fuited to the foundation, that has any thing in it but weakret

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