all that was worth knowing, was lost; and fo entirely, that the utmost efforts the greateft geniuses could make, instead of enlightening, contributed only more to confound and perplex the world, until the original facts were again revived by the propagation of the gofpel. ner, In the beginning of Christianity, this was done in the plainest and simplest manthe gospel confifting only in a few plain facts, and their native confequences, which needed neither learning nor genius, until they fell into the hands of philofophers. Then indeed, by their refining upon them, they were served in the fame manner as the original ones were by their predeceffors; and every fact, and every confequence, must now be tried at the bar of what philofophers call reason. TH 6. Nofce teipfum. HE knowledge of one's felf has been in all ages the most necessary, as being of all others the most useful; in fo much that it may be faid with a good degree of affurance, that all the folly, mifcarriages, and difafters of every kind, have been been owing, either to the want or imperfection of it. Many attempts have been made, fome on one part, fome on another, of what is called human nature, or the frame and conftitution of mankind: and in the iffue, fome have exalted it to fuch a measure of innate dignity and worth, as should seem to come little fhort of perfection, excepting only the limitation they are forced to find in point of power; while others, on this neceffary limitation, and the narrowness of human powers in every view, have funk man into a very abject and pitiable condition. Inftances enough are to be found on both fides, and confequences charged and retorted of a very interefting nature: And it will be hard to fay, though both are dangerous, which of the two are most fo. That enormous measure of self-esteem naturally arifing from the flattering scheme, is apt to betray the mind into a contempt, and confequently an utter neglect, of the abfolutely neceffary means of attaining juft notions of fuch things as men are moft concerned to know. By this means, they are betrayed into the most dangerous mistakes, Z 2 mistakes, and a most ruinous courfe of folly. On the other hand, the most dangerous confequence of taking our measures too low, will be, the weakening that laudable ambition of excelling in every perfection; while, in the mean time, it leaves the mind open to entertain all the inftruction and affistance that may offer themfelves. So that one would think this laft the much fafer, though the least fhowy and agreeable view. It might be expected, that a subject, which every one carries the original of in himself, fhould neither be a very intricate, nor difficult study; that there should be no more neceffary than to look into one's felf, to fee how things ftand at home, and compare them with what is to be observed in others. But neither the one nor the other caft up fo readily as one might reasonably imagine. We are generally fo much interested in what lies without us, that we have neither leifure nor inclination to look within: and the ways of men, though all acting from the fame original principle, are fo various, that all the obfervation we can make of them, and the experience we can acquire, are found to go but a very short fhort way. We enter into this world we know not how, how, in fuch a low, indigent, and absolutely dependent state, as is enough to hide pride for ever from our eyes. All our attainments and improvements come from without, and are one way or other acquired; fo that all we can call our own is a capacity of improvement, and of growing up toward the highest measure of perfection our frame will admit of. And when we have acquired all that can be attained in a natural way, little more can be faid, than that we are made wifer than the beafts of the field. Our animal powers are plainly fhort of many of theirs and though we find fomething in ourselves by which we can perceive, think, and reafon, with a conscioufnefs of what we are about, which can only be the work of what we have learned to call a fpirit; yet we can hardly ftir a step without feeling the narrow extent of these intellectual powers. Though we feel ourselves compounded of what we call matter and Spirit, we know not, we cannot know, what either of them is, how they are united, and how they act upon one another in fuch a perfect concert as we find they do. This is another very humbling confidera tion; and which, one would think, fhould effectually mortify the pride of human understanding; especially when we look about us, and find ourselves incapable of arriving at the thorough knowledge of any one thing, but only that fuch things there are, and that fome of their most obvious properties or powers are perceived by us. When we come to what is the proper ufe of reafon and understanding, which is, to confider what is our proper business in this world,-what man can carry it any farther, (until he learns it from those who were in the world before him), than the fatisfying his conftitutional cravings and appetites; or acquiring what may be called an artificial way of living, by imitating his elders; or being inftructed by them in what they call the mistress-science, the doctrine of morals; which indeed is, or may be, very well calculated for a prefent world, if they have only as much difcerning as to know what is good and profitable for men? But there is a very different kind of beings, which fome how or other have been obtruded upon all the world, to account for the rife and original of which, when seriously |