very much within the alternative which has been stated. If we possessed the disposition which Christianity labours, above all other qualities, to inculcate, these differences would do little harm. If that disposition be wanting, other causes, even were these absent, would continually rise up, to call forth the malevolent paffions into action. Differences of opinion, when accompanied with mutual charity, which Christianity forbids them to violate, are for the most part innocent, and for fome purposes useful. They promote enquiry, discussion, and knowledge. They help to keep up an attention to religious subjects, and a concern about them, which might be apt to die away in the calm and filence of universal agreement. I do not know that it is in any degree true, that the influence of religion is the greatest, where there are the fewest dissenters. CHAP. VIII. The Conclufion. : In religion, as in every other fubject of human reasoning, much depends upon the order in which we dispose our enquiries. A man who takes up a system of divinity with a previous opinion that either every part must be true, or the whole false, approaches the discussion with great disadvantage. No other system, which is founded upon moral evidence, would bear to be treated in the fame manner. Nevertheless, in a certain degree, we are all introduced to our religious studies under this prejudication. And it cannot be avoided. The weakness of the human judgment in the early part of youth, yet its extreme susceptibility of impreffion, renders it necessary to furnish it with some opinions, and with some principles, or other. Or indeed, without much exprefs express care, or much endeavour for this purpose, the tendency of the mind of man to affimilate itself to the habits of thinking and speaking which prevail around him, produces the fame effect. That indifferency and suspense, that waiting and equilibrium of the judgment, which fome require in religious matters, and which fome would wish to be aimed at in the conduct of education, are impoffible to be preserved. They are not given to the condition of human life. 1 It is a consequence of this situation that the doctrines of religion come to us before the proofs; and come to us with that mixture of explications and inferences from which no public creed is, or can be, free. And the effect which too frequently follows, from Christianity being presented to the understanding in this form, is, that when any articles, which appear as parts of it, contradict the apprehenfion of the persons to whom it is proposed, men of rash and confident tempers hastily and indiscriminately reject the whole. But is this to do justice, Cc 4 either either to themselves, or to the religion? The rational way of treating a subject of such acknowledged importance is to attend, in the first place, to the general and substantial truth of its principles, and to that alone, When we once feel a foundation; when we once perceive a ground of credibility in its history, we shall proceed with fafety to enquire into the interpretation of its records, and into the doctrines which have been deduced from them. Nor will it either endanger our faith, or diminish or alter our motives for obedience, if we should discover that these conclusions are formed with very different degrees of probability, and possess very different degrees of importance. This conduct of the understanding, dictated by every rule of right reasoning, will uphold personal Christianity, even in those countries in which it is established under forms the most liable to difficulty and objection. It will also have the further effect of guarding us against the prejudices which are wont to arife in our minds to the disadvantage tage of religion, from obferving the sumerous controverfies which are carried on amongst its professors; and likewife of inducing a spirit of lenity and moderation in our judgment, as well as in our treatment, of those who stand, in such controverfies, upon fides opposite to ours. What is clear in Christianity we shall find to be sufficient, and to be infinitely valuable; what is dubious, unnecessary to be decided, or of very fubordinate importance; and what is most obscure, will teach us to bear with the opinions which others may have formed upon the same subject. We shall say to those who the most widely dissent from us, what Augustine said to the worst heretics of his age; " Illi in vos sæviant, qui nesciunt, cum quo labore verum inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errores - - - qui nesciunt, cum quantâ difficultate sanetur oculus interioris hominis --- qui nesciunt, quibus fuspiriis et gemitibus fiat, ut ex quantulacunque parte poffit intelligi Deus *." |