sense of the obligation he is under to do so, he endeavours to discover, and to carry into effect, the design of God in his creation.

But it may be asked, no doubt, how is this discovery to be made? What is clear amidst the contradictions of human reason? What distinct rules even of morality are to be found amidst the varying customs and opinions of men? When we leave our own narrow circle, and look into "the ends of the earth,” where shall we find nations agree in their views, even in the duties of social life? But if we proceed further, and examine the opinions

of men on religious subjects, into how wide a field of contradiction and extravagance do we run! Where, then, are truth or wisdom to be found ?

To this class of inquiries, the answer of the wise man is contained in the text. "Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth." As if he had said: "Give a cautious heed to the feelings of your conscience, and to the opinions of the wise, and the upright among whom you live, and you will seldom go far wrong in your views of duty and morality. Bestow in like manner a prudent attention on that form of religious faith in which you have been brought up; and if in the course

of

your life you may happen to attain more liberal and enlightened opinions than you received from your first instructors, yet be persuaded that, in the main, these are the instructions which have conveyed to you some of the most important truths, which in this world you can ever learn." My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother, for

they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck." If you have had understand ing, moral and religious wisdom have at all times been before you, and within your reach; it is merely folly, though you may sometimes have thought it the mark of an unprejudiced and philosophical mind, to send your eyes in search of them to the "ends of the earth.”

Such, my brethren, is the simple and unassuming wisdom delivered in the instructions of this wise king! How different in its character from much of what is called wisdom in the present age, from the course which philosophy has too frequently pursued, and how different in its effects from that misery and loss of all steady principle into which the wretched votaries of modern infidelity have been too often betrayed! There are two positions which the text leads me to illustrate : the first is, that every thing which it is most important for us to know, either in morals or religion, lies before us, and may be attained without any deep inquiry: the second is, that when more profound or extensive inquiries upon such subjects are resorted to by the wise, it is never with the view of opposing, but of adding farther confirmation to those great and fundamental truths. The illustration of these positions will, I trust, be of some advantage to those of the younger part of our congregation, who may at this time* be employed in an examination of the evidences of religion, whether natural or revealed..

In the first place, then, let those who are entering upon such inquiries consider, that, from the nature

The season of Advent. ・・

*

of the thing, they are not necessarily very deep or profound. Morals and religion are the business, and constitute the wisdom of all mankind; of the unlearned as well as the learned, of the peasant as well as the philo sopher. But what it is the business of all men to know, no man can know well, unless it is made in some degree apparent to his reason; and before the principles of morality or of religion can be of material service to any human being, his reason must to a certain extent be convinced of their truth.

It is the fashion with freethinkers to suppose, that the religious opinions of the lower orders are merely prejudice and superstition; that their imaginations are merely affected, but that their reason remains unconvinced; and they accordingly often talk of these plain simple people in a strain of ridicule and contempt which is much more applicable to themselves. The fact, however, undoubtedly is, that although in the religion of an uneducated man, there is commonly some mixture of superstition, yet in as far as it serves him for a rule of wise and upright conduct here, and affords him wellfounded hopes of happiness hereafter, it is in the highest degree reasonable; and it is the pride and glory of religion, that in the lowest circumstances of human fortune, it has trained up men to act a wise, a worthy, and a noble part, compared with which no lessons of human philosophy have effected any thing similar or comparable, even while they were assisted by all the advantages of knowledge and education. Now, what I mean to assert is, that principles which lie level to men of very imperfect education, may be found without any deep inquiry, and when they are overlooked, as they unfor

tunately have been by many ingenious men, it is rather from their simplicity and plainness than from their abstruseness and difficulty. It is too often the miserable weakness of men of genius, that they will not accept of the wisdom which is before them, but, rather than be satisfied with so cheap a purchase, will permit their eyes to travel with those of the fool in the text, into "the ends of the earth.”

What, for instance, so simple to every thinking person, or so congenial to every uncorrupted heart, as the fundamental truth of all religion, the belief of the existence of God? What so natural as the sentiments of devotion which rise from the contemplation of his perfections? What, in like manner may I add, so easily comprehended as the more important doctrines of revelation? That a teacher came from God to instruct mankind; that he delivered the purest precepts, and exhibited the model of every virtue in his life; that he conversed with man as a friend and brother; that he died to take away the sting and the bitterness of death; and that he rose again to exhibit to man à living proof of the final victory of human nature over death and the grave. There is a congeniality between such views and the natural sentiments of religion, and they supply so well some points which the religion of nature leaves obscure, that an unprejudiced man, it would seem, should have no great difficulty in admitting them, and should require no very great body of evidence for the purpose of establishing their truth.

The evidence for natural religion rests on the simple and quiet contemplation of nature: the leading evidence for revelation is founded in the consciousness of our spiritual wants, and in the unstrained interpretation of

Scripture, which, without any trick of rhetoric, or any affectation of laborious proof, speaks immediately to the heart and the understanding, and founds its evidence and authority on the weight and dignity of the truths which it delivers. "Wisdom then," my brethren, "is before him that hath understanding." not merely the wisdom of time, but the wisdom of eternity; not merely the rules of common prudence, but the paths of everlasting salvation.

The second position which I undertook to illustrate, is, that profound or extensive inquiries may frequently add confirmation to moral and religious truths, but are never resorted to by the wise, from any view of opposition to these truths.

It was not certainly the intention of Solomon, to interrupt the inquiries and speculations of the human mind: nor, when he affirms that" the eyes of the fool are in the ends of the earth," does he at all mean to insinuate, that the wise should not likewise look abroad upon nature, and employ their eyes upon all that is known of the works of God, or of the history of man. The wise, however, are actuated in their inquiries, by principles diametrically opposite to those of the fool. They seek not to oppose the truths upon which the happiness and the dignity of man depend, but to confirm them. Whatever may be the seducing power of ingenious speculation, the wise man will never permit it to overcome the fundamental principles of his conduct, and of his hopes. The proofs on which these rest, are simple and before him: his speculations are drawn, he knows, from a distance, and may be true or false: the first he possesses in common with every human being, before whom these truths have been laid: they are like the air