his omnipotent and infinitely wise and good Creator. On this must be built every secondary or superadded religion, proceeding from the author of all good, adapting his successive instructions to the condition in which man has been placed by the abuse and perversion of his natural powers. The different kinds and degrees of these superadded instructions or revelations are termed also economies, dispensations, or sacred laws and institutions.

These last may vary according to the necessities, circumstances, and characters of those to whom they are particularly addressed, as was the case under the patriarchal, the Mosaical, and what may be called the prophetical dispensations. For, it is certain that the law and institutions of Moses added considerably to the patriarchal economy; and the subsequent prophets illustrated and explained, in a more sublime and spiritual sense, the Mosaical institutions. The gospel of Christ, when the fulness of time was come, exhibited the completion of the whole divine plan, and consummated what had been in constant progression from the fall of our first parents. In all this we behold the wisdom and goodness of God accommodating themselves to the different conditions of the human race, and shedding on them those degrees of divine light and knowledge of which they became progressively sus

ceptible, in consequence of antecedent preparation and discipline.

The divine interpositions, if any have taken place beyond the limits of our globe, may also vary according to the different orders and faculties of intelligent beings who may inhabit the different spheres of which the universe is composed. For, as in the animal body, there are certain original stamina or primitive substances, which are necessary to the constitution of an animal, although there are various classes, forms, and orders of these bodies, according to the different organs and parts with which they are endued, constituting them quadrupeds, birds, fishes, or reptiles, and whatever is possessed of animation and sense; so, various forms and modes of religion, according to the different orders and conditions of the vast extent of intellectual creation, may be appointed by the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Creator.

All these, however, must more or less partake of those original constituents of all religion which are founded in the nature of the object of adoration, and in the intellectual natures of those who offer it. As no building can be raised without a foundation, and every tree and shrub must have its roots; so, without the original principles above mentioned, no religion, entitled to the regard of a rational being, can consist.

As the nature of God and the nature of man supply the elements of primitive religion, these must be permanent and immutable; and, being implanted in the human frame, and in that of every intelligent creature, by the Deity himself, never can be superseded by any positive institution: for, God never can contradict himself, and he is the source and centre of all excellence. In him eternally exist truth, justice, goodness, sanctity, wisdom, and all moral rectitude, in the highest degree; and by these perfections of the divine nature, every moral excellence in his creatures is to be estimated and ascertained. For, the nearer they approach to this prototype, the greater excellence they possess; and to this the happiness belonging to their natures must be proportioned. The felicity of every sensitive being must consist in the exercise of the faculties with which it is endued, and in the gratification of its powers of perception. The more exalted these faculties, and the more enlarged these powers are, the more abundant must be the inlets of enjoyment. The Deity is the most happy, because he is the most perfect of beings; and the nearer his creatures approach to his perfections, though still at the infinite distance which subsists between that which is self-existent and eternal and that which is created and limited, the greater portion of happiness they must be capable of attaining.

Hence, the principles of that religion of which I am now treating, that, namely, which is founded in the rational nature of the creature, and in its relation to the eternal source of all wisdom and virtue, must be immutable and universal ;universal, as far as it extends to all ages and nations, and not only to the inhabitants of this globe, but to all the rational creation of God in every part of his vast dominions, to other worlds, containing rational inhabitants, as well as to our own. For, as colours are diversified in dif ferent bodies according to the matter of which they are composed, but the light is the same which receives from these different substances its modifications and tints; so, primitive religion may be modified according to different dispensations, and receive different colourings and shades, according to the capacities, circumstances, and conditions of those to whom these dispensations have been delivered by the divine wisdom and goodness. Nor, as has been already observed, is there any reason for supposing that this diversity is confined to the miserable inhabitants of this globe. Wherever rational creatures exist, through the wide extent of the universe, this various and admirable display of divine administration may be exhibited, and produce the most salutary effects. Still, however, the divine perfections remaining immutable, the various light and instruction which are communicated,

must always retain the pure essence of its unclouded and unvarying source, and be accommodated, in its complexion, to the intellectual and moral constitutions of those on whom it is shed. Every accession made to natural and moral knowledge illustrates more and more the boundless perfections of the Deity, and thus not only confirms the conclusions of natural religion, but also tends to establish the truth of those revelations which have undoubtedly proceeded from him.

It is proper also to remark, that the more exalted any intellectual and moral creatures may be, the purer and more sublime must be their feelings, and exercises of piety. Endued with higher faculties, and possessed of clearer conceptions of the divine nature, their religious impressions must be more vivid, and their devotion more spiritual and refined. For, as the higher we ascend above the lower atmosphere, the air becomes purer and more elastic, and the sun's ef fulgence brighter, and less intercepted by clouds or shrouded by vapours; so, the more elevated in their faculties the orders of being become, and the nearer they approach to the supreme source and archetype of perfection, the clearer must be their views of it, their virtues more sublime and steady, and their offices of piety more worthy of the object to which they are directed. In the inferior classes of ration