Some there are, who would impress their favourite sentiments, by assuming an insolent authority and diction: others, by flattering our pride: others, by indulging our selfish passions: others, by all the arts of sophistry and others, by seducing our imagination. These, however, should only serve to place us the more on our guard, and arm us with greater caution against every dangerous illusion. I foresee no great inconvenience in having revolved a little in the circle of ingenious theory and amusing conjecture, if we fix ultimately in the centre of Truth. He who has wandered through many a path, is most likely to inform us, which is the best *.

hypotheses of virtue, described by divines and philosophers: but, we may safely affirm, that, if the compass of learning and penetration, which appears in their works, had been employed with a just reference to its unerring criterion, or standard, the world would have been furnished with a system of ethics more complete, more easily comprehended, and much better adapted to common use, than any that can be provided by abstract reasoning."

* « The enquiry of truth," said the brightest philosophical ornament of our country," which is the wooing of it;

Nosubject, perhaps, has been more carefully reviewed, or more minutely examined, than that of MORALS; nor any, with much greater propriety; whether we consider its dignity, or its use. All the stores of human Literature have been exhausted on this topic. Nevertheless, at the commencement of the nineteenth century from the Christian era, attempts have been made-and made in hours of calm reflection-and by characters the least of all to be excused-to reconcile actions the most disingenuous and dishonourable, with principles the most pure and uncorrupt! We have had moral philosophers avowedly infidel, and professionally the reverse, pouring equal contempt upon the

the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of the truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature." BACON'S ESSAYS.

Is it not painful then to know, that, "The road to moral truth has been left in such a plight by some modern projectors, commonly called philosophers, that a man of honesty and plain sense must either, with great labour and loss of time, delve his way through, or be swallowed up in a quagmire?"

wisdom and maxims of Heaven, as set before us in the example and doctrine of THE MESSIAH!

The case is, we compile an heterogeneous jumble of theses, collected from systems of jurisprudence, and blend them with political constitutions, jesuitical casuistry, and private interest; and then honour them with the title of Moral philosophy; to the utter exclusion of that simple, unsophisticated, luminous, and complete code of universal legislation, digested for us in the sacred word of purity and truth whose ethical institutes were, no doubt, intended to form that first of all great characters-before which, heroes, nobles, and statesmen, may hide their diminished heads-"

AN HONEST MAN,

"the noblest work of God."

Impressed, in an early stage of

rary education, with the importance of distinct ideas, as the best method both of receiving, and of communicating science,

it has always appeared to me, as scarcely possible to do either, unaided by the accurate definition of principal terms. Upon this account, I judge it expedient to state, that, by Reason, I would be understood to mean, those principles, which are best calculated to enlighten, correct, and regulate, that faculty in man: by Philosophy, the love of wisdom-properly so called: by Virtue, the intellectual beauty, worth, and excellence of the human soul: and, by Morality, the harmony of the life and manners, with the best principles of Reason, Virand Philosophy, thus briefly defined.

tue,

The very strange, perplexing, and metaphysical mode, in which these things have been too frequently represented, may serve to remind us of Aristotle's definition of Light; which can only tend to plunge us into mental darkness: "Light," says he, "generates its luminous species by way of multiplication; and this action is called, repercussion-and, conformable to the acting force, there is another multi

plication, which is equivocal, and by which light begets heat, and heat putrefaction!"-Of how much greater importance is it for us to know, that, whether in the world of Nature, of Reason, or of Revelation, "whatsoever maketh manifest," pavegyμevov, apparent, "is Light."-To offer to instruct mankind, by a style, or in a mode of reasoning, which is only comprehensible by five in a hundred, is to insult the public understanding. I venerate the memory of that truly great mind, which could say, Sunt, qui scire volunt, eo fine tantum, ut sciant: hæc turpis est Curiositas. Sunt, ut ipsi sciantur: turpis Vanitas. Sunt, ut scientiam pro pecunia vendant, pro honoribus: turpis Quæstus. Sunt, ut ædificent: hæc est Charitas et Beneficentia.

Of the prodigious aversion, which some writers have betrayed to the use of System, in certain cases, I need not be apprized. To their opinion, however, I am very far "For, what is from being any convert.