triumph in the Law, Grace and Faith flower out in the Gospel. By virtue of this wise and free dispensation, weak ones chiefly receive the Gospel, for they are as well able to believe as any other, nay, they are apter to believe than others. If it had gone only by the advancement of Intellectuals, by the heightenings and clarifyings of Reason, who then would have been saved but the Grandees of the world? but God has framed a way that confounds those heads of the world, and drops happiness into the mouths of babes. There are some understandings that neither spin nor toil, and yet Solomon in all his wisdom and Glory was not clothed like one of these; for this way of Faith 'tis a more brief and compendious way. Very few understandings, much less all, can demonstrate all that is demonstrable, but if men have a power of believing, they may presently assent to all that's true and certain. ib.

The Light of Reason a pleasant Light. All light is pleasant, 'tis the very smile of Nature, the gloss of the world, the varnish of the Creation, a bright paraphrase upon bodies. Whether it discover itself in the modesty of

a morning blush, and open its fair and Virgin eyelids in the dawning of the day, or whether it dart out in more vigorous and sprightful beams, shining out in its noonday glory; whether it sport and twinkle in a Star, or blaze and glare out in a Comet, or flash and dance in a Jewel, or dissemble and play the Hypocrite in a glow worm, or Epitomize and abbreviate itself in a spark, or show its zeal and the ruddiness of its complexion in the yolk of the

fire, or grow more pale, pining and consuming away in a Candle; however 'tis pleased to manifest itself, it carries a commanding lustre in its face, though sometimes indeed it be veiled and shadowed, sometimes 'tis clouded and imprisoned, sometimes 'tis soiled and discolored. Is it not a pleasant thing to behold a Sun? nay, to behold but a Candle, a deputed light, a vicarious light, the ape of a Sunbeam? Yet there are some superstitious ones that are ready to adore it; how devoutly do they compliment with a Candle, at the first approach, how do they put off the hat to it. You see how pleasant the light is to them. Nay, we are told of one totally blind who yet knew when a candle came into the room, only by the quickening and reviving of his spirits. Yet this Corporeal light, 'tis but a shadow, 'tis but a black spot to set off the fairness of intellectual brightness. How pleasant is it to behold an intellectual Sun! Nay, to behold but the Candle of the Lord. How pleasant is the Lamp of Reason. All the Motions and Operations of Nature are mixed and seasoned with sweetness. Every Entity 'tis sugared with some delight; every being 'tis rolled up in some pleasure. ib.

To take away Reason, under any fanatic pretence whatever, is to rob Christianity of that special prerogative it has above all other Religions in the world; namely, that it dares appeal unto Reason. For take away Reason, and all Religions are alike true; as, the Light being removed, all things are of one color.

I should commend to them that would successfully phil

osophize, the belief, and endeavor after a certain Principle more noble, and inward than Reason itself, and without which Reason will falter, or at least reach but to mean and frivolous things. I have a sense of something in me while thus I speak, which, I must confess, is of so retruse a nature, that I want a name for it, unless I should adventure to term it Divine Sagacity, which is the first Rise of successful Reason, especially in matters of great comprehension and moment, and without which a man is, as it were, in a thick wood, and may make infinite promising attempts, but can find no open Champain, where one may freely look about him every way, without the safe conduct of this good Genius.

All pretenders to Philosophy will indeed be ready to magnify Reason to the skies, to make it the light of Heaven, and the very Oracle of God. But they do not consider that the Oracle of God is not to be heard but in his holy Temple, that is to say, in a good and holy man, thoroughly sanctified in Spirit, Soul, and Body. For there is a Sanctity even of Body and Complexion, which the sensuallyminded do not so much as dream of. It is the

same Numen in us that moves all things in some sort or other. And the beginning of Reason is not Reason, but something which is better.

Intellectual Success therefore is from the Presence of God, who does move all things in some sort or other, but residing in the most undefiled Spirit, moves it in the most excellent manner, and endues it with that Divine Sagacity I spoke of, which is a more inward, compendious,

and comprehensive Presentation of Truth, ever antecedaneous to that Reason which in Theories of greatest importance approves itself afterwards, upon the exactest examination, to be most solid and perfect every way, and is truly that wisdom which is peculiarly styled the Gift of God, and hardly competible to any but to persons of a pure and unspotted mind. Henry More.

When I say there is in man an active or actual Knowledge, of which outward Objects are rather the reminders than the first Begetters or Implanters, I do not mean there is a certain number of Ideas flaring and shining to the Animadversive Faculty, like so many Torches or Stars in the Firmament to outward Sight, that there are any Figures that take their distinct places, and are legibly writ there, like the Red Letters, or Astronomical Characters in an Almanac. But I understand thereby an active sagacity in the Soul, or quick recollection, as it were, whereby some small business being hinted upon her, she runs out presently into a more clear and larger Conception. ib.

"It is vain and useless," argues the individualist, "to talk of resigning our private judgment to authority. No thinking man can do it if he tries; for if he determines to follow the guidance of another, still, even then, he is only following up his own private conviction-i. e., only acting out the dictate of his individual reason in doing so."

The elements of knowledge may come from what source you please, but still, before any of them become subjec

tively valid

before they are any thing to us they must be grasped, tested, and received by the individual reason, and submitted to the private judgment; which judgment, accordingly, claims for itself the supreme authority in the search after truth."

To this it is answered, that experience shows that the individual judgment is the most varying, the most delusive, the most inconstant of all things. There is not a single subject of deep human interest, respecting which you find not men of power, of education, of industry, of earnestness in purpose, led to different, nay, often to the most opposite, conclusions. Even the very same mind will, not unfrequently, vary; and the very same reason, which pronounced this year in one way, will, perchance, pronounce the very contrary decision the next. In what sense, then, can it be said, that the individual reason is the final test of truth?

Again -It is easy enough to assume the individual reason to be a thing perfect in its nature and construction, and then hold it up as a valid test of truth; but the fact is, that our ideal of what the human reason ought to be, is no more realized in actual life, than is the ideal of the human frame.

The reason of man, however perfect as a truth-organ abstractedly, yet, when viewed individually and in the concrete, is beset with every species of drawback and difficulty. Here we find the imagination running away with the judgment; there we see the senses predominant over the reason; here we see violent associations disturbing