arise mostly from that pride and folly of heart, which vainly inclines a man to consider it a greater honour to think with singularity, than to think justly, with humility, and with obedience; and therefore the observance of the rule recommended, of a literal interpretation of such parts of Scripture as relate to faith and practice, is extremely becoming a dependent being, whose intellect is finite, and whose particular duty it is to walk humbly with his God; and to whom God thus addresses him by his Prophet; "To this man will "I look, even to him that is poor and of a con"trite spirit, and trembleth at my word*." Nothing indeed can be a greater proof of wisdom in any man, than in his curbing and resisting an intemperate curiosity to know more respecting God's decrees and conduct than he has been pleased to reveal concerning them. Unless he bounds his curiosity on these awful subjects entirely by the plain unforced text of Scripture, he soars beyond his nature and his reason; and the consequence is, and ever will be, chaos, error, and confusion. He thereby entangles himself and others in a labyrinth, from which neither he or they can escape: his presumption is a flagrant violation of his duty to God, and a great sin; it is analogous to the sin that caused the fall of our first parents, and is

*Isaiah lxvi. 2.

clearly and evidently pregnant with the most direful mischief to the individual who commits it: for, as the powers of his mind are quite unequal to the task he undertakes, and as he is not or can be in possession of such component parts relative to these subjects as the mind must possess before it can be capable of forming any true or satisfactory conclusion on them, the result of his rashness and presumption will be that cheerless and miserable feeling the mind experiences, when the ideas it combines and associates are of an indistinct, dangerous, and confused nature, and it cannot arrive at any true or satisfactory conclusion. But if the vanity or folly of such a man leads him to propagate his crude, erroneous, and confused opinions to the world, the mischief he does to society is incalculable. Hume, Priestley, Bolingbroke, Voltaire, and especially Calvin, (with respect to his doctrine of absolute decrees,) are melancholy instances of the truth of this observation for Calvin in particular, by these execrable doctrines, plants in the human mind those very corrosive errors, which he himself, in the 23d chapter of his Christian Institution, acknowledges to be most fatal to its peace; observing, "that "the mind of man can be infected with no error "more pestilent than that which plucketh down "and thrusteth the conscience from her peace "and quietness towards God." Lord Bacon re

marks, "that the human mind doth wonderfully "endeavour, and extremely covet, that it may "not be pensile, (wavering,) but that it may light

upon some quiescent point, upon something "fixed and immoveable: and that men do "earnestly seek to have some axis of their co"gitations within themselves, which may mode

rate the fluctuations and wheelings of the un"derstanding." Now a literal interpretation or construction of the doctrines of the Bible, as they relate to faith and practice, is calculated more than all other books or doctrines in the world to give that quiescent point, that something fixed and immoveable, which his Lordship considers it as so great a desideratum to possess; for this holy book declares, "Thou wilt keep him, O God, in "perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee:" which idea is thus finely paraphrased by the late Mr. Cowper:

Thou art the source and centre of all minds,
Their only point of rest, eternal Word!
From thee departing they are lost, and rove
At random without honour, hope, or peace.
From thee is all that sooths the life of man,
His high endeavour, and his glad success,
His strength to suffer, and his will to serve.
But oh, thou bounteous giver of all good,
Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown!
Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor;
And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away.

F

As a strong corroboration, that a literal con struction of Scripture, with respect to what we are to believe and practise, is all that is necessary to salvation, it is credibly asserted, that the very learned Bishop Butler (author of the Analogy*) declared, a little while prior to his decease, that though so large a portion of his time had been devoted to a critical examination of the Scriptures, he entirely grounded his hopes of salvation on those plain texts of Scripture which were intelligible to men of the meanest capacities. I hope, however, not to be so misunderstood, as to be supposed to discourage a careful and elaborate study of the Scriptures in general, and of the ten first chapters of Genesis, the Prophecies, Epistles, and many other parts, in particular; for without such study, and a competent knowledge of the manners, local customs, and idolatries of the eastern nations, they cannot be understood. I only mean to confine the observation to the great danger there is, and always will be, in the finite and imperfect intellect of man presuming to entertain any other ideas respecting the attributes and decrees of God, or of his past, present, and future dealings with mankind, or any other ideas which respect our

*

Respecting this most excellent book, I heard the late Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Douglas) declare, that he was present when Mr. Hume affirmed it as his opinion, that its contents could not be confuted by either Deist or Atheist.

66

66

66

faith and practice, than those which appeal in a plain unforced manner to the common sense of the human species, whether learned or unlearned; for, as Lord Bacon observes, men fall, when they pretend to unravel the secrets of God "merely by the force of their own finite understanding, by the waxen wings of the senses." If any Calvinist imagines, from what I have written respecting the doctrines of Calvin, that I am or have been actuated by a spirit of animosity or uncharitableness, he is extremely mistaken. I admire Calvin as a man of genius, as a classical writer, and, above all, for the noble and resolute opposition he made against the tyranny and errors of the Church of Rome, as much as he can do: his writings, and especially his numerous letters to Melancthon, Farrel, and others, are in the highest degree elegant and interesting. His Preface to his Christian Institution, addressed to Francis the First, in favour of the principles and conduct of the first Reformers, has always obtained the admiration of men of taste and erudition: and, as far as I am any judge, his Preface, "Montrant "comment Christ est la fin de la Loi," prefixed by him to the Bible, printed at Geneva in French in the year 1693, is as fine a composition, though of a different kind, as the one before mentioned; likewise the greatest part of his Christian Institution is very excellent; and nothing can more prove