a definitive sentence; and this request may seem the more equitable, as I freely consent, on my part, to abandon to his most severe reprobation, whatever I have advanced upon the classics or classical education, that shall be found in contradiction, either to sound learning, or to common sense: but he must not expect, that deference to long custom and inveterate prejudice, which is due exclusively to reason and truth, I am not sensible that I have been deficient in any proper respect to the classics, by which I mean chiefly the heathen poets, I have spoken of them in no harsher terms than some of the gravest heathen philosophers themselves have done, or than are warranted by a much higher authority, namely, that of divine revelation. It is for want of recurring to this infallible standard of truth and excellence, that such extravagant regard has been paid to the productions of pagan writers, which too are now become much less necessary, since we are provided with so many admirable models of our own, superior to theirs in point of science, and scarce inferior either in point of genius or elegance; yet we still continue to go down to the Philistines, to sharpen every one his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock, as if there was no smith in Israel*. I would next address myself to such as are disposed to exalt the human understanding beyond all due measure, and to make philosophy a rival to religion. Here, as in the former instance, I must beg a truce with prejudice, or, to use a softer language, I would desire such persons ETTEXELV, to suspend, agreeably to the true philosophic character, and not to censure before they have fairly considered what shall be advanced. When this is done, it may appear, that my design is not to depreciate human reason, but only to direct it to those aids and assistances, without which it can never fully discover to us *See 1 Sam. xiii. 19, 20. the reality and exigency of our moral situation; and even were it so far sufficient, would do us little service, unless, at the same time, it could point out some adequate means of relief *. My appeal is not from reason absolutely considered, but from reason warped by prejudice, and darkened by passion, to reason rectified and informed by the light and grace of the Christian dispensation. In like manner, it may be found that here is no design to decry true philosophy, but rather to vindicate it from the reproach under which it has suffered through some unhappy men, who have abused its name and authority to the most vile and impious purposes; who, by their pretended researches into nature, together with their moral and political * Pope says very well, in speaking of reason, Ah! if she lend not arms as well as rules, disquisitions, have laboured to exclude the Deity from his own world, to subvert the foundations of virtue, to dissolve all the bonds of society, to set the child against his parent, and the subject against his prince, and thus to abandon mankind to atheism and anarchy. It is against this imposture, under the guise of philosophy, that I would earnestly protest; and against that presuming confidence in powers, whence it takes its rise, and to which it is indebted for every step in progress. its our own Lastly, there are others of a more pious turn, who, from a sense of what religion abuse of reason and has suffered by the philosophy, consider them as essentially hostile to her interests. Here, while I commend the zeal of these good men, I must dissent from their judgment. It is by the legitimate use of reason that we are naturally led to the discovery of truth, and no one truth can be hostile to another. Reason, therefore, in its proper a exercise, can never be in contradiction to revelation, and ought no more to be set at variance with it, than the eye with the telescope through which it descries those objects in the heavens that otherwise would be invisible; though I allow that the intellectual eye needs a fresh touch from the divine oculist, to enable it to a due discharge of its spiritual office. Again, what is true philosophy but systematic reason, which first by a just analysis arrives at general principles, and then erects upon them noble fabrics of art and science? Such was the philosophy which Bacon introduced, and so happily illustrated and which has since, by the labours of many eminent men, been productive of great and useful discoveries-a phiaphilosophy which, while it humbles, enlarges and elevates the mind, shows its imperfections while it increases its acquisitions. It cannot therefore be too much lamented, that this philosophy has of late times given place to a miserable substitute, which, rejecting that severe induction that is ne |