hearts and bodies devoted to the service of the baseft paffions that can difgrace human nature, will dare to lecture you upon the excellency of human reason, and extol the faint glimmerings of this feeble taper above the meridian blaze of the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS? Is there not a feeming inconfiftency in their principles and conduct? No, no-Let us unfold the tale, and our wonder will cease.

Thefe advocates of human reason can take their little taper in their hands, and make it fubfervient to every base and unworthy purpose. If they are men of pleasure, it will light them to midnight revels, and the darkest scenes of lewdness and debauchery. They can employ it in fearch of fpecious arguments on the fide of vice, and with the most daring effrontery, flaunt them in the face of Virtue.

If they are men of business, earnestly bent upon the acquifition of worldly wealth, this fame taper of reafon will stand them in good stead. The Light of Revelation is too ftrong!" Having food "and raiment, to be therewith con

tent," is a maxim they cannot away with. This taper will light them into a thousand little receffes, which, without its affiftance, they could not penetrate. It will enable them to comprehend and practice every low dishonest act, which groveling avarice stoops to make use of in vending its own, or bargaining for the goods of others. It will demonstrate to them, that poverty is the greatest curfe; and wealth the very perfection of human happiness: or at least, it will enlarge upon the expediency of providing for their families, the indispensable duty of leaving an handfome fortune to each of their children, and, under the appearance of perfect difinterestedness

with

with respect to themselves, will make them drudge on in the fervice of fin, to fecure riches and honours to their pofterity.

If they are men of ambition, their little taper will light them to every avenue. that leads to the temple of false honour. It will demonftrate to them the propriety and neceffity of rifing as fast as they can to the pinnacle of preferment, on the pretence of being thereby more extenfively useful, and by their interest and influence, ferving those who may ftand in need of their affistance.

Thus, whatever the boasting advocates of unenlightened reafon may affert, it is evident from daily experience and obfervation, that reafon unrenewed, is but the flave of the human will; and that whatever schemes the will may propose, reason is ready to enlift in her service,

and

and to investigate the fpeedieft, surest methods of carrying them into exe

cution.

Nay, what is it, that reason, unhallowed by Divine Grace, will not do? What, indeed, has the not done? Hath she not, in innumerable inftances, pleaded the cause of vice, speciously defended the characters of the voluptuary, the ambitious, and the mifer, and pointed out to them the paths that would most furely lead them to the objects of their unlawful defires? Hath fhe not, in innumerable instances, arraigned the Juftice and Goodnefs of the MOST HIGH? Nay, hath the not frequently enlisted under the banners of Atheism, and with falfe wit and fophiftical argument, called in queftion the very Being of GOD?

And is this the idol, to which our modern unbelievers bow the knee? Is this the instructor, which they would

fain fubftitute in the room of that Divine Light and Holy Infpiration, which the GOD OF TRUTH, by his own SoN and BLESSED SPIRIT, hath freely offered for our guide? This is, indeed, to hold a candle to the fun: or rather, to prefer a dungeon, a dark cavern of the earth, with its horrors lighted by a glimmering lamp, to the fair face of nature, difplaying all its beauties to the noon-tide beam. Reason, indeed, like the other faculties of our nature, when fanctified by Grace, becomes fubfervient to the noblest purposes, and when illuminated from above, may be profitably exercised upon fpiritual objects. It is then in the service of the spiritual man, and like himself it becomes fpiritual. Our internal fenfes must first be open-ed, to view the objects of another world, before we can employ our reafon about them. Till this is done, we are in a state of Spiritual Death,