CHAPTER IV.

Moral worth of incidental actions and opinions-Their peculiarity with reference to the objects of faith-Proper estimate of worldly interests-Singularity of religious indecision-Its contrariety to reason and analogy-Casual devotion-Its absurdity-Its action considered as the cause and fruit of infidelity-All true faith considered as necessarily influential in proportion to the value of its objectPrevalent inattention to the Scriptures-Connexion between faith and knowledge-Infidelity of those who give but a casual attention to religion-Their hope-Their conduct contrasted with their faith and caution in business affairs-Their singular inconsistency-The faith and practice of a nominal believer compared with those of a professed infidel-What there is to choose between them-Religious pretenders―Their liability to self-delusion from the facility with which they gain credit.

ACTIONS incidentally and coldly performed, opinions which, like the features of the face, are ours without our volition, and to which we are chiefly partial because they are ours, though ours in a way which we cannot account for, have little worth in them. They are merely accidents of the mind. There is neither faith, nor heart, nor reason in them. Neither are they instinctive, for instinctive actions and desires have a suitable end; but these seem to have no end at all; none, truly, which they aspire to with that consistency which should entitle them to the dignity of being designed. Still the religious

acts and opinions of many seem to be of this character. It is no uncommon thing for persons, without any consciousness of the process, to confound truth and error, reason and fancy; to take the flashes of the animal spirits for the light of evidence; to think they believe things to be true or false, when they only fancy them to be so, and fancy them to be so, only because they would have them so, or, what is easier, because such is the fancy of others. Such persons have an accidental faith and religion-conveniences that never stand in the way of their de

sires.

But what renders this peculiarity worthy of particular consideration is, that it respects matters which they confess to be of greater importance than any other, and matters too whose nature and excellency must strongly engage the heart which they engage at all, because the heart will love something strongly and can find nothing else that will bear a comparison with them—nothing, indeed, which they do not make a trifle, or at least convert into a mere hint of the good they contain-causing it, whether by its worthlessness or value, to point to themselves, as the greatest and worthiest objects of our desire and search. That from persons so considering them, these objects so transcendent and inviting that they must needs transport whom they engage, should

receive only a casual attention, a respect so much below what they pay to other things that it seems more like an intentional slight, than a conscious observation of them-is a singularity in the practice of rational creatures, which no philosophy could lead us to presume, and no discretion allow us to credit, if we did not see it daily before our eyes.

A just and rational appreciation of these objects does not indeed hinder our paying to worldly advantages a due regard, neither despising nor adoring them; not slighting their use in the present state nor letting them abate our ardour for the more excellent glory and riches of another; not depending on them for distinction and happiness, but looking to them as means of doing good; not lifted up by the influence and respect which they procure, so as to despise others, or fall into the weakness of esteeming ourselves made regal and absolute by them, as petty princes often are, by the cringing and service of minions, of whom it is hardly a degradation to affect to be their creatures, but still, whose importance is shown to better advantage in the event, than that of their masters who take their consequence from it, and are induced thereby to set an unnatural value upon their smiles and lay claim to that homage from equals which could only be their due as the creators of them. If religion did wholly

and arbitrarily withdraw men from the pursuit of worldly interests, it would be strange, as things are, if they did not act counter to it; but, when it only claims to regulate that pursuit and to turn those interests to the best account, making them all subser vient to ends which are acknowledged to be unspeakably more important, yet abstracting nothing from the enjoyment of them here; it is passing strange it should set so lightly on their minds, that they scarcely know if there be any such thing, and concern themselves as little to secure it, as if it were but a mere shadow of the good which they so eagerly seek from this troubled and uncertain world. There must be some cause of this, different from any to which it is usually referred. Their conduct with respect to all other objects, bears some analogy to their professed convictions; but this, confessedly the most adorable and worthy object, is contemplated, if contemplated at all, with a kind of irresolution which as properly bespeaks their dread as their desire of it-their desire, as fearing they may need it their dread, as not relishing its excellence, and as having insulted and forfeited it by a practical preference of other interests which they dare not profess to esteem before it-leaving them in a state of indecision, wherein their thoughts reach not to it, and rest so easily with them, that a mere profes

sion of regard to it comes in their view to compensate for the want of regard itself.

This singularity of which we are speaking, is often found in the character of men who are so very moral in most respects, that it would seem hardy to deem them irreligious. But, as God has given reason only to man, thus making him a noble and knowing creature, it is very singular that man should employ that reason in all his moral and social actions and duties, and yet only do the acts of God's worship and service with indifferency of mind, or when some great event or calamity rouses him to it; that he should perform his relative duties, his duties to man with such design and constancy, as that his whole life may be compared to a volume written with forecast of the ends it should answer, while the thoughts and acts which signify any recognition of God and his claims, are but the parentheses which might be left out without breaking the sense, and, we might add, without so much as blemishing the morality of the author. Such casual thoughts and devotions do less honour than injure so worthy an object as they aspire to: they do greatly affront the Divine Majesty by denying to him the chief homage of that faculty in the bestowing of which he has chiefly honoured us; they would even degrade him below ourselves, by apportioning to him less care and