CONCLi/SlON. 217 



soundness and sobriety of his judgment. His caution in dis- 

 tinguishing between the occasional suggestions of inspiration, 

 and the ordinary exercise of his natural understanding, is 

 without example in the history of human enthusiasm. His 

 morality is everywhere calm, pure, and rational ; adapted to 

 the condition, the activity, and the business of social life anj 

 of its various relations ; free from the over-scrupulousness 

 and austerities of superstition, and from what v\'as more per- 

 haps to be apprehended, the abstractions of quietism and the 

 soarings and extravagances of fanaticism. His judgment 

 concerning a hesitating conscience ; his opinion of the moral 

 indifferency of many actions, yet of the prudence and even 

 the duty of compliance, where non-compliance would produce 

 evil efiects upon the minds of the persons who observed it, is 

 as correct and just as the most liberal and enlightened mor- 

 alist could form at this day. The accuracy of modern ethics 

 has found nothing to amend in these determinations. 



Yv'hat Lord Lyttelton has remarked of the preference 

 ascribed by St. Paul to inward rectitude of principle above 

 every other religious accomplishment, is very material to our 

 present purpose. " In his first epistle to the Corinthians, 

 chap. 13 : 1-3, St. Paul has these words : Though I t^pcak 

 with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not 

 charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinlding cym- 

 bal. And though I have the gift of 'pro'phccy , and under- 

 staiul all mysteries, and all knowledge ; and though 1 

 have all faith, so that I could remove mountai^is, arid 

 have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestotv 

 all my goods to feed the 'poor, and though I give my body 

 to be burned, and have not charity, it jwofdeth me 7iothing. 

 Is this the language of enthusiasm ? Did ever enthusiast 

 prefer that universal benevolence which comprehendeth all 

 moral virtues, and which, as appeareth by the following 

 veraes, is meant by charity here ? did ever enthusiast, I say, 

 prefer that benevolence," which, we may add, is attainable 

 by every man, "to faith and to miracles, to those religions 

 10 



