ON" MATTERS OF BELIEF*. 47 



a new-difcovered plant) has its value: but there are 

 truths and errors that- ^ave a very great, a deciflve in- 

 fluence on the weal or woe of the human race : and 

 thefe may and fhould indefatigably and intrepidly be 

 enlightened on all their various fides, in all their refe- 

 rences and effects, and remain fo long expofed to the 

 ftrongeft fire of trial, as till they are purified from all 

 the drofs of error, as fine, maflive gold comes out of 

 the refiner's pot ; and then compofe, without the pof- 

 fibility of a rational contradiction, the mofl precious 

 and glorious treafure of human nature. 



Of the truths I now have in view, fome are fufcep- 

 tible of an evidence which is equal to the certainty of 

 our own confeioufnefs. — Others, on the contrary, are 

 of fuch a texture, that, from the nature of the cafe, 

 and the limitations of our being, they can have no other 

 certainty for us than that which arifes from a high de- 

 gree of probability, and is fupported by a fecret wifh, 

 in the hearts of all men, that they may be true ; a wifh 

 which feems to have for its bafis an evident moral want 

 to adopt them as true., Thefe truths are not fo much 

 objects of fpeculative reafon as of rational belief ; but 

 their rpot lies fo deep in the nature of man, that no 

 nation on the face of the earth, however uncultivated 

 and uninformed, or any ways deferving of the human 

 name, has hitherto been vifited, with whom, at leaft, 

 no dark, rude, and miihapen fantoms and goblins, 

 have eftablifhed thefe truths, for* which they have an 

 attachment inexplicable to themfelves. 



Thefe truths are — the eternal exiftence of a fovereign 

 original being, of unbounded power ; by whom the 

 v/hole univerfe is governed according to the immutable 



laws 



