ON MATTERS OP BELIEF. II3 



left of philofophy : for it is not the matter itfelf, but 

 the ideas and opinions men frame of the matter, which 

 we take into difcuffion. But, dear gentlemen and 

 friends, though, in certain fenfes, all things are lawful 

 for us, yet all things are not expedient. 



Eft modus in rebus, funt certi denique fines, 

 Quos ultra citraque nequit confiflere rectum, 



fays our Horace. A wife man does not indulge him- 

 felf in any fpeculations, which tend to no good, and 

 may eventually produce much harm. In a chriffian 

 country to throw out the queftion, Whether there be 

 a God ? or, which amounts to the fame thing, to fpeak 

 of the being of God as a philofophical problem, fince 

 the demonftration of it is neither to be Ihewn mathe- 

 matically nor apodiclically, is in no wife better, than 

 if at Rome one fhould Hart the queffion, What is the 

 pope ? or difpute openly at Frankfort on the Mayn, 

 Whether it would not be well to let the imperial dig- 

 nity expire ? or at London, Whether the government 

 would be diffolved, if a difTenter from the religion 

 eftablifhed by act of parliament were made an excife- 

 man ? — The belief in God, not only as the prime effi- 

 cient caufe of all things, but alfo as the unlimited and 

 fovereign lawgiver, ruler, and judge of mankind, toge- 

 ther with the belief in a future ftate after death, com- 

 pofe the firft fundamental article of religion. To 

 flrengthen and fupport this belief by all poffible means, 

 is one of the worthier! and molt beneficial employments 

 of philofophy; it is, in regard to the indifpenfabiliry 

 of it, even a primary duty. To attack it, and by 

 railing all maimer of doubts and fophifms about it, to 

 vol. 11. 1 make 



