(4.) The greatest, however, of all the obstacles to the habit of following truth, is, the tendency to look in the first instance to the expedient. Expediency does not, in reality, stand opposed to Truth, except when made its rival for precedence; but while the genuine lover of truth always regards that as the only sure road to the expedient, the generality of men look out first for what is expedient, and are contented if they can afterwards reconcile that (which, with a biassed mind, they are sure to accomplish) with a conviction of truth. And this is the sin which most easily besets those who are engaged in the instruction of others; and it besets them the more easily, inasmuch as the consciousness of falsehood, even if it exist in the outset, will very soon wear away. He who does not begin by preaching what he thoroughly believes, will speedily end by believing what he preaches. His habit of discriminating the true from the false, the well-established from the doubtful, will soon decay for want of assiduous exercise; and thus inured to the sacrifice of complete sincerity to supposed utility, and accustomed to support true conclusions by any premises that offer, he

will soon lose, through this faulty practice, even the power of distinguishing what conclusions

are true.

§ 5. The temptations to this fault are so great, the occurrence of it so frequent, and the mischief of it so incalculable, that I cannot, perhaps, better close these remarks, than by classing, under a few comprehensive heads, the cautions to be observed in avoiding it.

(1.) First, then, one who would cherish in himself an attachment to truth, must never allow himself either to advance any argument, or to admit and acquiesce in any when advanced by another, which he knows or suspects to be unsound or fallacious; however true the conclusion may be to which it leads, however convincing the argument may be to those it is addressed to, and however important it may be that they should be convinced. It springs from, and it will foster and increase a want of veneration for truth; it is an affront put on "the Spirit of Truth;" it is a hiring of the idolatrous Syrians to fight the battles of the Lord God of Israel. And it is on this ground that we should adhere to the most

scrupulous fairness of statement and argument: he who believes that sophistry will always in the end prove injurious to the cause supported by it, is probably right in that belief; but if it be for that reason that he abstains from it,--if he avoid fallacy, wholly or partly, through fear of detection; it is plain he is no sincere votary of truth.

(2.) On the same principle, we are bound never to countenance any erroneous opinion, however seemingly beneficial in its results,---to connive at no salutary delusion (as it may appear), but to open the eyes (when opportunity offers, and in proportion as it offers) of those we are instructing, to any mistake they may labour under; though it may be one which leads them ultimately to a true result, and to one of which apparently they might otherwise fail. The temptation accordingly to depart from this principle is sometimes excessively strong; because it will often be the case that men will be in some danger, in parting with a long admitted error, of abandoning, at the same time, some truth they have been accustomed to connect with it. Accordingly, I have heard censure passed

on the endeavours to enlighten the Roman Catholics, on the ground that many of them had become atheists, and many, the wildest of fanatics. That this should be in some degree the case, is highly probable; it is a natural result of the pernicious effects on the mind of the Roman Catholic system; it is an evil spirit, which we must expect will cruelly rend and mangle the patient as it comes out of him, and will leave him half dead at its departure.

Again: the belief in the plenary inspiration of Scripture,--its being properly and literally the "Word of God," merely uttered, or committed to writing by the sacred penmen, in the very words supernaturally dictated to them, and the consequent belief in its complete and universal infallibility, not only on religious, but also on historical and philosophical points, these notions, which prevail among a large portion of Christians, are probably encouraged or connived at by very many of those who do not, or at least did not originally, in their own hearts, entertain any such belief. But they dread "the unsettling of men's minds;" they fear that they would be unable to distinguish what is, and what

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is not, matter of inspiration; and, consequently, that their reverence for Scripture and for religion altogether would be totally destroyed; while, on the other hand, the error, they urge, is very harmless, leading to no practical evil, but rather to piety of life. And, doubtless, similar feelings in the Romanists had a share in inducing them to retain the Apocrypha in their Bible: many of the learned among them must surely have known, that these books have no title to be considered as part of the Holy Scriptures; "but they are on the whole," they might think, "rather edifying than hurtful; and to reject them might shake men's faith in the whole of Scripture." The same reasoning probably operates with many of them, to induce them to maintain the infallibility of the Church,---the authority of Tradition, &c. Indeed, the fault I have been speaking of is of the very essence of Romanism, which is a complete system of" pious frauds." Would that Protestants did not so readily flatter themselves, that their separation from the Church of Rome exempts them from all danger of errors like hers!

There is a strong temptation again to foster or connive at the popular error of expecting under