is, that they fall into notions contradictory to the experience of mankind, and absolutely impossible to be reduced to practice.

Look into the history of ages past, there is no instance to be found of children brought up free from the impressions of custom and education; consider the nature and condition of men, and it is impossible there ever should be.

Children have eyes and ears; what they see they naturally imitate; what they hear influences their tender minds. And where parents neglect the care of their children, they are left to chance, and pick up notions and opinions from others; perhaps from the footman, who oftentimes is constant companion to the heir of the family. So that where parents omit to instruct their children, it is not leaving them to their own freedom of judgment, but it is leaving them to receive impressions from far worse hands.

But as this objection, if there be any weight in it, directly impeaches the natural means ordained by Providence for preserving true religion, and the means enjoined as well under the Christian as the Jewish dispensation for perpetuating the great truths of revelation, it may be proper, perhaps, to take this matter a little higher, and consider how it stands on the principles of reason and human nature.

Did men come into this world perfect, and equally perfect, having their minds stored with all necessary ideas, and able to make a proper use of all the faculties of the understanding, there might be some reason, perhaps, in saying, 'Leave themselves to judge for themselves.' But as the case is otherwise, and we bring little more into the world with us than an animal life, and arrive by slow degrees to the use of reason and the knowlege of things about us, it is the direction of nature, in consequence of this course of nature, that parents should teach their children, as they grow capable of learning, the things that are necessary to their well-being.

The great force of custom and education, whether rightly applied or otherwise, could not be long unobserved in the world: as soon as it was observed, it became a strong call on the natural affections of parents to guard the tender minds of their children against wrong impressions, and to prevent the

growth of evil habits in them. Without the exercise of this care in some degree, authority cannot be maintained on the part of parents, nor duty required on the part of children. If parents have nothing to teach, what have children to obey? What then must become of the natural duties arising from this relation, when nothing will remain, unless perhaps some degree of fondness, such as brute creatures have by instinct of nature?

That this natural force of custom and education was intended by Providence to act in conjunction with reason for the support of virtue and religion, there can be no doubt; and whoever considers what God has done, by natural or supernatural means, for the sake of religion, will see abundant evidence for this truth.

But when the ways of men grew corrupt, when custom and education were gone over to the side of vice and superstition, and reason and religion were left alone to struggle for themselves; it is hardly to be imagined how universally the corruption spread, and how strong possession was given to idolatry and superstition throughout the world. It may be hard to say what induced men at first to consecrate birds and beasts, stocks and stones, and to fall down and worship them. But when once those follies were introduced, custom and education spread them far and wide; and they took such deep root, that human reason could not shake them, but was content for ages together to wear the chains of blind superstition. Custom and education cannot be shut out of the case, and influence they must and will have; and if they are not secured on the side of reason, and taken in as assistants to it, they will soon grow to be tyrants over reason; and men will think and act as if they had

none.

We read in ancient story of a people who used, when their parents and relations were grown old and infirm, to kill them and feast on them. The custom appeared, as well it might, barbarous and inhuman in the eyes of all civilised nations; but those people being asked in their turn what they thought of those who suffered their aged parents to linger and die of themselves, and then burned or buried their dead bodies, they expressed the greatest abhorrence for such impiety. Had the

Egyptians, or any other people, been examined in like manner on any or all their superstitions, their sentiments in favor of their national customs would have been found as strong, and as hard to be rectified.

So general and so strong is the force of custom and education, that the influence may be said to be natural to the mind of man; and if the influence is natural, it was doubtless designed by the Author of nature to be subservient to good purposes. That he intended it for this use, is manifest also from his making this use of it, and from his interposing to correct the abuses to which this natural influence was but too liable through the passions and corruptions of men.

Consider from the beginning of things what provision was made for propagating religion in the world. Adam was created in the state of manhood; and as he came a man, and not a child, out of the hands of his Creator, he brought into the world with him all knowlege necessary to a man; of which the knowlege of God and true religion was the most necessary part. Of him then sufficient care was taken.

But all after him came infants into the world, void of knowlege, capable of coming at it but by slow degrees, and liable to many errors in the only thing they had to depend on, the use of their reason. What care now was taken to direct them right in this momentous affair of religion? Was it not plainly this, that they were put into the hands of an instructor who was himself instructed by God, able to teach them the great works of Providence in the creation of all things, and to point out to them the duty owing from the creature to the Creator?

How long this influence continued to preserve a sense of true religion we know not; probably in some tolerable degree for many ages; for many ages passed before God, for the wickedness of men, destroyed the world by a deluge.

Consider now again what care was taken of religion at the restoration of the world after the deluge; the wicked with all their ungodly deeds perished in the waters: one distinguished 'preacher of righteousness,' with his family, was saved, to be the father of a new world, and to teach the ways of righteousness to his posterity. And what was this but uniting once more the force of reason, education, and custom in the cause of virtue

and holiness; and turning its natural influence into its proper channel, which had been divided and perverted by the wickedness of men?

After the deluge, as the world grew populous, it grew corrupt again; and idolatry overspread the face of the earth. God had promised never to destroy the earth again for the wickedness of the inhabitants. But to check the course of impiety, and to keep up a sense and evidence of true religion in the midst of an idolatrous generation, he thought fit in his wisdom to raise up a nation to be his own peculiar people. He made choice of Abraham to be head and father of this nation, and we are at no loss to account for the reason of this choice; for God has told us with what view he elected Abraham-'I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.'

When the descendants from Abraham were grown numerous enough to make a people of themselves, God was pleased to give them a law, introduced and confirmed by many signal deliverances, and many signs and wonders; and to perpetuate the memory of them through all generations, many rights and ceremonies were instituted, to be constant parts of the national religion; which represented and set before the eyes of the people the great things which God had done for them; such, for instance, was the passover; such was that solemn profession to be made at the offering of the first-fruits, recorded in the book of Deuteronomy. He who brought the offering was to speak and say before the Lord his God,

-A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great, mighty, and populous ;

And the Egyptians evil-intreated us, and afflicted us, and laid on us hard bondage:

And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our afflictions, and our labor, and our oppression :

And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleand with signs, and with wonders;

ness,

And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.

And now, behold, I have brought the first-fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me.'

These institutions, introduced at first by positive law, soon obtained the force of national customs, and became a strong barrier against the superstition of the idolatrous nations round Judea; and they were intended to answer this purpose.

But it must be observed of these institutions in general, that they were not intended to operate merely by the force of custom, but were adapted to preserve and renew the memory of the true reasons in which the religion of the Jews was founded. If you had been to reason with a Jew on the obedience due to the law of Moses, could you say more to him than what the feast of the passover taught him, and what the profession made at the offering of the first-fruits contained? These institutions therefore intended to make custom subservient to reason and true religion; and they were so constituted that they could go no where as customs without carrying with them the true reason of religion.

On this foot the Jewish religion stood, till God thought fit by a new revelation to call all the world to repentance, and obedience to the gospel of Christ Jesus.

The nations of the earth were idolaters before the coming of Christ; and their religious worship was not only directed to false objects, but was in itself impure and corrupt, and tended to introduce great depravity of manners. The several forms of superstition in several countries had establishment, education, and custom, to support them; and these prescriptive rights had got such strong possession, that there was no hope of seeing them beat out by human wisdom. Some few perhaps saw the follies which surrounded them; but their wisdom was of no use towards reforming the world, whatever it might be to themselves.

To root out this inveterate evil required supernatural assistance; and yet such assistance as was consistent with the freedom and reason of human minds, and agreeable to the nature of religion; which loses its very being when it is separated from freedom and reason.