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naturally brings on? How deplorable is the moral condition of a people, where no one sees farther than the contracted sphere of his art, his profeffion, his trade; where no one is interested about what happens otherwife than as it regards himself; no one thinks on the combination of the whole and on his influence upon it; no one acquires any knowledge but what he abfolutely wants; none ventures to tread out of the track which his fires and grandfires trod before him: where every one works and employs himself more by compulfion than inclination; where every one is actuated only by self-intereft and guided by custom; and if he have any furplus of time or means from what his mechanical labours require, he knows not what to do with either, and how to employ them! But on the other hand, let light once have made confiderable progress amongst a people; let men of all claffes and conditions have learnt to reflect more; let them have acquired greater knowledge of their appointment and that of their brethren; be better acquainted with the wife œconomy of God upon earth, with the true value and coherence of things; be better informed in what real honour and dignity, in what perfection and happiness confift; let them fet about whatever they undertake and do, lefs mechanically, with more rational confideration : how quickly will every man learn to prize his ftation, to understand the neceffity and utility of it, to carry on the business it requires on more liberal principles and in a more

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dignified manner, to enjoy the benefits it procures him more rationally and cheerfully, and to be in all respects more useful to the community! And how much more will he thus promote his fatisfaction and his mental perfection! How differently will he find himself repaid for his diligence and industry! When can he be deficient in opportunities of useful employment, and in fources of manly recreation, even out of his peculiar circle! How important, how agreeable muft the labours and affairs of the countryman, the artift, the merchant, the artificer, by this means become, when he profecutes them with a liberal mind, free from prejudices, with an understanding cultivated and accustomed to reflection, and feels the value of all he does! And how confiderably would all thus be gainers! Indeed we are still very far fhort of that degree of culture. But if it be defirable, then must likewife the way that leads to it be good, though it be befet with many ob. ftructions. Even the best field is not entirely free from weeds; much less that which has fo long lain fallow, which has fcarcely been begun to be tilled, and which is fown with grain that can never be perfectly clean and unmixed.

More enlightened times are laftly preparative to that better state which awaits us after death; and this fo furely, as in that ftate knowledge of truth and fpiritual perfection compofe the foundation of our superior felicity. I am fenfible that at present we can form but very faint, indefinite ideas of our future

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future ftate, and can know but extremely little of the peculiar occupations and pleasures of it. I am firmly perfuaded likewife, as I obferved in a late discourse, that most of our knowledge, confidered as knowledge, of whatever fpecies or kind it may be, must there fall away as totally useless; and that in this respect the enlightened man, the man enriched with all the treasures of learning, will have no great advantage over the unlettered and ignorant. This however is very certain, that our future life is linked to the prefent, that it is a fequel of it, that the degree of inward perfection we here attain will determine the point of perfection of which we fhall there be capable. This however is very certain, that in that, as well as in the present state, we shall think, fhall investigate truth, perceive truth: that we fhall do all this as men, and that it will be fo much the more eafy or difficult for us to do this, we fhall do it fo much better or worse, as we have more or lefs exercifed ourselves in it here: accordingly, whatever exercises us in thought, whatever promotes intellectual perfection; therefore must great, er proficiency in intellectual improvement as the strongest incentive and the best means to that end, be preparative to that superior state; therefore must enlightened times have a real and great value in this respect also. Are we already Are we already in this world, the children of light; do we here already live in the kingdom of light; are we eagerly defirous of every ray of it, however feeble: then must we become

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the fitter for its brighter influx, for its perfect fplendor, in a better world!

This will fuffice, my pious hearers, for difplaying the great value of a confiderable progress in intellectual acquirements, and for placing it beyond all doubt. Let us now proceed to draw a few inferences 'from it in regard to our conduct.

If you are fenfible to the worth of this intellectual advancement, use all diligence to turn that portion of it you are bleffed with to most profit; and cause it to produce in you that good which it has a tendency to produce. The more enlightened the times and the people, in which, and amongst whom you live; the more should you be afhamed of ignorance, of fuperftition, of implicit faith, of thought leffnefs and indifference in reference to matters which it behoves all men, and confequently you, to know. Therefore, fhut not your eyes against the light that fhines around you. Walk not in darkness, fince the day begins to appear. In regions where all is dark, where ignorance and fuperftition prevail without controul: there no man indeed need be afhamed of being ig

norant and fuperftitious, to grope his way in the dark, and to stumble or fall at every step he takes; for there one is as impotent and wretched as another, and yet neither believes himself either wretched or weak. But, to prefer darkness to the light that beams upon our eyes; to ftumble and to fall in a path irradiated by the fun, as though it were throuded in the deepest night; to remain ftill igno

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rant and fuperftitious amidst all the means to knowledge and a rational faith; this indeed degrades a man, this renders him grofsly criminal. And this, my dear friends, may be more or lefs the cafe with you. "The night is far spent," may we likewise exclaim to you with an apoftle, the night is far fpent; "the day is at hand," the dawn has already appeared: "it is high time to awake out of fleep." The time is over and gone, when free reflection and inquiry was a crime, and implicit belief meritorious : none of you, except by his own fault, can be deficient in means and inducements to reflection, to refearch, to the augmentation and improvement of his knowledge. Avail yourfelves of thefe means and inducements, use them like men endowed with reafon, and as chriftians who are called to liberty. Remain not fupine on the fpot where tradition, where vulgar prejudice and old wives' faws delivered down from age to age have brought you, as if they were the boundaries of all human knowledge. Implicitly follow no human leader; from children proceed to be men, who are learning to think for themselves, to go alone, and to proceed with a firm and steady step along the path of truth. To think and act upon the roughly tried and fure principles; conftantly to be pursuing greater light, farther certainty; to love truth above all things and to receive it with an open heart, without regard to prevailing opinions and outward circumftances, as it appears to you: is what should diftinguish you from lefs enlightened

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