our present imperfect state, hereafter our happiness will lie in knowing and feeling that our trust and dependence were not vain, and in seeing and knowing God face to face.

Every man who reflects, feels his own incompleteness, his want of something beyond himself for happiness. Amusements, devised to fill this void, do not satisfy; the want remains. God alone can be to us all that we want, an adequate supply to all the faculties of our souls; for we shall live on, the same creatures that we are now, with wants to be supplied, and capacities of happiness.

There are certain ideas of beauty, harmony, proportion, &c., far removed from anything sensual, which at once produce in us feelings of pleasure: and all these, in their highest degree, meet in the Great Author and Cause of all things. And this will hereafter be to us an immediate sense of delight. Here, all things that we see are mere effects of wisdom, power, and greatness: hereafter we shall contemplate the qualities from whence they flow; just as in the case of machinery, we are pleased with the bare effects of skill and contrivance; but the skill in the mind of the artificer, if we could discern it, would be a higher object of interest; for the cause is superior to the effect. Here we see the effects of God's goodness, and its likeness in good men: hereafter we shall see His goodness and righteousness itself in all its perfection. In some way or other we shall see Him present to us proof of His being will be lost in the consciousness of His presence. God, then, Himself will be our happiness, as distinguished from the enjoyments of this present state, which seem to arise, not immediately from Him, but from the objects which He has adapted to give us delight.

SERMON XV.-On the Ignorance of Man.

We are first to consider the ignorance of man; and, secondly, the consequences which flow from acknowledging it, and the reflec

tions to which it leads.

i. The Ignorance of Man. Creation is beyond our comprehension, and yet it is certain that the world was made by God; for effects imply a cause. So also the effects of matter acting upon matter we can see and we can reduce to rules what we do see; but we are ignorant of the real nature of matter itself. We know, too, but little of our own selves, and every fresh discovery in science does but disclose to us our own ignorance. Again, as to the government of the world; we see a part, and a part only: enough to enforce on us the practice of religion, but still incomprehensible as a whole. This should teach us that we are incompetent judges of what comes under our notice in the world: and

no part of God's dealing can be understood without reference to the whole; and for this we have not faculties. And there may be reasons why God has willed that this should be the case with A higher amount of knowledge on certain points would probably destroy our state of probation and discipline, and be inconsistent with the place which we hold in the scale of created beings, as inhabitants of this earth.

us.

ii. The consequences flowing from this Ignorance. (a.) We may learn that man ought to approach the study of religion with an expectation of finding difficulties in it, and with a disposition to rest satisfied with a due amount of evidence. To expect to understand revelation at a glance is to forget our condition as men, and to inquire as beings of a higher order. And as the man is blameworthy who refuses the light of twilight to guide his steps, because it is not open day, just so we are bound to be content with any evidence whatever which is real.

(b.) Our ignorance is the proper answer to many objections against Religion, particularly to those which arise from the appearance of irregularity in the course of nature, and the government of the world. In other cases, men consider that they are not fit judges of a part, until they are acquainted with the system under which it is contained: and in like manner we ought to use common sense in judging of Religion.

(c.) Since so much of God's dealings are above our capacity, we should turn ourselves from vain speculation to the practical business of life, which is not knowledge, but whatever helps us to discharge our duty; to practise virtue; to keep our hearts; and to curb our minds and affections.

(d). We should learn humbly to adore that Infinite Wisdom and Goodness which is so far above our poor comprehensions; to set little store on ourselves, and to conform ourselves to His will in all things in a spirit of perfect resignation.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE'.

THOUGH it is scarce possible to avoid judging, in some way or other, of almost everything which offers itself to one's thoughts; yet it is certain, that many persons, from different causes, never exercise their judgment upon what comes before them, in the way of determining whether it be conclusive, and holds. They are perhaps entertained with some things, not so with others; they like, and they dislike ; but whether that which is proposed to be made out be really made out or not; whether a matter be stated according to the real truth of the case, seems to the generality of people merely a circumstance of no consideration at all. Arguments are often wanted for some accidental purpose; but proof, as such, is what they never want for themselves, for their own satisfaction of mind, or conduct in life. Not to mention the multitudes who read merely for the sake of talking, or to qualify themselves for the world, or some such kind of reasons; there are, even of the few who read for their own entertainment, and have a

The first great principle contributed to Moral Philosophy by Butler is the direction to follow our Moral Sense or Conscience. The second is the position that we have certain duties to society as well as to ourselves. Let us suppose a person inquiring, "How do I know that I am to do right?" To this Aristotle would reply, "Because men who are wiser than yourself do so, and find happiness in so doing. Look to the wise, the good, the old, and practise what they deem to be right; and such practice will sharpen your judging faculty." Plato would say, "You must go to philosophers, and they will give you the ideas of moral excellence which you must try to realize." Butler would simply answer, "Because your Conscience commands you; it is the voice of God to you and in you; and in proportion as you follow its dictates, it will become more and more enlightened." The difference between Aristotle and Butler would be this; the former would hold, that it is by acting well that we come to know what is right and what is wrong; the latter would insist that, prior to every such act, we have each of us within us a rule and guide, but that by acting rightly, it becomes more nearly perfect and infallible. But after all, it may be doubted, whether the idea of Conscience is not implicitly involved in Aristotle's saying, de idiota; for this clearly implies the existence of some faculty within us which, rightly and habitually exercised, will tell us what is right and what is wrong. Thus, in his Ethics (B. vii. c. 9), Aristotle represents a man's power of attaining to moral truth as dependent upon his acting rightly —ἡ γὰρ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἡ μοχθηρία τὴν ἀρχὴν ἡ μὲν φθείρει ἡ δὲ σώζει· ἐν δὲ ταῖς πράξεσι τὸ οὗ ἡνίκα ἀρχὴ· οὔτε δὴ ἐκεῖ ὁ λόγος διδασκαλικὸς οὔτε ἐνταῦθα, ἀλλὰ ἀρετὴ ἢ φυσικὴ ἢ ἐθιστὴ τοῦ ὀρθοδοξεῖν περὶ τὴν ἀρχὴν. That is, principles of morality are not taught by intellectual acuteness, but by habitually living in conformity with the laws of virtue. "Whosoever hath a ready heart (in) to do my will, he shall know of the doctrine," &c.-St. John vii. 17. (Ed).

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real curiosity to see what is said, several, which is prodigious, who have no sort of curiosity to see what is true: I say curiosity, because it is too obvious to be mentioned, how much that religious and sacred attention, which is due to truth, and to the important question, What is the rule of life is lost out of the world.

For the sake of this whole class of readers, for they are of different capacities, different kinds, and get into this way from different occasions, I have often wished that it had been the custom to lay before people nothing in matters of argument but premises, and leave them to draw conclusions themselves; which, though it could not be done in all cases, might in many.

The great number of books and papers of amusement, which, of one kind or another, daily comes in one's way, have in part occasioned, and most perfectly fall in with and humour, this idle way of reading and considering things. By this means, time even in solitude is happily got rid of without the pain of attention: neither is any part of it more put to the account of idleness, one can scarce forbear saying, is spent with less thought, than great part of that which is spent in reading.

Thus people habituate themselves to let things pass through their minds, as one may speak, rather than to think of them. Thus by use they become satisfied merely with seeing what is said, without going any further. Review and attention, and even forming a judgment, becomes fatigue ; and to lay anything before them that requires it, is putting them quite out of their way.

There are also persons, and there are at least more of them than have a right to claim such superiority, who take for granted that they are acquainted with everything; and that no subject, if treated in the manner it should be, can be treated in any manner but what is familiar and easy to them.

It is true indeed, that few persons have a right to demand attention; but it is also true, that nothing can be understood without that degree of it which the very nature of the thing requires. Now morals, considered as a science, concerning which speculative difficulties are daily raised and treated with regard to those difficulties, plainly require a very peculiar attention. here ideas never are in themselves determinate, but become so by the train of reasoning and the place they stand in; since it is impossible that words can always stand for the same ideas, even in the same author, much less in different ones. Hence an argu

For

ment may not readily be apprehended, which is different from its being mistaken; and even caution to avoid being mistaken may, in some cases, render it less readily apprehended. It is very unallowable for a work of imagination or entertainment not to be of easy comprehension, but may be unavoidable in a work of another kind, where a man is not to form or accommodate, but to state things as he finds them.

It must be acknowledged, that some of the following Discourses

are very abstruse and difficult; or, if you please, obscure; but I must take leave to add, that those alone are judges whether or no and how far this is a fault, who are judges whether or no and how far it might have been avoided-those only who will be at the trouble to understand what is here said, and to see how far the things here insisted upon, and not other things, might have been put in a plainer manner; which yet I am very far from asserting that they could not.

Thus much, however, will be allowed, that general criticisms concerning obscurity considered as a distinct thing from confusion and perplexity of thought, as in some cases there may be ground for them; so in others they may be nothing more at the bottom than complaints, that everything is not to be understood with the same ease that some things are. Confusion and perplexity in writing is indeed without excuse, because any one may, if he pleases, know whether he understands and sees through what he is about and it is unpardonable for a man to lay his thoughts before others, when he is conscious that he himself does not know whereabouts he is, or how the matter before him stands. It is coming abroad in disorder, which he ought to be dissatisfied to find himself in at home.

But even obscurities arising from other causes than the abstruseness of the argument may not be always inexcusable. Thus a subject may be treated in a manner, which all along supposes the reader acquainted with what has been said upon it, both by ancient and modern writers; and with what is the present state of opinion in the world concerning such subject. This will create a difficulty of a very peculiar kind, and even throw an obscurity over the whole before those who are not thus informed; but those who are will be disposed to excuse such a manner, and other things of the like kind, as a saving of their patience.

However, upon the whole, as the title of Sermons gives some right to expect what is plain and of easy comprehension, and as the best auditories are mixed, I shall not set about to justify the propriety of preaching, or under that title publishing, Discourses so abstruse as some of these are; neither is it worth while to trouble the reader with the account of my doing either. He must not, however, impute to me, as a repetition of the impropriety, this second edition', but to the demand for it.

Whether he will think he has any amends made him by the following illustrations of what seemed most to require them, I myself am by no means a proper judge.

There are two ways in which the subject of morals may be treated. One begins from inquiring into the abstract relations of things: the other from a matter of fact, namely, what the particular nature of man is, its several parts, their economy or consti1 The Preface stands exactly as it did before the second edition of the Sermons.