it is our duty to walk in that path and follow this guide without looking about to see whether we may not possibly forsake them with impunity.-Angus, p. 386.

ON REASON

I express myself with caution, lest I should be mistaken to vilify reason, which is indeed the only faculty we have wherewith to judge concerning anything, even revelation itself. Angus, p. 182.

Great caution of not vilifying the faculty of reason, which is the candle of the Lord within us.-Angus, p. 303.

ON CHARACTER

By character is meant that which, in speaking of men, we should express by the words temper, taste, dispositions, practical principles, that whole frame of mind, from whence we act in one manner rather than another.-Angus, p. 120.

But then, as Nature has endued us with a power of supplying those deficiencies, by acquired knowledge, experience, and habits so likewise we are placed in a condition, in infancy, childhood, and youth, fitted for it; fitted for our acquiring those qualifications of all sorts, which we stand in need of in mature age. Hence children from their very birth are daily growing acquainted with the objects about them, with the scene in which they are placed, and to have a future part, and learning somewhat or other necessary to the performance of it. The subordinations to which they are accustomed in domestic life, teach them self-government in common behaviour abroad, and prepare them for subjection and obedience to civil authority. What passes before their eyes and daily happens to them, gives them experience, caution against treachery and deceit, together with numberless little rules of action and conduct which we could not live without, and which are learned so insensibly and so perfectly, as to be mistaken perhaps

for instinct, though they are the effect of long experience and exercise, as much so as language or knowledge in particular business, or the qualifications and behaviour belonging to the several ranks and professions.

Thus the beginning of our days is adapted to be, and is, a state of education in the theory and practice of mature life. We are much assisted in it by example, instruction, and the care of others, but a great deal is left to ourselves to do. And of this, as part is done easily and of course, so part requires diligence and care, the voluntary foregoing many things which we desire, and setting ourselves to what we should have no inclination to, but for the necessity or expedience of it. For that labour and industry, which the station of so many absolutely requires, they would be greatly unqualified for in maturity, as those in other stations would be for any other sorts of application, if both were not accustomed to them in their youth. And according as persons behave themselves in the general

education which all go through, and in the particular ones adapted to particular employments, their character is formed and made appear; they recommend themselves more or less, and are capable of, and placed in, different stations in the society of mankind.-Angus,

P. 95.

A man's character cannot be determined by the love he bears to his neighbour, considered absolutely; but the proportion which this bears to self-love, whether it be attended to or not, is the chief thing which forms the character, and influences the actions. For, as the form of the body is a composition. of various parts; so likewise our inward structure is not simple or uniform, but a composition of various passions, appetites, affections, together with rationality; including in this last both the discernment of what is right, and a disposition to regulate ourselves by it. There is greater variety of parts in what we call a character than there are features

H

in a face; and the morality of that is no more determined by one part, than the beauty or deformity of this is by one single feature: each is to be judged of by all the parts or features, not taken singly, but together.Angus, p. 487.

There is a third thing, which may seem implied in the present world's being a state of probation; that it is a theatre of action, for the manifestation of persons' characters with respect to a future one; not, to be sure, to an all-knowing Being, but to this creation or part of it. This may, perhaps, be only a consequence of our being in a state of probation in the other senses. However, it is not impossible that men's showing and making manifest what is in their heart, what their real character is, may have respect to a future life, in ways and manners which we are not acquainted with; particularly it may be a means, for the Author of Nature does not appear to do anything without means, of their