Such are often the
first causes of our resolves; for it is necessary to act, but impossible
to know the consequences of action, or to discuss all the reasons which
offer themselves on every part to inquisitiveness and solicitude.
Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can
boast much stability. Yet this is but a small part of our perplexity. We
set out on a tempestuous sea in quest of some port, where we expect to
find rest, but where we are not sure of admission, we are not only in
danger of sinking in the way, but of being misled by meteors mistaken
for stars, of being driven from our course by the changes of the wind,
and of losing it by unskilful steerage; yet it sometimes happens, that
cross winds blow us to a safer coast, that meteors draw us aside from
whirlpools, and that negligence or errour contributes to our escape from
mischiefs to which a direct course would have exposed us. Of those that,
by precipitate conclusions, involve themselves in calamities without
guilt, very few, however they may reproach themselves, can be certain
that other measures would have been more successful.
In this state of universal uncertainty, where a thousand dangers hover
about us, and none can tell whether the good that he pursues is not evil
in disguise, or whether the next step will lead him to safety or
destruction, nothing can afford any rational tranquillity, but the
conviction that, however we amuse ourselves with unideal sounds, nothing
in reality is governed by chance, but that the universe is under the
perpetual superintendance of Him who created it; that our being is in
the hands of omnipotent Goodness, by whom what appears casual to us, is
directed for ends ultimately kind and merciful; and that nothing can
finally hurt him who debars not himself from the Divine favour.
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