I. A primary and essential element, in the due regulation of the will, is a correct knowledge of the truths and motives which tend to influence its determinations. The highest class of these comprehends the truths of religious belief,--a series of moral causes, the tendencies of which are of the most important kind, and calculated to exert a uniform power over every man who surrenders himself to their guidance. For this purpose, a correct knowledge of them is required, and, to all who have this knowledge within their reach, the careful acquisition involves a point of the deepest moral responsibility. The sacred writers speak in the strongest terms of the guilt attached to voluntary ignorance: and this must be obvious to every one who considers the clearness with which the highest truths are disclosed, and the incontrovertible evidence by which they are supported. This applies equally to the principles both of natural and of revealed religion. The important truths of natural religion are partly matters of the most simple induction from the phenomena of nature which are continually before us; and partly impressed upon our own moral constitution in the clearest and most forcible manner. From the planet revolving in its appointed orbit, to the economy of the insect on which we tread, all nature demonstrates, with a power which we cannot put away from us, the great incomprehensible One, a being of boundless perfections and infinite wisdom. In regard to his moral attributes, also, he has not left himself without a witness; for a sense of these he has impressed upon us in the clearest manner in that wondrous part of our constitution,--the moral principle or conscience. From these two sources may be derived a knowledge of the character of the Deity, and of our relation to him as moral beings;--and the man is left entirely without excuse who fails to direct to them his most earnest attention, and to make the impressions derived from them the habitual rule of his volitions, and the guide of his whole character. "He hath the rule of right within," says Butler, "all that is wanting is,--that he honestly attend to it."