fake of everlafting happiness."

According to which definition," the good of "mankind" is the fubject, the "will of God" the rule, and " everlasting happinefs" the motive of human virtue.

Virtue has been divided by fome moralifts into benevolence, prudence, fortitude and temperance. Benevolence propofes good ends; prudence fuggefts the beft means of attaining them; fortitude enables us to encounter the difficulties, dangers, and difcouragements, which ftand in our way in the purfuit of thefe ends; temperance repels and overcomes the paffions that obftruct it. Benevolence, for inftance, prompts us to undertake the caufe of an oppreffed orphan; prudence fuggefts the beft means of going about it; fortitude enables us to confront the danger, and bear up against the lofs, difgrace, or repulfe that may attend our undertaking; and temperance keeps under the love of money, of eaf. amufement, which might divert us from it.

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Virtue is diftinguifhed by others in two branches, only, prudence and benevolence; prudence attentive to our own intereft; benevolence to that of our fellow creatures: both directed to the fame end, the increase of happinofs in nature; and taking equal concern in the future as in the prefent.

The four CARDINAL virtues are prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice.

But the divifion of Virtue, to which we are nowa-days moft accustomed, is io duties,

D. 2

Towards

Towards God; as piety, reverence, refignation, gratitude, &c.

Towards other men (or relative duties); as juftice, charity, fidelity, loyalty, &c.

Towards ourselves; as chastity, fobriety, temperance, prefervation of life, care of health, &c.

More of thefe diftinctions have been propofed, which it is not worth while to fet down.

I fhail proceed to ftate a few obfervations, which. relate to the general regulation of human conduct ; unconnected indeed with each other, but very worthy of attention; and which fall as properly under the title of this chapter as of any other.

I. Mankind act more from habit than reflection.

It is on few only and great occafions that men deliberate at all; on fewer ftill, that they inftitute any thing like a regular inquiry into the moral rectitude or depravity of what they are about to do; or wait for the refult of it. We are for the most part determined at once; and by an impulfe, which is the effect and energy of pre-eftablished habits. And this conftitution feems well adapted to the exigencies of human life, and to the imbecility of our moral principle. In the current occafions and rapid opportunities of life, there is oft-times little leifure for reflection; and were there more, a man, who has to reafon about his duty, when the temptation to tranfgrefs it is upon him, is almost fure to reafon himfelf into an error.

If we are in fo great a degree passive under our habits, where, it is afked, is the exercise of virtue, the guilt of vice, or any ufe of moral and religious knowledge? I anfwer, in the forming and contracting of thefe habits.

And from hence refults a rule of life of confiderable importance, viz. that many things are to Le done, and abftained from, folely for the fake of

habit.

habit. We will explain ourselves by an example or two. A beggar, with the appearance of extreme distress, asks our charity. If we come to argue the matter, whether the diftrefs be real, whether it be not brought upon himself, whether it be of public advantage to admit fuch applications, whether it be not to encourage idleness and vagrancy, whether it may not invite impoftors to our doors, whether the money can be well fpared, or might not be better applied; when these considerations are put sogether, it may appear very doubtful, whether we ought or ought not to give any thing. But when we reflect, that the mifery before our eyes excites our pity, whether we will or not; that it is of the utmoft confequence to us to cultivate this tenderness of mind; that it is a quality, cherished by indulgence, and foon ftifled by oppofition: when this, I fay, is confidered, a wife man will do that for his own fake, which he would have hefitated to do for the petitioner's; he will give way to his compaion rather than offer violence to a habit of fo much general ufe.

A man of confirmed good habits will act in the fame manner without any confideration at all.

This may ferve for one inftance: another is the following. A man has been brought up from his infancy with a dread of lying. An occafion prefents itself, where, at the expence of a little veracity, he may divert his company, fet off his own wit with advantage, attract the notice and engage the partiality of all about him. This is not a fmall temptation. And when he looks at the other fide of the queftion, he fees no mifchief that can enfue from this liberty, no flander of any man's reputati on, no prejudice likely to arise to any man's interest. Were there nothing farther to be confidered, it would be difficult to fhow why a man under fuch circumftances might not indulge his humour. But when he reflects that his fcruples about lying have

hitherto

hitherto preferved him free from this vice; that occafious like the prefent will return, where the inducement may be equally ftrong, but the indulgence much lefs innocent; that his fcruples will wear away by a few tranfgreffions, and leave him fubject to one of the meaneft and moft pernicious of all bad habits, a habit of lying whenever it will fere his turn when all this, I fay, is confidered, a wife man will forego the prefent, or a much greater pleafure, rather than lay the foundation of a characer fo vicious and contemptible.

From what has been faid may be explained alfo the nature of habitual virtue. By the definition of Virtue, placed at the beginning of this chapter, it appears, that the good of mankind is the fubject, the will of God the rule, and everlafting happinefs the motive and end of all virtue. Yet in fact a man fhall perform many an act of virtue, without having either the good of mankind, the will of God, or everlasting happiness in his thoughts. How is this to be understood? in the fame manner as that a man may be a very good fervant, without being confcious at every turn of a particular regard to his mafter's will, or of an exprefs attention to his mafter's intereft; indeed your beft old fervants are of this fort; but then he must have served for a length of time under the actual directions of these motives to bring it to this: in which fervice his merit and virtue confift.

There are habits, not only of drinking, fwearing, and lying, and of fome other things, which are commonly acknowledged to be habits, and called fo; but of every modification of action, speech, and thought. Man is a bundle of habits. There are habits of industry, attention, vigilance, advertency; of a prompt obedience to the judgment occurring, or of yielding to the firft impulfe of paffion; of extending our views to the future, or of refting upon the prefent; of apprehending, me

thodizing,

thodizing, reafoning; of indolence and dilatorinefs; of vanity, felf-conceit, melancholy, partiality; of fretfulness, fufpicion, captioufnefs, cenforioufnefs; of pride, ambition, covetoufnefs; of over-reaching, intriguing, projecting. In a word, there is not a quality, or function, either of body or mind, which does not feel the influence of this great law of animated nature.

II. The Christian religion hath not ascertained the precife quantity of virtue neceffary to falva

tion.

This has been made an objection to Christianity; but without reafon. For, as all revelation, however imparted originally, must be tranfmitted by the ordinary vehicle of language, it behoves thofe who make the objection to fhew that any form of words could be devifed, which might exprefs this quantity; or that it is poffible to conftitute a ftandard of moral attainments, accommodated to the almoft infinite diverfity which fubfifts in the capacities and opportunities of different men.

It feems most agreeable to our conceptions of juftice, and is confonant enough to the language of fcripture, to fuppofe, that there are prepared for us rewards and punishments, of all poffible degrees, from the most exalted happiness down to

"He which foweth fparingly fhall reap alfo fparingly; and "he he which foweth bountifully fhall reap alfo bountifully." 2 Cor. ix. 6" And that fervant which knew his Lord's will, and prepared hot himself, neither did according to his will, "fhall be beaten with many ftripes; but he that knew not, fhall be beaten with few ftripes." Luke xii. 47, 48.-" Whofbever "fhall give you a cup of water to drink in my name because

ye

belong to Chrift, verily I fay unto you, he fhall not lofe his "reward;" to wit, intimating that there is in referve a proportionable reward for even the fmallest act of virtue. Mark ix. +1. See alfo the parable of the pounds, Luke xix. 16, &c. where he whofe pound had gained ten pounds, was placed over ten cities; and he whofe pound had gained five pounds, was placed over five cities.

extreme