YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

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THE
WORKS
OP
SAMUEL PARR, LL.D.
PREBENDARY OF ST. PAUL'S, CURATE OF HATTON, &c.
WITH
MEMOIRS OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS,
AND
A SELECTION FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE,
BV
JOHN JOHNSTONE, M.D.
FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, AND OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE
OF PHYSICIANS Of LONDON, &C.

IN EIGHT VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN,
PATERNOSTER-BOW.

1828.

.YALE

J. n. NICHOLS AND SON, 2.5, PARLIA.MENT-STREET .

CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

Two Sermons, preached at Norwich. Page.
Sermon I. . . . . .5
Sermon II. . . . . .59
A Discourse on Education . . . .99
A Discourse on the late Fast, 1781 . . . 279
A Spital Sermon, preached at Christ Church . 357
Notes on the Spital Sermon . . .413
Sermon preached at Hatton . . • 625

TWO SERMONS,
PREACHED AT ^^ORWICH.

VOL. II.

THE UIGHT WORSHU'FUL
JOHN THURLOW, Esq.
MAYOR OF NORWICH,
Rev. RICHARD TAPPS, A.M.
Rev. JOHN GREENE, A. M.
THE FOLLOWING
SERMONS
ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
BY THEIR MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,
SAMUEL PARR.
Norwich, May '2i, 1780.

b2

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following Sermons are sent to the press precisely in
the same form in which they were prepared for the pulpit.
Their unusual length obliged the author to omit, in the deli
very, some parts, which he thought the least interesting. He
hopes, however, that to serious and irapartial readers he need
make no apology for directing the whole to be printed. Con
scious as he is of his own defects in the arts of reasoning, and
in the graces of style, he does not presume to set up any claim
to literary reputation from these Discourses. They were writ
ten with a sincere desire of doing justice to the subjects which
the author had occasion to treat in the presence of two very
respectable congregations ; and they are now submitted to the
candour of the public, partly in deference to the judgment of
some learned friends, and partly for the sake of the Charity-
schools in this City, to the support of which such profits as may
arise from the sale will be applied.

SERMON I.
PREACHED IN NORWICH CATHEDRAL,
December 25, 1779.

GALATIANS, iv. 4.
When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth
his Son.
IT may be ranked among the distinguishing cha
racteristics of the present age, that the authority of
prescription is openly disavowed, and that inquiry
is carried on with a spirit of incredulity, which, in
respect to the subjects upon which it has been
sometimes employed, may be called rigorous to ex
cess. That Christianity, by the singularity of its
pretensions, by the dignity of its professed origin,
and the importance of its end, should, in such an
age, attract the notice of speculative men, cannot,
I think, surprise any judicious believer ; and it
ought not to alarm even the most pious, since the
abilities displayed in the defence of the Gospel bear
no dishonourable proportion to the exertions of
those by whom it has been secretly undermined, or
openly assaulted.
When the controversy turns either upon facts
which sacred history has recorded, or upon doc
trines which the Gospel has delivered, it is seldom

SERMON I.

difficult to reach the true point of decision. But
the words of my text direct our thoughts towards
a series of very different topics ; such, I mean,
as have been hitherto discussed by the aid of ab
stract reasonings, or by the consideration of circum
stances, which, however minute, when separately
viewed, are, in their collective force, neither unin-
structive nor uninteresting. Among these topics
we may place the late appearance of Christianity —
its partial propagation — its imperfect efficacy.
If the cavils that have been started upon these
points had no other tendency than to let loose the
illiberal exultations ofthe enemies to our Religion,
it would be our duty to encounter them with the
most accumulated strength of evidence, and the
most vigorous efforts of reasoning. But when they
become the occasions of embarrassment and extreme
dejection to those who wish to support a better
cause ; when they damp the ardour of piety, or
unhinge the steadiness of faith, they cannot be
passed over without all the disgraceful appearance,
and all the fatal effects, of tacit approbation ;
without danger to the innocence of other men,
and invidious suspicions concerning our own sin
cerity. In the present discourse, therefore, I shall
first endeavour to establish the validity of those
principles, by which objections of the kind just
mentioned to you may be proved unphilosophical
as well as irreligious ; and secondly, by a more
distinct examination of the objections themselves, I
shall hope to expose their real futility, and to coun
teract their malignant operation.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 7
Whether our researches be employed upon the
physical or the moral constitution of the world, the
schemes of God are ever found progressive in their
execution ; and however they may sometimes un
fold themselves to an accurate and humble observer
of what has been done, they often clash with the
hypotheses of men who affect to penetrate into the
counsels of their Maker, and who presume to dic
tate what it becomes him to do. Now the redemp
tion of mankind, in its various proofs, and its vari
ous uses, extends back to the first design of God in
creating this system, and stretches forward to the
eternal interests of many beings who are ordained to
act in it. We may presume, therefore, that all the
causes, whether ordinary or extraordinary, mediate
or immediate, which might be requisite to its com
pletion, were arranged with the nicest exactness in
the general order of things.
But, in a scheme so wide and so complicated, it
is by no means surprising that some parts should
totally escape our observation, or that others should
be imperfectly understood, from their connection
with facts either forgotten or undiscovered, with
many past events which influence the present, with
more that are yet to come, and are themselves relative
to a long succession of causes and effects, where
the least are essential to the greatest, and the most
remote affect the most near.
From this intricate and almost boundless chain
that links together the works of God, it becomes
impossible for us to catch more than a faint and
scanty glimmering of his purposes. For as the most

SERMON I.

common and uncommon phenomena may alike be
traced up to questions which we cannot solve, so
the solution of them would probably open to us
new prospects, where our reasoning would be again
perplexed, and conjecture itself at a stand.
By those who seriously recollect the limited
strength of human reason, the foregoing observa
tions will not be hastily controverted. They prove,
doubtless, the existence of the most important facts
to be compatible with our ignorance of all their
real causes, and all their possible consequences.
They point out to us the method in which God is
pleased to act, where the noblest interests of his
creatures are deeply concerned. They may teach
us not only to acquiesce in the reality of that
method, but even to infer the propriety of it, from
the relation that subsists between our intellectual
powers and our moral agency.
Whether the Deity manifest himself to us by his
word or his works, the design is not to amuse but
to improve us ; not to gratify our curiosity but to
exercise our faith ; not to communicate, with a wild
and useless prodigality, the knowledge of times and
seasons, which is justly reserved to him who alone
can regulate them, but to put us into a state of pro
bationary discipline. That state, too, invariably
exists at the very moment in which the will of God
is proposed to us, be it attended by many proofs, or
by few, be it consonant to our preconceived notions
or repugnant to them, be it ultimately admitted or
rejected. Hence it is, that the Christian Revelation
seldom addresses us but in a tone of authority.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 9
Without bewildering our minds in curious and pro
found speculations concerning the modes of the
divine government, and the abstract fitnesses of
things, it plainly records facts, which we are at
liberty to believe or disbelieve, just as it inculcates
precepts which we may obey or violate. When the
fulness of the time was come, God, says the apostle
concisely and peremptorily, sent forth his Son.
But if Christianity be attended with difficulties
which baffle our reason, it is also supported by evi
dences on the fofce of which that reason may
decide. If it be the property of the former to im
pede our assent, it is equally the property of the
latter, when clear and apposite, to engage it. If
our conviction be built upon dispassionate and la
borious inquiry into that whicli can be known, it
ought not to be shaken by imaginary and unknown
possibilities. Much less will it be staggered by the
arguments of those who would disprove the truth
of the Christian Revelation, because the circum
stances of it do not coincide with their ideas, either
of the proofs that are necessary to authenticate, or
of the occasion that is sufficient to produce, a divine
interposition. For while there is any proof, we
have no right to presume that it is impertinent — if
there be any occasion, we see too little of the pro
portion between means and ends to pronounce it
utterly inadequate.
Many of the objections which are made against
the time and the mariner in which the Gospel was
revealed, are rested upon those arguments a priori,
which usually require no other qualification in

10 SERMON I.
those who employ them, than the habit of torturing
invention and of wresting facts. But such argu
ments are as delusive in matters of religion as in
science. They are unsatisfactory to every inquirer
who wishes to be guided by his judgment rather
than transported by his imagination ; they are im
pertinent and highly unbecoming, whether they be
employed by the friend or the adversary of revelation.
The former, in consequence of internal and of ex
ternal proofs, may admit the excellence of Chris
tianity in the reasonableness of its precepts, the
forcibleness of its sanctions, and the miraculous cir
cumstances of its publication. The latter has an
unquestionable right to examine any evidences upon
which a revelation professedly founds its preten
sions. But when either of them, from the stores
of his own observation, draws forth criteria by which
all revelations, howsoever circumstanced, and when
soever made, must be tried, he treads, surely, upon
treacherous ground. The Christian injudiciously
assumes in all cases, what he may properly urge in
the form of an inference from evidences actually
existing in a particular case. The infidel as inju
diciously endeavours to destroy those evidences by
general assumptions, which are not supported by
any direct proof in the cause where he decides, and
which may bc opposed by many indirect proofs
drawn from the works of God.
Upon the topics of religion the opinions of men
take a colouring from their wishes, from their pre
possessions, from settled habits of thought and
action, and from peculiar casts of temper. But from

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 11
whatsoever source those opinions are derived, and
to whatsoever consequences they may lead, the
conduct of God, as we know from experience, is in
many respects far different from what we should in
theory suppose it hkely to be. While the world is
under a moral government, we might suppose it
just, because we feel it desirable, that, amidst the
devastations of the sword and the pestilence, some
distinction should be made between the righteous
and the wicked. Under a wise and kind Providence
we might expect that the order of time would be
coincident with the order of dignity in the commu
nication of temporal blessings.* We might hope
that the arts by which the evils of life are mitigated,
or its comforts are heightened, would be cultivated
more successfully and more diligently than those,
which flatter our vanity and contribute to our
amusement. It would perhaps be more beneficial,
and therefore we conclude that it should have been
more easy, for us to understand and draw out into
use all the productions of the earth, than to ascer
tain the essential properties of matter, or speculate
upon the excentric motions of comets. But if the
procedures of God be not analogous to our notions
of fitness, even in the ordinary course of things that
are seen, there is a still greater probability of error
in our conjectures upon those extraordinary appoint-

* See Butler's Analogy ; — some of the arguments employed
by that learned prelate naturally occurred to me in the course
of these observations, and I readily adopted them, because I
knew them to be just and apposite.

12 SERMON I.
ments which more immediately respect the things
that are not seen.
To reason, I mean the very limited and wayward
reason of man, it has seemed expedient that God
should accompany the revelation of his will with
evidences so illustrious that no carelessness could
overlook, so peremptory that no sophistry could
confound, so forcible that no perverseness could re
sist them ; and thus too, in respect to the com
mands and prohibitions of the Gospel, they might
be expected to have worked a reformation almost
instantaneous ; to have roused the supine ; to have
softened the obdurate; to have extirpated every
vice, and cherished every virtue to its utmost matu
rity. In the career of hypothesis we might ven
ture one step farther, and contend that Redemption
would be necessary for no man, or be conferred in
discriminately upon all men who are capable of
being redeemed. But God's ways are not our
ways ; and if the reverse of these flattering suppo
sitions appear upon the first appeal to facts, what
course must a believer take ? His course is plain
and safe. He must retire to the appropriate and
professed evidences of his religion, which form, as
it were, a bulwark to his faith. Here he must
take his stand, though a host of collateral objec
tions should start up, just as in the daily intercourse
of life he is compelled to chuse and to act, where
the difficulties from the opposite side may be infi
nitely multiplied by a prolific imagination, and
where many of them are real and unanswerable.
But will not such behaviour be exposed to the

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 13
just imputation of weakness and partiality? No
surely. You do not allow the providence and
moral government of God to be disproved or dis
graced by the difference that subsists between in
controvertible facts, and the conceptions of fitness
which you have formed independently of those
facts. Why then should the reality of any reli
gious dispensation be called in question ; and why
should its utility be depreciated, because the same
difference exists ? The charge of partiality will, I
think, rather recoil upon those who, when the
means of information are in both cases equal, and
the chances of mistake in all reasonings antecedent
to that information are also equal, yet decide with
more confidence in one case than in the other ; and
admit the rules, when applied to natural religion,
which they reject, when applied to such circum
stances in revealed religion as are perfectly similar.
In this train may the thoughts of an unpre
judiced and cautious examiner proceed. That a
revelation is not shocking to the common sense of
mankind is certain, because many systems of false
religion are derived from pretended revelations ;
because the wisest and best heathen expressed hia
wishes to be instructed, in points of the highest
moment, by a teacher * from Heaven ; because
legislators, those to whom Christianity was quite
unknown, and those by whom it has been partially
renounced, a Numa and a Mahomet, found it ex
pedient to support the authority of their own laws

* Vide Plat. Alcibiad, 2, page 45. Ninth edit. Ficin.

14 SERMON I.
by claims to a preternatural inspiration. That God
should hold out to some of his creatures that infor
mation which he docs not bestow upon others, is
by no means incredible, since, in the daily and
visible course of human aftairs, we find an inex
haustible variety in the uses, in the measures, and
the kinds of those gifts which flow from one com
mon Author, and are conferred upon beings of one
common species. Life is valuable to all men —
the desire of retaining it is implanted in all. But
the means of preserving it, whether by the mate
rials which nature supplies, or by the expedients
which art suggests, are not equally dispensed.
Reason is necessary to our well being. But the
faculty itself is different in different men. The
opportunities of cultivating it are more different ;
and yet a wider difference subsists in the advantages
that are eventually produced by its theoretic im
provement, and practical application.
When we consider the general constitution of
things, we shall no longer be surprised that the
Christian Dispensation was not immediately fol
lowed up by, what we may be induced to con
sider as, numerous and signal consequences. For
reasons which the short line of our understand
ing cannot fathom, evil advances with a more
apparent rapidity than good. In the natural world a
sudden, and, in our apprehensions, an inconsiderable
shock will often do violence to that order of things
which we call regular. But thc works of the crea
tion are not restored to their symmetry or their
use, so far as either of them can be measured by
our conceptions, without slow and almost impercep-

PRli.VCHED .\T NORWICH. 15
tible gradations. Equally silent is the progression
of moral improvement. When the seminal princi
ples of vice havc been dropped into the mind by
some accidental cause, or industriously sown there
by thc impious hand of the corrupter, they quickly
shoot up in a wild and rank luxuriance. But the
malignity of the soil must be corrected, and its
stubbornness subdued by long and patient culture,
before it can cherish the seeds of virtue to their
fullest vigour. The same observation may he ex
tended to the manners of mankind. The rust of
barbarism must be worn off by repeated attritions ;
nor without the concurrence of many domestic and
foreign causes, without the use of arts and of arms,
without laws and religion, has any lasting polish
ever been fixed upon the exterior behaviour of a
people. In the same manner Christianity, designed
as it was to struggle with themost rooted prejudices
and the fiercest passions of the human mind, did
not produce its beneficial eff'ects completely and at
once ; and we may, without impropriety, compare
it to the mustard seed, in the slowness as well as
the height of its growth.
That the religious schemes of God bear so strik
ing a resemblance to his natural and his moral
dispensations, it were folly to deny; and that
resemblance, instead of supplying any objection to
the truth of the Gospel, constitutes a presumptive
proof in favour of it, as proceeding from the same
Author, as intended, together with the same dis
pensations, for wise purposes, and co-operating with
them in the same plan of final and universal good.

16 SERMON I.
It were foreign to iny present purpose to examine
that solid mass of historical and prophetical evi
dences upon which, as upon its firmest basis, the
great fabric of Christianity is erected. The subject
before us rather demanded the aid which analogy
supplies for the defence of Revelation ; and against
the arguments which I have now employed, I know
not that reason can furnish any one direct proof, or
series of indirect proofs, equally clear and well con
nected. Those arguments are, indeed, fastened by
the closest ties to principles which may, in the most
exact acceptation of the word, be said to be found
ed upon experience. They are intended to shew,
that in judging of'the Divine Attributes, as they
respect our own system, we have no measure for
determining their effects to be too little or too
great, in any case which falls under our notice ;
that the imperfections so incautiously imputed to
the counsels of heaven, properly belong to the
nature of man ; and that upon the more abstruse
points of religion, as well as of philosophy, there
will ever be found more room for modest acquies
cence than for captious opposition. Possessed of
such strength, and applied to such ends, they will
not be easily overthrown, either by unauthorized
conjectures that God should have introduced Chris
tianity at a more early period, or by peevish com
plaints, that he has confined it within too narrow
boundaries. Instead, therefore, of wandering in
mazes, where men are often pushed on, by their
pride, to reason from what " they do not know,"
our enemies would do well to examine, whether

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 17
or no, the Christian Rehgion contain within itself
the seeds of its own destruction. We readily con
fess that no deduction from analogy, no testimony
from history can, in the nature of things, be so de
cisive as these plain suggestions of our reason, that
God cannot patronize a lie ; cannot reveal an ab
surdity; cannot command the perpetration of a
crime. But accusations of this formidable aspect
are not to be thrown out rashly, or insinuated insi
diously. 'Till they be fairly proved, many refined
and subtle arguments that have been employed
against the credibility of the Gospel, amount to no
more than the hardy and disputable suppositions of
finite creatures, concerning the means which a
Creator of infinite wisdom ought to employ. On
the other hand, the honest and humble enquirer,
who considers the religious dispensations of God as
forming a part of that incomprehensible scheme
by which the various interests of mankind are pro
moted, will be induced to expect not fewer diffi
culties than those which throw themselves in his
way, when he balances the proofs upon which the
advocates of revelation would rest their cause. He
will not pronounce those proofs unsatisfactory to
his judgment, because they are inadequate to all the
licentious claims which his prepossessions or his
wishes may suggest. He will believe that upon
these, as well as upon other points, God has in his
wisdom bestowed upon man " a due degree of
ignorance."* Every seeming defect in his own
* Vide Pope's Essay on Man, Book the First, line 283.
VOL. II. C

18 SERMON I.
knowledge, he will look upon as a limitation of his
moral responsibility, and every kind of real infor
mation that is vouchsafed to him, he will accept
with thankfulness, and improve with diligence.
From these general remarks I proceed to exa
mine more particularly the objections against which
they are pointed. Those objections I shall bring
forward according to the order in which they were
arranged in the opening of this discourse. The first
of them was directed against the late publication of
Christianity. To speak concerning the agency or the intelli
gence of God, at once with perspicuity and with
precision, is extremely difficult. His works are
unquestionably connected together by the relation
of cause and effect, and viewed by any finite capa
city, they exist in a successive series. But to the
Deity himself, who is properly infinite, no duration,
compounded of divisible parts, no distinctions of
past, present, and future, can, perhaps, be * strictly

* A different representation of God's knowledge has been
maintained, with great originality of thought, and great acute
ness of reasoning, by a writer in the Theological Repository
who signs himself Clemens. He there unfolds those principles
of association, by which a mind that is engaged in the pursuit
of ultimate good, quickly passes over every intermediate step;
and, in proportion to the eflRcacy of this associating faculty, he
estimates the intellectual and moral excellence of all beings.
From the operations of the human understanding we know
that, as it is more frequently and vigorously exerted, it gra
dually acquires a kind of atificial intuition, and traverses a
wider compass by a swifter progress. In a degree, therefore.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 19
applied. He, indeed, perceives with equal distinct
ness, the most distant events and the most near.
He directs with equal facility the causes necessary
to accomplish them ; and while short-sighted, im
patient men complain of hngering, of interruption,
and of incoherence in the designs of their Maker,
he is, in fact, executing the best purposes by the
best methods.
Now, in respect to a being, whose comprehension
thus pervades all possibilities in all points of dura
tion, I see not the force of any conclusion which
may be drawn from the mere consideration of time,
so as to justify us in denying the reality, or arraign
ing the expediency of his measures. I am confi
dent, at least, that the objection we are now consi
dering is indecisive and even fallacious, so far as it
affects the cause of Christianity ; for, had the Gos
pel been published a thousand years earlier, those
who were then living might have rejected it, be
cause it was not published a thousand years before.

that surpasses our conception, beings of superior natures may
be supposed to reach the most distant point of contemplation
by a process rapid without irregularity, and complex without
confusion. Some property of this son he would, in its highest
perfection, ascribe to the Deity. While this mode of conceiv
ing the Divine counsels is acknowledged to be not wholly ade
quate to the subject, it may be usefully employed in explaining
the clearness and extent of the Divine Prescience, and in re
pressing that confidence which ill becomes our dark and cir
cumscribed apprehensions. Even upon the hypothesis of Cle
mens, we may perceive the incompetency of man, and the
competency of God, to determine concerning the fulness of
time.
c2

20 SERMON 1.
Since creation is equally the work of Gqd with re
demption, we might as well complain, that we were
not made, as that we were not redeemed, just at the
time we imagined most fit ; and were the objection
removed as to ourselves, it might bc, in perpetual
succession, adopted by our posterity. In what
proof then does this argument, if it be well founded,
terminate ? A certain portion of time must have
existed before either event, and therefore the proper
inference a priori is, that we should never have been
created or redeemed at all.
But Christianity, exclaims the objector, is, inthe
splendid language of its panegyrists, described as a
system, perfect in itself, and essentially necessary to
the salvation of mankind. How then can that be
necessary to the everlasting welfare of God's crea
tures, which was not known till the probationary
state of many amongst them was at end ? And
how can that scheme be called perfect, which does
not include the spiritual interests of all the world ?
To this specious reasoning it may be replied, that
necessity and perfection are relative terms, and are
to be understood with restrictions, when applied to
any part of the Divine Government. As God is
possessed of wisdom to choose all ends, and of power
to controul all means, whatever is expedient in the
eyes of such a being is, upon that account, neces
sary — or, in other words, because it ought to be
done, it cannot but be done. The proof of the fact,
in such cases, always involves the proof of necessity,
in the sense just explained to you, and the actual
use of any means is a sufficient warrant for us to

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 21
pronounce them perfect, or accommodated to their
respective ends. We do not, however, say, for we
are neither required nor authorized to say, that
Christianity is indispensably necessary to the salva
tion of those persons to whom it was not commu
nicated. They may have been capable of arriving
at a less degree of happiness, by the assistance of
less instruction ; and they will, assuredly, be judged
according to their use of one talent, where it was not
the will of God to entrust them with five. But, so
far as our information reaches, the particular vir
tues which Christianity inculcates could not have
been practised, the particular recompence which it
proposes could not have been obtained, but by the
declaration of a law circumstanced as the Gospel
was. Consequently, if God intended to save us
by that Gospel, to guide us by a better law than
others were directed to obey, to qualify us for a
greater share of felicity than others were permitted
to reach, it is, in respect to us, who are the objects
of it, both necessary and perfect. It is so necessary
that the same degree of happiness could not be at
tained under any other system of religion, that has
hitherto been known. It is so perfect, that the
same happiness certainly will be attained under the
system we have embraced.
Christianity, it should ever be considered, pro
fesses to be designed for fallen creatures, or, in the
language of the Scriptures, Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners. Why, indeed, evil exists,
from what fountain it sprung, and through what
channels it is conveyed, are questions where we are

22 SERMON I.
more forward to enquire, than able to decide. Yet,
surely, if the attributes of God can be vindicated in
the permission of vice, that vindication will extend
even to the gradual removal of it.
In the nature of things, some interval must have
elapsed between the first existence of the evil, and
the first apphcation of the remedy. Concerning the
proper duration of that evil, we may dogmatize
much, but can demonstrate nothing. Equally wise
in themselves, though unknown to us, are most of
the reasons for which sin was either suffered to
enter the world at any time, or was checked in its
course at one time rather than another.
But whatever opinions we may form concerning
the origin of evil, the expediency of Christianity is
chiefly concerned in this fact, that we are, indeed,
sinful. We may therefore ask, is it possible that
God should suffer his creatures to sink into a state
of wickedness ? Is it not consistent with the attri
butes of God to deliver them from it ? Has the
Gospel a tendency to effect such deliverance ? As
to the first question, we must acknowledge the
heathen world to have been immersed in the most
deplorable corruption, both of manners and opinion.
Concerning the second, the most abandoned unbe
hever can scarce entertain a momentary doubt. The
last it will not be easy to prove in the negative, if
the genuine doctrines of the Gospel, the encourage
ment it gives to virtue, and the restraint it lays upon
vice, be seriously and impartially considered.
That God winked at,* or (as the word may be
ii-Kepib

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 23
less offensively translated) that he overlooked the
errors and the degeneracy of former ages, is a point
where many unbelievers are agreed with us. But
the Christian maintains that, in the fulness of
time, God published a Law, for the sake of rectify
ing those errors, and of reforming that degeneracy.
The infidel, who professes a regard equally delicate,
and a zeal equally sincere, for the honour of his
Maker, asserts the contrary. Whose, hypothesis,
think ye, redounds most to the glory of God?
According to the tenets of the Christian, the de
pravity of mankind, and the long train of miseries
attendant on it, have in some measure been les
sened, and will be lessened yet further. If the
infidel be right, the remedy of an acknowledged
evil has not yet been applied ; and though, accord
ing to the natural descent of things from bad to
worse, the longer any salutary expedient is delayed
the more urgent becomes the occasion for it ; that
very delay constitutes a presumption that no such
expedient ever will be applied. I will not insult
your understandings by entering into any superflu
ous comparison between hypotheses so notoriously
disproportionate in point both of good sense and
of piety.
I mean not to speak with intemperate indigna
tion of those arrogant and almost exclusive claims
which some champions of infidelity have set up, to
a correct and enlarged way of thinking. But I
wish them to consider whether the invectives which
they have thrown out against the late publication
of the Gospel be not the result of reasonings as

24 SERMON I.
narrow as they are erroneous. Near and remote,
great and little, are relative expressions ; and each
of them may be applied to the same object, as it is
viewed through different mediums. Thus the four
thousand years which preceded the appearance of
the Gospel may swell, in our imaginations, to a
stupendous bulk, on the supposition that the world
were to continue in its redeemed state for twice or
three times that space. But, if the world be or
dained to continue forty thousand years after the
coming of Christ, the time that preceded it will
shrink into a less formidable compass ; and, as
there is no apparent absurdity in supposing the
duration of our present system to be extended in
definitely, the proportion of the definite time that
passed before the mission of Christ may, by gradual
diminutions, be reduced to a very trifling, and, as
it were, a fugitive quantity.
If the progress which mankind have lately made
in the arts of social life, if the important enquiries
in which philosophy has been engaged, if the un
explored paths it has opened for new investigation,
be brought into one point of view, we may be led
to imagine, that the world has not yet reached
more than a state of comparative infancy. Should
this be the case, and should our future improve
ments flow on with an equal, or an increasing tide
of success, posterity may reverse the argument.
Tracing back the growing excellence of their fel
low-creatures through the stages it shall have
already passed, they may look up with admiration
and thankfulness to that Being who, according to

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 25
their estimate of things, interposed so speedily in
behalf of his creatures. But without having re
course to such descriptions of succeeding ages, as
are neither unpleasing nor incredible, we may find,
upon a retrospective view of the condition in which
mankind has been placed, many probable argu
ments for the truth of St. Paul's assertion, that in
the fulness of time God sent forth his Son.
Had the Almighty ordained a more early period
for the Gospel, we might have lost much of that
evidence which arises from Prophecy.
The Son of God appeared at a season when the
propagation of his religion was much facilitated by
the extent of the Roman empire, and the popu
larity of the Greek language. But, if he had lived
in the days of Moses, the little intercourse that
prevailed between nation and nation, the very in
considerable proficiency of mankind in arts and
language, the total want of concurrent historical
testimony, and a variety of other circumstances,
which were not unfriendly to the Jewish Law, in
tended as it was to operate for a short time, and
among an obscure people, might have proved very
powerful impediments to the establishment and the
diffusion of the Christian Law.
The Gospel, upon its first publication, was in
many instances affected by the religious and the po
litical state of Judea. But the spirit of the Mosaic
institutions was quite exhausted, and the observance
of many precepts was scarce practicable, during the
subjection of the Jews to the Roman yoke. De
prived, therefore, as was this people, of the advan
tages which had resulted from ceremonial duties, it

26 SERMON I.
was likely, or at least it was proper for them, to
have turned their attention more readily towards a
ritual less irksome, and a scheme of morality far
more adapted to their intellectual and social im
provements. As prophecy had long ceased among
them, they might have been induced to consider the
miracles of Christ as a renewal of those divine in
terpositions with which their forefathers had been
honoured. The opinions concerning a future state,
which they had caught up during their captivity at
Babylon, and their intercourse with the Romans,
should have prepared them to welcome a religion
which throws the clearest and fullest light * upon
the comfortable doctrines of life and immortality.
Had the arrival of the Messiah been hastened, the
expectations of the Jew would not have been excited
to a sufficient pitch of solicitude. Had it been
longer delayed, those expectations, which eventually
induced many persons to examine the claims of
Christ, and some to admit them, might have lan
guished after repeated disappointments.
In this question concerning the fulness of time,
the state of the heathen world deserves our consi
deration. If the Gospel had been preached in a
very barbarous age, the reception of it would, pro
bably, have been ascribed to the want of ability or
the want of inclination to detect imposture, to the
artifices of priests, or the credulity of the vulgar.
But it challenged the attention of mankind at a
most enlightened aera, when the jealous wisdom of

(jxoriaayros Suif/v ml a(j>dapmay. Tira. Epist. 2. cap. i. v. 10.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 27
politicians, and the no less jealous pride of philoso
phers, were leagued against religious innovation.
The same causes which harrassed Christianity du
ring its growth, must, if its vital principle had not
been soimd, have stifled it in its very birth. The
same opposition that had been roused in the reign
of Augustus against false miracles, must have hunted
down the credit of the Christian miracles, had they
not been really performed. The same vigilance,
which afterwards dragged to light all the childish
fallacies of ApoUonius Tyanseus, would have been
more fatally employed in crushing the firmer and
more interesting pretensions of Christ, if they had
not been founded upon a rock.
The ceremonies prescribed by the religions of
antiquity tended to debase the spirit, and even to
deprave the morals of the people. As to the doc
trines of philosophy, they were seldom employed, as,
in truth, they were seldom qualified, to remedy the
evil. It must, however, be confessed, that the more
important truths of Religion, such, I mean, as
relate to a providence and a future state, though
intermixed with many errors, yet retained a feeble
hold upon the minds of the multitude, and pro
duced, too, a partial effect upon their behaviour.
To arraign and to ridicule such truths was a distinc
tion reserved for those presumptuous sophists
whom their infatuated admirers affect to exalt as
the guides of life, though they speculated for the
sake of victory, not of truth ; though they con
founded the received notions of right and wrong,
without substituting others more intelligible and
more useful ; though they veiled the being and at-

28 SERMON I.
tributes of the Deity in artificial obscurity, and
often thrust out his wretched creatures from the
verge of his protection.
It were unjust to extend these severe accusations
to all the philosophers of antiquity. Sacred, in the
bosom of every friend to learning and virtue, be the
memory of the illustrious few ainong them who
endeavoured to connect their more abstruse re
searches with the improvement of morality, and
the dearest interests of mankind. But their suc
cess generally fell short of their hopes. Tully,
whose veneration for Plato bordered upon idolatry,
yet confesses that the most ingenious arguments of
that writer upon the immortality of the soul im
pressed only a precarious momentary conviction,
even upon a mind that wished them true ; and Bru
tus, in his dying moments, lamented, that virtue
itself was but an empty name.
Thus in the gross mistakes and abject supersti
tion of the vulgar, in the uncertainty of the best
philosophers, and the impiety of the worst, we have
most convincing proofs that a Divine Revelation
was not entirely unseasonable. In reality, all the
instances of what reason did not do are more satis
factory evidences of its comparative insufficiency
than the romantic suppositions and confident asser
tions of some men concerning what it might have
done. The world, it is true, has been amused by
many subtle distinctions between the " energies "
and the " capacities " of reason among the ancients.
At all events, however, if the defects imputed to
them had a real existence, the expediency of Reve-

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 29
lation to supply those defects is nearly the same,
whether they arose from inability or inaction, from
unfavourable circumstances, or injudicious exertion.
For the purpose of depreciating revelation indi
rectly, magnificent encomiums have, I know, been
lavished upon the law of nature,* and upon the
light of nature. The utility of both has been im
pertinently exaggerated, and their distinct proper
ties have been imprudently, not to say insidiously,
confounded. The law of nature, abstractedly consi
dered, is, I say not, eternal and immutable, but co-
extended and co-eval with all the works of nature.
It comprehends the moral fitness of things, arising
from their specific qualities and mutual relations.

* The law of nature is, I know, usually understood in the
sense of a law not revealed. But this acceptation is, I believe,
too confined in itself, and has been the cause of many difficul
ties to the advocates of the Gospel in their disputes with Infi
dels. Nature includes all the works of God. Revelation is in
timately connected with those works ; it holds a distinguished
place among them ; and the precepts and evidences of it are
included in the law of nature, according to that sense of the
word which is at once the most proper and most comprehen
sive. Revelation, therefore, is to be distinguished from the law of
nature, as 'a part from the whole. The Bp. of Carlisle [Dr. Law],
in his admirable considerations on the theory of religion, has laid
open the absurd and fallacious significations which have been
assigned to the law of nature. The same excellent prelate has
also rescued the word reason from the narrow and erroneous
sense in which it is often employed by controversial writers.
He has enumerated with great accuracy all the various " talents
which together make up our portion of reason, and severally
contribute to the forming our understanding, and improving
our nature." Vide page 4. edit. 3,

30 SERMON I.
and, as such, is, in its full magnitude, known only
by the Beiug who ordained it. On the other hand,
the light of nature * implies a limited, and, in man,
a very limited and very fluctuating knowledge of
that law, together with the obligations resulting
from such knowledge, and increasing in proportion
to it. This light was, moreover, in the heathen
world, faint and unsteady, as we may discover from
the numerous imperfections both of the learned and
the unlearned. But, amidst the melancholy state
of things in which they were placed, what can be
conceived more desirable to a well-disposed mind
than an authoritative and unequivocal declaration
of the Divine will ? How absurdly should we sup
pose any man to have reasoned, how perversely
should we pronounce him to have acted, if he had
spurned away the aids, which revelation offers, from
himself, only, because they had not been tendered
to his forefathers ?
As an experimental sense of calamity quickens
the exercise of compassion to others, so the con
sciousness of past imperfections may have been very
efficacious in producing that humble docility of
mind, which, in the first ages of the Gospel, was
eminently and peculiarly a requisite qualification

* I am here speaking ofthe light of nature, as it exists, where
no revelation is known. But, according to the principles I have
laid down in the foregoing note, the light of nature in a Chris
tian, includes all the knowledge he has acquired ofthe laws of
nature, whether revealed or unrevealed. When my meaning
is impartially considered, the propriety of my language will, !•
hope, atone for its singularity.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 31
for conversion. It disposed, no doubt, many im
partial persons to welcome the glad tidings of Sal
vation, after the disadvantages they had long suf
fered, from that restless uncertainty, from those
wavering hopes, from those tormenting fears, which
seem to have been the lot of the best men, to whom
reason was their only guide.
I do not insist upon these circumstances as abso
lutely decisive ; and yet they carry with them the
weight of probability, till they be counter-balanced
by opposite arguments founded upon the known
condition of mankind. I dare not hold them out
as the sole or the principal reasons which consti
tuted the fulness of time, in the sight of God. But,
in the sight of man, they shew the period assigned
for the birth of Christ not to have been totally
unfit for the professed purposes of his mission ; and
with this conclusion we may be satisfied, till our
adversaries produce equal proofs for some other
period that was more fit.
I now proceed to obviate the second objection,
which, as you may remember, was levelled against
the partial propagation of the Gospel. We may
observe both of this and of the preceding complaint,
that they pre-suppose the excellence of the Christian
scheme, even while they depreciate its credibility ;
for, if it be not calculated to correct the morals,
and promote the well-being of mankind, why should
we be offended, either that it was not more early
published, or more widely disseminated ?
It wears, surely, the most offensive aspect of
parodox, that the very property which ought to

32 SERMON I.
endear the Gospel to those by whom it is known?
should prejudice them against it ; and that the
acknowledged utility of that Gospel should be dis
torted into an argument against its truth.
In the daily course of human affairs, the dignity
ofthe benefactor is generally supposed to throw a
new lustre around his gifts. But, lest the claims of
Christianity to a divine original should procure too
much reverence, the warm spirit of religious grati
tude must, it seems, be chilled by, I know not what,
cold distinctions of scepticism, and that honest pre
judice, which, with the happiest consequences, mea
sures things by persons, is to be controled by the
sternest severities of, perhaps, misapplied investiga
tion. I say misapplied, because the unworthiness
of man to demand a preternatural interposition at
the hands of his Maker, has been sometimes mis
construed into an incapacity to become the object
of such interposition ; and because the partial im
probabihty that God would interpose, has been
alleged as an evidence of the actual impossibihty
that he should interpose.
Particular distinctions are usually looked upon as
the ground of particular obligation. As men excel
each other in affluence of fortune, in splendour of
situation, or in vigour of intellect, new means of
happiness are supposed to be conferred upon them,
and new returns of gratitude are expected from
them, upon every principle of common sense and
common justice. But when Revelation is concerned
the rules which induce us more readily to accept
and more highly to value, the inferior blessings.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 33
which God bestows, are, in the opinion of some
men, suddenly suspended, and by an inverted mode
of argumentation, we are taught to reject the
greater blessing, though it be said to proceed from
the same gracious Author. Instead of acknowledg
ing and applying the assistances that are offered to
ourselves, we endeavour to conceal the pride of
false philosophy under the specious colouring of a
false philanthropy : we turn away our attention from
our own abundance, to the wants of others : we
affect to be offended at the difference between them
and ourselves, though it neither increase nor lessen
our own power of being happy ; and we curiously
pry into the causes of that difference, which are, for
the most part, treasured up in the depths of Omni
science, and which, if they were declared to us,
might neither relax nor enforce our obligation to
be virtuous. To what point, then, does the objec
tion before us ultimately tend ? If it be not abso
lutely designed to alienate us from Christianity, it
is surely imprudent in those who employ it, to ex
cite a spirit of discontent against the usefulness of
that law, by which we should be governed here, and
must be judged hereafter. If it be designed to
alienate us from that law, let us apply the touch
stone of analogy to an argument which is thought
of sufficient moment to warrant our deliberate
apostacy. Suppose now, that any people guided by the
counsels, and animated under the auspices, of a
Numa or a Lycurgus, were emerging from barba
rism. Would it be a just reason for them to re-
VOL. II. D

34 SERMON I.
lapse voluntarily into the evils from which they
were beginning to escape, because neighbouring
countries were yet exposed to the same evils, and
unhappily were not provided with the same means
of alleviation ? Would it not be a reason for self-
congratulation, if they exclusively possessed the
power of making further advances in civilization,
and for self-applause, if they used that power faith
fully and diligently ?
But the Deity, it seems, who is the common pa
rent of us all, will not suffer any of his creatures
to perish, while he has amply furnished others with
the means of safety. This is a very common, and
it is a very erroneous method of stating the ques
tion. For, it should not be asked, will God be kind
to you, and unkind to another — but, will he be more
kind to you than he has been to another ?
Has not the Deity made a difference between
brutes and men ? Yet he is the wise Creator and
Preserver of both. Has he not bestowed upon
men the external materials of earthly good, and,
probably, the internal capacity of using them, in
different degrees ? Yet he is the just Governor of
all. If then, intending some of his moral agents
for less felicity in another life, he leave them to
reason, and at the same time confer the aids of
Revelation upon those who are intended for greater
felicity, he is still the righteous Judge of all. And
shall our eye be evil, because the eye of our Maker
is good — not, as in the case of the labourers in the
vineyard, to others, but to ourselves, to our friends
to our coimtry, and to our posterity ? Far be such

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 35
shocking presumption, such black ingratitude, from
those among whom God has sent forth his Son !
If hmitation in point of time be no sohd objec
tion to the rectitude of the Divine Government, as
we have seen under the former head, limitation in
point of place may be equally consistent with it.
The truth is, that God dispenses or withholds his
gifts, that he deals them out in various measures,
and assigns to them various uses, quite regardless
of all our churlish discontent, and all our captious
sophisms, and ever intent upon the execution of
that plan which himself has formed, by. the me
thods of which himself approves.
But, could not the Deity, when Christ appeared
upon earth, have commissioned other teachers to
publish the same law ? In speaking of this ques
tion, I will not rigorously insist upon some pecu
liarities, which are said to characterize the person
of Christ, and which, in the opinion of many wise
and good men, are incommunicable. I will confess
that God could have appointed other instructors,
capable of working miracles, and of preaching mo
rality, in the same manner as he could have sent
Jesus Christ into Judea long before. But the pos
sibility of such a proceeding, which, after all, is only
hypothetical, by no means establishes the propriety
of it. On the contrary, if the state of mankind be
accurately examined, it is scarce conceivable that
Christianity should have been spread with any con
siderable effect through the various nations which
fill up the immense chasm lying between the sum-
d2

36 SERMON I.
mit of refinement and the extreme point of savage
life. Thus, many of the rules that were adapted to the
polished Roman would have been useless to the
rugged Scythian. The same doctrines that were in
telligible in one country, would, in another, have
been totally unintelligible. The same system, which
to the Greek was offensively simple, would to the
Barbarian have been as offensively complex. By
some men, the preaching of the Apostles would
have been heard, at first, with cold indifference, and
afterwards assented to with confused and undigested
sentiments of approbation. By others, it would
have been eagerly embraced in the tumultuous
phrenzy of admiration, and abandoned as eagerly
upon a sudden sally of caprice. The fact is, that
some previous discipline, both of the understanding
and of the temper, was necessary to prepare men for
the admission of the Gospel ; and that discipline
was scarce to be found in the unsettled plans of
living, and the unsocial cast of manners which pre
vailed almost over the whole face of the earth when
Christ appeared.
I do not take upon myself to affirm, that no per
sons, under the disadvantages here alluded to, would
have been converted. I know that surprising
changes are sometimes accomplished by patient per
severance, by dexterity of management, and, above
all, by fortunate combinations of circumstances, which
human wisdom can neither produce nor foresee.
But the number of converts would have been, in all
probability, not considerable, if any inference may

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 37
be drawn from the slow and interrupted progress
which Christianity now makes in very uncivilized
nations. We find that the attention of men is
there divided between repelling the immediate at
tacks of war, and procuring a scanty subsistence for
peace ; that their minds are not easily weaned from
hereditary and habitual partialities to established
customs and traditional opinions ; that their stupi
dity is as deplorable as their superstition ; that their
stubbornness becomes more untractable, from the
ignorance with which it is associated ; and that their
actions, unless thrown out of their course by the
eccentricities of impetuous passion, roll on with a
dull unvaried uniformity approaching to instinct.
Happily for Christianity, these impediments to
its propagation in the present age are notorious, and
therefore the doctrines of it are not charged with
any disgraceful insufficiency. But, if the efficacy
of those doctrines had been tried without effect upon
nations who, in earlier times, laboured under incon
veniences similar to those which I have been here
describing, the miscarriage which is now excused
because it can be accounted for, would have here
imputed to some original defeqts in the evidence, or
some relative impropriety in the precepts of the
Gospel ; and they who object to us that it was not
taught in uncivilized countries, would have been
the foremost to scoff at the attempt, and to triumph
in the disappointment. I should rather say, that
the success of such an attempt would have provoked
sharper and more pointed ridicule. The acquisition
of a few unenlightened and unpolished converts

38 SERMON I.
would scarce have been sufficient to lift up Chris
tianity to the esteem of such persons as now treat
it with contempt. They who expatiate with the
most indecent and most unjust severity upon the
ignorance, the credulity, and the supersition of the
Jews, would have urged the same defects in its pro
fessors, to the discredit of the Gospel, if the recep
tion of it among barbarians had been alleged as an
argument in favour either of its credibility or its
excellence. When, therefore, it is asked why Chris
tianity was not preached in all places at the same
time, we may reply, that God accommodates his
religious dispensations to the intellectual and social
circumstances of his creatures ; that those circum
stances, in their utmost extent are known to him
alone : that the character of the Christian must, in
general, be grafted upon the character of the man ;
and that, if a judgment may be formed of past ages
from the present, the stock that was wild would
also have frequently been barren.
But do not seventeen hundred years leave suffi
cient room for the universal diffusion of the Chris
tian law ? To our conceptions that space may ap
pear very long ; nevertheless to him who counts a
thousand years as one day, the same space may be
considered as too short for the introduction of so
great a change as the objection contends for, or, in
deed, of any greater than has been hitherto effected.
Between the appearance and the propagation of the
Gospel some time must have intervened ; and if it
had been pubhshed in any other age, or in any
other country, we have no positive proof that the

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 39
reception of it would have been more favourable,
or the progress of it more swift. Unknown impe
diments, far surpassing those with which it has strug
gled, and over which it has triumphed, might have
sprung up, and the causes which we know to have
assisted it might have been less efficacious, or might
have had no existence.
The subject before us may catch a kind of side
light from the manner in which the Gospel has been
propagated among Christians, and which, in the ut
most strictness of language, may be called partial.
While the Apostles attended upon their Master, we
should suppose this the most proper season for the
fullest communication of religious knowledge ; but
the Deity, even in giving effect to miraculous inter
positions, neglects not the use of moral causes. The
prejudices of the Apostles were not totally subdued,
nor their mistakes instantaneously rectified. Many
things which their Master said not, because their
minds were not able to bear them, were, in the ful
ness of time, conveyed by the supernatural effusions
of the Spirit ; and even after those effusions had
been vouchsafed, their understandings seemed to
have been susceptible of continual improvement, as
well from the efforts of reason as from the aids of
grace. Thus the attachment of the Jews to cere
monial observances was not torn up violently and
at once, but gradually lopped away. The whole
light of the Gospel did not burst out in a moment
upon the minds ofthe Gentiles. Many truths that
were for a time obscured in the gloom of Popery
are now brought forth into open day ; and from

40 SERMON I.
some errors, which yet keep their ground in Pro
testant countries, posterity, we trust, will be hap
pily delivered. As, therefore, the goodness of God
is not impeached by the progressive communica
tion of his will to those persons by whom his Gos
pel is known, his wisdom may be vindicated in re
gard to that entire ignorance of the Gospel in
which whole communities of men are now involved.
Let me not be misunderstood. Christianity is a
word capable of various acceptations. Sometimes
it implies the doctrines of Christ ; and in this sense
of the expression Christianity can neither be in
creased nor diminished. Sometimes it signifies all
the evidences, effects, and circumstances belonging
to the whole scheme of our redemption. But those
circumstances are more or less striking ; those
effects are more or less rapid ; aud those circum
stances vary, at various times and in various places.
The capacity of man to understand and act up to
the doctrines of Christ, is, we know, unavoidably
affected by many collateral causes, which are in a
continual, though it be sometimes an imperceptible,
fluctuation. In consequence of these irregularities,
which necessarily arise from the present constitu
tion of the world, the cause of the Gospel some
times appears to be endangered by outward vio
lence, and sometimes to languish with internal
decay. Yet, upon the whole, we have reason to
pronounce that it is on the advance ; and tlie time
will at last arrive when the knowledge of it shall
pervade every country where it has not been
hitherto taught, and when every country where it

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 41
has been taught shall acquire more just and more
comprehensive notions concerning the import of its
doctrines, the credibility of its proofs, the connec
tion of its various parts, and the utility of its gene
ral design.
For this auspicious and extensive improvement
in the religious state of man, every philosophical
believer must acknowledge a visible, though re
mote, preparation of causes, in the wide diffusion of
commerce, in the successful cultivation of science,
in the invention of printing, in the discovery of
the Western World, and in a variety of other parti
culars, which no friend to mankind can contemplate
without wonder, or mention without exultation.
Let us not, then, be alarmed at the misplaced
sarcasms or the tragical lamentations of those who
first exclaim that the Gospel is imprisoned within
very narrow boundaries, and then rudely endeavour
to banish it from the spot which it already occu
pies. Rather ought we to reflect upon the nu
merous and complicated difficulties which it has
already encountered with success. More especially
are we interested in recollecting that God, having
accompanied the first Revelation of his will with
miraculous signs, has entrusted the further propa
gation of it to human agency. This, indeed, is a
point intimately connected with our practice as
well as our speculations, nor can it, without impro
priety, be overlooked in this part of our subject —
we may not be able to comprehend the counsels of
God; Ijut the enquiry is not altogether fruitless,
if in the course of it we discern the duty of man.

42 SERMON I.
The relation in which the Gospel now stands to
us, as moral agents, is different, according to the
talents with which we are respectively endowed,
and the situations in which we are respectively
placed. To some men, it forms a part of their trial
whether they will beheve or reject Christianity —
to others, whether they will obstruct or promote
the reception of it. When, therefore, the limited
diffusion of the Gospel is urged as a proof against
its divine authority, we should not forget that the
charge is usually alleged by those who have the
least right to allege it — by those who multiply
artificial obstacles, for the sake of bringing an
odium upon such as are inevitable — by those who
industriously create the very imperfection against
which they clamorously inveigh.
In all religious enquiries, I wish to see zeal tem
pered by discretion ; and as I sometimes lament
that the belief of the Gospel is not rooted in the
love of virtue, I do not always suspect the disbelief
of it to originate in a predilection for vice. But,
upon questions of such moment, we cannot be too
much upon our guard against endangering the
peace and innocence of other men, by the keenness
of raillery, by the subtlety of sophistry, and the im
posing force of exaggerated description. Whatever
sentiments, therefore, it may be the lot of some
men to entertain concerning the authority of the
extraordinary original ascribed to Christianity,
they cannot, I think, have any doubts as to the
utility of its ordinary effects. Even in the lowest
point of view, it forms an evident and a consider-

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 43
able part of that moral government which God has
established in the system to which we belong. It
cannot discourage us in the practice of our most
arduous duties ; it cannot impede us in the pursuit
of our noblest interests ; and, therefore, every in
dignity wantonly offered to it calls aloud for punish
ment from that Being in whom the injured rights
of morality, by whatever speculative principles it
may be promoted, will unquestionably find a most
just and terrible avenger. But if the claims of
Christianity be, as we trust they are, of a higher
order ; if prophecies have been vouchsafed, and
miracles have been worked, to authenticate and to
sanctify it ; the influence of such a dispensation can
hardly be too extensive, and the use or neglect of
every opportunity that is given us of making it
more extensive, remains no longer a matter of in
difference. In opposition to this assertion, a question has
been asked, to which, though it breathe the spirit of
cavil rather than argument, I will not refuse a seri
ous answer. Has a man a right, even where he
has the ability, to diffuse the knowledge of the
Divine Will among those people whose ignorance
of it seems to proceed from Divine appointment ?
Undoubtedly he is possessed of such a right ; he is
accountable for the exercise of it ; he derives his
own acquaintance with Christianity from the exer
cise of the same right in other men ; and he must
know, that, as preternatural means are no longer
employed, this is the only method by which the
Gospel can be propagated. Where any evil what-

44 SERMON I.
ever exists, you have a proof that God did not
intend altogether to prevent that evil. Where
you have the power of alleviating it, you have an
equal proof that God does intend it to be alleviated.
The knowledge of the Divine intention is insepara
ble from the knowledge of the human means by
which it may be executed. The consciousness of
your power is attended with a proportionate obliga
tion to exert it.
To entangle virtue in unnecessary scruples is
always dangerous ; and there is reason to suspect
that many who indulge those scruples are providing
an excuse for their own laziness, in the anticipation
of imaginary disappointment. But the line of duty
is strait and plain ; and from this line he will ever
be wandering who abstains from immediate and
practicable good, lest evil should indirectly come.
We do not counteract the designs of Providence
by the communication either of temporal or of
spiritual blessings ; and most meritorious in the
sight of God will be the labours of that Christian
who spreads wide the influence of the Gospel, at
once vindicated by his arguments and adorned by
his example.
We are now arrived at the last objection, which I
proposed to consider — namely, the imperfect effi
cacy of the Gospel. And here, my brethren, while,
in well-meant and well-directed zeal for the honour
of our religion, we endeavour to defend it from the
attacks of its adversaries, we cannot but lament
those faults among its friends which give occasion
for such defence.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 45
The cause, and, in respect to God, the justifica
tion of these faults, are to be found in the freedom
of man — in that freedom without which Christi
anity were useless, and with which its uses, from
the unalterable but inexplicable constitution of
things, may be impaired. The Gospel is addressed
to beings who may overlook the truths it contains
from inattention ; who may misunderstand them,
under the influence of prepossession ; who may
corrupt it doctrines through the bias of secular in
terests, and violate its commands in the blind fury
of passion. But the same Gospel foretells these
evils — it condemns them, and is calculated to alle
viate them. Prevented, indeed, they cannot be, till
the free agency of man be taken away, and then
the wheat would be plucked up with the tares, and
every hope of the rising harvest entirely destroyed.
To the right use of God's favours, be they of the
natural or of the religious kind, some voluntary
efforts, some mental qualifications, are requisite, on
the part of those to whom they are offered — the
sun will shine, and the rains will descend, with
little advantage to the sluggish and the obstinate
husbandman. Christianity, in the same manner,
though it be fortified by the most pertinent evi
dences, and inculcate the most important duties,
though its menaces be awful and its promises al
luring, may not always be efficacious enough to
reclaim the licentious or to convince the prejudiced.
Upon these occasions, we see plainly that some
degree of blame is deserved by man, and we do not
see any just cause for extending that blame to his
God.

46 SERMON I.
Let us, however, for the sake of hypothesis, allow
the practice of Christian virtue to be consistent
with the absence of human freedom. Every ope
ration of the understanding, and every deliberation
of the will, must then be directed by a superna
tural, that is, a miraculous power ; and as every
day and every hour call forth the exercise both of
the understanding and of the will, every day and
every hour would require a Divine interposition.
Who then are the persons whose wishes of ideal
perfection can only be realized by a perpetual
series of miracles ? They are to be found in that
class of men who object to the Gospel, that it was
ushered into the world by the miracles of Christ
and his Apostles.
If the imperfect efficacy of the Gospel be not
insisted upon as a reason for rejecting it, our ad
versaries ought to declare explicitly that they mean,
not to subvert Christianity, but to reform Chris
tians. If it be insisted upon for that fatal purpose,
I would combat this argument upon the analogical
principles that were before applied to another ques
tion: The premises admit that Christianity has
been useful in some degree — the conclusion affirms
that it ought to be rejected, because it is not in the
highest degree useful. Civilization has not reached
its utmost perfection, and, therefore, we ought to
return in haste to a state of barbarism. The laws
of a Solon or a Lycurgus have not prevented all
irregularities, and therefore ought to be stripped of
that authority by which they have prevented many.
A medicine, through some injudicious procedure in

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 47
the application, some obstinate symptom in the
disorder, or some perverse opposition in the patient,
has not been completely efficacious in all cases.
Therefore it ought not to be applied in any case
whatsoever. He that can leap from such pre
mises to such conclusions has no right to complain
of credulity in his opponents. Let it not be said
that these instances are drawn from the works of
man, whereas Christianity is represented as the
more immediate work of God. Though it be the
work of God, it relates to man ; it supposes him to
be invested with powers which he may use or
abuse ; it is designed to improve his nature gra
dually, but not to change it essentially.
The edge of the objection we are now examining
may be yet more blunted, if we look back upon the
positive efficacy of the Gospel. Christianity, then,
has softened the horrors of war, not only by pre
venting its professors from putting their conquered
enemies to death, but by inspiring them with senti
ments of humanity towards the defenceless captive.
In many, would to God I could say in all parts of
the Christian world, it has wrested from the hand
of the oppressor that power which, in almost every
part of the Gentile world, the master had usurped
over the life of his slave. It has taught mankind
to shrink from the wanton effusion of human blood,
which disgraced the gladiatoral shews of a brave
and an enlightened people. It has banished the ex
ecrable barbarities of human sacrifices, and, rightly
understood, it is now beginning to correct in its
professors, what, when misunderstood, it was sup-

48 SERMON I.
posed to cherish — the sanguinary rage of persecu
tion. It has sweetened the comforts of domestic
life, curbed the licentiousness of polygamy and di
vorce, and mitigated the rigours of that unsocial
and unnatural servitude, to which, among the polite
citizens of Athens, as well as the rude foresters of
Germany, the fierce and haughty despotism of the
stronger sex had condemned the weaker. It has
extirpated the hideous custom of exposing children,
which the most celebrated states of antiquity openly
permitted, and their ablest writers have expressly
recommended. In some measure, it has checked
that false patriotism which tramples upon the most
sacred rights of mankind, and which justifies every
artifice however perfidious, every outrage however
unprovoked, under the specious pretences of na
tional prosperity and national glory. It has called
up a spirit of indignation against those brutal in
dulgences which nature shudders even to name, but
which were practised by the most civilized nations,
without a pang and without a blush.
Much, far too much, has been said, in the undis
tinguishing eagerness of panegyric, concerning the
urbanity and politeness of Greece and Rome. The
untempered acrimony of their satirists, the scur
rilous violence of their orators, and the gross inde
licacy of their comic writers, present to an impartial
mind no very amiable picture of their manners.
He, indeed, that would accept. the advantages of all
their boasted elegance, in exchange for the endear
ments and the embellishments of modern life, may
be charged almost with the depraved taste of the

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 49
Hottentot, who, upon his return to his native land,
shook off the European dress, nauseated European
food, and wallowed in all the filthy and abominable
excesses of his countrymen.
There are, I know, some persons who would de
rive the improvements of these later ages from our
civilization and our laws. But by whom are these
laws enacted ? By Christians. Among whom is that
civilization estabUshed ? Among Christians. From
what source proceed either the equitable and hu
mane spirit of those laws, or the elegancies and
comforts of that civilization ? They proceed from
the silent but real efficacy of the Gospel itself,
which corrects every selfish affection, purifies every
sensual appetite, and restrains every ferocious pas^
sion. Unquestionably, if the great refinements of
the antients be justly ascribed to reason alone, the
greater refinements of the moderns may with equal
justice be ascribed to religion, as a powerful and a
constant, though it be not the only cause.
Many errors are yet maintained by believers ;
they are, however, less offensive to good sense, and
less injurious to good morals than the monstrous
tenets of those ancient religions, by which their
deities were represented in the most degrading em
ployments, and worship was prescribed to the vilest
of reptiles, and the most abandoned of men. Many
indefensible ceremonies are yet retained in a Church
that styles itself Christian. But it were unjust to
place the fantastic pageantries of popery upon a
level with that mass of Roman superstition, from
which many of them were borrowed — with the pue-
VOL. II. E

50 SERMON I.
rile extravagances of Egyptian and Zabian idolatry
— with the lewd excesses that were practised openly
in honour of Venus at Babylon, and secretly in
the mysteries of Cotytto at Athens.
Among the rational, and, I am happy to add, not
an inconsiderable part of believers, the essentials of
religion are no longer confounded with points of
subordinate moment or temporary obligation : lines
of distinction are drawn between factitious and real
difficulties ; and mankind are daily learning to rest
their hopes of salvation, not upon punctilious at
tachment to exterior forms, but upon a steady ad
herence to genuine morality. To these changes in
the opinions and the actions of Christians, let me
add the blessed spirit of toleration which is widely
diffusing itself through all ranks of citizens, and all
sects of Christians. That spirit must finally give
new dignity and new stability to the cause of truth,
as it fosters the freedom of inquiry, as it tempers
the zeal which darkens knowledge, and stimulates
the industry which acquires it, and, above all, as
it enlarges the sphere of Christian charity, that ce
lestial virtue, which, in religious concerns, where it
claims the pre-eminence, has been too long cramped
and depressed, and of which every solitary instance,
in times less enlightened, was lamented as a weak
ness, or condemned as a crime.
To this favourable representation of our present
state the irreligion and luxury of the age will be
opposed. In respect to the first charge, the poi
son of infidelity has, I fear, spread too far. But
the progress of it has, in some degree, been stop
ped, and the virulence of it assuaged by the labours

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 51
of those men who have defended with ability the
evidences of that Revelation, the doctrines of which
they have examined with impartiality. Indeed it
well deserves our notice, that the fundamental prin
ciples of natural religion have been more accurately
investigated, and more consistently explained in
those countries, where the sacred authority of
revealed religion has been longer established, and
oftener attacked.
But our defence is not to be rested only even
upon this honourable ground ; for if the remote
causes of our infidelity be deeply explored, we shall
have less room to take the alarm, either in regard
to the safety, or the credit of our religion. Those
causes are to be found in the peculiar- tendency of
our studies, and the unwearied activity with which
they are pursued ; in the profound researches which
men are making into the works of nature, and in
the clear and correct habits of thinking which they
have transferred from philosophy, where those
habits were first acquired, to other subjects. Hence
the truths of Revelation have been examined with
unprecedented, and, in some respects, perhaps an
unwarrantable severity ; and hence they have been
exhibited by the contending parties in such points
of view as were unknown to past generations. It
has often been observed that the alacrity of infidels
is eventually serviceable to the Gospel, by keeping
alive the vigilance of Christians. There is equal
reason to imagine that the success of Christians has
sharpened the eagerness of infidels, and that the
vigorous and skilful preparations of our enemies are ,
e2

52 SERMON I.
to be in part imputed to their apprehensions of our
increasing strength.
Investigation, whether of the critical or philoso
phical kind, when it has been unexpectedly success
ful, always awakens a spirit of resistance among the
indolent, who are unwilling to be disturbed in the
repose of opinion long ago adopted; among the
envious, who are zealous to crush the growing
popularity of discoveries, which themselves have
not made ; and among the vain, who, in order to
display their own sagacity, oppose new errors to
new truths. The same motives operate with pecu
liar intenseness, when any uncommon improvement
has been made in religious knowledge. It is, there
fore, no mean subject of consolation, and even of
triumph, to the friends of the Gospel, that the new
arts of opposition employed against it by its adver
saries were provoked by the new modes of defence
which its advocates had recently found out, and
that the seeming danger of Revelation is, in reality,
both a sign and a consequence of its safety.
The reasons here assigned for the prevalence of
incredulity in an age when there is the surest
foundation for a rational faith, will probably bring
back to your recollection the remarks I made in
the opening of this discourse, concerning the simi
larity which pervades the whole of the Divine Go
vernment, as it is administered in the affairs of this
world. In the religious, as well as in the natural
and moral parts of that government, every evil is
secretly or openly accompanied by some good,
. which indirectly springs from that specific evil, and

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 53
is particularly qualified to mitigate it. In like
manner every accession of good leads to the pro
duction of evil, and of evil too, which, in its malig
nity, bears some proportion to the degree of that
very good by which that very malignity itself is, in
some measure, corrected. Thus by the wonderful
and simultaneous operations of opposite causes, the
real harmony of this system * is preserved, and the
* I here speak concerning the harmony of our own system ;
but I presume not to determine concerning the harmony of the
universe, though such determinations have been often made by
learned philosophers, and by pious divines. Of other systems
we have no knowledge, direct or even indirect ; for in the
application of analogy from what is known, to the unknown,
it is necessary that some common property should belong to
them, as a foundation for that analogy. But intelligence,
capable as it is of infinite modifications, and infinite uses, is,
perhaps, not such a property in the present question. We
can form no probable conjectures concerning the ends for
which other beings are designed, or the faculties with which
they are endowed, or the modes in which they think and act.
They may possess senses which we want, or they may want
those which we possess, or they may think without the aid of
any senses, whereas our intellectual operations originate in
sensation as their source, and seem to be always dependent
upon corporeal organs, though the degree of that dependence
cannot be calculated, nor the manner of it explained. We
have, therefore, no right to extend to them any conclusions
concerning the evil of imperfection, because such conclusions
are founded upon facts, which concern ourselves only, and
which may with as much propriety be supposed peculiar to one
system, as common to all. We are guilty of no absurdity in
saying, that the virtue and the happiness of other beings may
differ in kind, as well as in measure, from the virtue and hap
piness of man. We. perceive no contradiction in supposing,
that amidst the wonderful variety of God's works there may be
a train of causes and effects quite unknown to us, by which

54 SERMON I.
real designs of its omniscient Author are carried
into complete execution.
virtue exists entirely unmixed with vice, and happiness with
misery. The Scriptures wjll furnish us with instances, by the
aid of which both of these suppositions may be illustrated,
though I be not allowed to say, demonstrated. In the life of
Christ we see virtue without vice ; in the future state of the
righteous we are taught to expect happiness without misery.
But in our present state, which is probationary, and which, in
a particular manner, as well as to a particular degree, is im
perfect, the constitution of things is different. Virtue, though
it be sometimes choaked by vice, sometimes grows up with it.
Vice, though it be, in general, corrected or prevented by vir
tue, frequently accompanies it, and in some cases even springs
from it, as its occasion indeed, rather than its cause : this
distinction should ever be kept in view, because it is the pro
perty of real good to extend and perpetuate itself, and that
tendency is obstructed by collateral causes, some of which
operate, chiefly or solely, when good of a particular kind
already exists in particular circumstances. In what manner
the mixture of good and evil is effected, and to what extent it
operates, we cannot always determine with precision. But we
know that, according to the present condition of man, the
abuse of good is always possible ; and there are cases in the
moral as well as the natural world, where we may say with the
Schoolmen, that the corruption of the greatest good leads to
the greatest evil. Yet virtue, among the numerous, and, some
of them insuperable impediments which surround it, yet re
tains its name, its nature, and it use. It claims such supe
riority over vice, as ought to determine us in every part of our
moral agency. It controul? vice in so many visible instances,
and with so many beneficial consequences, as form a positive
proof in favour of the Divine wisdom and benevolence. The
reader has anticipated me in the application of that proof to
the Christian system, which, though it directly produce much
good, may indirectly produce some evil ; and which, as it is
more understood and approved, may, for that reason, provoke
more obstinate opposition from the frailty and pride of man.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 55
In regard to the second charge of luxury, I
acknowledge that in the practice, as well as in the
doctrines of Christianity, while some parts are
going forward, others are at a stand ; and those too,
of a kind, which it were for the honour of religion,
and the interest of society to keep pace with the
rest. I must, however, observe that the Gospel has
indirectly lightened the mischiefs which it could not
directly obviate; and I would boldly contend that
our excesses are of a less alarming nature than the
gaudy and effeminate voluptuousness of Persia, or
the fouler and more detestable debaucheries of
Rome. It should not be forgotten that our virtues,
(for even virtue will grow up in the soil where lux
ury is most apt to thrive,) far exceed those of anti
quity in the purity of their motives, and the con
stancy of their operation. The riestraints that are
put upon the natural fierceness of our tempers, the
decencies observed in the daily intercourse of life,
the mitigation of national antipathies and contro
versial acrimony, the generous and active spirit
which animates our charitable institutions, are illus
trious proofs of the improvements which I ascribe
to my contemporaries.
For their imperfections, indeed, I mean not to
stand forth as an apologist, conscious as I am that
their conduct falls very short of the standard which
Christianity has fixed. But I am not ashamed to
appear as an advocate for their real virtues. I am
happy to trace up those virtues, through custom
and education, to their primary source in the Gos
pel ; and I am solicitous to shelter the reputation of

56 SERMON I.
those who practise them, from the bitter and incon
sistent reproaches of our adversaries, who first con
demn us because we are not faultless, and would
then ensnare us into a disbelief of the very religion
which prevents us from being profligate.
It is common to overlook the vices of our fore
fathers, towards which our abhorrence is naturally
softened, when they cease to excite our fears. It
is equally common for us to admire those virtues
which no longer annoy us by the nearness and ex
cess of their splendour, and which, like material
objects viewed in a distant horizon, are enlarged
beyond their proper magnitude. But surely, he
that does not wish to make mankind better, can
have no right to complain that they are bad ; and
he that does entertain this benevolent wish, will be
happy to find that his purposes are, in some mea
sure, anticipated ; that the foundations of virtue
are already laid, and that for himself is reserved the
easier, but not dishonourable task of raising the
superstructure. Upon the whole, then, if Christianity, upon a
fair and comprehensive inquiry into its effects, be
found to have done much towards the improvement
of the world, let us cheerfully pay it that tribute of
respect, in consequence of which it will be enabled
to do more. If it appear to have done what, in
our estimation is tpo little, let us search for the
causes of every defect where alone they are to be
discovered, not in the evidences or in the precepts
of the religion itself, but in the infirmities of those
who defend, without understanding, or who profess

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 57
without practising it. At all events, let us not by
insulting its authority, and by depreciating its ex
cellence, endeavour to reduce it to a total incapa
city of doing any good ; for the bulk of mankind
will never obey the law which they are taught to
despise, and we know from the melancholy expe
rience of men whose attainments and whose native
vigour of mind set them far above vulgar prejudice,
that, when the reverence for religion is once lost,
the love of virtue is seldom retained.
There is a dark side belonging to all the concerns
of man. Let us turn from it to the contemplation
of those brighter scenes which unfold themselves to
every unprejudiced and well-informed Christian.
Though God had, for many ages, delayed the ap
pearance of his Son, he, in the fulness of time,^
sent him forth. Though many obstacles have, in
our apprehension of things, impeded the course of
Revelation, it has spread itself over no inconsider
able part of the world. Though a variety of causes
have obscured its lustre, and counteracted its influ
ence, the effects of it have been sufficiently exten
sive and sufficiently beneficial to interest our atten
tion, to excite our gratitude, and to warrant our
faith. The tide of human affairs which, before
and after the publication of the Gospel, has been
secretly controlled by the Providence of God, and
invariably directed to the known or unknown pur
poses which he had in view, is, in these later ages,
apparently turning in favour of Christianity. Mu
tually assisting, and assisted by other causes, by
the cultivation of polite learning, and of the more

58 SERMON I.
profound sciences ; by experiments in natural phi
losophy, and by researches in moral ; by the steady
exercise and humane temper of laws ; by the liberal
and enlarged principles of civil government, the
Gospel is making new progress. The expectations
of every worthy man may, therefore, be innocently
employed upon the prospect of some happy period,
when the belief of our holv religion shall be uni
versal, and its efficacy shall be complete. His
efforts, at least, may be laudably exerted in acce
lerating that momentous event, by which the cavils
of unbelievers will be effectually put to silence, and
by which the knowledge and the love of God will
be deeply fixed in the hearts of all Christians,
through all ages, and in all nations.

SERMON II.
PREACHED AT ST. PETER'S MANCROFT,
Friday, March 24, 1780.

HEBREWS, xiii. 16.
To do good and to communicate forget not, for with such
sacrifices. God is well pleased.
THE excellence of religion is never more illus
trious than when it inculcates such virtues as are
approved, not only by the laborious operations of
the understanding, but the finest sensibihties of the
heart. In respect to some of those sublime, but
abstruse doctrines which Christianity proposes to
our faith, they overwhelm the mind with awe,
rather than warm it with affection ; and their effects
even upon the best of men, after beginning in tu
multuous admiration, terminate in languid assent.
Of many arduous duties that are prescribed to us,
we endeavour to explain away the seeming rigour ;
and though we be compelled to acknowledge the
necessity of performing them, our prejudices and
our passions throw a cloud over their immediate
use. But when we are commanded to do good,
and to communicate, -the fitness of the command is
instantaneously perceived, the beauty of it is uni
versally felt, and deficient as may be the conduct

60 SERMON II.
of some amongst us, in speculation at least, the ut
most harmony usually subsists between the generous
man, who is anxious to recommend what he prac
tises, and the selfish man, who is ashamed to con
demn even what he neglects.
The Epistle from which my text is taken, abounds
with allusions to Jewish ceremonies. Hence the
exercise of charity is called a sacrifice acceptable to
God, with the same propriety as, in a former verse,
we are directed to offer up the sacrifice of praise.
No terms can, indeed, more strongly paint either
the value of charity in the sight of God, or the ad
vantages it produces to mankind; for, as the sacri
fices in the temple made atonement for the sins of
the people under the Mosaic dispensation, so among
those who profess to be guided by the light of
Christianity, the habit of doing good will be suffi
cient to cover a multitude of sins. Revelation,
doubtless, when the principles of it are examined
without prejudice, and interpreted without enthu
siasm, will always be found to set morality far above
ritual observances. Thus you have the decisive evi
dence of the Prophet, " that to obey is better than
the fat of rams :" and from authority yet more res
pectable, we may learn, that " God will have mercy,
not sacrifice" — mercy, which involves in it the es
sence of virtue, not sacrifice, which is only an arbi
trary and exterior sign — mercy, where the intention
of doing good is ripened into action, not sacrifice,
where the act of doing good may never be per
formed, nor the intention of performing it sin
cerely felt.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 61
Charity justly claims a distinguished rank in the
catalogue of social excellencies ; and it well deserves
our notice, that in languages both ancient and mo
dern, as in writers both sacred and profane, the
expressions wliich, in their simple state and generic
signification, comprehend the whole system of moral
rectitude, are, in their compounded state and spe
cific signification, emphatically applied to works of
beneficence — euep-yeTeiv — benefacere — beneficence.
What the law of nature required, and the light of
nature discovered in the heathen world, Revelation
has described with greater exactness, and enforced
with greater earnestness. Hence, in the Christian
scheme of ethics, charity is delineated, not as an
external and solitary act, but as a vital and inward
principle of action ; and the rewards annexed to it
are to be attained, not by any detached and occa
sional effort of the will, but by a fixed and habitual
disposition of the soul. It challenges, moreover,
our attention, not only as it engages the approba
tion of God, but as it enables us to co-operate, as
it were, with him in the government of the uni
verse. By the discharge of this duty we become
perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect.
We at once act up to our profession as Christians,
and to our nature as men. We make some ap
proaches to that attribute of goodness, which we
are most fond of contemplating amidst the glorious
perfections of our Maker, in the existence of which
we are most nearly interested in the ordinary course
of his providence, arid by the display of which he

62 SERMON II.
has more especially distinguished himself in the
extraordinary revelations of his will.
Before the venerable and learned audience, * whom
I have now the honour to address, it were unne
cessary for me to enter upon a formal defence of
those Divine appointments from which result the
occasions of doing good, and the obligations to do
it. That natural evil is productive of moral good ;
that the internal and external inequalities of man
kind are necessary to the existence of every social
relation, and the exercise of every social virtue ;
that they connect the highest and the lowest ranks
of the community, furnish correspondent objects to
our better affections, and open a wide field for the
exertions of our nobler faculties ; that all seeming
discord in the physical and civil condition of the
world leads to harmony imperfectly understood, yet
really preserved, are truths, upon which the dic
tates of philosophy happily fall in with the doctrines
of religion. Instead therefore, of tracing through
the labyrinths of useless and endless speculation,
the reasons for which evil is permitted, you will be
more becomingly employed in considering the
means which God has supplied, in order to check
its devastations, and to correct its malignity. Do
you behold a fellow-creature in distress ? God has
not authorized, nor, perhaps, enabled you to ex
plore all the causes of that distress. But, in giv-

* It is a custom for the Clergy of the City of Norwich to
attend the Charity Sermon on Good Friday.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 63
ing you the power of relieving it, he informs you,
in the most decisive language, of his intention that
relief should be bestowed. Are the minds of the
poor bewildered in error and darkened by igno
rance ? It is your duty to rescue them from the
dangers to which ignorance and error are exposed.
By performing these kind offices you will support
the real dignity of your moral character ; you will
fulfil the gracious designs of your moral governor ;
you will vindicate the seeming severity of his dis
pensations from the complaints of the unfortunate,
and the cavils of the impious. By neglecting those
offices, you cause all the mischiefs created or per
petuated by your neglect, to be charged upon the
attributes of your Maker ; and, in the issue, you
become responsible for the miseries which your fel
low-creatures suffer, and you have not -alleviated;
for the crimes which they perpetrate, and which
you, by not preventing them, have virtually encou
raged. The foregoing observations are applicable to the
general duty of charity. But the design of this
discourse is to justify and to enforce such particu
lar instances of that duty, as the present occasion
more immediately requires.
To speak the harsh language of controversy is
always irksome to a candid mind. To me it is par
ticularly unpleasing to assume that language upon
a subject, where it were devoutly to be wished that
all men were impressed with the same conviction,
and actuated by the same spirit. But, as objections
to the utility of your charitable design have been

64 SERMON II.
produced by those who wish to obstruct it, they
should be answered by those who wish to promote
it. The claims of truth may always be opposed
with propriety to the usurpations of error ; and as
rashness or malevolence may have suggested the
accusation, let it not be thought an unimportant
office of charity itself to engage in the defence.
You are directed in the words of my text to do
good and to communicate. In the application of
that to the benevolent purpose for which we are
now met together, I should be happy to convince
your judgment, as well as to interest your feelings;
for, if charity-schools be finally injurious to the real
tranquillity of the poor, to the well-founded rights
of the rich, and to the general order of society, I
should encourage you to do what is not good, and
you would perform a sacrifice with which a wise
and a righteous God will not be well pleased.
In the further prosecution of my subject, I shall
first set before you a few preliminary remarks on
the importance of education, and then endeavour
to break the force of some objections which have
been alleged against charity-schools, and which
have grown up, I fear, to popularity, among per
sons of captious tempers and shallow understand
ings. It may be proper for me to premise, that an
enquiry into the usefulness of charity-schools neces
sarily leads to the general question concerning the
utility of reading and writing to the poor. The
difference, indeed, which subsists between those
who can scarce provide such learning for them-

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 65
selves, and those who solicit your aid for obtaining
it, is too inconsiderable to affect our general deci
sion. What is injurious to the latter cannot, with
out inconsistence, be defended in respect to the for
mer — what is beneficial to the former cannot,
without cruelty, be refused to the latter.
The gradations of beings who are of different
species open to us the most enlarged and magnifi
cent views of those designs, which our Creator is
carrying on for the universal good. Surely, then,
a contemplative mind is not unpleasingly exercised
in marking the limits by which creatures of the
same species are separated from each other : in ob
serving the various degrees of moral and intellec
tual improvement, of which they are respectively
capable : in estimating the effects of such improve
ment on the general happiness, and in selecting the
means, by which those effects may be more effica
ciously promoted, and more widely diffused. Justly
may we congratulate our contemporaries upon that
depth of investigation, and that clearness of reason
ing, which have been employed upon the structure
of the human understanding. We may commend
the industry and admire the ingenuity even of those
writers whose opinions we do not entirely adopt ;
for, in consequence of the zeal with which they
have endeavoured to support the claims of their
several systems to exclusive belief, large and valua
ble additions have been made to the general stock
of knowledge. The facts to which the contending
parties appeal, and by which an unprejudiced reader
is determined in the partial rejection, or the partial
VOL. II. F

66 SERMON II.
admission of what they advance, have been collected
in greater abundance and examined with greater
accuracy. In recommending to your protection the under
standings and the morals of the poor, I do not think
it necessary for me to decide in the controversy that
has long been agitated, concerning the comparative
force of nature and education. The merits of that
controversy, so far as they relate to our present en
quiry, I will, however, endeavour to state with con
ciseness and perspicuity.
That beings, intended, as we certainly are, for
different situations in our moral agency should be
endowed with different measures of intellectual abi
lity, is, I think, no reproach to the wisdom of our
Maker. From the very unequal proficiency of those
to whom the means of cultivation, in appearance
nearly equal, have been repeatedly offered, we have
reason to infer that a real difference subsists in their
original capacities. But this difference is, I believe,
far less than it has been frequently represented by
those who, in magnifying it, have hoped to find,
some an excuse for their indolence, and some a gra
tification for their pride. So dim, however, is our
insight into the constituent principles of the think
ing faculty, so unsuccessful have ever been our re
searches into its* primary operations, that we can-

* Helvetius has made many striking remarks upon the im
portance of education, and has suggested some excellent rules
for the method of conducting it : but he has fallen into gross
and dangerous errors, when he assigns "physical sensibility,
and memory," as the " productive causes of our ideas." Hart-

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 67
not precisely fix the degree of efficacy which is to be
ascribed to nature alone. On the other hand, our hap
piness and our misery, our virtues and our vices, many
ofour propensities, and all our habits, are visibly and
imraediately dependent on that series of external
causes which is distinguished by the name of edu
cation. Hence arises the necessity of attending to
these causes, which are peculiarly submitted to our
inspection and management, — of opening some
scope for the exercise of talents which a benevolent
Creator has bestowed upon us, — of instilling, by the
earliest and most vigorous methods, those notions
which preserve the collective interests of this world,
and animate the hopes of individuals in their prepa
rations for a better.
But, whatever theory we may adopt concerning
the general constitution of the human understand
ing, our practical obligation to provide for the in
struction of the poor will remain in all material
points the same. If the original force of genius,
and (as some persons imagine) the original bent of
the mind, predominate in producing all the mental ac
complishments of men, and in fixing their character,
we cannot suppose the artificial distinctions of so-

ley's hypothesis of vibrations has always appeared to me inge
nious rather than satisfactory. But I am not acquainted with
any writer who inculcates with so much clearness and so much
energy the necessity of paying an early, a strict, and constant
attention to the operations of the human mind. He has inves
tigated the principles of association more deeply, explained it
more accurately, and applied it more usefully, than his great
and venerable precursor, Mr. Locke.
f2

68 SERMON II.
ciety to affect the impartiality of nature ; and we
know that the use of her noblest gifts is connected
with exterior and arbitrary circumstances, with op
portunities which we may prevent or furnish, and
with improvements which we may counteract or
promote. On the contrary, if education be most
powerful in itself, as it unquestionably is most sub
ject to our control, let us not refuse to any of our
fellow-creatures those aids, bereft of which the
man is too apt to degenerate into the savage, and
directed by which he may be formed into the citi
zen and the Christian.
We live in enlightened times, which public gene
rosity in some measure rescues from the infamy
that is due to private licentiousness ; and in which
ample relief is provided for the infirmities of age,
for the anguish of sickness, and for the distresses
of unmerited and unexpected poverty. It pains
me, therefore, to reflect that in such times the in
struction of the poor should be singled out, even in
theory, as an object unworthy of charitable regard,
unfit for charitable interposition — that any arti
ficial impediments should be thrown in the way of
your judicious and disinterested concern for your
fellow-creatures, and any unjust odium industri
ously cast on this your " labour of love." But the
diligence which you employ in the cultivation of
the human mind is, we are told, usually lavished
upon a stubborn and a barren soil : it is repaid, at
the best, by a sickly and uncertain harvest ; and in
some cases it produces the bitterest and most bale
ful fruits.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 69
From what source do these objections take their
rise f Do they spring from real pity to the poor,
whom knowledge is said to quicken to a more
poignant sense of their misery ? Or from real con
cern for the well-being of the community, which, as
some men affirm, is always injured when the poor
presume to feel their wants, to exert the means
which they possess of alleviating them, and aspire
to a moderate share of those conveniences which a
gracious providence has placed within the reach of
humble and honest industry? No. They rather
proceed from the vanity of some men, who affect
to startle at the difficulties which elude common
observation : from the hypocrisy of others, wha
would disguise their own insensibility to the suffer
ings of individuals, under a mask of solicitude for
the public welfare : from the selfish pride of more,
who wickedly resent every liberal plan of improve
ment for their inferiors, as an invasion of those pri
vileges which wealth is too apt to arrogate, and who
weakly suppose their own splendour in danger of
being eclipsed, unless they can prevent the partial
emersion of their fellow-creatures from the lowest
and darkest abyss of poverty.
Wide, indeed, is the gulph which the Deity him
self has placed between the poor and the rich. But
that the passage through it should be for ever hope
less, that all possibility of transition should be cut
off, as well to the vigorous enterprizes of genius as
to the unwearied exertions of perseverance : that
faculties, which God himself has given us, should be
shut up within the narrowest boundaries — these are

70 SERMON II.
positions, which cannot be supported without the
most extravagant licentiousness of paradox. If,
indeed, they could be supported by impartial rea
soning, they must wound every finer sensibility of
the benevolent man ; and therefore, till such rea
soning be produced, those positions ought not to be
advanced in the form, either of conjecture, which is
often rash, or of insinuation, which is always poi
sonous. Let us, however, bring the evidences by
which they have been hitherto defended, to the test,
not of that good nature, which sometimes shrinks
even from just opposition, but of that good sense,
which accurately distinguishes between specious ap
pearance and solid reality.
All superfluous knowledge it seems is hurtful.
If superfluous be opposed to necessary, we deny the
assertion; and we contend that there is no size of
understanding, no rank in life, in which ornamental
attainments are, invariably and indiscriminately, in
compatible with utility. As the objection is very
general, I shall oppose to it a general answer. It is
difficult to determine at what point utility ends, and
superfluity begins : it is unsafe to assume, even of
the poor, that total ignorance is better for them
than partial knowledge ; and it is absurd to say that
sottish stupidity is, in any situation, preferable to a
moderate share of sense. A little learning is, no
doubt, dangerous to those who presumptuously de
cide upon arduous and complicated sulyects. Does
it therefore follow that yet less learning will intoxi
cate the minds of the poor, whose objects of con
templation are very few and very simple ? Because

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 71
much ought not to be accomplished, are we to con
clude that nothing ought to be attempted ?
To fix with exactness what degree of knowledge
is too great or too little for the poor in all cases, is
neither an easy, nor indeed a necessary task. It is
far too little, we may say with confidence, when
they are left in a state of profound ignorance con
cerning their civil rights, their social and religious
duties, and their best interests both in this world
and the next. It is too great when their minds are
swollen up with insolence and vanity — when their
curiosity is sent out upon the wing in quest of the
very sublime or the very ornamental parts of learn
ing — when their attention steals away from the oc
cupations on which they depend for their livelihood,
and is squandered upon points of trifling and un
profitable amusement. But from evils so remotely
consequential, so faintly probable, experience leaves
us little to dread. The knowledge, which is ob
tained under your patronage, may not be altogether
barren of pleasure, as well as use to the well-disposed
— it may check the vicious in the career of their
excesses. But our opponents, even upon the se
verest scrutiny, could scarce stumble upon a single
instance where the poor mechanic, in consequence
of his education in a charity-school, has been seized
with a frantic passion for literary fame, has started
aside from the proper employments of his station,
has plunged into the deep and trackless paths of
metaphysics, or soared into the brighter and more
enchanting regions of poetry.
The institutions which you support are, it seems,

72 SERMON II.
adapted with too little precision, to every degree of
capacity with which these children may be endowed,
and every walk of life for which they may be des
tined. The imputation is futile and false. There
is no walk of life so humble, in which the plain in
structions you furnish may not be useful, and no ca
pacity so dull as not to comprehend them. If the
objection, however, be yet supposed to retain some
force, we should recollect that some imperfection
cleaves to every scheme of man, and that the imper
fection here specified belongs, in a yet higher de
gree, to other charitable plans of a more public
kind. Many parts of those plans are so untractable
in their own nature, so interwoven with collateral
matters of great importance, so rivetted by the au
thority of original and express appointment, that
they will bend to no honest expedients of alteration,
even when they have ceased to answer their first
ends, and when they clog the operations of other
wise and salutary rules. But your scheme for in
structing children in these schools is flexible to
temporary exigencies. It is subject to the imme
diate inspection of those who are most solicitous for
its success. It is controuled by the power, and di
rected by the prudence, that first established it ;
every abuse in the management of it is easily disco
vered and easily restrained, and every new possibi
lity of improvement may be accompanied with
speedy and complete execution.
Too much time, some men would persuade us, is
wasted in these schools. Can it then be said with
truth, either that the loom has stood still, or the plough

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 73
been deserted, because the childhood of these little
ones is employed in gaining some little acquaint
ance with their native language ? And may not in
stances be produced in which the knowledge they
get, has an immediate and beneficial influence on
the labours in which they are afterwards engaged ?
But schools, it seems, are very improper places
for acquiring this small pittance of learning, because,
where numbers are associated the lewd enflame the
lewd, and the audacious harden the audacious. If
this objection be well founded it equally extends to
those seminaries in which our best systems of edu
cation are begun and completed, and from which
have proceeded the brightest luminaries of our
Church and State. To this consequence no honest
man will oppose that imaginary " delicacy of senti
ment,"* which an ingenious writer has dared to pro
nounce peculiar to noble birth. Virtue is not, like
title and fortune, hereditary. The love of virtue
sometimes finds a place in the bosoms of the poor,
and it may be encouraged in these schools, where
the poor are from their infancy habituated to the
desire of praise, and to the dread of infamy. But if
there be something coarse in the texture of their
minds, something illiberal in their manners, some
thing violent in their tempers, will these evils be
eradicated by the mere want of company ? May
not their excess, at least, be corrected in scenes
¦* I am sorry to mention with disapprobation the name of
Blackstone. See the Introduction to his Commentaries, p. 12.
vol. i. edit. 7.

74 SERMON II.
where a decent behaviour meets with applause, and
an irregular behaviour with punishment ? Schools,
therefore, in which many of these children are per
mitted to meet together, are not always hurtful to
their morals upon that account; and, frequently,
upon the same account, are useful to their under
standing. The powers of the human mind do not
often expand in solitude. Emulation is not entirely
a stranger to the breasts of these little ones. It may
be awakened even amidst the humbler studies which
they are directed to pursue ; it is to be kept alive
only by repeated comparison, and the effects of it
are both salutary and permanent.
But what consequences are likely to follow if
these children be not allowed to assemble within
the reach of instruction, and under the eye of au
thority ? They may infest your streets in crowds
of loiterers and vagabonds : under the roof, and in
the presence of wicked parents, they may daily and
hourly drink in corruption from its worst source :
they may form little societies amongst themselves,
for purposes of petty mischief: could they, by vio
lent means be driven into solitude, their minds
might grow sluggish and unqualified for any future
employment; or, impelled by the instinctive and
irresistible activity of their tempers, they might
plunge at once into criminal pursuits, because no
path was opened before them to such as are harm
less or beneficial.
It has been urged that, through the unbounded
liberty of the press, books of a malignant tendency
are promiscuously circulated, and that such books

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 75
are particularly dangerous to those persons, whose
views are confined, and whose principles are un
settled. This objection is no doubt plausible ; and
whether it be founded upon a serious regard for
the best interests of mankind, or be insidiously
employed as a veil for the most pernicious pur
poses, in either case I shall bestow upon it a very
minute examination.
Be it observed, then, that good books are multi
plied among us at least in equal proportion with
the bad ; that the antidote therefore is no less accessi
ble than the poison ; and that publications destructive
to morals, written, as they are, to gratify the vanity of
the idle, or to supply the extravagance of the profli
gate, are in general too expensive for the bulk of
mankind. The interests of virtue, I confess it with
sorrow, have in these later ages been endangered
by metaphysical subtleties, which sap the founda
tions of our faith, and, by treacherous misrepre
sentations of human life, which taint our manners.
But books of this kind are chiefly to be found in
the hands of those who have much leisure to mis
employ upon them. Seldom do they descend to
the lower ranks of men, who are perfectly incuri
ous about the intricate speculations in which infi
delity would involve the understanding, and who
are little affected by those meretricious ornaments
in which vice is tricked out, and by the aid of
which it steals more successfully into the deepest
recesses of the heart. The excursions of vulgar
curiosity do not often take a wider range than
what is afforded by the trifling incidents of the
neighbourhood, and the transient topics of the

76 SERMON II.
day. From these the poor frequently derive inno
cent amusement in those hours of relaxation which
they might otherwise be induced to mis-spend in
riotous dissipation or in solitary intemperance.
It must, however, be owned that subjects which
affect the public happiness will, in some measures
excite the curiosity of the poor, who form a part
of the public ; and, if this be the case, I would ap
peal, not to arbitrary assumption of what will be,
but to experience of what has been, the conse
quence. I would ask, whether candid constructions
upon the errors, aud just opinions concerning the
merits of their governors, be not sometimes formed
by the lowest orders of the governed ? I would ask,
whether to be illiterate, and to be incurious be con
vertible terms ? Whether sedition be not conveyed
into the mind as easily and as fatally by the ear as
by the eye ? Whether persons who are grossly igno
rant of the principles by which all political questions
should be determined, be totally indifferent about
them ? Whether the calmness of their passions be
always proportionate to the slowness of their appre
hension ? Whether, in short, mfen whose minds are
quite uninstructed, and quite undisciplined, do not
stand in most imminent danger of becoming the
blindest and most headstrong followers to the most
ignorant or the most perfidious guides ? Were the
right of judging upon the complex topics of govern
ment confined to those, who are really able to take
in a comprehensive and an exact view of events, in
their causes and effects, whose tempers are ruffled
by no passion, and whose understandings are warped

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 77
by no prejudice, the objection might recoil upon
many among the rich, who are most clamorous in
alleging it against the poor. Whether you rank it
among the blessings or inconveniences of a free
state, upon matters which affect, in their conse
quences, the happiness of all, the attention of all
will be interested. Be the abilities of men natu
rally strong or weak, be the cultivation of those
abilities great or little, they are pushed on by a kind
of mechanical impulse to form some judgment,
even upon questions which they do not understand
in their fullest extent. Unless, therefore, a deci
sion, built upon scanty information, be, in the na
ture of things, inferior to that which is built upon
none, the assistance of education is not employed
in vain where it enables the poor to acquire some
few materials for knowledge, and to arrange them
with some little degree of exactness.
Depth of enquiry and niceness of distinction are
not to be expected from the lower orders of men.
They are, we know, sometimes ensnared into mis
take, and sometimes worked up to outrage, by
crafty fanatics or by profligate incendiaries. But
they are not altogether without resources against
political and religious imposture. There is a native
simplicity and clearness of understanding, which
conducts them to the truth by a shorter and safer
path, than superior minds, when debauched by the
affectation of refinement, are accustomed to pursue.
There is a pride which prevents them from tamely as
senting to opinions which they cannot methodically
confute. There is a jealousy which often guards

78 SERMON II.
them from the artifices of those who, by plausible
harangues, would beguile them into error. There
is a quick sense of honour and of duty, which, in
terrupted as it may be, by temporary causes, attaches
them, in their general habits of thinking, to the go
vernment by which they are protected, and to the
religion in which they have been educated. While
the laws of the twelve tables, and the names of the
twelve greater deities were familiarly repeated by
the boys of Rome, the antient severity of their
manners was unrelaxed, and the sanctity both of
their rehgious and civil institutions continued in
violate. Every citizen was instructed, not only as
to the privileges he was to enjoy, but as to the du
ties he was to perform ; and he grew up with a
firm persuasion that when the one were neglected
the others were forfeited. Let us not, then, be too
hasty in adopting the sentiments of those who,
without balancing the good with the evil, contend
for the necessity of barring up every avenue to
knowledge, against the lower and busier orders of
the community. For if the wishes of such men
were realized, the greater part of our species would
be degraded to the most abject and servile con
dition, where inquietude might prey upon the vitals
of morality, or despondence crush every mental
power, by which the man is distinguished from the
brute. The Scythians,* we are told, put out the
eyes of their slaves, lest the attention of the
* Vide Herod, p. 281. Wesseling's edit, and Plutarch,
vol. ii. p. 440.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 79
unhappy wretches should be called off from their
task. Equally inhuman are the principles of those,
who would condemn to hopeless and helpless ig
norance the understandings of the poor, in order
to check what has been invidiously called their in
solence, to secure what is improperly called their
fidelity, and to confine all their views and all their
efforts within those limits which the caprice, the
selfishness, or the timid cruelty of their superiors,
may have prescribed.
But in what country, I would ask, are sentiments
so degrading to us as men, and so dangerous to
us as citizens, openly avowed ? In our own ; where
to the general diffusion of knowledge, and to the
general spirit of activity awakened by that know
ledge, we are indebted for the gradual improvement
and final establishment of our constitution, for the
equity of our laws, and for the purity of our reli
gion. But with what justice can we condemn the
tyrant who hung up on high his sanguinary edicts
written in illegible characters, if the purport and
the language of our own laws be studiously kept
back fi-om those persons who, fi-om their galling
wants and their boisterous passions, are most likely
to violate them? To what purpose do we insist
upon the liberal principles and the extensive privi
leges of Protestantism, when, with the meanest and
most barbarous mockery, we throw open the Bible
to eyes which cannot read it ?
It is, I believe, an established maxim with the
best writers upon legislation, that the education of
all youth should be accommodated to the religion

80 SERMON II.
and the government under which they are to live.
The consequences of this maxim, so far as they
reach ourselves, are too interesting to be overlooked,
and too unequivocal to be explained away. Papal
ignorance is yoked, doubtless, by no unnatural
union with Papal superstition, the triumphs of which
are most inauspicious, when the blind credulity of
the many has reduced them to a state of bondage
to the ambitious designs of the few. But the
Church of England has, I hope, too much confi
dence in her own strength to muffle up any of her
pretensions, or any of her doctrines, in studied ob
scurity ; nor will she refuse to the meanest of her
members that freedom of enquiry, to which we are
proud to ascribe her existence and her prosperity.
We have passed what a great writer (Beccaria) has
justly styled " the difficult and terrible transition
from error to truth." After this awful crisis, the
utility of knowledge becomes, by a constant and
growing preparation of causes, proportionate to its
extent ; and, as it is the boast of the present age,
that the speculative part of mankind are making a
most uncommon progress in every kind of learning,
which is worthy of rational beings, let it not be the
reproach of the same age, that the laborious and
more numerous ranks of men, whom God has
equally endowed with intellectual powers, should be
doomed to be quite stationary in the use of them.
It is the lot of the poor to receive, in some mea
sure, their support from the kindness of the rich.
But must their own industrious efforts be discou
raged, in order to make them wholly dependent

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 81
upon that kindness ? It is equally the lot of thc poor
to receive the greater part of their learning from
the instructions of those who are more learned.
But must they, on that account, be permitted to
receive only such a share of information as the
mean " avarice of sense," leagued as it is, sometimes
with jealousy and sometimes with cruelty, shall be
pleased to assign them ? Must no check be put on the
pride of those who have attained superior wisdom ?
or does the experience of past ages encourage us to
repose an implicit and unlimited confidence in the
disinterestedness, the generosity, and the integrity
of those by whom that wisdom is to be communi
cated in speculative, or to be employed in active
life ? For my part, 1 have too much respect for the
collective happiness of the human species, to wish
for a monopoly of knowledge in any one profession,
or any one rank of men. So anxious is my con
cern for the poor, that I would not, without the
most urgent neces'sity, expose thein even to the
possibility of suffering in their faith, in their morals,
or in their rights, from the artifices of men, who, if
they did not mean to abuse knowledge, would hardly
wish to engross it. Such too is my veneration for
the faculty of reason, which our Creator has made
the distinguishing mark of man, that I never wish
to see it fettered down in a state of inactivity, where
the misapplication of it is not almost unavoidable,
and where the effects of that misapplication are not
big with danger. Justly do we abhor the bhnd
and savage fury of Mahometan conquest, when, by
the indiscriminate destruction of all the materials
VOL. II. G

82 SERMON II.
from which learning could be extracted, it paved
the way for the speedier introduction of supersti
tion, and the firmer establishment of despotism.
We cannot, therefore, look with indifference upon
the false refinements of Christian policy, when, per
mitting those materials to remain, and encouraging
the use of them by the most honourable distinc
tions among some orders of the community, it
condemns the poor to an utter incapacity of reading
any one book in any one language.
We have heard of those times, . when the little
learning that was among our forefathers, shackled
the understanding, instead of enlarging it ; when
the minds of men were suspended in a kind of du
bious twilight, between the gloom of barbarism and
the dawnings of civilization ; when the fierce baron
was equally illiterate with his unpolished vassal ;
and when the haughtiest prelate was content to ra
tify the fulminations of ecclesiastical vengeance, by
the clumsy signature of the Cross. But such times
never can return, while the vigilance of the lower
ranks to detect wrong, becomes a restraint upon the
higher from committing it ; while the proficiency
they make in the cultivation of their reason, ani
mates their superiors in station to preserve their
superiority in Intellectual attainments, by greater
exertions and higher aims ; and thus, by an unin
terrupted and lengthening series of causes, a spirit
of application is invigorated and diffused, and every
kind of learning advances with increasing rapidity.
There is a latent connection, or (if I may be
allowed in the use of the expression) a kind of deli-

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 83
cate sympathy, which pervades the various parts of
knowledge, and in consequence of which, every
favourable and every unfavourable event affects the
whole. If, therefore, seduced by the suggestions of
a narrow and ungenerous caution, we should throw
any artificial restraints upon the poor in the culti
vation of their understandings, the final, though un
suspected disadvantages of such restraint may far
exceed the immediate and momentary conveniences.
The general establishment of ignorance among those
whom we are too apt to consider as mere hewers of
wood and drawers of water, may itself defeat the
purposes for which it was promoted. Cut off from
every hope of meliorating their condition, and from
every opportunity of improving their minds, the
poor may begin to relapse by very swift strides into
a state of barbarism. They may become more un
manageable in their tempers, more gross in their
conceptions, and more licentious in their manners,
than they now are. The evil may extend yet far
ther : for, by some sudden convulsion in the state,
or even by the slow and silent course of human
affairs, the chains that were forged with success for
the lower ranks of society, may be transferred to
those who now hold with security a middle station.
Upon the whole, therefore, less is to be feared from
the continuance than from the annihilation of diat
power, which the meanest members of the commu
nity now have, even of abusing the little knowledge
that lies within their reach. Though assisted and
encouraged to think for themselves, they may some
times deviate into error. But if they be permitted
g2

84 SERMON II.
to view only the same objects, revolving through
the same tedious succession of manual labour ; if
they be compelled to linger away their intervals of
leisure in the listlessness of inaction, or the insi
pidity of indifference ; if every desire of mental im
provement be discouraged, and every attempt to at
tain it be defeated, their minds will stagnate into an
utter insensibihty to all useful truth.
Much stress has, I know, been laid upon the per
version, to which even the inconsiderable portion of
learning acquired in these schools is unquestionably
exposed. But is it not notorious, that in the higher
walks of literature some men have wanted activity,
and some integrity, to apply their knowledge in the
investigation of truth, and in the support of virtue ?
The study of philosophy, which has produced a
Newton and a Boyle, has also given rise to the sys
tems of many petulant Sciolists and impious scep
tics ; and ought that study, though it be of general
use, to be indiscriminately discouraged, because, in
particular cases, it has been abused by weak or
by wicked men ? Why then should these lower
branches of instruction, adapted as they are to the
situation and the views of the persons employed in
them, be entirely neglected, because they have made
some men vain, and others idle ? The perversion so
loudly complained of is not so frequent or so fatal
as to justify the wantonness of experiment, when it
would extinguish the few glimmerings of knowledge
that occasionally break in upon the understandings
of the poor, and enliven their spirits amidst the
dreary scenes with which they are daily surrounded.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 85
To every real instance of misapplication, we may
oppose the numerous examples, where the assist
ance here furnished has formed peaceable citizens,
laborious mechanics, and pious Christians ; where
it has supplied harmless amusement for their vacant
hours, and given new efficacy to the efforts of their
industry. But the phantoms of danger, which disturb the
imaginations of thosc who wish to obstruct our
charitable designs, will be in a moment put to flight,
when contrasted with the clear and invincible evi
dences, which may be drawn from the opposite con
ditions of two neighbouring countries. In Ireland,
where the poor are for the riiost part totally unac
quainted with the arts of writing and reading, we
are presented with a dismal picture of idleness and
intemperance ; of the darkest ignorance and the
basest superstition ; of independence without free
dom, or dependence without protection. But, in
the southern parts of Scotland, the general cultiva
tion of knowledge has been attended with the hap
piest consequences ; it has humanized the manners
of the lower order of men, without relaxing their
activity ; it is gradually wearing down the austerities
of Puritanism, and has facilitated the introduction
of those arts by which social life is preserved and
adorned. Many, it is true, who were educated in these
schools, have abandoned themselves to immoral
courses. But the causes of that immorality are to
be found in the inflexible obstinacy of their dispo
sitions, in the wily persuasions of their companions,

86 SERMON II.
and too often, I fear, in the dazzling examples of their
superiors, who, perhaps, consider vice as a privilege
attached to wealth. They are to be sought for in
every quarter, rather than in these seminaries, where
sloth and debauchery are checked by many restraints,
from which in other situations they are quite ex
erapt. The controversy respecting Charity-schools has,
I think, been carried on with too little precision, or
too little impartiality. While the failings of those
who misapply the blessings of education have been
industriously dragged to view, the faults of those
who are entirely uneducated have been over-looked
or suppressed. But of these unfortunate wretches
it may be truly affirraed, that they are not less sus
ceptible of evil irapressions than children who are
admitted into schools ; that they are not equally
familiarized to wholesorae instruction ; that the
growth of every araiable quality among them is slow,
and its continuance precarious. In their several
callings, they are seldom distinguished by ingenuity
in contrivance, or dexterity in execution. Their ex
ertions bear the appearance, not so much of labour
voluntarily undertaken, as of drudgery unavoidably
performed. Their obedience is the homage of slaves,
and their religion, I fear, in too many cases, " the
sacrifice of fools." The raoraents in which they
retreat, or rather escape, from their dull unvaried
toil, are consumed in cheerless inaction, or outra
geous licentiousness. When they are well-disposed,
their virtues are cold and unsteady ; and if their in
clinations be bent strongly towards vice, they are to

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 87
be curbed only by the extreme rigours of punish
ment. They may be terrified, but can seldom be
persuaded ;¦ — they may be cut off from society, but
are not easily qualified for the duties of it.
On the other hand, the instruction communicated
in charity-schools, though it be sufficient to prepare
men for the humbler stations of life, has no direct
tendency to assist them in the artifices of villainy ;
nor does it usually make them pant for such flatter
ing distinctions as belong to their superiors. That
knowledge, therefore, when applied according to
your wishes, is salutary — when neglected, it does no
harm — when misapplied, it does not enable men to
execute more atrocious deeds of wickedness than
cunning and audacity are capable of producing in
those minds upon which no one ray of useful learn
ing has ever shone from the cradle to the grave.
The poor, if the representations ofthe rich may
be credited, are seldom grateful. But the want of
gratitude is not, I hope, remarkable in those who
are brought up in charity-schools ; and there are
circumstances, surely, which may induce a can
did man to suppose, that these children may justly
claim an honourable exemption from so severe a
charge. At present, they are quite unpractised in
the corruptions of the world — they are awakened,
by frequent and solemn calls, to the recollection of
the favours which they receive — their youth gives
play to all the ingenuous feelings of the human
mind; and their very dependent condition leaves
little room for that pride which is impatient of
obligation.

88 SERMON II.
Were the unthankfulness of the poor pleaded as
a sufficient warrant for the total omission of cha-
^-ity, the plea itself would be unsound, and the con
sequences of admitting it in all cases, would be
most injurious to the community. When it is
urged, in the case of these little ones, we are pro
vided with arguraents for the clearest and fullest
confutation. To withhold the kindness which we
raay confer with little difficulty, and of which others
cannot be deprived without great inconvenience, is
cruel. But it is cruelty, aggravated by the most
flagrant injustice, to raake the punishment peculiar
to these suppliants, when they share the offence in
common with other objects of charity.
There is always reason to suspect that the popular
invectives which have been let loose asrainst the in-
gratitude ofthe poor, are either destitute of proof,
or mixed with much exaggeration. We may ob
serve too, that the very persons who suffer least
from this fault, are the most forward to expatiate
upon it. Their judgments are duped by their ava
rice. They are content to admit the truth of the
fact upon the representations of others, without ex
posing themselves to the conviction which their own
experience might bring with it. The generous man
will, indeed, deserve much, where he runs the
hazard of receiving little. But the selfish man
claims too rauch, and therefore determines to de
serve nothing.
For positive and deliberate acts of insolence or pf
injustice towards a benefactor, no excuse can be
offered. But the offences so often blackened with

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 89
the name of ingratitude, will, upon a strict exami
nation, appear to be of a more venial nature ; to be
sometimes involuntary, and sometimes merely nega
tive. ¦ The poor do not, perhaps, subrait to every
capricious humour, comply with every extravagant
requisition, or crouch to every oppressive coramand
of those who blend thc character of a patron with
that of an imperious task-master. They cannot al
ways accommodate the degrees of their gratitude to
the various ranks, and the various tempers, of the
very persons whom they know to be their friends.
Their manners make them unskilful in those nicer
forms of compliment, upon which custom has
stamped an imaginary value, and which have ac
quired among their superiors a currency, that rough
sincerity cannot always obtain. Their situation pre
vents them from rendering any signal services to
wards the numerous protectors, by whose united
assistance they are enabled to supply their own daily
and pressing wants.
In these schools the poor are encouraged to im
bibe those principles, and to exercise those feelings,
which have an immediate tendency to cherish in
them the virtue of gratitude. If they attend to the
instructions that are here offered to them : if they
behave with respect to their superiors, and with
decency to all ranks of men : if they profess a sin
cere and general sense of their obligations to those
by whose support they are educated ; if they ac
quire and preserve habits of temperance, assiduity,
and honesty, they make those returns which are
most important to society, and most satisfactory to
every humane and judicious benefactor.

90 SERMON II.
The bitterness of accusation has been soraetiraes
exchanged for the insolence of contempt. There
are persons who would persuade us, that our atten
tion, however vigilant, and our liberality, however
disinterested, are thrown away upon charity-schools,
because the persons educated in them are incapable
of great exertions, and because the good, which re
sults to the community from the scanty and con
fined inforraation obtained in thera, is very inconsi
derable. To this groundless, as well as inconclu
sive reasoning, I would answer, that the education
of youth has, in all ages, engaged the notice of the
wisest legislators, and the sincerest patriots ; that
Christians are furnished with more useful raeans
for the instruction of their children than the
heathens were ; and that private liberality is araong
ourselves eraployed for that excellent purpose, for
which resources of a public nature were provided
by a celebrated people of antiquity.* Our efforts
indeed reach only to the poor. But the poor con
stitute the majority in every community. Their
numbers, of course, bestow importance upon any
scheme that is calculated to preserve them from
vice, and habituate thera to labour ; and their ex
trerae inability to provide for their own safety,
should become an additional inducement for us to
assist them.
Seminaries of this kind cannot boast of the pro
found philosopher, of the elegant scholar, or of the

* For the proofs that charity-schools were instituted among
the Romans, I refer the reader to .lortin's Dissertation on the
Truth ofthe Christian Religion, p. 139, 2d edit.

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 91
accomplished statesman. But they quahty young
men for entering upon the employments of the hus
bandman and the mechanic, one of whom raay al
ways deserve well of mankind by patient industry,
and the other is often entitled to the praise of inge
nuity. Such, indeed, was the haughty spirit of an
admired democracy, that many lucrative professions
were considered by the members of it as disho
nourable. The ^dvautroi or " laborious artificers"
were ranked in the sarae despicable herd with the
a/xow<ro» and ax^dpires, " the unlearned and the unpo
lished," and we read of an Athenian Law, by which
it was proposed that artizans* should becorae slaves
to the Republic. But the superior huraanity and
the superior wisdom of modern ages disclaim such
odious distinctions. In the wide and complicated
affairs of the world, agriculture and trade deserve
the protection of the laws and the respect of indi
viduals. I speak, too, a momentous, though it be
a mortifying truth, when I say, that they are of
more direct and extensive use, that they are less ex
posed to perversion, and less hostile to virtue, than
some arts, I might add some sciences, which the
vanity of those who cultivate them has dignified
with more brilliant appellations.
The pride of man worketh not the righteousness

* Diophantus proposed this law at Athens, and it seems to
have been an established custom among the inhabitants of
Dyrrhacium (or as it was forraerly called Epidamnus), to treat
their artizans as slaves. — VideAnstet.de Repub. lib. Leap. 7.
p. 324. vol. ii. 8 edit. Du Val.

92 SERMON II.
of God ; and under the guidance of his providence,
causes in appearance very trifling, are finally pro
ductive of effects very interesting. . Persons edu
cated in these schools have sometiraes become not
only irreproachable but extremely useful members
of society ; they have emerged from sordid indi
gence to the comforts and even the elegancies of
affluence ; they have carried into higher stations, and
have exercised with raore splendid success, those
habits of diligence which owed their birth to these
humbler forras of instruction. Such instances,
however rare, should not be overlooked. But even
in the general course of things, the fruits of your
benevolence are not inadequate to the expence and
the labour of preparation. That Being, who judges
of actions, -will deterraine upon your merit by the
uprightness of your endeavours. He who controuls
events may draw from those endeavours such bless
ings as, in the aggregate, will be most honourable
to yourselves, and raost advantageous to your
country. "While raany coarse and invidious objections are
thrown out against the immorality, the ingratitude,
and the unimportance of the poor, complaints of a
more refined sort are pointed against the mea
sures that are taken to cherish in them any sen
timents of Religion : for, the belief of Christianity
is, we are told, forced upon their minds, and, there
fore, cannot be attended with lasting and beneficial
effects To this romantic, and, I fear, malignant
assertion, it may be replied, that, in far the greater
part of our best qualifications, compulsion has pre-

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 93
ceded choice : and that the pleasures of actual at
tainment have been experienced before the labour
necessary to that attainment had been voluntarily
undergone. The argument I am now considering will affect
the more elegant as well as the more simple plans
of education. But what, I would ask, are the
grounds on which it ought to affect either ? If in
formation upon the subjects of history and manners
be proper for young men, what inherent peculiarity
is there in religion which renders it unworthy of
their attention ? If Christianity contain doctrines
which reason may admit, and inculcate precepts of
which the moral sense approves, why should the se
verities of proscription be levelled against Christian
doctrines and Christian precepts alone ?
On the other hand, should it be thought expedient
to unite religious instruction with the various
branches of useful and ornamental learning, in
which the higher ranks of men are educated, the
poor, who seldom find access to the latter in any
great degree, ought not surely to be excluded from
the former.
But all opinions derived from the Gospel raust,
it seems, be branded with the name of prejudice.
Yet, while those opinions are consonant to truth,
and the actions produced by them are virtuous, it
is of little moment from what sdurce streams, con-f
fessedly pure, may originally have issued. The
Gospel, preached as it was by its Author to the
poor, is, I am confident, more calculated to en
lighten their understandings, and to purify their

94 SERMON II.
hearts, than all the visionary refinements of honour,
or all the subtle distinctions of philosophy.
What is admitted as a prepossession afterwards
becomes a rule of action. But this process is not
peculiar to reUgion. The first rudiments of every
science are received upon credit ; and we are in
debted to authority itself for those notions which,
confirmed by fresh conviction, and enlarged by new
application, enable us to renounce authority, when
we no longer stand in need of it, and to adopt or
reject the opinions of others only upon the strictest
principles of reason.
In these schools, then, the young man is edu
cated in the behef of a religion which is in all re
spects accommodated to his situation. The doc
trines of it will preserve him from the extravagan
cies of fanaticism and the terrors of superstition, to
which the poor are particularly exposed. The pre
cepts of it tend to convert that churlishness of dis
position, so frequently imputed to the lower orders
of raankind, into an instrument of every sterner
virtue, of perseverance in labour, of resolution
araidst danger, and of hardiness under adversity.
The proraises of it will support him under the pres
sure of many secret afflictions, which the rich seldom
discover, and soraetimes cannot relieve. Taught
by this religion to look up from his earthly bene
factor to a more gracious benefactor in heaven, he
is often kept steady in the path of virtue ; and by
that steadiness the interests of the community, and
the happiness of the individual, are effectually se
cured. We must not, however, forget, that in the

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 95
same moment, and with the same facility, preju
dices on the side of irreligion and immorality may
be infused into his mind. If the wheat be not
sown, the enemy is generally at hand to scatter the
tares. I am not acquainted with any objection to the
utility of charity-schools which has not already been
produced in its full strength, and obviated by im
partial, and, I hope, satisfactory answers. The sen
timents which I have here advanced are, I am con
scious, addressed to an audience frora whose virtu
ous attachment to the cause which I have defended
they will meet a favourable reception. It is with
the sincerest pleasure that I shelter the wishes of
that audience, and my own opinions, under the au
thority of a writer the depth of whose penetration
is to be equalled only by the benevolence of his
heart. After stating with clearness, and solving
with ingenuity, sorae of the difficulties belonging
to the subject now before us, this excellent Moralist
thus expresses himself. "I am always afraid of
determining on the side of envy or cruelty. The
privileges of education may sometimes be impro
perly bestowed. But I shall always fear to with
hold them, lest I should be indulging the sugges
tions of pride, while I persuade myself that I am
following the maxims of policy ; and under the
appearance of salutary restraints, should be indulg
ing the lust of dominion, and that malevolence
wWieh delights in seeing others depressed." *
* See Johnson's Review of Soame Jenyns's Enquiry into the
Origin of Evil, p. 12.

96 SERMON 11.
To conclude ; when objections are made against
any measure, the advantages of which are imperfect,
it is incumbent, I think, on the objector to point
out some other expedients less exceptionable. That
virtue is necessary to every member of the commu
nity, no speculatist will be hardy enough to deny.
But if these children do not derive the first prin
ciples of duty, and the first habits of diligence, from
education, whence are they to be obtained? Not,
surely, from a delicate sense of honour, which can
have no place amidst the ruggedness of their tem
pers, the awkward siraplicity of their manners, and
the very circumscribed notions they entertain con
cerning the raoral fitness of things — not frora the
splendor of high example, for they stand very far
removed from the more elevated conditions of life,
upon which, indeed, they seldom gaze but with
stupid admiration, and of which they are far raore
likely to iraitate the vices, than to eraulate the vir
tues — not frora the dread of that indigence, the
prospect of which ought, I ara sure, to be a check
upon the extravagance of their superiors, but to the
degrading circumstances of which familiarity has
rendered the poor alraost callous. If they be not
supplied with the raeans of attaining knowledge in
these schools, " to whora raust they flee for suc
cour ? " Will you send thera to the cold and haughty
eye of the stranger ? Will you force them back up
on their friends, whom age has, perhaps, benumbed,
whom sickness tortures, or whose daily labour scarce
procures for them the wretched pittance of daily
bread ? Even thc benefit of that labour may be lost

PREACHED AT NORWICH. 97
to the orphan, who stands here before you, an hum
ble and helpless suppliant. He now looks up to
you as the guides of his youth, and the guardians
of his innocence — he has once wept over the ashes
of an affectionate father, whose last moments were,
probably, embittered by the dread of leaving a child
exposed to ignorance and vice, and whose last
prayers were directed to Heaven, for such assistance
as your benevolence may furnish this day.

VOL. II. H

DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION,

AND ON THE

PLANS PURSUED IN CHARITY SCHOOLS.

Tavra oi^K evboidaas ohhe ijeWritras, -rrepl rrjs tUv Traihoiy evKoa-
[lias Kal avfiippoavvris bieiXeyfiai.
Plutarch irepl Traihuii' ayuyfji.

H 2

TO THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD
LEWIS, LORD BISHOP OF THIS DIOCESE;
TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL
ELIAS NORGATE, EsguiRE,
MAYOR OF NORWICH ;
TO ROBERT PARTRIDGE, Esquire,
TREASURER OF THE CHARITY SCHOOLS ;
THIS DISCOURSE
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
BY THEIR OBEDIENT FAITHFUL SERVANT,
S. PARR.

PREFACE.

THIS discourse was preached before a very re
spectable audience ; and it is now submitted to the
candour of the public, at the request of some per
sons, the sincerity of whose approbation I cannot
distrust, and with the authority of whose judgment
I ought not to trifle. I intend it, in some mea
sure, as a sequel to a Sermon which I published in
1780, at the desire of the late Mr. Thurlow. In
that Sermon I entered into a full and elaborate vin
dication of the general principles on which charity
schools are supported. But upon the present
occasion I have studiously preserved a plainer
style, I have chiefly attended to the practical part
of the subject, I have enlarged more copiously upon
the best methods of religious education for all young
persons ; and, with a very few exceptions, I profess
only to deliver such common and useful observa
tions, as are adapted to the apprehension of com
mon and well-disposed readers.
In consequence of two or three seeming devia
tions from the direct and beaten track of my sub
ject, I may, in the second part of it, be thought to
expatiate too much upon the Perjuria Punici Fu-
roris, Cum sit lis mihi de tribus Capellis.

104 PREFACE.
This objection I shall endeavour to remove, or at
least to weaken, by observing, that enquiries re
lating to the knowledge which is to be communi
cated, and the employments which should be as
signed to the poor of both sexes, cannot be consi
dered as unimportant ; that in tracing the causes,
and marking the circumstances of the most familiar
events, we often catch involuntarily a glimpse of
society in various forms ; and that, in the discussion
of all moral questions, where theory is closely con
nected with practice, we find our judgment assisted,
as well as our curiosity araused, by incidental re
marks and collateral researches.
'Eo/ko (says Socrates) Kal avyypa<piKu)S epelv, aXl^ ovv ej(et
ye -Kbts i)s \ey(g ; Phaedo. p. 102. edit. Serran.
For the unusual length of this Sermon I am un
able to make any satisfactory apology — but as to
the passages in which I refer to local circumstances,
I hope to alledge a proper and sufficient excuse in
their local iraportance. In respect to the notes,
they appear to me necessary, sometimes to explain
my opinions, and sometimes to justify my reasoning.
They are taken from writers whom I know to be
familiar to every man of letters.

A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION.

PROVERBS, xxii. 6.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is
old he will not depart from it.
DEEPLY as must every well-disposed man be
impressed with the truth and the importance of
these words, considered abstractedly from the au
thority of the writer, he will at the same time re
joice, that the cause of religious education has
found in Solomon a most eloquent advocate, and a
most sagacious and dispassionate judge. But as
the peculiar manner of a teacher often gives addi
tional force to the doctrines which he inculcates,
you will permit me to lay before you some prelimi
nary observations on that species of writing in
which the injunction and the promise contained in
my text are conveyed to us. It will perhaps be
said, that observations of this kind may be affixed
to any passage in any part of the book. I allow
the fact, but am able to blunt the edge of every ob
jection which may be drawn from it ; for, in the
first place, it is certainly right, in some form or
other, to explain, in the ears of a Christian congre
gation, the general character of proverbial writings ;
secondly, no form can be more proper than to make
such explanation an appendage to some particular

106 A DISCOURSE
precepts ; and, finally, no precept can be more inte
resting to us than that which is delivered in the
text, whether we consider ourselves as the professors
of a pure religion, or the members of a civilized
community. In countries where composition was not embel
lished by critical refinement, and where the sciences
were either totally unknown, or irregularly culti
vated, the use of Proverbs has universally prevailed.
While the modifications of artificial life were nei
ther considerable in number, nor extensive in their
effects, the utility of short and plain directions was
universally felt ; and as the manners of men were
not distorted by affectation, nor their understandings
debauched by sophistry, general rules afforded a
safe and easy guidance * for those who were neither
able nor willing to perplex theraselves by cavils, to
hunt after exceptions, or trace out all the rainuter
circumstances, by which particular cases were dis
criminated. Hence, in the regulation both of pri
vate and public concerns, in correcting the vices of
individuals, and in curbing the passions of the mul
titude, proverbs were often employed with distin
guished and instantaneous success. They produced,
indeed, such consequences as it is extreraely diffi-
* My meaning may be illustrated by the following passage
in Apostolius : 'E-ujuoXoyelrai j; Trapoijiia Ik t-^s irapa rrpoQeaeiiis
be TOV olfios j; obos, rrapaoifiia Kal izapoiixia' ijrot t6 TrapobiKOV
rptfifxa re Kal biriyrjfia' ev yap rij ap-xfj en riov rplfiiov aertifiuiv
oi/trSiv, bia to tovs obevov-as jjtfi airoKaixveiv rZ fiij yivi)aKeiv
-Koaov rris oboij bir'ivvaav, Kal ri Xeiiterai, (rrjfiela ol iraXaiol Kara
rivas rrjs obov Tairovs eriQeaav' k. t. X.

ON EDUCATION. 107
cult for us in these later ages of civilization to con
ceive, and such too, as far surpass what might now
be expected from a series of the most cogent rea
soning, or from the display of the most brilliant
eloquence. In the peculiar structure of proverbs we may
find some of the reasons to which their uncommon
efficacy is to be ascribed. They are calculated to
awaken attention without effort, and without art to
impress conviction. In oral tradition they found a
safe vehicle, and by daily experience they were called
forth into constant use. The numerosity of the
sentence pleased the ear, and the vivacity of the
image dazzled the fancy. By their pointedness
they were clearly understood, and from their con
ciseness they were easily retained. Brevity,* in
deed, as appears from the practice of every writer,
and the decision of every judge, is indispensably ne
cessary. But whether the primary and leading
idea should be conveyed by direct terms, or oblique
allusion ; whether it should be placed in full light or
darkened -|- by a partial shade ; whether it should
stand prominently in the front of the picture, and
assail attention, or gently invite it by being thrown,
as it were, in the back ground, will depend wholly
* Quicquid praecipies, esto brevis. A rule which is applica
ble on more occasions than that to which it is iramediately ap
plied by the poet. See also a passage quoted by Lowth from
Demetrius : Ilept epfiriv. Prael. 24.
f Ab aliis hoc finitur modo, Trapoifxla iarl Xoyos eTriKoKvirruiv
TO (Ta(j>es a.(Ta(j)e~i<f, id est, Proverbium est sermo rem manifestam
obscuritate tegens. Prolegom. to Erasm. Adag. Sacra vero

108 A DISCOURSE
on the taste and choice of the writer. In the for
mer case the mind does eagerly what little it has to
do. Where no intricacies are to be unravelled, and
no comparisons to be investigated, it is impatient
of being detained for a moment in the contempla
tion of ornament, and presses forwards straightly
and impetuously to the main design. Hence the
plainness of expression that is frequently to be
found in proverbs ; though occasions will sometiraes
arise in which it is proper to bestow upon them a
qualified and teraperate decoration. But the pro
cess, even in this latter case, is short and plain.
We raust not be called upon to strain our powers
by sudden struggles, or to weary them by intense
application, but to employ them with such a degree
of exertion as, by its alacrity, by its facility, and its
sufficiency to the end proposed, excites a pleasing
sensation, and throws a more vivid and lasting
lustre over all our perceptions.
Thus Soloraon, in the nine first chapters,* has
admitted into his diction many of the ornaments
paroemia a Basilio definitur, Xoyos b><j>eXifios fier e-iriKpiipetas
fierpias eKbebojievos.
It is unnecessary for rae to enter with critical nicety into the
disagreement and similitude between apophthegms, adagies,
and, moral Tvwfial. These points are learnedly discussed by
Erasmus, in his Prolegomena to the Adagies ; by Lycosthenes,
in his Preface to his Collection of 'Airo^9e'y^ara ; by Schottus,
in his Preface to the llapoifiiai 'EXXr/viKai; and by Michael
Apostolius, in the Letter prefixed to his Collection of Proverbs.
* Hujusce operis duae sunt partes : prima quae est Prooemii
cujusdam loco, novem priora capita continet ; estque varia,
elegans, sublimis, vereque poetica. Lowth, Praslec. 24.

ON EDUCATION. 109
which poetry furnishes, in splendour of metaphor,
and in luminousness of description. But in the
subsequent part of the work he descends to an
humbler style, preserving, however, at the same
time, that acuteness of sentiment, and that neat
ness of phraseology, which are characteristic of
proverbial composition.
Of the esteem in which that composition was
holden in antient times we shall not think lightly,
when we recollect that proverbs were pronounced
by the priest at the oracle, and by the legislator in
the forum ;* that they were ambitiously seized by
the Lyric -f- and by the Epic;}: muse in their most
rapid career and in their sublimest soarings ; and
that the title of wisdom was eminently appropriated
to that kind of instruction, which, in brief and de
tached sentences, pointed out what the duty of man
required him to perform, and his interest to pursue.
Hence the Greek writers have carefully preserved
to us those moral aphorisms that iramortalized the
seven sages of Greece ; and hence, too, from the
same habits of thinking, and in the same forra of
* I use this word for the Greek ayopa ; as the place in
which deliberations were holden upon subjects of law and
government. See the Menexenus of Plato, p. 234, tom. ii.
edit. Serran. Schol. in Eurip. Hec. 1. 288. in V. wapriyopriaov.
¦[ Zi/Xwros be Kal Ilivbapos Kal trep.v6Ti]TOS e'l'vcKa Kal yvw/xo-
Xoyias. Dionys. Halicar. twv 'Ap^at : Kpiais. p. 173. vol. ii.
J See the learned Preface of Duport in Homeri Gnomolo-
giam. Nec inutile solum, sed et jucundum fuerit observare,
quam amicfe inter se conspirent, atque consentiant Solomon
puta, et Homerus, sacrorum ille, hic rwi' e^wder scriptorum (si
doctis credimus) sapientissimus.

110 A DISCOURSE
expression, Solomon is emphatically described " as
the wise man."
He had certainly looked abroad with a piercing
and comprehensive eye on the great chain of exter
nal causes which determine the happiness or misery
of mankind. He had deeply explored the most se
cret recesses of the human lieart. He had surveyed
attentively the comphcated springs of our actions,
and that strange mixture of good and evil, of wis
dom and folly, which produces an endless diversity
in the human character. With the sagacity, there
fore, which raarks exalted genius, and with that
siraplicity which arises frora a distinct conception
of subjects in themselves both dark and intricate,
he lays down many useful regulations for our beha
viour ; and while his precepts are delivered to us in
familiar language, while they lie level to comraon
apprehensions, and seem to arise out of the ordi
nary occurences of life, they are known by more
discerning and more exact enquirers, not only to
rest upon the solid basis of experience, but to pro
ceed from those habits of patient and profound ob
servation, without which the most ingenious theory
is but a shining trifle.
Over writings in the learned languages both
prosaic and poetical, many proverbial passages are
scattered, which amuse and interest every judicious
reader by the brightness of the expression and the
justness of the sentiment. We have indeed no col
lection made by any Roman writer, * of moral say-
* Schottus, in the Preface before quoted, enumerates the
Paroemiographi per saturam ; both those which are lost and

ON EDUCATION. Ill
ings, at once venerable for their antiquity and cele
brated for their popularity. But as to the Greeks,*
some collections of this kind have escaped the ra
vages of time ; and whatever imperfections we, who
are enlightened by religion ^nd philosophy, may
spy out in these rude efforts of antient morality, we
may yet find in them many vestiges of good sense,
and even of good writing, — many remarks which
demand the praise of penetration, — many admoni
tions which denote an honest and amiable concern
for the improvement and welfare of the species.
Yet in number, in variety, in profoundness of
thought, and in purity of principle, the most ex
cellent of these old moralists is far exceeded by the
writer from whom my text is taken.
I lately saw with very high satisfaction a criti
cism,-^ which, indeed, had often occurred to my
those which are come down to us. After mentioning the
Greek writers, he proceeds : Latini vero, serius tamen, id ar
gumentum tent&,runt verius, quam tract^runt. Lucii Appuleii
enim Madaurensis, philosophi Platonici, librum de Proverbiis
secundum citat Carisius Sosipater. — Lib. ii. Gramm.
* We now have the Works of Zenobius, Diogenianus, the
Collectanea from Suidas, made by modern scholars, and an
other Collection of Michael Apostolius. I must not wholly
omit the Apophthegms of Plutarch, a work which he justly
styles Koivas a.irap-)(as airo (j)iXoao<j>tas .
f I will quote the passage at large : Atque hoc loco non
possimus silentio praeterire qui nos error diu tenuerit : si forte
nostrum exemplum aliis prodesse queat. Ex Ciceronianis
libris, omnium primi a nobis lecti sunt illi, qui sunt de Officiis:
consuetudine tam perversa, quam pervulgat^. Eramus tum
pueri ; id est, e^ aetate, qua horum librorum vim, ac praestan-
tiam minimi perciperemus, verba verbis redderemus ; nec hoc

112 A DISCOURSE
own mind, and which is now supported by an au
thority under which I am happy to fortify ray opi
nion against rash contradiction and petulant deri
sion. The writer of that criticisra tells us, that
having read the Offices of Tully when he was a
boy, he had not till it was late in life resumed and
examined thera: but this neglect he ingenuously
condemns, not only for want of curiosity, but for
want of judgment. In the composition, which
from its supposed plainness was not very attractive
to a juvenile mind, he now discovered many graces
which had passed before unnoticed. In the thought,
which to a superficial and hasty reader once ap
peared obvious and trite, he perceived marks of a
raost cultivated and most vigorous understanding.
In passages which related to common life, and
quidem sine surarao taedio quod res ipsas non intelligebamus.
Itaque factum est postea, ut quo plus suavitatis caperemus
legendis Poetis et Historicis, qui sine dubio magis accommo-
dati sunt puerili ingenio, eo minus jucunda nobis accideret re-
cordatio librorum de Officiis. — P. 15. Dutch Review.
Cum Cicerone in gratiam rediimus. At qukm diversus, et
longe alius atque antea, tum nobis videbatur. Omnia non tan
tum suaviter, sed cast^, accurate, et utiliter eum scripsisse in
telligebamus. Sed tamen ilia praejudicata de officiorum libris
opinio ut tenerrimS. aetate suscepta erat, ita difficillimfe depone-
batur. Nam cilm, post excussos alios adolescentiae errores,
hos libros aliquoties legissemus, semper adhuc aliquid ex veteri
errore remanebat ; ut non dubitaverimus alicubi concedere re-
prehensoribus istis, qui dicerent, doctrinam de officiis non ac
curate et verfe a Cicerone traditam esse. A qu^ nunc senten
tia tantum absumus, ut nobis hi libri, cognito eorum consilio
atque institute, omnium maximfe diligenter conscripti videan-
tur.— P. 18.

ON EDUCATION. 113
common topics, he found instructions of the very
highest importance. These observations you will
permit me to apply to the writings of Solomon,
which we are ourselves accustomed to read when
boys, and which we may continue to read with in
creasing pleasure and increasing advantage when
arrived at those years, or, I should say rather, at
that discretion, which can alone entitle us to be
considered as men. What is familiar is therefore
not respected, because it was, perhaps, at first
known without exertion, and is now reraerabered
without praise. Hence it is that those rules which
the experience of successive generations has accu
mulated, and which our own unprejudiced reflec
tions have approved, are yet permitted to have
little weight with us, because our vanity has little
share in retaining or inculcating them. But to
obviate this wide-spread and dangerous infatua
tion, I have endeavoured to rescue proverbial writ
ings from the obscurity and discredit into which
they, in these very polished times, have fallen ; and
indeed were I to calculate exactly the intellectual
merits of Solomon, were I to overcome incredulity
and to repel contempt by setting before you a se
ries of all the excellencies which may be found in
his writings, I will venture to say, that, in point of
correct and profound observation, that for curious
description of character and nice evolutions of pas
sion, they would appear worthy of being contrasted
with the most laboured and most successful re
searches of moralists both antient and modern.
They are not ushered in, it may be, after the man-
VOL. II. I

114 A DISCOURSE
ner of some late pestilential productions, with loud
and arrogant pretensions to discovery. They are
not drawn up with the artificial formalities of sys
tem. They are not tricked out with a superfluous
parade of ornaraent; nor are they directed by
treacherous and subtile raanageraent to the purpose
of relaxing the obligations of raorality, under the
imposing pretence of correcting vulgar errors. But
they aim at the best ends by the most compendious
and honourable way — they lay no dangerous snares
for our passions, and present no delusive phantoms
to our imagination — they speak at once to our
hearts and consciences-^they tell us both " our pre
sumptuous sins and our secret faults " — they throw
no veil over the deformity of the evil, and they point
out the most proper and most radical cure. Ofthis
assertion we shall find a striking instance upon the
subject of education, which is treated of in the
words of ray text, and to the discussion of which
the rest of this discourse will be more directly ap
plied. Upon the topic of education, two writers of con
siderable, though I by no raeans conceive of equal
powers, have advanced nearly to the sarae conclu
sion frora principles diametrically opposite. Man
deville,* explaining away the most noble parts of
* Objections, in order to be forcible, should be evidently
and completely just, and it is yet more the duty of an instruc
tor, upon points of morality, than of a critic upon subjects of
literature, to commend the excellencies, as well as to point out
the imperfections, of those whom he opposes : he has a greater
end in view, and therefore he ought to be more solicitous in

ON EDUCATION. 115
human nature, describes man as a compound of
contemptible and odious qualities, which are some-
the choice of fair and honourable means. In Mandeville there
is but little room for praise : he has shrewdness and he has
vivacity ; but his shrewdness degenerates into sophi.stry, and
Ins vivacity into petulance. His eye is fixedly bent on the
darker part of the human character ; he seems to take a malig
nant pleasure in dragging to light what prudence and candour
would induce us to conceal ; and by the horrid features of ex
aggeration in which he paints the vices of his species, he pro
duces a sickness of temper, a secret and restless spirit of incre
dulity, when for a moment he twists our attention to the con
templation of their virtues. But in Jlousseau there are brighter
talents and more amiable qualities ; he was hiraself benevolent,
and upon the minds of others he inculcated that benevolence
which he loved. He admired virtue in some of her most noble
forms, and has displayed her with a splendour which enraptures
the imagination and warms the heart. Dangerous as I think
the tendency of his general system, I am not totally destitute
of taste to discern, of sensibility to feel, and of justice to ac
knowledge his moral and his intellectual excellencies. But
these excellencies may stamp an unjust and fatal authority
upon his errors ; as an enquirer therefore after truth, and as a
friend to religion, I cannot applaud the one without lamenting
the other.
Fictitious representations of what is praiseworthy are use
ful, I confess, for preparing the mind of man to act in real
life. Yet fiction itself has boundaries, which sound and
sober sense has a right to prescribe, but which the acuteness of
feeling and the vigour of fancy in men of genius are apt to
overleap. After repeated, after serious I am sure, and I hope
after impartial perusal of his celebrated work, I think the
scenes romantic, and fhe tendency upon the whole very per
nicious in the mixed condition of the world, and araidst the
mixed characters of those who forra the mass of mankind. The
readers who cannot discriminate will assuredly be misled ; and
when admiration overpowers the judgment in persons of a bet-
i2

116 A DISCOURSE
times unknown to the world, sometimes unsuspected
even by himself, and over which, when they are
known, he throws some specious gloss under the
hope of sheltering his reputation, or of lulling his
conscience asleep. Yet he is a professed enemy to
charity schools, lest under the pretence of raaking
children raore virtuous, we should instruct them in
a more refined sort of vice : lest we should beget
pride, where we teach huraility ; and by enabling
children to know their duty better, should ultiraately
incite them to practise it worse. Rousseau, on the
contrary, maintains that all our propensities origi
nally point to what is excellent, and that instruction
serves only to cramp the powers of the soul, and to
produce artificial rather than real worth. Of edu
cation therefore he recommends to the whole spe
cies that neglect, the privileges and blessings of
which, such as they are, Mandeville would, for dif
ferent reasons, confine to the poor. He thinks it
more eligible for children to find the right way by
themselves than to be conducted into it by other
men ; or, to reduce his maxims to the standard of
common sense, they are to love innocence by plung
ing into guilt, and to provide for their own security
by rushing into danger.
In some respects, however, I feel no reluctance
in allowing the claims of both to the infamy of
ter class, the inclination and the power to discriminate are too
often lost. Many of the circumstances which he has supposed
will rarely exist ; and, in those which do exist, his representa
tion of them will flatter the vain, misguide the unwary, and
perplex even the virtuous.

ON EDUCATION. 117
consummate and notorious consistency. Mande
ville, who was too shameless to disguise his senti
ments under an awkward affectation of decorum,
and too shallow to support them even by the arts
of perverted erudition, scoffs at the whole scheme
of Revelation as a despicable and debasing impos
ture. And as to Rousseau, after all the efforts he
has made to array the character of his pupil in a
most gorgeous appearance, he was content, at last,
to shackle him with a morality of very loose tex
ture. The liveliness of the former writer* has, I
know, procured him converts among readers of mo
rose tempers, and contracted views ; and with those
who indulge self-conceit and self-delusion in senti
mental delicacy and paradoxical hypothesis, the lat
ter is not without a very numerous train of admirers.
But to the sarcastic raillery of the one, and the de
ceitful refinements of the other, I shall oppose the
sage and simple exhortation of the text ; and if it
be necessary to strengthen the opinion of Solomon
by collateral evidences, we may add, that while the
promise he holds out coincides with the sentiments
of a writer, who joined the sagacity of a philoso
pher to the genius of a poet,"}- the precept he lays
down is, also, warranted by the decision of a satir-
ist,:{: whose views were not dim or narrow, when
* Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments, part v. sect. ii.
acknowledges the pernicious tendency, and detects with great
ability the fallacies of Mandeville's system. See from p. 373
to p. 386. t Vide Georgic. ii. 1.272.
J  Nunc adbibe puro
Pectore verba, puer : nunc te melioribus offer.

118 A DISCOURSE
he surveyed the various raodes of external life, and
developed the raost complex structure of the human
mind. Frora the test of authority, to which I appeal
only in condescension to the frivolous and fastidious
taste of the age, let us carry the propositions of
Solomon to the tribunal of reason. Much as it is
the fashion of the times to boast of new and impor
tant discoveries, they who judge of knowledge from
its effects ; they who distinguish between solid and
plausible reasonings ; they who have raarked the
progressive operations of the raind in different ages
and in different countries, listen to these boasts
without credulity and without triuraph. They
know that raany of those discoveries, as they are
called, had been anticipated by earlier writers. They
feel a just prejudice in favour of established opi
nions, because, after the controversies which have
engaged the passions and talents of raen upon
topics of raorality, what has been long believed has
been often examined. They speak not from mo
tives of superstition or of envy, when they say that
the general leading* principles of ethics are now
established upon sure foundations, and that the ut
most excellence which our abilities can attain, or to
which our pride can aspire, is to produce some par
tial improvement, to explain collateral and adventi
tious circumstances, or to separate truth from the
adhesion of some undetected and favourite error.

Quo semel est imbuta recens, servabit odorem
Testa diu. Horat. Fpist. Lib. i. ii. line 67.

ON EDUCATION. 119
I mean not to depreciate* the worth of any man,
who by the vigour of his genius, or by the intense
ness of his application, performs so much. But I
am always provoked at the arrogance, and alarmed
about the designs of those who would pretend to
more. And thus philosophy, I am persuaded, does
not warrant the peremptory assumptions of a Man
deville or a Rousseau ; and experience, I am sure,
confutes their dangerous deductions.
The different productions of soil, the different
temperatures of climate, the different influences of
religion and government, the different degrees of
national proficiency in arts and sciences, and the
different dispositions, or, it may be, talents of indi
viduals, require us to pursue diff'erent raethods in
the instruction of youth. But the general princi
ples of education are the sarae, or nearly the same,
in all ages, and at all times. They are fixed unal
terably in the natural and moral constitution of man.
They are of the same kind in the fierce African, in
the sluggish Greenlander, and in the more enlight
ened and polished inhabitants of the temperate
* I will express my meaning in the words of Hemsterhusius.
Sed nec veterum tam immodestus sum laudator, ut, quicquid
humani natur& praecellens atque egregium continet, illis fuisse
solis mancipatum mihi persuadeam, neque eximias hujus seculi
virtutes prolatis mirura in raodum scientiarum pomoeriis floren-
tissimas tara malignfe interpretor ; nec denique tantam rerum
molem, nuda de Greecae linguae nobilitate disputatio secum tra
hit : haudquaquam enira, quod illi, qui conterendo vetustatis
honorem, sibi principalis ingenii famara eblandiuntur, prae se
ferunt, meritas Graecorum laudes cum nostri temporis dedecore,
ac contumeli^ sunt conjunctae. — Oration, p. 46.

120 A DISCOURSE
zone. They are to be found in our a:ftections and
passions, some of which must be controuled, and
sorae cherished, in every state of raanners, and
under every forra of society. From the right ap
prehension of them, we discover " the way in which
a child ought to go," and by the right use of them
"when he is young," we shall qualify him, "when
old," for not departing from it.
Upon the topic of education, which has been so
frequently and so ingeniously treated, it were una
vailing and unmanly to attempt any explanation
which may carry with it the grace of novelty. But
the most useful truths, blessed be God, are not the
most recondite or the most untractable. They lie,
for the greater part, within the reach of every
honest inquirer, and in order to fill up the measure
of that good which they are capable of producing,
attention in the hearer is usually more requisite
than originality in the preacher. For this reason I
shall, in the following discourse, first endeavour to
shew the truth of the assertion, that children will
generally not depart from the right way in which
they have been trained up. Secondly, I shall men
tion some of the instances in which the greatest
care is necessary to educate them virtuously. And
thirdly, I shall lay before you my opinion upon the
general principle of charity schools, and on the
particular plan which is pursued in those over which
you preside, for the professed purpose of bringing
up children in the way they should go.
It is not necessary for us to raake an exact ba
lance of the good and evil dispositions which are

ON EDUCATION. 121
said to be implanted in us ; and perhaps it is not
possible. Amidst the great diversities of temper,
and probably of capacities, which are to be found
in individuals, the most cautious and discerning in
quirer must acknowledge it extremely difficult to
form any general estimate, at once convincing by its
clearness, and applicable from its precision. We
do, indeed, know, that from the very moment any
human creature begins to act, he shews both wrong
propensities which may be controled, and right ones
which may be confirmed, by the aid of instruction.
We also know, that children are incapable of long
foresight, or nice discriraination ; that they consider
what is agreeable, rather than what is useful ; that
habits of every kind are contracted insensibly ; that
vicious habits are not subdued without great diffi
culty ; and that virtuous habits require frequent
assistance and encourageraent.
The same laws seem to pervade the vegetable, the
animal, and the moral world. Nature is experi
mentally found in all of them to ward off exterior
danger, and to strengthen every internal capacity of
improvement, to prevent untimely blasts, and to
secure a lasting and vigorous maturity. We observe,
too, that every good quality is alike destroyed by
excessive care, or by total neglect ; * and that the
* ayadfl yij ¦ire(j>vKev, aXX' afieXr^Qe'iaa -^^epaeverai.
Plutarch, de Liber. Educandis, vol. ii. p. 2,
This thought is beautifully pursued in the opening of this
treatise. I have often lamented the neglect into which this
excellent and useful writer has fallen. Taylor, in his Elements
of Civil Law, makes the same complaint. I am happy to quote

122 A DISCOURSE
same causes give a quicker growth, and a more in
curable malignity to such qualities as are bad. To
habit,* indeed, raay be applied the well-known de
scription of fame. Timorous at first, and puny in
its size, it shrinks frora the slightest breath of oppo
sition ; but disregarded or cherished, it rears aloft
its head, it spreads In bulk, it quickens its pace, and
in every stage of its progression acquires new
strength and new boldness.
The first operation of all our faculties is owing to
sorae inconsiderable impulse. They are called into
action by incidents, which we sometiraes cannot
control, and sometiraes do not observe. They pro
duce effects which were at the beginning rainute
and transient ; and when these effects, from their

two passages in his favour frora Gesner. Hue referuntur simi-
litudines : quo in genere excellit Plutarchus : qui per sirailitu-
dines naturales egregife solet morales pingere. — Gesner's Isa-
goge, vol. i. p. 66.
Plutarchus, cujus libri vel soli instar Bibliothecae esse pos
sint, inter Philosophos occurret. P. 157. See this proposition
fully explained, vol. ii. p. 92.
Plutarch's style has peculiar beauty, and his matter is very
curious and very interesting. His Lives, indeed, keep their
hold upon the curiosity of scholars, but his moral works are
too much neglected by men of learning, because they are not
sufficiently Attic. Against this objection Plutarch shall be his
own apologist : 'O b' evdvs t^ ap-^rjs firj to7s Trpayfiaaiv efi(j)v6-
fxevos, aXXd rf/v Xe^iv 'ArriK^v a^itov elvai Kal to-j^viyj/, bfiolos ean
fiil (iovXofxevio vie'iv avriborov, av fxi) to ayyetov eK rfjs 'ArTiKijs
KioXiabos -il KeKepa/xevfievov, firibe ifianov irepifiaXeaQai -^ei^Sivos,
ei firi TTpofiaTwv 'ArnKdv e'itj to epiov. — Plutar. vol. ii. p. 42.
* On the power of habit, see the beautiful vision of Theo
dore, in the Fugitive Pieces by Johnson, &c.

ON EDUCATION. 123
permanence or magnitude, attract our attention, the
causes which gave rise to them either elude our ef
forts to discover them, or, when discovered, they are
counteracted only by repeated trials, and after many
mortifying disappointments.
We indeed are instinctively led to flee from evil,
when we know it to be such, and to pursue good.
But through the irregular agitations of the passions,
our opinions of both are often erroneous, and our
admiration of supposed good, as well as our dread
of supposed evil, becomes excessive. Hence arises
the necessity of setting before the mind such objects
only as will not inflame its desires, or precipitate it
into rash and destructive pursuits.
Children are born of the same parents, they live
under the same roof, they see, or are supposed to
see, the same external scenes.* But when vice or
virtue comes before them, the attention of one may
be active, and of another sluggish. One reflects on
what has passed before him, and another forgets it.
One judges exactly, and another erroneously. One
is disgusted with the faults of a companion, and an
other is reconciled to them by some concomitant ex
cellence, by liveliness of temper, by vivacity of con
versation, or by proficiency in the little arauseraents
which captivate the rainds of the young. But those
children, in reality, do not always keep the same
company, hear the same language, or meet with the

* Sect. i. chap. ii. and iii. of Helvetius on Man, where this
subject is treated with the usual acuteness and penetration of
this great writer.

124 A DISCOURSE
same examples. These circumstances, which fre
quently are not seen, and more frequently are disre
garded, either assist or impede the efficacy of edu
cation ; and if no attempt therefore be made to cor
rect what is dangerous, or to forward what is bene
ficial in their tendency, it were vain to imagine
that, araidst the snares and temptations of the world,
young persons will be led by the customs of that
world into a virtuous course.
The powers of men unfold themselves gradually
in this progressive state, where the duties we are to
perforra increase in proportion to our increasing
capacity for performing them. Our sensations du
ring infancy are few ; but in boyhood they are more
numerous and more intense, when the scenes which
captivate, and the pursuits which engage us, are
multiplied, when their novelty endears them to our
curiosity, and when our reason is unable to estimate
their comparative merit, and their ultimate tenden
cies. Much more care than is usually taken, or
than vulgar minds think it expedient or even prac
ticable to take, may, indeed, be properly employed
upon the influence of objects, which in our most
early years solicit the notice of our senses ; and what
ever difficulty may arise in separating the primary
effects of these objects upon our own minds, from
those which they now produce from custom and asso
ciation, it is not impossible to form some idea of the
impressions which they imraediately fix upon the
tender and pliant dispositions of children, and of the
power they have to give sorae bent to their future
character. But in boyhood, it is, that the great work

ON EDUCATION. 125
of education can no longer be delayed, when all the
avenues of the soul are open to instruction, and when
there is an apparent flexibility in our opinions and
in our appetites.
Now the justness of Solomon's remark on the use
of instruction may be thus elucidated. The moral
powers of men, peculiar as the province is where they
act, and the effects which they produce, are governed
by laws analogous * to those which pervade the in
tellectual and bodily constitution of our species. By
the Industrious hand tasks in appearance the most
laborious are executed with surprising facility. By
understandings which patient and intense study has
invigorated, the most coraplex relations of ideas are,
in a raoraent, unravelled, and the raost extensive
train of argumentation is connected with accuracy.
Thus, too, where persons have been trained up in a
constant and sincere regard to their religious and
social duties, sensibility, in time, anticipates the sug
gestions of reason, and passion faintly resists the
dictates of conscience : the general course of life is
alraost mechanically exact, and the embarrassments
arising from particular situations are quickly sur
mounted : our best volitions are formed without anx
ious deliberation, and our best deeds are performed
without painful effort. At first, perhaps, we were
led to detached and separate actions, from the con-

* Man is a bundle of habits. There is not a quahty or
function, either of body or mind, which does not feel the influ
ence of this great law of aniraated nature. — Paley's Principles
of Philosophy, p. 40.

126 A DISCOURSE
viction that they were either proper, meritorious, or
useful : but these ideas becoine afterwards blended in
one bright assemblage, which we do not attempt to
distinguish, and with their united force, of which we
are instantaneously sensible, they impel us to per
form what practice has made easy, and what reflec
tion, when we stood in need of its guidance, had
shewn to be right.
Whatever speculative tenets we raay have adopted
upon the abstract subjects of necessity and free-will,
we raust perceive both in the raoral defects and ex
cellencies of raen a degree of uniforraity, of which, be
the adventitious and concurrent causes what they
may, the force of habit alone will afford a clear and
complete solution. Upon what occasions, we may ask,
does virtue appear advanced to the most exalted
point of perfection, or vice sunk into the most hope
less and abject state of degradation ? Where the prin
ciple of conduct is determined not by deliberate
reflection but by sudden and almost irresistible ira
pulse : where opportunity, whether for good or bad,
is followed up by such actions as are correspondent
to the prevailing bias of our opinions and inclina
tions : where the dread of punishment Is Insufficient
to deter, and the hope of reward is not necessary to
encourage : where the slightest teraptation instigates
to the raost atrocious crimes, and the sraallest Incen
tive incites to the most raeritorious deeds. Even the
exceptions to the general character of individuals
are not inconsistent with the general rules relating to
the power of custom. For the unexpected frailties
we lament in the virtuous, and the partial excellen-

ON EDUCATION. 127
cies we may find even in the vicious, may sometimes
be traced up to some early and habitual principles.
These considerations evince the urgent necessity of
teaching raen to enter, as soon as possible, on a right
course of action, of planting the firraest barrier
against vices which it is so difficult to abandon, and
of giving timely assistance to those virtues. In which
it is so delightful to persevere, and from which it is
so easy not to depart.
That our moral principles are invigorated, and
our moral improvement * facilitated by use, is appa
rent not only from analogy, but from fact. For in
what persons do we generally find the least prone
ness to evil, and the most steady exercise of virtue ?
In those, most assuredly, who have been trained up
to the love of the one, and to an abhorrence of the
other. The excellencies of raen who have not been
so trained up, are desultory and occasional. Their
conduct rests upon no fixed principle, and is rarely
directed to any noble end. Hence, where education
has been entirely neglected, or iraproperly managed,
we see the worst passions ruling with uncontroled
and incessant sway. Good sense degenerates into
craft, and anger rankles into malignity. Restraint,
which is thought raost salutary, coraes too late, and
the most judicious admonitions are urged in vain.
No metaphysical subtilties, no abstruse researches
into the mental constitution of man, no enlarged

* Kat Tl bel iroXXa Xeyeiv ; Kal yap to tjBos ean ¦jruXv-^puviov,
Kal ras rjOiKas aper'as, ediKas av ns Xeyrj, ovk av n irXrjfifieXelv
So^etj/. Plutarch, de Liber. Educ. p. 2.

128 A DISCOURSE
and accurate acquaintance with the manners of the
world, are necessary to inform us of these dismal
consequences. They are to be seen in our families
and in our streets. Profane swearing, lewd conversa
tion, a contempt of order and decorum, a perverse and
pertinacious resistance to authority, shameless de
bauchery, and tumultuous riot, swell the hatefiil cata
logue. If in thepresence of illiterate and ignorant raen
we insist on the beauty of a peaceful and innocent
behaviour, we speak a language which the stupid can
not understand, nor the obdurate feel. If we expatiate
on the sanctions of religion, and the triumphs of an
applauding conscience, are we not more than sus
pected of retailing either the cant of hypocrites, or
the jargon of enthusiasts ? Coercions of the severest
kind are then requisite to keep men back from rush
ing into the raost flagrant crimes, and the seeds of
virtue are so choked and overwhelmed, that no
reasoning however just, no expostulation however
earnest, no acts of kindness however tender, can re
store them to their natural vigour.
Instances, I am aware, raay be produced, of tera-
pers which seem from the first to be intractable.
But they are not numerous enough to impair the
general rule ; nor am I always sure that they who
insist upon thera either speak from honest raotives,
or reason upon sure grounds. While the infant
reposed in the cradle, or hung upon its raother's
breast, vigilant and well-tiraed opposition might
have prevented raany of those evils which are sup
posed to originate frora nature: and, even where
that opposition has not been tried at first, we have

ON EDUCATION. 129
have many incontestible examples of the success
with which later culture* has been used in gradu
ally removing the rank and rooted weeds. Let us
not think, I beseech you, so meanly of ourselves,
or so harshly of our Creator, as to iraagine that he
has made any one creature radically and unalter
ably disposed to evil ; for the greater part of our
vices might have been entirely prevented, and the
malignity of those which remain would have been
greatly diminished, had each of us, sooner or later,
been trained up in the way he should go.
When we are young, our instructor has rarely
to contend with any inveterate customs, any way
ward prejudices, any settled depravation of the un
derstanding or the heart. He can gently draw off
our attention from the dazzling to the solid, and
habituate us to renounce what is immediately
pleasing,"!- for the sake of something which shall
be hereafter beneficial. He can place what is
wTong in a point of view where its hideous de
formity may excite our disgust, and its pernicious
consequences awaken our fears. He can enlarge
with the confidence of a superior, and the ardour
of a friend, on the near and remote advantages, on
the tranquillity of mind and dignity of character,
* 'AXX' 'ean ns yij cnroKporos xal rpa-^vrepa rov beovros ; aXXa
yeojpyrjde'iaa, -TrapavTiKa yevvaiovs Kapirovs e'^i^veyKe. — Plut. de
Liber. Educand. vol. ii. p. 2.
-\ Sufflamen itaque nostrae felicitatis est ex limitatione intel-
lectfts nostri, quod praesens parvum bonum praeferimus futuro
magno ; quod praesens parvum malura nos magis afficit, qu^m
absens magna felicitas. — Gesner, Isag. vol. ii. p. 495.
VOL. II. K

130 A DISCOURSE
which arise from a different course. Young men
who are entering life amidst the approbation and
favour* of those around them ; men of a raore
advanced age, who are prosperous and honourable ;
old men, who, reaping the fruits of their virtue,
are placed in a state of independence on the joys
and sorrows of this sublunary world, may be brought
forward to our view.
Here I would particularly Insist upon the manner
in which instruction is to be given ; and I am war
ranted in what I am going to say not only by my
own reflections, but by the positive and repeated
declarations of a writer who is to be classed among
the first scholars-}- and thc first theologists of this
age. It is absurd to exclude restraint and correc
tion indiscriminately and entirely out of education
— but the necessity of using them will be less fre
quent If we attend to the dispositions of young per
sons ; and it is the want of this attention which
afterwards makes it requisite to have recourse to
* Horace gives a judicious specimen of this mode of instruc
tion by example :  Sic rae
Forraabat puerum dictis, et, sive jubebat
Ut facerem quid ; Habes auctorem, quo facias hoc,
Unum ex judicibus selectis objiciebat :
Sive vetabat ; An hoc inhonestum et inutile factu
Necne sit, addubites ; flagret ruraore malo cum
Hic atque ille ? Horat. Sat. iv. lib. i. p. 120.
f In primis autem proderit in jubendo et vetando seraper
adjicere rationes, quare quid fieri velint, aut nolint. — Ernest.
Init. Doctrin. p. 608. See also Gesner's Isagog. vol. i. p. 664.

ON EDUCATION. 131
rigour. At this time of life there is a sort of In
stinctive aversion to force ; and, from the mere
pleasure which knowledge itself creates, there is an
inclination to attend to advice, when it is supported
by reason. A boy, therefore, should be informed
upon most occasions why this is to be pursued, and
why that is to be avoided. The consequences which
may at any time have arisen from his ignorance of
the tendency of things, or from his inattention to
those who pointed it out, should again and again be
set before him. His experience of the past being
mixed with the remembrance of pain or of pleasure,
will excite in him hope or fear that will be useful
to him for the future. He will be flattered with
some idea of his own importance, when appeals are
made to his judgment. His curiosity will be grati
fied by the connection which is made between his
own actions and those of other men. He will be
grateful upon the recollection of evils already
escaped, and he will listen with affection to the mo
nitor who warns him against danger yet unexpe
rienced, and who informs him of the blessings
which are placed within his reach.
Allowances must be made for the levity and for
the frowardness of boys : but to instruction, if it be
seasonably introduced and seriously enforced, young
persons, when they are not yet hardened In wicked
ness, or accustomed to act without control, will, for
the most part, lend an attentive ear. Their obser
vations on their own conduct, and that of their com
rades, will convince them that their teacher is nei
ther a merciless tvrant nor a selfish impostor — they
k2

132 A DISCOURSE
will reflect with pleasure on the rewards which have
accompanied a good behaviour ; and upon the pain
ful restraints or the severe punishments to which a
bad has given occasion, they will look back with a
sensibility which brings home almost every case to
theraselves. Opinions thus formed will grow with
their growing years, and when they advance to a
larger and more important scene they will be able
to enterupon it with seriousness, and to act in it
with propriety. The moral sense, sharpened by
constant exercise, will fix in thera a strong defence
against violent temptations, and the habits of reflec
tion which they have acquired will put thera upon
their guard against such as are raost ensnaring.
The idea of happiness will be so closely riveted to
the idea of duty, that scarcely any effort* will be
necessary to raake thera feel the force of raoral
obligation. The sense of right, instantaneously ex
cited, will lead thera alraost irresistibly to the per
forraance of correspondent actions. They will enjoy
the praise bestowed upon thera without any unbe
coming thirst of glory, and though taught by a re
flex act of the mind to consider the advantages
springing frora virtue as a just reward, they will, in
the general course of affairs, pursue them as the

* A man shall perform many an act of virtue, without hav
ing either the good of mankind, the will of God, or everlasting
happiness in his thoughts ; but then he must have served for a
length of tims under the actual direction of these motives to
bring it to this — in which service his raerit and virtue consist. —
Paley's Principles of Philosophy, p. 39.

ON EDUCATION. 133
visible and netessary consequences of sincere reso
lutions and upright endeavours.
Cases, it is true, may be found, in which educa
tion has not preserved men from great vices. But
it should be considered that the same vices might
probably have existed in the same minds, and with
more dreadful aggravations, if no care had been
taken of their youth. It should be considered, also,
that instruction has not been instrumental in throw
ing temptation before them, or in giving them the
smallest disposition to yield to its attacks. On the
contrary, there is one great blessing in education,
which, supposing its effects to be less conspicuous
and less extensive than they are commonly believed,
is yet of the highest moraent, and on which, from
the peculiar opportunities I have had of observing
its efficacy, I always insist with unusual confidence
and zeal.
When the immediate restraints of education are
taken off, and young men step into the world, they
are struck by the gaiety of pleasures hitherto unex
perienced. They are impelled by strong desires
which burst upon them without the pressure of for
mer control, and they are drawn aside, it may be,
by the treacherous seductions of fashionable exam
ples. For a tirae, therefore, the prospects of virtue
and honour, which we have been accustoraed to
contemplate, are darkened, and nothing is presented
to our view but a rank and rapid harvest of vice
and folly. The good seed,* however, though it be
* Multa nobis blandimenta natura ipsa genuit, quibus sopita

134 A DISCOURSE
oppressed and checked, is not totally destroyed —
the blossoms are indeed partially nipped, but the
soundness of the soil yet reraains. Even the first
approaches which such persons make to guilt are
attended with a shame and corapunction to which
men of gross Ignorance are utterly callous ; and
when the heat of youth has in some measure spent
itsclf, reason gradually reassuraes her seat, and reli
gion, in a voice which cannot but be heard, re
asserts her violated rights. Education, therefore,
under every possible consideration, deserves our
most recollected and serious attention. It is of
great consequence, surely, to put off the fatal mo
ment in which the first advance is made to un
righteousness : it is yet of greater consequence to
throw even a partial check upon the career of our
virtus conniveret : et interdum multas vias adolescentiae lubri-
cas ostendit, quibus ilia insistere, aut ingredi sine casu aliquo
aut prolapsione vix posset : et raultarura rerura jucundissimara
varietatem dedit, qu&, non modo haec aetas, sed etiara jam cor-
roborata caperetur. — At multi, et nostrS. et patrum majorum-
que memoriS, surarai horaines et clarissimi cives fuerunt, quo
rum cum adolescentiae cupiditates deferbuissent, eximiae virtu
tes, firmat^ jam astate, extiterunt. — Tul. Orat. pro Coel.
The general truth of these observations is not affected by
any particular ends which Cicero might have in view when he
produced them in favour of his client. They show the possi
bility of a young raan's recovering from a vicious course : and
of the assistance which a virtuous education gives in enabling
hira to recover from it, we have a most striking proof in the
following passage : " I bless God heartily that I had the advan
tage of a religious education, which is an invaluable blessing,
for, even when I minded it least, it still hung about rae, and
gave me checks." — Lord Russel's Paper delivered to the Sheriffs.

ON EDUCATION. 135
passions : it is of the greatest to implant such prin
ciples as shall at last effectually restrain thera from
completing their ravages, and from laying all that is
amiable and venerable in the human character in
wild and hopeless ruin. But if no provisions have
been made, how can we expect to meet with a wil
ling ear when we endeavour to call off the mis
guided youth "from the error of his way?"
That the success of a pious education is not per
fect, furnishes no argument against our well-meant
attempts ; for, in case of failure, wc are compelled
only to lament those evils which would have ex
isted, perhaps sooner, had thosc attempts not been
employed ; and, even though present expedients
have been tried Ineffectually, we may still have re
course to future reraedies, with a fairer chance of
finding thera efficacious.
Wicked, deplorably wicked, as I confess thc
world to be, wisdom, blessed be God ! is vet " jus
tified by her children." Instances of righteous raen
" who have turned away from their righteousness,
and died in evil," are very rare, and from their sin
gularity they are the more striking. Nor, indeed,
should it be forgotten that the failings of good men
are more rigorously marked, and more industriously
proclaimed, than the crimes of the bad ; that the
inconsistence between the general character and the
particular offence staggers even the well meaning ;
and that by the envious faults which really proceed
frora accidental inadvertence " are cruelly and de-
spightfully" laid to the account of deliberate depra-
vitv. Doubtless we jndge not as we shall wish to

136 A DISCOURSE
" be judged," if we think that to fall into evil is
always a proof of a settled inclination to depart
from righteousness ; and false are the notions which
he entertains of huraan nature, who doubts whe
ther, araong those who are trained up in the way
they should go, the duty of repentance, as well as
that of perseverance, be not more likely to be prac
tised. But the exaraples of wicked men who have
"departed frora their wickedness, and saved their
souls alive," are far more frequent ; and it will gene
rally be found that the seeds of their reformation
have been sown in those honest principles which
were acquired in the simplicity of youth ; which
were suspended amidst the pleasures or the bustle
of a more advanced life ; and which were happily
recovered before "the night commences, in which
no raan can work."
To sorae extrinsic cause may be generally im
puted our good and bad qualities — many of our
defects and our excellencies. The attention we
gave to the primary impression was slight or fleet
ing, and it is not easy for the wisest of raen to trace
the gradual progress of their own thoughts, or to
measure the accumulated force of those outward
circumstances which acted upon thera with increas
ing, and, perhaps, unsuspected energy. But, surely,
when frora beginnings in appearance so trivial a
long and moraentous train of consequences is known
to flow, it becomes us to give virtue all the advan
tages which can be derived " from first possession."
We pant for knowledge * of some kind or other,
* See Gesner's Isag. vol. ii. p. 470.

ON EDUCATION. 137
and eagerly snatch at every information that is
offered to us. What we do with the approbation of
those whom we love and revere, is done with plea
sure, and what we have done often, we, at last, find
no difficulty in doing. Hence it is that custom is
proverbially represented as a second nature ; and in
deed all our endeavours to ascertain the real and
original powers of the human mind, depend on the
knowledge of those actions, which are in various
degrees habitual to us, and which it is far more easy
to investigate in a descending line, in their ultimate
effects and their encreasing force, than to analyze
into their primary and more simple causes. Cer
tain, however, it is, that implicit obedience to the
directions, and implicit imitation of the examples
which others supply, will speedily produce in chil
dren what men cannot accomplish without laborious
reflection and stubborn effort. If the habit be ori
ginally wrong, it is attended to very rarely and very
negligently; and where it is neither known nor con
trouled till it appears in some violent overt act, our
endeavours to conquer it must be arduous, and, after
all, may not be efficacious. On the other hand, if
the first propensity be right, the task of encreasing
it will not only be agreeable in itself, but, on every
detached occasion, will be accompanied with some
useful consequences.*
* In virtute, qui bonam actionem peragit, prim ura fructum
habet animi tranquillitatem, et bonam conscientiam. Etiam
externa consequit'ur, opinionem bonam hominum de se, famam,
laudem : confirmat constantiam in virtute, et auget in illi pro-
gressum. — Ipsa actio facit nos aptiores ad rem peragendam. —
Ges. Is. torn. ii. p. 598.

138 A DISCOURSE
There are, as I observed before, some dispositions
which seem to proceed from an innate incapacity of
intellect or perverseness of will : in other men we,
also, see marks of gentleness and goodness, which,
in the coramon language, and the coriimon appre
hensions of the world, are owing rather to an happy
temperament of the mind than to any external care
¦ — but when is it, I woidd ask, that we forra these
opinions? When each of these dispositions has grown
up to its full size, when the persons possessing them
have been placed in various situations, and have
perforraed various and visible actions. Could we,
however, have discovered the first dawn of either,
we should probably have seen the exterior cause
from which they took their rise, and the particular
circumstances by which they were at first affected.
Could we have marked thera during their progress,
we should have perceived that the inattention, the
exaraple, the ill-judged severity, or the yet more
pernicious indulgence of parents, had given a wider
scope to what is bad, and that contrary causes had,
at different times, and in different degrees, increased
the efficacy of that which is good. But supposing
these causes already to have operated, education is
not without its use, — every wrong propensity may
be finally subdued or considerably corrected : every
right one raay be assisted by additional motives,
and carried on to yet higher perfection. Even in
the worst characters, some capacity for virtuous im
provement, of which no vestige has yet been ob
served, raay be discovered or drawn forth; and
upon the best, restraints may be employed against

ON EDUCATION. 139
vicious inclinations, which, from the mere absence
of opportunity, have not hitherto been suspected.
Of what importance is it then to comply with the
precept of my text, and how just is the promise by
which we are encouraged to observe it ? To our
boyhood it gives that sweet simplicity and inno
cence which melts every serious beholder into af
fection, and relieves even the raost savage heart
with a momentary feeling of honest approbation.
In our youth it inspires us with such a fine
sense of decorum as makes us shrink from folly
with scorn, and from vice with loathing ; and it
animates us, at the same time, with that imwearied
activity of mind which struggles with every diffi
culty and triumphs over every danger. Our man
hood it distinguishes by that firmness and dignity
of thinking which exalts us from one degree of ex
cellence to another, which causes us to start at the
smallest deviation from rectitude, and impels us to
recover from the shock by the instantaneous and
determined exertion of our whole strength. To old
age, which is itself the fruit of a well-spent life, it
gives a serenity of mind which the world can nei
ther bestow nor take away — a deep and sincere
love of virtue, which finds a pure and perpetual
source of pleasure in the effects it has wrought on
the tempers and the raanners of our friends and our
children — a corafortable remembrance of habitual
well-doing, which can alone endear to us the days
which are past and will no more return, or enable
us to look on to the approach of the unknown
world without solicitude and without dismay.

140 A DISCOURSE
Scarcely any propensity of boys, if considered in
its reference to the whole extent of their moral
agency, can be called indifferent. As in the pro
gress of life they are placed in new situations, as
their minds are attracted by new objects, and their
opinions are influenced by new corabinations of
ideas, even the slightest beginnings, and the faintest
appearances, are of high importance in the estima
tion of every correct observer. What is now harm
less raay hereafter be pregnant with the worst con
sequences — what is transitory, and the excrescence
of raere huraour, raay Interraix itself with the gene
ral character, and bring on the raost baleful conse
quences — what would yield to gentle coercion,
may require and even prevail over the raost severe
restraints. If we cherish, says the ghost of Peri
cles, a lion's whelp,* we must not expect to keep the
raastery over it when a full-grown lion. From
these observations, I descend to the detail of sorae
plain truths, which are generally admitted by our
reason, and generally neglected in our conduct to
wards those whom we are to Instruct.
I proceed, then, in the second place, to mention
some of the instances in which the greatest care is
* Aristophanis quoque altioris est prudentias preceptum, qui
in comcedii introduxit remissum ab inferis Atheniensem Peri-
clem vaticinantem non oportere in urbe nutriri leonem ; sin
autem sit alitus, obsequi et convenire. Monet enim ut praecipufe
nobilitatis et concitati ingenii juvenes refraenentur, niraio vero
favore ac profusi indulgentiS. pasti quo rainus potentiara obti-
neant ne irapediantur, quiim stultura et inutile sit eas obtrec-
tare vires quas ipse foveris. — Valer. Maxim, lib. 6.

ON EDUCATION. 141
necessary to educate children virtuously. They con
sist in the government of their passions, in a sense
of shame, in a strict regard to truth, in habits of
diligence, and in the love of God, interraixed with a
rational and filial reverence.
In children, before a quick sense of decorum is
strongly felt, and the distinctions between right and
wrong are clearly perceived, there is no artifice or
self-restraint. Every thought is fully expressed,
and every desire or antipathy is freely indulged ;
and, if this course of things be not wisely checked,
it will be followed by a most untaraeable violence
of teraper. To the affection they conceive towards
persons who would win their regard by acts of kind
ness, it is right, perhaps, to fix no liraits ; for the
benevolent aff'ections owe much of their vigour to
the frequency with which they are exercised, and to
the pleasure by which they are attended. But in
their little sallies of resentment, either gentle or co
ercive means must be used very speedily and very
stedfastly. In their feeble state, the fear of evil
seems to recur raore suddenly, and to operate more
intensely, than the desire of good ; and in the first
efforts of that instinct which aims at self-preserva
tion, we may observe violent' and outrageous ex
cesses of anger : to this passion, therefore, before
it gains any strong hold upon the temper, a very
particular attention should be shewn.
In the mysterious frame of man, no circumstance
is, indeed, more wonderful to us as philosophers, or
more interesting to us as Christians, than this which
I am going to mention. The passion of anger.

142 A DISCOURSE
which, if it be once let loose frora the restraint of
reason, rages with the fiercest violence, and hurries
us into the most atrocious crimes, is, beyond all
others, capable of controul* in its first emotions.
One resolute effort of reflection, a little change
made in the mere features of the countenance, nay,
even a softer tone given to the voice, will stop the
rising storm, which, if it be suffered to gather all
its strength, bears down before it the authority of
every law both divine and human, and makes ship
wreck in a fatal raoraent of our reputation and of
our tranquillity for ever.
Another passion arising frora the activity of the
mind, and from the love of superiority, is cruelty.
Now, of the raost venerable court -|- of judicature
that ever existed in Greece, it is recorded, that a
boy was once conderaned by it to the loss of life for
raischievously plucking out the eyes of a quail.
Coraraon sense and coraraon humanity recoil at
such extreme rigour, and yet the principle upon
which punishraent was appointed is certainly rea
sonable. Practices of this kind, though viewed by
sorae persons without horror, and even encouraged
* To this passion in man we may apply what the Poet says
of bees :
Hi motus aniraorum, atque haec certamina tanta
Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescent. Virg Geor. it. 86.
t Nec mihi videntur Areopagitae, cum damnaverunt puerum
coturnicum oculos cruentem, aliud judic&sse, qukni id signum
esse perniciosissimae mentis, multisque malo futurae, si adole-
visset. — Quintilian. lib. v. cap. xix. p. 279.

ON EDUCATION. 143
by direct approbation, extinguish, by degrees, com
passion, and cherish tyranny ; that is, they destroy
the noblest,* and strengthen the most detestable
part of the human character. He that can look with
rapture upon the agonies of an unoffending and un
resisting animal will soon learn to view the suffer
ings of a fellow-creature with indifference ; and in
time he will acquire the power of viewing them
even with triumph, if that fellow-creature should
become the victim of his resentment, be It just or
unjust. But the minds of children are open to im
pressions of every sort ; and, indeed, wonderful is
the facility with which a judicious instructor may
habituate them to tender emotions. I have there
fore always considered mercy to beings of an infe
rior species as a virtue which children are very ca
pable of learning, but which is most difficult to be
taught, if the heart has been once familiarized to
spectacles of distress, and has been permitted either
to behold the pangs of any living creature with cold
insensibility, or to inflict them with wanton bar
barity. In respect to the desires of children it is hardly
possible to lay down any general rule. But the
best method of inuring them to disappointments is,
perhaps, rather to call off their thoughts to sorae
new gratifications, than to drive them forcibly from

*  Mollissima corda
Humano generi dare se natura fatetur,
Quae lacrymas dedit. Haec nostri pars optima sensds.
Juvenal. Sat. xv. 131.

144 A DISCOURSE
any favourite pursuit. Their inclinations are keen,
but fickle, and therefore he gives no mean proof of
his skill in the management of the huraan mind,
who makes one weakness the instrument of coun
teracting another.
There is yet another method of subduing their
wrong propensities, which intelligent persons raay
employ with success. When the minds of young
raen are eagerly bent upon any improper pursuit,
and when they persist in it not only because it is
pleasing in itself, but rendered more pleasing from
the associated and delusive idea of self-governraent,
we are not always under the necessity of enforcing
admonitions which have been perversely disobeyed.
It may sometimes be right to enjoin peremptorily
what has been peremptorily forbidden, to convert
into a toil * what was relished as an arausement,
and to raake that the result of compulsion which
was taken up by a deliberate and froward choice.
When we brand instances of omission with the
rigour we had before employed against offences of
comraission, actions continually repeated will pro
duce satiety, and force steadily used will create
aversion. Smarting under the mischievous conse
quences which a wrong pursuit may sometiraes
bring with it, a boy will exchange contempt for

* Patri cuidam, cujus filius laborabat hoc raorbo ut orane
tempus perderet conis dejiciendis, suasi, ut ei hoc facere injun-
geret : quo facto, quiim per tres dies continues ludere hoc
modo coactus esset, illico tantum cepit ludi odium, ut ilium
nunquam amplius attigerit. — Gesn. Isag. vol. i. p. 61.

ON EDUCATION. 145
dread, and will consider the permission to abstain
as a relief, where the comraand to abstain was at
first thought a burden. It will be, however, neces
sary to shew that we do not approve of the action,
considered independently of the circurastances in
which it is performed, but that our approbation is
founded on the advantages that will arise where
obstinacy is counteracted by firmness, and where
indulgence is destroyed by the well directed and
well intended violence done to the will.
He that has observed the glowing cheeks and
the faultering tongue of young persons must know
that the sense of propriety grows up in them very
soon. They are scared at our frowns, they are
cheered by our smiles, they invite us to sympathize
in the raptures they feel upon performing what we
have been accustomed to praise, and on the detec
tion of any little impropriety they hide their droop
ing heads. Upon feats which far transcend their
own strength they gaze with admiration : they
weep at the mere neglect of those whom they have
been taught to revere ; and if, through heedlessness
or curiosity, they have ventured to commit what is
forbidden, they either tremble at our approach, or
by tears and blushes, by embraces and promises of
amendment, and a thousand little winning arts, they
strive to regain our esteem. Now the capacity for
this sense of shame is given by nature ; but the di
rection of it depends upon the care of others : easily
it may be preserved, and easily destroyed. If,
therefore, we commit outrageous actions, or utter
indecorous words in the presence of the young, a
VOL. II. L

146 A DISCOURSE
blind mechanical proneness to imitation leads them
to adopt similar practices. But when those practices
are afterwards continued from deliberation or from
custora, young raen will see, not equity, but harsh
ness, when they are corrected for doing that which
by their parents * or their superiors they have seen
done with impunity. Example on the side of virtue
is raore powerful than precept. But, in respect to
vice, the case is nearly reversed ; for our evil actions
raay be imputed to frailty, but our evil words, im
plying a renunciation of comraon opinion, and a
defiance of coraraon censure, are supposed to spring
from deep and serious conviction. If, therefore,
we add the weight of bad precept to bad example
in training up our children ; if we reraark not only
with indifference, but even with complacency,-}- the
facility with which oaths and obscenities trip off
from their tongues i^ if we call the sallies of their
petulance mere sprightliness, and openly irapute

* IIpo TravTMV be7 rovs Trarepas rw fxrfbev ufiapraveiv, aXXa
iravra a be~i irpaTTeiv, evapyes iavrovs wapabeiy fia to'is reKvois
irape-xeiv, Iva irpbs tov tovtuiv piov Cjarrep KaToirrpov airofiXiirov-
res, a-TTorpeTTWvTai tuiv ala-)(piiiv epyuiv Kal Xoyiov' ws o'lnves to'is
afiapravovaiv viols eiririfiuiVTes, rols avro'is afiaprrjfiaai TrepiiriT-
Tovaiv, e-irl ra eKeivwv ovofian XavQavovaiv eavTuiv Kartiyopoi
yiyvofievoi. — Plutarch, de liber. Educ. p. 14.
f Gaudemus si quid licentius dixerint. Verba, ne Alexan-
drinis quidem permittenda deliciis, risu et osculo excipimus.
Nec mirura : nos docuimus, ex nobis audierunt. — Fit ex his
consuetudo, deinde natura. Discunt haec miseri, antequam
sciant vitia esse. — Quintil. lib. i. cap. 2.
J Tvjs ala'j^^poXoyias aTraKriov tovs viels' Xoyos yap, epyou
aKiij, Kara ArifioKpirov. — Plutarch, de lib. Educand. p. 9.

ON EDUCATION. 147
their bursts of anger to high spirit, we have no
right to complain of consequences which we ought
to have foreseen — we have no right to be surprised
or provoked,* when customs which we had our
selves fostered have shot up to their full magnitude,
when they annoy us by their vicinity, when they
alarm us by their malignity, when they are too
sturdy to be resisted, and too inveterate to be era
dicated. As to the love of truth,*!- I am not acquainted

Haec ego nunquam

Mandavi, dices olira, nec talia suasi :
Mentis causa malae tamen est, et origo penes te :
Nam quisquis magni censds praecepti amorem,
Et qui per fraudes patrimonia conduplicare
Dat libertatem et totas efFundit habenas
Curriculo ; quem si revoces, subsistere nescit,
Et te contempto rapitur, metisque relictis.
Nemo satis credit tantum delinquere, quantum
Permittas : adeo indulgent sibi latius ipsi.
Juven. Sat. xiv. 224.
t 'Atto be jrevre eraiv ews reraprov Kal e'lKoai Traibevovrat to^-
eveiv, Kai aKovTiieiv, Kal iizTra.S,eadai Kal aXrideveiv. — Strabo de
Persis. lib. xv. p. 504.
Uaibevovai be tovs iralbas airo irevTaeTeos ap^afievoi fJ-expi
eiKoaaereos, rpia jxovva, iim-eveiv, cat To^eveiv, Kal dXriOiieaOai. —
Herodot. Stephan. p. 36.
From the same historian I shall add another passage applica
ble to the present subject, the truth of which is known to
most instructors from bitter experience, and the importance of
which cannot be impressed too forcibly upon the minds of their
scholars ; a'iay(i.aTOv be avro'iai to ^evbeaBai vevofiiarai' bevrepa
be, TO oifielXeiv XP^°*' toXXwi' fj.ev Kal aXXwv e'iveKa, [idXiaTa be,
dvayvairjv <paai etvai rov oipelXovra, Kal n \pevbos Xeyeiv. —
Page 37. l2

148 A DISCOURSE
with any virtue which shines more brightly in the
characters of mankind, or which assists us raore
powerfully in the attainment of every moral and in
tellectual excellence. On the other hand, we may
say most justly of the liar, what is commonly said
of the ingrate, mendacem si dixeris, omnia dixeris.
I have, indeed, a right to be believed, when I tell
you, as the result of long and vigilant observation,
that if the habit of falsehood be once contracted, the
whole moral system is imraediately endangered.
Truth undoubtedly is congenial to the raind of
man ; for who is there, not yet advanced to the
verge of infatuation and phrensy, that does not
wish the representation of things to correspond
with their realities? Om* selfishness gives us an
interest in such representation, our reason approves
of its fitness, and, when our feelings have been
wrought up to the most exquisite sense of honour,
we value the love of truth in preference almost to
every other social quality. It is, however, surpris
ing how quickly boys slide into falsehood after the
first efforts they have put forth to act for them
selves, and after the first connections their minds
have formed between actions and their conse
quences. Shocking, also, is it to see the great pro
ficiency they raake in this vice, and the little atten
tion that is paid to it, through the gross stupidity
or rai&placed fondness of their friends.
Upon one very comraon and very fatal species of
encourageraent which parents lend to lying, I will
set a raark of reprobation. Under the absurd and
preposterous idea of giving scope to the lively and

ON EDUCATION. 149
harmless prate of a boy, they suffer, and even invite
him to tell tales.* But the invariable and baleful
consequences of such practices are these. The boy
will relate, not merely what is known to himself,
but what is most agreeable to his hearers. To
shape his story into more consistence, or to give it
a higher zest, he will rack his invention to supply
what has dropped out of his memory, or, perhaps,
was never lodged in it. He then joins in the laugh
which his petty artifice has raised, and, instead of
being condemned for his presumption, is applauded
for his ingenuity. Now the habit of lying, thus
acquired, extends itself, by a hasty transition, to
other subjects, and to other persons. While he gra
tifies the impertinence or the malice of those who
are about him, he himself becomes impertinent
almost without design, and malicious without pro
vocation. Of the actions which he is forward to
relate, he cannot certainly penetrate the motives or
arrange the circumstances ; but it is impossible
for him to relate them often without sentiments of
approbation or dislike, of reverence or contempt,
towards the agents themselves. Whether in this
situation the love of truth will be a sufficient curb
upon the love of prattle, whether his judgments of
characters will be impartial or unjust, whether his
kind or his harsher affections be most likely to pre
dominate, are questions on which I without hesita
tion answer on the unfavourable side. I will add,
* Upon this ocasional practice in grown-up persons, the
acute and ingenious Mr. Paley, page 39, has made some sensi
ble remarks.

150 A DISCOURSE
that such a boy is not only disposed to speak whaf
is false, but even incapable of speaking what is true.
Tainted by the prejudices of those with whom he
converses, he will see with their eyes, he will hear
with their ears, and wildly suppose the facts which
he has a pleasure in mentioning really to exist.
But when the illusions of a roving and undis
ciplined imagination thus co-operate with the sug
gestions of a raischievous and distempered heart,
what, I beseech you, are you to expect ? I take
upon myself to inform you what you are not to ex
pect : the gay frankness of a boy, the sturdy mag
nanimity of a scholar, or the dignified liberality of
a gentleman. In favour of lying, however, no natural propen
sity can be pleaded, though perhaps it derives its
origin from the wrong management of some pro
pensity — from the hopes children have formed of
attaining some good, or from the dread they suffer
of incurring some evil. Here then the remedy is
in our power, hy not refusing the good, or bv not
inflicting the evil: or, should contrary expedients
be upon the whole raore eligible, we should most
earnestly endeavour to convince them why the one
ought to be refused, and why the other ought to be
inflicted. I must again and again impress it upon your
notice, that over the vice of lying, a vice which
takes such deep root and produces such baleful
fruits, almost every instructor has a most absolute
control, if he chooses to employ it. Besides the
rewards which he bestows upon fair dealing, and

ON EDUCATION. 151
the restraints he puts upon mean equivocations, he
may call in the aid of those honest and generous
sentiments vi^hich are implanted in the breasts of
others. Boys, who look upon many faults in each
other with carelessness, and upon many even with
approbation, are uniform in pointing their severest
indignation against a liar. They who set pain at
defiance are yet susceptible of shame ; and however
they may disregard the frowns of their teachers,
and the menaces of their governors, they are sel
dom such proficients in iniquity as to be quite un
moved by the just and bitter taunts of their equals.
Such are the remedies provided for us, and it well
becoraes us * to apply them, if we consider the viru
lence and stubbornness of the disease. Lying sup
plies those who are addicted to it with a plausible
apology for every crime, and with a supposed shel
ter from every punishment. It tempts them to
rush into danger from the mere expectation of im
punity, and, when practised with frequent success,
it teaches them to confound the gradations of guilt,
from the effects of which there is, in their imagina
tions at least, one sure and common protection.
It corrupts the early simplicity of youth : it blasts
the fairest blossoms of genius ; and will most as
suredly counteract every effort by which we may
* Ilapa iravra be ravra (orrep eanv lepoTrpeTrearaTov) avve-
dtareov rovs walbas rdXriOrj Xeyeiv, to yap \pevbeadai, bovXoTrpe-ires,
Kal traaiv dvdpwwois fiiaeladai a^iov. — Plut. de Educand. lib.
p. 11.
Vide Ernest. Init. Doctr. Solid, p. 614. & Gesn. Isag. vol. i.
p. 656.

152 A DISCOURSE
hope to improve the talents and mature the virtues
of those whom it infects. Against such a vice,
then, it is particularly incumbent upon us to use
the most unremitted caution, and the most unre
lenting opposition.
The next qualification of which I mean to speak
is diligence. We read of Draco, * that he made a
law by which idleness was punishable -with death ; and
that this punishment was afterwards softened by
Solon into a sentence of infamy. In every well-
regulated community of later times, some degree of
rigour has been employed for the discouragement
of idleness ; and it is well known among you, that
the laws of our own country have properly confined
this rigour to persons who have arrived at years of
manhood. But in boys there is usually occasion
for treatment less harsh. The natural activity of
their tempers should be an incentive for us to set
before them right objects ; and by a judicious ad
ministration of rewards and punishments, we shall
* Scripta fuit Athenis lentitudinis Lex,
'O dpyos inrevQwos earw iravrl tw VovXofievw ypcKJteaOai.
Plutarchus in Solone (p. 87) meminit rrjs xaXen-orTjros Kal tov
fieyeOovs twv emnjiiwr, Legum Draconis, Hare, inquit Kal tovs
apyias &X6vras a-n-odvi'/aKeiv. Poenara tantiim hominura apywv
lenivit Solon. Videbat autem Senatus Areopagiticus nequis
iners desideret et Trjv rijs apyias biKrjv fe Solonis lege judicabat.
— Petiti Leg. Att. edit. Wess. p. 526.
Solon made idleness a crime, and this, in the infancy of a de
mocracy so well regulated as that of Athens, was not unreason
able. Eden's Penal Law, p. 89.
The punishment, we see, continued longer than the infancy of
the republic, and the continuance of it may be ascribed to the
commercial pursuits, and the active spirit of the Athenians.

ON EDUCATION. 153
find it possible to overcome the reluctance they
sometimes show to labour, to fix the wavering, to
rouse the sluggish, and to awe the audacious. With
out entering into vague and unprofitable disputes
about the different faculties of men, the difference
of their inclinations is a proof that they are capa
ble of improvement in some degree, and of some
kind. To form the profound philosopher, or the
elegant scholar, is not always within our power.
But every man will be called upon to discharge
some duties to the community, and every man is
endowed with talents for the acquisition of some
knowledge. It is not necessary for him to feel the
beauties of composition, to measure the motion of
the planets, to exercise his memory in history, or
to invigorate his judgment by logic. But he may
become an useful citizen, or a skilful artificer ; and
in order to become so, he must often turn a deaf
ear to the siren song* of indolence.
Youth is eminently the fittest season for establish
ing habits of industry. Rare indeed are the exam
ples of men who, when their earlier years have
been spent in dull inactivity, or trifling amuse
ments, are afterwards animated with the love of
glory, or instigated even by the dread of want,
to undergo that labour to which they have not
been familiarized. They find a state of indo
lence, indeed, not merely joyless, but tormenting.
They are racked with cares which they can neither
*  Vitanda est improba Siren

Desidia, &c. — Horat. Sat. iii. lib. ii. 14.

154 A DISCOURSE
fexplain nor alleviate, and through the mere want of
pursuits they are harrassed with more galling solici
tude than even disappointment occasions to other
men. Not trained up in the way in which they
should go when they are young, they have not the
inclination, and, when they are old, they have not
the power, to depart from idleness. Wearied they
are with doing nothing : they form hasty resolutions
and vain designs of doing something; and then,
starting aside from the very approach of toil, they
leave it undone for ever and for ever. Few, indeed,
are the instances in which persons, who, when boys,
were obstinately and incorrigibly idle, have after
wards excelled in manual arts or intellectual re
searches, or have distinguished themselves as pub
lic-spirited citizens and exemplary Christians. On
the other hand, the worst vices springing from the
worst principles, the excesses of the libertine, and
the outrages of the plunderer, usually take their
rise in early and unsubdued idleness. But a spirit
of industry, when it has once been excited in the
coraraon forras of education, may be transferred to
objects of more exalted dignity, and more extensive
utility. It qualifies raen in all their various classes
for the highest and for the lowest eraployraent ; it
gives perseverance to the workraan, enterprize to
the warrior, and firraness to the statesraan. It
blunts the keenest appetite for sensuality, and shuts
up the first avenues to dishonesty; it opens a
broader field for the display of every talent, and
inspires us with new vigour in the perforraance of
every social and every religious duty. For some

ON EDUCATION. 165
kind of religious duty is within the capacity even
of boys ; and therefore I now proceed to recom
mend the education of them in that love of God
which is intermixed with a rational and filial reve
rence. Religion, I say boldly, in opposition to all the
delusive and corrupt refinements of the present
times, is congenial to the mind of man ; and for the
justness of this assertion I hardly require any other
proof than that some notions of an over-ruling deity
have ever prevailed in those barbarous countries,
where raany powers of the understanding are for
ever dormant, and where many virtues are either de
spised or unknown. But this, like every other per
fection of man, comes from without ; it needs the
aid of precept and example, and it gains new force
from constant exercise.
The capacity of boys to form just and useful
opinions upon this subject begins rauch earlier than
superficial observers raay suppose, or visionary theo
rists have sometimes affirmed. But the only diffi
culty lies in the management of that capacity. Now
the prevalence of superstition itself is a decisive
argument for the readiness of our minds to conceive
the existence and agency of some superior invisible
cause, and therefore it is of great moment to pre
vent wrong impressions, by introducing speedily
and steadily such as are right. So early, indeed,
does the sense of a deity enter into the breast of
man, so deeply does it pierce, by such desperate
violence only is it thrust out, and it rushes back
again with such an irresistible rapidity, that some

156 A DISCOURSE
men have supposed it to be engraven by the hand
of Heaven on what both sacred and profane writers
have beautifully called " the tablets of the hearts." *
But, without venturing upon this doubtful conse
quence, we may pronounce the facts stated in the
premises to be true ; and we may at the same time
convert them to very beneficial purposes. Thus
we may shew a boy the variegated colours of the
rainbow, and the silent progress of vegetation in
the trees of the forest and the flowers of the field.
We may bid him lift up his eyes to the sun in
its meridian glory, and to the stars which spar
kle in the high and spacious firmaraent. From
these animating prospects we raay easily lead hira
to the knowledge of that power and wisdora by
which the universe is formed and preserved. That
God is the moral governor and judge of the world
he will soon learn to conceive, if we shew hira, not
by circuitous and elaborate arguments, but by visi
ble and practical instances, the tendency of virtue
to happiness, and of vice to misery. From other
men his thoughts will quickly turn toward himself,
and he will feel an anxiety to avoid the displeasure,
and to conciliate the favour of that gracious Being
who is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity."
The death of parents to whom he has looked up
with fond affection, or of comrades with whom he
has sported in harmless amusement, may furnish
opportunities for many instructions on the shortness
* 'Hv tyypd^oi) ai) fivri/xoaiv beXrois (ppevwv. Prom. Vinct.
788. Prov. xxxiii. Corinth, i. 3.

on EDUCATION. 157
and uncertainty of this life, and on the necessity of
preparation for a better state. All these circum
stances show the practicability of impressimg him
with religious sentiments ; but, at the same time, I
confess there is room for great caution in the mode
of conveying them.
I wish not religion to be imposed upon young
persons as a burthensome task, but recommended
as a rational duty. It should never damp their in
nocent recreations, or break in upon their daily
employments. It should be taught at its own stated
times, and with its own proper formalities. If you
do not embarrass their minds with things "ob
scure," as a great religious poet of our country calls
them, (Milton's Paradise Lost, book viii.) "and
subtile and remote from use ;" if you give them
"that prime wisdom which lies before them in
daily life," and prevent them from being " unprac
tised and unprepared in that which is of most con
cern ;" if you habituate them to believe stedfastly,
and gratefully to rejoice in Jesus Christ, as the
" way and the truth," they will advance by easy
steps as much farther as they ought to go. They
will gradually acquire, with their own choice,* so
much inquisitiveness upon sacred subjects, and by
their own efforts they will obtain so much know
ledge upon them, that in future life they will be in
* To the acquisition of religious knowledge, more especially,
we may apply this sensible remark of Plutarch : oi yap i>s ay
yelov, 6 vovs airoirX-ripwaews, dXX' vrreKKavfiaros fiovov, &awep
vXt} helrai, bpfx^v efnroiovvros evpeTiK^v, (cat lipe^iv e-irl rriv dXrf
Oeiav. — Tom. ii. p. 48.

158 A DISCOURSE
no danger of falling either into wanton impiety, or
dronlsh credulity, or grovelling superstition.
I insist upon these matters with a greater zeal,
because the captious eneraies, or the lukewarm
friends of the Gospel, draw very mischievous con
sequences from a wrong mode of instruction, and
contend that it is proper to put off religious advice *
to some future day, which in their theories, I per
ceive, they find it difficult to fix, and which in their
practice, I fear, seldom arrives. But in opposition
to a sophistry which strikes at the very root of the
best principles that can enter the heart of man, I
maintain that the defects of children upon religious
subjects are owing to our injudicious treatment of
thera: we either barrass their spirits by the fre
quent returns of devotion, or we load their merao
ries with doctrines of which their understandings
have no distinct ideas,-^ or we imperceptibly wear
away that reverence which ceremonies, merely act
ing upon their imaginations, would necessarily ex
cite, by permitting them to be perforraed with lan
guor and inattention. Against some of these evils
provision is happily made by the plain and rational
explanation which children are taught in your
schools to read when they learn the catechism, and
* De religione ita quidam disputant : differendam esse illam
institutionera ad usum rationis ; sed eMem etiara ratione effi-
cias, differendum esse honorera et obedientiam parentibus et
educatoribus praestandam. — Gesn. tom. ii. p. 668.
f Illud in primis cavendura, quo nihil pestilentius est tenerae
huic aetati, ne meros sonos et verba inania memoriae mandare
cogas. — Ernest. Init. Doct. SoHd. p. 610.

ON EDUCATION. 159
by the decent manner in which they are accustomed
to conduct themselves in the house of God. But
there are other impediments of a more general, and,
perhaps, more pernicious nature, which, however,
are not commonly observed, and which ought to be
carefully avoided. From the conscious imbecility
of children, there is danger lest the ideas of a judge
too powerful to be resisted, too wise to be deceived,
and too pure to be entirely satisfied, should dege
nerate into a servile and depressing fear ; for, when
this is the case, they either start frora every call to
serious reflection, or they will agonize under the
torments of incurable superstition. I, for this and
other reasons, think it more eligible to expatiate,
in the presence of boys, upon the mercies than upon
the terrors of the Lord. In their minds gratitude
is a very active principle ; and from the conscious
ness which they have of their own dependence upon
external support, reverence always intermixes itself
with love. Fear, on the contrary, when it is exces
sive, inevitably begets aversion, and in this lament
able state of mind there will be great difficulty in
rectifying any improper impressions upon subjects
so remote as the attributes of a deity are from our
senses, and so unsearchable, in many respects, to
our understandings.
It is a common and a just observation, that our
apprehensions of the Supreme Being take a tinge
from our own dispositions ; and it is equally true
that our dispositions are themselves corrected or
depraved by our religious notions, from whatever
source they be drawn ; but, in all points of view, I

160 A DISCOURSE
would thrust back the artificial, and soften even the
natural rigours of religion. If boys be of a cheer
ful and affectionate temper, they may be easily in
duced to contemplate those illustrious raarks of
goodness* which the Almighty has scattered in rich
profusion over this visible world, and they will feel
a sort of sympathetic exultation in all the benevo
lent attributes of a deity, which correspond to the
habitual, the most active, and most pleasing senti
ments of their own minds. On the other hand, if
they be of a gloomy cast, the darkness which hangs
over religious subjects raust be dispersed by other
methods. We raust not let in a strong and sudden
tide of brightness. By a judicious mixture of light
and shade, and by a gradual, a temperate, and well-
disposed increase of the more vivid colouring, we
should prepare thera for enduring, at last, the ful
lest and raost direct blaze of the divine glories.
When this process is followed, they will begin me
ditating upon God as a long-suffering judge, who
" wishes that none should perish ;" they will after
wards look up to him as a father, who " correcteth
his children because he loveth them ;" they will, in
the end, acquire the habit of considering him as the
being who " openeth his hand, and filleth all things
living with plenteousness ;" as a creator, who "made
raan little lower than the angels, that he might
crown him with honour ;" as the gracious director
* Cultus Dei naturalis inest in admiratione operum divino
rum, et attributorum, quae ex operibus cognoscimus ; oritur
inde amor, speciatim gratus animus et fiducia. — Gesn. tom. ii.
332.

ON EDUCATION. 161
of the universe, " all whose ways are righteous," and
" whose mercy is from eternity to eternity over all
his work."
The sagacious and pious Hartley observes, that
" the love of God, in its first use, is often tinctured
with fondness and familiarity, and leans much to
wards enthusiasm ;" as, on the other hand, " the
fear is often at first a slavish superstitious dread."
(P. 325. vol. ii.) The former of these observations,
however just it may be in regard to grown persons,
is not applicable to the young ; for, if the love of
God be taught judiciously, the idea of an all-wise
and almighty being is, in minds of active sensibi
lity, always associated with a most rational and most
salutary reverence. The second observation is, I
fear, true of the young and of the old; and for this
reason I urge most earnestly the propriety of pre
senting religion in a pleasing and amiable form.
It deserves, also, to be reraarked, that instruction
thus given prevents the bad effects which intermix
with the fear of God, in persons of a more ad
vanced time of life ; so that upon all accounts it
becoraes us to exhibit the deity in a character, not
harsh and severe, but mild and captivating. Such
instructions will, as we advance from the age of
boys to that of men, be accompanied by the happy
consequences which the same writer has, with a
most charming pathos and simplicity, thus de
scribed: "By degrees the fear and love qualify each
other," and "by uniting the other sympathetic
affections, they are together coalesced into a reve
rential, hurable, filial love, attended with a peace,
VOL. II. M

162 A DISCOURSE
comfort, and joy, that pass all belief of those who
have not experienced it." (P. 325. vol. ii.)
Let us then be careful not to fix the attention of
boys upon the darker side. Let us encourage them
to thank heaven for blessings, which they have
themselves experienced, and which they know how
to value — for the food they eat — for the raiment
which they wear — for the protection of their pa
rents, and the counsels of their raasters. To the
goodness of God, let thera be encouraged to look
up for every advantage they now enjoy, and upon
his providence let them be accustomed to depend
for every comfort which they hereafter expect.
When they are thus enabled to consider God as the
gracious preserver of their being, they will be qua
lified to think raore seriously of his judicial charac
ter at a tirae in which the nuraberiess dangers by
which they are surrounded, and the strong passions
by which they are irapelled, will raake it requisite
for us to represent religion under a more awful
aspect. In the mean while, their progress in reli
gious knowledge will be more easy, and their attach
ment to it more firm, if they be taught to look
upon the pure and sublime, doctrines of theology as
closely connected with practical improvement.*

* As if the great truths ofthe Gospel had been meant only
for our amusement, and had never been intended either for the
improvement ofour minds or the direction ofour conduct. As
if it were possible to extract from the Bible, or indeed from any
other book, a system of morals which is not built and founded
on principles of philosophy ! on what are called speculative opi
nions concerning God and ourselves ! These are wild and

ON EDUCATION. 163
Very few,* indeed, and very simple are the truths
which we have a right to pronounce necessary to
salvation : it will therefore be expedient for us to
keep back all those cloudy and perplexing disputa
tions which, at their time of life, it is impossible for
them to understand, and which, at every time of
life, have a tendency to engender, in the lower
orders of mankind, only pharisaical pride or enthu
siastic wildness.
To the mercies of God, in the creation and go
vernment of the world, must be added the no less
wonderful and no less intelligible doctrine of our
redemption. We must begin indeed with the Old
Testament ; which, however prescription may be
pleaded in support of the practice, ought not to be
read indiscriminately by children. From obscurities
in the language, or from peculiarities in the raanners
of the Jews, even learned raen are not without their
erabarrassments : but in the unlearned and unstable
minds of boys, doubts, I know, upon a first or se
cond perusal, have arisen, which, at a later period
of life, have terminated in a restless scepticism, or
in sullen despondency, or in avowed and hardened
unbelief. These terrible evils may however be
avoided by a selection of such passages as are most
groundless conceits. Every part, without exception, of the
Christian revelation was designed for our improvement in piety
and virtue. Empty and barren speculations have no place at
all in those divine books. — Balguy's Sermons, p. 139.
* Scripture doctrine lies in a narrow compass. It is confined
to a few very general propositions, which give us only just light
enough to direct our steps in the way to eternal happiness. —
Balguy, Charge ii.
M 2

164 A DISCOURSE
adapted to the apprehensions of boys, most amusing
to their curiosity, and most improving to their dis
positions. But of the Gospels, they should read the whole
attentively and frequently ; and sure I ara that the
instructions, the miracles, and the heavenly virtues
of Christ, are admirably calculated not only to con
firm their faith, but to purify their whole souls, to
fix in them a sincere detestation of sin, and to in
spire them with sentiments of charity to their neigh
bours, of thankfulness to their benevolent Redeemer,
and of veneration toward their God.
In matters of indisputable and supreme import
ance : in the infusion of sentiments which are to
form the good man and the good Christian, which
connect piety with virtue, and lead to eternal as well
as to temporal happiness, let us not, I beseech you,
look after excuses for indolence, and justify it to
ourselves under the name of caution. It is true,
perhaps, that, in accommodation to the weakness of
the understanding, which struggles reluctantly with
difficulties, where the advantage of surmounting
them is reraote, we, in conducting a learned educa
tion, are content, for a time, to charge the memory
with words to which the judgment very slowly
affixes any determinate ideas. But the experiment
upon topics of religion is dangerous, and we are
fortunately exempted from the necessity of making
it ; for the knowledge which boys are capable of
attaining in respect to their duty toward God, is
always proportionate to the degree in which that
duty is practicable. If we inculcate that pure and

ON EDUCATION. 165
rational religion, the paths of which are paths of
pleasantness and peace, we may always awaken at
tention, and always reward it. If our method of
teaching be earnest without irapatience, and solemn
without gloominess, we may impress the most sin
cere and deep conviction. If we indulge no vanity
in multiplying technical terms, if we follow the dic
tates of no prejudice in dogmatizing upon those
doctrines which are " hard to be understood," if we
unfold " th^ riches of divine wisdom and grace" in
scriptural wprds, or by the clear testimony of Scrip
ture, " the Father of glory will give unto the least
of these our brethren the spirit of revelation in the
knowledge of him, that the eyes of their under
standing may be enlightened."
In acquiring religious sentiments, and in retain
ing them, I need not say, that the constant use of
prayer* and thanksgiving, and a regular attendance
upon divine worship are eminently useful.
I ara aware of the plausible, but, let rae add, the
chiraerical and deceitful objections that have been
urged against the ritual observances prescribed by
our pious fore-fathers. But certain I ara that the
lower classes of raen, who profess theraselves the
members of our Church, can scarcely find access
any other way to the gates of heaven. I will not,
however, in stating the iraportance of external rites,
* Forms of prayer, composed by persons of a devout spirit,
are of use to all at certain times, for assisting the invention and
exciting fervency ; and in the beginning of a religious course,
they seem to be necessary, as they certainly are for children. —
Hartley's Observations on Man, &c. p. 333.

166 A DISCOURSE
stop short at this assertion ; for, in regard even to
men of literary accomplishments and distinguished
talents, let them boast as loudly as they will of the
strength which is not, and let them varnish over as
skilfully as they can the weakness which really is,
piety, even in their minds, will languish, and faith
will waver, unless reinforced by the aid which stated
and exterior acts of devotion can alone supply.
" It is dangerous to be of no church," * says one
who believed and revered his Bible, and who saw
through all the proud and shallow pretences of that
which calls itself liberality, and of that which is not
genuine philosophy. I am no advocate, be assured,
for the abject prostration of the devotee, or the
frantic ecstasies of the fanatic. But " there is a
superstition,"-|- says the iraraortal Bacon, " in shun
ning superstition ; " and he that disdains to follow
religion in the open and the trodden path, raay
chance to lose his way in the trackless wilds of ex
periraent, or in the obscure labyrinths of specula
tion. The knowledge of religion, so far as it is clear
and useful ; so far as it is auxiliary to virtue, or
essential to salvation, seems to me attainable almost
at every age, and ornamental to every condition.
But, as I before said, it is extremely unsafe to be
wilder the judgraents, or to inflame the passions of
young men upon those abstruse subjects of contro
versy, about which the bigot indeed may dogmatize
* See Johnson's Life of Milton.
f See seventeenth of Bacon's Essays.

ON EDUCATION. 167
with fierce and imperious confidence, while they
who are scholars without pedantry, and believers
without superstition, are content to differ from each
other with sentiments of mutual respect and mu
tual forbearance. The disposition of every young
man is, upon almost every subject, irritable. He
feels with the same keenness, and judges with the
same impetuosity, in his pleasures and his studies,
in his politics and his religion. Hence it is of
great importance to preserve him from the errors,
and even from the crimes to which he stands ex
posed from the very ardour of his virtues. While,
then, we guard against the dangerous levity of
youth, by implanting in them some sentiraents of
religion, we should, by inculcating those which are
just, equally guard against that proneness to bigotry,
which, in the estimation of the best men, and ofthe
best Christians, is equally dangerous.
In the supposed inattention of others let us not
seek after excuses for our own secret unfeelingness,
nor let us iraagine that young men cannot learn
distinctly and advantageously what their superiors
are disposed to teach with earnestness and impar
tiality. Whether, indeed, we consider the strength,
or the weakness of the human understanding, it is
incumbent upon us to irapress those principles
which may preserve the minds of youth from the
absurdities of vulgar fanaticism, and the delusions
of spiritual pride. They will not surely entertain a
less sincere reverence for the Christian dispensation
because they have been taught to look abroad upon
the wisdom and benevolence which pervade the

168 A DISCOURSE
whole system of God's moral government. Their
gratitude toward their Redeeraer will not languish
into decay, because they pay the tribute of affection
and veneration to the Deity, as the kind preserver,
and the righteous judge of all his creatures. They
will not be less anxious, or less worthy to obtain
their own share in the rewards of eternity, when
they are told that sorae portion of those rewards is
destined for believers of every denomination, and
for honest men in every age, and of every country. *
They will not embrace with less eagerness, or retain
with less sincerity, the peculiar doctrines of their
own Church, because they are persuaded that the
great truths of salvation are sufficiently dispensed
to those who repeat another creed, and worship at
another altar. They cannot find either their faith
staggered, or their hope obscured, in proportion as
their charity is enlarged, invigorated, and exalted.
Were an attentive and ingenuous youth thus
* God is gracious and kind to all his creatures, who have ren
dered themselves capable of his favour : but he raay yet be
more kind to those who come recommended to him under the
special protection of their Redeemer. — Balguy's Sermons,
p. 161.
I gladly embrace this opportunity of making my grateful and
respectful acknowledgments to Dr. Balguy, whose sermons have
been lately published. Upon the truth of our holy Religion,
and upon the principles of ecclesiastical estabhshments, I never
met with any discourses from which I either received so much
useful information, or to which I have yielded so full an assent.
I have not seen any compositions, in which religious and moral
subjects are treated with greater precision of language, greater
success of reasoning, or a more genuine and consistent liberality
of temper.

ON EDUCATION. 169
trained up, he, in the same manner as he adopts just
opinions upon other subjects, would cherish with
out effort, and defend without ostentation those to
lerant principles to which some well-disposed and
well-informed Christians are now compelled to find
their way through a long and severe discipline of
study and self-examination. He would be ashamed
to insult the raistakes, or depreciate the merits of
those who, considering theraselves as responsible
only to the great Searcher of all hearts, endeavour
to follow the dictates of an unprejudiced and un
biassed conscience, and therefore disdain to acknow
ledge as a favour that power of judging for them
selves, which, from the spirit of Christianity, as
well as the dictates of reason, they may claira as a
right. These opinions are, indeed, so congenial to
the clearest suggestions of the huraan understand
ing, and the most amiable sensibilities of the hu
man heart, that in youth, when no prejudice lies in
their way, they find an easy admission ; and if, at
a more advanced season, any prejudices have taken
root, we are bound to extirpate them by every con
sideration that can be dear to us either in our
rational, in our social, or in our religious capacities.
But while we recommend a reasonable and ge
nuine spirit of liberality, we ought, I readily con
fess, to strip off the specious disguise of that which
is ostentatious or false. The great duty of charity
is alike misunderstood, and alike violated, by the
surly bigot and the boisterous latitudinarian ; by
those who arrogantly oppose the rights of private
judgment, and by those who mischievously insist

170 A DISCOURSE
upon them for purposes which they dare not
theraselves avow : by hira who confounds ira
plicit credulity with raeritorious faith, and by
hira who expatiates on the praise of religious
liberty, in order to give a sanction to his own
favourite, and it raay be, doubtful or groundless
tenets. It will, therefore, become requisite to put
young men upon their guard against the vague and
popular use of terms, and to assist them in separat
ing the real raotives of raankind frora their specious
pretensions. We may safely tell them, because we
can tell them truly, that the pride of opinion, and
the lust of domination, are not peculiar to the
merabers of any church, or the advocates of any
hypothesis — That toleration has been ably defended
by those, who, in supporting their own speculative
sentiraents, and in proraoting their own worldly
interests, have betrayed very suspicious syraptoras
of a temper quite intolerant — That dissent from
tenets generally received, does not always spring
from upright motives, nor is always supported by
solid arguments — That impatience of subordination
sometimes lurks under an haughty and irritable
spirit of independence, and the affectation of singu
larity often usurps the title of an unmixed and un
shaken regard to truth.
By persons of narrow views and timorous tera-
pers, it may be thought necessary to guard the au
thority of religious doctrines by the coarse and
thorny fences of intolerance. But if sentiments of
this sort be instilled into the rainds of young men,
equal mischief, I think, is to be apprehended from

ON EDUCATION. 171
their failure and from their success. If they fail, a
young man, when he mixes at large with the world,
and perceives a great diversity of sentiment among
persons of talents equally splendid and of morals
equally irreproachable, will find a secret incredulity
and disgust growing upon him, and through injudi
cious haste to escape from the prejudices of educa
tion, he may rashly take shelter in an undistinguish
ing and obstinate infidelity. If they succeed, he
will insensibly fall into that want of charity which
sullies the genuine lustre of his virtues, and ob
structs the salutary efficacy of his faith. I would
therefore educate young men in sentiments of the
warmest affection, and the highest reverence to the
established Religion of this free and enlightened
country. I would, at the sarae time, endeavour to
convince them, that, in all the various modes of
Christian faith, a serious observer may discover
some sound principles, and many worthy men.* I
would tell them, that the wise and the good cherish
within their own bosom a religion yet more pure
and perfect than any formulary of speculation they
externally profess : that their agreement upon
points of supreme and indisputable moment, is
greater, perhaps, than they may themselves suspect ;
and that upon subjects, the evidence of which is
doubtful, and the importance of which is but se
condary, -^ their differences are nominal rather than
real, and often deserve to be imputed to the excess
* Vide Balguy's Charge, i. p. 180.
f To support or to oppose an unintelligible doctrine ; to

172 A DISCOURSE
of vanity or zeal in the controversialist, raore than
to any defect of sagacity or integrity in the en
quirer. For whatever station young persons are
designed, and in whatever studies they are eraploy
ed, there is sorae capacity in all for understanding
these lessons of Christian candour, and there also
are some happy seasons in which all raay be assisted
in learning them with the firraest conviction, and
the most beneficial consequences. Those lessons
will either avert or mitigate raany of the evils to
which, even with the purest intentions, and in the
noblest cause, the young are exposed for want of
experience, and the poor for want of information.
They will silently infuse that calm and constant,
that unfeigned and unaffected moderation, which
well supplies the place of the most refined and sys
tematic liberality. In the lower orders of society
they require only the aid of comraon sense, united
with common humanity, to produce all the whole
some and generous fruits which, amidst the studious
classes of raankind, are often the slow growth of la
borious speculation, of coraprehensive knowledge,
and of strenuous and reiterated struggles against
the prepossessions which are sometiraes fostered in
the course even of a literary education, and against

retain or to reject an insignificant ceremony: is thought by
many an object of such infinite concern that no earthly good
must stand in competition with it. Not so the founder of our
holy religion ; who has plainly taught us to distinguish between
things of much and of little importance. Not so the best phi
losophy ; which has drawn the real objects of controversy within
a narrow coippass. — Balgliy's Sermons, p. 107.

ON EDUCATION. 173
the jealousies which too frequently throb in the
breasts of zealots, both philosophical and religious.
Here let me, however, frankly acknowledge that
I am astonished at the excessive merit, which is
vulgarly supposed to accompany the reception of
those plain and natural principles which respect
toleration ; that I am offended at the parade with
which they are sometimes avowed and inculcated ;
and that I cordially wish to see the day in which
they may be incorporated into the general mass of
public education, pervade the whole circle of public
opinion, and find a settled place in every clear head,
and in every uncorrupted heart. They would then
cease to derive, even in appearance, a precarious
and inglorious support from the abilities of indivi
duals, from the activity of sectaries, or from the
bare permission of an establishment, which, with
out the formality of system, or the arrogance of
profession, really views them with approbation, and
really adopts them in practice. They would no lon
ger be disgraced by the profuse and impertinent
boastings of those who contend for them ; or by
invidious and most unmerited insinuations against
those who never meant to dispute them. They
would be taught in a manner the most becoming
and the most efficacious, — not by a chain of curi
ous and subtile reasoning, not in a tone of ira
passioned, and, I had alraost said, inflammatory de
clamation — but, by the aid of the sarae general,
coraprehensive, and inartificial terras which are
usually and successfully employed to convey other
moral truths into the minds of attentive Christians.

174 A DISCOURSE
I hope to be excused for insisting thus largely
and thus warmly upon a species of instruction
which is unfortunately too rauch neglected, as be
ing unseasonable, perhaps, to persons who are not
arrived at manhood, or as unnecessary to those
who are not called upon to any iraportant offices
in active life. But if it be seasonable and necessary
to instruct raen in the great principles of religion,
it cannot, I think, be iraproper to rescue those
principles frora the clog of errors with which,
araidst the conflicts of religious parties, they are
unhappily connected.
The province of instructing youth is, in alraost
every Christian country, chiefly assigned to ecclesi
astics ; and when we consider the leisure they en
joy, the character they are bound to sustain, the
favourable opportunities they possess for the culti
vation of knowledge, and the liraited but compe
tent degree in which they participate the iraprove
raents of national raanners, we raust acknowledge
that, upon principles of a sound and liberal policy,
they are not deprived of a trust which perhaps was
originally coramitted to them from motives of ne
cessity. But every form of religion, whether it be
established or tolerated, is in every well-regulated
State conducive to public utility ; and, from the
connection which subsists between the happiness of
a community and the raorals of individuals, it is of
importance for the members of all Christian socie
ties to receive early instruction in those principles
which are to deterraine their opinions and to regu
late their behaviour.

ON EDUCATION. 175
The teachers in some Roman Catholic countries,
the Reformed Clergy in Switzerland, and many
excellent Pastors among the Non-conformists in
this kingdom, are indefatigable, to their honour be
it spoken, in training up the children of their seve
ral congregations; and shall the Church of England
then, that Church, I say, which in the majestic
simplicity of her prayers, and the sober dignity of
her ceremonies, acknowledges no superior, remain
indifferent and supine? God forbid! When the
Clergy in Scotland have distinguished themselves
by an uncommon share of diligence and zeal in the
education of their children — when the inhabitants
of Dublin,* with a noble spirit of emulation which
tramples under foot the paltry distinctions of sects
and parties, are gathering into the fold of religion
those boys who, till within these few years, have
been permitted to infest their streets as pilferers
and vagabonds, the slaves of preraature lewdness
and sottish intemperance, the tools of priestcraft,
the dupes of fanaticism, rude almost to savage fero
city in their manners, and degraded nearly to a
level with brutes in their understandings — when
such proofs are at hand to vanquish our scruples,
and such precedents to stiraulate our activity, shall
we, my brethren, be negligent in feeding those
* I am glad that it is in my power to give so favourable an
account of the charity schools in Dublin. When I published a
forraer sermon, those schools were in a less flourishing state
than they are at present; but the spirit of encouraging them
was beginning to diffuse itself, though I had not then been happy
enough to hear of it.

176 A DISCOURSE
lambs, whom Jesus, almost in his last words has
comraitted to our care ? Again I say, God forbid !
But why should I deprecate what is raost un
likely to happen araong those by whom the cha
racter of a good citizen is considered as inseparable
from that of a good Christian ? The schools al
ready established in many great cities give us a
comfortable presage of the consequence to be ex
pected from the benevolence of the public ; and
as to the zeal of the Clergy, who that reads impar
tially their writings in favour of those schools will
presume to deny that it is founded in virtue and
directed by wisdora ?
Let no raan, therefore, call himself the friend of
human-nature, who would bereave children of reli
gious instruction, or leave thera in a state of
bondage to the doraination of their lusts. Guilty
is he of audacious usurpation who, holding hiraself
out as a philosopher, maintains that resistance to
their turbulent passions can be delayed with safety ;
and vain are the pretensions which he puts up to
the name of a Christian, who dreams for a raoraent
that they will yield to any other raaster less sacred
than a Saviour and a God.
I mean not to take notice of many other excel
lencies which are highly ornaraental to young raen,
and to which it is indisputably proper to train them
up early. But the virtues of which I have been
speaking are not less attainable than the rest ;
though from the frowardness and inattention of the
world they are less justly esteemed, or less forcibly
inculcated. As to honesty and sohrietv, and other

ON EDUCATION. 177
moral duties, their utility is universally acknow
ledged ; or, it is only among the weakest and the
most wicked of the human species that they are
treated with derision. Let me, however, point out
one circumstance which is peculiarly favourable to
us for bringing up children in the way which my
text has prescribed. Morality has, by some writers,
been investigated with metaphysical subtilty, and
explained with logical ' precision ; by others it has
been decorated with all the rich and glowing colours
of eloquent declamation and poetical imagery ; but,
with an exception to those writings only which
proceeded immediately from the Spirit of God, I
have not seen the moral relations of mankind, and
the obligations resulting from them, stated with so
much compression in the matter, so much order in
the arrangement, or so much luminousness and
energy in the style, as in the Catechisra of our
Church. The account which is there given of our
duty toward God and our neighbour is adapted to
all ranks and to all ages. The philosopher, when
he peruses it, pauses with admiration, and the reli
gionist is enraptured with piety. The young should
be encouraged to learn it with the most serious at
tention, and happy is it for the man of hoary hairs
if he continues to read it with growing conviction,
growing delight, and growing improvement.

VOL. II. N

178 A DISCOURSE

PART THE SECOND.
Many of the observations delivered under the
former heads relate imraediately to the general
course of education — I proceed, therefore, in the
last place, to speak of the plans pursued in Charity-
schools, and particularly in your own.
The great and fundaraental principle upon which
the whole system of penal laws has been erected is,
that they are meant not so much to punish as to
deter; not merely to lop off the offender, but
chiefly to prevent his offences frora becoraing con
tagious ; not to gratify the malice of individuals,
but to secure the public good. Now for purposes
of prevention nearly similar we defend the cause of
early and religious education. It aims, indeed, at
ends far more numerous than law can attain, and it
pursues thera by raethods raore generally applica
ble, and raore agreeable to our humanity when
they are applied.
In promoting the happiness of our species, much
is, in Christian countries, effected by the authority
of legal restraint, and much by public instruction
from the pulpit. But education, in the large and
proper sense* In which I have endeavoured to en-
* By education, I all along mean not merely the act of incul
cating moral precepts and religious doctrine, but a series of dis
cipline applied to the hearts and lives of young persons. I
contend, however, that good instruction is instrumental in

ON EDUCATION. 179
force it, may boast even of superior usefulness. It
comes home directly "to the bosoms and business
of" young persons — it rectifies every principle, and
controls every action — it prevents their attention
from being relaxed by amuseraent, dissipated by
levity, or overwhelraed by vice — it preserves them
from falling a prey to the wicked exaraples of the
world when they are in company, and from becom
ing slaves to their own turbulent appetites when
they are in sohtude. It is not occasional or desul
tory in its operation — on the contrary, it heaps
forming good habits. Upon this principle Gesner reasons : Si
horaines scirent, quid esset felicitatis suae, brevis esset disci
plina. Qua;re tuam felicitatem. Sed hoc ipsum est quod nes-
ciunt. Verum si paulatira didicerunt rpiPfj et usu officiis obser-
vandis contineri felicitatera : tum eb perveniunt, ut libenter
faciant officia; quia sciunt hanc esse felicitatem suara. — Igitur
opera danda est primf), ut cognoscat raens, quae sit felicitas
vera : Multura temporis abit antequam praecepta in habitum
transeant. — Isag. vol. ii. 582.
Dr. Balguy says, " that the science of raorals, with or with
out a revelation, can only be collected by the greater part of
mankind from observation and experience of the common
course of events." I adrait this ; but education will make that
observation more just, and consequently more salutary. He
allows that the more simple principles may be taught, and that
where a good disposition, or a right education has not pre
vented the use of teaching, some teaching may be necessary.
Now education involves that early discipline, and assists that
benevolence of nature, which he calls " better guides than all
the books of philosophy." It does not instruct the bulk of man
kind in the words of the Ten Commandments only ; it makes
them see and feel such objects as teach them early, properly,
and effectually, in what their duty and their happiness consist.
— See Balguy's Second Charge.
N 2

180 A DISCOURSE
" line upon line, and precept upon precept," — it
binds the coraraands of religion, for a " sign upon
the hands of young men, and frontlets between
their eyes," — it is calculated to purify their desirci
and to regulate their conduct, when they "sit in
the house, and when they walk in the way ;" when
they "lie down in peace to take their rest," and
when they " rise up" to "go forth to their labour."
Now In tracing the progress of society, whether
it be collected from the records of Revelation or
the deductions of Philosophy, from oral tradition
or from historical evidence, we find that men first
assembled in small companies, which are generally
to be looked upon rather as tribes under a chieftain
than as nations under a king.
The arts of policy were then confined to a nar
row corapass ; the concerns of private life were
closely interwoven with those of public ; and the
education of children was subjected not only to the
discretionary authority of parents, but to the imme
diate and frequent interpositions of lawgivers.*
* 'O bk AvKovpyos avrl fiev tov Ibia eKaarois Traibaywyovs bov-
Xovs e<piaTa.vai, avbpa eireaTT\ae Kparelv aiiTwv e£, wvirep al fieyia-
Tai apyal KaOiaravTai, os brj Kal iraibovofios KaXe'irai' tovtov bk
Kvpiov iiroir)ae Kal adpoiSeiv tovs Tralbas, Kal eTTiaKoirovvTa e'l ns
pabtovpyoir] lay(vpws KoXdeetv' ebwKev avrw Kal twv fijSdvrwv
fiaanyoipopovs S-jrws rifiwpo'iev ore beoi' &aTe iroXXi)*' y.ev albw
troXX»)>' be -n-eidw ecel avfiirapeivai. — Xenoph. de Laud. Reipubl.
p. 394. edit. H. Steph.
Mdptov 'eKaaros rrjs iroXews' r) b' erifieXeia irkipvKev eKaarov iio-
piov jSXeireiv irpos t-i)v tou oXov eirifxeXeiav eiraiveaeie b' av tis
Kal tovto AaKebaifioviovs' Kal yap irXeiarriv izoiovvrai a-Trovbrjv
Trepi rous -walbas, Kal Koivg ravniv. — Aristot tom. ii. p. 450.

ON EDUCATION. 181
A custom which began among tribes continued
afterwards in small States ; and hence we find that
by the laws of Sparta the raagistrates often laid
down rules for training up children. But in larger
kingdoras, as in that of Persia,* the system of
instruction which fell under the notice of govern
ment, chiefly affected thos 3 who were born from
noble parents, and intended for elevated stations.
In states more civilized than Sparta, and more po
pular than Persia, the magistrates rather encouraged
than directed education ; and here we see it flourish
with the greatest variety and in the highest perfec
tion. The man of fortune among the Athenians
refined his manners by liberal studies, enlarged his
understanding in the schools of philosophy, and
braced the powers of his body by the rough exercises
of the gymnasia. — But the lower citizens were con
tent to acquire the art of reading, and hence among
a people so fastidious and so high spirited as the
Athenians were,"!- " to be ignorant of letters," be
carae a proverbial and poignant terra of contempt.
* See Xenophon's first Book of the Cyropsedia. After de
scribing the ayopa eXevdepa KoXovfievr], he adds, evrevQev to.
fiev wvia Kal ol uyopaloi, Kal ai tovtwv (ftwvat, Kal aireipoKaXiai
d-ireXriXavrai eis aXXov roirov, ws fit) fxiyvvr)rai r] rovrwv rvpfij),
rfj TWV ireiraibevfievwv evKoafiiif.
f The Athenians distinguished sensibly in the education
they prescribed to the higher and the lower classes of citizens.
Inter praecipuas Solonis curas fuit, liberorum educatio atque
institutio, de qu^ haec ejus lex habetur — Tous TraiSas bibaaKea-
dai -TrpwTov velv re Kal ypafifiara' Kal tovs fiev vTTobeearepov
irparrojras, eireira -rrepl ras yewpyias, Kal ras efi-rropias, Kai Trfv
TeKvrfV' TOVS be piov iKavbv KeKTrifievovs irepl re fiovaiKriv Kai

182

A DISCOURSE

In our own country, the various plans * of in
struction are well adapted to the various classes of
tmriKriV Kal rd yvrrvaaia Kal rd. Kvvrjyeaia, Kal Tt/v <piXoao(j>iav
biarplfieiv. Primum igitur natare et literas docebantur, unde
natum Proverbium de quo Diogenianus (Cent. 10. Prov. 11.)
firire velv, firire ypafifiara, eirl rdy dyadHiV ravra yap eKiraibo-
0ev ev rals 'Adr/yais kfiavdavov. Petit. Leg. Att. edit. Wes.
p. 239.
It deserves to be remarked, that, in some ancient treatises
upon education little or no regard is paid to the lower classes
of society. Plutarch's apology is very singular : ri ovv dv ns
enrol ; av be byj rd irepl rwv eXevdepwv iraibwv dywyfjs viroa-)(6-
fievos irapabeiyfiara bwaeiv, eweira (paivij rfjs fiev rwv irevi'irwv
Kai CrifioriKwv irapafjieXwv dywyfjs, fiovois be rols irXovaiois bfio-
voe'is ras virodj/Kas bibovaC irpbs ovs oi) xaXeirbv diravrijaai, eyw
yap fiaXiara av (iovXoifirjV iriiai KOivrj ^(priaifiov elvai rijv dywyt)v'
ei be Tives evbeios rois ibiois irpdrrovres dbvvarriaovai rots efiols
XP'iaaadai irapayyeXfiaai, ti)v rv-^riv aindadwaav, ov tov raura
avfipovXeuovra' ireipareov fiev ovv els bvvafiiv, t>)v Kparlarriv dyw-
yrfv iroieiaQai twv iraibwv, Kal to'is irevrjaiv' ei be firj, rijye bv-
varrj xpv^reov. — Plutarch, de Liber. Educ. tora. ii. 8.
Aristotle, in his Republic, forms such a plan of education as
was
* Plato, at the beginning of his Republic, says, ravra fiev
brj wfioXoyrirai, ib TXavKwv, Ttj fieXXovarj acpus olKelv iroXet
Koivds fiev bl) yvvalKas, koivovs be iralbas elvai Kal irdaav irai-
beiav. P. 154. tom. ii. edit. Masley. This plan, for a general
¦and undistinguished method of instructing youth, might be
proper enough in the ideal commonwealth of Plato; but in real
life the different modes of education should be adapted to the
different state of raen in society ; and of the regulations lately
introduced in our Charity-schools we may say justly, that they
are strictly conforraable to the sentiraents of Agesilaus 'Eiri-
SrjToiivTOs be nvbs riva be'i fiavQdveiv rovs rralbas, ravra (elirev)
CIS k-al dvbpes yevofievoi xPVanvrai. — I'lutarch. Lacon. Apoph-
thegmat. tom. ii. p. 213. edit. XylanU.

ON EDUCATION. 183
the community. Our public forms of education
supply much of what was done in the larger states
of antiquity,* and by the methods taken for train
ing up the children of the poor, we secure many of
the benefits that were aimed at in the smaller. Ac
commodating thus our measures to the different
exigencies of different times and places, we are at
liberty to employ many expedients, which, in the
distant and general view of a legislator, would be
imperfectly provided for ; and we avoid many in
conveniences by which education would certainly be

was suited only to those whom the Greeks called 'EXevdepoi —
Tiiiv epyuiv TWV toiovtwv bet fierexeiv, oaa rijiv j^pTjci/uwy iroir\aei
TOV fierexovra firi (iavavaov. "Bcivavaov b' epyov etiai be'i tovto
vofiiieiv, Kox Texvrjr ravrrfv Kal fidOrjaiv, oaai irpbs ras xPVaeis
Kal ras Trpd^ets ras rfjs dperrjs axprjarov d-irepydiovrai rb aHfia
tUv eXevdepwv, f; ryv \l/vxr)v, rj rtjv bidvoiav' bib rds re roiavras
T-evyas, oaai rb awfia irapaaKevdS.ovai j^eTpoi' biaKeiadai, (iavav-
aovs KoXovfiev, Kal rds fiiadapviKds epyaaias' aaxaXov yap Trot-
oCffi rrjv bidvoiav, Kal Taireivijv. — DeRepubl. lib. vili. cap. ii.
This contempt of the pdvavaoi was of very ancient standing,
as appears frora Herodotus : ^Opewv koI QpffiKas, kuI ^Kvdas, Kal
Ileptras, Kal Avboiis, Kai axebbv irdvras rovs fiapfiapoiis, dirorifio-
Tepovs tOiv dXXwv rjyeofievovs iroXrjirewv tovs rds rexvas fiavdd-
vovras, Kai rous eKyovovs tovtwv, tovs be airaXXayfiivovs tOiv
veipwvaSiewv, yevvaiovs vofiiS.ovTas eivai, Kal fidXiara rovs es
rbv iroXefiov dveifievovs' fiefiaOrjKaai b' wv rovro irdvres ol "EX-
Xrjves, Kal fiaXiara AaKebaifiovioi' rJKiara be Kopivdioi ovovrai
TOVS vetporex''"*- — Herodot. p. 92. edit. H. Steph.
The same conterapt seems to have reached even to later
times, when the government and manners of Greece were con
siderably changed. Olos yap av 7is, (idvavaos, Kal xe',o<«'»'Os,
Kal dirox'^ipofiiwTos vofiiadijari. — Lucian's ' Evvirvtov.
* See Smith on the Wealth of Nations, vol. iii. p. 172.

184 A DISCOURSE
cramped, in consequence of rules indiscriminately
prescribed and compulsorily enforced.
In forraing useful and worthy subjects of any go
vernraent, some kind of early instruction is neces
sary. But the direct interference * of the govern-

* Aristotle, at the opening of the 8th Book de Republic^,
speaks boldly in the affirmative; Set yap irpbs eKaarriv iroXirev-
eadai' rb ydp rjOos rrjs iroXireias eKdarrjs rb oi'/ceTov, Kai (pvXdrTeiv
elwBev. K. T. X.
His position, and the reasons he adduces for defending it,
might be very just in the forms of government that prevailed
in Greece, but are not applicable to modern governraents.
The general question on the interference of the governing
powers has been discussed with great ability by Dr. Priestley,
who, in my opinion, has fairly and fully confuted the positions
of Dr. Brown. But, while I acknowledge the force of his rea
soning, I cannot approve of the unhandsorae raanner in which
he treats the Established Clergy. None of thera, I believe,
have ever formed, and I am sure none of them have expressed,
a wish to superintend the education of Dissenters, or to pre
vent any parent " from educating his children in his own way."
After telling us, however, " that the friends qf liberty tvould be
alarmed if the direction of the whole business of education
should devolve upon the Established Clergy," he adds, " and
it were the greatest injustice to the good sense of freeborn
Britons to suppose the noble spirit of religious liberty, and a
zeal for the rights of free inquiry, confined within the narrow
circle of Protestant Dissenters." — Priestley's Principles of Go
vernment, p 109.
This passage, though not imraediately applicable to the sub
ject of my notes, is so judicious and liberal, that I think myself
justified in quoting it, for the satisfaction of my readers and
the credit of Dr. Priestley. The man lives not who has a raore
sincere veneration for his talents and virtues than I have ; but
for his sake I must lament, and for the sake of justice I cannot
but condemn, the unnecessary and unprovoked attacks which

ON EDUCATION. 185
ing powers in the prosecution of this work, is a
subject of very nice speculation ; and, perhaps, in
the present state of things, it were better to be con
tent with protection, which implies a sort of tacit
approbation, than to ask for assistance, which
might involve us in unforeseen difficulties.
In the nobler branches of learning, and the
higher classes of life, it seems, I confess, not only
invidious but dangerous for the legislative powers
to prescribe any system of study. But when I
state the interposition of government as superfluous
in the education of the poor, I would be understood
to limit my position. I suppose the charitable con
tributions of individuals for bringing up these
children " in the way they should go," to continue,
or even to increase. For, in a contrary state of
things, I agree with the great philosophical writer

he seeras arabitious of making upon the Established Clergy,
who in learning, in piety, and true moderation, stand, we hope,
upon an honourable level with the Dissenting Clergy.
In the Essays on the Spirit of Legislation, published by the
Society at Berne, in Switzerland, we read the following pas
sage, which is to be strictly understood only in the peculiar
and confined government of that country ; " A legislator, oc
cupied,- hke the father of his country, with the happiness of his
people, will watch rational education, to the end that children
may suck in with the milk the principles and maxims which
may contribute to the public good and the prosperity of indi
viduals. Upon this principle, I do not comprehend how we
can abandon the public education to masters that depend not
on Government, or are little concerned with the State." — ¦
P. 15.

186 A DISCOURSE
on the Wealth of Nations, that " the education of
the common people * would require, in a civilized and
comraerclal society, more attention from the public,
than that of people of fortune and rank." I think
with him, that " the public should facilitate, encou
rage, and even impose,alraost,upon the whole body of
people, the necessity of acquiring the raost essential
parts of education ;" and I, with very few exceptions,
approve of the plan which he has laid down for ac
quiring them. Opposed then, as we are, by petu
lant witlings, or by chimerical theorists, we have
the satisfaction, you see, to know that the principle
on which our charity schools are founded, is not
without an advocate in a person who stands in the
first class of political writers, from his clear and
extensive views, from his copious and exact in
formation, from the soundness of his judgement,
and from the liberality of his spirit.
To those who complain that charity schools are
subjected to the controul of private opinion, and not
of public authority, we may make a yet farther
reply. Public authority, though it does not patro
nize every attempt, or dictate every regulation, may,
upon the discovery of great abuses, suppress what it
does not endeavour to direct. Beyond these limits
there seems to be, at present, no solid reason for its

* See Sraith on the Wealth of Nations, vol. iii. p. 185.
Upon the instruction to be given to the lower classes of
-mankind, and particularly in the art of writing, see the Second
Memoir in the Berne Essays,

ON EDUCATION. 187
interference ; though opportunities hereafter may
arise for taking up the subject more fully, and for
giving stability and regularity to those forms of
education, which are now planned by the wisdom
and supported by the kindness of individuals. — As
to private opinion, it is connected, we should re
member, with private benevolence. It is the opi
nion of men who, from local circumstances, have a
large and correct view of the business they under
take, who are induced to undertake it from their
compassion for the sufferings of the poor ; and who
execute it successfully, by laying out their time,
their wisdom, and their fortunes, in exercising the
talents, and In cherishing the virtues of those whom
they consider as partakers of the same nature, sub
jects of the same government, and heirs of the same
immortality. Strange therefore it is, that the
shafts of ridicule, and the cavils of sophistry, should
ever have been employed to depreciate your benevo
lent exertions, or to discourage you from making
them. Whatever influence it may be right to ascribe to
climate or to situation, their effects, we know, are
considerably controuled by the operation of laws,
of commerce, and science ; and much too as these
causes have been already instruraental in raeliorat-
ing the condition, and exalting the aims of mankind,
their powers, we trust, are not yet exhausted. The
moral world is, indeed, so wisely constituted, that
our actual happiness is generally proportionate to
the degree, in which we are capable or worthy of
being happy. The advantages of men, as social

188 A DISCOURSE
beings, result chiefly from their progress in know
ledge and civilization ; and that progress is, in sorae
instances, the cause, and in sorae the effect, of the
governraent we obtain over our passions, and of the
exercise we give to our intellectual and corporeal
powers. Arguing, indeed, precipitately from the
present to the past, and blending indiscriminately
what is now attainable and proper in our own situ
ations, with that which was not placed within the
reach, or not adapted to the exigencies of former
ages, we laraent their seeming defects, and condemn
their peculiar practices, without considering the re
lative use of those defects, and the temporary pro
priety of those practices. Our own condition is,
doubtless, far better than theirs ; and yet many cir
cumstances which now conspire to our well-being
might, in a different posture of things, have been
altogether injurious. For the felicity of man, in a
state of society, really depends upon a great variety
of causes, which are connected together by the
closest ties, and which assist or impede the opera
tions of each other by a force which often is least
perceived where it Is raost exerted.
What a great writer * upon feudal property says
of the political world, may be applied to many other
relations and interests of men — " societies do not
remain long in the same state." And who would
expect that they can be stationary among creatures
so active as we are in our pursuits, so changeable
in our opinions, so determined, too, in the choice,
* Dalrymple, p. 277.

ON EDUCATION. 189
and so affected in the consequences of both, by the
opinions and pursuits of other men, whether coun
trymen or strangers, whether friends or foes ? Yet,
upon the whole, surely it may be said, that evil, felt
and understood to be such, gradually works out its
own cure, and that good, on the contrary, is perpe
tuated by the deliberate counsels of those who do,
and even by the involuntary concurrence of those
who do not, contemplate its causes, and appreciate
its value. Thus, upon comparing the present with
the former state of man, we are corapelled to ac
knowledge that his iraprovements, both in the
concerns of private and public life, are solid and
numerous : that our imaginations can rarely assign
any limits to thera ; and that our best efforts ought
to be employed in giving them new vigour, or new
stability. Let us apply this general reasoning to
the instruction of the poor.
While the spirit of government was oppressive,
and the raanners of men were rude, a large share of
knowledge was not attainable to the many ; and if
attained, it would not have been desirable, as it
would only have given them a more distinct view
of defects that could not be supplied, and a more
acute sense of distresses that could not be alleviated.
But, from the general diffusion of knowledge which
distinguishes our own age, and which has sorae
tiraes been promoted by, and sometimes has pro
moted, their improvements in other respects, there
is no reason to apprehend any eventual mischief
from comraunicating a portion of that knowledge
to the lowest classes of society. To exclude them

190 A DISCOURSE
from it deliberately,* were, indeed, illiberal and
harsh. The visible tendency of moral causes seems
to have prepared them for receiving it ; and we are
called upon in this, as in similar situations, to assist
fhat tendency by regulating its directions, and by
augraenting its force. However humble be the si
tuation, and however pressing be the wants of these
little children, all have time, and all have ability, to
perform the task which you allot them. That task
fills up the busy hours of their youth, not unbeco
mingly, or unprofitably ; and will enable them, when
they have reached manhood, to employ their mo
ments of leisure innocently and agreeably. It will
render-}- them less superstitious or less profane; less
* They who would exclude the poor from all knowledge are
frequently persons who have experienced the advantages of
education, and are placed in very respectable stations. Their
reasoning, however, reminds one of the illiterate and brutal
Cade's interview with the Clerk of Chatham :
Cade. Let me alone. — Dost thou use to write thy name?
Or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest, plain-dealing
man? Clerk. Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up
that I can write my name.
All. He hath confessed : away with him : he's a villain and
a traitor. Cade. Away with him, I say; hang him with his pen and
inkhorn about his neck ? King Henry the Sixth, Second Part.
t Adam Sraith states most forcibly and fully the advantage
¦of guarding against that gross ignorance and stupidity which,
in a civilized society, seem so frequently to benumb the under.
standing of all the inferior ranks of people. — "Though the
State,'' says he, " was to derive no advantage from the instruc
tion of the inferior ranks of people, it would still deserve its

ON EDUCATION. 191
discontented with their lot, and less ferocious in
their passions ; less envious, I should hope, of their
superiors, and, I am sure, less disobedient to the
laws. I say not, that it is impossible to produce in
stances of men, who, though they have gone through
these humble forms of education, have yet fallen
into atrocious crimes. But where is the plan pur
sued by the higher classes of society to which this
objection cannot be made ? Where is the fairness
of arguing against general success from particular
examples of failure ? Or, what room can there be
for the smallest doubt of that success, if we cast our
eyes back from the present condition of the poor,
to those ages when they were less enlightened and
less employed, when they roamed from place to
place without any settled means of subsistence,
when they plundered with all the shameless and
fearless violence of confederated bands, and eagerly
flocked to the standard of riot or sedition ?
attention that they should not be altogether uninstructed. The
State, however, derives no inconsiderable advantage from their
instruction. The more they are instructed, the less liable are
they to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition,which, among
ignorant nations, frequently occasion the most dreadful dis
orders. An instructed and intelligent people, besides, are
always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid
one. They feel themselves, each individually, more respect
able, and more likely to obtain tbe respect of their lawful supe
riors ; and they are, therefore, more disposed to respect those
superiors. They are more disposed to examine, and more
capable of seeing through, the interested complaints of faction
and sedition ; and they are, upon that account, less apt to be
misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition to the mea
sures of Government." — Wealth of Nations, vol. iii. p. 192.

192 A DISCOURSE
But trained up as the children are in your schools,
they will be able to catch the opinions and to emu
late the manners of their superiors, so far as may be
consistent with their own happiness, or conducive
to the public tranquillity. They will entertain a
just sense of the blessings which they are not only
permitted, but qualified to enjoy. They will strive
to secure the enjoyraent of them by a meritorious
conduct, and they will acquire a sort of claim to
draw from the common stock of happiness, in con
sequence of the share which they contribute to it
by their own diligence and regularity. These con
siderations will, I hope, refute the visionary and dan
gerous positions of those who, with the sarae breath,
expatiate in the loudest strain of encomium upon
that accumulated and increasing mass of knowledge
to which the higher ranks have access, and yet in
veigh with the utraost bitterness against the pro
priety of dealing out the smallest pittance of that
knowledge for the benefit of the poor. I will not
give utterance to thc just and indignant reply which
might be made to the advocates of such opinions,
upon the score of ingratitude towards their Maker,
and of cruelty towards their species. But I will,
without hesitation, pronounce their reasoning so
weak and so impolitic, that no man, who really ac
quiesces in it, can support his pretensions to the
character of a profound philosopher, or of a gene
rous citizen. If artificial means be used to check
the natural progress of knowledge, who shall dic
tate the point at whicli stagnation is to begin, or
who can foresee the mischief in which it may ter-

ON EDUCATION. 193
minate ? On the other hand, if it be permitted to
take its course, and if it be occasionally assisted in
taking it, the advantages which are diffused through
the lower orders of men will flow back through a
thousand channels, and swell the general tide of
happiness and virtue. When, therefore, our theo
ries have pressed on beyond our experience, when
our discoveries are too numerous and too complex
for immediate use, and when the spirit by which we
were actuated to make them has prepared us for
seizing every future opportunity of using them
effectually, let us call down our thoughts for a mo
raent from these towering subjects, and employ
them upon improvements which the humble life of
the poor will most assuredly adrait. When genius
and industry have executed the greater task with
distinguished success, let not our pride or our in
sensibility prevent us from attempting the less.
Just and interesting as these observations may be,
there yet are persons by whom the late rise of cha
rity schools has been thought a presumption against
them. But why, it may be asked, should the for
mer ignorance of the poor be a reason for them to
remain ignorant for the future? In some stages of
civilization, knowledge may be attained with greater
ease, and used with greater advantage, than in
others ; and surely, wheresoever such knowledge is
pkced within our reach, it warrants our pursuit.
Happy, indeed, is it for the bulk of mankind, that
the intricate and silent energy of those moral causes
to which we are indebted for the general happiness
of the species, baffles the craft and selfishness of
VOL. II. o

194 A DISCOURSE
particular men, and by degrees adniits all to a share
of that iraprovement which all have an interest in
acquiring, and a capacity to acquire. But I will
make my answer to this objection yet more minute
and raore exact. Let rae then ask the objector,
whence it is that the education of the poor has been
so long neglected ? and let me beg his attention,
whilst I endeavour to search the question to the
bottom. Now the narrow and rigorous system of
policy which prevailed in the feudal ages, the ex
treme depression of the inferior orders of men, and
that total want of civil and political iraportance
from which they have been slowly emerging in
more enlightened times, will, in some measure, ac
count for the fact throughout Europe. But in our
own country there are other circumstances which
ought not to be overlooked. Upon the suppression
of the religious houses, where youth had been edu
cated before the eera of the Reformation, public
schools were raised and supported cither by the
munificence of opulent individuals, or by the funds
of corporate societies. In these schools the attach
raent to classical and philosophical studies, which
had before been cultivated, yet remained. The pre
judice in favour of learning has, indeed, even in
succeeding ages, operated distinctly frora any con
sideration of its use; and raany precious hours have
been wasted by a boy in gaining that inforraation
which his wants have made unimportant, or his
vanity burthensome to hira, when he became a
man. But, whatever provision was made for the
education of scholars, little regard was paid to the

ON EDUCATION. 195
instruction of the poor. The lower classes of citi
zens were Indeed scarcely elevated above the mean
ness of servitude, or the grossness of barbarism.
The roving life of husbandmen seeraed not to re
quire the arts even of reading and writing. Manu
factures were at too low an ebb, and in too confined
a circle, to give daily eraployraent to such multi
tudes as are now engaged in them, or to draw any
general share of attention to the intellectual ira
proveraent of those who were trained up to them.
It should be observed, too, that as property was
divided into smaller shares, and the dependence of
the active manufacturer upon the haughty lord was
by degrees lessened, they, who grew rich from the
success of trade, were able to procure for themselves
the scanty share of instruction for which they had
imraediate occasion. While they neither asked,
nor indeed wanted, assistance from those who were
above thera, they had not leisure, or perhaps the
power, to provide for the improvement of persons
who were yet below them, and whora, probably,
they were in the habit of considering as neither en
titled to what they called the privileges of educa
tion, nor capable of sharing its advantages. To
this external state of things we must add some
other causes, which lie deeply in the constitution of
the human mind itself.
Our age is distinguished by liberality in hospitals
of various kinds, and it may for a moment surprise
us that an equal zeal is not displayed in the encou
ragement of charity-schools. But the actions of
men are, we know, influenced not so much by the
o2

196 A DISCOURSE
real magnitude of evils which may be ascertained
by reflection, as by the point of view in which they
are presented to us by accident ; and even our best
sensibilities are excited less powerfully by the calm
and correct operations of our reason, than by the
strong and vivid colouring in which objects are
painted by our imagination. From mutilated limbs,
frora excruciating diseases, from the squallor of
penury, from the feebleness of old age, frora the
frantic attitudes and convulsive distortions of the
lunatic, frora the helpless irabecIUity of illegitimate
infants, and frora the coraplicated miseries of de
luded young women, we start back, when they rush
upon us unexpectedly, with anguish and horror.
There are, however, particular and detached in
stances, when some even of these spectacles do not
raise any violent emotion ; and it is only when a
voluntary reflex act of the mind has stretched their
distresses to others, that the idea of numbers thus
distressed either shakes the soul with terror, or melts
it into compassion. Occasions also there are, on
which we feel not any strong inclination to relieve
the sufferings of mere individuals ; and yet, when a
general scheme is established for succouring the
sufferers amply and systematically, we are in a mo
ment acted upon by many and strong Impulses from
many and different quarters. Our compassion is
awakened by a sense of the wide extent in which
our fellow-creatures are afflicted — a vigorous spring
is given to our benevolence, from the consciousness
that we are useful to numbers — a generous and
slmq^t instinctive spirit of emulation is excited by

ON EDUCATION. 197
the kindness which many others exercise. We
feel a firm and animating persuasion that our own
humane exertions will be wisely and effectually
employed, and, (as a great moralist says of patriot
ism,) "independent of pure sympathy* with the
happiness of those who are to reap the benefits of"
our own charity, "we are pleased with the contem
plation of general happiness, and are interested in
whatever can tend to advance it."
Now in all the above-mentioned cases, which are
pitied as soon as they are known, misery already
exists, and in some of them it is prominent to our
view in all its collective aggravations. But the loss
of education is often considered as implying the
absence of good rather than the existence of evil.
The calamities and the criraes that hover over
the ignorance, the rudeness, and the idleness of the
poor, are not yet in being. That ignorance itself
is soraetimes confounded with simplicity, that rude
ness is called vivacity, and that Idleness Is imputed
rather to a wanton and transient love of sport, than
to any rooted and dangerous reluctance to labour.
It requires, therefore, some firmness of spirit, and
some activity of understanding, to draw together
all the scattered mischiefs that await the poor, into
one assemblage, where each shall appear to our
judgraent in its proper form, and where the perni
cious tendency of all instantaneously carries our
imaginations over a long and formidable train of
approaching evils.
* See Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 274.

198 A DISCOURSE
But the want of foresight, to which we are
chiefly to ascribe the want of feeling in those who
are languid in the support of charity-schools, is not
to be laid to the charge of this audience. You
have attempted what was totally overlooked, or in
sufficiently provided for, at the Reforraation — by
adapting your plans to the real advantage of society,
and to the real situations of those who are raore
Immediately affected by them, you have done wisely,
what In former ages might have been done imper
fectly, either from injudicious prepossessions in
favour of literature, or from Inattention to those
changes in the situations and pursuits of men,
which at that period were silently taking place,
and the causes of which were then preparing to act,
and since have acted, with encreasing force and
through a wider extent.
Instead, therefore, of disputing against the utility
of charity-schools, because they were not earlier
instituted, it becomes us to consider sorae of the
advantages which are generally attached to them in
their present situations. One of those advantages
is the religious instruction whicli you give the poor ;
for, if they receive it not from you, in what quarter
must they search for it ? or of what kind will that
be which they are most likely to receive ? From
the grossness of their own conceptions, and the
profligacy of their own lives, some parents bring
up their children In habits of profaneness and Im
piety. Others are too volatile in their tempers, or
too intent upon their business, to employ any se
rious care upon the subject. A third sort have

ON EDUCATION. 199
formed, and will therefore comraunicate, very mis
taken opinions, and through a well-meant, but mis
guided zeal, either inflarae the rainds of their chil
dren with spiritual pride, or bewilder them with
fanaticism, or darken them with despair. " The
truths of religion,"* says an illustrious critic, " are
too important to be new ; they have been taught in
our infancy ; they have mingled with our solitary
thoughts and familiar conversation, and are habitu
ally interwoven with the whole texture of life." But
to the poor this flattering description cannot be ap
plied. In their infancy they are seldom taught the
fear and love of God, and how then in their man
hood will they feel the inclination or obtain the
power to learn thera ? They rise with the rising
sun to their labour, and when he sets sorae retire
to repose in refreshing slurabers, and some to revel
in coarse intemperance. The unavoidable business
of life shuts out severe meditation, and amidst the
sudden and sharp cares that often annoy them,
either the whole attention of their rainds is absorbed
in looking after alleviations ; or, if alleviations can
not be obtained, they are sometimes depressed into
a state of sullen and dreary despondence, and some
times driven on to frantic expedients of violence
and dishonesty. How important is it then to teach
religion, when it may be taught easily and effectu
ally? How necessary does it appear to give the
poor a saving knowledge of their God, " at a time
when he may be found," and " before the great
* Johnson's Life of Milton.

200 A DISCOURSE
water-floods rush in," when it raay be impossible for
them "to come nigh him."
To moral agents, however exalted be their sta
tion, or however eminent their talents, the know
ledge of religion,* which constitutes a most im
portant part, and which includes the most powerful
sanctions of morality itself, is essentially necessary
But the expediency of teaching it among the poor
may be evinced by peculiar reasons — Would you
regulate their conduct by the comraands of their
superiors ? those commands raay be inconsistent or
unjust, soraetimes dictated by caprice, and some
times productive of oppression. Would you sub
due their passions by the restraints of law ? those
restraints lead to negative rather than positive ex
cellence ; they deter frora great criraes, but do not
prevent the less ; in many instances they cannot
operate, and in all they operate feebly, unless as
sisted by other principles previously adopted and
firmly established. But if these resources fail, can
we find no other, you will say, unless we listen to
the austere and inexorable voice in which religion
exacts the obedience of her votaries ? By the higher

•* To counteract the power of temptation, hope must be ex
cited by the prospect of reward, and fear by the expectation of
punishraent ; and virtue may owe her panegyrics to morality,
but must derive her authority frora religion When, therefore,
the obhgations of morahty are taught, let the sanctions of
Christianity never be forgotten ; by which it will be shewn that
they give strength and lustre to each other. Religion vvill ap
pear to be the voice of reason, and morality the will of God. 
Preface to the Preceptor, p. 27.

ON EDUCATION. 201
and more polished orders of society, other resources,
I confess, may be found, though, I fear, to little pur
pose — but by the lower, I contend, they cannot be
found at all. The ideas of a poor man are too nar
row to be much enlarged by philosophy, and his
sentiments are too coarse to be refined by honour.
A delicate regard to propriety, the ardent love of
glory, the abstract fitness of things, the intrinsic
beauty of virtue, are sounds by the music of which
his ear is not exchanted, if we " charm ever so
wisely." But when religion is set before him he
understands the justness of its precepts, he admires
the sublimity of its doctrines, and he feels the aw
fulness of its commands. Without difficulty he
acquires a reverential sense of a Creator and a Re
deeraer, and he erabraces, without hypocrisy, the
plain and salutary belief of a Heaven and a Hell.
That religion is useful in taraing the fierceness
and alleviating the afflictions of the poor, has been
acknowledged even by its adversaries. They pro
fess indeed to derive their own opinions frora the
magnificent eloquence of a Bolingbroke, the
pointed raillery of a Voltaire, or the profound re
searches of a Hume. But their vanity, and, I
should hope, even their good sense, prevent them
from maintaining that the sarae opinions can be
safely recoraraended to their inferiors. They are
led, by raingled motives of prudence and of benevo
lence, to confess that the lower orders of mankind
are to be restrained only by the belief of that reli
gion, which their superiors it seems are privileged
to reject as untrue, and to deride perhaps as absurd.

202 A DISCOURSE
Unnecessary, therefore, as it were on the present
occasion to repel the objections which they urge
against the general credibility of the Gospel, I
think it not improper to avail myself of the conces
sions they make in favour of Its importance. I
will, however, go one step farther, for the sake of
checking that petulance, which a contemptuous dis
belief of Revelation is too apt to excite, and which,
when supported by the examples of those who are
placed in respectable stations, extends its raalignant
influence to the most unlettered, and the most hum
ble classes of mankind. That ray sentiraents raay
be heard with raore attention, and produce a fuller
effect, I will deliver thera in the words of a writer
whose Ingenuity entitles him to respect both from
the friends and the adversaries of religious educa
tion. " We are led* to the belief of a future state,
not only by the weaknesses, by the hopes and fears
of human nature, but by the noblest and best prin
ciples which belong to It ; by the love of virtue, and
by the abhorrence of vice and injustice. When
the general rules which determine the merit and
demerit of actions come to be regarded as the laws
of an all-powerful Being, who watches over our
conduct, and who, in a life to corae, will reward the
observance and punish the breach of thera, they
necessarily acquire a new sacredness frora this con
sideration. That our regard to the will of the
Deity ought to be the supreme rule of our conduct,
can be doubted of by nobody who believes his ex-
* Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, p. 244.

ON EDUCATION. 203
istence. The very thought of disobedience appears
to involve in it the most shocking impropriety.
How vain, how absurd would it be for man, either
to oppose or to neglect the commands that were
laid upon him by infinite wisdom and infinite
power?" Let us return from this digression. While the
necessity of training up the poor in the fear of the
Lord is thus apparent, it deserves to be remarked,
that the opportunities for doing so are very favour
able. They are not entangled in that pernicious
scepticism which explains away the evidences of
Christianity and the obligations of virtue. They
are not deluded by that wanton and licentious
sophistry which draws a lustre around profaneness
from the plea of fashion, and which measures the
right to be vicious by the impunity which, amidst
the blandishments of opulence and the privileges of
power, vice too often enjoys. Their minds are
neither relaxed by luxury, nor pampered by pride.
They do not affect a haughty and impious inde
pendence upon the power or the bounty of Heaven.
In the counsels of their own wisdom, or the
strength of their own arm, they dare not confide.
Pinched as they are by want, buffeted by affronts,
or pining in sickness and in sorrow, they gladly flee
for shelter to a Master who can protect, and to a
Friend who will not desert them. That friend and
that master is the God whora we teach thera to
fear, to love, and obey.
Other reasons for instructing the poor on religi
ous subjects are to be found in the weakness of

204 A DISCOURSE
their judgment and the intenseness of their hopes
and fears. Hence, if their minds have not been
early fixed in the belief of the Gospel, or their mo
rals regulated by its laws, they at a later period of
life precipitately adopt the most irrational tenets.
They are prone to believe that the performance of
external ceremonies, and the profession of what is
called "a saving faith," will atone for the commis
sion of every vice, and supply the want of every
virtue. Shuddering at the danger to which they
were from their past raisconduct exposed, they rush
into every opinion however unreasonable, and grasp
at every hope however fallacious, which raay hold
out to thera the prospect of future security. The
well-grounded terrors of the Publican are then
quickly succeeded by the presuraptuous confidence
of the Pharisee. They who yesterday smote their
breasts, and anxiously called upon God to be " mer
ciful to them as sinners," may to-morrow boldly
" lift up their eyes to heaven," and proudly exult in
those imaginary effusions of grace which have
transformed them into beings such as " no other
men are," and have placed thera araong the elect,
who are in no peril of faUing. This wild delusion
of the understanding is seldora accorapanied by any
radical improvement of the heart, nor does it lead
to that repentance which, in the solemn and era
phatical language of the Scripture, is "not to be
repented of." On the contrary, it spurns all the
calmer dictates of reason, and stifles the most salu
tary suggestions of consciencr. It is not, indeed,
supported by the consciousness of former righte-

ON EDUCATION. 205
ousness ; but, by the remembrance of former crimes,
it often is fatally confirmed. In those who have
taken up their system of faith, and entered upon
the work of salvation, late in hfe, it is corrected
very rarely. It is to be effectually prevented only
by the assistance of education, which, beginning
from right principles, advances to virtuous habits,
and then, by an easy and uninterrupted progress,
terminates in humility without abject fear, in piety
without vain superstition. In a faith that will never
misguide, and in a hope that will never fail.
Such an education only will either prevent the
poor from falling into habits, frora which they will
have occasion to be reformed, or guard them from
the dreadful raistakes they coramit in their endea
vours after reformation. Such an education too
are your Schools evidently calculated to furnish.
And who, then, that seriously reflects upon their
usefulness, would be so iraprudent or so inhuman
as to obstruct their success ? Permit rae therefore
to add, that, among other regulations, I could wish
every establishment of this kind to adopt some of
the rules, which have already been eraployed in
several great cities for the exact and pious observ
ance of the Sabbath-day. In the mode of observ
ing it, we may steer a middle course between the
sullen austerity of the Puritan, and the indecorous
gaiety of the Papist. To all orders of raen, the
Lord's Day is made by custom a season of rest
frora labour — but we raay do more for these chil
dren. Necessary we know it is for us to suraraon
their attention to meditation and prayer ; and, per-

206 A DISCOURSE
haps, it will not be thought absolutely impractica
ble to relieve and enliven their minds, by directing
the offices of devotion to be succeeded, after a pro
per interval, by some harmless and temperate re
creations. There are some circurastances respecting the
Masters of Charity-schools, which ought to be
pointed out, as peculiarly conducive to the success
of your institutions. A great writer of antiquity*
assigns as one chief cause for the failure of educa
tion, that parents make a wrong choice of a pre
ceptor, or that, when he is chosen, they lay aside all
further concern about him and his pupil. This
alarming objection cannot be alleged against your
plan. For your knowledge of a master you do not
depend upon casual or partial information. He
lives among you, and his real character is known.
It is examined before you choose him ; and, in
raaking your choice, I will venture to say that a
raajority of suffrages has never appeared in favour
of any candidate, who was disqualified for his office
by glaring Incapacity as a teacher, or hy notorious
immorality as a man. When chosen, he Is subject
to your controul, and dependent upon your approba
tion. He has no collateral resources, either to pro
raote his own interest or to blow up his pride.
Such is the frequency and such the exactness of
your enquiries, that he cannot hope for impunity if
he be guilty of habitual inattention or flagrant mis-
* See Plutarch de Liberis Educandis, p. 9. edit. Xyland.
From this edition I have quoted all the preceding passages
from Plutarch.

ON EDUCATION. 207
conduct. Nor should it be forgotten that, in exa
mining the proficiency of his scholars, you come
prepared for that examination by raore correct
judgments, and with larger experience, than fall to
the lot of the teacher himsclf. You are exempt
from the pride and the partiality of parents, from
their propensity to be deluded " with smooth things,''
and their reluctance to hear many important though
raortifying truths. You decide upon the talents
and morals of boys by the test of a plan which you
have yourselves instituted, the utility of which you
are accustomed to measure by facts, and the defects
of which you can discover without difficulty, and
supply without delay. You are therefore in the
habit of performing what parents are apt to neglect ;
and it is in your power to perforra it rauch better
than their ignorance, their inexperience, their fret
ful impatience, or their misguided affection, will
usually permit thera to do.
Another argument for the exertions of our best
endeavours to instruct the poor may be urged frora
the disadvantages which, in this age, accompany
the progress of civilization. The luxury that
rushed in after the successes of one w^ar, has not
been corrected by the disasters of another : the ar
tificial wants of men are multiplied rather than di
minished, though many sources of gratification
have been interrupted ; and the inordinate appetite
for dissipation and extravagance which originally
burst out among the idle and the opulent, has de
scended by rapid strides to those persons who de
rive their subsistence only from their labour. Hence

208 A DISCOURSE
the long and dismal catalogue of crimes which bar
rass our families by perpetual alarms, and crowd
our gaols with atrocious offenders. Hence the ex
ecution of our laws * is frequent without being effi
cacious, and severe without being formidable.
Hence the bitterness of death is so often tasted by
those who are in the vigour and bloom of youth,
whose proficiency in wickedness has outrun the
comraon course of depraved nature, and whora we
think ourselves authorised to cut off before they
have attained any distinct sense of right or wrong,
or have raet even with any fair opportunities of be
coming useful members in society. That the nura
ber of such crirainals surpasses all example, is well
known to those worthy and considerate men who
have no inclination to indulge their spleen, or to
display their discernment in the glooray and vehe
ment language of exaggeration. By what means
then shall we shelter the rising generation from the
most flagrant of all corruption, and the most fright
ful of all dangers ? The vigilant spirit of liberty,
and the generous feelings of humanity, render every
great change in the police of our country most diffi
cult and most perilous. And, indeed, if the laws
be ever so nicely framed, and ever so steadily admi
nistered, the remedy seldom reaches the root of the
disease, and, when eraployed to check it only in the
last stages of stubborness and malignity, it acts with
* Laws are a bad method of changing the manners and cus
toms ; 'tis by rewards and example that we ought to endeavour
to bring that about. — Analysis of the Spirit of Laws by D'Alem
bert, p. 72.

ON EDUCATION. 209
a severity which is endured rather than applauded,
and which shocks where it ought only to reform.
Are we then serious in our wishes to restore health
and soundness to the body politic ? Do we really
pity the sufferings of the offender, and really detest
the malignity of his offence ? Do our hearts shud
der and recoil at the extreme rigours of justice ?
and are we sincerely anxious to avert the mischiefs
which can alone warrant us in employing those ri
gours ? Let us, then — I beseech you, in the name
of God, let us earnestly and heartily have recourse
to education. — We must "begin at the beginning"
— we must prevent what is evil by implanting what
is good — we must enlighten the understanding as
well as controul the will — we must govern the lower
orders of society, not by the dread of losing exist
ence, but by the hope of finding it comfortable — we
must shew ourselves the preservers of men's lives,
by standing forth as the guardians of their in-
n-ocence instead of shedding their unrighteous
blood, under a plea of necessity, which does not al
ways vanquish our scruples, or calm our indigna
tion, — we must endeavour, by early and wholesome
instruction, to save* their precious souls.
After raentioning these advantages in detail, I
will now endeavour to irapress upon your minds the
* The serious and learned reader will here recollect with
pleasure this solemn, and, I think, most apposite passage of
Plato : ox/biv aXXo exovaa eis abov ij i/'"X^ ^PX^'^"'' "¦Xflv rfjs
iratbetas re Kal Tpoiprjs' a bff Kal Xeyerai fieyiara wtpeXelv y ftXdir-
reiv TOV TeXevTyaavra evdvs ev apxfj t^s exe'iife iropeias. — Phaedo,
p. 107. VOL. II. P

210 A DISCOURSE
utility of charity-schools, by additional arguments
drawn frora the general state of knowledge in this
country, to which I have already called your atten
tion, and frora the general mode of instruction that
is usually pursued in these seminaries.
Upon comparing the present age with those that
are past, we may venture to say, that our proficiency
in the abstract sciences has been more rapid and
more conspicuous ; that our taste in polite htera
ture is formed with greater exactness and refined
with greater excellence; and that our habits of
thinking, both upon speculative and practical sub
jects are, upon the whole, more just and more en
larged. But general advantage of every kind is
attended with partial inconvenience. We cannot,
therefore, wonder that the wide-spread and eager
curiosity, which has been awakened by the diffusion
of knowledge, should give rise to a swarm, both of
writers who are unable to furnish instruction, and
of readers who are careless about receiving it. It
has, indeed, been said,* that even in serainaries pro
fessedly dedicated to the cultivation of learning, a
desultory and superficial sort of reading has suc
ceeded in the place of patient and systeraatical
study ; that dullness and vanity have, with insolent
profanation, seized for their own use, the noblest
discoveries of genius, and the brightest improve
ments of taste ; that the presumptuous sciolist has
* I content myself with stating and censuring these injurious
representations of our universities. Of the authors I say only
as Herodotus says of some Greek plagiaries, Eibws rd ovvofiara,
oil ypdipw.

ON EDUCATION. 211
usurped the honours due only to the profound
scholar ; and that the ambition of young men is
exercised, not in exploring the dark and deep mine
where alone our forefathers searched after truth,
but in decking themselves in a slight and gaudy at
tire of accomplishments, numerous without order,
and ornaraental without use. We are also told
that the higher, and even the middle classes of man
kind, lavish their time upon publications which un
brace the vigour of their understandings, degrade
the dignity of their manners, and contaminate the
purity of their principles. The former of these
complaints is not only invidiously exaggerated, but,
I trust, is utterly groundless. For the latter, I
with sorrow confess there is too much foundation;
and yet I never heard it proposed by the most fro
ward murmurer, or the most refining innovator,
that all the avenues to trifling or pernicious know
ledge should be violently barred up, especially in an
age when the path to that which is useful lies open
to the same persons, and may also be found nearly
with the sarae ease. If then we do not exclude the
opulent and independent members of the commu
nity from an education which is so often perverted,
why should we refuse to the poor that information
which they are most unlikely to pervert? Tied
down as they are to their daily tasks, and content
with their little earnings, they have no leisure to
trifle away, no curiosity to indulge, no superfluities
of money to squander upon such books as would
relax their industry, inflate their pride, and poison
their morals.
p2

212 A DISCOURSE
That charity-schools are not wholly useless, may,
I think, be inferred from the concessions of those
who, however they may oppose these schools in the
present state of society, would feel some alarm if
the poor were universally incapable of reading and
writing. If, then, it be in some degree, and in some
circumstances, an advantage to read and to write, it
becomes the objectors to shew, not by vague sur
mises and hardy assertions, but in definite terms,
and by clear evidences, the limits by which charities
of this sort ought to be circumscribed. In the
progress of our social improvements these qualifica
tions are beginning to be accessible to the poor,
and therefore we require some argument, founded
upon the known condition of the world, to convince
us, that we are extending our raeasures beyond the
real wants of individuals, and the real exigencies of
the public good. But that we do not reraotely
counteract the one, and that we are actually supply
ing the other, will appear frora a plain state of the
question. For, after all the complaints that have
been urged against raaking the poor too enlight
ened, or too proud, what, may we ask, is in these
schools professedly taught ? Nothing more, surely,
and nothing less, than the fundamental principles
of raorality and religion — principles, which every
man is interested in knowing, which by our plan of
instruction are sufficiently known, and which,
among those who are not so instructed, are known
very iraperfectly, or very erroneously. At what
time are they taught ? When the mind is capable of
receiving the best impressions, and when the body

ON EDUCATION. 213
is not strong enough to endure any severe toil. To
whom is the office of teaching consigned ? To per
sons who are qualified to perform what they under
take, and who are exposed to censure, if they are
negligent in performing it. In what situation does
the learner himself stand ? He is under the eye of
superiors, who are justly the objects of his rever
ence, and of benefactors, who have a claim upon
his gratitude. He is in the presence of boys, whose
improvement will excite emulation when it is re
warded, and whose faults, when they are punished,
will deter hira from imitation. Now the same in
struction, conveyed under different circumstances,
would probably be productive of less beneficial
effects. The diligence of a boy, if exerted and
praised only in solitude, would lose much of its
vigour. His peculiarities in temper and in raanners
would not be worn away by the constant and gentle
attrition of surrounding exaraples. His aversion to
labour, though it might yield to harsh expedients,
would not be overcorae by that raechanical sense of
obligation, and that instinctive spirit of conforraity,
which operate raost advantageously in large serai
naries, where all feel themselves irapelled to execute
at some time or other, and in sorae degree or other,
what is required of all. It appears, therefore, that
in these schools, as well as in other charitable
institutions, your bounty is eraployed in a better
direction, and acts with greater effect, than in cases
where it is exercised only by individuals for the
sake of individuals, and consequently raust want the
regularity of systera, and the energy of combination.

214 A DISCOURSE
But upon the general utility of charity-schools,
as I have, upon a similar occasion, already delivered
my sentiraents to you and to the public, I now will
pursue my enquiries no farther. While, however,
I confess ray inability to fortify those sentiraents by
raany new arguments, I will not pass over in silence
one circurastance which is not dishonourable, I
trust, to rayself, and the mention of which, I am per
suaded, will not be disagreeable to you.
Since the publication of a former Sermon I have
raet with a book which I conceive to be of very
dangerous tendency, because it is written with that
wily ambiguity of language which confounds the
well-meaning, and with that uncouth yet captivat
ing air of buffoonery, which is too apt to recom
mend licentious opinions to a numerous class of
readers, who are already prejudiced on the side of
licentiousness. The writer (of whom I have spoken
in the first part of this discourse), with an effrontery
equally shocking to decorum and humanity, con
tends for the abolition of charity-schools. Over
false policy he has thrown a veil of false philan
thropy, by representing almost every kind and every
degree of knowledge in the lower class of men, not
only as useless, but even as destructive. Now this
wanton and unblushing raalignity of Mandeville,
reminds me of the Barons, who, frora a narrow jea
lousy, petitioned Richard the Second, that " no
villain * should send his son to school ;" when their
infamous request raet with the sarae repulse which
* See Barrington's Ancient Statutes, p. 271.

ON EDUCATION. 215
the same application would, in these days of en
larged and hberal thinking, undoubtedly experience.
It is of a piece with the savage policy of the
Spartans toward their miserable Helots. Or, to
employ a comparison which later ages may justify,
it springs from the same corrupt motives, and leads
to the same ruinous consequences, with the cus
toms of those Colonial tyrants who, in order to se
cure the extorted obedience of their slaves, condemn
them to a state of helpless ignorance ; who establish
the blindness of the understanding as a measure for
the activity of the body, and barbarously punish by
torture those crimes which instruction might hap
pily have prevented.
They who have imbibed Mandeville's spirit, are
not ashamed to re-echo his sophistry. Hence the
cause of those who oppose charity-schools is, I
know, supported by specious pretences of tender
ness to the tranquillity of the poor, and of a regard
to the interests of the public. But when these pro
fessions are stripped of the disguise in which they
are craftily enveloped, we shall generally find them
to originate in the pride of those by whom they are
urged, and to terminate in cruelty to those against
whom they are directed. I hope, indeed, not to be
uncharitable when I say, that the real sentiments of
such men ought to be clothed in this language :
" While the poor are in a state of depression they
may be compelled to act in subserviency to the ex
clusive interests, and in obedience to the arbitrary
commands, of their superiors. But should they once
be enabled to burst asunder the bonds of ignorance.

216 A DISCOURSE
they will soon shake off the yoke of oppression.
Their intellectual iraprovement will be followed by
an increase of their civil importance. When their
opinions are set free from the shackles of error, and
their industry is invigorated by the hope of reward,
raany of thera will emerge from penury to compe
tence, and frora competence, they will aspire to in
dependence and to freedom. They will be placed
in a situation where new rights will unquestionably
arise, and where they will not want either the judg
raent to estiraate, or the spirit to assert them."
These, I suspect, are the dreaded effects which dis
courage the unfeeling and the proud from co-ope
rating with us in this our labour of love. But
surely every person who would oppose such effects
deserves, in a civilized country, to be hunted down
with infamy, and every raeasure that tends to pro
duce them ought to be employed with firmness.
Debauchery and laziness, hostility to the world, and
defiance to the world's law, shameless impiety, and
outrageous violence, have been hitherto the baleful
fruits of the want of education. Let us, therefore,
upon every principle of comraon sense and comraon
humanity, venture upon the opposite experiment ;
and let us not cease from repeating it, till its per
nicious tendency be evinced, not by precarious as
sumption, but by indisputable fact ; not by the cla
morous and insidious coraplaints of the oppressor,
but by the actual and incorrigible raisbehaviour of
those who would resist oppression.
As to Mandeville's essay, the farae of it had often
reached me in the conversation of those who were

ON EDUCATION. 217
entangled in the flimsy tolls of his sophistry, or
hurried away by the abrupt saUies of his wit. It
gives me, however, great satisfaction to find, that in
the whole course of his work there is scarcely one
trick of misrepresentation which I had not detected,
or one effort at reasoning which I had not defeated.
I mention to you this success, not from any confi
dence in the abilities of the advocate, but from my
zeal for a cause which is equally dear to you and to
myself, from the pleasure I always feel in the con
sciousness of upright intentions, and from the expe
rience I have had that plain sense is not easily
overcome by the combined efforts of romantic spe
culation and acrimonious raillery.
Upon my former endeavours to justify the cause
of charity-schools, I, for another reason, cannot
look back with total indifference ; for they were
honoured, I well remember, by the approbation of a
man * who has now paid the last awfiil debt of na
ture. The soundness of his understanding, and the
integrity of his principles, will not hastily be for
gotten by any one to whom he was personally
known ; and sure I am, that his discreet and un
wearied exertions in promoting these charities will
endear his memory to such persons among our
selves, as are actuated by the same amiable sensibi
lities, and engaged in the same laudable under
taking. But the pain which we feel from his loss
will be much alleviated by the recollection of the

* John Thurlow, esq.

218 A DISCOURSE
fidelity and care with which his important office *
is now sustained — more than this, I should not say
in the house of God ; and, consistently with my
conviction and my feelings, I could not say less.
Be it remembered, however, that praise to the dead
cannot be withholden without ingratitude; and
surely it is paid with a greater propriety when it
conveys, as I intend it should now convey, the most
delicate exhortation and the most powerful encou
ragement to those among the living, who are ani
raated by the strong and generous irapulses of vir
tuous eraulation.
Since the death of this excellent man the mea
sures pursued in our schools have lost nothing of
their vigour or their use ; and indeed many regula
tions have been lately proposed which bid fair to
correct whatever was amiss, and to supply whatever
was defective.
But why, it will be asked, is any change at all
attempted ? — a question this, which upon subjects of
government and religion raany wise men have
started, and which many ingenious, and, I suppose?
well-raeaning advocates for reformation, have been
at a loss to answer fairly and fully upon the broad
and sound principles of public utility. I raean not
however to deliver ray own sentiraents, but to raark
the conduct of others who are arabitious to pro
claira what they think and wish. I would not in
fringe the sacred rights of private judgment, nor
* Mr. Thurlow was succeeded as treasurer to the charity-
schools by Robert Partridge, esq.

ON EDUCATION. 219
would I cast undistinguishing reflections on the
inanner in which those rights have been exercised ;
and yet, when I compare, not by the precarious
rules of politics, but by the surer test of morality,
the behaviour and the language of the same persons
upon topics of public and of common life, I am
compelled to say, how frail and inconsistent is man !
how differently does he think and act even from
himself in different circurastances ! how strangely
does the sarae passion of pride seek for gratification
from contrary causes, from pursuing ideal good, and
from giving up that which is attainable and real !
One moraent he strains out a gnat, and applauds
hiraself for sagacity — in the next, he does not sus
pect hiraself of credulity, when he swallows a carael.
In those subjects which are properly submitted to
the wisdom and authority of the legislature, the
machine is vast, the springs are numerous and in
tricate, the removal of what is weak may obstruct
the efficacy even of what is strong, and the smallest
alteration in the dispositions of the parts may em
barrass the action and deform the syrametry of the
whole. Yet, upon matters which lie beyond the
reach of common observation, and the sphere of
common experience, eager is the disposition which
the most unpractised men betray for change, and
fixed is the conviction which the most ignorant ex
press for the propriety, and even the necessity of
attempting it. Upon these topics they decide with
out hesitation, and act without dread — doubt in
other men, they irapute to timidity, dissent to stub
borness, and opposition to venality. But in matters

220 A DISCOURSE
which are really adapted to their apprehensions, and
really subjected to their controul, they listen to every
whisper of contradiction, and they startle at every
phantom of danger. Aversion to change in the
generality of the world is, however, a temper which
wise men may upon the whole think laudable ; and
they will be yet more disposed to encourage it, when
the restless and undistinguishing fondness for expe
riment, which the general diffusion of knowledge
has excited, calls aloud for resistance. Where I
would oppose that temper in the hmited concerns of
this charity, I will deliver my own sentiments in
my own words ; and where I would express my
fears of the contrary disposition in public affairs, I
will first speak in the better language of a most
illustrious philosopher : " It is good," says Bacon,*
" not to try experiments in states, excgpt the neces
sity be urgent, and the utility be evident ; and well
to beware, that it be reformation that draweth on
the change, and not the desire of change that pre
tendeth the reforraation." But in respect to your
charity-schools, the utility, at least, of alteration is
evident, though I should grant that the necessity is
not urgent. No change is proposed which deviates
from the original and salutary principle, upon which
those schools are instituted. The possibility of do
ing what is now intended to be done, existed per
haps before. But charity-schools, like other insti
tutions, advance slowly to perfection. We do not
always turn our thoughts to what is practicable — we
* See Bacon's Twenty-fourth Essay on Innovation.

ON EDUCATION. 221
do not equally feel what is expedient — we do not
meet with opportunities for carrying it into execu
tion. Length of time in sorae situations creates
those opportunities imperceptibly, and in others
brings them forward directly within our notice. But
when they are brought forward, shall we sit in a
state of unfeelingness and inactivity ? shall we for
bear to do what ought to be done, because our pre
decessors wanted the inclination or the power to do
it ? We are not impertinently intruding our judg
ments upon such matters as are subjected to a power,
in which we have no share, or such as require in
formation which we do not possess even in the
amplest degree. We promote no faction and in
dulge no selfishness. We regulate those concerns
over which we have a right from coramon sense, and
are under an obligation from common humanity to
preside. We give not up the sraallest portion of
any advantage to which our charity-schools have
hitherto been instrumental, and we direct our aims
to those which it were to be wished they had long
ago produced. We at the sarae tirae throw no in
vidious reflection upon others for omitting what we
think it our own duty to attempt by these regula
tions. But in the mode of attempting it, there is,
we readily acknowledge, great room for discretion,
for candour, and for delicacy. The prosperity, and
perhaps the very existence of charity-schools de
pend, we are aware, upon public opinion : and that
opinion will, in its turn, depend very much as well
upon the temper we preserve, as the arguments we
urge, in the prosecution of any projected change.

222 A DISCOURSE
Amongst us, then, no tricks of eloquence, no inso
lence of contradiction, no views of party, no influ
ence of power or station, have the least share in
promoting what is in itself wise and good. Every
complaint is heard with patience, every objection is
answered with politeness, every opinion raeets with
respect, and every error is treated with tenderness.
Doubtless the sentiments of those who differ from
us, may in some measure be affected by a sense of
importance which is often connected with benevo
lence, and is also conducive, in the general course
of affairs, to public utility. But it is a pride which
we may soraetiraes ourselves feel, and which looks
to the same honourable end we ourselves have in
view, though perhaps through the medium of differ
ent measures. We shall not, therefore, shock its
delicacy — we shall not triumph over its raistakes —
we shall be content with guarding against the effects
which it raay produce in defeating those benevolent
purposes, which, I trust, are equally dear to those
who approve of our regulations, and to raany of
those who, from a confined, or a crooked view of
the question, are at the present moment disposed
to condemn them. We look forward even to their
consent and their assistance — to their honest con
sent and their cheerful assistance, when the first
alarm shall have spent its force, and when facts shall
have established beyond contradiction the usefulness
of those measures, which are now supported by ar
gument. From these remarks upon the principle
of your late alterations, I proceed to a more minute
examination and a closer defence.

ON EDUCATION. 223
One objection to the former state of the schools
was, that too much time was spent in reading and
writing. But this objection falls to the ground,
when you encourage the habits of that industry, to
the better employment of which, reading and writ
ing are themselves subservient. It has been said,
that the instructions given in schools were often
counteracted by the example of parents. You ef
fectually put a stop to this complaint, by placing
boys under the mild and more judicious authority
which you either employ in your own person, or su
perintend when it is placed in the hands of others,
by throwing new checks upon folly and vice, and by
offering new incitements to discretion and virtue.
Others have told us that knowledge lifts the minds
of the poor above their situation, and agitates them
with fantastic desires, which never can be realized.
By employing them in the established business of
the place, or in soraething closely allied to it, you
prevent their minds from wandering, even if, under
other circumstances, they were disposed to wander
into ideal schemes of greatness. You fix their at
tention to the station in which they are certainly to
act, and you prepare them for acting in it with pro
priety and success. Should it be pleaded (and of
what plea will not a restless spirit of wrangling
avail itself?) that our plan is too indiscriminate,
that boys of the quickest parts are chained down to
the same dull train of acting with the most stupid,
and that neither opportunity nor encourageraent is
afforded to intellectual excellence, we are at no loss
for a fair and decisive answer. They whose talents

224 A DISCOURSE
are of the ordinary size, are engaged in such pur
suits as we think suitable not only to their actual
capacities now, but to their probable situations
hereafter ; and should the blaze of a superior un
derstanding ever burst out, through incumbrances
by which it cannot long be stifled, the phenomenon
will not pass unobserved by many among us, who
have no wish to contract the sphere of operation to
the huraan intellect, and who are both able and
willing to assist its raost vigorous energies, and its
boldest flights. But for the pure and lasting fire of
genius, we raust be careful not to raistake those little
scintillations,* which sparkle suddenly, and as sud
denly vanish into darkness frora which they eraerge
no more. If the impetuous sallies of constitutional
vivacity, or the early soarings of an eccentric ambi
tion, be indiscriminately confounded with real and
solid talents, we shall be induced by the illusions of
our pride, it may be, as well as by a misguided
sense of justice, to encourage propensities, which it
would be more proper, and more kind to restrain.
An ingenious, and upon the whole a benevolent
philosopher,-^ has expressed his apprehensions, that
you make children " too proud for ordinary labour,
and too delicate for hard labour." I ara at a loss to
reconcile the justness of this observation to the so
briety, the diligence, the peaceable deraeanour, and

* Of such boys Quintihan speaks thus : Illud ingeniorum
velut praecox genus, non temerfe unquam pervenit ad frugem. —
Lib. i. cap. 3.
f See Kaimes' History pf Man, book ii. sketch 10.

ON EDUCATION. 225
the humble piety of the hardy race, who inhabit a
country, where many of the poor can procure for
themselves that instruction, for which they are here
indebted to the bounty of their superiors. But sure
I am, that if the learned writer had lived to see the
plan proposed for these schools, he would have re
tracted his opinion, or would have confined it to
other seminaries in which instruction is provided of
a less excellent kind, and for purposes less compre
hensive than our own.
Should it be urged against your measures that
boys who spin are summoned to a task which be
longs solely to the other sex, I answer, that if the
coraplaint were true, it is little to the purpose ; and
at the same time I contend that it is untrue. It is
little to the purpose for the foUowing reason :
Where instruction is confined to few it may be
diversified, as different occasions may frora time to
tirae require. But when numbers are to be taught,
uniformity and stability are great advantages ; and
they become yet greater where the situation, the
capacities, the present wants, and the future pros
pects of the persons concerned are nearly similar.
I venture to call the charge untrue as well as im
pertinent, because some of the persons who make it
assign to their children in their own houses the
very employment which they condemn as unfit or
degrading in your schools ; and because the same
employment is professedly allotted to other boys in
eleemosynary, institutions of various kinds through
out the wKole kingdom.
To encounter the suggestions of vulgar prejudice,
VOL. II. a

226 A DISCOURSE
or of a false delicacy is an ungracious and a difficult
task. How then shall we treat the objections of
those who declaim almost with tragical solemnity
upon the disproportion that subsists between the
labour of spinning, and the strength of those who
are in your schools appointed to spin ? We may
tell them seriously and justly, that sentiraent is often
at variance with reason ; that some manual arts *
which are now practised with general approbation
and general success by males, were formerly confined
to women, and that among the bravest nations of
antiquity the eraployraent of weaving was not
thought more masculine than that of spinning. We
may sometimes relax a little from our gravity, and
address the objectors thus : " They who are endowed
with the gigantic robustness, or aspire to the heroic
* Lucretius thus states the progress of spinning, weaving, &c.
Et fVicere ante viros lanam natura coegit
Quam muliebre genus, nara longfe prsestat in arte,
Et solertius est multo genus omne virile ;
Agricolae donee vitio vertere severi,
Ut muliebribus id manibus concedere vellent,
Atque ipsi potius durum sufferre laborem ;
Atque opere in duro durarent membra, manusque. Lib. V. 1353.
TvvaiKe'iov be to iarovpye'iv irap' 'Ofiripw. — Eustath. ad 1. SO.
II.l. Plato contrasts the use of arms with the sedentary arts, and
probably included every method of working wool. See Alci-
biades I. Serranus' Plato, p. 127. He calls the raXaaiovpyia
a fiadrjfia yvvaiKeiov.
See Goguet's Origin of Arts and Sciences, p. 199- See too
Ihad, vi. 400. et Schol. jEschyl. Vinct. in vocPA"^P''''''a»', lin. 891.

ON EDUCATION. 227
atchievemcnts of a Hercules, may be permitted to
spurn at an employment to which Hercules himself
is said to have stooped, only in a delirious paroxysm
of love. But mortals of common bulk and coraraon
strength raay submit without degradation to the
common lot of those who are around them, and if it
still be said, that we condemn them to the weak
nesses of. Egyptian * effeminacy, let us put their
sincerity to the trial, by proposing a substitute in the
rigours of Spartan hardiness." They who now af
fect to be disgusted with the capricious tyranny of
an imaginary Sesostris, would be scared, I doubt not,
at the sterner regulations of a real Lycurgus. If
then you give these children instruction upon the
whole useful to them ; if there be nothing really in
decorous in the rules you prescribe ; if your schemes
jar only with the groundless pride of parents, and
the perverse humours of boys, you ought not to re
cede frora the resolution you have formed.

* Nymphodorus, in the 13th rCiv fiapftapiKwv, contrasts the
manners of the ^Egyptians with those of the Greeks. At fiev
yvva'iKes ev ayop^ irepi-iraroxjai Kal KairrjXevovaiv' ol be dvbpes
Kara rrjv oiKiav vipaivovmv' b ydp ^eawarpis, fKdrjXiivai rovs dv-
i-fias jjovXufievos, are fieyiaTrjS xuipas yeyevvrjfievovs Kal irbXXovs
dvras, orrws firj avarpacjievTes eir' iaofioipiav bpfir'/awai, rd fiev
eKeivwv epya rals yvvait,i, rd be rijjv yvvaiKwv eKeivois irpoaeTat,ev.
Quoted by the Schol. ad CEd. Col. lin. 352.
 apaeves Kara areyas
QaKoiJaiv iarovpyovvres.
Ot oe fivopes, icara oiKovs eovres, ii(paivovai' vipaivovaiv ol fiev
dXXoi, avw njv rpoKriv wdeovres, Aiyvirnoi be, Karw. — Herodot.
p. 64. edit. H, Steph.
a2

228 A DISCOURSE
" According to the ordinary division of labour,"*
says Sraith, " which, so far as it can be introduced,
occasions a proportional increase of the powers of
labour, the spinner is alraost always a distinct per
son from the weaver." — The distinction, you see, is
founded on convenience rather than delicacy. —
But those whora we make spinners when they are
boys, may be only weavers when men. It falls
within your plan to teach them one of these arts, at
a time when the other is too laborious and too ex
pensive to be taught, and when probably it would
not be learnt by them under the eye of their own
parents. " Now a spirit of industry,"-^- as a saga
cious writer observes, "though not very quickly
raised, may be soon transplanted." And what he
affirms of nations, is applicable to smaller bodies of
men. Hitherto, indeed, no provision has been
made in your schools for the manual labour of boys.
* Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. i. p. 10.
Plato, in his Republic, adopts this idea. Aio be eirirebev-
fiara rj bvo rexvds aKpifids biairovelaOai, aX'^bbv ovbefiia ipvais
iKavri TtJv avBpwirivwV ovb' av tov fiiv aiirbs iKavios aaKeiv, rbv
bi aXXov aoKovvTa eirtrpoireveiv. — Lib. viii. tom. ii. p. 846.
edit. Serr.
The most extraordinary division of labour I have read of was
among the ^Egyptians. »/ bi IrirpiK-fi a<j)i bebaarai' fiirjs vovaov
eKaaros tjjrpos ean. — Herodot. p. 75. edit. H. Steph.
t See the Appendix to the English Review for March 1785.
In the fleeting politics of the day I differ most widely from
the anonymous writer. But upon the fundamental and general
principles of policy and commerce, I always derive both the
most valuable information from his profound researches, and the
highest entertainment from his aniraated eloquence.

ON EDUCATION. 229
But the habits of diligence, which your regulations
will cherish in these children, may be easily trans
ferred to other employraents more difficult and
more profitable, to which they wiU be hereafter ad
vanced. You in the mean while guard them from
the awkwardness and reluctance which they might
otherwise feel when they are first entering upon
rougher tasks — You deprive the lazy of every ex
cuse which they may wish to find in total inexpe
rience, and you are preparing them, as I have again
and again observed, for different scenes of action, in
which their industry will be attended with greater
advantage to themselves. In the choice of the
work itself you are only to take care that it should
not be dangerous to health, or very irksome in the
execution ; that it should be capable of being per
formed with greater and greater dexterity, accord
ing to the length of time and degree of activity em
ployed in it ; that it include such a degree of variety
as raay relieve attention without distracting it ; that
it be productive of some profit which may associate
the idea of utility with that of toil, and that a part
of this profit be allotted as a reward to him that
earns it, in proportion to the alacrity he has shewn,
and the skill he has acquired. All these excellent
properties belong to the employments which you
have prescribed.
I mean not, however, to answer every objection
which the prolific imaginations of speculative men,
or which a perverse spirit of contradiction in meaner
minds, may suggest. But I am persuaded, that in
your proposed reformation, there is a direct ten-

230 A DISCOURSE
dency to reraove raany of the evils which a more
confined plan did not entirely exclude, and the suc^
cess already attained by other seminaries is, I think,
a sufficient justification of your undertaking. You
do not, I acknowledge, set up pretensions to the
merit of originality : neither, let me add, have you
been compeUed to encounter the odium of total in
novation.* There is a magnanimity, however, in
adopting right measures, which, in some circum
stances, is not less meritorious than the sagacity
with which they were at first contrived, or the spirit
with which they were at first attempted. Frora the
prosecution of your plan, therefore, you will not
suffer yourselves to lie deterred by the preposses
sions of the unexperienced, and the clamours of the
officious. To some men every change, as such, is offensive ;
and they are unwilling, cither from laziness to con
template the advantages of what may be better
done, or from pride to acknowledge any imperfec
tion in what they have themselves been accustoraed
to do. Others are desirous to grasp for sordid pur
poses, or to scatter upon frivolous arauseraents, the
pittance which they have hitherto been used to
wring from the occasional labours of their children;
not considering the objects which you keep steadily
and avowedly in your view, I raean the future pro
ficiency of their offspring when they cease to be
* The plan for the Norwich schools is, I am told, taken
from those at Burj'. The boys are einployed on altti-uate days
in spinning, and in reading and writing.

ON EDUCATION. 231
children, and their greater capacity to contribute
that share which every protected, and much more
every favoured, member of the community owes to
the public stock, when he has attained the age of a
man. Many will be restrained frora becoming the.
objects of your care in consequence of that parental
affection, the excess of which is itself a fruitful
source of mischief, the errors of which it is one
very important object of your institutions to correct,
and the operation of which it is your duty to che
rish so far only as it pursues the end, for which it
was indisputably implanted in us by the wise and
merciful Author of our being. There is another,
and, I fear, a numerous class of men, who will com
plain they know not why, and oppose they care not
how. Their envious hatred of the rich they dis
guise to others, and it may be to themselves, under
the specious appellation of disinterested solicitude
for the poor ; and if they perplex by their turbu
lence the raeasures, which they have neither the
wisdora nor the activity to conduct, their vanity
and their ill-nature are completely glutted. But,
surrounded as you are by all these difficulties, you
will possess, I hope, that perseverance which will
not permit them to become formidable obstacles,
that fortitude which will prevent them frora acting
upon your minds as discouragements, and that
generosity which ultimately will triumph over
them as accusations.
Your project, indeed, is now in its infancy. You
must expect, therefore, to meet with impediraents,
some real, and some artificial ; some arising from

232 A DISCOURSE
ignorance, and some frora obstinacy ; sorae which
you do npt distinctly foresee, and sorae with whicli
for a tirae it may be grating for you to struggle.
But all of thera will, I ara confident, so far as you
are concerned, give way in the end to experience ;
and when that experience shall have brought to
light the superior wisdora of your measures, and
the superior merit you have in planning and in
pursuing thera, the consequences will be pleasant
and honourable. Every coraplaint will be hushed
in silence ; your institutions will be popular in some
few of the circumstances where popularity may be
considered as an advantage ; and there will be a
general anxiety to participate your kindness, and a
general emulation to convertit tothe best purposes.
In this strange and tumultuous world, araidst the
narrowness of our views, the stubbornness of our
terapers, and the unaccountable fluctuations of our
supposed or actual interests, opposition is sorae
tiraes eventually serviceable to the cause which it is
meant to injure. A keener and a -wider curiosity
is excited. The motives of men become better
known as they are more suspected; and the re
proaches of enemies, when reftited, are a surer
proof of our raerit than the panegyrics of friends.
There is an eagerness in the well-disposed and the
well-informed part of mankind to support and vin
dicate the injured party ; and even they who have
been most forward in raising objections, are, frora
conviction of their raistake, or even frora the very
fickleness of their dispositions, prepared to stand
forth as advocates where they were once accusers.

ON EDUCATION. 233
I hope to give no offence by saying that very
few of the explicit charges which I have heard de
serve or admit a serious reply; and as to those
which have escaped me, I must be content with
opposing known conveniences to unknown dangers.
You now form what, in the ordinary course of
things, seldom exists — an early connection be
tween the artificer and his future employer; and
this too at a season when the former is not impatient
of controul or practised in deceit, and when the lat
ter has no opportunities to oppress, and no tempta
tion to overreach. The innocence of a boy, his do
cility, his regularity, will let his superiors into a
more exact view of his talents and of his virtues,
and may create in them such an honest prejudice
in his favour, as will induce them to employ hira
hereafter in a more profitable capacity, as well as
to distinguish him for the present by ampler re
wards. You crush in the bud all aspiring and vain
imaginations — all wishes for opulence and great
ness — all competition in expence and show. You
lay open to these youths the humble path they are
to pursue, and you at the same time reconcile them
to its hardships by your discreet and tender coun
sels. You smooth its ruggedness, and hide much
of its dreariness, by holding up to them the distant
but encouraging prospect of a decent maintenance.
You give them an earnest of the safety in which
they wiU live, and even the little distinctions to
which at some future period they may be entitled.
You show thera that the same habits of diligence
and honesty which are immediately useful to them-

234 A DISCOURSE
selves, will give society an interest in shielding
thera frora the wretchedness of poverty, from the
crimes to which it instigates, and from the igno
miny by which, if it be associated with guilt, it is
always overwhelraed.
That you mean to make particular acts of bene
volence eventually conducive to the prosperity of
the City at large, is a design, at the mention of
which, the most delicate and most high-spirited
manufacturer has no reason to blush. All public
institutions, if they are wise and useful, look be
yond the Individual, and forward his improvement
in subserviency to the general good of which he
partakes, and to which he In his turn is expected to
contribute. Will you then suffer these very consi
derations to slacken your activity which ought only
to Increase it ? No, surely. Let your ample for
tunes, your elevated situations, and your unble
mished characters, be thought sufficient, for suffi
cient they are, to shelter you from the effects of
outrageous invective and poisonous insinuation.
Let it not be forgotten by yourselves, or by your
accusers, that your scherae is approved, and that in
the execution of it you will be assisted by raen
who are really and apparently above the reach of
teraptation — by men of well cultivated and en
larged minds, who want neither the penetration to
discover, nor the spirit to resist, any abuse which
the selfishness of individuals can be conceived ever
to attempt — by men who, frora the delicacy of
their feelings, and the soundness of their understand
ings, may justly be considered as incapable either

ON EDUCATION. 235
of associating with any one subscriber who is un
just or imperious, or of lending the sanction of their
names to any one purpose that is trifling or insi
dious. In all regulations which affect numbers, circum
stantial and temporary inconveniences will arise.
But if those inconveniences, even when they are of
considerable magnitude, are not permitted to impede
the progress of legislative improvement, far less
ought they to operate in private life ; and yet less
should they clog alteration in the prosecution of
those schemes, which are begun and supported by the
voluntary contributions of individuals. He that
gives has a right to prescribe the conditions upon
which his gift is bestowed ; and he that receives is
guilty at once of ingratitude and of presumption, if
he cavils where he ought to submit, or, if in the
very moment in which he is refusing submission, he
exchanges the humility of request for the confidence
of demand. To enlightened and experienced persons
must it, therefore, be left to ascertain the advantage
which any alteration may produce, and to point out
the means of attaining it. Men of candour will, I
know, always lament even partial offence, and men
of benevolence will endeavour to alleviate what they
cannot wholly avert. But when the good in view
is iraportant enough to reward the labour, and pro
bable enough to warrant the experiment, it is not
merely an instance of imprudence or of negligence,
— it amounts even to gross injustice, andis an act of
direct hostility to the general welfare, to trifle with
the advantage which is placed within our reach, or

236 A DISCOURSE
to be discouraged from seizing it by the babble of
ignorance, and the cavils of captiousness.
The charity over which you preside is, in sorae
measure, supported by the well-meant legacies of
those who are no more. Be it so. But you do
not trample upon their ashes, because you are act
ing as if the interests of the poor were not less dear
to the living than to the dead. They certainly
meant not to check you from guarding against evils
which they did not themselves foresee, or from
availing yourselves of opportunities which they did
not themselves meet with. They intended not their
charitable legacies to cramp the wisdom, to curb
the authority, or to chill the benevolence of their
survivors. On the contrary, they committed to
you a trust which you are at this moraent dis
charging, in the very spirit with which it was ori
ginally delegated, and for the very purposes to
which it was specificaUy directed.
Amidst the variableness of human manners, and
the fluctuations of huraan interests, it is scarcely
possible for men of the most enlarged understand
ings, and of the kindest dispositions, to provide for
future exigencies to the utmost extent of possibi
lity. A presumption which comraon sense sug
gests, and which common experience has justified,
will, however, always exist, that the founders of cha
rities, if they had lived in our own days, would
adopt the same opinions, and pursue the sarae ends.
Hence even in societies, the conduct of which is
regulated by express and soleran statutes, deviations
are not always considered as a violation of the sa-

ON EDUCATION. 237
cred authority of the dead. Great delicacy and
great caution are, it is true, necessary. But the
affairs of men are sometimes thrown suddenly, and
sometimes gradually fall, into such a situation, that
we not only supply what is omitted, but attempt
what, under the influence of past circumstances, or
from want of foresight into those which are pre
sent, has been positively forbidden. Stubborn and
peremptory as any prohibition may be, it is often
controuled by indisputable and transcendental uti
lity. But the measures you are taking are not in
the slightest degree exposed even to this difficulty.
While you are aiming at additional advantages, you
do not give up the smallest share of the original
objects for which these schools were founded.
Children are yet taught to read and to write, and
therefore, when you do not lose these advantages,
what should hinder you from pursuing more ? But
you need not be contented with this limited justifi
cation ; for, in your endeavours to establish other
and new methods of instruction, you encrease the
number of those persons, who can partake of the
old. The money arising * from the manual labour of

* " A moderate proportion of work, at the direction of a
committee for that purpose, is to be allotted, and their earn
ings during that time are to be regularly accounted for ; and
in case any child should, by greater industry, earn beyond that
proportion, it becomes the property of that child, and is to be
set apart for his use. It is to be hoped, that in a short time
the earnings arising from their stated tasks may be sufficient to
form a fund, to be applied partly to encourage and reward the

238 A DISCOURSE
your scholars will not be laid out for any narrow or
selfish purpose. It will produce rewards for the
diligent : it will furnish materials of employment
for the idle : it will enable you to instruct raore
boys than hitherto have been instructed in reading
and writing : it takes nothing frora those, who now
read and write. The propriety of your raeasures is
sufficiently clear from these tendencies. But if
objectors will not be silenced by the probability of
what will happen, here let us call in facts to the aid
of theory, and tell thera what has happened in other
places. Boys, I ara told, are eraployed in the cha
rity schools at York precisely as you raean to em
ploy them here. The consequence has been this.
The number of scholars instructed by the profits of
those who work at spinning, araounts nearly to one
third raore than were forraerly adraitted. Expe
rience has put an end to claraour in that city, and
the same extensive success will in our own be at
tended with the same happy consequences.
Parents coraplain, as I before observed, that they
no longer enjoy what their children earned in the
hours of recess. To this it raay be further an
swered, that they who receive rauch raust be con
tent to return a little. Even such an answer ouffht

industry of the children, by distributing preraiuras to such as
are raore eminently industrious, and partly to assist towards
putting out apprentices such as have deserved this distinction."
This passage is quoted from a clear and judicious account
of the intended improvements in the charity schools of this
city, which cannot be too attentively read, or too widely cir
culated.

ON EDUCATION. 239
to satisfy those who insist upon the argument with
truth ; but there is reason to fear that very few have
a right to insist upon it at all. The children of too
many, when they are dismissed from our schools,
are loiterers at home, or vagrants in the streets ; and
the habits, they by these means contract, defeat the
valuable ends for which these schools were insti
tuted. We are, therefore, consistent with ourselves,
and kind to others, when we prevent their neglect
from counteracting our care. But we do more.
We beget in these children more regular habits of
industry, and we convey to them a more exact know
ledge of the little arts in which they are employed,
than desultory and solitary labour can bestow. We
do not impose upon them such severe toils as will
entirely disable the diligent from contributing at
home to the support of their parents. We give
them instruction, which is in sorae raeasure con
nected with the raore laborious eraployments to
which they will be hereafter summoned; and we
provide, too, means of subsistence for seasons when
the poor may derive many comforts yet unforeseen
from the task you assign them. Those comforts
may be found in change of place, in old age, or in
an unprosperous state of trade. We will consider
them separately.
By the unknown and unavoidable accidents of
life, they who now reside among you may be re
moved to some distant part of the kingdom, where
their skill in the established manufactures of the
city will be of no service to them, and where, from
untoward circumstances, they cannot find any other

240 A DISCOURSE
sort of employraent. I know not thatthe case here
supposed will often happen ; but whensoever it does
happen, your regulations will supply some little re
sources, sufficient, I should hope, to prevent ex
treme penury, and to avert temptation to those
enormities to which inevitable and helpless want
sometiraes incites. All habits of manual labour ac
quired when the mind is active, and the limbs are
supple, continue for a long tirae ; and though sus
pended by employments of a different sort, they are
recovered without rauch difficulty. The irapleraents
for spinning are by no means expensive, and the
produce of it not being dependent, like the higher
branches of raanufactures, upon local opportunities
for action, upon the exigencies of luxury, or upon
the caprices of fashion, is sure of finding a purchaser
at all times and in all places. But upon the advan
tages of wliich I am now going to speak I lay far
greater stress. Incapacity for work of every kind
adds much to the gloora and the dreariness of old
age. What is not usually acquired in the early time
of life, when it is not imraediately wanted, and when
amidst the bloom of health and the vigour of youth
men are qualified for harder toils, may, if acquired,
be easily and profitably resuraed at sorae future day
by those who now follow your directions. — It wiU
cheer them under the painful consciousness of
growing imbecility,* to find that sorae capacity for
* This thought is most pathetically expressed by Lysias.
ev be rjJ yrip<t dbvvdrovs fiev elvai rji awfian, iraawv b' direare-
pr}fievovs tu>v eXiribwv, iiipiXovs Kal airopovs yeyovevai. — Aoyos
'E7rtrd0tos, vol, ii. p. 314. edit. Auger.

ON EDUCATION. 241
action yet remains. It will soften every debasing
and galling idea of dependence, to be in some degree
qualified for supporting themselves. Such are the
consolations which you are storing up for the aged ;
and even before the lingering and listless state of
decrepitude shall have come, many unexpected and
awful occasions may arise in which the usefulness of
your regulations will be clearly evinced. No man
can reflect without mingled feelings of compassion
for the distresses, and of horror- at the criraes, of the
poor in a coramercial city when trade receives any
sudden check and the usual course of business is
stagnated. — But if your scheme be carried into exe
cution the distaff may be substituted for the loom ;
and however trifling such a circumstance may ap
pear in a dim and distant prospect, many iraportant
benefits may be secured, and many dismal mischiefs
prevented, when the fatal hour is actually arrived.
The innocence, the livelihood, the liberty, and even
the existence of many a poor man, raay be the
blessed fruits of that very plan, which they who un
derstand it not, and they who are to be chiefly bene
fited by it, are now the most forward to condemn.
In seasons of distress to whom shall the poor flee
for succour ? shall they throw themselves at the feet
of the rich ? The rich may turn a deaf ear to their
prayers. And should the suppliant be told, that if
" he had not been obstinate in refusing the means of
support you held out to hira, and perversely doomed
hiraself to inaction and misery, he would not now be
starving" — what reply can he reasonably make to
these cutting reflections ? Spurned from the door
VOL. II. R

242 A DISCOURSE
of the opulent, shall he ask a morsel of bread from
the manufacturer ? The manufacturer may not
have it in his power to relieve those whom he has
ceased to employ. His attention may be engrossed
by the hardships which have overtaken himself, or
those who are nearest and dearest to him ; or
through the melancholy weakness of human nature,
his heart may be steeled by that obduracy and that
selfishness which, in seasons of public calamity,*
every sagacious observer of life knows to operate
most forcibly and most fatally upon the tumultuous
fears or the wild desperation of mankind.
Such are the iramediate and such the contingent
advantages which may result from your regulations.
I mean not to offend your delicacy, but to expose the
errors of those by whora you are censured, when I
turn ray raind to the raotives by which it is even
possible for you to be irapelled. You are proraoting
no iraraediate, and many of you, it may be said, no
remote interests of your own. You are not indulging
that intellectual pride which seeks for praise frora
ingenious inventions. You are not giving way to
the impulses of that activity which looks for gratifi
cation from arduous and perilous enterprize. You
are planning not for yourselves nor your own fami
lies, but for other men and for the children of other
men. You encourage, but do not compel them to
provide for their own well being. You mean to

* See a striking description of despair and unfeelingness in
Thucydides's Description of the Plague, book ii. avofiias to
vdarifia k. t. X.

ON EDUCATION. 243
protect, but not to betray. In order to promote their
happiness you give up much of your own time, your
own counsel, and your own money. It were there
fore rash to dispute the wisdom of your measures ;
and to arraign the rectitude of your intentions, is in
the extreme wicked.
But let those who cannot comprehend your de
signs forbear to blame them — let those who are un
able or unwilling to promote them, be content with
the negative merit of not opposing them — let those
who do not aspire to the praise of active benevo
lence, endeavour at least to escape the infamy of po
sitive malignity.
As I would not trifle with the prejudices of the
poor, because it is illiberal, so I would not always
yield to them, because it is unwise. And sure I am,
that if your plan should be laid, as it were, on the bed
of a Procrustes, in order to be stretched or mutilated
at the arbitrary appointment of every ignorant and of
ficious objector, all its proportions would quickly be
defaced, its vital parts would decay, and their func
tions would soon be at a pause. But why, it may
be asked, does any prejudice exist at all ? I will not
subject myself to the pain of enumerating all the
reasons which may operate ; such as the dread of
appeai'ing to be compelled, the desire of assuming a
little momentary importance in resisting the wiU of
a superior, the mere love of singularity, and other
motives, which perhaps are of a worse complexion.
But for the conduct of the poor, palliations, at least,
may be found ; and who that has a right to value
r2

244 A DISCOURSE
himself upon his candour and his philanthropy,
would not be happy to find them ?
If impertinent, and, I fear, wicked men, did not
blow up a spirit of opposition araong the inferior
orders of our citizens, all these peevish censures,
and all these suUen raurraurs, would rage only for a
short tirae, and be productive of no great raischief.
Araong judges so incorapetent and so deluded it
may be not worth while at all times and on all sub
jects, to plant arguments against misrepresentations.
But on the present occasion some steps must be
taken to check the causes of discontent ; and in
taking thera, your candour will, I think, prevent
you frora encountering the unfortunate preposses
sions of the poor with excessive and undistinguishing
severity. You have too rauch wisdora to give them
even a temporary importance by fierce oppositions.
You will find that your words, in the beginning of
the conflict, will sooth those whom it is impossible
to convince, and that your actions will enable you
ultimately to rectify aU their hasty mistakes, and to
aUay all their groundless apprehensions.
Unwilling as I am to give way to the insolence,
or to gloss over the corruptions of the poor, I always
feel a sincere and painful compassion for their in
firmities. Disgusted we indeed may be at the pe
tulance, exasperated at the ingratitude, and asto
nished at the stubbornness of our inferiors ; and yet,
upon cool reflection, we shall find a great part of
their misconceptions and misconduct to take its
rise, rather from their contracted habits of thinking,
than from a fixed malignity of heart. They see

ON EDUCATION. 245
very little, they hear much, they imagine far more ;
and from the effervescence of this confused and dis
cordant mass arise those opinions which inflame
their furious passions, and hurry them into excesses
the most inexplicable and most uncontroulable. But
a man of the world, doubtless, will perceive, that a
little resolution well directed may confound the
boldest, and that a little patience may beget in the
most perverse a disposition " to hear and to be
lieve." A Christian, calling to mind his own fail
ings, will catch the forgiving spirit of his dying Re
deeraer, and will say, " Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do."
Pardon me, when, appealing to your sober judg
ment, and to your tenderest sensibilities, I thus stand
forth to apologise for the poor. Your knowledge
of the human heart will, I am sure, prevent you from
being surprised if, not distinguishing iraprovement
from innovation, they presurae to impute your kind
ness to motives of latent selfishness, and your pro
tection to indirect views of tyranny. Your discre
tion, at the sarae time, and your candour, will lead
you to the use of such expedients as may disarm
them of all their prepossessions, and induce thera to
give up ideal or frivolous rights for the sake of sub
stantial and permanent advantages.
Uncomraon it is not, and it is, I confess, exceed
ingly painful, for the best of raen to have their best
actions misconceived, vilified, and counteracted by
the very persons whom they wished to serve. But
to endure unmerited reproach forms no inconsider
able part of a Christian's trial. On the other hand.

246 A DISCOURSE
our pride must be of the most abject kind if it suf
fers mortification from vulgar reproach; and our
virtue surely is without stability and without dig
nity, if we can permit the course of it to be inter
rupted by complaints, which originate in the stu
pidity, or the perverseness of other men, or by the
imputation of crimes, for which our " own con
sciences conderan us not."
Glad I ara to find that even absurdity and que-
rulousness have their boundaries ; for, whatever un
worthy opinions raay have been entertained about
the raotives which induce you to alter the raode of
educating boys, not a whisper has been raised
against the regulations which are intended for the
benefit of the other sex. In respect to thera, there
is no alarm about the wantonness of innovation, no
suspicion of lurking deceit, no dread of usurped and
perverted power.
The superior strength* both of body and mind
which the Creator has bestowed upon man, is a
raanifest indication of the superior part he is to sus
tain upon the great theatre of the world.
Hence not only the higher iraprovements in
science, and the momentous concerns of Govern
ment, are generally entrusted to raen, but the more
arduous employraents even of private life are pro
perly assigned to thera, because they are raost able
to bear their pressure. That God has raade nothing
* UdvTWV fiev fierixei yvvf/ eiriTrjbevfidrwv Kara (jivaiv, irdvrwv
be avf/p' eirl irdai be daOei earepov yvvrj dvbpbs, — Plato, p. 455
tom. ii. edit. Ser.

ON EDUCATION. 247
in vain, is, however, a maxim not less applicable
surely to females. They have wants to be supplied,
they have passions to be restrained, they are capable
of peculiar virtues, which ought to be cherished,
and they are subject to peculiar difficulties, which
ought to be alleviated. Their scanty acquaintance with
the business of the world leaves them an easy prey
to the seductions of the betrayer, and their unresist
ing feebleness lays them open to the scourge of the
oppressor. Yet by a lamentable imperfection, which
pervades almost all public institutions, less provision
has been made for their happiness than benevolence,
if it be consistent, would wish, and less even than
policy, if it be sound, can warrant. The fact is no
torious, whatever may have been the cause ; whether
it be that projectors, with a selfisness and jealousy
sometimes imputed to lawgivers, are more anxious
to provide for themselves than for others ; or, that
the bustle of active life seldom leaves room for su
bordinate considerations ; or that the huraan raind
is more powerfully influenced by sensibilities which
familiar scenes continually set in motion, than by
reflection, which goes in quest of objects however
distant, and which surveys with equal attention all
the relations of all the parts in a wide and compli
cated whole.
In countries totally barbarous,* women, for the

* The effects of barbarism and civilization upon the state of
women are explained very accurately and very ingeniously by
Professor Millar, in his first chapter on the Origin of the Dis
tinction of Ranks. I shall not quote particular passages, but

248 A DISCOURSE
most part, appear in a deplorable and degraded con
dition. They either are permitted to languish in
sullen and inglorious inactivity, or they are doomed
to toil in the raost painful employraents, without
distinction and without reward. It falls not within
the liraits of this discourse to investigate the gene
ral causes of this treatment, or to enumerate the
particular exceptions to it. Of the causes, it is
sufficient to say that the most frequent and most
efficacious of them are to be found In the " dangers
to which raen* were exposed of perishing from
hunger," in the efforts they were corapelled to make
for "procuring the necessaries of life," in their ob
scure notions of duty. In the unsettled state of their
property, in their love of excessive indolence, pro
duced by excessive labour, in their extravagant ad
miration of military valour, and their ferocious con
tempt of doraestic drudgery. As to the exceptions,
every curious and benevolent enquirer is happy to
meet with them in those elevated sentiraents, and
that rude superstition, which are recorded of the
antient inhabitants of Germany ; in the fantastic
but generous spirit of gallantry that burst through
the gloom which envelopes the ages of chivalry,
and in the coarse policy which is said even now to
refer the reader to the whole, as raost worthy his perusal. But
I have seen the subject no where treated in a manner so mas
terly as by the philosophical and eloquent Dr. Stuart, in his
View of Society in Europe. See chap. i. sect. 2. chap. ii.
sect. 2. The notes and illustrations on these sections are par
ticularly deserving of notice.
* Millar, p. 55.

ON EDUCATION. 249
prevail among some tribes of North America.* It
may not, however, be improper or unimportant for
us to remark, that these exceptions relate, for the
most part, not to the general condition of the sex,
but to those who were distinguished by personal
beauty or splendid birth ; and that they operated
more in the business of government,-|- which was
confined to a few, than in those duties of private
life which exercise the powers, solicit the care, and
supply the wants of all the different orders belong
ing to a community. Now to perpetuate what was
temporary, to extend what was confined, and to re
gulate, upon principles of an enlarged and profound
policy, what, in times less auspicious, was the result
of accident or whim, of national prejudice or tradi
tional opinion, of blind passion in the savage chief
tain, or of tumultuous affection in the heroic barba
rian, is the noble privilege of those whom Provi
dence has placed in a better state of manners ; and
let rae add, too, that it is the indispensable duty of
ourselves and others, whora the Deity has enlight
ened by the doctrines of a raore sublirae religion.
We indulge our inquisitiveness in surveying the
customs of past ages ; we exercise our sagacity in
exploring the sources from which they sprung ; and
we gratify our philanthropy in observing the allevi
ations which the great Governor of the Universe
has scattered over the most imperfect and most

* See Millar, p. 62.
t See Millar and Stewart. See also Selden's Janus, p. 24 ;
and Plato de Repub. p. 456.

250 A DISCOURSE
wretched state of mankind. It well becomes us,
then, to employ the sarae care in considering by
what raeans the advantages of a more improved
condition may be secured, extended, and multiplied.
Now, when nations have arrived at a higher pitch
of refineraent ; when the harshness of raan in his
savage state is quite corrected ; and when experience
has shewn the necessity of eraploying every species
and every degree of labour in the iraproveraent of
arts, woraen begin to assume a raore just and more
exalted rank among social creatures, who can value
the importance of society itself. They are no longer
considered as being, what the great God of heaven
and earth never intended they should be, an useless
incumbrance, or a glittering, but erapty ornaraent.
They are found to be capable both of contributing to
our conveniences, and of refining our pleasures.
Their weakness is therefore protected, their fine
sensibilities becorae the object of a regard that is
founded on principle as well as on affection, and
their talents are called forth into public notice.*
* Ilepl aperfjs, w KXea, yvvaiKHv, oil rriv avrfjv ria QovKvbibrj
yvwvr)v exofieV 6 fiev ydp, rjs av iXdxiaros r) irapd to'is eKrbs
ipoyov irepi i) eiraivov Xciyos, apiarrjv arroijiaiveTai' KaBdirep to
aS>fia, Kal rovvofia rrjs dyaBijs yvvaiKos oiofievos be'iv KaraKXeia-
Tov elvai (Ca! dve^obov' rifiiv be KOfi-ijjorepos fiev 6 Topyias ipaive-
rai, KeXevwv firi to eibos, ciXXd rrjv bo^av eivai iroXXols yvwpifiov
rfjs yvvaiKos. — Plutarch, de Mul. Virtut. vol. ii. p. 242.
See Wolfius' Collection of the Greek Poetesses, and of the
Female Prose Writers, each in quarto. The History of Female
Philosophers which Menage has annexed to the second volume
of Diogenes Laertius. See also, in the Supplement to Dodsle)',
an elegant poem, called the Feminead, by the learned Mr. Dun
combe. — See also vol, i, p. 520, of Gesn. Isag.

ON EDUCATION. 251
Hence the excellence * which some of them have
displayed, in the elegant accomplishments of paint
ing, and music, and poetry ; •jf in the nice discrimi
nations of biography ; in the broader researches of
history ; in moral compositions, ;{: where the subject
is not obscured by the arts of a quaint and spurious
philosophy, but illuminated by the graces of an un
affected and natural eloquence ; where, through the
labyrinths in which are to be found the most hidden
and complex principles of thought and action, we
are conducted by the delicate and faithful clue of
manners ; and where, instead of being harrassed by
subtleties which beguile and weary the understand
ing, we are led, by a sort of magical attraction,
through a long and varied train of sentiraents, which
charra and improve the heart. Hence the employment

* The truth of this assertion will be readily admitted in an
age which, like our own, may boast of an Aikin and a More, a
Sheridan and a Seward, a Brooke and a Burney, a Carter and a
Montague. In this splendid catalogue raight be justly placed
a lady, whose narae, indeed, I ara not at liberty to mention, but
whose virtues are well known among the patrons of our charity-
schools, whose taste has been happily displayed in the decora
tion of our Cathedral, and whose poetical compositions are
eminently distinguished by harmony of numbers, by elegance
of diction, and by delicacy of sentiment.
To the productions of such woraen, the raost accomplished
and profound scholar would not disdain to transfer the pane
gyric which Socrates bestows on the eloquence of Aspasia. See
the Menexenus, in fine.
"f- H' ovv avbpdai irdvra irpoard^ofiev, yvvaiKl be oiibev ; irHs ;
dXX' ean yap {olfiai] ws (pr/aofiev, Kal yvvi) fiovaiKi) (jivaei. — Plato
p. 455. tom. ii.
J Tl be, (piXoaoipos eari yvvi) ; ean Kal ravra. — Plato, p. 456.

252 A DISCOURSE
assigned to others in raany different branches of
manual labour ; and hence too the provisions, which
in these later tiraes have been raade for the repose
of their declining age, for their comfort in the pangs
of child-birth, and for their recal to those paths of
virtue, from which, in the giddy raoraents of youth,
and araidst the treacherous snares of seduction, they
had unhappily wandered.
But to the education of young women in the
humbler classes of society, sufficient attention has
not hitherto been shewn. In Popish countries, in
deed, the raonastic life affords an asylura to the
friendless, and employment for the industrious. But
in our own nation, where they may be protected
surely as efficaciously, and far more becomingly em
ployed, no substitute for the advantages afforded by
monasteries has appeared ; unless, indeed, we look
to some hospitals into which young persons of both
sexes are admitted. These exceptions, however, do
not take away the general defect ; and at the same
time they ought to be an additional incentive for us
to supply it, so far as our plan will allow.
That the sensibilities of females are more keen,
and their apprehension raore quick than those of
boys, is, I believe, generally adraitted. In conforraity
to this distinction, therefore, your scherae for the
education of females comprehends a greater variety
of objects than It is either necessary or practicable
for you to pursue in the instructions you give to the
other sex. I proceed, then, to explain, and should
there be occasion for it, to justify this part of your
system by a more minute detail.

ON EDUCATION. 253
Religion, doubtless, upon the great scale of
national utility and moral obligation, is equally at
tainable and equally salutary to men and women.
The latter, however, from the tranquillity, it may be,
of their situations, and from the exquisiteness of
their feelings, are more susceptible during their
youth of pious impressions, than the roving and
gay dispositions of boys. A writer,* whose elegant
attainments and splendid diction give too much po
pularity even to his errors, has, I know, indulged
himself in raany petulant and conteraptuous scoffs
at the weakness of feraale superstition. To those
scoffs I oppose the general opinion, not merely of
the wise and good, but of every person who is not
singular in sentiment as well as habit, and corrupt
in principle as well as practice. Religion is thought
to plant such securities around the innocence of
females, and to shed such a lustre upon their vir
tues, that the avowed and open conterapt of it in a
woraan is shocking to our sensibilities as well as to
our reason. There is, on the other hand, a lovely
and captivating grace in female piety, which men of
the most exalted understanding are not ashamed to
admire, and which the philosophical scorner is un
able to attain. With consummate propriety then,
have you taken care that these children should be
early trained up in the love and fear of God ; and by
familiarizing to their rainds those awful sentiraents
which the belief of a Deity inspires, you have
guarded thera from the fatal and extravagant errors,
* Mr. Gibbon.

254 A DISCOURSE
which a sense of religion, if it comes on later in life,
is too apt to produce.
As to the acquisitions of mere reading and writing,
they are erainently serviceable to boys ; but in re
gard to feraales, I do not conceive thera to be of equal
use, unless they be accompanied by other attain
ments of a more domestic nature. Those attain
ments, I confess, have not been entirely neglected
by you upon former occasions. But the means for
pursuing them are likely to be conducted with more
regularity, and to a greater extent, in the plan which
has been lately formed.
Something, perhaps, ought to be said about the
mode in which this plan will be executed. Yet,
frora my unwillingness to offend, and from my dread
of being misconceived, I have a difficulty in expres-
ing what I really think. Let others then decide,
what degrees of concession ought to be made from
the many to the few ; how far general rules raay be
relaxed in accoraraodation to teraporary and parti
cular circurastances ; to what extent the executive
power should be controuled by the deliberative in
the education of females by females ; where the
rights of a trustee terminate, and where the privi
leges of a coraraittee begin. For my own part, I
think that discussions of this kind, antecedently to
the occasions that call for them, will not often be
satisfactory to raen of good sense ; and, I ara per
suaded, that all questions leading to such discus
sions, should either be industriously shunned, or
entered upon dispassionately, and pursued with an
unfeigned spirit of rautual civility and mutual confi-

ON EDUCATION. 255
dence. As the division of labour facilitates every
kind of employment immediately, and ultimately
increases the aggregate etfects, so in the manage
ment of these schools, a separation of offices al-
loted to men and women, will prevent rauch unne
cessary delay in the exertions of both. I would
add, that by transferring a power which we cannot
ourselves use, to the extent in which it may contri
bute to the improvement of these children, we do
not renounce any right, which a judicious and
truly benevolent subscriber would desire to retain.
The matter stands thus : Men, as your common
sense will tell you, are the most competent judges
of the instruction and government which are neces
sary for boys ; and women, for reasons equally ob
vious, and equally cogent, must have more correct
apprehensions of the raethods which are fit to be
pursued in the education of their sex. We have
both of us our own distinct provinces : we possess
distinct qualifications for carrying on respectively
the business of them with propriety ; we are engaged
in a comraon cause ; we are influenced by the sarae
common motives of humanity ; and surely we shall
not be so unwise or so perverse, as to sacrifice the
real and sohd advantages of our charity to a tena-
ciousness of petty or imaginary rights. It cannot
reasonably be expected, that the female patronesses
of these schools, who are persons disinterested in
their intentions, elegant in their manners, and re
spectable in their situations, should bend to the
drudgery of explaining minutely every opinion, or
of vindicating formally every regulation. It were

256 A DISCOURSE
an affront to those nice sensibilities which animate
their exertions for the general good of our charita
ble system, to require that they should encounter
the harsh surmises and uncouth contradictions,
which in a large and mixed assembly cannot always
be avoided. They whose pecuniary contributions
are equal, and whose judgment, and perhaps zeal,
upon sorae parts of our plan are superior to our own,
must be permitted in their turn to exercise such
rights as do not clash with the rules we establish
for children, who fall raore iraraedlately under our
own care. Great delicacy, I think, is due to their
sex ; great deference to their understandings and
experience ; and a yet greater portion of gratitude,
to their diligence, to their ardour, and to their kind
ness. I will not, however, prosecute this enquiry
through all the particulars into which it might lead
us ; and in delivering my general sentiraents, I con
sider rayself only as speaking what your own polite
ness has already prorapted you to wish, and your
own wisdora will certainly induce you to practise.
I am not assuraing the language of aft'ected sin
gularity or paradoxical theory, when I say, that in
the present condition of society, females, from acci
dent rather than systera, have, upon the whole, the
advantage over us in point of education. We read
critically the ancient writers — we diligently investi
gate natural causes — we wind through the raazes of
logic, and endeavour to fathora the depths,^of meta
physics. Yet I have reason to fear, that the in
structions given to young men have not always so

ON EDUCATION. 257
direct and fiill a tendency * as might be wished, to
qualify them for active life, or to promote those
ends to which all the exercise we assign to the un
derstanding in the sciences, and all the polish we
can give it from literature, should be ultimately
subservient. But " women," -f- says an acute and
¦* In recommending the study of ethics to young academics,
I ara supported by the high authorities of Johnson and Thoraas
Warton. No man feels a more sincere veneration than I do for
the abstruse sciences in which they are engaged, and in which
many of them, I know, make a most laudable and honourable
proficiency. But I hope to give no offence, in applying to
those, and to those only, who do not make a right use of philo
sophical knowledge, or who pursue it to the total neglect of
other kinds of learning, the following passages from my favourite
moral writer : Xluires yap, <is dirXSis eiirelv, oi dpxofievoi fiXo-
aocjre'iv, tovs irpbs bo^av Xoyovs biwKovai fidXXov, ot fiev, &airep
bpviBes eirl rriv XafiirpoTrira rwv (pvaiKuiv Kal to v\pos iiirb Koviporrj-
TOs Kal (piXoTtfiias Karatpovres, o"ibe wairep rd aKvXaKia {^^rjalv b
irXdrwv) T^ eXKeiv Kal airaparreiv x^-'P"^'^^^) '"¦' ras epibas Kal
Tas drropias Kal Ta ao(j)iafiaTa j^wpoitrti'' oi be irXe'iaroi rdis Aia-
XeKTiKols evbvvres, eiiBvs eiriairiSovTai irpbs aoAiareiav. — Plu
tarch, de Prefect. Virtut. Sent. vol. ii. p. 78.
MaXXov b' av ns aKpodrov KarayeXdaeiev eis fiiKpd Kai yXia-
Xpa irpofiXrifiara tov biaXeyofievov kivoUvtos' oia repBpevofievoi
Tives riov vewv, Kal irapeiribeiKvvfievoi AiaXeKriKrjv J; fiaBrjfiariKrjv
e^iv, eiwBaai irpopdXXeiv irepl rrjs riov dpiarwv rofirjs, Kal ris fj
Kara irXevpdv rj Kara Aidfierpov Kivrjais' irpos ovs eanv eiirelv
TO iiTrb ^iXorifiov irpbs rbv efiirvov Kal ipBiaiUvra prjBeV e-irei ydp
eXaXriaev aiirw ^apfiaKiov airSrv irpbs irapwvvxio-Vt aiaBofievos
airb rrjs xpoas Kal T^s dvairvo^s rr/v AidBeaiv, Oi)K 'ian aoi (0jj-
alv) y (ieXnare, irepl irapwwxias 6 Xoyos* ovbe aoi Toivvv, w eis
veavia, irepl toiovtwv SriTrjfidrwv wpa aKoirelv, aXXa irws oirifiaros
Kal dXaSoveias, epwrwv re Kal ipXvapias diroXvdeis, jet's fiiov drv-
<^ov Kal vyiaivovra Karaarriaeis aavrbv. — Plutarch, de Auditione,
vol. ii. p. 43.
f See Smith, vol. iii. p. 181.
VOL. II. S

258 A DISCOURSE
penetrating writer, whose opinion I have eagerly
applied to our cause, wheresoever it was possible,
" are taught what their parents and guardians judge
it necessary, or useful for them to have, and they
are taught no raore. Every part of their education
tends to sorae useful purpose, to forra their rainds
to reserve, to modesty, to chastity, to economy, to
render them both likely to become mistresses of a
family, and to behave properly when they becorae
such. In every part of her life a woman feels some
advantage or conveniency from every part of her
education." — To this aniraated and aniraating de
scription few exceptions are to be found ; unless, in
the lower ranks of life, where useful knowledge is
rarely taught, and in the very highest, where trifling
accorapllshraents, says an ingenious essayist,* " are
too often permitted to usurp the whole attention of
their earlier years."
Whether the sagacious Dr. Smith be, or be not,
mistaken in assigning the causes of those defects,
which, in his opinion, may be iraputed to our public
plans for a learned education, were an invidious, and
upon the present occasion, a superfluous enquiry ;
let it be, however, some consolation to us, that the
objections he makes to the imperfect and unprofit
able education of males, do not reach to our own
plan for the instruction of these boys ; and let us
also remember, that, as the protectors of females,
we may secure for the lower classes, those important

* Dr. Gregory, in his Essays lately published.

ON EDUCATION. 259
objects which he considers as attainable by every
class. In the general tendency then of your regulations
for the instruction of young women, I have seen the
strongest appearances both of solid sense and the
most refined dehcacy. The punishments which you
have appointed for laziness and irregularity, are at
once efficacious to the offender, and unalarming to
the humane spectator. The employments which
you have prescribed may be stretched almost through
the whole circle of female duty and female economy,
by those who are to pursue them.* They contain
whatever can be useful to them, whether as mis
tresses of little families which are their own, or as
servants in the farailies of their superiors. They
are calculated to cherish that prudence which is ne
cessary in every station, and that cleanliness which
is peculiarly ornaraental to the female sex. They
tend to produce such habits of industry as are con
nected with the immediate business of these little
ones, and such too as they can with ease and with
advantage carry into the very few doraestic employ
ments which are not directly included within our
plan. Great praise is, I think, due to the gradations
which you have established. All are protected and
instructed ; all are at the same time encouraged to

 Lydas tamen ilia per urbes
QuaesiSrat studio nomen memorabile : quamvis
Orta domo parv£l, parvis babitiirat Hypoepis.
Ov. Metam. lib. vi. 11.
s2

260 A DISCOURSE
aspire to more honourable protection and more use
ful instruction. You hold out rewards to the dili
gent and to the obedient ; and those rewards, while
they are accompanied by a pleasing reflection on the
causes frora which they proceeded, carry with theni
qualifications for higher excellence, and for recom
pence more lucrative, and for distinctions raore flat
tering. No partiality towards individuals, no re-
comraendations frora friends, no importunate soli
citations from parents, will be suffered to influence
your choice in advancing those children from the
lower schools, to that which in dignity and in utility
is the first.*^ That advancement is intended as a re
ward for their past good behaviour, and will operate,
I doubt not, as an incentive to their future. At the
sarae time they who lose, as well as those who gain
promotion, are eventually improved by their endea
vours to deserve it.
The imperfection of your former plan appears
frora one circurastance, which I heard with sorrow
for what has been, and which I now mention with

* " A superior school is to consist of twenty or twenty-five
girls, as it raay happen, who are to be admitted at the age of
eleven years, and to continue there till they are sixteen years
of age. In this school they are to be lodged, maintained,
clothed, and instructed in reading and writing. No female
servant is to be kept in the house, but these children are, in
their turns, to discharge all the useful domestic employments
of women ; they are to be taught the common business of a
family, to wash, bake, brew, cook, and to learn every species
of behaviour and work that is suitable for servants at first, and
for mistresses of families, in case they should afterwards be
called upon to act in that sphere."

ON EDUCATION. 261
pleasure, in the expectation of what wiU hereafter
be. When enquiry was made about children whom
you might elect into the higher schools, the list of
those who from their age or their attainments,
were capable of being elected, fell short of the
number whom your resources enabled and your re
gulations directed you to admit. But when so
much new instruction is given, and so many new
incitements are proposed for attending to it, this
raelancholy deficiency will, I hope, never again be
experienced. According to the large scheme that
will be now adopted, you are securing more effectu
ally and raore iramediately those ends for which
your schools are primarily intended — you fill up
the wide gap that was left between childhood and
youth — you prevent the negligence or the bad ex
amples of parents, from corrupting the good opi
nions which you have planted, and the good habits
which you have encouraged — you guard these
young women from vice and misery, at a season in
which they stand most in need of assistance and
counsel. Forraerly, when they left your schools
they were; seldom old enough to enter upon any
useful employraents ; but many of them now will
not be dismissed till they are qualified for such la
bours as in their stations are of the most import
ance. At that critical time of life when the passions
are strong, and when ignorance of the world lays
young women open to the most formidable dan
gers,* they will be guided by your advice, and pro-
* To those who are young, and beautiful, and indigent,

262 A DISCOURSE
tected by your favour. All the virtuous sentiments
which they have imbibed, and all the useful habits
which they have contracted, will be exercised and
confirmed. They will continue obedient to autho
rity, active in business, and fervent in prayer. They
will be acquiring new information for the better
prosecution of their remote interests, and new
strength to resist the temptations which may soon
surround them.
From the mere circumstance of having protec
tion administered by a female, the minds of females
will probably derive a secret and exquisite satisfac
tion, that softens every affliction and heightens
every enjoyment. Their harmless vanity will be
gratified, when they receive favours that are not
bestowed upon them with a slovenly or contemptu
ous air. Their eyes will sparkle with joy, and their
every sincere lover of virtue, and every correct observer of
life, will anticipate me in applying these beautiful lines.
Tepetv' oirutpa b' eiiijivXaKTOS oitbafiiiis.
KapirwfiaTa araSovra Krjpvaaei KuTrpis.
Kat irapOevwv xXibalaiv evfiopifmis lm
Has ns irapeXBirv ofifiaros ipeXKrripiov
T6i,evfi irrefi-i^ev, Ifiipov viKwftevos.
iEschyl. Supplices, 1. 1012.
The reader of taste and sensibility will naturally recollect the
language of the dying Chrysis :
 hujus formam atque aetatem vides,
Nec clam te est, quam illi nunc utraeque inutiles,
Et ad pudicitiam et ad rem tutandam fient.
Terent. Andr. act i. scene v.
I pray God that these most instructive and pathetic words
may sink deeply into the heart of every young man who may
cast his eye upon this note.

ON EDUCATION. 263
bosoms will glow with gratitude, when they are
visited by persons to whose superiority in birth, in
station, in politeness of raanners, and in variety of
accomplishments, they are accustomed to look up
with reverence and admiration.
The usefulness of female superintendence is not
confined to the dexterity that may be acquired in
the tasks, which are enjoined these scholars. Many
amusements which at once are entirely innocent
and highly pleasing, in their hours of leisure, many
preservatives for their health, and many coraforts
for them in seasons of sickness, raay be pointed
out, in consequence of the rainute and vigilant at
tention which is now shown to every want, how
ever remote, and every convenience, however incon
siderable. Under the auspices of such guardians, many
secret faults may be rectified which the broader
views of men do not suffer them to perceive ; raany
kind offices may be tendered which our rougher
habits of thinking may prevent us frora perforraing.
These children may be set right in a thousand
points of those petty morals, as they are called,
which it is raore easy to feel than to describe ; and
a thousand delicacies which, in the meanest station,
adorn the female character without weakening it,
may be properly taught them, under the inspection
of persons by whom they are most accurately un
derstood and most exemplarily practised. The
sense of shame will acquire new keenness ; the.
springs of emulation will be invigorated ; all the
little jealousies which sour their terapers will

264 A DISCOURSE
speedily be calmed, and all the sallies of their levity
will be curbed effectually.
Their discerning patronesses may see, in sorae
one or other of these scholars, a faint dawning of
that genius which adorned the feraale artist whom
antiquity has celebrated, and which, in those whom
we instruct, is not accorapanied by any offensive
vestiges of her impiety and arrogance. They will
certainly not be slack in encouraging every appear
ance of uncomraon merit ; and however humble
may be the situation of these children, or however
confined their task, praise for performing that task
well, when bestowed upon thera by their superiors,
and diffused through the circle of their acquaint
ance, will, to their little rainds, have all the gay
lustre and all the salutary influence of great reputa
tion. It will gratify the honest pride of the pos
sessors, and excite the emulous endeavours of others,
who wish to possess it.
From the consideration of a plan so exact, so
comprehensive, and so efficacious, our thoughts are
naturaUy turned to the persons who are entrusted
with the execution of it. In the prosecution of an
iinportant and laudable purpose, various are the mo
tives for our actions, and different are the degrees
of our merit. Sorae men are impelled to the relief
of distress by the strong sympathy which similarity
of situation excites ; and others, • by an ardent love
of praise from those whose suffrages are highly ho
nourable. Some encourage us by their good wishes,
and others assist us by their money ; but they are
too indolent or too busy, too unexperienced or too

ON EDUCATION. 265
visionary, to do more. How much, then, ought we
to applaud those persons who have undertaken the
office of superintending our schools, who execute
with delicacy what is planned with wisdora, and
who supply by their particular attention what can
not be coraprehended within our general rules. I
will not, however, insult the labours of these excel
lent women with the cold and ambiguous narae of
condescension. They deserve to be classed in a
higher rank of virtue. They are raarks of good
sense united with good nature. They iraply acti
vity without officiousness, and generosity without
ostentation. They are performed for the sake of
those who, when kindness is shewn to them, can
raake no return ; and it is only in the applauding
testiraony of their own hearts, that the persons who
perforra thera can look for a sure and an adequate
recompence. How congenial, then, are these offices to the
characteristic delicacy and tenderness of females !
How infinitely more graceful it is to guide the
trembling hands, and to cheer the tiraid spirits of
these little ones, than to flutter in places of public
resort, to toil through the dull raaze of silly and
unmeaning ceremonies, or to glitter in the gaudy
and meretricious glare of fashionable apparel ! In
the still and awful season of reflection, how will
one hour thus einployed console and exalt the
mind, when whole days and whole years, trifled
away in vacant listlessness, or in giddy dissipation,
will be forgotten, as a sort of chasm in our exist-

266 A DISCOURSE
ence, or remembered only with loathing and with
sorrow !
While I view the lowering cloud of calamities
which gather from various quarters, and burst un
expectedly upon the heads of many dependent and
defenceless women, often does there rush into my
mind that pathetic language which an antient writer
thus puts into the mouth of a most affectionate and
most afflicted father :
" My sons are men, and, wheresoever fortune
May place them, cannot want the means of life.
They shall not burthen you — but, oh! my friends!
What shall become of my unhappy daughters.
With tenderest care beneath a father's hand
Cherished so long ? — Oh ! take them to thy arms.
Thou best of men " 
In the anguish of CEdipus every feeling heart
raust sympathize, when it reflects on the helpless
state of females ; and in ages yet unborn it will
redound to the honour of many worthy persons
among ourselves, to have undertaken that merciful
and moraentous task which Creon was called upon
to perforra.
Upon the propriety of this part of your plan I
look, therefore, with a raost unreserved confidence
and a raost ardent exultation ; for it tends, surely,
to lighten many of those distresses, and fence off
many of those temptations, to which young women
are particularly exposed. Their interests are more
deeply wounded than our own by capricious and
froward employers, and their reputation is blasted
more fatally Ijy the unprovoked and unrelenting

ON EDUCATION. 267
slanderer. The delicacy of their frame renders
them incapable of passing, with the versatility and
the hardiness of men, from one kind of business to
another. They cannot brave the violence of the
sky and the change of climates ; nor, when the
means of support have failed them at home, can
they seek for it in foreign countries, by roaming
over the bleak and pathless desert, by climbing the
steep and rocky precipice, or by traversing the vast
and perilous ocean. In conjugal life, their whole
care may be taken up in providing a slender pit
tance of bread, and a thin covering of rags, for
their miserable offspring ; or, in consequence of
their inability to provide them, they are crushed
under the scoffs and menaces of an imperious and
brutal husband. Even when they preserve their
virtue in an unmarried state, it frequently is diffi
cult for the most submissive to fall in with the
whims, or crouch under the insults, of their mas
ters ; and when they are excluded from servitude,
the most industrious cannot always shelter them
selves by honest expedients from the sharpest stings
of grief, and the keenest cravings of hunger.
Against many of these evils, the education you re
commend can alone furnish them with resources ;
and if the want of those resources should drive
them to snatch a precarious and disgraceful support
in the wages of prostitution, their distresses, un-
pitied as they are, and even justified — yes, I must
add, too severely unpitied, and too indiscriminately
justified, will baffle aU description.
In other cities, the prostitute may find a refuge.

268 A DISCOURSE
We rejoice, as Christians and as men, that it is
possible for her to find it ; and at the same tirae we
think a very high degree of approbation due to our
own measures, because they will place females in a
condition where, in respect to their chastity, they,
with the assistance of God, " wiU need no repent
ance." Others reraedy, but we prevent. And what,
my brethren, are the enormities and the calami
ties thus prevented? The loss of innocence and
reputation — the most inveterate habits of laziness
and vice — the torments and loathsomeness of
disease — the inability to escape frora the taunts of
monsters by whora they are first betrayed and then
insulted — the forfeiture of protection from the
world's law — the despair of receiving one transient
look of compassion, one solitary offer of succour,
one tribute of a passing sigh, which the heart at the
sight of woe involuntarily sends up to heaven —
of receiving thera, I say, not raerely frora the
churlish and venoraous raisanthrope, or the reserved
and fastidious matron, or the unthinking and un
feeling youth of either sex — but even from those
sweet and gentle natures whose tears, on other occa
sions, gush out abundantly at the first view, nay, at
the bare recital, of rauch blacker criraes, accorapa
nied by rauch lighter woe.
This part of ray subject is so extreraely interest
ing in itself, it is so closely connected with the best
effects of our institution, and it has taken such fast
hold of my attention, that I will, without reserve
and without apology, open to you the most secret
and most sacred sentiments of my bosom. Partly

ON EDUCATION. 269
from the solicitude I have ever felt to preserve
those who are entrusted to my care from rushing
incautiously toward the brink of temptation, and
partly from the habits I have contracted of intense
and solemn meditation on the awftil constitution of
the moral world, it has been my wish, and perhaps
it is my lot, to have gained some little insight into
the most hidden springs and the most intricate
channels of that guilt and misery, which in the
young we have occasion so frequently and so feel
ingly to deplore. To the hard, very hard situation
of these wretches — but why do I call them so ?
they have not had the same virtuous education
with you, and with myself ; but they have the same
understanding — the same feelings — the same Re
deemer, and the same Creator. I will correct my
self, and say — to the hard situation of these poor
woraen, I often bend my sad and serious thoughts ;
nor do I ever suffer myself to speak of thera, not
raerely with the outrageous and undistinguishing
barbarity of vulgar rainds, but even with that seve
rity which is thought by some well-meaning persons
a necessary tribute to the cause of religion. When
I recollect the wiles that are practised against thera,
the infamy with which they are branded, the little
share many of them have in bringing down destruc
tion upon themselves, and the little pains that are
taken by the very world, which condemns them for
being corrupted, to preserve thera frora corruption,
believe me, brethren, my fortitude and my piety
have sometiraes forsaken me, and, in the first pertur
bation and anguish of my soul, I have been tempted

270 A DISCOURSE
to say, "Why hast thou made them thus?" But
from these gloomy and tempestuous thoughts,
which drive us on to " charge God foolishly," a
good man quickly recovers with "fear and trem
bling ;" and then he quietly passes into this wiser
and better train of reflection. What they are they
have been made, not by their God, but by them
selves and their fellow-creatures ; by the excessive
wickedness of those who seduce, and, in part, even
by the excessive and mistaken piety of those who
censure them. Their calamities, however, are the
consequences of their sins. They are, therefore, an
awful warning for us to preserve our own inno
cence ; they are, also, strong incentives for us to
exercise our compassion meritoriously and profit
ably, not only by mitigating the sufferings of the
guilty, but by leading those who are yet undefiled
into a safer path. I mean not, be assured, to lessen
the horrors of vice, when I recommend that candour
toward the vicious, which in well-disposed minds is it-
«elf an additional restraint from their evil practices,
and which operates chiefly on the hearts of those who
are themselves virtuous. It is very easy, I know, from
the malignant motives of degradation, and it is very
right also, upon better motives of benevolence and
of caution, to hold up to young minds the lewdness,
the profaneness, and the ingratitude of prostitutes.
But the seeming extenuations of their crimes will,
by judicious management, become real and forcible
preservatives against the contagion of their exara
ple ; for it is equally easy and equally right to shew
that most of their faults originated in the craft, the

ON EDUCATION. 271
profligacy, and the cruelty of libertines, by whom
they were deceived and corrupted, and deserted and
persecuted. Even the just abhorrence of a Christian should
be mingled with tenderness, and corrected by com
prehensive views of circumstantial palliation, where
it is to be found. We should recollect, that they
who are now tainted by the last dregs of pollution
were once spotless ; that, goaded by perpetual
indignities from the vilest and the lowest herd,
they have gradually become callous to all shame ;
that, being abandoned by others, they at last de
spaired of themselves ; and that, unaccustomed to
meet with favour which might soften, or with coun
sel which might reclaim them, they lost the power
of valuing, with the expectation of receiving, either
favour or counsel. This method of considering the
subject is wise and virtuous. It is wise, because,
by proportioning our disapprobation to the real tur
pitude of crimes, we cut off every flattering hope of
impunity in the imagination of those who are yet
uncorrupted ; we make our reproaches more formi
dable according as they are more just; and we
counteract all the mischievous effects which are pro
duced upon juvenile minds by the disgusting auste
rity of the prude, and the fascinating levity of the
libertine. It is virtuous, because it prevents our
breasts from being hardened against that pity which
is the loveliest ornament, and, I am not ashamed to
say confidently, what I am able to say experimen
tally, the surest criterion of our own purity. He
that is himself " without sin " will not be the first

272 A DISCOURSE
to assert his right of " casting a stone " at others ;
but while he rejoices gratefully and meekly in the
consciousness that he now standeth, he will anxiously
and humbly take heed, lest he should hereafter fall.
If he ventures to blame the guilty, he will suspect it
possible for himself to be sometiraes wrong ; but he
will always feel the strongest assurance that he is
acting right, when he endeavours to rouse the incon
siderate, and to protect the innocent.
I ara not speaking to you in a strain of ostenta
tious and empty declamation — I am not terrifying
you or myself with the spectres of a glooray Iraagi
nation — I am not calling upon you to lavish your
sympathy upon representations of fictitious misery —
No. I am only desiring you to open your eyes to
calamities which really exist, and raany of which it
is really in your power to prevent. How raany un
happy beings, not " trained up in the way they should
go," are at this inoment pining with faraine, shiver
ing with cold, and wasting away under the slow de
predations of disease, without any habitation in
which they can lay their guilty heads ; without a
spiritual director to adraonish thera, and pour bahn
into their aching hearts ; without external succour
to support them in the last lingering remains of
iife ; and without one reflection from within, that
can assuage the terrors of impending death.
But, had they been plucked away frora the infec
tious exaraple of wicked parents ; had they not been
brought up in that gross ignorance which cannot
employ time well, or in that idleness which leaves
the mind open to the contaminations of lust, and to

ON EDUCATION. 273
the corrosions of malevolence ; had they been taught
in some little seminary to read their Bible, and to
handle the distaff, they might not have been plunged
into this joyless and helpless state. They might
have, at this very hour, been engaged as diligent
servants in some sober and reputable families ; they
might have been even mistresses of a neat and whole
sorae cottage ; or, at all events, they raight have
been guiltless and inoffensive raerabers of that com
munity from which, araidst the clamours of indigna
tion, and the hisses of contempt, they are now
driven away as a nuisance. Who, then, that reflects
upon the dark and perilous state of man, will deny,
that the terrible lot of the prostitute, unless your
tiraely care should interpose, raay await these guile
less, these harmless, and some of them, it may be,
friendless and fatherless children ? Who that, with
the discernment of a philosopher, or the principles
of a Christian, weighs in the balance the number
less possible evils from which they are rescued by
your assistance, will dare to scatter thorns in your
way, to tease you with captious contradiction, or to
make your well-meant and well-directed labours the
sport of wanton and inhuman raillery ? Hitherto, I
thank God, no one has attempted so to do.
While the most censorious man may be chal
lenged to fasten any positive charge upon your
scheme for the education of females, I, as a firm and
zealous friend of that scheme, must confess to you,
that something appears yet wanting. Your regula
tions, it is true, are now recommended by the charm
of novelty, and assisted by the fervour of fashion.
VOL. 11. T

274 A DISCOURSE
But what pleases from novelty will quickly cease to
please, because it will cease to be new ; and, as to
the votaries of fashion, they are volatile, they are
unprincipled, and they are equally incapable of any
lasting satisfaction from what is praiseworthy in
themselves, or of any acute sorrow frora the reraem
brance of what is by others done amiss. Let us,
however, congratulate ourselves, that, at the present
moment, even the thoughtless and the vain, if such
there be, are asharaed to reraain quite inactive,
when they hear the just and loud applauses which
are bestowed upon the wiser and raore amiable part
of their sex. At the same time, let us look forward
to such expedients as raay encourage and perpe
tuate the assistance of those, who now concur with
you from the purest motives in promoting the best
ends. As to my own fears (for some fears I have),
perrait rae to lay thera before you in the words of a
writer, in whora religion and learning have lately
lost one of their brightest ornaments, and whora it
is not an act of adulation or presuraption to repre
sent as summoned to that reward which the noblest
talents, exercised uniformly for the most useful pur
poses, cannot fail to attain : " As the hospitals (we
are only to substitute the word charity-schools) of
the present tirae subsist chiefly by gifts bestowed at
pleasure, without any solid fund of support, there is
danger lest the blaze of charity, which now burns
with so much heat and splendour, should die away
for want of lasting fuel; lest fashion should suddenly
withdraw her smiles, and inconstancy transfer the
public attention to something which raay appear

ON EDUCATION. 275
more eligible, because it will be new. Whatever is
left in the hands of chance, must be subject to vicis
situde ; and when any establishment is found to be
useful it ought to be the next care to make it per
manent." Idler, N°. IV.
I presume not to determine how far a permanent
establishraent is practicable in this place ; but I have
the highest authority * which this place can afford,
for saying that it is very desirable ; and I doubt not
but your future efforts will be strenuously directed
to the attainraent of so iraportant an end.
When the noisy and futile complaints now urged
against you shall have sunk into oblivion, when the
poor shall have learnt to pay the tribute of grati
tude and confidence to the poor's friend, and when
time shall have placed the utility of your measures
in a right, and, let me add, a conspicuous point of
view, contributions, I hope, will flow in from the
wise and frora the munificent. Happy shall I be
to hear that these contributions are sufficient to fill
up the measure of your benevolent purposes, and to

* Of the person referred to I cannot speak more justly or
more delicately than in the language of Demetrius Procopius,
where he is describing the characters of some illustrious Greek
prelates : avijp eibr'ifiwv rifs re 'EXXrivtKfjs, AanviKijs Kal 'IraXt-
Kfjs yXwaarjS, Kal r^s eKKXr)aiaanKrjs aKoXovdias Kal rd^ews efi-
ireipos' ireiraibevfievos rfiv re Ovpadev Kal ti'iv KaB' tj fids iraibeiav
airovbdSei Kal fieXerd ijiiXoirovws rds deias Kal tepds ypaijrds' kjj-
pvTTei Kal dvairruaaei rbv evayeXXiKbv Xoyov fierd iroXXoii SrfXov
Kal Oepfirjs dydirrfs.
See Deraet. Procop. de Eruditis Graecis, articl. 73 and 76. in
Fabricii Bibliothec. Graec. vol. xi. p. 796.
t2

276 A DISCOURSE
make the efficacy of them utterly independent upon
languid or reluctant support, upon fickle or trea
cherous desertion, and upon pertinacious or bois
terous opposition.
Reflecting upon the respectable stations, and the
solid judgment of ray audience, I have, in the course
of my Sermon, ventured now and then to step aside
from the track which is usually and properly pur
sued by writers upon subjects of this kind. I
thought it unnecessary to enforce the general obli
gations, or to state the particular restrictions of cha
rity itself I have been more intent upon confuting
the objections of your adversaries, than upon con
firming the conviction of your friends. I have been
solicitous to explain what you are doing, rather than
to inform you what you ought to do ; and as 1 well
know that your zeal does not stand in need of any
incitement from my admonitions, instead of em
ploying the arts of persuasion upon your passions, I
have endeavoured to plant before your understand
ings the evidence of facts. In any other place I
should gladly exchange the coldness and formality
of vindication for the confidence and ardour of
praise. But in this sanctuary I must rather content
rayself with justifying good actions than indulge
rayself in bestowing even merited applause upon
good raen.
From my arduous employment among you as an
instructor of young men, I thought it incumbent
upon rae not to treat the great subject of instruc
tion itself in a light or a shallow raanner ; and from
ray unshaken attachraent to the best interests of a

OlSr EDUCATION. 277
city in which I have lived, let me hope, without dis
honour, and which I shall not leave without regret,
I am sincerely happy in this opportunity of bearing
a most open and most decided testimony to the
wisdom of your regulations, and to the rectitude of
your motives.
It remains for me to address you with the solem
nity of a preacher, who is speaking in the presence
of his God, upon measures of which that God ap
proves, and with the earnestness of a fellow-crea
ture, whose face, upon any sirailar occasion, you will
hereafter " see no more."
I therefore appeal to your humanity this last time,
for the sake of these innocent children who now
stand before you ; and I make that appeal in the
narae of Jesus Christ, who has lived and died in
order to save both you and thera. I exhort you
upon every principle of social utility and of religious
obligation, •' not to be weary in well doing." I pour
forth ray unfeigned thanks to Alraighty God, for the
charitable disposition with which he has hitherto in
spired you, and for the nuraerous benefits which
have already resulted frora your pious endeavours. I
conclude with my fervent prayers, that these chil
dren may " never depart from the way in which they
should go ;" and that their successors, who in future
ages shall be trained up by the followers of your ve
nerable example, may ever continue in habits of di
ligence in their callings, of peace and sobriety in
their families, and of gratitude to their benefactors ;
or, to speak in other and better words, that they
may live in a state of constant preparation for the

278 A DISCOURSE ON EDUCATION.
tribunal of that Being, who once appeared upon
earth " to preach his Gospel to the poor," and who
will assuredly exalt both thera and their protectors
to everlasting glory in the Kingdom of his Father.

DISCOURSE

THE LATE FAST.

By PHILELEUTHERUS NORFOLCIENSIS.

1781.

'H eKelvo rjfilv Oavfiaareov fidXXov, ws iaxvpov n iroXis earl
ipvaei ; irdaxovaai yap 617 rotaira ai iroXeis vvv xP°^ov direpav
TOV, Ofiws eviai nves aiirwv fiovifioi re elal Kal ovk avarpeirovrai.
IloXXal firiv eviore, KaBdirep irXoia KUTabvofieva bioXXwrai, Kal
bioXwXaai, Kal en bioXovvrai, bid rrjv rwv KvfiepvrjTiiv Kal NAY-
TiiN fioxBripiav. See Plat. Politic, pa;;. 557. edit. Ficin.

PREFACE.

THE author of the following Discourse, is a
serious, and he hopes an unprejudiced Clergyman of
the Church of England. He conceals his name,
because he is not impelled by any motives of vanity
to venture on publication ; and he has published,
because the sentiments which he maintains seera
to coincide with the most useful purposes which
the late Fast could be intended to promote. Those
sentiments, indeed, are not likely to attract popula
rity, by slavish adulation, or seditious invective:
they flatter the prejudices of no party, and are
honestly intended to reform such immoralities as
may justly be imputed to all.
" His ego gratiora dictu alia esse scio : sed me
vera pro gratis loqui, etsi raeura ingenium non mo-
neret, necessitas cogit. Vellem equidem vobis pla-
cere, Quirites : sed multo malo vos salvos esse, qua-
licunque erga me animo futuri estis." — Orat. T. Q.
Capitolini, Liv. lib. tert. ab urbe condita.

A DISCOURSE ON THE LATE FAST.

LUKE xiii. 2, 3.

Suppose ye, that these Galileans were sinners above all the
Galileans, because they suffered such things ? I tell you
nay ; but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
THE occasion on which these words were spoken
was this : Judas Gaulonites, * a raan of a most
boisterous and intrepid temper, had raised a sedi
tion in Galilee, under the pretence of rescuing his
countryraen from the ignominious pressure of the
Roraan yoke. Unfortunately fanaticism was at
hand to supply fuel to those flames which faction
had kindled. Hence the followers of Judas, in that
bhndness of understanding, and that frenzy of pas
sion, into which they had been seduced by their
leader, resolved to pay no tribute but in the Tem
ple ; to acknowledge no king but Jehovah. After
this overt act of avowed opposition to the Romans,
and of personal indignity against Caesar himself,
they appeared at the pubhc sacrifices, intending, no
doubt, by the vehemence of their clamours, and the
notoriety of their example, to spread wide a spirit
of insurrection among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Their design was, however, crushed by the activity
¦* Vide Josephi Antiq. lib. xviii. cap. 1. edit. Genev. 153.5.

284 A DISCOURSE
of Pilate ; and it is remarkable that their offence
was punished on the sarae spot where it was com
mitted. In the temple they had determined to re
fuse the tribute which Caesar claimed : in the tem
ple they were cut off by Caesar's representative.
Some Jews, it seems, had taken occasion to men
tion the fate of these unhappy men to Jesus ; and
frora the sharpness of his reply we raay infer the
malignity of their raotives. Forgetful of their own
sins, and altogether unalarmed at the punishment
that awaited thera, they looked back with savage
triumph to the miseries of the deluded Galileans.
For this reason our blessed Lord at once mortified
their vanity, and roused them from their insensi
bility. " Suppose ye," said he, " that these Galileans
were sinners above all the Galileans, because they
suffered such things ? I tell you nay ; but except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Doubtless the
Galileans had been sinners — their calamities too
were justly and evidently the effects of their sins.
But frora these sins, however atrocious, frora those
calamities, however severe, no conclusion could be
drawn either for the comparative innocence or secu
rity of their countryraen. None for their innocence,
because the accused, who " suffered such things,
were not sinners above all other Galileans," — none
for their security, because the accusers themselves,
unless they repented, were likewise doomed " to
perish." In the words of my text yon may observe a kind
of indirect censure, which you will readily aUow to

ON THE LATE FAST. 285
have been, on thc part of Christ, most deservedly
applied, and most graciously intended. But through
the secret magic force of self-delusion, that censure
was soon forgotten by those to whora our Lord ad
dressed hiraself ; and in process of time the sen
tence accompanying it was executed with a most
astonishing exactness — It was executed by the very
conquerors who had slain the Galileans, in conse
quence of the very crimes for which the Galileans
perished ; and on the persons, or at least on the
imraediate descendants of those very men, who had
" told Christ of the Galileans," in order to sport
with their misfortunes, and to blacken their guilt.
These things are written for our adraonition.
Whether we exaraine the private or the public con
duct of raankind, we may observe, that the tempta
tions of pleasure, and wealth, and power, are hostile
even to their teraporal felicity. Inattentive to the
hand that protects, and the eye that watches over
thera, intoxicated with success, and parapered with
indulgence, nations as well as individuals often
abandon theraselves to the wildest desires of the
huraan heart. With an involuntary or perhaps an
acquired indifference to their own situation, with the
pride, though not the raalevolence of Jews, they re
count the faults and vindicate the sufferings of
other states ; and at last, in the raidst of all their
gay arauseraents, and all their towering projects, are
themselves overtaken by destruction as by a whirl
wind. This conduct, strange as it may appear in
beings who are endowed with faculties to recall the
past, and to explore the future, must not always be

286 A DISCOURSE
imputed to hypocrisy, or deliberate uncharitable
ness. Where no restraints of false shame can be
supposed to operate, and the actions of men are
sheltered frora irapertinent and unfriendly inspec
tion, few have the courage to descend into the
depths of their own bosoms, to search out every la
tent corruption, and to provide against every distant
evil to which they are peculiarly exposed. Much
less then should we wonder at their lethargy amidst
the coraraon danger, where each raan shifts off frora
hiraself what equally concerns his neighbour, and
what his neighbour equally neglects ; where all
confide in others for expedients which none have
the resolution to eraploy ; where every doubt is mis
construed into singularity, and every fear ascribed to
cowardice ; where the blind lead the blind, and the
audacious harden the audacious ; where indolence
makes the best of men unwilling to anticipate what,
as despair tells thera, cannot be prevented ; and the
worst, quite plunged in the enjoyments of to-day, set
at defiance every mischief which to-morrow may
produce. One difference there is indeed in the dispensations
of Providence, as they eventually affect men in their
collective and separate capacities ; and that one it is
most necessary for me to point out, and for you to
remember — I mean, that whatever inequality of dis
tribution may be observed araong particular raen,
the rewards and punishraents of nations are uni
forraly and visibly accoraplished in this life. The
honest endeavours of individuals are often disap
pointed ; their upright actions arc misrepresented ;

ON THE LATE FAST. 287
nor do they, in the sight of the world, receive any
recompence, however their minds may be fortified
against unmerited distress, by the hopes of future
retribution. But in the affairs of nations, the proofs
of a Providence are not left to be collected by the
slow deductions of analogy : they are written in
the clear and broad characters of experience ; and
it is scarcely possible to mention any one uncor
rupted people, who have been totally destroyed.
An enemy may have disturbed their repose, or an
oppressor may have invaded their rights ; but virtue
has ever produced such harmony of opinion, and
such concentration of strength, among those who
happily formed at once the best and the greatest
part of the citizens ; it has inspired them with such
wisdom in the council, and such vigour in the field ;
it has furnished so many resources both to repair
miscarriage and to improve success, that they have
at last risen superior to the machinations of internal
perfidy, and to the assaults of outward force. In
private life, we see men of the most licentious mo
rals, whose judgment is reserved by alraighty God
to the last day, and the lustre of whose happiness,
unclouded by the intervention of adversity, sets only
in the grave. But there is upon record no one in
stance of a whole people, whora God, after deliver
ing them oyer to an infatuated and reprobate mind,
has not finally visited with the scourge of his dis
pleasure. The fact is incontestible, and the reason is obvi
ous : for while the general tendency of sin to pro
duce misery is ascertained by experience, and while

288 A DISCOURSE
moral evil, when closely analysed, is kno-wn to re
solve itself into natural, it is not inconsistent with
the honour of God to continue even his abused mer
cies to particular persons ; to grant a partial impu
nity to transgressors, where the instantaneous exer
cise of justice might imraediately, and almost ex
clusively, involve in the punishment those who did
not share in the guilt ; to leave men in the posses
sion of external advantages, while their minds, per
haps, are inwardly racked with the most poignant
anguish. On the other hand, states can suffer only in the
aggregate character in which they offend. Religion
tells you, that their sufferings ought to be inflicted,
since it were fruitless to suspend the rigours of jus
tice among those whom raercy, instead of leading
thera to reforraation, would plunge raore deeply in
guilt. Frora reason you raay learn that their suffer
ings raust be inflicted, because the succours, which
araong individuals, are supplied by the righteous to
the wicked, and by the prosperous to the happy, can
have no place araong a people who are corrupt
without exception, and therefore are, without even
a partial exemption, exposed to the consequences of
that corruption.
As the popular representation of the punishments
assigned to states has been extravagantly misunder
stood by some, and unjustly ridiculed by others, it
may not be iraproper to state clearly and concisely,
what is raeant by the expression. States are cora
posed of individuals; and when I say, that the
former can be only, in their collective capacity.

ON THE LATE FAST. 289
punished in this world, it does not follow that the
latter are not exposed to further punishment for the
very same actions in a future world. Nations suf
fer in the subversion of their government, or in the
loss of their rights and privileges, or in the defeat
of their armies, or in the diminution of their trea
sures. These public evils are often the effects of
public vices, and are then called punishraents ; those
punishraents affect the aggregate of persons who
constitute a state ; and that state, including a com
munity of interests and relations, which do not ex
tend beyond the grave, is properly said to be capa
ble only of such evils or punishments as can be in
flicted in the present life, by the destruction of
those particular interests, and the dissolution of
those particular relations. When, therefore, the
whole of a people are criminal, no part can have a
right to be safe — where the majority are habitually
and desperately wicked, the natural consequences
that attend the vices of the many cannot be pre
vented by the virtues of the few ; and hence it is,
that flagrant and national depravity always deraands,
and always incurs, exemplary and national visi
tation. Upon subjects of general utility, it is most be
coming, and most safe, to speak a language that is
in general use ; for in the pursuit of uncomraon and
unnecessary precision we often excite doubts where
we mean only to prevent mistakes, and extinguish
the ardour of piety by the very arguments which
are employed to disperse the gloom of superstition.
Philosophy, it is true, has introduced many subtile
VOL. II. u

290 A DISCOURSE
distinctions between the ordinary and extraordinary
providence of God, and between his general and
particular dispensations. But these distinctions
have, perhaps, no absolute existence in the nature
of things : they are only relative to our imperfect
modes of conception, and serve as resting places to
finite reason when fatigued and confounded in con
templating the works of an infinite Creator. For
this reason I shall not enter into profound and in
tricate controversies, where, among the peremptory
and discordant declarations of the disputants, the
difference of their opinions is rather verbal than
real ; and where, upon every hypothesis which does
not professedly deny all divine agency, we are au
thorized to say that vice brings on misery. While
this is the case, the temporal calamities incident to
wicked raen are equally to be dreaded, and the rao
ral dispensations of their Maker are equally to be
approved, whether the sinner becomes wretched by
the operation of ordinary or extraordinary laws, by
physical necessity, or by judicial interposition. The
designs of God are perfectly consistent with each
other, however we may be pleased to distinguish them
by forensic or philosophical appellations. Though
judgments, in the coramon acceptation of the word,
be totally excluded, the vicious raan can derive no
advantage frora the exclusion, because he yet stands
exposed to the sad consequences of his vice in a
regular and established series of natural causes.
Under the government of that Being by whom
those causes are appointed and controuled, seeraing
contingencies are the result of real and unalterable

ON THE LATE FAST. 291
design. Events, whether near or remote, whether
trifling or important in our uncertain estimation,
whether beneficial or fatal to our worldly interests,
whether they affect families or kingdoms, whether
they depress the most exalted, or elevate the most
obscure characters, are, each of them, subject to the
direction of unerring wisdom, and each of them con
ducive to the accomplishment of that extensive plan,
the instruments of which are all the actions of all
the creatures whom God has formed, and the end
of which is their supreme and universal good. We
may further observe, that while the projects of the
wise and the actions of the virtuous more visibly
coincide with the purposes of the Almighty, those
purposes are virtually promoted by the very causes
which may seem to obstruct thera, by the stratagems
of the cunning, by the oppressions of the cruel, and
by the usurpations of the ambitious.
Whatever scenes, therefore, of confusion may pre
sent themselves to our views, which are dim only
because they are confined, the Deity does not sit an
inactive unconcerned spectator of what is passing in
the world. When nation rises up against nation,
when thousands perish in the havock of battle, and
ten thousands are weeping in secret amidst the loss
of their friends, and the plunder of their property,
it were the excess of impiety to imagine that he
who keepeth Israel slumbereth or sleepeth. Though
on some occasions we discover nothing beyond per
mission or connivance on the part of God, he on
those very occasions performs sorae acts of direct
and positive appointment. Even where he seems
u 2

292 A DISCOURSE
carelessly to have thrown the reins on the neck of
human passion ; where ignorant men suppose the
rigour of his government to be relaxed, and wicked
men make their boast that his " arm is shortened ;"
from afar he discerns the precise point at which t
is most fitting to curb the impetuosity of his crea
tures, and to say, " hitherto shall ye come." In
truth, the raost secret counsels of raan are not
screened frora hira, who by "understanding stretched
out the heavens :" nor do the most intricate or un
wieldy machines of government create any embar
rassment to that power before which " the nations
are counted as the small dust in the balance."*
Enough has been advanced, I hope, to convince
you, that the same providence which presides over
the interests of individuals, determines also the fate
of nations ; and if this fact be established, it fol
lows that the moral government of God is never
at variance with the natural, and that the stability
of pubhc happiness raust depend on the integrity of
public raanners. Such, therefore, is the wise con
stitution of things, that virtue becomes to every
people the most effectual preservative, not only
against inward decay, but external violence. Vice,
on the other hand, insensibly, but surely, leads to
danger. That a corrupted state contains within itself the
seeds of its own destruction, and that, cherished as
it may be by sorae transient gleam of prosperity, it
cannot sustain the rude blasts of adverse fortune,
* Isa. xl. ver. 1.5,

ON THE LATE FAST. 293
are positions not less supported by the reasonings
of philosophers than by the evidence of historians.
The same causes, it is weU known by the speculatist,
must ever produce the same effects, whether the
subjects on which they operate be many or few : and
with respect to the number of those who are holden
together by the bonds of wickedness, and would
" strengthen themselves in their ungodliness," that
number, instead of arresting the uplifted stroke,
serves only, at once, to accelerate it, by multiplying
offenders, through the hopes of impunity, and to
aggravate it by increasing the enormity of their of
fences. Ten righteous men raay, in some extraor
dinary case, extend the reward of their personal
merit to a whole city ; but the combined efforts of
ten thousand unrighteous men are of no avail
against that Being, who may indeed be propitiated
while his presence is acknowledged " in the still
sraall voice," but who cannot be opposed when " the
windows from on high are opened, and the founda
tions of the earth do shake." You well remeraber
the conditions on which Sodom might have been
spared ; and can you then forget the reasons for
which Nineveh, after the successful interposition of
one prophet, and the neglected warnings of another,
was at last overthrown ?
Most consistent and most interesting is the les
son, which sacred and profane history alike incul
cates, in opposition to those who would resolve all
events into human agency, independent of the di
vine, and who suppose the pursuits and the fortunes
of men to be determined by the impulse of blind

294 A DISCOURSE
chance, or the decrees of irresistible fatality. After
the measure of their guilt was filled up, the Ca
naanites were vanquished and exterrainated. The
Jews took possession of their land ; and when they
had, in their turn, apostatised from the God who
first established, and then protected them, they
were dragged into captivity. Immersed in volup
tuousness, and enervated by sloth, the Persians sunk
under the shock, when attacked by the brave and
uncorrupted Greeks. But soon was the courage of
the victors enfeebled by the luxury of those whom
they had subdued ; and they fell an easy, I raust.
add, an inglorious prey, to the hardy veterans of
Rome. Afterwards, the Romans themselves were
destroyed, when the generous sentiraents, the manly
pursuits, and the austere manners of their ancestors
had fallen into disuse, and even into contempt:
when a spirit of ambition had inflamed the higher
ranks, when a spirit of insurrection had divided the
lower ranks, and a spirit of effeminacy and de
bauchery had poisoned all ranks indiscriminately.
Their destruction, too, was accomplished by a
rabble of barbarians, whom they defied without the
power of resisting them, but whom in the tiraes of
ancient valour they raight have defied without the
iraputation of rashness, and in the tiraes of antient
discipline they would have resisted without diffi
culty. Had no swarras of Goths and Vandals
rushed down upon the Roraans, had the "blast of
the terrible ones not been as the storm against the
wall," their ruin raight have been delayed but not
averted. The rautinous spirit of the provinces, the

ON THE LATE FAST. 295
brutal depravity of the citizens, and the outrageous
licentiousness of the soldiers, would soon have pro
duced the same effects with circumstances equally
tremendous. Unquestionably the vices of the con
quered have even proved more pernicious than the
arms of the conquerors ; and it may be laid down as
an invariable maxim, that no empire, however
fruitful in resources, extensive in dorainion, or con
spicuous in fame, can long subsist after it has ceased
to be virtuous. Ostentatious magnificence, and the
appearance even of formidable strength, it may still
-preserve ; but on the first breakings of those tem
pests which hang over all the aims of thoughtless
and aspiring men, its unsuspected weakness will be
inevitably exposed in its unforeseen perdition.
Curious it is to observe the rapid strides with
which the most celebrated States have descended
from the airy and slippery eminences of greatness
to raisery and to sharae. When the sword has
been sheathed, and every alarra far removed by the
successes of war, ingenuity and diligence are usu
ally employed in iraproving those inventions to
which raen have been led by accident or incited by
necessity. Refinement succeeds to iraprovement,
and is itself followed close by corruption. Artifi
cial wants then multiply beyond the power of sup
plying them ; the dominion of appetite is extended
farther and farther, till the objects of gratification,
with whatever diversity they have been combined,
and to whatever perfection they raay have been
wrought up are almost exhausted. The lust of
pleasures gives new force to the lust of wealth, be-

296 A DISCOURSE
cause wealth only can furnish the materials of en
joyment. To the depravity of private morals suc
ceeds the extinction of public spirit, and all become
ripe for revolt, because all are eager for plunder.
Complaints are then reciprocally urged and retorted,
by those who cannot govern and those who will not
obey. Laws enacted to prevent evasion and viola
tion, are theraselves evaded by new artifices, and
violated with greater audacity. Secret cabals are
formed, open tumults break out, till some daring
usurper rivets, in one lucky moment, the fetters of
despotism on a lawless helpless multitude ; or some .
foreign eneray, invited by the facility of conquest,
bends down their necks to the galling yoke of
servitude. In this disraal catalogue of national evils it well
becomes us to remark some circumstances which
constitute, I think, the heaviest part of human dis
tress, which carry with them the sharpest mortifica
tion to our vanity, and at the same time suggest to
our humbled reason the most salutary cautions.
In certain stages of excellence, and in certain fa
vourable situations, the arts are known to strengthen
the intellectual powers of men, and to enlarge the
sphere of their operation. But the same arts, when
they have degenerated into a vicious affectation, and
are, to an excessive degree, intermixed with extra
neous causes, debilitate the understanding and de
prave the heart. Instead of furnishing the conve
niences, they raultiply, without bounds, the super
fluities of life ; and lead on in their train not only
that false taste which prefers the specious to the

ON THE LATE FAST. 297
solid, but those feverish and insatiable appetites
which every principle of reason, and every restraint
of law will be at last insufficient to controul. The
arts are indeed auxiliary to commerce ; and com
merce, in the exaggerated language of its panegy
rists, is said to swell the tide of national wealth, to
fasten the bonds of national union, to animate the
measures of a people with new vigour, and to
throw new splendour around their name. These
advantages, I confess, are derived from commerce ;
but they are derived conditionally, and with restric-
,tions ; they continue so long only as the encroach
ments of monopoly are severely checked, and the
price of commodities is regulated upon wise and
enlarged principles ; so long as the middle ranks of
men are content to receive protection, while they
enjoy the fruits of industry without panting for the
distinctions which cherish laziness ; so long as in
novation, either in manners or laws, is strictly
watched, and every change in the eraployments or
the arauseraents of private life is made subservient,
not to the vanity or avarice of individuals, but to
the public good. But commerce, while it brings
in opulence and power, does not always bring with
them their correctives ; and, without correctives,
they have ever been observed to corrupt. When,
therefore, the torrent of corruption once breaks in
upon the manners of a people, it rushes forward
with increasing rapidity ; it soon bears down all
the barriers which private example or public autho
rity can oppose, and at last plunges every great and

298 A DISCOURSE
every good quality in one undistinguished deluge of
iniquity. I have said that the vices of nations are generally
to be ascribed to their luxury, and that luxury al
ways terminated in their ruin. But the assertion is
contested. We are told that national corruption
and luxury are terms of vague import ; that men of
churlish terapers and contracted views are raore
ready to misapply than to explain those terms ; that
public evils bring along with them their own re
raedy by an eventual, though an indirect increase of
public happiness, and that even the vices of indivi
duals contribute to the advantage of the community.
Thus the excesses of the voluptuary, like the auste
rities of the recluse, triumph in the suffrage of per
verted reason ; and it is not easy to check every
emotion of contempt, when the advocates for sen
suality commend each other for the liberality of
their sentiraents, and the depth of their penetration.
Of these speculatists, who raake every system of
morals to be dependent on that of politics, and who
sacrifice principles, hitherto esteemed invariable, to
those which ever have been, and ever must be,
fluctuating and problematical, some are actuated by
the pride of singularity ; others, by the hopes of es
caping from their own secret apprehensions, when
they have inspired their fellow-citizens with a kind
of contagious confidence ; and more, I am afraid, by
the detestable expectation of pushing their own inte
rests most effectually amidst the supineness and
false security which their artifices have produced.
But whatever be their motives, which charity itself

ON THE LATE FAST. 299
would be staggered to pronounce honourable, their
arguments are professedly rested on the usefulness
of luxury ; and from its usefulness the transition, in
shallow and precipitate judgments, is not difficult to
its innocence and even meritoriousness. This ques
tion therefore deserves to be seriously and fully ex
amined, where the causes of national depravity are
the topics of investigation ; for, if any people should
be persuaded that they are less sinful than other na
tions have been, they will instantly suppose them
selves in less danger of suffering what other nations
have suffered.
A state may be rich and powerful ; but the causes
of political as well as physical good have their
limitations. As excessive heat is found to consume
instead of cherishing, and excessive light dazzles
rather than directs, so excessive power and riches
have always proved fatal to those interests which a
moderate share of each has been known to promote.
Let me not be misunderstood. To conderan the ac
quisition of money indiscriminately were more be
coming the romantic speculatist than the impartial
reasoner. In the improved state of society wealth
becomes in some degree necessary to the energy of
military operations, to the dignity of civil govern
ment, and even to the comforts of domestic life. It
stimulates invention, and invigorates labour ; it en
courages population by conferring upon every man
what he may enjoy without interruption, and impart
without diminution ; and it preserves liberty by
making him both anxious and able to secure what
he has obtained. But when the chasm that subsists

300 A DISCOURSE
between the higher and the inferior orders of men
is not filled up, or the distinctions that ought to se
parate them are effaced by uniforraity of wicked
ness ; when the inundation of riches produces arti
ficial poverty, which, co-operating with pride, always
terrainates in a poverty that is real ; when the neg
lect of frugality exposes even the laborious to all
those raiseries which the lazy justly suffer without
an effort to alleviate thera, the state is equally en
dangered by private opulence and public want. On
the one hand, wealth acquires an undue importance
frora the extravagant value that opinion stamps upon
it ; and the possessors, finding their influence to in
crease with their arabition, are soon encouraged to
oppress those whom they have successfully at
tempted to corrupt, and to impoverish by corruption.
On the other hand, the raultitude by degrees sink
down into the same raeanness of disposition, and the
sarae grossness of sentiment, that once induced the
Cappadocians to continue in vassalage frora habit
and from choice. Harrassed by desires they know
not how to gratify, they soon become indifferent to
rights of which the existence is almost forgotten
with the use ; they gladly resign a precarious free
dora for the sake of an indolent and mercenary ser
vitude ; and when the perversion of their rights is
adduced to justify the cruelties of usurpation, how
ever we may detest the insolence of the oppressor,
who makes the plea, we can scarcely commiserate
the sufferings of the wretches against whom it is
urged. In civil, as well as rehgious concerns, the imagi-

ON THE LATE FAST. 301
nations of men are often amused, and their reason
beguiled by groundless distinctions. They suffer
themselves to be comforted under known evils by
plausible and confident harangues upon the efficacy
of unknown resources ; and are persuaded that one
State may be on the whole benefited by the very
practices, by which another State has been entirely
subverted. Hence the most elaborate defences have
been produced in favour of relative luxury, and na
tions have been reconciled to their criraes, or rather
flattered into a conviction, that they have the efficacy
of virtue.
It is not merely to the love of paradox, that such
defences owe their currency. Few , men have the
prudence to distrust, and yet fewer have the intrepi
dity to examine, the soundness of those opinions
which strike in with their own inclinations and ha
bits. While they intend only to indulge their own
sensual appetites, they can, upon reflection, justify
the indulgence, by saying that the purest strearas
issue frora an irapure source ; that the luxury
charged upon themselves is rather nominal than real;
that it circulates wealth, encourages assiduity, and
causes the wants of the poor to be supplied by the
superfluity of the opulent.
True it is, that God often extracts good from iU,
and converts even the irregularity of his creatures
to the honour of his government. But evils, so far
as they are evils, ought to be lamented ; and they
also ought to be redressed, where the good resulting
from thera is apparently disproportionate to the ag-

302 A DISCOURSE
gregate of such disadvantages as are confessedly
present, and of such as are probably future.
Even in monarchical states, where vanity lavishes
what generosity would not confer, and where the
distance that exists between the various ranks of
society soraewhat slackens the progress of vicious
emulation, it is not always safe to apply the dis
tinctions which sorae raen would support in favour
of relative luxury. But in a mixed state like our
own, where the lower orders of men are less com
pelled to be dependent on their superiors, and are
more able to imitate them, where the immediate
advantages arising from luxury are often confined,
and the consequential mischiefs are most rapid and
most pernicious, those distinctions are in many re
spects irapertinent. It is not by the sudden and
irresistible will of a superior, but by the steady di
rection of laws, by the salutary discipline of raan
ners, and by an habitual liberality of sentiraent,
that a free people can preserve their happiness or
their virtue. Araong such a people, if venality pre
vail in the lower classes of raen as well as the
higher, it raust be imputed to some imperfection in
their raorals as well as their policy.* It generally
arises from the excessive refinements of luxury,
when all become eager to enjoy what ought to b<j
confined to a few, and when the indigent are con
tent to earn by prostitution some share of those plea
sures, which the rich obtain with greater ease by
their wealth, and in a far greater degree by their
* Vide Hume's Essays, vol. i p. 305. — I differ from him.

ON THE LATE FAST. 303
prodigality. I am indeed convinced that many of
the advantages ascribed to relative luxury are ideal,
many of them trifling, and yet more of them de
pendent on those external and incidental circum
stances which undergo a continual though a gra
dual change, and. In the end, leave an open field to
the ravages of evils, the virulence of whichthey may
have occasionally softened, and the eruption of
which they may have long retarded. To advan
tages thus hollow and treacherous we may justly
apply the words of the Prophet : " In the day we
make the plant to grow, in the evening we make
the seed to flourish ; but the harvest is an heap in
the day of grief and of desperate sorrow." *
It is with states as with individuals. Among the
latter, there are periods at which the most stubborn
and persevering industry languishes into sluggish
ness ; and it is not uncomraon to see the same man
pass from the extreme of frugality to that of pro-
fuseness, and squander in corrupt amusements what
he had amassed by honest labour. Thus, in all
flourishing states, there is a critical point, where
undisturbed tranquillity, itself the effect of vigilance
and activity, renders raen careless and inactive ;
where opulence can no longer gratify the desires
which it has excited by the facility and inflamed by
the frequency of enjoyment ; where diligence is en
feebled by the violent and unremitted stretch of
the very springs which set it in motion ; where
they who have toiled to procure the pleasures
* Isaiah, xvii. ver. 1 1 .

304 A DISCOURSE
of Other men are themselves impatient to enjoy
those pleasures ; where luxury quite drains the
sources it for a time supplied ; and where the
wealth that, flowing through various channels, once
diffused general prosperity, is silently drawn within
that vortex in which the avarice of the few is ever
ready to collect and absorb what the dissipation of
the many has rashly scattered. It is recorded of
the Carthaginians,* that for many years they were
neither disturbed by sedition nor harassed by ty
ranny. But this singular felicity could not save
them from ruin, when the prevalence of Asiatic
luxury, and the exorbitant wealth of individuals,
had introduced corruption into the state. Many of
their institutions, as a distinguished writer on the
science of legislation complains, tended to make
opulence more respectable in the public eye than
virtue. The pernicious consequences of these insti
tutions were, as he observes, retarded by good for
tune rather than by good laws ; and the justness of
that observation was afterwards demonstrated by
the distracted counsels and vitiated morals which
preceded the overthrow of that once virtuous and
once prosperous republic. After the reduction of
Carthage, and the defeat of Antiochus, the_^felicity
of Rome seemed to rest on the firm pillars of opu
lence and power. But the state was, in truth, op
pressed and debilitated by its own enormous weight.
Amidst all the treasures which unwearied diligence
could accumulate, or rapine protected by law could
* Vid. Arist. de Repub. lib. xxi. p. 334 and 335. edit. Du Val.

ON THE LATE FAST. 305
extort ; amidst the vigour of arms, the lustre of
victory, and the authority of dorainion, this stu
pendous fabric decayed, tottered, and fell. " Thou
hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven ;
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
how art thou fallen from heaven, how art thou cast
down to the earth, which didst weaken the na
tions !"*
Perhaps, within the circle of your own observa
tion, other states may be found, where all the plea
sures of Asia are poured into the lap of sensuality,
and all her wealth is eagerly seized by the grasp of
avarice. In those states, it might be invidious to
commend the sagacity and exalted patriotism of
the Consul, who, refusing to pray for the increase
of the Republic, was content to ask from heaven
the preservation of that power which, in his opinion,
and in reality too, was already great enough.-^ But
surely every wise people will be on their guard
against the distant and possible evils of luxury ; nor
will they trust to temporary and precarious expe
dients for deliverance from those evils which other
nations have suffered ; they will recollect that, in
states as well as families, prosperity and greatness
are not convertible terms ; that the opulence which
makes a people happy should be carefiiUy distin
guished frora that which makes them luxurious ;
and that wide is the difference between the stability
of an empire and that excessive stretch of domi-
* Isaiah, xiv. ver. 12 and 13.
f See Political Disquisitions, vol. iii. p. 63.
VOL. II. X

306 A DISCOURSE
nion which, like gold in its last state of expansion,
exchanges solid strength for empty and transient
show. The different people whose sufferings I have had
occasion to set before you, were indisputably and
notoriously sinners — but would it not be hard to
say they were sinners above all other people ? And
are we not ourselves placed in a situation, where
the recollection of our own sins ought to follow the
retrospect we have taken of the crimes and the
sufferings that are recorded of past ages ?
In the description which I mean to hold out to
your view, I wish to abstain from churlish and de
clamatory exaggeration ; nor could I, without vio
lence to my own feelings, descend either to the ser
vility of adulation or the acrimony of factious in
vective. It is indeed no pleasing task, but it is a
most important one, to know the tiraes and sea
sons ; to detect every lurking corruption which
partiality would colour over or cowardice dissem
ble ; to mark every alarraing syraptora, which, hav
ing baffled the power of palliatives, calls for a raore
specific and unsparing treatraent.
We cannot avail ourselves even of the futile
pleas that are urged in vindication of relative
luxury. When a frivolous and corrupt eraulation
has levelled all distinctions ; when it is becorae ig
nominious for a man to confine his expences with
in the sphere of his station ; when custora is sup
posed to sanctify every excess that it has encou
raged ; when profusion rather than parsimony gives
the keenest edge to the rapacity of avarice ; when

ON THE LATE FAST. 307
the cravings of artificial appetites are so importu
nate, as to silence not only the milder remonstrances
of discretion, but the peremptory menaces of law
itself ; when the pestilential taint of venality has in
fected all ranks of men, and all the virtues both of
friendship and patriotism are swallowed up in the
abyss of selfishness ; the luxury of such a people
may be pronounced absolute ; and absolute luxury
has ever been acknowledged indefensible, and al
most incurable.
I know that our manners are polished ; that the
conveniences and pleasures of life are most abund
ant: or, in other words, that all the refinements
which our vices have fostered, and our vanity has
dignified with the name of liberal arts, or public
blessings, are encouraged among us with a zeal
that borders upon extravagance. I also know, that
these specious advantages are a very inadequate
compensation for the mischiefs that attend them.
They always forebode, and often generate, those
evils which terminate in national ruin. They were
possessed in their utraost extent by the Roraans,
when the dearest rights of that people were surren
dered up to the insidious encroachraents of Augus
tus. They were possessed by the Athenians, when
an extravagant and puerile admiration of those arts
which enervate the mind, as well as polish it, an os
tentatious and expensive splendour in their build
ings, an immoderate passion for theatrical amuse
ments, a lavish abuse of private and of publAc
-«realth, disappointed all the expectations that mi,ght
have been formed from the wisdom ofa Solo'a, the
x2

308 A DISCOURSE
integrity of a Socrates, and the eloquence of a De
mosthenes. By their own vices were those self-con
ceited, self-deluded, self-devoted wretches betrayed
into the hands of their conqueror.
What is recorded of these states may be extended
to all others that have been equally corrupt ; for
that any people should exist, whom luxury does not
gradually weaken, and ultimately destroy, is a sup
position which history contradicts, which experience
does not warrant, and which speculation, however it
may torture facts, or embellish fiction, will be
scarcely able to support. In order therefore to
check the triumphs, and to guard against the misre
presentations, of persons who would infer the just
ness of their own sentiments from any incorrect
ness of expression in those who differ frora thera, I
wiU now recapitulate what has been offered to your
consideration on the subject of luxury ; a subject
which in speculation is always curious, and which in
practice is to us most important.
It were, I confess, an abuse of language, to call
that people luxurious, araong whora the elegant re
finements of life, when obtained by diligence and
ingenuity, are enjoyed with prudence and modera
tion ; but when this ceases to be the case, diligence
and ingenuity become public evils by corrupting
the public manners, and therefore ought to be con
trouled in their operation, or directed to other ob
jects of more unequivocal or more unmixed utility.
Does then the condition of man leave no roora for
the existence of relative luxury ? Unquestionably
it does ; ^i»d the term raay be properly applied.

ON THE LATE FAST. 309
where it should be also strictly confined to that
state of things, in which the evils are few and inci
dental, while the good is solid and lasting. But,
even in this state of things, the most flattering state
in which luxury can be supposed to prevail, and the
only state in which it ought to be defended, we
have no right to say that every apprehension is irra
tional, or every restraint superfluous. So exposed
are the affairs of raen to change, so strong are their
propensities from bad to worse, so alluring are the
blandishments supplied by luxury, and so importu
nate are the desires excited by it, that we cannot,
without the grossest iraprobability, suppose any
whole people to continue long within those bound
aries which reason prescribes to the caprices of ap
petite and the dorainion of custora. The truth is,
that relative luxury has in all nations, sooner or
later, degenerated into absolute. Such is the una
voidable tendency of things, and such have been
their uniforra operations. Occasions indeed there
are, on which the lenitives of art, or the more se
vere correctives of laws may be applied with suc
cess. But, unhappily for mankind, they who ought
to apply thera, are seldora superior to the joint
temptations of habitual voluptuousness and irame
diate gain. On the contrary, they are often induced
not only to withhold the remedy but to cherish the
disease ; they treat with derision even the idea of
providing for future safety by present renunciation ;
and they affect to consider it as the consummation
of political wisdom to encourage the vices of those
around them, with little hazard of detection from

310 A DISCOURSE
Others, and with the certainty of much profit to
themselves. However political utility may be separated from
moral rectitude ; however the tenets of some men,
and the practices of others, may favour the separa
tion ; it is not the part of a good citizen to slacken
the obligations of virtue. He will trace the actions
of raen from their priraary motives to the remotest
consequences ; he will look upon the criminal ap
plication of labour as equally detrimental with a
total suspension ; he will remove the necessity of
having recourse to either of these terrible alterna
tives, by directing the attention and accommodating
the interests of men to better pursuits. Instead of
eonfiding in sumptuary laws, which operate more
by prevention than by remedy, and which are seldom
instituted till the prevalence of wickedness makes it
scarcely possible for them to be observed, he will lay
the foundations of national happiness in such a re
forraed system of politics and education, as will em
ploy the rising generation wisely and virtuously,
without the odium or the inconveniences of a violent
and sudden check to the wrong employraents of the
present. These opinions, however prejudice may
for a time condemn them, experience will, in the
issue, justify. Repugnant they are, indeed, to the
base and narrow craftiness which gratifies private
ambition and private avarice at the expence of the
public manners ; but they will be found entirely
consistent with that enlarged wisdora which, se
lecting the best means for the best purposes, in
tends honestly, pursues steadily, and executes suc
cessfully.

ON THE LATE FAST. 311
So rooted, and, as it were, instinctive, is the ab-
hori-ence of dissolution, so vigorous are the strug
gles exerted to repel it, even in its last and nearest
approach, that from the most alarming proofs of
decline in any empire, we cannot al\rays predeter
mine the period to which its existence may be pro
longed. By the energy of its original constitution,
by the use of occasional remedies, or by the con
currence of fortunate circumstances, our own coun
try may for sorae years mitigate the severity of
these evils, which are produced by a sickly and
enormous corpulency. But the stoutest and sound
est constitution may be destroyed ; the most flat
tering remedies may come too late ; and upon con
tingent circumstances, the efficacy and the existence
of which are equally unknown, no reasonable hope
can be grounded. In the body politic, as in the
body natural, there is a degree of corruption, which,
having reached the first principles of life, no longer
yields to the force of expedients injudiciously ap
plied, or rashly neglected. How far this may be
our own case it well becomes us to enquire ; and to
me it seems, that the unwillingness of raen to en
gage in the enquiry is no doubtful indication, no
inconsiderable part, of the evil itself.
But you will ask me, is there no fairer side of
things ? There is, my brethren ; and I will stop to
contemplate it, not to amuse you with phantoms of
imaginary happiness, but to rouse you from your
insensibility to that which is real; not to gratify
your vanity, but to convince you that your ingrati
tude leaves you no room to be vain.

312 A DISCOURSE
Venerable for its antiquity, and endeared to us
by a long experience of its use, the constitution of
this country may justly challenge the annals of the
world to produce an equal. Founded on the solid
rock of justice, ceraented by duration, and fortified
by every expedient that policy could suggest, it has
hitherto withstood all the shocks of external vio
lence, and all the dark raachinations that have been
employed to undermine it. Coraplaints, I know,
have been urged against the multiplicity of our civil
and the rigour of our penal laws : but when these
laws are compared with such as are established in
other countries, their principles will be found equi
table, their spirit raild, and their adrainistration
raost impartial. Although the discipline of our
armies be excelled in some neighbouring states,
where military strength is perverted into an engine
of oppression, their valour in every just cause has
long excited the admiration even of their enemies ;
and with regard to that force which forras the pe
culiar and firraest bulwark of our safety, the skill of
our coraraanders, and the intrepidity of our searaen,
are confessedly without example. Narrow indeed
will be his views, and languid his satisfaction, who
would confine the glory of this country to the wis
dom of its laws and the vigour of its arms. Polite
literature has been cultivated among us with a suc
cess that antiquity only has surpassed. The me
chanic arts have been improved by us, not perhaps
to the highest perfection of exterior elegance, but
to the no less honourable purposes of general uti
lity. In this respect they have probably reached

ON THE laTe fast. 313
their summit ; and it might be wished that the wan
tonness of innovation, and the debaucheries of re
finement, should be, in future, controuled. As to
the more abstract sciences, so profound have been
our investigations, and so important our discove
ries, that we are permitted to take the lead, I say
not merely of northern Europe, where civilization
has scarcely dawned, nor of those southern parts,
where superstition blasts every effort of genius, but
of those brave and accomplished people who are
alone entitled to dispute the palm of superiority
with us, either in the achievements of war or in the
arts of peace. But, amidst the advantages that
distinguish this country, a very illustrious rank raust
be assigned to that religion which is alike exerapt
frora the harshness of Calvinism and the corrup
tions of Popery ; which preserves the sacred privi
leges of revelation, without infringing the no less
sacred rights of reason ; which looks, I trust, with
some degree of favour on the worthiest and ablest
of its teachers, who have been eminent as well for
their enlarged sentiments of toleration as for their
exemplary piety ; and which no longer lifts up the
terrors of persecution over the manly and rational
enquirer, who, without offering any wanton insult
to prescription, asserts and enjoys the liberty of
paying a larger share of homage to the superior au
thority of truth.
It will not, I hope, be thought paradoxical, if, in
recounting the happy effects of our admirable con
stitution, I should mention the present condition of
those numerous and respectable citizens who are

314 a DISCOURSE
not included within the pale of our ecclesiastical
establishment. Their condition, indeed, does the
highest honour to our country and to our age. By
the most vigorous efforts of the understanding they
have delivered themselves from the galling bondage
of bigotry and superstition, with which their fore
fathers were unfortunately shackled. They have
made many valuable improvements in literature, in
science, and in rational theology. They have ac
quired a degree of political iraportance which, so
long as it is controuled by the suprerae power of
the laws, raust eventually contribute to the general
stability of our freedom, and the general dignity of
our Empire. It has, I know, been asserted, that
their zeal in defence of liberty is turbulent, and
their ideas of it romantic. I will not enter into
the invidious discussion of a charge which no man
who adduces it means, I trust, to extend beyond
individuals ; but I should be guilty of the meanest
dissimulation, if I did not acknowledge that the
greater part of them have the merit of acting con
sistently with their solemn professions and noblest
interests. Whether it be owing to the steady prin
ciples in which they are educated, or to the advan
tageous circumstances in which they are placed,
few of them have hitherto learned to barter away
their most important rights for those splendid but
treacherous bribes, the influence of which has been
very unfavourable araong persons to whora I stand
in a nearer and more sacred relation. Undoubtedly
we have reason to thank God that the illiberal and
pernicious distinctions which divided them and our-

ON THE late fast. 315
selves are gradually wearing away j and, if the mis
fortunes which our sins have now brought us
should hereafter be happily removed, the day, per
haps will at last come, when a system of perfect
equality will be thought at once consistent with the
public safety and conducive to the public welfare.
The spirit of our benevolent religion requires this
auspicious change ; the principles of our free con
stitution warrant it ; the tendency of external events
seems* to favour it; and the exertions of all good
and wise men should be employed to accomplish it.
At all events, the capacity of a state to admit such
a change is no inconsiderable part of our national
glory : and every approach that has been actually
made towards it should be considered as a national
advantage. Thus numerous, and thus conspicuous, have been
the blessings of Providence towards us. But can
it be said that our returns of thankfulness and obe
dience bear any proportion to those blessings ?
Here, alas ! a gloomy prospect seems to present
itself: — but we must not shrink from the ques
tion, for it is suggested to us by the words of my
text ; it is urged home to our consciences by the
solemnity of this day ; it is even forced upon our
fears by the interest that ourselves and our poste
rity have in a just decision. Let us endeavour to
obtain a just decision by a diligent and, impartial
enquiry. Before such enquiry can be prosecuted with ef
fect, or even begun with propriety, it is necessary
for me to suspend the force of some reigning pre-

316 a DISCOURSE
judices, that may render you averse to the stern*
ness of truth, which is often the more unwelcome
in proportion as it is more momentous. When a
nation is wearied with prosperity, giddy with ideal
greatness, and quite insensible to the dignity of
virtue ; when it is no longer able to bear either its
own vices or the rigid discipline essential to their
reformation ; a host of comforters usually start up,
who invert the very order of things that God has
assigned, who give a sanction to the iniquity that
he has forbidden, " who put light for darkness, and
darkness for light."* Declarations of this kind are
not less weakly supported than they are zealously
propagated : and perhaps I am not very uncha
ritable in saying, that they who make them are to
be found araongst the most wicked, and they who
adopt thera araongt the raost credulous of raen.
But in a wicked and a credulous world, the re
tailers of such declarations will be nuraerous ; and
it unfortunately happens that they who are bound
by their superior situations in life, or their superior
share of abilities, to oppose every delusion, are too
often tempted by their own wayward passions, and
their own arabitious designs, to vindicate what, in
the raoraent of uttering it, they know to be false
and dangerous. But woe to that nation "where
the seers see not, where the prophets prophesy not
right things," and " they who are appointed to rule
over men, and lead them, cause them to err."-J-
" Though evil tiding be hushed, and good be pro-
* Isa. chap. ii. ver. 20. f Isa. cap. iii. ver. 12.

ON THE LATE FAST. 317
claimed continually, great reason is there to fear
that the Lord of Hosts is not for a crown of glory
to that people, nor for a spirit of judgment to him
that sitteth in judgment, nor for strength to them
that turn the battle to the gate." *
I have already pointed out to you the fallacy of
some arguments implicitly adraitted, because they
are confidently alleged in vindication of luxury.
But there is another point equally prevalent, and
equally mischievous, with that which I have before
endeavoured to confute ; for we are told, nay we
are all of us too ready to tell ourselves, that the
quantity of vice and virtue is the same at all times.
If this opinion be just, all coraplaints raust be as in
effectual as they are groundless, and deserve to be
charged on the causes to which they are commonly
attributed, on the sullenness of misanthropy and
the deliriums of enthusiasm. But those coraplaints,
however ridiculed, or however disregarded, are
grounded on facts ; and that they are so, the very
popularity of the objections raade to them affords a
strong presumption. They who cannot aspire to
the honour of positive justification, hope to shelter
themselves from infamy by invidious and unjust
coraparison. The Pharisee applauded hiraself be
cause he was not as other raen were ; we acquit
ourselves on the supposition that other men were
what we are ; and each of us is guilty as well of
partiality in the sentence we pass on our own con
duct, as of rashness in arraigning the imaginary
* Isa. chap, xxviii. ver. 5 and 6.

318 A DISCOURSE
faults of other men. It may perhaps be said, that
they who insist upon the equality of different ages
in respect to their moral attainments, do not seri
ously believe what they obstinately maintain. But
let not the extreme improbability, or the flagitious
wickedness of any opinion, be thought sufficient to
destroy its credit among those whose indolence and
whose selfishness induce them to profess, and to
disseminate it. The effects of rational conviction
are too often feeble and inadequate. It is equally
true, and equaUy lamentable, that a partial or pre
tended conviction produces the most powerful ef
fects ; that men are raore strenuous to support what
they suspect to be erroneous, than what they know
to be just ; that, through the fascination of errors
familiarised by custom, and endeared by interest, it
becomes rashness to controvert, in one age, the very
position it was thought folly to advance in another ;
and that tenets which shock common sense and
common justice at length acquire all the authority
of popular maxiras, and all the efficacy of established
principles. Self-delusion is ever averse frora en
quiry, though by enquiry alone can the charm be
dissolved. Hence arises the necessity of exposing
in the clearest point of view, and in its fullest mag
nitude, the absurdity of opinions which he who
avows them can seldom persuade himself to exa
mine, but which he may be ashamed not to re
nounce, after the apposite and cogent proofs em
ployed by otiier men in their confutation.
These reraarks wiU not, I hope, be thought im
pertinent. I have made them as a kind of apology

ON THE LATE FAST. 319
for entering minutely into the futility of a plea,
which, ridiculous as it is when reduced to a particu
lar examination, is yet advanced with all the confi
dence of general assertion, and is admitted too as a
satisfactory answer to every charge of increasing de
pravity. Let us then see how far the assertion, that the
same degree of vice has prevailed at all tiraes, can
be applied to mankind universally. They who thus
contend for it are not entitled even to the scanty •
praise of plausibility, till they can prove themselves
able to ascertain the precise number of men that
have lived at different periods ; to discover not only
the prorainent features of national character, but the
raore hidden and coraplex motives that actuate in
dividuals ; to balance their relative and absolute in
terests ; to penetrate their subordinate, as well as
ruling passions ; to determine the exact degree of
civilization to which they have respectively ad
vanced, and the exact degree of barbarism in which
they have been plunged.
Those nations which have arisen to any erainence
in the cultivation of knowledge, and the iraprove
ments of social life, have been once placed in a less
honourable condition. But if the paradox now
under consideration be well founded, whether these
nations were much civilized, or little, or not at all,
the quantity of happiness enjoyed, and the quantity
of virtue practised, would be the same. It follows,
therefore, that the artificial advantages of society do
not preponderate, when weighed against the artifi
cial evils ; that by the restraints of law, the re-

320 A DISCOURSE
searches of philosophy, and directions of religion,
mankind are not, in fact, elevated above the savage
state ; that the enlightened inhabitants of Europe
cannot rauch boast of their superiority over their
own fierce and ignorant forefathers ; and that, as to
real and intrinsic good, they stand on a level with
those tribes who roara over the barren deserts of
Africa, or the gloomy forests of America. This
state of the case is fair and impartial. - If no dlffer-
'ence subsist between raen in the scale of raoral ex
cellence, the consequence I have just deduced is in
evitable ; if any difference subsist, the degrees of
that difference are to be ascertained, not by arbitrary
assuraption, that they are very small, but by an ap
peal to facts, which raay prove them to have been
very great.
So far as the opinions of these men respect the
whole of our earthly system, they are of fatal ten
dency. They throw the severest reproaches on the
attributes of God, who has invested us with seeming
powers, which we are, in truth, incapable of exert
ing, or which we exert to no purpose. They check,
and are intended to check, the zeal of virtue, by
persuading us that we cannot become better than
other men ; and they give new confidence to guilt,
by flattering assurances that we are not become
worse. They contradict the general appearances of
things, which, so far as they have been collected by
judicious and unprejudiced comparison, give us rea
son to hope, that mankind, upon the whole, are in
a state of progressive, though it be slow, improve
ment. In a more extensive point of view, I there-

ON THE LATE FAST. 321
fore pronounce those opinions unphilosophical, as
well as irrehgious ; and I shall directly oppose to
them one fact, which to me appears both pertinent
and decisive. The virtues of the Greeks were lighter
in the balance, when they plundered the wealth and
rioted in the pleasures of the Persians whom they
had conquered. But we do not hear that the equi
librium supposed by this hypothesis was restored,
either among the Greeks by the introduction of
other virtues, or, in respect to the general sum of
moral good, by the reforraation of the Persians :
and to assume that it was restored by the reforma
tion or iraprovement of any other unknown con
temporary people, is to decide without evidence,
and to beg the very question in dispute. As to the
more limited, and, I believe, the more popular ap
plication of the same hypothesis to particular coun
tries, it is fully confuted by such partial knowledge
as history has supplied. But in regard to what we
do not know, it is presumptuous to deduce positi-ve
conclusions frotn preraises which are conjectural. Or
merely negative ; and it is perverse not to admit,
under any restrictions, the proofs that analogy fur
nishes for a gradation of crimes, in different places,
and in different ages.
In the prophetical and historical writings of the
Jews, the crimes of that people are painted in the
most faithful and glo\^ing colours; but they had
not reached the extremity of wickedness till their
rejection of the Gospel, their inhuman treatment of
its author, and its friends, their gross impositions
in commerce, and their tumultuous disobedience to
VOL. II. Y

322 A DISCOURSE
government, brought upon them their last, and their
heaviest distresses. Surely the contests between
Sylla and Marius left their countrymen more sedi
tious, more dissolute, more rapacious, than their
ancestors had been ; and however we may condemn
the refined vices that prevailed in the age of Augus
tus, we cannot place thera on a level with the
horrible excesses which disgraced the courts of a
Nero, a Doraitlan, or an Heliogabalus. In our own
country, the raanners of the people were less licen
tious in the reign of Elizabeth than in that of
Charles the Second ; and to corapare one acknow
ledged evil with another, it may be doubted whe
ther the fanaticism and blind zeal, which raged
during the grand Rebellion, were more offensive to
God, and more injurious to man, than the deluge of
profaneness and debauchery that poured in upon us
after the Restoration. Of that inauspicious reign,
let it never be forgotten, that the same people who
were luxurious at home, were contemptible abroad ;
that the enemies who had been kept in awe by the
ferocity of an Usurper, insulted us alraost with im
punity ; and that the constitution was nearly sapped
by the intrigues of Popery, the establishment of which
must always be facilitated by libertinism, which
consistently enough prefers a religion of ceremonies
to one of morals, and by infidelity, which raeasures
the merit of aU religions by their subserviency to
the execrable purposes of despotism.
By these arguments you will, I hope, be effec
tually cautioned against the rash assuraptions of
those who pronounce the vices of our forefathers

ON THE LATE FAST. 323
uniformly and precisely equal with our own. It is
absurd to say, that our ancestors were in all respects
as criminal as ourselves ; and to say that they were,
upon the whole, more crirainal, raight be unjust and
arrogant. Doubtless there is, in every state, a
fluctuation of virtues and vices : yet it by no means
follows, that the causes of those fluctuations succeed
each other in the same order, or that they operate
with the same degree of intenseness. We are still
at liberty to deny, that the same vices prevail in the
same extent at all times, and that all vices are
equally malignant in their nature, and baleful in
their effects.
The crimes which now prevail in this country
are of a raost alarraing and portentous kind. To
deduce thera solely frora our coraraerce and our
arts, were to confound the abuse of things with
their use ; to call those causes primary and neces
sary which are only secondary and occasional; or
rather, to mistake the accidental instrument for the
radical principle. To inveigh against the deficiency
of our laws, the intrigues of statesraen, and the cor
ruption of courts, were to bring an odiura on some
distempered parts, when the unsoundness ofthe whole
body caUs for correction. The root of the evil lies
deeper ; it is to be found in a general want of morals,
producing, and in its turn produced by, a general want
of religion. The more imraediate sources of both
are said to lie in our national successes, in our ex
orbitant wealth, and in the luxury resulting from
them. But it is not uncommon for effects to re
act with double force upon their causes ; and when
y2

324 A DISCOURSE
this happens, all of thera conspire to increase the
sum of those evils which they respectively produce.
The accusation which I have produced, you may
think trite and unappropriate — but I know it to be
just ; and if the faults that have been separately ira
puted to other ages, should be found almost col
lectively in our own, shall this preeminence in
wickedness be permitted to irapose silence, or ex
tort approbation ?
It is reraarked by a writer, whom no man has
ever charged with the weakness of superstition, that
Rome was indebted for its prosperity not more to
the policy of Romulus, than to the piety of Nuraa.*
But that religion should be considered as unessen
tial, and even injurious to the public welfare, is a
discovery reserved for the superior penetration of
our own tiraes, in which the raorals of the Epicu
reans are united with the tenets of Pyrrhonists.
What excuse, I beseech you, can be urged for the
indifference of sorae raen, for the real or affected
conterapt of others, towards the most sacred and
most interesting truths ? Why are the great princi
ples on which eternal happiness is suspended
hunted down by wanton raiUery, explained away by
temporising accommodation, or bewildered in all the
labyrinths of sceptical perplexity ? Are there want
ing among us men of such daring effrontery, as not
only to pluck down the piUars of Christianity, but
to shake natural religion itself from its basis, and by
one desperate effort to crush every consolation of
afflicted virtue, and every fear that can restrain the
* See Machiavel, b. i. ch. 11.

ON THE LATE FAST. 325
audacity of the wicked? Do not these wretches
meet us in open day ? And are not we stunned with
the clamorous paradoxes of such men as stand forth
avowed advocates for the most insidious sophistry,
for the most shocking impiety, for " all the rash
dexterity of wit," when levelled, with unsparing and
undistinguishing fury, against the majesty of God,
and the dearest interests of mankind ?
Unless they have arrived at the last stages of
wickedness, mankind, however they may neglect the
practice, are yet willing to assume the appearance
of virtue ; and if the turpitude of crimes may be
estimated by their consequences, some degree of
negative commendation seeras due to the decency
which conceals the offences forbidden by religion,
and even to the hypocrisy which, by iraplication,
approves what is comraanded by it. But it is the
characteristic infamy of our own tiraes, that vice
should not Only be tolerated, but justified ; not only
practised without compunction, but avowed without
shame ; not only caught by the secret and sudden
contagion of example, but acquired with all the
firmness of deliberation, and aU the formality of
system. Hence the precious days of our youth are
consumed, not in treasuring up stores of knowledge,
not in forming habits of morality, but in the attain
ment of exterior accomplishraents, or in the pursuit
of frivolous amusements, or in determined anxious
preparation for more open and more hardened
wickedness. Do we not see the purity of education sullied,
her dignity degraded, herself become a wiUing slave

•326 A DISCOURSE
to the tyranny of fashion, and stooping to accept the
wages of prostitution, frora folly, frora affectation,
and frora lust ? These, or such as these, are the in
structions which alraost every parent drops into the
ears of alraost every child : " My son, you are des
tined for a world where appearances are highly
valued, because they are easily perceived ; where
real raerit is not less rare than it is obscure ; where
they who can discern it will depreciate it frora envy,
and they who cannot will despise it frora stupidity.
Learn, then, to practise upon the weakness and the
ignorance of that world ; and be assured, that your
happiness depends upon the ease with which you
accommodate yourself to the caprices of the fickle
and the prejudices of the obstinate. The task is not
difficult, for they who fear detection are seldom
forward to detect ; and the glaring colours of fashion
are more than sufficient to cover the blackness of
your designs. In such a world you must suspect all
professions of disinterested friendship as a raore re
fined species of selfishness : you must habituate
yourself to look upon public spirit as quixotism,
upon religion as an imposture, and upon virtue
itself as an empty name."
Perhaps, my brethren, you shudder at the bare
recital of these admonitions, which resemble, no
doubt, rather the raalignity of a fiend than the ten
derness of a parent ; and yet, into these admoni
tions may the schemes of education yourselves are
pursuing be resolved, when stripped of the thin
disguise which conceals them from your abhorrence.
When lessons, whicli at once soothe the vanity

ON THE LATE FAST. 327
and kindle the passions of youth, are industriously
inculcated, they will be eagerly adopted ; and can
we then wonder that such culture in such soils
should never fail of success, that the rising gene
ration should quickly arrive at a maturity of wick
edness, and that the harvest of their crimes should
more than repay the barbarous activity of the la
bourers ? Rather ought we to be surprised at each
solitary instance of virtue in our posterity, after vice
has been recoraraended to thera at once by the
force of instruction, the authority of experience,
and the raore powerful allureraents of doraestic ex
ample ?
Instead of looking around for the hideous de
formity of sin in other nations, against which we
may triuraphantly indulge our censures, we shall
with greater propriety anticipate in imagination
the scenes which may hereafter be realised araong
ourselves. In the contemplation of those scenes,
we may surely adopt the language of the Jews,
without incurring the disapprobation of Christ ; for
in our own children, depraved by our own precepts
we are likely to behold a race of men who will be
indeed sinful beyond all other sinners.
By many of us the inestimable gift of freedom
has been abused into an instrument of the grossest
licentiousness, into a defiance of those laws by
which society itself subsists, and a conterapt of that
subordination by which alone it can subsist happily.
Others there are, who have endeavoured to subvert
the fundamental principles on which our liberties
are built, and who for the sake of profit, that seldom

328 A DISCOURSE
aggrandises the hireling, or of distinctions that
make his infamy more conspicuous, would bereave
us of all the rights for which our forefathers have
expended their treasure and their blood.
They would persuade us that power, in the very
nature of things, must be possessed without limita
tion, and therefore cannot be opposed without guilt ;
that liberty is not an inherent right of men, but the
accidental concession of their masters ; that every
advantage, voluntarily conferred, raay be arbitrarily
revoked ; that the dignity of a prince, in fact, con
sists in the meanness of his subjects, his strength
in their weakness, his wealth in their poverty, his
glory in their shame.
Such doctrines Asiatic ignorance, and Asiatic in
dolence only, have suffered to be reduced to prac
tice. But such doctrines have been seriously re
commended in theory, not only amidst the boasted
improvements of European knowledge, but under
the jealous vigilance of English freedom.
It is my duty to condemn the immorality of these
pernicious opinions ; and where they who raaintain
them are loaden with rewards, and decked out with
honours, I must lament the weakness or the hardi
ness of those who bestow them.
I have spoken with very pointed severity of those
who would luU asleep the apprehensions of their
fellow citizens, who, for. the worst purposes, are al
ways ready to varnish over the worst, actions, and
who, to gratify the lawless pride of individuals,
would undermine the most important rights of the
conununity. But there. are men of an opposite

ON THE LATE FAST. 329
character, who brood with gloomy satisfaction over
the distresses of their country, and paint in the
darkest colours the conduct of their governors.
While the contest subsisted only between this
nation and America, the attention of raen was en
gaged in exaraining the origin of government, the
limits of freedom, the political restraints of com
merce, the legal conditions of taxation, and the
hitherto undefined extent of parliamentary autho
rity and colonial rights. When questions thus ab
struse and thus complicated were in debate, mutual
charity, and even mutual deference, were due among
those who could not agree in their general princi
ples, or in the application of them to a particular
case. Yet, surely, all difficulties in speculation, or,
at least, all opposition in practice, ought to have
vanished upon the first appearance of hostilities
from an enemy by whose interposition every man
was injured, and by whose success no man could be
benefited. It pains me, however, to reflect, that
national danger hath not yet produced national una^-
nimity, and that our internal divisions constitute no
small part of our misfortunes, and of our crimes.
Great allowances are, I confess, to be made for im
proprieties of expression, and even for some irregu
larities of behaviour, into which men may he preci
pitated under the consciousness of upright inten
tions, and by the impulse of strong sensibilities.
But a race of men has lately, started up among us,
for. whom, as candour can suggest no apology for
them, so indignation itself can scarcely furnish a

330 A DISCOURSE
name. It is the peculiar, and I hope the unenvied
privilege of these men, to aggravate every raistake,
to triumph in every disappointraent, to arraign,
without distinction and without reserve, every raea
sure of their superiors ; and to ascribe it either to
the raost despicable weakness, or the raost flagitious
wickedness. They consider the exaltation of Ame
rica as inseparable from the depression of their own
country. They look with unconcern upon the insi
dious designs of those who ever must be our ene
mies, while these designs are supposed to baffle
every hope of reunion with those who were once
our friends. They seem to measure their own wis
dom by the assumed errors of their governors, and
their own iraportance by the exaggerated sufferings
of the governed. Instead of pressing forward with
vigour and alacrity to the attainraent of some good
which may yet be within our reach, they rather
choose to take an invidious retrospect of that which
is already lost. Instead of promoting the public
welfare by well-timed concessions, well-planned
counsels, and well-directed efforts, they are too in
tent upon indulging their resentment against those,
whora they represent as the voluntary authors of all
our calamities. Instead of supporting the arm of
our national strength, when lifted up against the
national foe, they eventually, I dare not say de
signedly, open new prospects to his pride, supply
fresh virulence to his malice, and give far greater
efficacy to his devices. That such men should exist
in a civilised state, without restraint, or, at least

ON THE LATE FAST. 331
without infamy, is an additional proof of the sickly
coraplexion which belongs to our tiraes.
I am now treading upon slippery ground, and
will therefore explain myself so as to prevent the
possibihty, not of misrepresentation, indeed, but of
mistake. No man can feel a more sincere rever
ence, a fonder attachment, a warmer zeal, than I do
for the cause of genuine and rational freedom. I
blush not to say, that my indignation has kindled
at the ungenerous affronts which have been some
tiraes offered to that cause, and at the wily sophisras
which have been employed to distinguish away what
the coinmon sense of raankind clearly understands,
their coraraon feelings approve, and their common
interests require them to watch with jealousy, and
to defend with steadiness. But it were a mark of
weakness, or of obstinacy, not to perceive a wide
difference between the designs, and even the clairas
of the nations who are now contending : between
the efforts of our brethren, who have resisted what
they believed to be injurious to them, and the in
trigues of our enemies, who have interfered with a
manifest intention to injure : between the contest
we have long supported against the real or sup
posed rights of others, and the exertions we are now
making in defence of our own honour and safety.
It were blindness in the extreme to overlook the
sorcery of party-prejudice, where the judgments of
men are warped by their affections, where the
treachery of their hearts hides from them the real
source of their own actions, and where the violence
of their resentment passes on from particular per-

332 A DISCOURSE
sons, who are justly or unjustly the objects of it, to
every adventitious and external circumstance, every
near and remote interest, every private and public
measure, with which the reraerabrance of those
objects is associated.* At this dangerous juncture,
it were the height of wickedness to adopt the harsh
suspicions, and to countenance the bitter reproaches
of raen who would deprive us of the vigour which
even temporary unanimity would give to our endea
vours, and some of whom (I shudder to mention
it !) sorae of whora would be content to see the
coraraunity labour under all the disraal effects of
repeated raiscarriages, that they raight enjoy the
illiberal and inhuraan pleasure of traducing those
governors whom they scarcely wish to succeed, lest
success should confirra their power and vindicate
their innocence.
Upon topics which the irreconcileable interests
and turaultuous desires of mankind frequently bring
intoagitation, it is not easy, as, indeed, it is not ne
cessary, to strike out any information which may re
commend itself as well by novelty as by truth. But
. * With these undistinguishing partisans we may contrast
the amiable character of Eteoclus, as it is drawn by the mas
terly pen of Euripides. I cannot resist the impulse I feel to
place these instructive lines before the reader ; and I recom
mend them to the serious attention of those who judge of mea
sures by men, and are seldom candid in the opinion they form
about either :
Toirs T e^aftaprdvovras, oiij^i rrjv iroXiv
"HxOaip' eirei toi y ovbev airia rroXis
KaictDs KXvovaa bid Kvftepvr'irriv KaKov. Suppl. Mul. 1. 878.

ON THE LATE FAST. 333
if men will continue to repeat their misconduct, we
must continue to warn them of their danger. If
they will persist in throwing- out intemperate and
undistinguishing invectives against the leaders of
the state, we must remind them that it is a far
smoother and more delightful task to censure the
faults of others than to amend our own : that the
weakest men may, afterthe event, perceive the mis
take, against which the wiser cannot provide : that
we are frequently betrayed into rashness and uncha
ritableness, when we condemn the conduct of men
who are surrounded by difficulties with which our
own wisdom has never been embarrassed, and temp
tations by which our own virtue has never been
assailed : that it is not always safe to argue from a
known failure in the execution, to some unknown
absurdity in the choice of the means, or of the end :
that it is not unusual for men who are accused of
deliberately deceiving their country, to be thera
selves involuntarily and innocently deceived: that
among their accusers moroseness often skulks un-^
der the form of rigorous justice, the rancour of envy
is confounded with the ardour of patriotism, and a
blind, implacable hatred of individuals is mistaken
for a pure and generous love of the public.
The foregoing observations are very trite, but
very interesting. They have been employed, I well
know, to hush the suspicions, and to slacken the
activity of men under the most corrupt forms of
government. But I also know, that there is fre
quent and urgent occasion for enforcing them un
der the most upright administration of the best go-

334 A DISCOURSE
vernments ; for, in the best governments, men are
often insensible of the blessings which Providence
has spread before thera, and unjust to the human
instruments that are appointed to convey those
blessings. Frora the treacherous praises of sorae partizans,
and the groundless calumnies of others, in public
matters, let us proceed to exaraine the raoral con
duct of raen in their private characters.
Superficial understandings are easily dazzled by
the glare that surrounds exalted stations ; bu,t when
we follow the great and the powerful into the re
cesses of their farailies, do we find thera arrayed in
those virtues which shed a less brilliant indeed,
but a more equal and a raore pleasing lustre over
doraestic life ? In vain shall we there look for that
decency of behaviour, that raanliness of thinking,
and that integrity of principle, to which our ances
tors were indebted for their prosperity and their
fame. All that commanded respect in them is
meanly sacrificed by their abject children, who are
content to receive in exchange the gaudiness of fo
reign dress, the insipidity of foreign manners, and,
what is yet more odious, the rankness of foreign
infidelity. But the depravity of our own age is equally
marked by the raeanness, as by the excess of our
vices. No longer do our bosoms glow with that
ambition, which, seduced by the brilliancy and the
raagnitude of its object, too often spurns the re
straints of justice and of law. Instead of this pas
sion, which carried with it an air of wild grandeur.

ON THE LATE FAST. 335
we are distinguished by a loathsome mixture of va
nity, covetousness, and venality ; by a readiness to
corrupt without delicacy, and to be corrupted with
out shame ; by an impatience to glitter in those
honours, which, after they have ceased to be revered
by the unthinking herd, yet continue to be the ob
jects of envy among their more unthinking supe
riors. True it is, that we are exempted from all
the inconveniences of that ferocious spirit, which,
however it may exalt the mind to independence,
and brace it with vigour in the hour of danger, is
too apt to disturb the repose of private life : but
we have little reason to boast of the exchange,
when the effeminacy, the false delicacy, and profli
gacy of the times are thrown into the opposite
scale. There is a dreadful period in the progress of
luxury, where the iraprobability of attaining a better
situation betrays raen into such actions as hasten
the arrival of the worst. Every reflection on the
growing insufficiency of the laws to controul the
encroachments of power, upon the diminished secu
rity of property, and upon the languishing state of
the arts by which it is acquired, is at first attended
with sullen despondence or frantic desperation.
The transition then becomes short and rapid from
unsuccessful industry to incorrigible supineness —
from factious resistance to abject submission — from
querulousness under supposed wrongs, to apathy
under those which are real. The prospect of ap
proaching poverty, which once alarmed the mind,
now serves only to stupify it, and, instead of teach-

336 A DISCOURSE
ing discretion, tends rather to produce extrava
gance. Eager to snatch the few remaining mo
ments of gratification, we no longer think it cri
rainal to abuse what it may soon be impossible for
us to use rightly ; and we squander upon the most
fantastic wishes of the imagination, and the most
corrupt desires of the heart, what may suddenly be
wrested frora us, and what, in the seeming course of
human affairs, cannot be long enjoyed. In the ge
neral distress, which all are compelled to lament,
and which none have the fortitude to alleviate, do
mestic virtues die away. The sweet cares of pro^
viding for posterity are quickly extinguished, where
the provision itself is likely to be inconsiderable
and precarious. The baleful effects of prevailing
raanners are secretly ascribed to some unknown fa
tality, from which flight is impossible, and to which
Opposition is vain. Under this delusion we shift
off the imputation of personal guilt, upon I know
not what external necessity. We rush too precipi
tately upon all the miseries which we discovered too
late ; and abandon ourselves, without reluctance,
and without remorse, to the most wanton dissipa
tion, or the most riotous debauchery.
These observations naturally suggest' themselves
to the irapartial observer of those disastrous circum-^
stances, which attend the downfall of luxurious
kingdoms. ' They deserve, too, some share of atten
tion from every raan who is disposed to examine
the tendency of our own reigning vices, with philo
sophical exactness and with religious seriousness.
In the higher stations of life, we see rank without

ON THE LATE FAST. 337
dignity, money without wealth, and voluptuousness
almost without enjoyment. Our indignation. In
deed, is somewhat stayed in its course by the virtues
which yet keep their ground among the middle or
ders of men ; though a serious observer can scarcely
survey even them without secret apprehensions,
that many of the fences are broken down, and that
these last retreats of religion will soon be over-run
by the devastations of increasing licentiousness.
Much stress has been laid upon the zeal and mu
nificence of our charitable institutions. To dispute
the justice of the praises, so peremptorily demanded,
and so lavishly bestowed. In favour of these institu
tions, to depreciate almost the only virtue which
fashion has patronised, to examine how far ostenta
tion may co-operate with generosity in relieving the
distressed, and in comforting the afflicted, were both
illiberal and impolitic : but, surely the confidence of
self-approbation ought to be in some degree re
pressed by the mischiefs that have arisen from the
injudicious or indiscriminate use of well raeant con
tribution ; by thc decay of hospitality In the fami
lies of the opulent, where lazy dependents are pam
pered by those superfluities by which the hungry
orphan ought to be fed ; and, above all, by the scanty
streams that issue frora private liberality, in situa
tions to which the regular and limited course of
public charities cannot be extended.
As we descend to the lower ranks of men, we see
a spirit of prodigality, which the conduct of their
superiors promotes, and, therefore, in some degree,
extenuates ; a spirit of rancour and envy, which re-
VOL. II. z

338 A DISCOURSE
peated kindness cannot soften ; a spirit of indo
lence, frora which the sluggard is hardly awakened
by the stiraulations of extreme penury ; a spirit of
discontent and faction, which has already trampled
down the distinctions of station and fortune, and
which threatens the very existence of society with
general dissolution. To these evils in the people
must be added the corruption of too many among
those to whom the sacred power of government is,
in its various branches, entrusted; the seditious
turbulence of sorae, the shameless venality of others,
the affected moderation and tiraid neutrality of
raany, the artificial insensibility and voluntary blind
ness of more.
When the public worship of God is openly
neglected, his Word ridiculed, and his Providence
indirectly denied ; when adultery more than escapes
from an abhorrence, for it engages sorae share even
of our esteera, under the imposing title of gallan
try ; when profaneness is censured for ill-breeding,
only to shelter it the more effectually from every
morose charge of imraorality ; when the fortunes
and honours of the raost illustrious families are
suspended on the precarious throw of a die ; when
suicide is become a reputable and almost a neces
sary refuge to disappointed avarice ; when ideal
honour usurps the place of justice, and the severity
of the laws is blunted by the nuraber and rank of
the offenders — when these melancholy indications
of depravity surround us on every side, " by whom
shall I comfort you?" In such a situation, to say
that all is well were weak and perfidious. It is

ON THE LATE FAST. 339
folly to think that our efforts can counteract the
designs of Providence : it is equally folly to imagine
that, in order to gratify a vicious people, the Deity
will alter that order of things which his wisdom
has instituted for the discouragment of vice itself:
and it is the excess of infatuation, to suppose that
luxury will not exhaust our strength ; that dissipa
tion will not debase our spirit ; that the flagrant
and premature debaucheries of the young, the in
corrigible and almost unnatural corruptions of the
old, will not ultimately bring down upon us the
most fearful judgments of an offended God.
Far be that day of sorrow from our Zion ! Yes,
my brethren, every good raan wiU, in the sincerity
of his heart, join you in your wishes, that it raay be
very far removed ; and he will further wish, that
each of you may, in this your day, know and pur
sue the things that belong to your peace. But the
condition in which you are involved leave no room
for us to trifle or dissemble with you ; it has
already confuted all the smooth things which in
terested ambition most solicitously, and, I blush to
say it, most successfully prophesied in the ear of
credulous ignorance : it has surpassed the expec
tations of sober unprejudiced reason, and has al
most rescued every menace of unprincipled and
malicious faction from the charge of exaggeration.
War, though it be undertaken, according to po
pular opinions and popular language, with justice,
and prosecuted with success, is a most awful cala
mity: it generally finds men sinners, or raakes
them such ; for, so great is usually the dispropor-
z2

340 A DISCOURSE
tion between the provocation and the punishment,
between the evU inflicted, or suffered, and the good
obtained, or even proposed, that a serious raan can
not reconcile the very frequent rise, and the very
long continuance of hostilities, to reason or to hu
raanity. Upon whom, too, do the severities of war
fall most heavily ? In many cases, they by whom
contention is begun or cherished feel their influence
extended, their dependants multiplied, and their
wealth, in the regular and fair course of public
business, increased. While fields are laid waste,
and cities depopulated, the persons by whose com
mands such raiseries take place are often wanton
ing in luxurious excess, or slumbering in a state of
unfeeling and lazy repose. The peaceful citizen is,
in the raean tirae, crushed under the weight of ex
actions, to which, for " conscience sake," he sub
mits ; the industrious merchant Is Irapoverished
by unforeseen and undeserved losses ; and the art
less husbandraan is dragged away from those who
are nearest and dearest to him, in order to shed the
blood of beings as innocent and as wretched as hira
self, to repel injuries which he never felt or sus
pected, and to procure advantages which he may
never understand or enjoy. Such are the aggra
vating circurastances belonging to war, when it is
carried on against a foreign eneray, and though it bc
disarraed of many terrors which accompanied it in
less enlightened and less civilized ages.
But our situation is attended with yet heavier
distresses. We are engaged in a contest where the
most sacred ties are torn asunder, the fondest affec-

ON THE LATE FAST. 341
tions alienated, the raost useful attachments disre
garded ; where every warrior points his sword
against the bosom of a feUow citizen, and every
conqueror may stain it with the blood of a friend.
These evils, which to common observers once ap
peared but as the small distant cloud, have gathered
around us frora every quarter, and burst with all the
fury of a tempest, terrible because unexpected. In
the past we behold desolation most rapid, most ex
tensive ; perhaps irremediable to those who have
suffered the blow; and, what is more strange,
nearly unprofitable to those who have inflicted it.
The present is yet big with difficulty and danger ;
and over the future is cast one dark impenetrable
veil of uncertainty and horror.
Let not these assertions be hastily ascribed to the
dreams of melancholy, or to the ravings of discon
tent. You will not think them ill-tiraed, or ill-
founded, if you consider the numerous and Increas
ing evils which surround us.
America has opened a most spacious and unex
plored field for experimental policy; and it raay
not be within the corapass of our penetration to
discover, or of our courage to counteract, those
projects which the fierce resentment of our colo
nists, united with the profound cunning of our ene
raies, raay hereafter accomplish. I mean not to
entangle you in political discussions of the motives
which have impelled our brethren to connect them
selves with a most inveterate and insidious foe.
Whether you applaud that connection as prudential,
or rail at it as unnatural, whether you consider it as

342 A DISCOURSE
imposed by necessity, or suggested by perfidy, the
fact itself is indisputable, and the effects of it upon
our interests are sorely felt. It has certainly barred
up raany avenues to reconciliation ; it has enlarged
the circle, and multiplied the miseries of war ; it
has produced among us such an accumulation of
calamities as it is more easy for the impartial pa
triot to lament than for the raost sage politician to
encounter. That arabitious house, which once aspired to the
sovereignty of Europe upon the Continent, hath
suddenly changed its object, without relaxing its
activity, and is endeavouring to subdue us on that
element where, by our situation and our valour, we
have hitherto maintained an unrivalled superiority.
A people that were often protected by our arms,
and enriched by our wealth, are now employing
their own arras and their own wealth to hasten our
downfall. Impatient to share the treasures which
America is supposed to contain within its bosom,
they have courted the friendship of those very na
tions by whora their own provinces have been often
plundered, their best citizens put to the sword, and
the foundations of their free constitution violently
shaken. Under the pretence of avenging wrongs
which they deliberately provoked, they have found
a favourable raoraent for throwing aside the mask,
exchanging evasion for defiance, and seizing by
force those advantages which they had not the au
dacity to claim on any acknowledged principles of
equity. When such formidable powers have combined for

ON THE LATE FAST. 343
our destruction, we might expect some neighbour
ing nations, either from compassion to ourselves, or
from jealousy to our adversaries, to step forward for
our protection. We might expect some efforts to
be made for preserving, or, rather, for restoring
that balance of power which, although it was not
totally unknown to the ancients, has been better
understood by the moderns, and which has long
been considered as the raost secure defence against
the encroachraents of the crafty and the depreda
tions of the powerful. But such expectations, how
ever reasonable in themselves, have hitherto been
vain. Some nations have, I fear, smarted under our
insolence ; others have dreaded our power ; more
have envied our prosperity ; and all seem prepared
to reraain the triumphant, or, at least, the inactive
spectators of our aggravated, and almost unexam
pled misfortunes. Thus separated frora one great
and flourishing part of our erapire, abandoned by
our forraer allies, harrassed by our iraplacable ad
versaries, we feel not only our strength irapaired,
and our importance in the political scale dirai
nished, but our very existence,* as a free and inde
pendent people, raost alarralngly endangered.
True it is, that we have nothing to apprehend
from some calamities by which nations, though
trained to arms, and though civilized by arts, have,
* Nunc verb non (solilm) id agitur, bonisne an malis mori
bus vivaraus ; neque, quantura, aut qukm magnificum imperium
populi Anglican! sit : sed, haec cujuscumque modi videntur,
nostra, an, nobiscum unk, hostium futura sint. — See the speech
of Porcius Cato, in Sallust.

344 A DISCOURSE
in forraer ages, been fatally and finally overthrown.
We need not be alarraed about the sudden and im
petuous incursions of those roving tribes which are
more to be dreaded from their savage insolence in
victory than their brutal fierceness In battle, and
which, with astonishing rapidity, have been some
times able to defeat disciplined armies, to desolate
cultivated countries, and to subvert established
forms of governraent. But have we nothing to
fear frora other quarters ? Are we threatened with
no dangers from the malignant jealousy of our
rivals, frora the insatiable ambition of our enemies,
or frora the cruel policy of those whora Providence,
in its just displeasure, raay one day permit to be
our masters ? Grant, however, that these distresses
are for the present averted by the seasonable inter
position of other states, and the vigorous exertions
of our own. Can any serious raan look with un
concern upon our intestine divisions, upon our viti
ated raanners, upon the enormous magnitude of
our debt, upon the galling pressure of our taxes,
upon the progressive spirit of eraigration, or upon
the silent decay of population r If we rest in
thoughtless security because the last and greatest
of evils are not yet arrived, the last and greatest
of evils will, like a thief In the night, overtake us,
after we have neglected every expedient that raay
check the intermediate stages of ruin. To check
thera, however, is, I trust, yet in our power, if all
our attention, and all our resolution, be summoned
to the task. But God forbid that such a task — so
delicate In its nature, so difficult in its execution, so

ON THE LATE FAST. 345
interesting in its consequences, should be under
taken by feeble, by unskilful, or by perfidious
hands ! Never can it be properly intrusted to each
specious patriot, or each hardy adventurer ; to the
narrow selfishness of a party, or the irregular pas
sions of a rabble. It will never be honourably ac
complished, but by those wise and upright men
whom the Deity soraetiraes vouchsafes to raise up
for the support of a sinking people ; by those who
have learned to distinguish between the plausible in
theory and the useful in practice ; by those who
disdain to profess what they do not raean, and to
undertake what they do not understand ; by those
who can be teraperate without languor, and active
without violence ; by those who are prepared to
iraprove what is excellent, without visionary refine
ment, and to correct what is hurtful, without daring
innovation. The race of these worthies is not, I
hope, utterly extinct. Some marks of this exalted
character are to be found among the advocates and
the opponents of our present measures ; and raay
their wishes never be fettered by partial conveni
ence or teraporary connections ! May they happily
find, or, rather, raay they generously unite in (-re
ating, opportunities for the glorious display of all
their talents and of all their virtues I
When a nation is placed in the disastrous cir
cumstances that I have represented to you, it were
unfeeling only to acknowledge the fact ; and to ac
count for it on political principles, to the utter
exclusion of moral, were glaringly absurd. Indeed,
every man whom system has not deluded, or pride

346 A DISCOURSE
hardened, will carry his views much farther. He
will look for the most efficacious, though not for
the grosser and more obvious causes of our present
distractions, both in his own vices and those of
other men ; and in their effects he will discern, not
merely the intricate windings of human cunning,
or the irregular sallies of huraan passion, but the
awful correction of that Being whose power con
trouls the raadness of the people, and whose anger
is kindled not a little when they are let loose to
destroy. If the Jews, over whora the rod of justice was
yet suspended, be inexcuseable in conderaning the
Galileans, what apology can be framed for us, who
are overtaken, at least, by the " beginning of sor
rows ? " Probably, among ourselves, as among the
Jews, experience of past favours has produced tu
multuous and confident expectations of future suc
cour. Be it so. The Jews were delivered from the
hosts of Assyria: they were brought back from
their captivity in Babylon : but of their final disper
sion the most dreadful traces remain to this day.
Though repentance had repeatedly averted the judg
ments that were threatened against this people, and
repeatedly mitigated those which were inflicted on
them, they have at last drunken the cup of fury in
its unmixed bitterness, and wrung out the very
dregs of vengeance.
From the delusions of fanaticism, and the mise
ries of anarchy, which followed after the grand
rebelhon, this country was happily delivered. In a

ON THE LATE FAST. 347
subsequent reign * it was rescued from the oppres
sions of despotism, leagued with popery ; and our
escape was then effected with such ease, and such
rapidity, that men were almost surprised into the
possession of all the blessings which they had
viewed only in the horizon of distant futurity, and
towards which they were preparing to go forward,
through toils and perils, through the aniraosites of
party, and the horrors of war.
With the confidence of the Jews you may boast
of these interpositions. You have also abused them
with the ingratitude of the Jews in the hour of in
solent prosperity ; and the period may have arrived
to you, as it certainly has arrived among the Jews,
when it will be no longer in your power to make a
wrong use of protection, because it is no longer
bestowed. To an understanding that brings into one point
of view all the complicated operations of those na
tural and moral, those political and religious causes
which are now unfolding themselves ; to a mind
that can steadily weigh the strength of the con
tending parties, not in their immediate exertions,
but in their future resources, our present calaraities
may seem not less to require the aid of heaven than
those from which we have hitherto been delivered.
For my part, I do not presurae to anticipate the
designs of the Almighty towards us, to scrutinize
the measures he may employ in bringing to pass
his "strange act," or to extend my conjectures
* James II.

348 A DISCOURSE
through that chain of events, of which, perhaps,
scarcely the first link is experimentally known.
But sure I ara, that, however unlimited be our in
gratitude, the raercies of God are not bound to keep
pace with it ; and that the interpositions of Omni
potence will not for ever wait upon the call of a dis
obedient people. At all events, we cannot have a
more efficacious plea for imploring the protection
of God than our conformity to his righteous laws ;
nor can we pursue a surer path of escaping the
Jewish punishments denounced in ray text, than by
shunning the Jewish criraes of pride and unchari
tableness conderaned in it.
In the course of this address I have endeavoured
to fix upon your minds the best impressions that
can be made by the present soleranity ; I raean, a
deep and contrite sense of your numberless offences,
a fearful expectation of the judgments that raay
await you, a sincere and steady resolution of speedy
araendraent. But, if any raan be so prejudiced as
to disbelieve the reality of our national corruptions,
and yet so presumptuous as to join in a service
where those corruptions are repeatedly acknow
ledged, let him hear, not from mc, but from the
mouth of an inspired prophet, how far a sensual and
self-sufficient habit of thinking can agree with the
religious institution of this day. * " In this day
has the Lord God called to weeping, and to mourn
ing, and to sackcloth : but behold joy and gladness,
slaying oxen and killing sheep, eating flesh and
* Isaiah, chap, .x.xii. ver. 12 and 13.

ON THE LATE FAST. 349
drinking wine ; let us eat and drink, for to-morrow
we die." Such inconsistent and impious sentiments
our legislature has virtually disclaimed, in those
serious terms by which every meraber of the com
munity is called upon to humble himself before the
Lord ; and every worthy meraber of the community
equally disclaims thera by his obedience to that call.
But, if any one of my hearers should entertain dif
ferent sentiments, if he rush into the sanctuary,
not with the spirit of humility and repentance
which our church recommends, but in the spirit of
strife and debate which the prophet has conderaned ;
if he expect to hear frora me inflammatory invec
tives against the vices of our enemies, oi; elaborate
encoraiuras on our own virtues ; it is ray wish to
disappoint that raan, as it is my duty to undeceive
and to reform him. Let him, then, recollect, that
the Almighty does not launch the thunderbolts of
his vengeance at the bidding of every short-sighted
and presmnptuous creature ; that, araidst the dis
cordant interests, the headstrong passions, and dis
proportioned powers of raankind, success is not in
variably the criterion of justice ; and that even in
raercy to those who repent before they utterly pe
rish, God often finds the instruraents of their cor
rection In other obdurate and irapenitent sinners,
whose very conquests are intended to accomplish
their ruin, and upon whora, in the full career of
their glory, the vials of divine wrath are poured
down frora above. Let him know that zeal, even in
the best cause, is despicable when it proceeds frora
ignorance, and hateful when it is the effect of

350 A DISCOURSE
pride; that imaginary loyalty cannot expiate inhu
manity ; and that the efficacy of piety is not always
to be measured by the claraorous importunity of
supplication. To aU such hearers, if such there be,
I address myself in the animated language of the
prophet, * " forasmuch as this people draw near to
God with their mouth, and with their lips do ho
nour him, and their fear towards God is taught by
the precept of raen ; therefore, -|- when you spread
forth your hands, he will hide his eyes frora you ;
when you make any prayers, he will not hear ; your
hands are full of blood." But in the bosom of the
sincere worshipper there will be no room for the
haughtiness of self-admiration, or the acrimony of
revenge. On the contrary, he will acknowledge
the tendency which the virtues of individuals must
have to promote the happiness of the coraraunity :
he will consider the character of a good Christian
as inseparable frora that of a good citizen ; and,
not content with deploring the calamities which his
own raisconduct has in sorae raeasure occasioned,
he will endeavour to alleviate thera by iramediate
reformation. With an understanding which so
phistry cannot mislead, and with passions which
reproach cannot irritate, he will explore the true
sources of all those events which perplex the preju
diced, deceive the precipitate, and terrify the igno
rant; he will perceive, that government is the medium
through which the Deity conveys punishment to the
wicked, as well as reward to the righteous : that in
* Isaiah, c. xxix. v. 13. f Isaiah, c. i. v. 15.

ON THE LATE FAST. 351
the commotions of states, there is room for con
demnation as well as pity ; that the misconduct of
governors derives its origin frequently, its efficacy
always, from the antecedent and general depravity
of the governed : that slavery is seldora established
among those who deserve freedom, and never es
caped by those who have abused it : that between
the misfortunes and demerits of a people, there sub
sists not only the most intimate connection, but the
most exact proportion : that their distresses arise
from repentance long delayed, and their ruin from
impenitence absolutely incorrigible.
Under this conviction he will transfer his com
plaints from appearances to realities ; from contin
gent and temporary evils to such as are essential and
perraanent ; frora the intrigues of ambition, and the
outrages of party, to that indisputable and nearly
universal corruption of which they form only a
part. Hence, in all the revolutions of human af
fairs, he will discover the appointments of a divine
Providence. The success of aspiring statesmen, he
will acknowledge to be ordained for the chastisement
of wicked states — amidst the agonies of an ex
hausted and expiring constitution, amidst intestine
divisions and outward dangers, amidst all the falla
cious reasonings, all the impotent remonstrances,
and all the fruitless expedients of miserable and
worthless men, he will find new motives rising upon
himself, for admiration of that wisdom, which may
be partially traced, and acquiescence in that justice
which ought to be hurably adored. As to our ad
versaries, he will leave the measure, both of their

352 A DISCOURSE
guilt and of their correction, to be determined by
the Deity, whose designs are neither retarded by our
perverseness nor accelerated by our impatience. He
will beware of uncharitableness in pronouncing
them " the worst of sinners because they have suf
fered such things" from the formidable resentment
of those with whom they are contending. He will
renounce every groundless claira of perfection, and,
awakened from all the delusive drearas of fixed and
unalterable security, he will trerable at that warning
voice, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish." The events of which I have been speaking In this
discourse, will be seen in different points of view,
according to our different habits of thinking. Thus
the Religionist will, with re\crential awe, trace them
up to the dispensations of that Providence by which
vice is punished, and virtue sometiraes perraitted to
share In the punishraent. The philosopher will dis
cern in thera the operation of those moral causes
which are intimately connected" with physical, and
which, together with thera, raake up the whole of
our sufferings and our enjoyraents. The politician
will discover in them those springs of action, the
consec[uences of which, however diversified by acci
dental circurastances, raay be resolved Into the
sarae comraon principles, whether we survey the
wildness of the huraan character in a state of bar-
barisra, or its regularity under the directions of go
vernment. These various forras of speculation
have their peculiar rules, and their peculiar uses.
But the objects of those speculations are, both in

ON THE LATE FAST. 353
their causes and their effects, closely interwoven.
To understand them, also, falls within the compass
of enquiries, distinct indeed, but not incompatible :
for, if a just attention be paid to the particular pro
perties of each cause and each effect ; if an impar
tial estimate be made of their collective efficacy ; if
their connections and mutual dependencies be accu
rately examined, the religionist, the philosopher,
and the politician, may rise superior to contracted
prejudices, may subdue the obstinate pride which
favourite and exclusive systems are too apt to in
spire, and may render the most solid and signal ser
vices to their country. They will immediately en
large the sum of such virtue, and such felicity, as
are allotted to man in his present state of imperfec
tion. At the same time, they will eventually qualify
their species for those new stages of existence, new
spheres of action, and new modes of happiness, to
which it is the gracious intention of our Maker to
conduct his creatures through an unexplored and
endless futurity.
To conclude — in respect to the disputes that un
happily subsist between this Country and its Colo
nies, every feeling heart must bleed at the bare re
collection of them and of their consequences. But
to bring them forward for the purpose of minute
discussion in the pulpit, were invidious in itself, fo
reign to the more important ends of our present
meeting, and indecent even to profanation in this
temple, sanctified as it is by his presence, who is
the God of Peace.
Far, very far, does the turbulence of political de-
VOL. II. 2 a

354 A DISCOURSE
bate stand removed from the calmness of religious
investigation : and when a Clergyman, whether se
duced by real or pretended zeal, strikes aside from
the beaten path of moral instruction, and bewilders
his hearers in the dark and crooked mazes of party,
he seems to forget the simplicity of the Gospel, and
the meekness of its blessed Author. Most honour
able it is to our holy religion, and raost corafortable
to those who would teach it in sincerity, and obey
it with consistence, that the precepts of Christ will
enable men to be virtuous under the worst form of
government, while they tend to produce and to per
petuate all the advantages of the best. For this
reason, our advice, like that of the Apostle, should
be earnest but general ; and it should be expressed,
not in the captious terms of human wisdom, but in
the purity and plainness of scriptural language, ap
plied only on scriptural principles. We bid you
" pay tribute where tribute is due." But Christi
anity furnishes no clue to conduct us through the
real or artificial difficulties, in which the controver
sies of men are usually involved. It gives us no
commission to weigh the jarring clairas of nations
in the " balance of the sanctuary." We exhort you
to " honour the King," and every other Magistrate,
as " the servants of God appointed for your good."
But we say not, for we have no warrant from the
Gospel to say, that the abused authority of a
righteous master extends an unliraited and uncondi
tional protection to his unrighteous stewards ; and
we leave it, as Christ actually has left it, to the con-.
sciences of well-disposed and well-informed Christi-

ON THE LATE FAST. 355
ans, to determine, when the Magistrate deviates
from the duties of his venerable character, and for
feits those privileges which are, upon the soundest
and most enlarged principles of policy, annexed to
it. Be it, therefore, the employment of other men,
to trace out the political causes of our present divi
sions. Ours be the humbler, but not less useful
task, of lamenting them, and of alleviating their ef
fects ; and well, my brethren, does that man deserve
of his Country, who studies to promote its happi
ness, by his counsel, by his prayers, by his exem
plary innocence in private life, and his uncorrupted
integrity in public.
To re-echo the clamours, or to gratify the preju
dices, of any among the numerous parties that now
prevail among us, were an unpardonable prostitu
tion of our sacred office : — but there are measures
in which the labours of all parties ought to unite ;
and there is also a language of soberness and truth,
by which we may becomingly recoraraend those
measures to your approbation and your practice.
From whatever origin our dissensions and our
distresses may have arisen, it should be the earnest
desire, the fixed resolution, the unremitting endea
vour of every man to bring them to a conclusion.
While, therefore, the final event of war is hung up
in awful uncertainty, I entreat you, my brethren, to
soften the harshness of mutual suspicions, to quell
the fierceness of mutual resentment, and studiously
to abstain from that contemptuous scurrility, which
is more likely to exasperate than to intimidate. I
exhort you to form your own opinions with impar-
2a2

356 A DISCOURSE ON THE LATE FAST.
tiallty, to support them with moderation, and to op
pose with good manners and good nature the sen
timents of other men, who, with equal abilities to
discern truth, and equal honesty to erabrace it, are
compelled to differ from you. If the contest should
happily terminate, according to the purport of the
petitions you have this day offered up to the throne
of the Almighty, then, as a friend to the real inte
rests of my country, as an advocate for the unalien
able rights of mankind, as a minister of that Gos
pel, the foundation of which was benevolence on
the part of God, and the end of which is universal
charity ainong men, I call you up to the discharge
of nobler and more arduous duties. Appeal to the
voice of Reason, and it will tell you that your le
nity only can conciliate the affection of those whom
your arras may have subdued. Consult the oracles
of Religion, and you wiU be informed, that however
the Colonists may be now divided from you, how
ever they may have violated your laws, abused your
protection, and insulted your authority, they are yet
fellow-creatures, whom you ought to pity, fellow-
citizens whom you will be bound to support, fellow-
christians, whora, under the penalty of final con
demnation, you are commanded to forgive.

SPITAL SERMON,
PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH,
UPON EASTER TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1800;

TO WHICH ARE ADDED

NOTES.

Quantiim possumus, boni ac benefici esse meditemur ; si
quid nobis opuui, si quid suppetit copiarum, id non voluptati
unius, sed multorum saluti irapartiatur. Voluptas enim tam
mortalis est, qukm corpus, cui exhibet ministerium. Justitia
vero et beneficentia tam immortales, qukm mens et anima, quae
bonis operibus sirailitudinem Dei assequitur. — Lactantius de
Ira Dei, vol. ii. page 179. edit. Paris, 1748.
^vfi(j>wvelv Tols Xoyois {rols irepl Bewpias) eoiKaaiv at tUv ooipiiv
So^at* irianv fiiv ovv Kal rd roiavra exei nvd' to b' dXrjBes ev
to'is irpaKTols tK rwv epywj' Kal rov (iiov KpiveraC iv rovrois ydp
rb Kvpiov. — Aristotle de Moribus, lib. x. cap. ix. edit. Duval.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
HARVEY CHRISTIAN COMBE, Esa. M.P.
LOUD MAYOR OF LONDON ;
AND TO
THE GOVERNORS OF THE ROYAL HOSPITALS
WHO ATTENDED HIM AT CHRIST CHURCH ON EASTER TUESDAY LAST,
THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE,
PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST,
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
BY THEIR OBEDIENT SERVANT,
SAMUEL PARR.

Lan St. Frede, Monmouthshire,
Aug. 16, 1800.

A
SERMON, &c.

GALATIANS vi. 10.
As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all
men, especially unto them who are of the household cf
faith. ENOUGH there is, and more than enough, to
humble our pride, and to awaken our caution, when
we reflect upon the errors of ingenious men, in
their Attempts to unfold the most familiar opera
tions of the human mind. The eager desire of
paradox ; the ambition of assigning new terms,' or
new arrangements, to facts already known ; the ha
bit of contemplating a favourite topic in one dis
tinct and vivid point of view, while it is disregarded
under all others ; a fondness for siraplicity ^ on
subjects too complicated in their inward structure,
or their external relations, to be reduced to any
single and uniform principle, have given rise to
numberless disputes in raoral, as well as natural
philosophy. But upon no occasion, perhaps, have
the talents of raen been raore strangely misem
ployed, than in tracing the motives by which we are
impelled to do good to our fellow-creatures, and
adjusting the extent to which we are capable of
doing it.
' The notes referred to by figures are printed at the end of
the Sermon.

362 A SPITAL SERMON,
The Epicureans ^ of old contended that all our
views are selfish, and that to procure for ourselves
pleasure, or to avert pain from ourselves, was the
ultimate design of every action. An opinion not
very dissimilar prevailed araong the school-men of
the middle age, who represented a direct regard to
our own happiness, as the sole motive by which our
wills are determined, and who incautiously, but not
irreverently, spoke even of virtue itself, ^ as desira
ble chiefly on account of the rewards annexed to it.
These theories, the one denying a future state, the
other admitting it, yet agreeing so far as to resolve
all our agency into the unraixed and unceasing ope
rations of selfishness, slumbered for some time in
the Christian world. But in the seventeenth cen
tury* they were revived with new modifications, and
gradually assumed a more formidable aspect.
" Common reason and huraanity," says Butler, -|-
*' will have sorae influence upon raankind, whatever
becomes of speculations." Hence, that we never
feel the disinterested ^ desire of doing good to any
man, is a tenet, which, though professed now and
then by the fantastic humourist, though favoured by
the churlish raisanthrope, though defended by the
logical gladiator, and eraployed, it may be, as an
occasional instrument of irritation or imposture by
the wily politician, did not work any iraportant
change in the sentiraents or habits of a people.

* Mr. Hobbes — hc was followed by Rochefoucault and Man
deville, and afterwards by Rousseau and Helvetius.
¦)• Sce Sermon xi. '229.

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 363
But, as opinions of this kind always gain a tempo
rary popularity from their novelty, or even their ex
travagance, and always produce, too, a partial eflect
upon conduct, they ought to be resisted. Accord
ingly, to the credit of our own country,^ the
selfish system was successfully combated by men of
high reputation for the soundness of their judg
ments, and the precision of their reasoning ; and, it
may be worth while to remark, that in vindicating
those moral sentiments, which are beautifully said
to form " the party of mankind * against vice and
disorder its comraon eneray ;" ec[ual abilities were
exerted with equal zeal, by writers, -|- whose senti
ments upon the abstruser points of theology, as con
nected with metaphysics, were wholly discordant.
" That we are made as much for society, and to do
good to our fellow-creatures, as to take care of our
own health:;}: that selfishness is not to be con
founded with self-love : § that self-love may mingle
and even co-operate with benevolence : ^ that our
sympathy with others arises frora the very consti
tution of our nature, ^ and not from any views of
personal advantage : that we feel a pleasure 9 in
doing good to others, because we love them, but do
not love them for the sake of that pleasure :" these

* See Hume's Essays, vol. ii. p. 349, edit. 1767.
i' Lord Shaftesbury, Bishop Butler, Mr. Hutcheson, Mr.
Hume, Adam Smiih, and Lord Kaimes in his History of Man.
J See Butler, Sermon i. p. 6, and Hume's Essays, vol. ii.
p. 239.
§ See Butler, Serraon xi, particularly where he explains in
p. 211, thc word selfish. Sec also his Preface, p. 2i-.

364
are truths not very soon to be disturbed by the rest
lessness of innovation, or undermined by the crafti
ness of scepticism. The danger we have to appre
hend proceeds from another quarter.
In a country not very distant, theories'" of
more or less value, and with greater or less inge
nuity, were sorae tirae ago constructed for the im
provement of society : and, in the progress of spe
culations, carried on with a glowing and impetuous
spirit of enthusiasra, certain roraantic and even per
nicious notions were started, upon the powers with
which we are furnished, and the obligations by which
we are bounden to proraote, by direct airas, the
universal good of the species. How far the advo
cates for these opinions may have been sincere and
consistent in making them the rule of public raea
sures. Is a point quite foreign to the business of this
day, and, I raust add, to the duties of this hallowed
place. It rather becoraes us to reraeraber, that the
new doctrine of universal philanthropy has found its
way to our own country, and that whatever changes
may have been wrought upon its surface, by the
oflSciousness of admirers, or the dexterity of copy
ists, it still retains so much of its original features,
as to reraind us whence it came, and to give us an
interest in considering, whither, for a season at
least, it may spread.
If the pecuhar circumstances of the times should
induce you to compare the selfish with the philan
thropic system, as the latter has been recently taught,
you will find that the one never occasioned so much
mischief as It seemed to threaten, and that the other

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 365
will be productive of less good than it promises,
accompanied by a long and portentous train of evils,
which had been negl. gently overlooked, or insidi
ously disguised by its panegyrists. The selfish, in
deed, on its first approach, repels and scares us with
the sternness of its appeanmce ; it gives an instan
taneous alarm to all the centinels, which self-respect,
as the ally of virtue, has placed around the heart ;
it sullies the general dignity of our nature, and even
selfishness, standing aghast at the supposed extent
of her own domain, would, for the moment, be con
tent to hold a divided erapire with her more araiable
rival. But the philanthropic wears a raore engaging
form : it announces its pretensions in a milder tone :
by a thousand secret spells, it wins over to its pur
poses our vanity and our credulity, and from the
service in which our affections are usually engaged,
it would decoy them away, by opening to us the
prospect of far mightier achievements, to be fol
lowed by a richer harvest of glory to ourselves, and
a fuller tide of happiness diffused among our feUow-
creatures. Frora many of the baneful effects which the
selfish might produce, the authority of public law
protects the public welfare ; and the crimes to
which it might incite us, fall within the reach of
definitions and rules. But, in the motives by which
the philanthropist is impelled, the kind affections
may be so writhed around the unsocial : in the cha
racter of his actions, the freaks of absurdity raay be
so blended with the outrages of wickedness : in
their consequences, evil may have such an alloy

366 A SPITAL SERMON,
from concomitant good, that, if our common sense
did not revolt from the incongruous mass, scarcely
any judicial or even intellectual process could sepa
rate affectation from hypocrisy, delusion frora ma
lignity, that which deserves only contempt or pity
from that which calls aloud for reprobation.
Do you ask what led me Into this train of reflec
tion ? I answer, the words of the text, in which we
are commanded to " do good unto all men, and
especially unto thera who are of the household of
faith :" for, the spirit ofthe first proposition has been
violated by those who insist raost strenuously on
the letter ; and the justness of the second has been
obliquely controverted, or obscurely and reluctantly
adraitted. That text, however, like raany other
passages in Scripture, has the substance, without the
forra, of genuine philosophy. In language that is
obvious to every understanding, it exhibits the re
sult of the raost rainute analysis that can be given
of our faculties and duties, as social beings. It con
tains all that is practicable in the doctrine of gene
ral benevolence, and all that is required of us indis
pensably in the exercise of that which is particular.
But you will permit rae to observe, that the words
" let us do good" will not convey to you entirely
what the Apostle raeant. The original expression
iraplies not raerely " let us do good," but, " let
us work and labour in doing it," e§ya^a)'/*e9a to
dyotQov; and to the use of that expression St.
Paul raay have been led by the preceding ima
gery, where he had said, that " what a man
soweth, that shall he reap ;" that " he who soweth

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 367
unto the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlast
ing ;" that " in due season we shall reap, if we faint
not." The metaphors, you see, have a strong re
semblance, and are drawn from a comraon source.
As to the import of the text, nothing can be more
just than the condition laid down by the Apostle :
" let us labour in doing good, as we have oppor
tunity :" — nothing more comprehensive than the
precept, let the good be done " unto all men ;" —
nothing more proper than the preference which is
especially given to " them, who are of the house
hold of faith."
In the further prosecution of the subjects which
the text has suggested to us, I shall first examine
how far, by the constitution of human nature, and
the circumstances of human life, the principles of
particular and universal benevolence are compati
ble ; and, secondly, I shall make some observations
upon the charitable institutions over which you
preside. Against the union of our species into one com
munity, " where the action of every part would
visibly and iminediately affect the whole, innume
rable barriers are placed by mountains, deserts, or
seas : by difierences in climate, soil, and speech :
in physical wants ; in traditional customs, civil in
stitutions, religious opinions, intellectual pursuits,
manual employraents, and all the various and pro
rainent circura.stances which distinguish one nation
from another. The inconveniencies arising from
this diversity may be diminished, and the benefits
(for benefits there are) may be multiplied by mutual^

368 A SPITAL SERMON,
but limited intercourse ; '^ and it deserves to be
remarked that the arabition of conquerors and the
wisdora of legislators have usuaUy paid some regard
to these local distinctions, whether natural or mo
ral. When, therefore, we speak about the commu
nity of mankind, we use the language rather of
rhetorical ornament, than of philosophical precision ;
and were such a community recommended on the
plea of giving a wider scope to the exercise of our
benevolent affections, and a more abundant supply
to the happiness of our fellow creatures, I should
adopt the reasoning, which a great writer of anti
quity '^ employed against an imaginary republic,
where all children were to be considered as equally
related to all citizens. " In such a state," he argues,
" the principle of affection would be diluted, and, as
it were, watery, where the father could not say, my
child, '¦* nor the child, my father : for as a little
sweet raingled with much water makes the whole
mixture tasteless, so would the relation arising from
the indiscrirainate use of these names, becorae weak
and Imperceptible." "What filial or parental affec
tion would have been in the commonwealth of
Plato, that would our benevolent affections be, dif
fused equally to all, if " all people, nations, and lan
guages" were gathered together with the name of
one society, and under the regulations necessary to
keep it one.
But the moral obligations of men cannot be
stretched beyond their physical powers. Here then
a question arises, whether, according to the present
constitution of things, we can be, in any sense of

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 369
the words, required to " do good unto all men."
Probable it is, that, by the laws of association, the
elements of those afiections which irapej us to
" weep with thera who weep," and to " rejoice with
them who rejoice," were brought into action by
events that imraediately interested ourselves — that
produced our own pleasure, or removed our own
pain. It must, however, be allowed that these af
fections, mingled as they may have been originally
with other confused sensations, gradually put on a
more definite form, and becorae distinct, entire, ulti
mate perceptions, without reference, not indeed in
their duties, but in their essence and energies, to
any other. When they have been repeatedly exer
cised by correspondent and appropriate objects, re
flection arises, and is followed by a calm desire of
universal good, '^ according to the same order in
which self-love, or the calm desire of our own good,
succeeds those gratifications of particular appetites
and affections, which are the means of satisfaction to
ourselves. Every man, in all probability, has felt
some degree of universal benevolence thus under
stood. Do we not admire the exploits which spread
happiness among our fellow- creatures in the ages
that are past? Do we not love the exalted wis
dora '^ and heroic virtue of those who achieved
them ? Do we not approve, and, in some measure,
even partake the gratitude of those who shared in
their auspicious effects ? When we read of laws and
institutions '''' successfully established for the pub
lic good in any foreign kingdom, do we never ex
perience more than the cold assent of our judgment ?
V'.L. II. 2 B

370 A SPITAL SERMON,
During the " ideal presence" * of the objects, do we
not form good wishes towards them ? Do we not,
at the moraent, covet '^ a sort of fellowship with
thera ? Do not our bosoms throb with indignation
against the ferocious oppressor or the sanguinary in
vader, who would disturb their peace ? In confor
mity, then, to this part of our nature, which takes
an occasional interest in the felicity of strangers, we
are commanded by St. Paul to " do good unto all
men," and, by a greater than St. Paul, to " love our
neighbour as ourselves ;" and though, in the esti
mation of some men, who, according to the language
of a Father of the Christian church, -f- " are neither
altogether asleep in folly, nor suflSciently awake in
the true light of the understanding," the precept of
our Lord should be defective in what they call phi
losophical accuracy, '^ sufficient it is for every
practical purpose, and often does it carry the direct
and plenary force of obligation, for the benefit of
the very persons recommended to us in systems of
universal philanthropy. It so far includes all men,
that, by implication, no raan is excluded. For,
"who is my neighbour?" 20 Every man, be he
countryman or stranger, in sorae circumstances.
What is the ground of this neighbourhood ? 2' The
participation of a comraon nature, capable of pain
and pleasure.

* For this expression I am indebted to Lord Kaimes. See
his Elements of Criticism, p. 82. vol. i. edit. 3.
t The passage is in St. Austin De Civitati Dei, lib. x. cap. 1.
I found it in Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, p, 83.

b

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 371
Consider the case of him who had " fallen arnon
thieves." He was not born in the sarae country
with the Samaritan. He did not altogether profess
the same religion. His personal merit, his kindred,
and his employraent were unknown. Yet, when he
was in distress, the Samaritan ^^ hastened to his
succour, and the blessed Author of Christianity has
justified the deed. Had he been born in any other
country, or professed any other religion, stiU, by the
unalterable laws of nature, his claim to relief was
founded on his sufferings ; and by the gracious pro
vision of the same nature, corapassion ^^ would have
led a virtuous spectator to relieve him. The feeling
that prorapted the relief is inseparable from the
mind of man. The obligation ^ requiring it arose
in strict conformity with the text, " as we have op
portunity, let us do good unto all men."
Again, in the Sermon on the Mount it is said,
" Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect." But in what does this perfection
consist ? To the Creator of the universe alone, must
belong the love of the universe, * because to the
care of the universe his omnipotence only is equal.
We must look, then, for some other signification of
the words, and the context will supply it. Our be
nevolence must be promiscuous. It must extend to
the bad as well as the good, like the benevolence of
that Being " who causeth the sun to shine, and the
rain to descend " on the just," and " on the unjust."
To all men we must do justly. We must also love
* See Butler's twelfth Sermon, p. 234.
2 b2

372 A SPITAL SERMON,
mercy, and of mercy it is the peculiar attribute to
benefit those who may not deserve our moral appro
bation. We raust love not only " those who love
us," for this the persons, ^^ to whora our Lord upon
another occasion addressed hiraself, admitted ; but
those " who hate us," and this they denied, or at
least doubted ; and what we are thus directed to do
as our duty, we are qualified to do by our affections
— by the pity which precedes forgiveness, and by
the good-will which generally follows it. But thus
to do good, requires the strongest exertions. We
must grapple with our resentraent, ere we can do
good to those who injure us ; and the good so done
is considered by all moralists as the surest indica
tion 2^ of a virtuous disposition, and as the best se
curity for that extensive benevolence which for
wards, as occasion may require, the interests of all
raankind. The precepts of Christianity, then, have
a marked superiority over the tedious and intricate ^
rules of raodern theories. They teach what is in
telligible — they enjoin what is practicable — they do
not raake the raoral worth ^^ of the sufferer the sole,
nor in all cases even the chief, raeasure of his right
to succour. They do not strain or relax the springs
of our particular affections, but direct them in their
proper tone towards their proper objects. They do
not bewilder and annoy our minds by throwing
compassion, or gratitude, or clemency into an hypo
thetical state of variance with justice. ^^ They admit
the principle of loving those by whom we are loved,
and they enforce the distinct, and certainly not in
ferior, principle of extending a portion of that love

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 373
to those by whom we are " despitefully vexed and
persecuted." Now whether we consider universal benevolence
as a quality of nature, or a principle of action, it is
highly expedient for us not to misunderstand its
properties or its office. I admit, and I approve of
it as an emotion 3° of which general happiness is
the cause, but not as a passion, of which, according
to the usual order of human affairs, it could often
be the object. I approve of it as a disposition to
wish, and, as opportunity may occur, to desire and
do good, rather than harm, to those with whora we
are quite unconnected. I approve of it as a capacity
soraetimes to receive uneasiness from their pains,
and satisfaction from their joys ; but an uneasiness
and a satisfaction far less frequent, less Intense, less
permanent, than the uneasiness and satisfaction which
we feel for those around us, and by which we are
stimulated to act as we feel in their behalf.
" A man," says the author of Ecclesiastes, " can
not find what is done under the sun, though he la
bour to seek it out ; yea, though a wise man think
to know it, yet he shall not be able to find it." Na
ture therefore preserved her usual economy and
usual kindness,^' when she didnot subject us to any
exquisite or habitual anxiety for an object so indis
tinct, so huge, so far surpassing our powers of exer
tion and even apprehension, as universal good. As
an aggregate of blessings it is indeed secured by the
aggregate efforts of individuals ; just as, in the arti
ficial division of labour, through a large and compli
cated system, he that attentively performs the task

374 A SPITAL SERMON,
allotted to himself, takes the surest method of con
tributing most amply to the success of the whole. ^^
But, if this be the case, why should we shrink from
acknowledging that our affections are generally en
feebled by expansion, and invigorated ^^ by com
pression ? The final cause of this difference is ap
parent, for the consequences of our actions, so far as
the knowledge of them raay be necessary to direct
the judgraent or excite the wIU, ordinarily lie within
a narrow corapass, and in such actions we are ordi
narily engaged.
Experience has taught us to look, sometimes
with jealousy, and sometiraes with contempt, upon
the projects of men whose minds have not been
matured by long practice or deep wisdora, for ad
vancing the welfare even of a nation ; and should
any adventurer seriously propose by his own solitary
endeavours to render any immediate service to the
whole species, ^^ the glaring extravagance of his at
tempt would hardly be expiated by the possible
purity of his motives. We should condemn him for
folly ; we should suspect hira of vanity ; we should
advise hira to distinguish between the vigour of
enterprise and the hardiness of infatuation ; we
should entreat hira to exchange singularity for com
mon sense ; we should think it better for him to
" wrap even ten talents in a napkin," than to lavish
only one without the sraallest chance of advantage.
To rae it appears that the raodern advocates for
universal philanthropy have fallen into the error
charged upon those who are fascinated by a violent
and extraordinary fondness for what a celebrated

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 375
aiithor calls " some moral species."* Some men, it
has been remarked, are hurried into romantic adven
tures by their excessive adrairation of fortitude.
Others are actuated by a headstrong zeal for disse
minating the true religion. Hence, while the only
properties, for which fortitude or zeal can be es
teemed, are scarcely discernible from the enormous
bulkiness ^^ to which they are swollen, the ends, to
which alone they can be directed usefully, are over
looked or defeated ; the public good is impaired
rather than increased ; and the clairas that other vir
tues equally obligatory have to our notice, are to
tally disregarded. Thus too, when any dazzling
phantoras of universal philanthropy have seized our
attention, the objects that forraerly engaged it
shrink and fade. All considerations of kindred,
friends, and countrymen, drop from the mind during
the struggles it raakes to grasp the collective inte
rests of the species ; and when the association that
attached us to thera has' been dissolved, the notions
we have forraed of their coraparative insignificance
will prevent them from recovering, I do not say any
hold whatsoever, but that strong and lasting hold
they once had upon our conviction and our feelings.
Universal benevolence, should it, from any strange
combination of circumstances, ever become pas
sionate, will, like every other passion, "justify it
self :"-|- and the iraportunity of its deraands to ob-
* See Hutcheson, p. 99, upon the Passions.
t See Malbranch, as quoted by Adam Smith in his Theory of
Moral Sentiments, p. 220. London edition of 1767, and by
Hutcheson in his Inquiry, p. 139.

376 A SPITAL SERMON,
tain a hearing, will be proportionate to the weak
ness of its cause. But what are the consequences ?
A perpetual wrestling for victory between the refine
ments of sophistry and the remonstrances of indig
nant nature ; the agitations of secret distrust in opi
nions, which gain few or no proselytes, and feelings
which excite little or no sympathy ; the neglect of
all the usual duties by which social life is preserved
or adorned ; and in the pursuit of other duties which
are unusual, and indeed imaginary, a succession of
airy projects, eager hopes, tumultuous efforts, and
galling disappointments, such, in truth, as every wise
man foresaw, and a good man would rarely com
miserate. Is it my intention, then, to depreciate the propen
sity to " do good unto all raen," in defiance of the
text which commands us to labour in doing it ? No.
I raean only to state what, as an incentive to action,
it ought to be, and what, as a part of our nature, it
really is : and happy were if for those, who seem to
be the loudest in its praise, if they practically ful
filled the purposes which it unquestionably is quali
fied to answer. As a calra desire of general happi
ness, it puts us on our guard against the silent en
croachraents of self-love, or the calra desire of our
own happiness ; it assists us in quelling the fury of
our raalignant passions ; it raises us above the narrow
and sordid aims of our selfish affections; it impels us
to attend to the dictates of our reason, ^^ when
eraployed in considering by what means the welfare
of our fellow-creatures raay be raost effectually se
cured ; it attaches us to those means, when they are

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 377
discovered, for the sake of the end ; it facilitates and
regulates the operations of every amiable, but more
confined affection, which may be suited to particular
cases, and which produces a greater or less quantity
of good, and diffuses it among more or fewer per
sons, according to the station in which we are placed,
and the powers with which we are endowed ; it dissi
pates those gloomy views of human follies and hu
raan vices, which, by frequent meditation upon-
them, contract the heart, and infuse lurking and ve
nomous sentiments of general ill-will towards our
species ; it incites us to take a higher pleasure in
contemplating the brighter side of every raan's cha
racter, his talents, his attainraents, and his virtues ;
it prepares us for " doing good unto all men, as we
have opportunity," without impeding us ^^ in our at
tempts to do it unto "thera who are of the house
hold of faith." Instead of separating us from those
who are nearer, and therefore dearer '^ to us, it
eventually forms a closer union between them and
ourselves, by representing them to us as parts of a
great whole ^^ established and regulated by a com
mon Creator, for the coramon purpose of happiness
to all : and whether we deliberate before we act, or
reflect after we have acted, it gives us a firmer con
fidence in the utility, '*" a stronger love for the mo
ral beauty of those particular affections,*' which, un
der the guidance of conscience,"*^ urge us to promote
the welfare of their peculiar objects. If the modern
philanthropists raean thus much only, their words '*^
are at a distance from their opinions ; if they mean
more, their opinions are at variance with facts : and

378 A SPITAL SERMON,
I leave them to make their own choice, between am
biguity and error.
From the view that we have hitherto taken of the
subject, it appears that God has indeed " made us
lower than the angels." But at the same tirae, and
frora the sarae proofs, it farther appears, that, if we
act up to the purposes for which we are raade, if
" we labour in doing good :" if we do it, " as we
have opportunity," both unto strangers and " unto
them who are of the household of faith ;" it is the
intention of the same God " to crown us with glory
and worship." Such are the dictates of unperverted
reason, and such the precepts of pure religion.
The interests of kindred, of friends, of benefac
tors, of countrymen,''^ may, I grant, be insufficient
to fill the capacious mind of a raodern sage, who is
accustomed to be wrapt In beatific visions of uni
versal benevolence, to gaze upon some ideal arche
type of raoral perfection,''^ as raen of old set before
theraselves the image of consummate eloquence,*^
and to pant, restless and unsatisfied, till he hath
reached the " fullness of the stature" of the man of
reason. But to inferior beings, such as we are, a
more confined sphere of agency may not seem in
considerable ; and to do good in it, " as we have op
portunity," may require incessant labour in the ac
quisition of useful knowledge, in the cultivation of
a sound judgraent, in watchfulness over self-love, in
resistance to passion, and in the habitual exercise of
prudence, fortitude, justice, liberality, and raercy.
He that " giveth all diligence" to attain even this pit
tance of imperfect virtue,'*'^ may have little to dread

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 379
from contrast with the panegyrists of universal
philanthropy ; and he will be content, too, with the
imperfect reward of endearing regards from those
whom he loves, of unfeigned gratitude from those
whom he has endeavoured to serve, of esteem from
the wise and good, and of approbation from his own
heart. At all events he, in my estimation, is a better
citizen than they who brood over the inconveniences,
while they slight, and teach others to slight, the nu
merous and solid blessings of social life.''^ He is a
better religionist ^^ than they, who place the merit
of faith in a vehement, obstinate, and ostentatious
predilection for unprofitable and unintelligible jar
gon, or who find no criterion of piety so unequivo
cal as the rigid observance of trifling, irksome, and
debasing raumraerles. He is a better raoralist than
they who would turn aside the streara of our bene
volent affections from its wonted course, scatter it
abroad over a wide and trackless expanse of surface,
where it never could nourish nor even penetrate the
soil, or force it up into thin and fleeting vapours of
refinement, from which it seldom would descend in
soft and gentle dews of beneficence to refresh the
weary. " If nature," exclaims the iramortal Hooker,***
" should intermit her courses, and leave, though it
were for a while, the observation of her own laws ; if
the celestial sphere should forget its wonted motions ;
if the prince of the light of heaven,^' which now re
joiceth as a giant to run its unwearied course,
should, as it were, through a languid faintness, be
gin to stand and to rest himself ; if the moon should

380
wander from her beaten way, the clouds yield no
rain, the earth be defeated of every heavenly influ
ence, and the fruits thereof pine away, what would
become of man himself, whora these things do now
serve r
And thus we raay ask, if the eleraents which give
life and vigour to the moral world should be dis
solved ; if the mother could forget the child ^^ that
" hanged from her breasts ; " if the friend, " with
whom we took sweet counsel together," should for
sake us, when we are compelled to beg our daily
bread ; if they, to whose succour we ran on the first
sight of their distress, and poured " wine and oil
into their bleeding wounds," should ponder ere they
stretch forth their hands to rescue us frora wretched
ness, and pause, lest peradventure sorae other hu
raan being raight be found a little raore virtuous,
and a little raore raiserable than ourselves ; if the
tears of the widow and the cries of the orphan
should be disregarded, till their conduct *^ had
passed the ordeal of sorae rigid principle, or it raay
be too, of sorae untoward prejudice, in those before
whom they lie prostrate ; if they who have trodden
the same soil with ourselves, spoken the sarae lan
guage, followed the same customs, enjoyed the same
rights, obeyed the sarae laws, bowed before the sarae
altar, should be no more endeared to us than other
men, whose kindness we have never experienced,
whose faces we have never seen, whose voices we
have never heard ; if all these things were done un
der the pretence of some obligation, which stern,
inflexible justice *'* lays upon us, to be extreme in

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 381
marking what is done amiss, and to weigh every ac
tion of man, every motive to act, every consequence
of acting, in the balance which every individual may
set up within his own bosom for adjusting in every
case the direct and most efficacious means to pro
mote the general good;*^ what would become of
society, which parental affection, which friendship,
which gratitude,*^ which corapassion, which patri
otism do now uphold ? how changed would be the
scenes around us ! how blunted the edge of all our
finer affections ! how scanty the sum of our happi
ness ! how multiplied and embittered the sources of
our woe !
But between such a state as philosophy recom
mends, and that in which the will of the Almighty
has placed us, there is fixed a gulph, which neither
our social feelings, nor our sober reason will suffer
us to pass " into regions of sorrow and doleful
shades," where love and mutual confidence can never
dwell. The stoics,^''^ it has been said, were more success
ful in weakening the tender affections than in ani
mating men to the stronger virtues of fortitude and
self-command ; and possible it is, that the influence
of our modern reforraers may be greater in furnish
ing their disciples with pleas for the neglect of their
ordinary duties, than in stimulating their endeavours
for the performance of those which are extraordi
nary, and perhaps ideal. If indeed the representa
tions we have lately heard of universal philanthropy
served only to amuse the fancy of those who ap
prove of them, and to communicate that pleasure

382
which arises from conteraplating the magnitude and
grandeur of a favourite subject, we raight be terapted
to sraile at them as groundless and harmless. But
they tend to debase the dignity, and to weaken the
efficacy of those particular affections for which we
have daily and hourly occasion in the events of real
life. They tempt us to substitute the ease of spe
culation and the pride of dograatism for the toil of
practice. To a class of artificial and ostentatious
sentiments they give the most dangerous triumph
over the genuine and salutary dictates of nature.
They delude and inflame our rainds with pharisaical
notions of superior wisdom ^^ and superior virtue ;
and what is the worst of all, they raay be used as
" a cloke to us" for insensibility where other raen
feel, and for negligence where other men act with
visible and useful, though limited, effect.
Whether we are induced by an excessive zeal for
religion, or by a supposed proficiency in philosophy,
" to think more highly of ourselves than we ought
to think," and " to seek the praise of men," by affect
ing to be righteous over much, the haughtiness of
our pretensions will awaken suspicion in those ob
servers who have sounded most skilfully the depths
ofthe human heart. No, says a celebrated writer *9
of our own country, " I will not be a citizen of the
world, I reject with scorn that proud title under
which philosophers conceal an equal indifference to
the whole huraan race." " Beware," says a foreign
writer,^" whose original and sublime genius entitles
him to a hearing, " beware of those cosmopolites,
who deduce from books the far-fetched obligations

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 383,
of universal benevolence, while they neglect their
actual duties to those who are around them." If, to
the decision of these enlightened men, be opposed
the example of Socrates, who called himself " a citi
zen of the world," ^' the objection is easily sur
mounted. The expression, we must observe, is
quoted by other writers, not to slacken our activity
in the ordinary duties of life, but to shew that un
merited exile^^ is not intolerable to a virtuous man.
Socrates himself did not lavish his time in visionary
schemes for the iraraediate good of that large com
monwealth of which he incidentally and rhetorically
called himself a meraber. He did not raiseraploy
his talents in wily insinuations, or declaraatory ha
rangues, to the discredit of gratitude or patriotisra.
He obeyed the laws of his country, ^^ and even
fought in its defence.^'* He did not cherish the un
bounded love of his species so far as to experience
any torpor in the feelings, any reluctance towards
the exertions, any distrust in the principles, which
belong to our particular affections. In domestic life
he was at least irreproachable, and in the sentiments
of good-will and the interchange of good offices
which characterize friendship he was amiable and
exemplary. What Socrates practicaUy was, and even more,
we, as Christians, are bounden to be. ^* We are
bounden to " love our neighbour as ourselves," and
to consider not only relations, friends, and country
men, but strangers and enemies, as invested, more
or less, with the rights of men. We are bounden
not merely to wish, but to labour, " as we have op-.

384 A SPITAL SERMON,
portunity," for the good of all men. So we are
bounden to do by the most plain and express law ;
and if the power of doing so were not given us, the
infliction of any penalty for the violation of that law
implies such injuctice as cannot, without the most
shocking impiety, be ascribed to the raoral Gover
nor of the world.
From the foregoing considerations you may per
ceive what general benevolence, ^^ or the calm desire
of " doing good to all men," really is, and how far
it coincides, and may even co-operate with our par
ticular affections. It is, however, proper for me to
observe, that the same principles, upon which the
influence of any of those affections raay be defended
in any of our social relations, extend their authority
in favour of them who are literally " of the house
hold of faith." They to whom the precept in the
text was originally addressed, were persons of ob
scure stations and scanty fortunes. Spurned by the
Gentiles, and abhorred by the Jews, they had no re
fiige but in the pity, no resources but in the contri
butions, of their Christian brethren, who were them
selves poor, and therefore could not, without effort,
administer relief. But while the rainds of all were
fraught with a warm and grateful sense of their
recent escape from the errors of polytheisra, and of
their admission to the knowledge of the purest and
most encouraging truths, no topic, surely, could be
more seasonable than the connection in which they
stood with their brethren of the Christian house
hold, and with Christ their common head. The
obligations which then lay on the poor to assist the

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 385
necessitous, cannot be weakened by the greater
wealth of those among whom Christianity is now
professed ; and therefore, without violating the be^
nevolent feelings which interest you for other moral
relations, we may insist upon the peculiar attention
that is due to men, as heirs of the sarae religious
proraises, and even members of the same national
church. That our religion, as well as our country, should
sometimes be a ground for preference, will not be
disputed by the philosophers * who contend that " In
the partiality we feel for our remoter kindred and
our acquaintance, there is always implied a relation
of sentiment — that we enter easily and familiarly
into their conceptions, and, that our imagination
passing from self, which is ever intimately present
with us, runs smoothly along the connection, and
conceives with full sympathy the person who is
nearly related to self."
Now, in the propensity of men to form them
selves into religious classes — In their eagerness
about proselytes, and their hatred of apostates — in
their willingness to surrender nearly any rights, and
renounce nearly any opinions, ^^ sooner than those
which are connected with their religion — in the
fury of the prosecutor, and the patience of the mar
tyr, the strength of the religious spirit is equally
conspicuous. However we may try to conceal the
fact from others, or even from ourselves, that spirit
enters more or less into almost all our attachments
* See Hume on the Passions, p. 207.
VOL. II. 2 c

386 A SPITAL SERMON,
and aversions — it mingles not merely with the pre
judices of early education, but the habits of maturer
age — it influences, in some degree, our opinions
upon subjects of public as well as private life : and
though reflection does correct, and ought to correct
its excess, yet, an acute observer will generally find
some laudable and useful qualities in those attach
ments, and a faithful monitor will be unwiUing to
disturb them. Surprised, indeed, should I be, not
at the parsimony, but the inconsistency of nature,
if sympathy, which acts so powerfully upon other
and slighter occasions, should, in points relating to
religion, be quite benurabed. Inexplicable to me
would be the structure of our minds, if we could
forget, or if without any strong feeling of tender
ness we could remember, that he who now calls
upon us for succour hath met us again and again in
the same sanctuary — hath shared with us in the per
formance of the same soleran and raost pleasing
duties ^^ — hath joined us in the sarae language, and at
the sarae moraent, in penitential confession, in hum
ble adoration, in fervent thanksgiving — hath at the
same altar, commeraorated the sufferings of a dying
Redeemer, and implored in the sarae holy narae,
consolation, support, and pardon, frora the same
merciful God. Be it, however, reraerabered — and,
a lesson it is, which at this eventful crisis cannot be
inculcated too earnestly, — that the very sarae circum
stance which gives a quicker and fuller effect to our
benevolence when it is guided by an enlightened
conscience, ^^ may produce the raost fatal raischlefs,
if our minds be inflamed by zeal, 7° deluded by

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 387
fanaticism, '^' or hardened by superstition. On the
other hand, the same just balance of the social affec
tions * which throws the greater part of their force
towards them who are more imraediately " of the
household of faith," will also incline us to cherish
sentiments of good will towards others, who belong
to it more reraotely.
Consider — yes, I beseech you as Protestants to
consider very seriously, and very thankfully, the
wide difference between your situation and that of
the first converts to Christianity. They lived among
an ignorant and superstitious populace, who " had
changed the incorruptible God into an image" made
like to corruptible man — among learned scoffers
who denied the eternal power of the Godhead, or
who knowing God to be, "glorified him not as
God " — araong whole nations " given up to vile
affections," to all " filthiness and superfluity of
naughtiness," to that " reprobate raind," which not
only was eager in doing evil, but " had pleasure in
them that did it." Yet the Apostle comraands the
Galatians to do good even to such sinners. '^'^
More than this. He that had created such sin
ners, spared thera ; for " thine they were, O Lord !"
thou Judge and " Lover of Souls ."-f-
But in that happy state of iraproved religion and
extended civilization, the blessings of which you
share, many, who may not be wholly with you,'''^
•* See Hutcheson, on the Nature and Conduct of the Pas
sions, pp. 55, 56.
f Wisdom of Solomon, chap. xi. v. 26.
2c2

388 A SPITAL SERMON,
are not, therefore, fiercely and corruptly against
you. They investigate, they believe, they may
sometimes doubt after investigation, as we ourselves
may sometimes believe without it. But they do
not, in this country at least, insult our understand
ings and our feelings with the effrontery of the li
bertine, the arrogance of the scoffer,'''* or the fell im
piety of the blasphemer.''* Diffident they are and
humble, where the knight-errant of atheisra ''® re
jects indiscrlrainately and undauntedly. They are
silent where he claraours rudely. They blush when
he dograatizes, and they shudder when he reviles.
By such enquirers then no snares will be laid for
credulity; no encourageraent holden out to rash
ness ; no palliatives spread over the foulness and
deforraity of vice ; no objections pushed forward
that can affront the authority, or even wound the
delicacy of real virtue. As to disputed points in
religion,''^'^ Christianity itself, we must be aware, is
no longer taught by inspired Apostles ; it is no
longer confirmed by signs from heaven ; it is sub
jected, like every other question concerning the mo
ral government of God, to the exaraination of un
prejudiced reason ; it contains much to employ our
sagacity, our industry, our caution, and our can
dour ;'* and from opposition it has ultiraately no
thing to fear, because " it is founded on a rock."
But, if upon topics raost interesting to them as ra
tional creatures, men should assert peaceably and
exercise honestly the right of using their reason to
explore what is truth, shall it be said that, as sensi
tive or social creatures, they forfeit every other

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 389
right; that when hungry, they should not be fed ;'"
that when naked, they should not be clothed ; that
in adversity, they should not be relieved ; or, that
in affliction, they should not be comforted ? We
who " search the Scriptures," as well as profess our
faith in them, " have not so learned Christ," neither
shaU we throw such a "stumbhng-block" in the
way of our brethren. No affiance, we hold, in the
dihgence or Impartiality of our own enquiries ; no
conviction as to the truth or importance of our own
opinions ; no consciousness of superior erudition or
superior acuteness can authorize us to cease from
looking upon them as admitted, together with our
selves, into the great household of society, — can jus
tify us in doing them the smallest harm on account
of their attachment to this Church or that sect,^" —
can absolve us for one moraent from the obligation
to do them good, " as we have opportunities for
doing it." After patient, dispassionate, and above
all, serious research, whatever difficulties they may
be less able to solve than others have been, in the
doctrines, or perhaps the evidences of revelation,
still, in the sacred and fiindamental article of all re
ligion, in the belief of an almighty and oraniscient
Creator, in the adoration of his attributes, in reve
rence for the precepts and example of his Son, in
solicitude to discover, and promptness to obey his
will, in a sense of gratitude for his favour, and de
pendence upon his providential care, in the hope of
final retribution from his justice, and forgiveness
frora his mercy, they do, and it is at the peril of our

390 A SPITAL SERMON,
own salvation that we treat them as if they do not,
belong to the household of God.^'
I proceed, in the last place, to make some observa
tions upon the institutions over which you preside.
We live at a period, when, amidst the din of su
perficial cavillers, and the vanity of presumptuous
empirics, there are raen who, with the very purest
intentions, would enquire, not only into the proofs
of speculative opinions, but the practical tendency of
public institutions, such as those you now comme
morate. Sensible you must be, that objections
sanctioned by the authority of a great name,^^ will
be echoed and re-echoed by sciolists, too indolent for
detail, or too precipitate for discrimination. Sorry
you would be, that the good you intend should be
"evil spoken of," and therefore, it may be worth
while to examine how far the credit of these chari
ties may be affected by the strictures of a late fo
reigner, ^2 who had deeply explored the true science
of politics, and was sincerely attached to the best
interests of humanity. I mean Mr. Turgot, Minis
ter to Louis XVI.
The first circumstance I would offer to your no
tice is, that these hospitals were erected soon after
the reforra of that religion which, till very lately,
prevailed among Mr. Turgot's countryraen, and
frora the abuses of which arose the greater part of
the evils that seera to have struck more forcibly his
penetrating and benevolent mind.
After the subversion of popery, the poor, who had
been accustoraed to receive an extensive, and in
sorae respects, I grant, an excessive protection frora

PREACHED AT CHRIST ChURCH. 391
the religious houses, were suddenly deprived of all
succour frora them ; and to provide some effectual
alleviation for their sufferings was the chief purpose
of these foundations. Had it been Mr. Turgot's
good fortune to witness in his own country such a
temperate reform in ecclesiastical establishments as
our forefathers effected, so many happy conse
quences flowing from it as we ourselves have expe
rienced, so many restraints thrown upon the fury,
and so many correctives applied to the rapacity of
the prince who favoured it, so rauch lenity raingled
with justice, so much justice admitted into policy,
so much policy eraployed in the cause of hterature
and piety, so much regard to lenity, justice, policy,
literature, and piety, preserved in the perilous con
vulsions of change, he might have felt that convic
tion to his wisdom, and that gratification to his hu
raanity, which we ought to feel to our own.
Be this as it may, I must refuse my assent to this
great writer, when he asserts that " there is not one
which would stand the test of enlightened policy,"
and when the avowed purpose of this assertion is,
" not only to excite an aversion to new foundations,
but to destroy the remains of what he thinks our
superstitious respect for the old."^* Fixing then
upon the very specific points which he has himself
enumerated, we ask, can it be said of any one
among these various institutions that it "virtually
offers a prize for idleness, and the disorders result
ing from it ? " That it " diminishes labour and the
productions of the earth ?" That it " raakes a void
in the wealth of a state, and throws additional bur-

392 A SPITAL SERMON,
thens upon the industrious ?" I affirm peremptorily,
that no such tendency, either direct or indirect, can
be imputed to any of these hospitals, — that there is
no one circurastance, either in their original plan, or
their visible adrainistration, against which such a
charge can be alledged with the faintest colouring of
probability. How far what he calls " a frivolous
vanity" raay have actuated the founders, is a ques
tion upon which it were irapossible to decide, with
out a deeper insight than he had, or we have, into
the heart of raan. We, indeed, are concerned with
actions rather than with motives. Yet the probable
intentions of those founders, if we chuse to examine
thera, raay be gathered frora facts ; from the situation
in which they were placed, from the measures
which they took, and from the correspondence of
those raeasures with their own deliberate and re
peated professions ; and when you consider the
wretched state of the poor, who had been recently
deprived of their forraer resources, you will admit
that sound wisdom concurred with Christian cora
passion in suggesting the provisions that were made
for their benefit.
No, says our writer : for, " in all foundations,
there is one irremediable defect ; the impossibility
of securing their execution." How so ? " Zeal," it
seems, does not communicate itself from age to
age, and there is no community that does not, in
the end, lose the spirit it set out with." Granted.
But may not reflection perpetuate what zeal began?
May it not guide us safely, where zeal has erred ?
May not a more enlightened age, acting up to the

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 393
spirit, rather than the letter, preserve and even mul
tiply the benefits, which owed their rise to views
less exact and less enlarged ? Are men become quite
caUous to the dictates of benevolence ? Are they
utterly inattentive to the warnings of experience ?
And has experience pointed out any eventual, but
unforeseen inconvenience frora these institutions,
which they who preside over them have wanted
either the good sense to discover, or the honesty to
remove ? But " there is no sentiment," we hear far
ther, " that is not blunted by custom, and familiarity
with the objects which excite it." Be it so. Can
a philosopher, however, be ignorant, that in the
wonderful texture of the human mind, the ends of
virtue are secured by another and most useful pro
perty of our nature ? Has not Butler,* with his
usual acuteness, inforraed us, that " practical habits
are strengthened, but passive habits weakened by
repetition ? " That " active principles, at the very
tirae they are less lively in perception, are wrought
raore thoroughly into the temper and character, and
become more effectual in influencing our practice,
and, therefore, that benevolence, considered as a
practical principle, will strengthen, and acquire a
greater aptitude to assist men, even while we are
less affected by the raiseries of life ?" Is not the
truth of these observations exemplified in your hos
pitals, where a very acute sense of pity would often
defeat the skill of those persons who are most be-
* See Butler's Analogy, in Part i. chap. v. of a state of
moral discipline, p. 152, Sth edit.

394 A SPITAL SERMON,
neficially and meritoriously employed in the art of
healing ?
But " enthusiasm," says our objector, " cannot be
kept alive." I am not sure that enthusiasm had any
share in producing these fotmdatlons. If the writer
of whom I ara speaking had perused, as I have,
your indentures and your rules, he would have
found in them seriousness without austerity, ear
nestness without extravagance, good sense without
the trickeries of art, good language without the
trappings of rhetoric, and the firmness of conscious
worth, rather than the prancings of giddy ostenta
tion. We are asked, " Can the servants of a founda
tion, without enthusiasm, always execute it with the
sarae exactness ?" I have no reason to believe that
enthusiasra ever acted upon the servants of these
hospitals, or that the influence of it would ever have
been desirable. Fidelity and diligence in their of
fice, are the raost proper qualifications of servants,
and for thera we have a better security in coraraon
sense, which understands and obeys fixed rules,
than in enthusiasra, which raight violate them with
good intentions, and very bad effects. But " in
spectors, we find, are selfish or indolent," For the
imputation of selfishness there is no roora what
soever araong the inspectors of these hospitals ; and
whether or no they be chargeable with indolence, is
a point, upon which they and their predecessors
raay, I beheve, challenge the severest scrutiny.
WeU : but " society," we are told, " has not always

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 395
the same wants. From difference of occupation,
customs, and employments, new wants spring up,
the old ones are no longer felt, and thus the utility
of foundations destined to supply them disappears
or diminishes."
Admitting, in part, the truth of this passage, as a
general observation, I contend, that to your parti
cular institutions it is wholly inapplicable.
The complete abolition of vassalage, the improved
state of agriculture, the multiplied articles of com
merce, the more regular division of labour, and,
above all, the general civilization of society, which,
in some respects, is the cause, and in others, the
effect of the foregoing circumstances, have doubt
less mitigated many of the harsher inconveniences,
which, more or less, are inseparable from the condi
tion of the poor. Yet the lower and more labori
ous classes of the community will always be exposed,
in seasons of sickness, to improper diet, unwhole
some air, scanty attendance, and injudicious treat
ment, within their own houses — to casualties, by
which their limbs or their lives are endangered —
to strange, complex, stubborn forms of disease,
which may baffle the endeavours, because they rarely
fall within the notice of common practitioners. For
these evils, to which the poor are and ever will be
peculiarly liable, your hospitals have provided re
raedies ; and it must surely facilitate the progress
of the science of medicine, that after observing the
treatment of the numerous and various cases which
the hospitals of a large town only can present to

396 A SPITAL SERMON,
his view, the student may advance from literary and
historical to experimental knowledge.*
The mind too— that part of man, where he is
more eminently formed in the image of his Maker —
wiU always be exposed to the fixed gloom of me
lancholy, or the wild paroxysms of phrensy, in mad
ness ; and, be it observed, that the succour you
grant to persons afflicted with this raost dreadful of
all maladies, is systematically confined to such as
have not the pecuniary means of procuring relief
for themselves ; and that frora the opportunities
your hospitals afford for surveying insanity in all
its stages, and all its variations, the best rules are
forraed for the treatraent of other unhappy beings
in other places, labouring under the sarae tremen
dous visitation of God.
Pardon me, my hearers, if speaking- upon this
subject, I give vent to ray feelings, and pay a just
tribute of praise to the learning, wisdom, integrity,
and humanity of that excellent person, who once
was my scholar, and is now the physician of your
hospital -\- for the insane.
But further : in the capital of a great kingdom
there will always be offenders, whom policy as well
as compassion would lead us to employ, rather than
punish. In the increased civilization of the coun-

* See page 18 of Bishop Lowth's excellent Sermon, preached
at Oxford for the Infirmary in 177L
f I mean Dr. Thomas Monro, who was my scholar when I
lived at Stanmore, in Middlesex.

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 397
try, there will always be an increased necessity for
extending the increased advantages of educa+ion to
young men, whose parents are unable to procure
for them the advantages which this hospital sup
plies ; and when I reflect upon the comprehensive
plan which has been adopted for them, on the spot
where we now are, upon the salutary discipline that
is established among thera, upon the various kinds
of knowledge in which they are instructed, upon the
many exceUent teachers ^® that have been set over
them, upon the many industrious and prosperous
tradesmen, the many courageous defenders of their
country, the many luminaries of learning and reli
gion that have come forth frora this seminary, I am
persuaded that it will be found to have fewer de
fects, and perhaps more direct tendencies to public
good, than the magnificent institutions of a late
northern Potentate ; * and that no school or college
in this kingdom is entitled to higher praise, on the
ground of accommodation to the real interests of
society. Not yet have we reached the golden age of poli
tical or moral regeneration, ^^ in which children can
be left to the judgraent or the exertions of their pa
rents indiscrlrainately : and the surest way to reach,
or I should rather say, to escape and to excel it, as
we have lately seen it described, is to preserve a
race of men early impressed with a sense of deco-

* I mean the late Empress of Russia. For an account of
Russian Schools, see the Life of Catharine, -vol. ii. pp. 73, 434,
and elsewhere.

398 A SPITAL SERMON,
rum, morality, and piety ; early qualified for the
part they have to sustain in a free, civilized. Chris
tian country ; such raen, I mean, as this seminary
has often produced, to the iramortal honour of its
Founder, Governors, and Teachers ; to the peculiar
advantage of the capital, and even the advancement
of our national prosperity.
Such are the wants of raen, such your raethod of
supplying them, and wholly distinct they both are
fi-om the causes whieh have been assigned for the-
dlminished usefulness of foundations.
It has, I know, been proposed to throw the poor
upon the spontaneous bounty of the rich. But, much
as I exult in that noble spirit of benevolence which
actuates, or, as I ought rather to say, distinguishes
the inhabitants of this country, I believe that no
discreet man would be in haste to make the experi
raent. The influence of vanity, the decay of zeal,
and a variety of other trite and invidious suggestions,
may be applied to hospitals supported by voluntary
contributions, just as obviously, and just as unde
servedly, as to your own : and whatever superiority
they may seem to have in the regularity of their
administration, in the activity of their patrons, and
in their capacity of being regulated by new measures,
adapted to new exigencies, yet we raust not con
deran institutions that have flourished for centuries,
on the evidence of theoretic possibilities, or for the
sake of contingent advantages.
Between those hospitals and your own, there is
no clashing of interests, no contrariety of design, no
crirainal rivalry in your claims to public approba-

PREACHED AT CIIRIST CHURCH. 399
tion ; and as your plans must have suggested many
useful hints to your fellow-labourers in these goodly
deeds of charity ; so it is probable, that, in matters
of internal regulation, you " provoke each other to
good works." They supply what your institutions
want, and they imitate what you practise. In the
former case, they prove that your revenues, though
insufficient to provide assistance for every species of
distress, are faithfully applied to the purposes for
which they were originally intended, and in the lat
ter, they evince the efficacy of wholesome example.
As to the Founders of your hospitals, they, in all
probability, had more directly in view the relief of
distressed individuals. But the utility of their in
stitutions is not to be estimated only by their irame
diate and more obvious consequences. By the long,
the invisible, but firm concatenation of causes and
effects, which binds together the interests of man
with the actions of man, the numbers who return
into the bosom of society with health re-established,
with the use of limbs restored, with morals cor
rected, must contribute by their honest labour not
only to the support of their families, but to the
convenience or profit of their fellow-creatures in
many distant places, and to the aggregate stock of
public happiness.
From the peculiar circumstances of their own age,
when a reformation in religion had been recently
effected, the same Founders, I can readily suppose,
had a more especial regard to them " who were of
the household of faith." But the doors of your
hospitals, I iraagine, are not thrown open or shut,

400 A SPITAL SERMON,
according to any narrow rules ^^ of religious dis
tinction. From the confluence of all ranks in this capital,
and its extensive intercourse with other countries,
likely it is that you have afforded succour to those
who dissent from our religious establishment, as well
as those who belong to it ; to the raembers of the
Greek and the Latin, as well as the English Church
— to the natives of Asia, Africa, and America, as
well as of Europe — to any unhappy sufferer frora any
shore, who, pining with want, or fainting with sick
ness, or writhing with pain, and severed frora the
gladdening presence of kindred and friends, could
not have found, but in these houses of refuge, where
to recline his drooping head.
What then, let me ask, are the objects of your
charities ? The ingenuousness of youth, the imbe
cility of old age, the helplessness of penury, the
sharp anguish of wounds and fractures, the latent
and inexpressible anxieties of complicated diseases,
the awful and incalculable sufferings of insanity, the
capacity of usefulness to mankind, and of repentance
before God in those who " have stolen," and are de
sirous to " steal no more."
To whora is the care of these charities coraraitted ?
To men independent in their fortunes, respectable
in their stations, enlightened by long experience,
and distinguished by professional skill. But no
statement however accurate, no encoraiuras however
elaborate, can so clearly exhibit the raerit of your
Institutions, as the unadorned, but grave and ener-

PREACHED AT CHltlST CHURCH. 401
gfetic language of "the humble suit"^^ made to
Edward your Founder, and his Council.
In the enumeration of the persons for which it
provides, it begins with " the poof child, that he
might be harboured, clothed, fed, taught, and vir
tuously trained up." The blessing of God hath
rested, and may it for ever rest, upon this part of
your Institutions.
Afterwards the indenture professes to " take out
of the streets, the miserable aged, sore and sick per
sons, and by physic and surgery to cure and make
them whole." Having previously stated that, " the
cause of all raisery and beggary was idleness ; that
the greatest nurabers of beggars by lewd and evil
iiervices, and other causes, ^^ have so utterly lost their
Credit, that though they -wOuld shew themselves
willing to labour, yet they are so suspected and
feared, that few or none dare or will receive them to
¦work ;" the authors of it proposed, in the third
place, that " a house of occupations be ef'ected,
-^ivhere children unapt to learning, where they who
have been suffered to wander as vagabonds in the
commonwealth, and where prisoners who are quit at
the sessions, should be set tb labour." Wisely they
think, that " because the number of such persons is
gfeat, the place where they were to be exercised
should also be great ;" and this they emphatically
describe as " the perfection of all their former tra
vail." My brethren ! when the indenture for purposes
so judicious, so humane, so holy, had been presented
to the King, ratified by him, and endowed with a
VOL. II. 2 D

402 A SPITAL SERMON,
sum most worthy of royal bounty, do you wonder,
that, recovering for a while, from the langour of a
lingering disease, and having before him the pros
pect of impending dissolution, he should exclaim, ^°
" Lord, I yield thee most hearty thanks, that thou
hast given rae life thus long, to finish this work to
the glory of thy narae !"
Within a few days, raute was the tongue that ut
tered these celestial sounds, and the hand which
signed your indenture lay cold and motionless in the
dark and drearv chambers of death. But to the
fervid ejaculation of a Sovereign thus breathing,
near his last moments, "good-will towards men,"
and triumphantly anticipating the effects of Institu
tions that were to corafort and enlighten so many
future generations, would you prefer the dying words
recorded of any hero who perished in the arms of
victory? Does not the " last end" of such a righteous man
appear to your minds raore desirable than that
Euthanasia, 9' for which a Roman Emperor is said
to have prayed, as the choicest gift of heaven ?
Would not the work, in which your Founder was
thus engaged, be degraded by comparison with those
bequests, which soraetimes were dictated by the
transports of vanity, the terrors of superstition, or
the agonies of remorse ; ^^ and which too often
served no other purpose, than to shelter the lazy
recluse, or to pamper a luxurious and rapacious
priesthood ?
Surely, the pageantries of wealth hide their dirai
nished glory, the splendour of military prowess fades

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 403
away, the most gorgeous displays of imperial gran
deur are quite eclipsed, upon the first da-wn of such
benevolence, rising, as the Prophet describes " the
sun of righteousness, with healing in its wings."
Forgive me, my brethren, if under the impres
sions of seriousness and tenderness, which the re
membrance of your Founder thus dying, has made
upon my mind, I point your attention towards one
class of sufferers, who raore particularly attracted
the notice of your predecessors, and their royal co
adjutor. In that assemblage of glories which forms the
constellation of benevolence, mercy shines as a star,
if not of superior magnitude, yet of purer lustre ;
and how can its light be more auspiciously directed,
than in guiding the steps of an unfortunate creature,
just delivered frora chains and dungeons, and the
darkness of death ? The world is his eneray ; the
world's law is not his friend ; and hope, which
cometh to other men, amidst all their faults, and in
all their tribulations, coraeth not unto him. The
robustness of his constitution, the agility of his
limbs, the acuteness he may possess frora nature,
the dexterity he may have acquired from practice,
are bereaved of their wonted effects, and crippled in
every effort he would make, even for self-preserva
tion. " The wrath of God," he has been told, " is
but for the twinkling of an eye," ^^ and, " though
heaviness may endure for a night," yet, to the con
trite heart, "joy ariseth in the raorning." But,
when he looketh towards the earth, he findeth in it,
2d2

404 A SPITAL SERMON,
" a time for hatred,* but not for love ," he seeth be
fore himself only " the bread of adversity -}- and the
water of affliction ;" and though "he moum hke a
dove, X and his eyes be weary with looking upward,"
who is there araong his feUow-creatures and fellow-
sinners, to wipe away his tears ? The discreet shun
him — the austere frown upon him — the inhuman
scoff at him — and, perhaps, the virtuous, after heav
ing a sigh, are content to " pass by on the other
side." To his wants, the fertile village affords no
more supply than the solitary waste, and to his ima
gination, even the crowded city must resemble a
dark and savage wilderness, in which he is himself
doomed to roam, hunt down his prey, and perish.
To the thoughtless, the luxurious, the proud —
men " who wear purple and fine linen, and fare
suraptuously every day," easy it is to deign scarcely a
glance towards that wretchedness, which they never
felt, and to hurl accusations against those crimes,
which they never were tempted to commit. But
the pleas of timorous indolence, or of fluttering va
nity, or of bloated and fastidious sensuality, for
crushing every offender, who, goaded by inevitable
and intolerable wants,^'* would seize a small portion
of their superfluities, are not so easily accepted be
fore God, nor even by considerate and virtuous men,
While "the viol and the harp, the tabret and pipe,
and wine are in their feasts," the voluptuary may

* See Ecclesiastes, c. iii. v. 8. f See Isaiah, c. xxx. v. 20.
+ See Isaiah, c. xxxviii. v. 14.

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 405
feel no check from compassion, no smart from re
morse, no warnings from the instability of all hu
man affairs, when urged by his pride or his rage,
" to break the bruised reed." But they whom re
flection hath raised above the prejudices of the
sordid, and the passions of the vindictive ; they
who remember how precious must be the life of
man in the sight of that Being, before whom " not
a sparrow faUeth to the ground" unnoticed ; they who
consider punishment as an accumulation of evil ^^
upon the evil of crime, and as ceasing to be de
fensible, at the very point where it ceases, in kind,
or in degree, to be manifestly and indispensably ne
cessary, these men will sometimes venture to hesi
tate, ere they assent to the justice of inflicting the
last dreadful severities ^^ of law upon such an un
fortunate person as I have been describing. He
still carries about him, they must recollect, the ap
petites and affections of our comraon nature. He
cannot by an act of volition stifle the cravings of
hunger. ^"^ He must shudder when exposed to " the
pelting storm." Gladly would he recline, not in
deed on that soft and downy pillow, where the
rich and the powerful are sunk in deep slumber,
but on a pallet somewhat better than the rugged
flint, or the dank and unwholesome clod. In the
freshness perhaps of youth, or the vigour of man
hood, with compunction for having stolen already,
with anxiety to steal no more, he feels himself
destined to rove, day after day, and year after
year, an outcast in his native country, and a
vagabond In the land of his fathers. He knows

406 A SPITAL SERMON,
that his sighs are unheard, that his professions
are disbelieved, that his good intentions are dis
regarded; and can you be surprised then, if, "in
the anguish of his soul," he should cry out * " O
Death ! acceptable is thy sentence to the needy, to
him that is vexed with all things, and to him that
despaireth and hath lost patience ?" Have you a
right to be incensed, if under the pressure of such
unsought, unmerited, and unpitied woes, he should
rush where the company even of the wicked raay
afford some little relief from the dreariness of soli
tude; where interaperance may for a while assuage
the corrosions of sorrow ; and where example must
incite him to the perpetration of fresh outrages,
forbidden under penalties, which he has ceased to
dread, because, to his view, existence is stripped
bare of all its enjoyraents, and the grave is to be
welcoraed as a sure and speedy refuge frora chilling
neglect, from hissing scorn, and from unrelenting
persecution ?
Believe me, my hearers ! I should disdain to
plead the cause of such a wretched being, before
captious and dictatorial sophists, who see very dimly
into the emotions of the heart, and are quite unfit
to decide 9^ upon the affairs of human life. But
with confidence should I appeal to the suffrage of
the true philosopher, who knows by how many se
cret and indissoluble ties of sympathy, we are bound
to the love of virtue and the hatred of vice ! How
salutary Is the discipline of shaine 99 and remorse ""'
* Eccles. c. xh, V. 2.

PREACHED AT CHRIST CHURCH. 407
upon the human heart ! How wisely the author of
our nature has erected in every man's bosom a tri
bunal, which anticipates, and, as it were, represents
his own "" for judging the conduct of his fellow-
creatures ! How intolerable, even to the stoutest
spirit, must be an irreversible sentence of condemna
tion from all mankind !
When your forefathers remarked " it has been a
speech used of all men, to say unto the idle, work,
work ;" when they represent " idleness as itself the
enemy of all virtue, and good exercise as the con
queror of all vice ;" when for the suppression of idle
ness, and the nourishment of good exercise, they
caused this house of occupation to be erected, and
said, that "because the number of offenders was
great, so should the house itself be great ;" they
spoke the language of sound policy as well as ge
nuine humanity. You must have observed how
often they recur to this subject, how long they ex
patiate upon it, how much they insist upon it, and,
surely, if they had foreseen the encreased wants of
society, the encreased population of the capital, the
encreased provocatives to vice, the encreased oppor
tunities for thieving, and, let me add, with deep
concern, the encreased rigours of penal law, they
would have made yet arapler provision that this most
favoured part of their institutions, should have
brought forth " its worthy fruit" with unfaihng and
even encreased abundance.
You, my brethren ! who now hear me, I believe
to be, as you are described in your rules, " wise and
good men." I persuade myself that, as you have

408 A SPITAL SERMON,
been cleg.rly directed, as you have been earnestly
entreated, nay, as you have been most solemnly
charged by your predecessors, you have never
ceased to travail " diligently for good order's sa^e, in
furthering this acceptable work of God." I rejoice
that a portion of what cannot be done by yourselves,
is done judiciously and successfully by the yolun-
tary patrons of a similar institution, the usefqlness
of which is most indisputable, and has beep very
e?:tensive. Amjdst the multiphed incentives tQ
wickedness, and the multiplied sufferings of the
wretched who fall intP it, and are solicitous to fall
no more, I should be happy if the authority of the
legislature were exercised in giving fuller effect to
the regulations of your founders, and the endea
vours of intelligent and genej-ous indlvidiials.
Unquestionably the police, which cannot em
brace such nuraerous and important objects, is radi
cally defective in wisdom; and the police which
can, but does not regard thera, lies open to weightier
accusations. It fails alike in the duties it owes to
the conimunity, and to the offender. It remedies
imperfectly the public mischief which it should try
to prevent '°^ by incessant care ; by well regulated
e?;pense ; by offer of employ to the friendless ; by
the institution of re\yrards for the penitent ; and by
the use, if need there be, of well-timed and well-
measured correction, Xo the slothful and the har
dened. But as raatters have too long stood, and in
the ^stim^tipn of calm gnd discerning observers,
even now st^nd, -vye virtually, I do not s^y inten
tionally, compel to the crime, and then punish the

PREACHED AT CBRIgT CHURCH. 409
criminal ; we dishearten where we should have en-
CQuraged; we desert where we should have pro-r
tected ; we destroy where, as men, as citizens, and
as Christians, we ought, if it were possible, to have
reformed. To conclude, To hini who remeinbereth the
" two great commandments, on which hang the law,
the prophets," and the plainest, the most frequent,
and iudispens^ble precepts of the Gospel itself; to
hiiu, who " loveth the Lord God with all his soul,
^nd his neighbour as himself," considerations never
c^n be wanting to direct his judgment and animate
his (activity in this " labour of love."
The exq,mple of your predecessors and your royal
founder, a lively and generous sense of your own
duty, the peace of your capital, the credit of ypur
country, the honour of your rehgion, the preservaT
tion of the sick, the relief of the needy, the intel
lectual and moral iraproveraent of the young, the
growing araendment of the penitent, and the occa
sional correction of the profligate, all conspire in
summoning the whole force of your minds, and the
whole weight of your authority to the raoraentous
task. " The fees and profits ye .shall have," said your
predecessors, and their words deserve to be pro
nounced even in this sanctuary, " are such as Al
raighty God hath promised to them that travail in
relieving the needy members, and no other."
But, as dependent beings, you cannot be debased
by reflecting, that " he who giveth to the poor,
lendeth unto the Lord."

410 A SPlTAL SERMON, &C.
As moral agents, you support the proper dignity
of your nature, by aspiring to future society with
"the spirits of just men made perfect."
As Christians, you will not slight the proffered
favour of that gracious Master, " who went about
doing good, and who hath brought life and immor
tality to light" by his gospel.
If, therefore, in obedience to his comraands, and
conformity to his example, ye invite " sinners to
repentance ;" if ye " train up the child in the way
in which he should walk ;" if ye " heal the broken
in heart, and bind up their wounds ;" if ye visit in
sweet pity the weeping and forlorn prisoner ; what
soever ye thus do unto the least of " them who are
of the household of faith," will be recorapensed '"^
at the last day, as if it were done, iramediately and
deliberately, for the sake of your Redeemer and the
glory of your God.

The foregoing Sermon has been detained from the press
longer than I expected, in consequence of business, illness, and
the relaxation that was necessary for the recovery of my health ;
but chiefly for the want of an amanuensis. In those parts of
it that were preached, I have introduced only a few verbal
alterations, and of those whieh are now printed, but were not
delivered from the pulpit, due notice will be taken. I have
ventured to make the Notes very copious, because I wished to
save my reader the trouble of consulting books, and because I
was anxious to place distinctly in his view, the opinions of many
erainent writers on the interesting subject of Benevolence. I
I was necessarily led to touch upon many great questions con
nected with that subject, and I hope not to be blamed for hav
ing given my own observations every advantage they might
derive from the authority, the reasoning, and even the words
of the most celebrated authors. The reader, I trust, will par
don me for having pursued now and then some topics which
occurred to me while I was writing the notes, and which I con
ceived to be important, though not immediately relating to the
matter contained in the Sermon.
As to my own opinions, they have no pretensions whatsoever
to the praise of originality. Some, perhaps, were the result of
my own reflections ; but most of them maybe found in writings,
from which no man of letters would be ashamed of receiving
instruction, and they are laid before the judgment and candour
of the public, for reasons, which, as a well-wisher to the honour
ofour holy Religion, and to the happiness of mankind, I shall
shall ever be ready to avow.

NOTES ON THE SPITAL SERMON.

Note 1, p. 361.
" Araong the badges of suspected and falsified science,"
Bacon, in his Work on the Advancement of Learning, places
" the novelty and strangeness of terms." — See p. 428, vol. ii. of
Bacon's Works.
Again, in his third Essay, he says, " Men create oppositions
which are not, and put them into new terms so fixed, as whereas
the meaning ought to govern the term, the term in effect go
verneth the meaning." — Vol. iii. p. 304.
Note 2, p. 361.
It may be worth while to sheiv some instances of the re
finements of philosophers, in their atteiiipts to give new names
to virtue : ^evibrjfios /liv S el, 'Eperplas dvi^pei T&v aper&v Kal
TO irXrjBos Kal Tas bia<j>opas, &s fiias ovarjs, Kal xpuifiivris iroXXols
ovofiaat' rb •yoiS aijrb awippoavvifV Kal avbpelav Kal biKaioovvr)v
XeyeoBai, KaBdirep (iporbv Kat dvOpwirev. Aristo and ZenO mul«
tiplied distinctions unnecessarily, and at the same time affixed
new generic terms to virtue : 'Apiarwv bi 6 Xios ry fiiv oval<f
fiiav Kal aires upeTrjv eiroiei, Kal vyeiav wvofiaSe' T^ be irpos ti
irws biafopovs Kal irXeiovas, iis el ns eBeXoi rrjv Spaatv i/fiwv,
XevKbiv fiiv avnXafifiavofiivriv, XevKoBeav KaXelv, fieXdvwv b4,
fjteXavBeav, ^ n toiovtov erepov' Kal ydp ff aperfl iroir/Tea fiiv
iriaKOTTOvaa, Kal firj iroirirea, KeKXrjTai fpdvrjais' eiriBvfiiav bi
Kotrfiovira, xal rb fiirpiov, Kal rb evKatpoji iv fibovdls opiSo-Uaa,
aw(j>poavvri' Koivwviifiain bi Koi avfifioXaiois bfiiXovaa toIs irpbs
iripovs, biKaioavvrj' KaBdirep rb fiaxatpiov ev fiiv eanv, aXXore
bi dXXo biaipec Kal to ifvp evepyel irepl vXas bia^opovs fiig. fvaei
Xp&fisvoV eoiKe hi Kal Z-ffVwv eis rovro irws viroipip^aBtn b Ktr-
Tievs, bpiiofievos ri)v (fipovriaiv, ev fiir' dirovepirfriois biKatoavvriv,
ev bi btatpereois aw^poavvrjv, ev bi vwofteveTeois dvbpeiav. —
Plutarch, edit. Xyland, vol. ii. p. 440.

414 NOTES ON
In the Meno of Plato, Socrates employs a long process of rea
soning, to show that all virtue may be resolved into prudence.
Soc. ovKovv avXXrifibrjV irdvra rd rrjs if/vxvs iirixeipiifiara, Kal
Kapreprifiara, rjyovfievrjs fiiv (ppovi'jaews, els evbaifioviav reXevrq,
dippoavvris bi els rovvavriov ; Me. eoiKev. Soc. et dpa dperfi rOiv
ev ri) '(I'vxrj Ti ean, Kal dvayKoiov avrw wipeXifxw elvai, (jipovrjaiv
aiirb bel elvai. — Vid. Plat. Oper. edit. Serran. vol. ii. p. 8S.
The observation which jVristotle makes upon* this opinion of
Socrates is very judicious : eirl rou rjBiKov bvo eanv e'ibr] — rb fiiv
dperrj ipvaiKri, rb bi Jj Kvpia' Kal tovtwv, ry Kvpia oil yiverai avev
ijipovfiaews' bioirep (jiaai irdaas rds dperds <ppovr]aeis elvaf b be
^wKparrjS, rrj fiiv, opBws ee.ijTei' ry bi ijfidpravev' on fiiv yap
ippovrjaeis (oero eTvai irdaas rds dperds, tifiapravev' on o oiiK
avev (ppovr'iaews, KaXUs eXeye. — Aristot. Mor. Nicom. lib. v. cap.
xiii. p. 277. Wilkinson's edition, Oxford, 1716.
They who wish to enter more largely into the subject of pru
dence, may consult Gassendi in libro secundo De Virtutibus,
cap. i. & ii. p. 73c, tom. ii. and Vasquez's Commentaries in pri
mam secundae sancti Thoraae in Disput. 88. I will quote two
passages from chap. iv. of Vasquez, as they may throw light
upon this logomachy about prudence. Primum quidem dicen
dum est, si sermo sit de connexione virtutum essentiali, unam
virtutem non pendere, neque connexam esse cum alia secundum
rationem habitus, aut secundum rationem Virtutis, ut optime
docuit Durand in 3d. 36. q. i , quia una virtus non habet spe-
ciem suam, et essentiam ex ordine ad aliam virtutem, sed solum
ex ordine ad objectum per piudentiani propositum. — Vasquez,
vol. iii. p. 604.
Omnes virtutes connexas esse participatione quadam dixit
Hieronymus (statim allegandus), intelligens per participationem
similitudinem quandam virtutis secundum generales quasdam ra
tiones. Etenim in quolibet actu cujusque virtutis tria sunt, quae
assimilantur actibus trium virtutum, ita ut hac ratione idem
actus videatur paiticipare rationem trium virtutum sub quibus
reliquae continentiir. Nam in quovis virtutis actu est firmitas
animi in operando, in qua assimiiatur fortitudini, est etiam recti-
tndo operationis, et aequalitas cum reguia, in qua assimiiatur
justitiae : est denique moderatio, in qua assimiiatur temperan-
lide. — Vasquez, vol. iii. p. 605.
As a writer of great celebrity and uncommon acuteness has

THE SPITAL SERMON. 415
lately resolved gratitude, and, indeed, all our social virtues into
justice, I shall endeavour to shew, from antient and modern wri
ters, that this extensive sense of the word for which he contends
has no claim to novelty.
"EoTi de btrrbv rb biKaiov, wv rb fiiv Kara vofiov ean' biKata
ydp (fraatv eivai, a b vofios irpdrrei' b bi vofios KeXevet rdvbpeia
irparreiv Kai rd awippova, /cai arrXoiis airavra Raa Kard rds uperds
Xiyerai' bio Kal {(paat) boKel fj biKaioavvrj reXeia ns dperrj eivai
* * * * aX\a fifjv ovbe rouro to biKaiov, oiibi rrjv irepl raHra
buKatoavvrfv S.ijTovfiev (icara fiiv ydp ravra rd biKaia ean, KaB'
eavrbv 'ovra biKaiov etvai, 6 ydp aixppwv, Kal avbpeios, Kal eyKpa-
rifs Kat avTos KaB' dvrov ean toioiitos,) aWa rb biKaiov rb els ere
pov, aXXa roii eiprjfievov Kard vofiov biKaiov ean. — Aristot. Magn,
Mural, lib. cap. xxxiv. p. 164. edit. Duval, vol. ii.
Again, he assigns another reason for calling justice a perfect
virtue : aur^ fiiv ovv rj biKaioavvrj, dperrj fiiv ean reXeia, dXX'
evx dirXOis, dX\a Trpos erepov, Kal bid toUto iroXXaKis KpanaTr)
TWV dperwv eivai boKel rj biKaioavvrj' Kal ovB' eairepos, oiiB' ewos,
ovTw Bavfiaarbs' Kai irapoifiiaSofievol i^afiev,
'Ev bi biKaioavvrj avXXrjfibrjv irda' dperrj 'art.
Kal reXeia fidXiara dperrj, bn rrjs reXeias aperrjs xpvais ean'
TeXeia b' eanv, on 6 exwv avrrjv, Kai irpos erepov bvvarat rrj
dperfj xpvaBat, aXX' oi) fiovov KaB' aurov. — Aristot. Ethic. Nicom.
edit. Duval, lib. v. cap. iii. p. 59. tom. ii.
The same matter, and nearly the same words, occur in the
first chapter and fourth book of the Eudem. See also the Para-
phrasis of Andronicus Rhodius, p. 260. edit. Heins.
Justice has sometimes been so defined as to include the duty
we owe to God, as vvell as man. Thus in a work de Virtutibus
et Viliis, improperly ascribed to Aristotle, we read, biKaioavvrjs
be tan, rb biavefirjTiKbv eivai rov Kar d^iav, Kal awSeiv rd ira-
rpia eOrj, Kal rd vofitfia' koI to aw£,eiv tovs yeypafifievovs vofiovs,
Kal TO dXrjBeveiv ev rut biaipepovn, Kal rb btatpvXdrTeiv rds bfio-
Xoyias' ean be irpuirrj riov biKaioavvwv irpbs rovs Oeovs, elra irpbs
baijiovas, elra irpbs irarpiba Kal yove'is, elra irpbs tovs Karoixofie-
vovs' ev ois eanv »; evae^eia, i'jrot fiepos oiiaa biKaioavvrjs, rj irapa-
KoXovBovaa' aKoXovOel be ry biKaioavvrj Kal batorrjs Kat dXrjBeia
Kal rj irians Kal »; fiiaoirovrjpia. — Vide Arist. edit. Duval, tom. i.
p 293.
There is a passage resembling this in the Oratoriae Partitiones

416 NOTES ON
of Cicero : In communione quae posita {Kirs est, justitia dicitur,
eaque erga Deos, religio, erga parentes, pietas, vulgo etiam bo-
nitas: creditis in rebus fides, in muderatione animadvertendi
lenitas, amicitia in benevolentia nominatur. — Edit. Gruter, tom.i.
p. 179. On Justice, as including our duty to God, see Lactan
tius, in Epitom. Divin. Institut. cap. 15 and 56.
How far justice may be said to comprehend all our social vir
tues, Cicero, I think, explains more intelligibly, and more in
structively, than any other antient writer : In omni autem ho-
hesto de quo loquimur, nihil est tam inlustre, nec quod latius
pateat, quam conjunctio inter homines hominum, et quasi quae
dam societas et communicatio utilitatum, et ipsa caritas generis
humani : quae nata a primo satu, quo a procreatoribus nati dili-
guntur, et tota domus conjugio et stirpe conjungitur, serpit sen
sim foras; cognationibus primum, tum adfinitatibus, deinde
amicitiis, post vicinitatibus, tum civibus, et iis qui publice socii
atque amici sunt, deinde totius complexu gentis humanae. Quse
animi adfectio suum cuique tribuens, atque hanc, quam dico,
societatem conjunctionis humanse munifice et aeque tiiens, justi
tia dicitur : cui sunt adjunctae pietas, bonitas, liberalitas, benig-
nitas, comitas, quseque sunt generis ejusdem. Atque haec ita
justitise propria sunt, ut sint virtutum reliquarura communia.
Nam cum sic hominis natura generata sit ut habeat quiddam
innatum quasi civile atque populare, quod Grseci iroXiriKov vo
cant ; quicquid aget quaeque virtus, id a communitate et ea
quam exposui caritate atque societate humana non abhorrebit.
Vicissimque justitia, ut ipsa se f undet usu in ceteras virtutes, sic
illas expetet ; servari enim justitia, nisi a forti viro, nisi a sa-
piente non potest. Qualis est igitur omnis haec, quam dico,
conspiratio consensusque virtutum, tale est illud ipsum hones-
turn : quandoquidem honestum, aut ipsa virtus est, aut res gesta
virtute. Quibus in rebus vita consentiens, virtutibusque re-
spondens, recta et honesta et constans et naturae congruens ex-
istimari potest. Atque haec conjunctio confusioque virtutum,
tamen a philosophis ratione quadam distinguitur. Nam cum
ita* copulatae connexaeque sint, (ut omnes omnium participes
* t)avis would read illae for ita, and, upon the authority of a
Paris Manuscript, he would omit the five words which I have
included iii a |Kirenthesis.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 417
sint,) nec alia ab alia possit separari; tamen proprium suum
cujusque munus est : ut fortitudo in laboribus periculisque cer-
natur, temperantia in praetermittendis voluptatibus, prudentia
in delectu bonorum et malorum, justitia in suo cuique tribuen-
do. — De Fin. lib. v. par. xxiii. p. 411. edit. Davis.
The extended sense of the word justice has not been unno
ticed by modern writers. After stating the generic and specific
sense of the word as it is employed by Aristotle, Gassendi thus
proceeds :
Cum soleat vero justitio haec laxius, strictiusque usurpari ; et
laxius quidem prout comprehendit genera omnia officiorum ;
quo pacto etiam Religio, Pietas, observantia, amicitia, Liberali
tas, Gratitudo, species quaedam justitiae sunt ; strictius vero, qua
tenus ea solum officia complectitur, quse aut obligationi exse-
quantur, quo pacto excluduntur, v. c. Religio, atque Pietas ;
aut nisi impleantur, ad multam, psenamve nullam obligant ; quo
pacto excluduntur, amicitia, Liberalitas, coeterse : Ideo sunt,
qui, ut rem componant, dicunt has virtutes, puta Religionem,
Pietatem, et alias, esse partes justitiae, non subjectas, sed
potentiales; aut species quidem, sed adnexas solum. Verum
ne haereamus in controversia quae videatur de nomine, sufficiat
videri officium, munusve esse justitiae, quoties id cuipiam tri-
buitur, quod aliquo ipsi titulo debetur, ac potest ideo compre-
hendi definitione celebri, qua apud Jurisconsultos " Justitia esse
dicitur constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique tribuendi."
— Gassendi de Virtutibus, lib. ii. cap. v. vol. ii. p. 784.
" The word," says Adam Smith, " which expresses justice in
the Greek language has several meanings, and as a correspondent
word in all other languages, so far as I know, has the same,
there must be some natural affinity among those various signifi
cations." " The word (in one sense) coincides with what
Aristotle and the Schoolmen call commutative justice, and Gro
tius the justitia expletrix, which consists in abstaining from
what is another's, and in doing voluntarily whatever we can with
propriety be forced to do. The second sense of the word coin
cides with what some have called distributive justice, and with
the justitia attributrix of Grotius, which consists in proper bene
ficence, in the becoming use of what is our own, and in the ap
plying it to those purposes, either of charity or generosity, to
VOL. II. 2 E

418 NOTES ON
which it is most suitable in our situations that it should be ap
plied. In this sense justice comprehends all the social virtues.
In another sense, what is called justice means the same thing
with exact and perfect propriety of conduct and behaviour, and
comprehends in it not only the offices of both commutative and
distributive justice, but of every other virtue, of prudence, of
fortitude, of temperance." — See Smith's Moral Sentiments, vol.
ii. p. 210.
"As Justice,'- says Tucker, " consists in a hearty desire of
doing right to every one against the solicitations of other desires
urging another way, and as among contending impulses the
most vigorous will always prevail, therefore justice, though dis
tinct from temperance and fortitude, cannot well subsist with
out them, because it is their office to reduce our desires within a
manageable compass. — See Light of Nature, vol. ii. p. 303.
" There is a beauty,'' says Edwards, " in the virtue called
justice, which consists in the agreement of different things
which have relation to one another in nature, manner, and mea
sure. There is an harmonious corresponding of one thing to
another, that he who from his will does evil to others should
receive evil from the will of others, and that he should suffer
evil in proportion to the evil of his doings."
" Things are in natural regularity and mutual agreement,
when he whose heart opposes the general system should have
the hearts of that system, or the heart and the head of the Ruler
of the system, against him, and that in consequence he should
receive evil in proportion to the evil tendency of the opposition
of his heart."
" So there is a like agreement in nature and measure, when
he that loves has the proper returns of love, when he that from
his heart promotes the good of another has his good promoted
by the other, as there is a kind of justice in a becoming gra
titude." " Indeed most of the duties incumbent on us, if well con
sidered, will be found to partake of the nature of justice. There
is some natural agreement of one thing to another, some adapt-
edness of the agent to the object, some answerableness of the
act to the occasion, some equality and proportion in things of
a similar nature, and of direct relation of one to another. So it

THE SPITAL SERMON. 419
is in relative duties, duties of children to parents, and of parents
to children, duties of husbands and wives, duties of friendship
and good neighbourhood, duties of rulers and subjects, and all
duties that we owe to God our creator, preserver, and benefac
tor, and all duties whatsoever considered, as refjuired by God,
and also considered as what are to be performed with regard to
Christ." — Edwards's Nature of true Virtue, p. 152.
From many of the foregoing passages, it appears that the re
semblance of justice to other virtues, or its connection with
them, gave rise to the large signification in which the word ia
soraetimes used. Be it observed, however, that justice is by
none of the antient writers set in opposition to any other social
virtue, such as gratitude, liberality, or parental affection, that
they did not erect systems upon the basis of justice, nor employ
the colossal weight of the term in crushing other moral excel
lencies, which, together with justice, were considered as pillars
in the temple of virtue.
Bishop Butler, in the Preface to his admirable Sermons, ex
presses a wish " that it had been a custom to lay before people
nothing in matters of argument but premises, and leave them
to draw conclusions themselves." I have in the same manner
thrown before my reader such premises as may enable him to
form a judgment of the use which a celebrated modern writer
has made of the word justice. If those passages be well con
sidered, they will preserve him from any evil consequences to
which he may be exposed from any equivocal use of the term.
They will relieve him from the surprize he may have felt at the
supposed novelty of its signification in the book to which I al
lude, and perhaps they may induce him to suspect that no im
portant end, either of speculative or practical justice, will be
promoted by deviation from the ordinary and established lan
guage of ethics. Note 3, p. 362.
" There is a strange affectation in many people of explain
ing away all particular affections, and representing the whole of
life as one continued exercise of self-love. Hence arises that
surprising confusion and perplexity in the Epicureans of old."
—Butler's Preface to his Sermons.
" One need only look into Torquatus's account of the EpicU"
2e2

420 NOTES ON
rean System in Cicero's first Book de Finibus, to see in what a
surprising manner this was done by them. Thus the desire of
praise and of being beloved, he explains to be no other than
desire of safety; regard to our country, even in the most virtu
ous character, to be nothing but regard to ourselves." — Butler's
Preface to his Sermons, p. 23, Note on Epicureans.
" The division of our desires (into public and benevolent) has
been disputed since Epicurus ; who, with his old followers, and
some of late, who detest other parts of his scheme, maintain
that all our desires are selfish, or that what every one intends or
designs ultimately, in each action, is the obtaining pleasure to
himself, or the avoiding his own private pain." — See Hutcheson
on the Passions, p. 13.
Gassendi, in the first Book of his Ethics (de Felicitate), and
particularly in chapters iv. and v. has endeavoured, but I think
unsuccessfully, to vindicate Epicurus himself from most of the
charges brought against him by the Academics and Stoics.*
Probably there was much exaggeration in those charges. But
after repeated perusal of the ratae sentenliae, and of Gassendi's
explanation, I believe that the language of Epicurus induced
many of his followers to contend for the tenets which Cicero
and Plutarch opposed.
"Juxta naturam suam,'' says Gassendi, "quicquid homo agit,
quodam cum respectu ad seipsum agit." — See Gassendi Opera,
tom. ii. p. 710. True; but the selfish system gains nothing by
the concession. " Every particular aflection," says Butler, " even
the love of our neighbour, is as really oui- own affection as self-
love, and the pleasure arising frum its gratification is as much
my own pleasure as the pleasure self-love would have from
knowing that I myself should be happy some time hence would
be my own pleasure."— Butler's Sermons, p. 207.
" Whether the principles of our actions be self-love or the
hatred or the love of another, they would agree in this, that the
actions proceeding from them are done to gratify an inclination
in a mau's self." — Butler's Sermons, p. 209.
Great ambiguity has arisen from the use of the word self-in
terest, advantage, &c. But I have found no term so clear and

* VideBrucker's Hist. Critic. Philosoph. vol. i. partii. liber ii.
cap. 13. parag. 4, 5, 14, 18.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 421
so correct as satisfaction,-* and I grant with Tucker that "every
man's satisfaction is the spring that actuates all his motions." —
Vol. V. Light of Nature by Search, p. 353. Or, if we examine
more strictly, " It is not very satisfaction, but the prospect or
idea of it." — Vol. i. p. 105.
Tucker most admirably guards the term satisfaction fi-om
abuse : " For it may be urged that if satisfaction, a man's own
satisfaction, be the groundwork of all our motives ; if reason can
furnish no ends of her ovvn, but serves only to discover methods
of accomplishing those assigned her by sense ; if she recom
mends virtue and benevolence, solely as containing the most co
pious sources of gratification ; then are virtue and benevolence
no more than means, and deserve our regard no longer than
while they conduce towards their end. So that upon an oppor
tunity offering, wherein a man may gain some pleasure or ad
vantage slily and safely, without danger of after damage to him
self, though with infinite detriment to all the world beside, and
in breach of every moral obhgation, he will act wisely to em
brace it.
" I cannot deny that the consequence follows in speculation
upon the case above supposed ; but I conceive such case can
never happen, in fact, so long as a man has any prospect of good
and evil to come. For we must take into account not only the
advantage accruing from an action, but likewise the benefits or
mischiefs of the disposition of mind giviTig birth to it ; and if
this will lead us into evils overbalancing the present profit of
the action, we cannot be said to do it without danger of after
damage to ourselves. The virtues belong to the heart rather
than the head, or, to speak in our own style, their residence lies
in the imagination, not the understanding, and, to be complete,
must direct our inadvertent motions as well as our deliberate ;
that is, must become appetites impelling to action without
standing to consider their expedience. Now, whoever resists
that impulse soberly and premeditately, upon consideration of
their being inconvenient to his private purposes, will thereby
* Hence, according to the opinion of metaphysicians, omnis
sive de ultimo fine, sive de mediis, deliberatio, ad sensum quen-
dam proximum grali et molesti, tandem referenda est. — Hutche-
son's Synops. Metaphysic. p. 63.

422 NOTES ON
make such a breach upon their authority, and give such a
crooked turn to his mind, as must unavoidably draw him into
eiils greater than any immediate advantage he may gain. All
vjce, says Juvenal, stands upon a precipice, and if we once step
over the brink, nobody can tell how far we shall go down : one
of these two things must necessarily follow: either we shall
continue sliding till we fall into destruction, or must put our
selves to infinite trouble in climbing the precipice, a trouble far
exceeding the pleasure we may have felt at first in the case of a
down-hill motion. He that cheats when he can do it safely will
want to cheat at other times, and consequently must suffer
either by a self-denial or the mischiefs of an indulgence, so that
it had been more for his benefit to have adhered inviolably to
his rule of honesty. The ultimate end we have assigned for a
reasonable creature to act upon was not present pleasure or pro
fit, but' the aggregate of enjoyments ; and we have laboured, I
hope not unsuccessfully, to prove, from a survey of human na
ture, that nothing adds so largely to that aggregate as a right
disposition of mind." — Search, vol. ii. p. 364.
Butler says, " it may be allowed, without any prejudice to the
cause of virtue and religion, that our ideas of happiness are
most important to us, and that though virtue or moral rectitude
does indeed consist in affection to, and pursuit of, what is right
and good, as such, yet that when we sit down in a cool hour,
we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till
we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least
not contrary to it." — Butler's Sermons, p. 229.
Note 4, p. 362.
This certainly vvas the opinion of the Epicureans. " Virtue,"
says Adam Smith, according to Epicurus, " did not deserve to
be pursued for its own sake, nor was of itself one of the ultimate
objects of natural appetite, but was eligible only on account of
its tendency to prevent pain, and to procure ease and pleasure."
—See Smith's Theory of Morals, vol. ii. p. 283. See also p. 274.
Gassendi qualifies the proposition: Ut, quod caput est, de
ipso honesto ad voluptatem relato dicatur, observandum est banc
ad voluptatem relationem nihil videri obstare quo minus hones-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 423
tum dicatur quodam sensu per se, sive propter se expeti. — Gas
sendi, Oper. tom. ii. p. 705.
I allow, with Reid, that " all the antient sects, except the Epi
cureans, distinguished the " honestum from the utile, as we dis
tinguish what is a man's duty from what is his interest." — Reid
on the Active Powers, p. 234. As to the Schoolmen of the Mid
dle Ages, take the following passage from Reid:
" Some well-meaning persons have maintained, that all re
gard to ourselves, and to our own happiness, ought to be extin
guished ; that we should love virtue for its ovvn sake only, even
though it were to be accompanied with eternal misery. This
seems to have been the extravagance of some mystics, which
perhaps they were led into, in opposition to a contrary extreme
of the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, who made the desire of
good to ourselves to be the sole motive to action, and virtue to
be approveable only on account of its present or future reward."
— See Reid on the Active Powers, p. 263.
Perhaps some of the expressions which gave rise to the obser
vation of Dr. Reid arose from the ambiguity of the word utile,
by which the Schoolmen, following Aristotle, meant not good
or advantage as an end, but the mean of procuring it ; bd^eiv b'
av -xprjatfiov eivai, bt ov yiverai dyaObv n !j rjbovrj. — Aristot.
Ethic. Nicom. edit. Wilkinson, 1716, p. 341. Retaining this
sense of utile, some of the Schoolmen contend for honestum as
Dr. Reid or I should understand it. Ex sententia sancti Thomse
quod bonum relate, nempe quod alteri bonum seu conveniens
est, triplex est : aliud est bonum honestum, nempe virtutis: aliud
bonum delectabile, quod Anselmus commodum appellavit : aliud
autera est bonum utile. Duo priora constituunt rationem finis,
(ut disputatione 4 capite 2 ostendimus) quia gratia sui appetun-
tur, utile autem solum est bonum, quod in mediis reperitur :
dicitur enim bonum utile, quod est bonum et conveniens, non
gratia sui, sed gratia alterius, honesti, aut delectabilis : eo quod
conducit ad consequendum id, quod honestum, aut delectabile
' seu commodum est. Vasquez in S. Thoman, tom. iii. p. 7. Dis
put. i. cap. ii. But let us hear him further : Quod vero attinet
ad mores, utile, ut utile, non tribuit bonitatem moralem actioni,
nisi ratione finis. Porro finis aut est honestum aut delectabile
bonum quod Anselmus, (ut ibidem vidimus) vocavit commo-

424 NOTES ON
dura. Vel ergo voluntas fertur in objectum honestum, quate
nus delectabile et commodum est, et hoc modo non potest esse
voluntas honesta. Vel, voluntas fertur in objectum honestum
allecta ab ipsa honestate, et ita operatur honestum propter ipsum.
Ac proinde habemus id quod contendimus, nempe nunquara esse
voluntatem bonam moraliter et studiosam, nisi feratur in rem
honestam propter ipsam honestatem. Id quod non obscure
docuit sanctus Thomas in questione 19, ubi asserit in haec verba.
(Sed ad hoc, quod sit voluntas bona, requiritur quod sit boni sub
ratione boni.) Id est quod velit bonum et propter bonum. Per
bonum autera intelligit honestum. — Disput. Ixxiii. cap. vii. p.
498. tom. iii. Note 5, p. 362.
I had great pleasure in reading the following observations
upon disinterestedness: "The hypothesis of disinterestedness
would never have had so many adversaries, if the complexity of
human motives had been sufficiently considered. To illustrate
this, let it be recollected that every voluntary action has iu it a
mixture of involuntary.
" We are capable of self-oblivion, as well as of sacrifice. A II
that is strictly voluntary, in the beneficence of a man habitually
generous and kind, commences from this point : if other consi
derations intervene in the sequel, they are indebted for their in
tervention to the disinterested motive. But, at the same time
that this truth is clearly established, it is not le.ss true — first,
that the indirect and original motive, that which laid the foun
dation of all our habits, is the love of agreeable sensation ;
secondly, it is also to be admitted, that there is probably some
thing personal directly and perceptibly mixing itself with such
of our beneficial actions as are of a sensible duration." — Polit.
Justice, vol. i. p. 430-1, 3d edit.
Note 6, p. 363.
I am glad to find that the Author of Political Justice thinks
with me in this point : " Among the French, not a single writer
upon the nature of the human raind is to be found, who does
not, more or less explicitly, declare for the hypothesis of self-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 425
love. Among ourselves, several authors of eminence have un
dertaken to support the practicability of disinterested action." —
Vol. i. 3d edit. p. 422. Note 7, p. 363.
" Though benevolence and self-love are different, yet they
are so perfectly consistent, that the greatest satisfactions to our
selves depend upon our having benevolence in a due degree, and
that self-love is one chief security of our right behaviour towards
society. It may be added, that their mutual coinciding, so that
we can scarce promote one without the other, is etjually a proof
that we were made for both." — See Butler's Sermons, p. 9. See
also Kaimes's History of Man, vol. ii. sec. 3. book 3.
" It must be here observed, that as all men have self-love as
well as benevolence, these two principles may jointly excitea man
to the same action, and then they are to be considered as two
forces impelling the same body to motion." — See Hutcheson's
Inquiry, p. 136. Note S, p. 363.
" That tbis sympathy with others is the effect of the consti
tution of our nature, and not brought upon ourselves by any
choice with view to any selfish advantage, they must own :
whatever advantage there may be in sympathy with the fortu
nate, none can be alleged in sympathy with the distressed : and
every one feels that this public sense will not leave his heart,
upon a change of the fortunes of his child or friend ; nor does
it depend upon a man's choice, whether he will be affected with
their fortunes or not." — See Hutcheson on the Passions, p. 14.
Note 9, p. 363.
" I feel a pleasure in doing good to my friend, because I
love him, but do not love him for the sake of that pleasure." —
Hume's Essays, eleventh, on the Dignity of Human Nature, p.
95, edit. 1767.
What Mr. Hume expresses so closely and so clearly, is stated
at greater length, but with equal precision, by another writer :
" If what they mean, who say that all comes from self-love.

426 NOTES ON
be not, that our loving such and such particular persons and
things arises from our love to happiness in general, but from a
love to our own happiness, which consists in these objects ; so,
the reason why we love benevolence to our friends or neigh
bours is, because we love our happiness consisting in their hap
piness, which we take pleasure in : still the notion is absurd ; for
here the effect is made the cause of that of which it is the effect,
our happiness, consisting in the happiness of the person beloved,
is made the cause of our love to that person. Whereas the truth
plainly is, that our love to the person is the cause ofour delight
ing, or being happy, in his happiness. How comes our happi
ness to consist in the happiness of such as we love, but by our
hearts being first united to them in affection, so that we, as it
were, look on them as ourselves, and so on their happiness as
our own?" — Edwards on True Virtue, p. 158.
Note 10, p. 364.
I allude to the French (Economists under the late monar
chy, and to their successors, Mr. Condorcet, &c.
Note, p. 366.
'EpyaiwfieBa. "Epya is applied by the Greek writers specifi
cally to works of agriculture. Thus in Callimachus :
— — — aves epya, aves ipvrd Xvfiaivovrat.
Callim. Him. in Dian. v. 156.
So in Ovid, Non hominum video, non ego facta bonum ;
vvhich Gesner well Interprets, agros cultos, opera hominum et
bonum. — See Epist. of Ariadne to Theseus, line 60.
As the Apostle in the text evidently alludes to those works, I
think it right to discuss the question fully — epyov proprie est
agricultura, opus quo terra exercetur et subigitur, nam est ab
ij epa. Hinc. 6 avrovpybs est o rfjv Ibiav epyaiofievos yrjv. —
Eurip. Orest. 918. Non vero forensis homo — deinde, est in
genere. Opus, labor, et si epitheton nullum in contrarium addi
tur, semper notat honestum in se opus et utile. Denique notat
et difficultatem aliquara ; sed priraario notat rrjv yewp-ytav. —
Damra's Lexicon Homeric.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 427
'EpydSofiai often signifies what is done with great effort.
Magnam verbi 'EpydieaBat vim laborem strenuum indicandi
esse aliquot Hesiodi exemplis probatum dedit celeberrimus Jo.
Henr. h. Seelen, in Bibliotheca Lubecensi, vol. vii. p. 459. See
Wolfius in Ephes. cap. iv. ver. 28. I have not Mr. k Seelen's
work ; but the following passage is an instance :
'AXXa av y {jfiereprjs fiefivrjfievos a'lev eijterfirjs
'Epydiev." Hesiod, Opera et Dies, v. 298.
'EpydSofiat in the Sacred Writings, says Schleusner, vol. i. p.
823, signifies studiosus sum circa aliquid, operor, occupatus sum
in aliqua re, facio, exerceo. Matth. c. vii. v. 23. Thus Psalm xv.
ver, 2.
'EpydSofievoi ti)v dvofiiav improbitatis studiosi. Sirac, c. xxiv,
v. 35, 01 epyaSofievoi ev efioi qui mihi operam dant, ibid. c. xxx.
V. 13. epyaaai ev avr^, operam da ei instituendo et educando.
'Epya^oyjoi implies great labour in Homer, Iliad xxiv. v. 733.
OUaiv re -xpvaov elpydSero, et quibuscunque aurum laborando
subigebat. See also Hesiod, Opera et Dies, v. 151. x"^kw b' ep-
ydSovTO. The reader will probably admit that I was not mistaken in
referring the imagery of St. Paul to agriculture, and that by
epyaS.wfieBa we must understand intense labour. The duty is
well explained by Barrow : " He must labour in effectual per
formance of all good offices, and in catching all occasions of
doing good ; he must exert that Koirov dyairrjs, that labour of
love." — See Barrow's Sermon, ISth, upon Industry, vol. iii. p.
213. It may not be improper to observe, that in Ephesians, c. iv.
ver. 28. a similar expression occurs, but with a very different
sense, epyaiofievos to dyaBbv rals x^patv.
'Epyd£eaBai here signifies labore comparare, acquirere, and in
John, c. vi. ver. 27.
'EpydSeaOe firj r-ijv (jpCiatv rrjv diroXXvfievrjv non tam cibum
periturum vobis comparate. Hesych. et Phaverin. eipydaaro,
eiroirjaiv, eirpd^aro. See Schleusner in voce. Dresigius, in p.
282 of his Commentary de Verbis Mediis N. T. after stating the
version of John, c. vi. ver. 27, by the Vulgate, Erasmus, and
Beza, observes, nullus verum verbi medii usum est assecutus,
quum sit interpretaiiduin operamini vel comparate vobis. Oujr

428 NOTES ON
English version says, " labour not for the meat," which though
preferable to the version of Erasmus and the Vulgate, is defec
tive. But in the Ephesians it is far more defective, "working
with his hand the thing which is good."
With all the deference which every man of letters owes to the
sagacity of Bishop Sherlock, I will state my reasons for dissent
ing from his Lordship in the interpretation of a text which re
lates to the duty of benevolence, and just now occurs to my me
mory. In the third volume of his admirable Sermons, p. 148,
he translates dydirrj eKrev-tjs an uninterrupted love. The English
version calls it fervent charity. In my opinion the word signifies
intense, which is nearer to fervent in the English version than
" uninterrupted." In favour of the Bishop's opinion it must be
observed, that CEcuraenius interprets eKrevfj, biapKrj, eirl iroXii
biareivovaav, dilectionem contimiam, constanfem, diu durantem.
To these words of CEcuraenius, quoted by Suieer, -I will add
frora Hesychius, eKreviav (which Scaliger reads eKrevt^v, Kuster
interprets /car' eKreviav, and Pricaeus corrects into eKreivetv)
avvexws iroielv rb auro. But we also read in Hesychius, eKrevet,
errifieXei, and eKreves, biarerdfievov, and eKTevws, irpoOvfiws, rj
biarerafievws. Suidas explains the same word oXoi/'u^ws Kal
irpoBvfiws. Phavorinus, e/crei-ws, avvrovws, eirifiovws, ?/ bXo-ipvxws,
Kai irpoBvfiws Kat ipiXavBpw-rrws. St. Luke uses eKrevrjs twice. It
occurs in Acts, c. xii. ver. 5. irpoaevxrj be tjv eKrevys.
The English translations interprets without ceasing, the word
vvhich, vvith equal probability, may be rendered, according to
Shcleusner, ardentissimce, eniia preces fiebant. St. Luke, c. xxii.
ver. 44, uses eKrevearepov irpoarjvxero. Hic infensius, says Suidas,
fervidius reddunt eruditi. Glossa, eKrevearepov enixius. Vetus,
prolixius. Chrysostomus, r^jv evxfjv fter eKreveias dvaipepetv. The
English translation is, " he prayed more earnestly." I therefore
approve of the English version of St. Peter, as expressing degree,
rather than duration. The word occurs four times in the Sep.
tuagint, and is explained by Biel extense, vehementer. But
further, I observe that in Polybius eKrevrjs and eKrevws are ap
plied to degree rather than duration, yeyovaai irdvrwv eKre-
veararoi rwv e-irl rijs 'Aaias avrovofiovfievwv oraniura civitatura
liberarum, que in Asia sunt, summo studio amicitiam hos coluisse
(i. e. Romanorura). — Polyb. lib. xxii. cap. v.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 429
"En be avareaavros tw vavKXr'ipw Kal rols eirifldTais eKrevws,
quum etiam nauclero et vectoribus eos studio magno commen-
dasset. — Polyb. lib. xxxi. cap. 22.
ndawv avrbv twv Kara rrjv "EXXa§a iroXewv eKrevCjs Kal fie-
yaXo-\\/vX'>>s dirobe'iafievwv Kara rrjv biobov. Omnibus Greciae
civitatibus per quas iter faciebat surarao studio el magnificentia
eum excipientibus. — Polyb. lib. xxxiii. cap. 4.
In each of the foregoing instances the degree of kindness and
good will is signified by eKrevrjs and tcrevws. In Appian it
means degree, not duration : icai rrjv dXXrjv 'IrdXiav Kal Vwfirjv
eir aiirfj SuXXav eKrevws KexeipwaBai et omnem reliquam Ita
liani cura urbe Roma in Syllse potestate jam penitus esse. — Ap
pian de Bell. Civil, lib. i. p. 131. vol. ii. edit. Schweighaeuser.
Note 11, p. 367.
When Bishop Butler argues upon any supposed case, he
shews so much caution, as well as sagacity, as must guard his
readers from applying the supposition to any bad purpose. In
his chapter upon the Moral Government of God, p. 93, in order
to shew the happy tendency of virtue, he supposes a " kingdom
or society of men upon earth perfectly virtuous for a succession
of many ages, to which may be given a situation advantageous
for universal monarchy.'' But after describing this kingdom, he
takes care to add, that " our knowledge of human nature, and
the whole history of mankind, shew the impossibility, without
some miraculous interposition, that a nuraber of men here on
earth should unite in one society of governraent, in the fear of
God and universal practice of virtue." — See Butler's Analogy,
p. 95. Note 12, p. 368.
" We find the creation, so far as our intercourse reaches,
divided into distinct species and limited societies, the effects of
whose actions extend no further than a certain number of those
with whom they have intercourse. Nor can we presume other
wise of those unseen consequences depending upon the secret
concatenation of causes wbich, however they may in part extend
to innumerable multitudes, are likely to affect some particular

430 NOTES ON
class of beings principally with whom we stand nearest con
cerned." — Search, vol. v. p. 371-
I hear with concern that the works of this admirable writer
are very scarce, and therefore I shall not apologise for ample and
frequent quotation. Note 13, p. 368.
These are the words of Aristotle : 'Ev 8e rrj irSXet r-ijv fi-
Xiav avayKalov vbdprj yiveaOat bid rrjv Koivwviav rrjv roiavrrjv,
Kal ^Ktara Xeyeiv rbv efibv rj v'iov irdrepa, r) irdrepa vioV Hairep
ydp fiiKpbv yXvKv eis ttoXu iibwp fiixBev, dvaiaBrjTov iroiel ryv
Kpdatv, OVTW avfiftaivet koi rrjv o'lKeiorrjra rfjv irpos dXX^Xous rrjv
dirb ritiv ovofidrwv tovtwv, biacppovriietv, fiKiara avayKalov ov ev
rrj iroXireiif rrj rotavrrj, i) irdrepa ws v'lwv, ^ v'iov ws irdrpos, fj ws
abiXipovs dXXrjXwv. — Aristot. Politic, edit. Heins. lib. ii. cap ii.
p. 212. " No man," says Johnson, " forgets his original trade :
the rights of nations and of kings sink into questions of gram
mar, if grammarians discuss them." I will confirm, by a fresh
instance, the justness of Johnson's observation ; for, while writ
ing notes upon the subject of benevolence, I shall stop to re
mark, that xjbdprjs, which occurs in the sentence just now quoted
from Aristotle's Politics, is also to be found in the last chapter
of the Poetics : dicouXo9ouvra rji roH fierpov fi-ljKet fivBov <j>ai-
veadai iibdprj. Fabulara apparere dilutam et languidam. — See
Mr. Tyrrwhit's excellent note.
Note 14, p. 368.
I have often been struck at the use which is made of this
word, expressing relation, by the advocates both ofthe selfish and
the benevolent systems. " What say you of natural affection," says
Hurae, " is that also a species of love ? Yes, always self-love.
My children are loved only because they are mine. My friend,
for a like reason. My country engages me only so far as it has
a connection with myself. Were the idea of self removed, no
thing would affect me." — Hume, Essay llth, p. 94. The sense
allows me to substitute my for your.
The proposition may be true, if rescued from ambiguity in the
terms, and yet no consequences would flow from it in favour of

THE SPITAL SERMON. 431
the selfish system. Now let us see how little stress is laid upon
the particle of relation to self, by an advocate of the benevolent
system. A case is stated, where it may be in a man's power to
save the life of Fenelon, or of a valet who was his own brother,
father, or benefactor. " Justice, it is said, would have taught
him to save the life of Fenelon, because it vvas more valuable, at
the expence of the valet's life. What magic, it is added, is there
in the pronoun ' my,' that should justify us in overturning the
decisions of impartial truth ? My brother or my father may be
a fool, or profligate, malicious, lying, or dishonest. If they be,
of what consequence is it that they are mine ?" — See Political
Justice, vol, i. p. 128.
Probably, if the appeal were made to the common sense and
common experience of mankind, the circumstance that they are
mine would, even in the case supposed by our philosopher, be of
great consequence. But what if a father were neither a fool nor
a profligate, would it then be of consequence that he was mine ?
Would the remembrance of his relation to me be no cause of en
dearment, no incitement to acts of beneficence towards him ? I
believe that Aristotle would have laid much greater stress upon
the pronoun " my," bvo ydp eanv a fidXiara iroiel KrjbeaBat rovs
dvBpwirovs Kal (piXelv, rb re 'ibiov Kal rb dyarrriTov. — See Aristot,
Polit, edit. Heins. p. 112,
I suspect that dyairrjTov here means more than carum ; it may
be rendered unicum, atque adeo carum. Aristotle, in lib, i, cap.
7. Rhetor, says of the eye, destroyed in him who had only one,
dyairrjrov aijr-rjprjTat. See Hen, Stephens's Thesaurus ; but I
should observe, that in the margin of Arist. Kal fiovov are added,
perhaps, as explanatory. Upon the word dyairrirov in SS, for
fiovoyevrj, see Suidas and Hesychius in V, and the notes.
Would our modern philosophers, who exclude self from the
duty of what they call justice, deny the influence of self upon
many other occasions ? They who adopt, as I do, Mr, Hume's
opinion about '' the double relation of impressions and ideas,"
vvhich he illustrates in the case of pride (see Dissertation on the
Passions, vol, ii, p. 198, 9), will readily admit the easiness of
transition frora one to the other, in cases of benevolence where
the object is related to self In page 207, Mr. Hume states, that
a relation to ourself excites affection towards any person ; but he

432 NOTES ON
seems to limit the operation of the principle to relations who are
less near than parents or children, and to consider the affection
between them as founded upon " an original instinct." Grant
ing, however, that parental affection originates in such an in
stinct, yet I suspect that the continuance of it must in part be
ascribed to other causes. " Parental fondness," says Tucker,
" rises from the consideration of being our own blood, the habit
of attending to the cares of nature and education, the hope of
seeing the good fruits of our endeavours, the solace and support
expected from returns of duty." — Tucker upon Charity, vol. vi,
page 354.
The remainder of former affections, and the accession of new
ones, which make the sum total of parental -love, and the various
sources of filial affection, are explained by Hartley, sect. iv. upon
the Pleasures and Pains of Sympathy.
The pronoun my, 1 believe, will always be found to have great
weight, both in the sentiments and the duties of mankind.
Note 15, p. 369.
"Our calm affections, private or pubhc, are perfectly dis
tinct from our particular affections. Calm self-love is quite dis
tinct frora hunger, thirst, ambition, &c. So calm good-will
towards others is different from pity, parental affection, or the
passion of particular friends. Now every kind passion, which is
not pernicious to others, is virtuous and lovely, and yet a calra
good-will towards the same persons appears more lovely. So
good-will towards a small system is more lovely and preferable to
more passionate attachments, and yet a more extensive calm
benevolence is still more beautiful and virtuous, and the highest
perfection of virtue is an universal calm good-will towards all
sensitive natures." — Hutcheson's Inquiry, page 182. See also
Hutcheson on the Passions, sect, ii. art. 2 and 3.
Note 16, p. 369.
" The actions we approve in others are generally imagined
to tend to the natural good of mankind, or sorae parts of it.
But whence this secret chain between each person and raankind.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 433
How is my interest connected with the most distant parts of it,
and yet I must admire actions which shew good-will towards
them, and admire the author."
" As soon as any action is represented to us as flowing from
love, humanity, gratitude, corapassion, a study of the good of
others, and an ultiraate desire of their happiness, although it
were in a more distant part of the world, or in some past age,
we feel joy within us, admire the lovely action, and praise its
author," — Hutcheson's Inquiry, page 114.
" We frequently bestow praise on virtuous actions performed in
distant ages and remote countries, where the utmost subtlety of
imagination would not discover any appearance of self-interest,
or find any connection of our present happiness and security
with events so widely separated from us," — Hume's Essays, vol,
ii. page 284. Note 17, p. 369.
" Let a man of a composed temper, out of the hurry of his
private affairs, only read pf the constitution of a foreign coun
try, even in the most distant parts of the earth, and observe art,
design, and a study of public good in the laws of this association,
and he shall find his mind moved in their favour ; he shall be
contriving rectifications and amendments in their constitution,
and regret any unlucky part of it which raay be pernicious to
their interest ; he shall bewail any disaster which befalls them,
and accompany all their fortunes with the affections ofa friend."
— Hutcheson's Inquiry, p. 162.
Note 18, p. 370.
" Civil society doth more content the nature of man' than
any private kind of solitary living, because, in society, this good
of mutual participation is so much larger than otherwise. Here
with, notwithstanding we are not satisfied, but we covet, if it
might be, to have a kind of society and fellowship even with all
mankind. Which thing Socrates intending to signify, professed
hiraself a citizen, not of this or that coraraonwealth, but of the
world. An effect of that vei-y natural desire in us, a manifest
token that we wish after a sort of an universal fellowship with
VOL, II. 2 F

434 NOTES ON
all men, appeareth by the wonderful delight men have, sorae to
visit foreign countries, some to discover nations not heard of in
former ages : we all desire to know the affairs and dealings of
other men, yea, to be in league of araity vvith them. And this
not only for traffick's sake, or to the end that when raany men
are confederated, each may make others more strong, but for
such cause also as moved the queen of Sheba to visit Solomon,
and, in a word, because nature doth presume that how many men
there are in the world, so many gods, as it were, there are, or,
at leastwise, that they should be towards men." — Hooker,
page 89.
The most eloquent description I have ever read of universal
benevolence, and, perhaps, the most correct statement of its
restriction according to our particular relations in society, are in
Bishop Taylor's Discourse on the Nature and Measure of Friend
ship. I cannot resist the strong impulse I feel to quote a part of
it. " Perfect friendship, by the principles of Christianity, is
warranted to extend to all mankind, and the more we love the
better we are. It is not ill that you entertain brave friendships,
and worthy societies ; it were well if you could love, and if you
could benefit all mankind." " I confess this is not to be expected
of us in this world. But as all our graces here are but imper
fect, at best they are but tendencies to glory, so our friendships
are imperfect too, and but the beginnings of a celestial friend
ship, by which we shall love every one as much as they can be
loved. Then so we must here in our proportion, and, indeed,
that it is that can make the difference. We must be friends to
all, that is, apt to do good, loving thera really, and doing to
them all the benefits vvhich we can, and that they are capable of.
The friendship is equal to all the world, and of itself hath no
difference, but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capa
city or incapacity of them that receive it. Nature and religion
are the bonds of friendship ; excellency and youthfulness are its
great endowments ; society and neighbourhood, that is, the pos
sibilities and circumstances of converse, are the deterraination
and actualties of it." — Taylor's Collection of Moral and Polemi
cal Discourses, page 643.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 435
Note 19, p. 370.
" This maxim, though possessing considerable merit as a
popular principle, is not raodelled with the strictness of philoso
phical accuracy." — See Political Justice, vol. i. page 126.
To this opinion I shall oppose the authority of Butler, in his
twelfth sermon, where, with his usual sagacity, he so explains
the precept as to leave, with few of his readers, the smallest
doubt of its precision. " The Scripture not being a book of
theory and speculation, but a plain rule of life for raankind, has,
with the utmost possible propriety, put tbe principle of virtue
upon the love of our neighbour, which is, that part of the uni
verse, that part of mankind, that part of our country, which
coraes under our immediate notice, acquaintance, and influence,
and with which we have to do.".^See Butler's Sermons, pa. 235.
Aristotle examines how far precision is to be expected in mo
ral discussions, and says, dyairrjrov oZv irepl toiovtwv kuI eK toi
ovtwv Xeyovras, iraxvXois Kal rvirw T'dXrjBis evbeiKvvaBai. Aris
tot. de Mor. lib. i. cap. i. He often takes occasion to repeat the
same observation, as in cap. vii. the same book, in lib. vii. cap.
vii. de Republic^., and in the last chapter of the second book of
Metaphysics. According to his rules and to his practice, the
maxim of our Lord will be found sufficiently accurate even for a
philosopher, and when connected with the explanation of the
maxim by the case of the Samaritan, our Lord's instruction may
be thought entitled to praise, according to another remark of
Aristotle — Iv rols irepl rds irpd^eis Xbyois, o'l fiiv KaBoXov Kevo-
Tepoi eiaiv, ol bi eirl fiepovs dXrjOivwrepot irepl ydp rd KaB' 'iKaara
al irpd^eis. — Edit. Wilkinson, Ethic. Nicom. cap, vii. p. 74,
But that the precept is comprehensive, seems granted in page
422 of Political Justice, vol. i. ; where we read, " that the active
and ardent spirit of the founders of religion has, perhaps, always
carried them into the liberal system," — See Matt, ch, xxii, ver,
37. 41.
Yet these concessions fall very short of the commendations due
to Christianity, Let us hear what is said of it by men whose
views, to say the least, were equally comprehensive and equally
accurate with those of the writer to whom I allude. "It may
2f2

436 NOTES ON
be truly affirmed (says Bacon), that there never was any philo
sophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly and
highly exalt the good which is communicative, and depress the
good vvhich is private and particular, as the holy faith." — Bacon's
Advan. Learning, p. 508.
Again : " These be heathen and profane passages, having but
a shadow of that divine state of mind which religion and the
holy faith doth conduct men unto, by imprinting upon their
souls charity, which is excellently called the bond of perfection,
because it comprehendeth and fasteneth all virtues together.
And as it is elegantly said by Menander of vain love, which, is
but a false imitation of divine love. Amor melior sophista laevo
ad huraanam vitara. That love teacheth a man to carry himselt
better than the sophist, or preceptor, which he calleth left-
handed ; because, with all his rules and perceptions he cannot
form a man so dexterously, nor with that facility to prize him
self, and govern himself, as love can do ; so certainly, if a man's
mind be truly inflamed with charity, it doth work him suddenly
into greater perfection than all the doctrine of morality can do,
which is but a sophist in comparison of the other." — Bacon's
Advancement of Learning, p. 520,
" Christian charity is friendship to all the world, and when
friendships were the noblest things in the world, charity was
little like the sun drawn in at a chinke, or his beams drawn into
the centre of a burning glass ; but Christian charity is friendship
expanded like the face of the sun vvhen it mounts above the
eastern hills. Nature hath made friendships and societies rela
tions and endearments ; and by something or other we relate to
all the world ; there is enough in every man that is willing, to
make him become our friend ; but when men contract friend
ships they inclose the commons ; and what nature intended
should be every man's, we make proper to two or three. Fiiend
ship is like rivers and the strand of seas, and the air, coraraon to
all the world ; but tyrants and evil customs, wars and want of
love, have made them proper and peculiar. But when Chris
tianity came to renew our nature, and to restore our laws, and to
increase her privileges, and to make her aptness become religion,
then it was declared that our friendships were to be as universal
as our conversation ; that is, actual to all with whom we con-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 437
verse, and potentially extended unto those with whom we did
not." — Taylor's Polemical Discourses, p, 642.
Note 20, p. 370.
We may say of the word neighbour ( Arist. Mor. lib. v, cap,
ii. edit. Duval, p. 58), what Aristotle says of justice, eoiKe rXe-
ovdxws XeyeaBai, and therefore bid rb aiiveyyvs elvai rrjv bfiw-
vvfiiav aiirov XavBdvei.
Now it is plain, that the lawyer who wished to justify himself,
used the word neighbour in a very restrained sense. It is equally
plain from our Lord's answer, that the word was capable of a
more extended signification ; and upon a term which is so im
portant in itself, and which occurs so frequently, it cannot be
improper to bestow some remarks.
Vorstius, in the third chapter of his book, de Hebraisrais N.
Test, has very judiciously and very copiously explained the words
brother and neighbour, as used either in the Old or New Testa
ment. In the New Testament, dbeXipbs, says he, signifies quem
vis alium, which the Greeks vulgo exprimunt by 6 irXrjaiov and
6 erepos. Thus Tras 6 bpyiS.6fievos rw dbeXipw aiirov eiKrj, quicun
que temere irascitur alteri. Matt, cap. v. ver. 22. So Matt. cap.
vii. ver. 3. Matt. cap. xviii. ver. 15. cap, xxi. ver. 35, Luke, cap,
iv. ver. 41, 42, 43. Romans, c. iv. v, 10, &c. Caeterum usurpata
sic est vox Graeca aSeX^os ad exemplum Hebraeae n«D Hebraei
cum significare volunt quemvis alium uti soient ista vocula. He
refers to Levit. c. xix. v. 17, Psalm I. v, 20, Gen, c. xxvi, v, 3,
It is even used for aUus alium, alter alterum of things inaniraate,
as in Exodus, c. xxvi, v. 5, in the ferainine; and in Exodus, c.
XXV. V. 20, of the cherubim in the masculine ; so the word yi.
Kings, lib, i. cap, xx, v, 40. Graeci interpretes verterunt Kareipi-
Xrjaev 'eKaaros rbv irXrjaiov, Kal exXavaev 'eKaaros ev r^ irXrjaiov.
He further says, that o TreXas and 6 irXrjaiov mean not only vici-
iium, socium, propinquura generally, but queravis aliura. He
then quotes from Thucydides and Polybius — vofiiietv rds bia-
voias TWV ireXas irapairXrjaiovs elvai. Thucyd. lib, i. — putare,
sententias aliorum similes esse nostris — fj twv ireXas diretpia, fie-
yiarov eipobiov yiyverai rols efiireipots irpbs KaropBwatv. Polyb.
ib. ix.

438 NOTES ON
Raphelius, in his notes upon Matthew, cap, v, ver. 43, illus
trates 6 irXrjaiov by four passages from Polybius, of which it will
be sufficient to produce two — iriKpbs ydp yeyoviiis Kal dirapairijTOS
eiriTifirjrrjs twv iriXas elKorws av Kal viro rwv irXrjaiov avros dira-
paiTrjTov Tvyxavoi Karrjyopias. Nam cum alios ipse acerbe atque
inclementer obsurgare soleat, jure merito ab aliis pari inclementia
tractabitur, Polyb. edit. Casaub. p. 1396. Travra ydp eiribexea-
Bai fiot boKel rd iriKporara to yevos, o'is eKelvos Kexprjrai Kard riav
irXrjaiov. Nullum est tara acerbum genus convicii, quo ille ad
versus alios utitur, quod huic illius facto non arbitror convenire.
—Ibid, p, 1401,
Biel, in bis Lexicon for the Septuagint, interprets 6 TreXas not
only qui prope est, but alius, and instances in Prov. chap, xxvii,
ver. 2. Again, under 6 irXrjaiov he produces instances where it
corresponds to pater, frater, socius, and even hostis. Though,
in this instance sorae read yi for nr.
As to the Hebrew terms in the Old Testament, we find great
variety in their significations. Thus riK is by Parkhurst explained,
a brother by nature. Gen. cap. iv. v, 2. One consociated by si
milarity of condition or manners, Ezek, cap. xviii. v. 10. A
countryman, Levit. cap. xxv. ver. 46. One connected with us by
partaking of the sarae nature, Levit. cap. xix, ver, 17 ; and here
Parkhurst refers to Luke, cap. x. ver, 29, et seq. where the
English translation gives neighbour. These instances shew the
great latitude of ths word.
)i'\ as we have seen above, has various senses, Sce Taylor's
Concordance. By Parkhurst it is explained, an intimate or spe
cial friend and corapanion, as Deuter, cap, xiii, ver, 6, Prov. cap.
xxviii, ver, 7, &c. &c. ; but most commonly it is used for a com
panion or neighbour in general. Gen. cap. xi. ver. 3. Exod. cap.
XX. ver. 16. Levit. cap, xix, ver, 18.
Even n<n» Parkhurst explains, a member of the same society.
Levit. cap. vi, ver. 2. cap. xviii, ver. 20. But in Taylor's Con
cordance it is explained, one another, or a man's neighbour.
Levit. xxv. 17, and one to another, or a man to his neighbour.
Levit. xix. 1 1 .
The foregoing citations and references plainly shew, that, con
sistently with the genius of the Hebrew language, our Lord gave
a very wide signification to the word neighbour. If the reader

THE SPITAL SERMON. 439
should be wearied with quotations from verbal critics and lexi
cographers, perhaps he will be refreshed a little by the charming
language of Jeremy Taylor. " The Scripture," says he, " which
often describes the duties of parents and children, never describes
the duty of brothers, except, where by brethren are meant all
that part of mankind who are tied to us by any vicinity of reli
gion or country, of profession and family, of contract or so
ciety, of love and the noblest friendships," — Page 455 of Taylor's
Polem, Discourses.
Again : " The New Testament speaks of friends often, but
by friends are meant our acquaintance, or our kindred, the rela
tives of our family, or our fortune, or our sect ; something of
society, or something of kindness in it ; a tenderness of appel
lation and civility, a relation raade by gifts, or by duty, by ser
vices and subjection ; and I think I have reason to be confident,
that the word friend (speaking of huraane intercourse), is no
otherways used in the Gospels or Epistles, or Acts of the Apos
tles ; and the reason of it is, the word friend is of a large signi
fication, and means all relations and societies, and whatsoever is
not an enemy," — Ibid, p. 641,
The objection to the Gospel for omitting to give any precepts
about friendship is well answered by Search, in his Light of Na
ture, part ii, vol, iii. p. 417.
But of the term neighbour, used by our Lord, he says, in p,
418, " it was the properest to distinguish the object of our good
offices, because it arises from situation, and not frora personal
character," Note 21, p. 370,
" It is not man's being a social creature, much less his being
a moral agent, from whence alone our obligations of good-will
towards them arise. There is an obligation to it prior to either
of these, arising from his being a sensible creature, capable of
happiness or misery." — Butler's Sermons, page 166.
Note 22, p. 371.
1 have no where seen the case of the Samaritan argued so
ably as by Sherlock in the eleventh discourse of his fifth vo-

440 NOTES ON
lume. " When the relief had been given, the question was, who
had been neighbour to the unfortunate man in the sense of the
law. As the case was stated, there was no room to insist on the
near relation which the Levite bore to the wounded man. The
nearer their relation the worse neighbours they were for neglect
ing him ; no room to object against the Samaritan, his want of
relation, or his difference of religion. The less and fewer his
obligations were, the more disinterested was his obedience to the
law, and the better neighbour was he." — See p. 273.
Note 23, p. 371.
The illustrious Prelate whora I raentioned in the forraer
note, was certainly no advocate for the selfish system. But a
passage once dropped from his pen, which they who are advo
cates for it might pervert to very evil jiurposes : " To adrainister
relief to the extreme distresses and sufferings of our fellow
creatures, is in some degree to comply with the cravings of
nature in ourselves, and to provide for our own ease and enjoy
ment: for the pity and compassion which miserable objects
raise in us, are attended with a pain and uneasiness to ourselves,
no otherwise to be allayed but by relieving the raisery that
caused thera." — See Sherlock, discourse ii. vol. v, p. 34.
Now Hartley has traced up corapassion " to the appearance
and ideas of any kind of raisery which children have experi
enced, and to the signs of distress which they understand, to the
connection between the adjuncts of pain and the actual infliction
of it. When these and such like circurastances have raised their
desires and endeavours to reraove the causes of their own uneasy
feelings, or the miseries of others, in all which they are much
influenced by their disposition to imitate, and when a variety of
internal feelings and desires of this kind are so blended that no
part can be separated from the rest, a child has compassion. An
attentive person," he adds, " may discern the constituent parts of
his compassion while they are yet the internal and selfish feel
ings, and before they have put on the nature of corapassion by
coalescence with the rest." — See Hartley, p. 474, edit. 1749.
True ; and the uneasiness, it is granted, remains when compas
sion is formed. Yet Hutcheson is perfectly right, when he says

THE SPITAL SERMON. 441
" that we are not imraediately excited by compassion to desire
the removal of our own pain. We think it just to be so affected
upon the occasion, and dislike those who are not so ; but we
are excited directly to desire the relief of another, without any
imagination that this relief is a private good to ourselves." — See
Hutcheson, p. 240 of the Enquiry. See also p. 146 of ditto, and
p. 522 of the Nature and Conduct of the Passions. " Our in
tention," as Hutcheson well observes, p. 195 of the Enquiry, " is
not to free ourselves from the uneasiness of the passion, but to
alter the state of the object."
When I thus notice what seems to me a passage not sufficiently
qualified in Bishop Sherlock, I would not be understood to deny
thut he deserves the reputation which has generally acquired for
depth of thought, acuteness of reasoning, and precision of style.
Oh ydp dv OVTW aKaios, firjb' dvaiaBrjros eyw yevoifitjv, ware rav-
TTjv rrjv bo^rjv irepl dvbpos rrjXtKovrov Xafielv eirei ttoXXu Kal
¦Kepi iroXXwv o'iba fieyaXa Kat Bavfiaara, Kal dirb rrjs &Kpas bvvd-
fiews e^evTjveyfieva vir' ai)TOv. So said a critic of antiquity, when
he censured parts in Plato, and so say I, by way of apology for
myself, when I have expressed dissent from Bishop Sherlock,
— Vide Dion. Halicar. Tractatus de Antiquis Scriptoribus, p. 176.
edit. Holwell, 1766.
In the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, sec, xiv. Mr,
Burke remarks, " that we have no small degree of delight in the
real misfortunes and pains of others ; that the Creator designing
us to be united by a bond of sympathy, has strengthened that
bond by a proportionable delight, and there most where our
sympathy is most wanted, in the distresses of others ; that this
delight hinders us from spurning scenes of misery; that the
pain we feel prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those
who suffer ; and all this is antecedent to any reasonings, by an
instinct that works as to its own purpose without our concur
rence." I adrait the existence both of pleasure and pain in
compassion. The final cause of both is to quicken our exertions
for the benefit of others. But yet I maintain that the agent in
tends directly neither to obtain that pleasure nor to reraove that
pain, but to succour the distressed object. Akenside, in the
second book of the Pleasures of Imagination, has most beauti-

442 NOTES ON
fully described the pain and the pleasure which accompany com
passion : ¦ O deeme^t thou indeed.
No kind endearment here by nature given
To mutual terror and corapassion steers ?
No sweetly melting softness which attracts.
O'er all that edge of pain, the social powers
To this their proper action and their end.
Note 24, p. 371.
I do not speak only of the obligation " which conscience,
approving of any action, imposes upon us to obey the law of our
nature, which doubtless in such a case would urge us to relieve."
— See Butler's Sermons, p. 50. I have also in view the express
or implied obligations of religious comraand. " When any
sanctions co-operate with our moral sense, in exciting us to
actions whieh we count morally good, we say we are obliged." —
Hutcheson's Inquiry, p. 277-
Universal benevolence as a feeling I have endeavoured to ex
plain ; but as an active duty, I grant it cannot be practised, noi-,
as such, is it inculcated without restrictions arising from oppor
tunity, &c. " Our active duties,'' says Lord Kaimes, " regard
particular persons, as our relations, our friends, our benefac
tors, our masters, our servants. Even distress," he observes,
" though it has a tendency to convert benevolence into a duty,
is not sufficient without other concurring circurastances ; for to
relieve every person in distress is beyond the power of any huraan
being. Our relations in distress claira that duty from us, and
even our neighbours; but distant distress, without any particu
lar connections, scarce causes our sympathy, and never is an ob
ject of duty," — See book i. sect. 3, 4. vol. ii, of Sketches of
History of Man. Note 25, p. 372.
I allude to the conversation of our Lord with his Disciples,
as related in Luke, chap. v. from ver. 32 to 36. When writ,
ing the Sermon, I fell into a fivrjfioviKbv dfidprrjfia, which
upon reading it in print I afterwards discovered, and have
corrected.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 443
Note 26, p. 372.
" Benevolence towards the worst characters, or the study
of their good, may be as amiable as any whatsoever ; yea, often
more so than that towards the good, since it argues such a
strong degree of benevolence as can surmount the greatest ob
stacle, the moral evil in the object. Hence the love of unjust
eneraies is counted amongst the highest virtues." — Hutcheson's
Inquiry, p. 179. Note 27, p. 372.
Some rules which have been laid down about justice, gra
titude, &c. remind me of what Bishop Taylor says in the Preface
to his Ductor Dubitantiura. "There is a wood before your
doors, and a labyrinth within the wood, and locks and bars to
every door within that labyrinth, and after all we are like to
meet with unskilful guides, and yet of all things in the world^
an error in these things is the raost intolerable." — Preface, p.
7, " Unhappy would it be for mankind if a sense of virtue was
of as narrow an extent as a capacity for such metaphysics." —
Hutcheson's Inquiry, p, 119,
Note 28, p. 372.
In one of the senses ascribed to justice, in a former note, it
implies a due degree of esteem for any o'oject ; so I find it used
by Hierax, in his work upon justice, quoted by Stobaeus, Serm.
ix. iriis bi OVK abiKos, ei bfioiws rtfirjaei rbv re awifipova Kal rbv
aKoXaarov, Kal rbv d<j)pova, Kal rbv ijipovifiov. No man ever
meant to deny that our affections will carry us forward more
eagerly to assist a goed than a bad man, i. e, " when good ap
pears attainable by a person of moral dignity, our desire of his
happiness, founded upon esteem or approbation, is much
stronger than that supposed in a former class of persons, by
whose happiness or misery our public passions are moved ab
stractedly from their moral qualities, or that the misfortune of
such a person raises stronger sorrow, pity, or regret." — See
Hutcheson on the Passions, p. 73. But the social relations in
which we stand even to the bad, and the excess of their misery.

444 NOTES ON
and various other circumstances, may justify us in granting lo
thera the assistance which we at the same tirae do not grant to
better raen. "Every kind and every degree of misery," says
Sherlock, " is an object of mercy, and whether men are exposed
to calaraity by the necessity of their condition, and the over-rul
ing Providence of God, or whether they bring them upon them
selves by sin and wickedness, or by folly and indiscretion, yet,
considered as miserable, tbey are objects of pity." — See Sher
lock's Sermons, vol. v. p. 275,
It is impossible to lay down rules that should be adapted to
all cases. However, the reader may peruse with advantage
Hutcheson's Canons, sect. iii. art. xi. and his Corollaries, sect. vii.
art. ix. of his Inquiry, and the general law according to which
our desires arise, in sect, ii. art. iv, of the Nature and Conduct of
the Passions, Note 29, p. 372.
The reader will not be displeased with the following quota
tion from Gregory de Valentia's Commentaries, vol. ii, p. 995.
" Comparatio virtutura moralium quoad perfectionem, non tara
mihi utilis et scitu digna, quam obscura et difficilis cognitu vide
tur. Nam quaelibet virtus absolute est satis praestans, et quoad
aliquid etiam censeri potest reliquis praestantior.
" Cum autera alia virtus in alio aliis excellat, sirapliciter qui-
dera ilia erit censenda reliquis praestantior quse consideratis ora-
nibbs habeat dignitatem majore dignam aestimatione, sive quia
in pluribus attributis excellat, sive quia in aliquo sive aliquibus,
quse praeponderent. Quod certe dignoscere difficilliraa et perob-
scura res est.''
It is the usual practice of the best writers of morality, both
antient and modern, rather to distinguish virtue into genera et
species, and to mark the connections and resemblances between
one virtue and another, than to perplex the mind by contrasting
the degree of their obligation. However, it must be owned that
Aristotle sometiraes engages in useless speculations ; and he did
so, probably, because such questions were started in his own
tiraes. In the seventh book Eudemorum, chapter eleventh, he dis
cusses the question, whether we are to do good to a friend, or to

THE SPITAL SERMON, 445
a good man, and leaves the difficulty, I think, nearly where he
found it : &v fiiv ydp ipiXos /cal <r:rou8a(OS" 'iaws oi Xiav )^aXe7ro)'
av firjTis TO fiiv avi,rjarj, rb bi rairetvwarj, fiXov fiiv aifiobpa
iroiwv, eirieiKrj bi rjpefia' ei bi firj, TroXXa irpojiXrjfiara yiverai'
oiov et 0 ftev r)v, ouk eorai be' 6 bi earai, oiirw bi, r; o fiiv eye-
vero, ean bi ov' bib eanv, ovk 7)v bi, ovbi earat. Another solu
tion is, 'iaws eanv a bel rji -xprjaifiw, dXXd bi r^ dyaB^. — Edit.
Duval, vol. ii. p. 283.
To the general question, I could not obtain frora Aristotle
such a general answer as amounts to a principle, and his dis
tinctions are perhaps so nuraerous as to exclude the possibility of
a general rule. But I observe that he does not raake the degree
of moral merit the sole standard for regulating our actions. In
chap. ii. ofthe Mor. book ix. we have some other curious ques
tions : diropiav b' e^ei Kai rd rotdbe, olov, irdrepa bel irdvra rj5
irdrpt dirovefieiv, Kat ireiBeaBai' ¦}] Kafivovra fiev iarpw iretareov'
arparriybv bi, x^tporovrjreov rbv iroXefitKbv' bfioiws bi <piXw, fidX
Xov rj airovbalw vireperrjreoV Kal evepyerrj dvrairoboreov x°P"'
fidXXov, {j eraiptp bereev, edv dfiipotv fi^ evbexrjrat' ^p ovv iravra
rd TOtavra dKpifiCis fiev bioptaai, oir pdbiov, iroXXds ydp Kal irav-
TOias ex^i Siacjiopds, Kal fieyeBei, Kal fiiKporrjTt, Kal rw KaX^ Kal
dvayKaiw. — Edit. Duval, p. 117.
The following observation is replete with good sense : oirep
ovv iroXXaKis eiprjrai, o'i irepl rd irdBrj Kal rds irpdi,ets Xoyot
bfioiws exovai to wpiafievov rols irepl a eiaiV bn fiev ovv ovr
aiird irdaiv diroboreov, ovbe tw irdrpi irdvra, KaBdirep ovbi tw
Ait Bverai, oiiK dbjjXov' 'eirei b' erepa yovevai, Kal dbeXipois Kat
eraipois, Kal ei/epyerats, eKaarois rd o'lKeia Kal rd apftorrovTa
airovefirjreov — oirw be Kat iroielv (paivovrai. — Arist. edit. Duval,
torn, ii, p. 118.
I have seldom seen either any momentous truth illustrated, or
any important duty facilitated, by the statement of rare and ex
treme cases. Even in the moment when we are discussing them,
they amuse the imagination without stirring up the affections.
They supply matter to the subtle disputant, more than guidance
to the virtuous agent. When they happen, they are accompanied
by peculiar and prorainent circumstances, which are at once per
ceived by the understanding and felt by the heart. But they
suggest only remote and dubious analogies for ordinary cases.

446 NOTES ON
On the contrary, the discipline of the mind, by a right conduct
in ordinary cases, is the best security against error and defect in
those which are extraordinary. Note 30, p. 373.
I borrow this term from Lord Kaimes : " An intemal mo
tion or agitation of the mind, when it passes away without de
sire, is denorainated emotion ; when desire follows the motion
or agitation, is denominated passion." — Elements of Criticism,
vol. i. p. 39.
The same writer distinguishes, as I do, between a wish and a
desire : " Desire, in its proper sense, is that internal act which,
by influencing the will, raakes us to proceed to action. Desire,
in a lax sense, respects also actions and events that depend not
on us, as when I desire that my friend may have a son to repre
sent bim, or that my country may flourish in arte and sciences.
But such internal act is more properly termed a wish, than a
desire." From tbe same writer also I draw the distinction be
tween a cause and an object : " Passions being accompanied
with desire have a tendency to action ; but every passion must
have an object, namely, that being or thing to which it is directed,
and with a view to which every action prorapted by it is per
formed : and to what being or thing is a passion directed ?
Plainly, to the sarae being or thing that occasioned it. The
cause of a passion, therefore, and its objects, are the sarae in
different respects : an emotion, on the other hand, being in its
nature quiescent, and merely a passive feeling, must have a
cause ; but cannot be said, properly speaking, to have an object."
— See Elements of Criticism, vol. i. p. 41,
Mr. Hume, I am aware, uses the word emotion in a larger
sense, and distinguishes, though not precisely in the same terms,
between an object and a cause : " The object of love and hatred
is some other person ; the causes are either excellencies or
faults; the causes are what excite the emotion, the object is
what the mind directs its view to, when the emotion is excited,"
— Dissertation on the Passions, vol. ii, of Essays, p. 192.

THE SPITAL SERMON, 447
Note 31, p, 373.
As upon this subject there may be some difficulty in satis
fying a virtuous mind concerning the wisdom or the benevolence
of our Creator, I will lay before my readers the opinions of seve
ral great writers,
" While every man consults the good of his own community,
we are sensible that the general interest of mankind is better
promoted than by any loose indeterminate views to the good of
a species, whence no beneficial action could ever result, for want
of a duly limited object on which they can exert themselves." —
Hume's Essays, vol. ii. p. 294.
" 'Tis wisely ordained by nature, that private connexions
should comraonly prevail over universal views and considerations ;
otherwise our affections and actions would be dissipated and lost,
for want of a proper liraited object. Thus a small benefit done
to ourselves, or our near friends, excites more lively sentiraents
of love and approbation, than a great benefit done to a distant
coraraonwealth. But still we know here, as in all the senses, to
correct these inequalities by reflection, and retain a general
standard of vice and virtue, founded chiefly on general useful
ness." — See Hume's note in p. 299 of his Essays, vol. ii,
" All men, even those at the greatest distance, are no doubt en
titled to our good wishes, and our good wishes we naturally give
thera. But, if, notwithstanding, they should be unfortunate, togive
ourselves any anxiety upon that account, seems to be no part of
our duty. That we should be but little interested therefore, in
the fortune of those whom we can neither serve, nor hurt, and
who are in every respect so very reraote from us, seems wisely
ordered by nature ; and if it were possible to alter in this respect
the original constitution of our frame, we could yet gain nothing
by the change." — Smith's Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p, 343,
" As one great purpose of society is to furnish opportunities of
mutual aid and support ; nature seconding that purpose, hath pro
vided the principle of benevolence, which excites us to be kindly,
beneficent, and generous. Nor ought it to escape observation,
that the author of nature, attentive to our wants, and to our
well-being, hath endued us with a liberal portion of that princi
ple. It excites us tobe kind, not only to those we are connected

448 • NOTES ON
with, but to our neighbours, and even to those we are barely ac
quainted with. Providence is peculiarly attentive to objects in
distress, who require immediate aid and relief. To the principle
of benevolence it hath superadded the passion of pity, which in
every feeling heart is irresistible. To make benevolence more
extensive would be fruitless ; because here are objects in plenty
to fill the most capacious mind. It would not be fruitless only,
but hurtful to society : I say hurtful, because frequent disap
pointments in atterapting to gratify our benevolence, would ren
der it a troublesome guest, and make us cling rather to selfish
ness, which we can always gratify." — See Kaimes's History of
Man, vol, ii. p. 292 ; see also p, 311.
" Because of the great numbers of mankind, their distant
habitations, and the incapacity of any one to be remarkably use
ful to great multitudes ; that our benevolence might not be quite
distracted with a multiplicity of objects, whose equal virtues
would equally recoraraend them to our regard ; or become use
less, by being equally extended to multitudes at vast distances,
whose interests we could not understand, nor be capable of pro
moting, having no intercourse of offices with them ; nature has
so well ordered it, that as our attention is more raised by those
good offices, which are done to ourselves or our friends, so they
cause a stronger sense of approbation in us, and produce a
strbnger benevolence towards the authors of thera, — See Hutche
son's Inquiry, p. 220,
When Aristotle discusses the question, whether we should have
many or few friends, and deterraines that it is best to have
neither many nor few, he assigns a reason which may be applied
to universal benevolence — TroXXoiv fiev' ovtwv, epywv eif 'eKaarov
fiipiaat rb ^iXelv e<p' uirdvrwv yap Kai twv aXXwv ei,abvvaTel
rjfiwv rj (pvats daBevrjs ovaa, irpbs rb eirl iroXv dtjiiKveiaBai. — AristOt.
Magn. Moral, lib. ii. cap. xvi.
The same philosopher observes, that upon objects placed be
yond our reach, we do not employ even consultation. Trept wv
b'evbexerai firj fiovov rb elvai Kal fiff, aXXd Kal rb fiovXevaaaBai
Tols avBpwirois ravra b'ianv oaa ecfrifilv ean irpd£,at -fj firj irpd-
i,ai. bib oi) (iovXevofieda irepl twv ev "Ivbois, ovbi irws et 6 kvkXos
rerpaywviareos' rd fiiv ydp oiiK e(fi' fjfilv' rb b' oXws ol) irpaKTOv.
— Eudem, fib. iii, edit, Duval, p, 214,

THE SPITAL SERMON, 449
In the 18th chapter of the first book of Mag. Mor. he says,
that we have also no irpoaipeats upon objects that are reraote :
iroXXaKis btavoovfieBa vxep tUv cv"IvSo<s. dXX ov Kal irpoaipov-
fieBa. The readers of Aristotle know well the distinction he
makes between will and election — oi)Bels ydp reXos ovbiv irpo-
atpetrat, aXXa rd irpos ro reXos. — ^ovXerat bi ye fidXtara to re
Xos. See cap. x, lib. ii. Eudera, jiovXrjais, indeed, is applied to
voluntary actions, as, in the case of the uKparris, rj dpd (iovXrjais
CKovaiov — Mag. Mor, lib. i. cap, xiv, and to circumstances in
which we do not act, as (iovXrjais ean Kal riov dbvvdrwv' o'iov,
povXofieBa fiiv dBdvaroi eivai, irpoiaipovfieBa bi ov.
I suppose, that in the language of Aristotle, the word will,
used in a very low sense, and implying merely a wish, might be
used of the good of all mankind. This however is not such a
wish as would amount to desire, in the modern philosophical
sense ofthe word — such, I mean, as is accorapanied with the vievv
of an end, and rouses us to action, " Into actions done with a
view to an end," says Lord Kaimes, " desire and will enter : de
sire to accomplish the end goes first ; the will to act, in order to
accomplish the end is next ; and the external act follows." —
History of Man, vol, ii. p. 219 ; and Bentham, sect. viii. upon
Intentionality, and 10th upon Motives. My purpose in this note
is to shew, that universal happiness cannot be proposed to our
minds as an end, — that as an object it does not excite our de
sires, — that the atterapt to promote it directly forms no part of
our duty, — and, that these limitations of the principle and feeling
of universal benevolence, being adapted to our limited powers,
are proofs of the wisdom of the Deity.
Note 32, p. 374.
" Our powers being small, the effects of them would be ut
terly lost, like a handful of salt thrown into a pond, if diffused
among too many; whereas, by severally confining our service
within a compass where they may be felt, they will prove of real
value, and the good of the whole will be best promoted." — Light
of Nature, vol. iii. part ii. of the Posthumous Works, p. 361.
VOL. II. 2 G

450 NOTES ON
Note 33, p. 374.
" But our understanding and power are limited, so that we
cannot know many other natures, nor is our utmost power capa
ble of promoting the happiness of many : our actions are in
fluenced by sorae stronger affections than this general benevo
lence. There are certain qualities found in sorae beings more
than in others, vvhich excite stronger degrees of good will, and
determine our attention to their interests, while that of others is
neglected. The ties of blood, benefits conferred upon us, and the
observation of virtue in others, raise much more vigorous affec
tions than that general benevolence, which we raay have towards
all." — Hutcheson on the Passions, p. 309.
Note 34, p. 374,
I ara persuaded with Hutcheson, that " any universal in
crease, whether of the social or the benevolent affections, would
in the whole be of little advantage, and that the medium of the
public is a sufficient counterbalance to the medium ofthe selfish.
If the public were raised, the hero of Cervantes would be no rare
character. If the selfish, the world would be filled with univer
sal rapine and war." — Hutcheson on the Passions, p. 203.
But surely the adventurer whom I describe would be charge
able with Quixotism. Note 35, p. 375,
" 'T were infinite to compute in how many instances want
of due order, measure, and manner, do spoil and incommodate
action. 'Tis wisdom that applies reraedy to these mischiefs.
Things must be compared to, and arbitrated by ber standard, or
else they will contain something of monstrous enorraity , either
strutting in unwieldy bulk, or sinking in defective scantiness."
— See Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 8.
Note 36, p. 376.
" When benevolence is said to be the sum of virtue, it is

THE SPITAL SERMON. 451
not spoken of as a blind propension, but as a principle in reason
able creatures, and so to be directed by their reason : for reason
and reflection comes into our notion of a moral agent. And
that will lead us to consider distant consequences, as well as the
immediate tendency of an action : it will teach us that the care
of some persons, suppose children and families, is particularly
committed to our charge by nature and Providence ; as also that
there are other circumstances, suppose friendship or former obli
gations, which require that we do good to sorae, preferably to
others." — Butler's Sermons, p. 153.
Note 37, p. 377.
" Universal charity is not incompatible with private pru
dence, nor particular affection ; so far from it, that it encourages
and furnishes us with rational inducements to cultivate thera." —
See Search, vol. iii. part ii. of his Posthumous Works, p. 360.
Note 38, p. 377.
" So easy is it for every man to err, and so hard to wrest
from any man's mouth the plain acknowledgment of error, that
what hath been once inconsiderably defended, the sarae is com
monly persisted in as long as wit, by whetting itself, is able to
find out any shift, be it never so slight, whereby to escape out of
the hands of present contradiction," — See Hooker's Eccl. Polity,
book iii. p. 133.
The sagacity and candour of the author of Political Justice
have led hira to display a most honourable exception to the fore
going remark of Hooker. " Some readers of my graver produc
tions will perhaps, in perusing these volumes, accuse me of
inconsistency ; the affections and charities of private life being
every where in this publication a topic of the warmest eulogium,
while in the enquiry concerning Political Justice, they seem to be
treated with no indulgence and favour. In answer to this ob
jection, all I think it necessary to say on the present occasion is,
that for more than four years I liave been anxious for opportu
nity and leisure to modify some of the earlier chapters of that
2g2

452 NOTES ON
work, in conformity to the sentiments inculcated in this — not
that I see cause to make any change respecting the principle of
justice, or any thing else fundamental to the system there deli
vered ; but, that 1 apprehend domestic and private affections
inseparable from the nature of man, and from what may be
styled the culture of the heart, and am fully persuaded that they
are not incompatible with a profound and active sense of justice
in the mind of him who cherishes them." — "The way in which
these seemingly jarring principles may be reconciled, is in part
pointed out in a little book, which I gave to the public in the
year 1798, and which I will therefore take the liberty to quote."
" A sound morality requires that nothing human should be
regarded by us as indifferent ; but it is impossible that we should
not feel the strongest instinct for those persons whom we know
most intimately, and whose welfare and sympathies are united to
our own. True wisdom will recommend to us individual attach
ments ; for with them our minds are more thoroughly main
tained in activity and life than they can be under the privation
of them ; and it is better that man should be a living being than
a stock or stone. True virtue will sanction this recommenda
tion, since it is the object of virtue to produce happiness, and
since the man vvho lives in the midst of domestic relations, will
have many opportunities of conferring pleasure, minute in the
detail, yet not trivial in tbe amount, without interfering with the
purposes of general benevolence. Nay, by kindling his sensi
bility and harmonizing his soul, they may be expected, if he is
endowed with a liberal and manly spirit, to render bim more
prompt in the service of strangers and the public." — Memoirs of
the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Women,^ cap. vi. p.
90, second edition.
I will not insult the foregoing observations with the name of
concessions. I am more disposed to consider them as modifica
tions suggested by maturer reflection, and expressed with some
degree of contrition, that they had neither occurred to the
writer, nor had been conveyed to the reader, before. For the
purpose of doing them complete justice, I have quoted them lite
rally and entirely ; and I think that they cannot be too atten
tively perused, nor too widely circulated.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 453
In regard to " the princijile of justice, and other things fun
damental to the system" which our writer yet retains, I suppose
that in Ethics, as well as Theology, men will differ about funda
mentals. I have heard it, however, remarked by persons well
skilled in the tactics of controversy, that, after the surrender of
so many outworks, the citadel itself is scarcely tenable.
While the principle of justice was so explained as to degrade
the virtues of doraestic life, and other individual attachments
between friends, benefactors, and the persons whom they serve,
1 conceived it to be indefensible. How far the culture of the
heart may be compatible with the profound and active sense of
justice which is still pronounced fundamental, is a point upon
which I shall myself decline entering into any direct alterca
tion ; and my reason shall be given in the words of an antient
writer: irpbs ydp rbv irdvrws ireipwvevov (jiaiveBai bia(j>evyeiv
biKaiov fiiv irdvrws ireipaaBat avXXoyiaaBai, ovk evaxrjfiov bi'
bioirep ov bel avveardvai e'vx^pws irpbs tovs rvxbvras' dvdyKrj
ydp irovrjpoXoyiav avfiftaiveiv. — Aristot, Top. lib, viii. cap. xiv.
tom.i. p. 281.
If it were necessary to deviate from the established forms of
language, I would rather say with Mr. Bentham, that " the dic
tates of justice are nothing more than a part of the dictates of
benevolence, which, on certain occasions, are applied to certain
subjects, to wit, to certain actions." — See Introduction to the
Principles of Moral legislation, page 123.
Mr. Bentham, it is to be observed, measures benevolence by
utility. Hutcheson refers all virtues to benevolence, as acting
by what he calls the moral sense. Butler, when he states, that
" in a higher and raore general way of consideration, benevo
lence seeras in the strictest sense to include in it all that is good
and worthy," adds that, "in so doing we leave out the particular
nature of creatures, and the particular circumstances in which
they are placed." — P. 258, He traces up " the common virtues
and the common vices of mankind to benevolence, or the want
of it, so as to justify the Apostle's assertion, that all other com
mandments are coraprehended in the love of our neighbour."
But he does not pass over " the cautions and restrictions which
further require to be considered in the virtue of a being, who

454 NOTES ON
has such a nature, and is placed in such circurastances as man."
His note in p. 257 of the serraon, is full of the best sense, and
the irapartial philosopher will do well to compare it with p. 462
of the Dissertation upon the Nature of Virtue, subjoined to the
Analogy. I must again observe, that Butler does not set one
virtue at variance with another. He marks their resemblances as
well as their differences, and he shews their happy tendency from
the constitution of our nature to the same end. " Temperance,
sobriety, and moderation in sensual pleasures, have an influence
upon the happiness of others, and therefore they may be pro
duced by the love of others," The effects of tbe opposite vices,
as inconsistent with benevolence, are most impressively stated by
Hutcheson : see page 172, on the Nature and Conduct of the
Passions. Note 39, p. 377.
" By wisdom we understand we are parts and members of
the great body, the universe ; and are therefore concerned in the
good management of it, and are thereby obliged to procure its
order and peace, and by no irregular undertaking to disturb or
discompose it ; which makes us honest and peaceable men : that
we proceed frora the sarae primitive stock, are children of the
same father, and parta'se of the sarae blood with al! men ; are
endued with the like faculties of mind, passions of soul, shape of
body, and sense of things: that we have equally iraplanted in our
original constitution inclinations to love, pity, gratitude, socia-
bleness, quiet, joy, reputation : that we have an indispensible
need and irapatient desire of company, assistance, comfort, and
relief: that therefore it is according to tbe design of nature, and
agreeable to reason, that to those to whom our natural condi
tion by so many boods of cognation, similitude, and mutual ne-
cessitude, hath knit and conjoined us, we should bear a kind
respect and tender affection, should cheerfully concur in under
going the common burthens, should heartily wish and indus
triously promote their good, assist them in accomplishing their
reasonable desires, thankfully requite the courtesies received from
them, congratulate and rejoice vvith them in their prosperity,
comfort them in their distresses, and, as far as vve are able, re-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 455
lieve them ; however, tenderly compassionate their disappoint
ments, miseries, and sorrows." — See Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 9.
Note 40, p. 377.
" Reason, when fully assisted and improved, is sufficient to
instruct us in the pernicious or useful tendencies of qualities or
actions : it is not alone sufficient to produce any moral blame or
approbation. Utility is only a tendency to a certain end ; and
were the end totally indifferent to us, we should ffeel the same
indifference towards the means." " 'Tis requisite a sentiment
should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the
useful above the pernicious tendencies. This sentiment can be
no other than a feeling for the happiness of mankind, and a
resentment of their misery ; since these are the different ends
which virtue and vice have a tendency to promote. Here there
fore reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and
humanity makes a distinction in favour of those which are use
ful and beneficial." — See Hume, Appendix i, concerning Moral
Sentiments, page 360, edit, of his Essays 1767.
Having quoted from Mr. Hurae a passage in which he uses
the word reason, I ought to state, that I do not always confine
the use of the word in moral deliberations, as he does, merely to
" that power by which we becorae acquainted (see page 364)
with objects, their relations and circurastances, and then expe
rience approbation and blarae, which is the work of the heart
only, and not of the judgraent ; on the contrary, I with Reid, un
derstood reason sometimes to mean " tbat moral power by which
actions ought to be regulated, and which suggests to us what
are called rational principles of action." — See p. 471 ; and 212
of Reid on the Active Powers of Man, I agree also with Dr.
Reid in his explanation of the word sentiraent, "as implying not
mere feeling, but judgraent accompanied with feeling, — See p.
479. Note 41, p. 377^
" In the benevolent affections, the happiness of any one
person is an ultimate end, desired with no further view, and yet

456 NOTES ON
the observing its inconsistency with the happiness of another
more beloved, or with the happiness of many, though each one
of them were but equally beloved, may overcome the former
desire : yet this will not prove, that in each kind action men
form the abstract conception of all raankind, or the system of
rationals. Such conceptions are indeed useful, that so we may
gratify either our self-love, or kind affections, in the fullest man
ner, as far as our power extends, and may not content ourselves
with smaller degrees either of private or public good, while
greater are in our povver. But when we have formed these con
ceptions, we do not serve the individual only frora love to the
species." — See Hutcheson on the Passions, p. 222.
On the other hand, the particular affections indirectly re-act
on the general, or, as Hutcheson says, "a powerful determina
tion even to a limited benevolence is observed to give a strong
bias to our minds towards a universal goodness, tenderness,
humanity, generosity, and contempt of private good in our
whole conduct." — See Inquiry, p. 25S.
Note 42, p. 377.
Upon conscience, as connected with benevolence, Butler's
first and second Sermon cannot be read too often, nor too atten
tively. I have been also much instructed on the subject of con
science by Dr. Reid, in the 6th, 7th, and 8th chapters, in his
third Essay on the Active Powers of Man, The energy of it in
quickening the operations of benevolence is most eloquently de
scribed by Adam Smith, p, 336, vol, i. of Moral Sentiments.
There is sorae unsteadiness araong philosophers in their use of
the word. Butler warily (p. 13 of his Sermons) calls it " the
principle in man by which he ajiproves or disapproves his heart,
temper, or actions." This he calls " the strict use of the word,
but allows it to be sometimes so used as to take in more," Dr.
Reid, p. 243, calls it " an original power of the raind, or moral
faculty, by which we have the conceptions of right and wrong
in human conduct, and the dictates of which form the first prin
ciples of morals."
On the contrary, according to Adam Smith, '' conscience

THE SPITAL SERMON. 457
does not immediately denote any moral faculty by which we ap
prove or disapprove. It supposes, indeed, the existence of some
such faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness of having
acted agreeably or contrary to its direction." — See Smith's Moral
Sentiraents, vol. ii. p. 355.
" Those who write of conscience," says Sir Matthew Hale,
" tell us it hath three offices or acts, synteresis, syneidesis, and
epicrisis ; so those principles are lodged in that chest of the con
science called synteresis." — See Sir M. Hale, on the Primitive
Origination of Mankind, p. 64.
It may be worth while to state the account which a learned
schoolraan gives of Synteresis, and which, in part, corresponds
with the opinion of Adam Smith : " Synderesis item non est
aliqua potentia, sed habitus potius naturalis, quo intellectus cog
noscit prima principia practica, sicut habitus naturalis quo intel
lectus cognoscit prima principia speculativa, solet vocari intel
lectus principiorum, Quod facile ostendit D. Thom. artic. 12,
et patet ex eo, quod potentise rationales habent se ad opposita,
ut docet Aristoteles, 1. Metapbys. text 3. Synderesis autem tan
tummodo est de bono — Conscientia denique, nihilo magis aliqua
peculiaris potentia est ab intellectu distincta, sed est proprie ap-
plicatio quaedam scientiee universalis practicae ad particulare
aliquod objectum, sive (quod idem est) usus quidam scientiae
circa objectum particulare. Itaque est indicium, quo vel cog
noscimus quidpiam nos fecisse, aut non fecisse, quo pacto con
scientia dicitur testificari ; vel quid sit nobis faciendura vel non
faciendum, quo pacto conscientia dicitur ligare aut solvere ; vel
bene aut male factum esse quod fecimus, quo pacto conscientia
dicitur excusaie vel accusare, et remordere, ut optirae explicat
D. Thom. hoc artic. 13, Ubi et recte addit, aliquando etiam ha
bitum synderesis vel scientiae ex quo ejusmodi judicia proficis
cuntur, solere conscientiam nominari. Ut cura Origines, lib. ii,
in Epist. ad Roman, dicit conscientiam esse paedagogura aniraae
sociatura. Et Basilius in libro proverb, initio esse naturale Judi-
catorium, et Damascenus libro 2do, de fide orthodoxa, cap. xii.
esse lucem intellectus nostri. Et D. Hieronymus cum in caput
1st Ezech. dicit scintillam conscientiae quam, inquit, avv-rjprjaiv
Graeci vocant, in Cain quoque, postquara ejectus est ex Paradiso,

458 NOTES ON
non fuisse extinctam." — Greg, de Valentia Coraraent. in D.
Thom. vol. i. Disput. 6. Qusest. 5, sub fin. page 1288.
The schoolmen, I have observed, usually write the word Syn
deresis. Perhaps they adopted this pronunciation from modern
Greek, in which v before r is pronounced b, as civrpov, dvbpov.
— See Ducange's Gram. p. 21.
Note 43, p. 377.
I suspect that what Hurae says upon another occasion may
be applied to some modern writers about universal benevolence.
" There is much of a dispute of words in all this controversy,"
When they reject gratitude, as the advocates of the selfish system
" rejected all private friendship, if no interest or self-love inter
mixed itself, I am confident that they abuse terms, and confound
the ideas of things." — Vide Essay xi. vol, i, p, 94,
I am aware, with Mr. Bentham, that in moral discussions,
" the imperfections of language are sometimes great : that a
man, confining himself to the terms most in use, can scarcely
avoid running, in appearance, into perpetual contradictions ;
that his propositions will appear sometiraes repugnant to truth,
and soraetimes adverse to utility ; and that, to obviate this incon
venience, he must have recourse to the unpleasant remedy of
laying aside the old phraseology, and inventing a new one," —
Page 101. In the very difficult subject which Mr. Bentham un
dertook to discuss, and the very new points of view in which he
exhibits many parts of it, Mr. B. by such observations, made a
proper, and, I think, a satisfactory apology for himself. But
they cannot be applied to the modern teachers of universal phi
lanthropy, nor do they justify another class of writers, whom
Mr. B., in appearance at least, bas attempted to vindicate, not
perhaps in their systems, but their phraseology. Speaking of
" the clamours raised against those ingenious moralists who,
travelling out of the beaten track of speculation, have found
more or less difficulty in disentangling theraselves from the
shackles of ordinary language, he names Rochefoucault, Mande
ville, and Helvetius,'- the well-known patrons of the system of
selfishness. He adds, that " to the unsoundness of their opi-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 459
nions, and, with still greater injustice, to the corruption of their
hearts, was often imputed what was most commonly owing either
toa want of skill in matters of language on the partof the author,
or a want of discernment ; possibly now and then, in some in
stances, a want of probity on the part of the comraentator." I
could wish that Mr. Bentham had specified the instances in which
the opponents of these writers have shewn their " want of dis
cernment, or their want of probity.'' Butler, in page 206 and
214, has explained the words self-love, selfishness, &c. In page
82, 3, 4, 5, he examines Hobbes's account of pity. He shews
" what it really is, because there is raised upon it a general
scheme vvhich undermines the whole foundation of comraon ho
nesty and humanity." These, I think, are the severest terras
that he employs, and he eraploys them justly. In p. 24 of the
Preface, too, he explains the words selfish and interested ; but I
see no one expression in which he charges his opponents with
corruption of heart. Dr. Adam Smith, in chap. iv. sect. vii. part
2d. examines the licentious system, in which he includes that of
Mandeville. He mentions it "as the great fallacy of Mande
ville's book, to represent every passion as wholly vicious which is
so in any degree or in any direction." He speaks of Mandeville's
eloquence as " coarse and rustic, but lively, luminous, and cal
culated to throw upon his doctrines an air of probability, which
is very apt to impose upon the unskilful." He allows, however,
that " in human nature there are some appearances which, when
viewed in a certain manner, favour the notions of this writer.
Most of them, he thinks, in almost every respect erroneous ; but
sorae he grants to be just," and he assigns very judicious rea
sons why even some of those which are most overcharged, must
have had some foundation." But when does he attack directly
or indirectly the moral character of Mandeville ? No man felt
a nobler love of virtue, or a deeper indignation against vice than
Mr. Hutcheson. But does he indulge himself in wanton invec
tive or sly insinuations ? Does he not tell me, " that Lucretius
and Hobbes shew themselves in innumerable instances struck
with some moral species ; they are full of expressions of adraira
tion, gratitude, praise, desire of doing good ; and of censure,
disapprobation, aversion to some forras of vice."

460 NOTES ON
I am not sure that, in opposing the selflsh system, even Bishop
Butler felt much more solicitude, or displayed much more ability,
than Mr. Hume ; and I sometimes observe a very striking resem
blance between the reasoning and the terms of the prelate and
the philosopher. — See page 239 of Hume's Essays.
Yet Mr. Hume tells us, page 934, " that whoever concludes,
from the seeming tendency of the selfish system, that the advo
cates of it cannot possibly feel the true sentiments of benevo
lence, or have any regard for genuine virtue, will often find him
self in practice very much mistaken," He ascribes " probity and
honour to Epicurus and his sect, a generous and friendly dispo
sition to Atticus and Horace, most irreproachable lives to Hobbes
and Locke, who maintained the selfish system of morals," In
page 383, Mr. Hume, speaking of the ambiguity of the word
pride, says, " the French express this sentiraent by the terra
amour-propre ; but as they also express self-love, as well as vanity,
by the same terra, there arises a great confusion in Rochefoucalt,
and raany of their moral writers. Is there any attentive reader
of Rochefoucault who has not experienced frequent embarrass
ment from the equivocal sense of these words ?
Aristotle seems to have been aware that the Greek term for
self-love was open to misapplication, and therefore he found it
necessary to fix it by definition, and to guard it from abuse :
ean bi tpiXavros, 6 avroU eveKev irdvra irpdrrwv, ev rols Kara rb
XvaireXes' o fiiv ovv (pavXos, (piXavTOs earat, ai)Tbs avrov ydp
eveKev iravra irparrei' aXX' ov^ b airovbalos' bid tovto yap eari
airovbalos, on dXXov eveKev rovro irpdrref bib oHk ean (piXavros.
Towards the goods of pleasure or advantage, a virtuous man,
according to Aristotle, is not ijiiXavros ; though, in a more loose
way, he may be said to be so — Kard rb KaXov. " tovtov ydp fio
vov dXXip OVK dv eKarairj' rd be avfiijiepovra Kal Ijbea eKarrjaerai'
rrjv fiev ovv Kard rb KaXbv alpeaiv, (jiiXavros earat' rrjv bi Kard
TO avfifepov, Kal Ka9' fjbov^v Xeyofievrjv, oiiK earat b airovbalos,
dXXd b (jiavXos." — Arist. Mag. Mor. lib. ii. cap. xiii. ver. ii. page
192. Whatever might be the subtleties of disputants in the
schools of Greece, I beUeve that in Greek books we do not find
fiXavros applied in a good sense, without some obvious circum
stances in the situation of the agent, or sorae concoraitant expla
nation on the part of the writer, to qualify what was the rare
use of the word.

TIIE SPITAL SERMON. 461
But, to return to Mr. Hume, in p, 284, vol. ii. he acknowledges
the " deduction of morals from self-love, to be a very obvious
thought, and not arising wholly from the wanton sallies of the
sceptics." He mentions Polybius, "one of the gravest, most ju
dicious, and moral writers of antiquity, as assigning this origin to
all our sentiments of virtue." But in p. 236, he ascribes this use
of the word self-love " to that love of simplicity, which has been
the source of much false reasoning on philosophy." In p. 241'
he al.i0 calls " such philosophy more like a satire than a true de
lineation of human virtue ;" and in p. 345 he again notices the
" spirit of satire which some advocates of the selfish system have
indulged," But where does he accuse their hearts of corrup
tion ?
I know not whether any professed answer to Helvetius has
been published. Doubtless his perspicuity, his vivacity, his fa
cility in gliding through the mazes of metaphysics, and his un
relenting hostility against the usurpations of what he calls
" prejudice," will always secure to him a numerous class of
readers. By his singular use of terms I have not myself been
much embarrassed, because he has defined them more clearly,
and adhered to them more steadily, than any other advocate of
the selfish system. The chief faults which I observed in his
writings as compositions are, a looseness of arrangement which
sometimes slackens the attention, and sometimes bewilders the
judgment, of his readers ; a fondness for multiplying narratives,
which frequently interrupt the continuity of his reasoning, and a
wantonness in scattering witticisms, which are often not well-
suited to the importance of his subjects. In his work upon edu
cation, however, he has completely refuted the captivating but
most pernicious paradoxes of Rousseau ; and to his Essay on
the Mind, though deeply tinged vvith hatred of the priesthood,
and lavishly decked with the trappings of infidelity, I cannot
refuse the praise of brilliant genius, and of benevolence, which,
however romantic and ill-directed, I dare not pronounce insin
cere. Yet his Code of Ethics seems to be imperfect, because it
does not consider the Nature of Man, as it has been justly viewed
by Butler, and other philosophers, in the light of a " system or
constitution, of which the several parts are united, " not by a

462 NOTES ON
physical principle of individuation, but by the respect they have
to each other, their restraints upon each other, and their propor
tion to each other, under the absolute and entire direction of
conscience." Sermon 3d. I find no warrant in experience for
his scheme, "De fonder la probitd, non sur des principes aussi
respectables que ceux de la religion, mais sur des principes dont
il soit moins facile d'abuser, tels que sont les motifs d'int^rfet
personnel," or as he had before said " d'int^rfit temporel, manies
avec adresse par un legislateur habile." (Chap. xxiv. Discours
II.) In common with other reformers of the raodern school, he
opens the widest range for those sensual appetites, the restraint
of which is indispensably necessary to the well-being of society.
He plucks up the wheat wilh the tares in matters of opinion ;
and by attempting, as he thought, to rescue virtue from the
shackles of religion, he would rend asunder what, in the original
frame and the unalterable condition of man, the Deity has joined
together. Mr. Bentham may sraile at ray " want of discernraent," but he
will not impute to me " want of probity."
When exaraining the opinions of such an able writer as Mr.
Benthara, I thought it necessary to go into detail, and no place
surely can be more proper for the vindication of those who have
defended the benevolent system, than notes upon a sermon
which is intended to explain and enforce benevolence. " Na
ture," I agree with Mr. Hurae, vol. i. p, 50, " will always main
tain her rights," and therefore, I am convinced, that many of
the writers, who seera to contend for universal philanthropy, so
as to lower the dignity and weaken the efficacy of our particular
affections, would in their own practice, be grateful to benefactors,
and tender to relatives. But their writings ought tobe opposed,
and their improper use of terms should be pointed out, for they
produce great inquietude in virtuous minds ; they perplex the
judgraents of young raen in their endeavours to understand the
principles of morality, and they furnish bad men with specious
apologies for their oraissions in thc necessary and amiable duties
of private life.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 463

Note 44, p. 378.
Few men, I believe, are endowed with such strength of
mind, that their political tenets should never have any influence
over their speculations. I have not, therefore, been surprised at
a kind of fashion, which prevails among some writers, to depre
ciate the love of our country, to represent it as interfering with
the principles of general benevolence, and to resolve it into pre
judice, vanity, jealousy, or weak and inglorious selfishness. Can
it be unreasonable, then, to remind a reader of the sources
from which it proceeds ? " Whatever place we have lived in for
any considerable time, there we have most distinctly remarked
the various affections of human nature ; we have known many
lovely characters ; we remember the associations, friendships,
families, natural affections, and other human sentiments ; our
moral sense determines us to approve those lovely dispositions
where we have most distinctly observed them ; and our benevo
lence concerns us in the interests of those persons possessed of
them." — Hutcheson's Inquiry, pp. 163, 164.
Will my readers excuse me for producing some observations
which I once had occasion to make, in a Sermon of my own,
" upon those who endeavour to draw down patriotisra itself
from that high seat of honour which it has long been allowed to
fill near the throne of virtue. There is, I grant, a spurious, and
there is also a genuine patriotisra ; just as there is a philosophy
which corrupts our minds, as well as there is a philosophy which
improves them. But true philosophy has ever borne testimony
in favour of true patriotism, because it considers the good of our
country as forming a part, and in respect to our own agency,
our own duty, and our own welfare, a very considerable part, of
general happiness. These considerations, no doubt, when pre
sented to the mind of a virtuous statesman, will inspire him with
additional joy ; and when they become, as they always may, addi
tional motives will enhance the merit of his measures. The ob
ject which rouses all his desires, and nerves all his strength, is
the well-being of his country ; and as to the dangers he has to
encounter, or the toils he has to endure, they are abundantly
compensated by the magnitude of the services performed, by the

464 NOTES ON
quantity of good immediately produced, by the multitudes lo
vvhom it is diffused in various degrees and in various directions,
and by the long series of years through which it is likely to con
tinue. But in regard to the greater part of mankind — to men,
who neither pant for extensive power, nor shine in public opi
nion, the love ofour country may be traced up, not to the blind
prejudices of education, not to the sordid desire of gain, not to
the insatiable thirst of glory, not to a savage appetite for devasta
tion, but to other and better motives ; to the remembrance of
scenes where we have passed the delightful seasons of boyhood
and of youth ; to sympathy with the complicated interests of pa
rents, children, and kindred ; to joy for the safety, or for the
prosperity of those who have lightened our own sorrows, or pro
moted our own success ; to the pleasing recollection of the hours
we have spent in learned or in cheerful society ; to respect for
the laws by which our liberty, our property, and our lives, have
been protected ; to reverence for that mode of religion which we
believe to be raost warranted by the law of God; lo the rapid
communication * of passion over related objects brought into a
group ; to the mechanical and potent influence of numbers upon
our imaginations ; and to the facility with which they pass from
ourselves and our countrymen, to a near and even a remote pos
terity." God forbid that I should ever presume to palliate the guilt of
men, who, at any tirae, or in any country, may have perverted
this generous passion to the purposes of their own wayward and
inordinate arabition. For I allow, with the wise and benevolent
Hutcheson, " that tyranny, that faction, that a neglect of justice,
a corruption of manners, and any thing which occasions the mi
sery of the subjects, may destroy," or, as I would rather say,
" weaken this national love." But let not every kind of it be re
presented as a weakness, nor every degree of it as a crime. Let
not the abuse of it be confounded with that use which nature
often suggests, which experience warrants, and which Christi
anity does not forbid. Let it not be severed entirely from bene
volence, of which it forms a sound, a large, and a conspicuous
* Elements of Criticism, lib. i. cap. 2, sect. 4.

THE SPITAL SERMON, 465
part ; nor rudely thrust out from the duties of society, vvhich, in
its absence, could neither flourish, nor perhaps exist. The so
phistry which has been employed to degrade it vvill in part be
defeated, not, perhaps, by my wishes, or by my reasoning, but
by the authority of a much greater writer, whose judgment and
even eloquence will be readily admitted by any attentive reader
of the following observations : " The faculty we have of uniting
numberless individuals into one complex object, enlarges greatly
the sphere of benevolence. By that faculty our country, our
government, our religion, become objects of public spirit, and of
a lively affection. The individuals that compose the group, con
sidered apart, may be too minute, or too distant for our benevo
lence ; but, when united into one whole, accumulation makes
thern great, greatness makes thera conspicuous ; and affection,
preserved entire and undivided, is bestowed upon an abstract ob
ject, as upon one that is single and visible, but with energy pro
portioned to its greater dignity and importance. Thus the
principle of benevolence is not too sparingly scattered among
men." — Kairaes's History of Man, vol. ii. p. 292.
Note 45, p. 378.
In an age vvhen so much has been said to so litlle purpose
about perfectibility, it may not be amiss to consider the sober
and judicious language of a real philosopher. " The wise and
virtuous man directs his principal attention to the idea of exact
propriety and perfection. There exists in the mind of every
man an idea of this kind, gradually formed from his observations
upon the character and conduct both of himself and of other
people. It is the slow, gradual, and progressive work of the
great demi-god within the breast, the great judge and arbiter of
conduct. This idea is in every man more or less accurately
drawn, its colouring is mure or less just, its outlines are more or
less exactly designed, according lo the delicacy and acuteness of
that sensibility wilh which those observations were made, and
according lo the care and attention employed in making them.
In the wise and virtuous man they have been made vvith the most
acute and delicate sensibility, and the utmost care and attention
VOL. II, 2 H

466 NOTES ON
have been employed in making them. Every day some feature is
improved, every day some blemish is corrected. He has studied
this idea more than other people, he comprehends it more dis
tinctly, he has formed a rauch more correct iraage of it, and is
much more deeply enaraoured of its exquisite and divine beauty.
He endeavours, as well as he can, to assimilate his own character
to this archetype of perfection. But he imitates the work of a
divine artist, which can never be equalled. He feels the imper
fect success of all his best endeavours, and sees with grief and
afiiiction in how many different features the mortal copy falls
short of the immortal original. He reraerabers with concern
and humiliation, how often, from want of attention, from vvant
of judgment, from want of teraper, he has, both in words and
actions, both in conduct and conversation, violated the exact
rules of perfect propriety ; and has so far departed from that
model according to which he wished to fashion his ovvn character
and conduct," — Sraith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp.
147— 149, 7th edit.
The foregoing statement is perfectly free from tbe confusion
and obscurity which pervade our raodern writers upon perfecti
bility, and it has no tendency to excite those visionary expecta
tions which amuse the fancy without improving the heart.

Note 46, p. 37S.
" Ego sic statuo, nihil esse in ullo genere lam pulehrum,
quo non pulchrius id sit, unde illud, ut ex ore aliquo, quasi
imago, exprimatur, quod neque oculis, neque auribus, neque ullo
sensu percipi potest. Cogitatione tantum, et mente complecli-
mur, &c.'' Cicer. Orator, edit. Gruter, vol. I. p. 156; and
Quintilian, lib. i. Proem, p, 5, Rollin's edit.
Note 47, p. 378.
" The most plausible exception lying against the expediency
of labouring for the general good arises from our inability to
contribute so much towards it as to make our share worth the
consideration.

THE SPITAL SERMON, 467
" But let us consider that, if this doctrine were to prevail,
most of the blessings of nature, the benefits of society, and con
veniences of life would be lost ; the most valuable of which are
procured by the operation of feeble and inconsiderable agents.
" We need not undervalue our particular services because they
yield but little profit ; for though the performance of thera can
not do much good, yet it may prevent great mischiefs which
might have ensued upon the oraission.
"What though our persons be single and our efforts sraall ;
nobody can say vvhat multitudes they may not affect, nor what
tides of industry they may not excite, 'Tis notorious of how
spreading a nature both the virtues and the vices are, for ex
ample and sympathy diffuse the stream to all quarters from a
single fountain; and a raan may sometimes find that in his power
wherein all mankind shall have concern in the consequences.
The founders of religions and sects in philosophy, inventors of
arts and sciences, though imparting their thoughts to a few, have
thereby opened channels which overflowed whole nations and
countries, " It may be said, this might happen, perhaps, to extraordinary
persons once in an age ; but a privale man never stands in a si
tuation to work consequences that can possibly extend beyond
the narrow circle of his own acquaintance. But I would ask him
how he knows that, for we have shewn in our chapter on Provi
dence that the affairs of the world are all complicated and inter
woven into one tissue. There is no such thing as trifle in na
ture, every little incident and sudden fancy being provided for by
perfect wisdom with regard to the whole ; for how narrow
soever thie views of creatures may be, God beholds the universe,
and directs every little stroke, in his all comprehensive plan, so
as to constribute its share towards the greatest good. Or if
there be such Ihings as trifles, they are so intermingled araong the
iaipercej itible springs of important events, that the most prying
eyecann'Ot distinguish them apart. Therefore we ought always
to stand upon our guard, and shape our minute raotions, by
such discretion and regard to rectitude as is proper upon the
oc casion,. for the chance of effecting what unseen good, or escap-
inj 5 what unthought of evil may possibly depend upon them.
Bl It it wtmld be in vain for a man to take his measures upon con-
2 h2

468 NOTES ON
sequences that human sagacity cannot investigate ; therefore he
has nothing to do vvith him, or with anything else, besides the
rules of prudence, charity, propriety, and innocence, so far as in
the present circumstances of the case he can discern them."
— Tucker's Chapter upon General Good, vol. v. of the Light of
Nature. Pfiilosophy, in the passages just now quoted, is brought within
the reach of comraon sense, and is more skilfully applied to the
duties of coraraon life, than by any of the writers on Universal
Benevolence with vvhom it has been my fortune to meet.
Note 48, p. 379.
I have always been charmed, and in the present state of the
world my mind is deeply interested, by the manner in which
Hume has described some of those blessings. " In antiquity, the
heroes of philosophy, as well as those of war and patriotism,
have a grandeur and force of sentiment which astonishes onr
narrow souls, and is rashly rejected as extravagant and superna
tural. They, in their turn, I allow, would have bad equal reason
to consider as roraantic and incredible the degree of huraanity,
clemency, order, tranquillity, and other social virtues, lo which,
in the administration of government, we have attained in modern
times, had any one been then able to have made a fair represent
ation of them." — Hurae, vol, ii. § vii. p. 32S.
Note 49, p. 379.
1 trust, that in what is here delivered, my opinions agree
entirely with those of Barrow. " The principal advainlage of
wisdom is, its acquainting us with the nature and reason of true
religion, and affording convictive arguments to persuade; men to
the practice of it, which is accorapanied with the purest delight,
and attended with the most solid content imaginable. I say the
nature of religion, wherein it consists, and what it requires ; ttie
mistake of which produceth daily so many mischiefs and incon
veniences in the world, and exposes so good a name lo so much
reproach. It sheweth it consisteth not in fair professions, and
glorious pretences, but in real practice ; not in a pertinacioii s

THE SPITAL SERMON, 469
adherence to any sect or party, but in a sincere love of goodness,
and dislike of naughtiness, vvherever discovering itself; not in
vain ostentations and flourishes of outward perforraance ; but in
an inward good complexion of mind, exerting itself in works of
true devotion and charity; not in. a nice orthodoxy, or politic
subjection of our judgraents to the peremptory dictates of men,
but in a sincere loveof truth, in a hearty approbation of and com
pliance with the doctrines fundamentally good, and necessary to
be believed ; not in harsh censuring and virulent inveighing
against others, but in carefully amending our own ways ; not in
a peevish crossness and obstinate repugnancy to received laws
and customs, but in a quiet and peaceable submission to the ex
press laws of God, and lawful command.s of man ; not in furious
zeal for or against trivial circumstances, but in a conscionable
practising the substantial parts of religion ; not in a, frequent
talking or contentious disputing about it, but in a ready observ
ance of tbe unquestionable rules and prescripts of it." — Barrow,
vol. i. sermon i. p. 10. Note 50, p. 379.
The names which learned men bear for any length of time
are usually well founded. If Duns Scotus was justly called the
most subtle Doctor, Roger Bacon the wonderful, Bunaventure
the seraphic, Aquinas the universal and evangelical, surely
Hooker has, with equal, if not superior justice, ubtained the name
of the judicious. Bishop Loivth, in the Preface lo his English
Grammar, has bestowed the highest praise upon the purity of
Hooker's style. Bishop Warburton, in his book on the .4illiance
between Church and State, often quotes frora hira, and calls hira
" the excellent, the admirable, the best good man of our order."
I have ventured to call him the immortal, but if the word judi
cious had occurred to me I should have preferred it. Mr. Hall,
of Cambridge, in one of the notes lo his lale most excellent Ser
mon (see p. 62), bad stiled him the great and judicious Hooker:
and it is with concern that I find hira censured for doing so by
some of his contemporaries. Their unmerited severity reminds
me of an observation which I once read in the Bishop of Lime
rick's Life of Bishop Brarahall, and vvhich they, who reverence

470 NOTES ON
Mr. Hall, as I do, will peruse with great pleasure, " At this
time also the learned, the meek, and the judicious Hooker opened
that fountain of reason that shall serve as an inexhaustible spring
for this use, whose only fault is, that his researches are so deep
that those with whora he deals having nothing to draw, are not
so rauch instructed as they might be by more slight discourses,
because more suited to their models and capacities." Bishop
Bramhall's Life, prefixed to his Works, p. 2.
In common with all men of letters, I read with exquiste de
light Mr. Hall's Sermon lately published. As compositions, his
former works are replete with excellence ; but his last approaches
to perfection, fierd rov aefivov rrjv x'^P^'' ^'xei. He apologizes
for its length, but the apology was unnecessary ; for every man
of taste and virtue will apply to this publication what Phocion
said upon the Xetfivapiov of Johannes Moschus, ei; dirdvrwv rb
Xprjaiftov 6 avverbs Kal b 8eo(j)iXijs avrjp bpeirofievos, ovk 'dv rHv
avvreray fievwv Kopov Karayvoirj. Bacon tells US that " the con
templative atheist is rare, and that atheism did never perturb
States, because it makes men vveary of themselves, as looking
no farther." But I agree with Mr. Hall, that "the present
tiraes furnish a raelancholy exception to this general observa-
, lion,"' and Mr. Hall probably will agree with Bacon, that "su
perstition also has been the confusion of many States, and
bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres
of government," — Bacon's 17th and 18th Essays. The liveliness
of Mr. Hall's iraagination, and the strength of his feehngs, may
now and then have led him to speak rather loo strongly in each
of his late publications. In the forraer, I thought that he
ascribed too much to the effects of Popery under the French
monarchy ; and in the latter, too much to the effects of philoso
phy in the French Revolution, But in both works he has made
many wise and interesting observations ; in both he has pre
served a most beautiful and animated style ; through both he
has been actuated, I believe, by the purest motives ; and by the
last more especially, he has deserved well from every friend lo
civilized society and pure religion. I am not sure that Mr. Hall
stands in need of any vindication upon the score of inconsistency ;
but I am sure that he is most able to vindicate himself against
accusations really strong, if such there be ; and I am equally

THE SPITAL SERMON, 471
sure that he has too much candour and too much magnanimity
to persist in any error which his own sagacity may discover, or
the objections of his antagonists shall clearly prove.
Having stated my wishes, that in a few, I mean a very few
instances, Mr, Hall had been a little more wary in pushing his
principles to consequences, which they may not quite warrant, I
will give my general opinion of him in the words that were em
ployed to describe a prelate whose writings, I believe, are fami
liar lo him, and whom he strongly resembles, not perhaps in va
riety of learning, but in fertility of iraagination, in vigour of
thinking, in rectitude of intention, and holiness of life. Yes,
Mr. Hall, like Bishop Taylor, " has the eloquence of an orator,
the fancy of a poet, the acuteness of a schoolraan, the profound
ness of a philosopher, and the piety of a saint." — See the Funeral
Sermon upon Jerem. Taylor, by Dr. Rush, Bishop of Dromore,
Sincere as my attachment is to Protestantism, I confess that I
have been pained by some outrageous invectives that have been
lately thrown out against the Church of Rome ; and at the pre
sent crisis, I must further confess, that they appear to me not
only unjust, but indiscreet and even inhuman. Let me remind
the accusers of Mr. Hall, that, in the esliraation of Lord Bacon,
" divisions in religion, if they be many, introduce Atheism" —
" that there is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when men
think they do best by going farthest from what Ihey think the
superstition formerly received, and therefore care should be had
that the good be not taken away with the bad, which commonly
is done when the people is the reformer." Among those who
censure Mr. Hall, there may be tho-dghtless and injudicious per
sons, who often repeat the witty and decisive answer of Sir Henry
Wooton lo the priest, who asked, " where was your religion lo
be found before Luther ?" Let me then recal to their memory
the advice which Sir Henry gave to one whose earnestness ex
ceeded his knowledge, and who was perpetually railing against
the Papists : " Pray, Sir, forbear, 'till you have studied the points
betier ; for the wise Italians have this proverb — he that under
standeth amiss concludes worse ; and lake heed of thinking, the
farther you go from the Church of Rome, the nearer you are to
God." To raen of sounder judgment and more candid disposi
tions, I would recommend the serious perusal of " Cassandri

472 NOTES ON
Consultatio," of Grotius's notes upon it, and his three replies to
Rivetus. When they read " the Syllabus Librorum et Epistola-
rum doctorum aliquot et piorum virorum," in the third volurae
of Grotius's Works, they may cease lo think Mr. Hall singular,
when he remarks in his Preface, " how trivial, for the most pan,
are the controversies of Christians with each other.'' They may
be disposed to join him in his prayer, that " Ephraim may no
longer vex Juda, nor Juda Ephraim;" and they may be con
verted to the wise and salutary opinion of Grotius, " quam non
sit difficilis in Religione Conciliatio, si controvertendi studium
vitetur I" Note 51, p. 379.
For part of this beautiful iraagery Hooker is indebted to the
Psalmist. I remember in the book De Mundo, ascribed to
Aristotle, a very fine passage upon the same subject. The
imagery is different fioiii that of Taylur, but it is so charraing
that no learned Christian vvill, I think, blame me for enabling
him to compare it vvith the quotation from Hooker: KaBdwep
oe ev X"PV> Kopvcjtaiov Kardp'^avros, auveiriix^i -irds 6 i^opos dv-
cpwv, ead lire Kat yvvaiKwr-, Iv btacpdpois (fiwvais oivrepais Kal
papvr^pais fiiav dpfioviav tfifieXij Kepavvvvrwv, oijrws exei Kat
eirt rov to avfiirav bieirovros deov' Kard ydp rb dvwBev evboaifiov
viro roil (jiepwvvfiws dv Kopvipaiov irpoaayopevBevros , Ktvelrat ftev
ra darpa del, Knl b avfiiras ovpavbs' iropeverat be btrrds iropeias 6
irafKJiaijs rjXios' rjj fiev, ijfiepav Kal vvKrd biopHwv, dvaroXfj Knl
bvaei' rrj be, rds reaaapas &pas dywv roi) erovs, irpoaw re
popeios, Kal orriaw rvrios biep'i,fpirwv. — Aristotle, edit. Duval,
vol. i. p. 612.
in a tone more peremptory than usual, Fabricius pronounces
the book de Mundo lo be the work of Aristotle; but Harles and
his learned coadjutor have given what I think weighty reasons
for considering it as spurious ; and I confess, that so far as any
internal proofs can be found in the style or the matter, they are
in favour of Harles's decision. — See Fabric. Bibliothec. Grsec. by
Harles, vol. iii. p. 234.
1 must inform the reader, that from the paragraph in p. 379,
beginning, " If nature," lo the paragraph in p. 3.S4, ending with
" Cjovernor ofthe vvorld," no part was preached.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 473

Note 52, p. 380.
Shall philosophy be permitted to trifle with the affection to
which religion itself has, by silence, paid the most marked re
spect ? " In the Decalogue," says Adam Smith, -'we are com
manded to honour our father and mother. No mention is made
of the love of our children ; nature had sufliciently prepared us
for the performance of the latter duty." — Vol. i, p. 348.
Note .53, p. 380.
In respect to every social duty, vve may grant, nihil per se
quemquam decere — referre, quid, cui, quando, quare, ubi, et
cetera, sine quibus facile ratio nun constiterit. Seneca de bene
ficiis, liber 2d. Other circumstances being equal, the raost vir
tuous person is to be preferred. But how is this sufficiently to
be ascertained ? How can the comparative worth of men
(which, from the imperfection of human nature, it is granted
that we cannot often settle, see Political Justice, vol. i. p. 130),
be laid down as a rule for the degree in which we are to suc
cour distress ? Is it not farther granted (page 133), that when
a person in distress applies to us for relief, it is our duty to be
stow it, and that vve commit a breach of duty in refusing it ?
But upon what is the duty really founded ? Surely upon the
distresses of others, and upon our power lo relieve them ; not
upon their merit, and our power to measure il. " We are di
rected to take the pattern of our charity from our self-love, and
taught to love our neighbour, not as vve do our child, our bro
ther, or our friend, but as we do ourselves : now we do not
love ourselves for being handsome, wise, or witty, or goud tem-
jieied, or accomplished, or virtuous, or born in such a place
or family, nor for any adjunct or circumstance o'oserved in us,
but for being ourselves. If we be distempered, deformed,
wretched, and involved in crimes, this does not abate our fond
ness, which rests directly upon the person : and from hence vve
may learn to bear a like personal regard for others, however
circumstanced." — Tucker upon Charity, vol. iii. part ii. Post.
Works, p. 359.

474 NOTES ON
But, may not the principle of relieving distress, be limited
by the consideration that relief may in sorae instances " inflict
an injury of superior magnitude upon myself or society ?"
There is an ambiguity in the word injury. Let us, however,
suppose it to mean physical harm. If the harm, after a balance
of circumstances, appears greater lo society than the good we
do lo an individual ; then, neither the circumstance of his dis
tress, nor any other circumstance, either of his being a child,
a parent, a benefactor, or a friend, can warrant the greater
harm • for the greater physical harm, in such a case, becomes a
moral injury. Yet this, surely, has been long known, and per
haps was never disputed by any man of sense.
But, do the occurrences of common life often require such
nice and accurate coraparisons ? Do not the circumstances
which constitute material differences, present themselves, and
without any deliberate effort of our own excite a correspondent
degree of right affection, and determine us ultiraately to a right
choice? Is the practice of "weighing grains and scruples"
likely lo produce more good than evil, where the interests of
many relations or benefactors are concerned ; and would our
social affections be more amiable or more useful, from the offi
cious intrusions of reason ? My fixed opinion perfectly agrees
with that of Plutarch : his words are remarkable, and contain
all the great principles, by which the dispute ought lo be de
cided — rous fiiv dXXorpiovs (u)S eXeye Geo^paoros) oil (ptXovvra
bel Kpiveiv, aXXa Kpivavra tpiXelv — oirov be fj (pvats rjyefioviav rij
Kpiaei rrpbs eijvoiai-, ou bibwaiv, oiibe dvafievei rbv BpvXXoiJfievov
-ivv dXwv fiebifivov, dXXa (Tuyyeyevvjjice rrjv dpxrjv rrjs (ptXias,
evravBa bel fiij iriKpovs eivai, firjbe dKptjiels rwv dfiaprrjfidrwv
ei,eraaTds. — Plutarch de Fraterno Araore, 482. But, I fear,
that under the pretence uf regard to the general good, some
motive less honourable would lead us to these inquisitorial pro
ceedings, when we were considering, vvhether consistently with
that good we were to grant or refuse succour to a friend wilh
many faults ; or whether, in consequence of those faults, we
should give the preference to a stranger whora we esteemed more
virtuous. A small share of ingenuity would suggest difficulties,
which, like the ignavce rationes of the sceptics, would suspend all
action ; or, like the more pernicious subtleties of the casuists.

THE SPITAL SERMON, 475
would furnish us with paUiatives for acting "according to the
secret dictates of selfishness, or vanity, or prejudice.
Again, if the harm done to ourselves be greater than the
good done lo another, numberless circurastances must be taken
into the account before we can be justified in granting or refusing.
But to grant where the greater harm is done to ourselves is, in
many circumstances, a duty ; and the performance of that duty
shews the predominance of the social affections over the selfish.
" Charity seeketh not its own." It will sometimes relinquish
the greater good to itself, that it may procure the less for ano
ther man ; and sometimes it will incur the greater evil, in order
lo avert from another man the less.
In the page of Political Justice, where it is represented as our
duty lo relieve a person in distress, the ground of the duty seems
lo be for a moraent, even in the writer's own mind, the distress
itself; and in truth we in raost cases act virtuously when we
follow the irapulses of compassion, excited by the view of dis
tress. But if the moral worth of man be made the only stand
ard, by which our relief is lo be measured, let it be remem
bered that we are continually exposed to error; that our pre
judices and our passions often prevent us from seeing the truth ;
and that our bad dispositions and bad habits would soraetimes
make us disregard it, even when we do see it. The distress of
men excites our pity : the raoral worth of raen excites our
esteem. We are often influenced by both in doing good to our
fellow-creatures, and we raay be influenced so to do by either,
in the absence of the other. But in the conflict between esteem
for one man and corapassion for another, various circumstances,
distinct from the comparative moral worth of the claimants, and
perhaps more easy to be ascertained, may concur, to justify us in
acting from compassion, rather than esteem ; and the general
good of society, as included in the good of the individual, would
thus be most effectually promoted.
Butler has told us all that we need know for the general re
gulation of our conduct. " It raay perhaps be expected that
notice should be taken of occasions, circumstances, and charac
ters, which seem to call forth affections of various sorts. Thus
vice raay be thought the object of pity and indignation, folly of
pity and laughter. How far this is strictly true I shall not

476 NOTES ON
enquire; but only observe upon the appearance, how much
more humane it is lo yield and give scope lo affections which
are more directly in favour of and friendly to our fellow-
creatures ; and that there is plainly much less danger of being
led wrong by these than by the other." — Serm. vi. p. 100.
If the appeal in any doubtful case lay between the opinion of
Bishop Butler and that of any modern theorist vvhatsoever, I
should have no hesitation about the answer which it becomes
me to give, as an agent who is responsible both to God and
man. Must I not " do the utmost in my power to discover the
truth ?" Perhaps so, if tbe good cannot be done without dis
covering it. But the question is, what are the truths which in
any given circumstances I am raost required lo investigate ?
What, I am most able lo discover ? What, I am chiefly obliged
to lake into the account, when they are discovered ? There are
many other truths besides the positive or comparative worth of
a fellow-creature which lie within my reach ; truths, of which
the knowledge is necessaiy to regulate my conduct towards him ;
truths, \\hich in the moment of action may render it proper for
me no farther to regard his moral defects than to avoid both
the appearance and the reality of giving them encouragement.
The domestic, and other social relations in which he stands to
me, are truths ; the benefits which he has confered on me, are
truths ; the imraediate degree, and the future consequences of
his misery, are truths ; the chances vvhich he has, or has not,
of receiving adequate succour frora any other person than myself,
are truths. Some of them may be known with certainty, others
may be calculated vvith probability ; but the knowledge of the
one and the calculation of the other, will not be facilitated
by the rules of some modern systems of philosophy ; and as to
the utility of those rulcs in producing a right conduct, I confess
myself utterly at a loss to find in what it consists. The rules of
justice, as the word is commonly understood, are indeed fixed,
and so far as they have the force- of general rules applicable to
any case under all its circumstances, they must not be violated,
either from any strong irapulse of our affections, or from any
notions which individuals may have formed of general good.
Gratitude itself, as vve may hereafter see, is a virtue which, ao-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 477
cording lo the general apprehensions of mankind, approaches
more nearly than almost any other social virtue to justice. Yet
a very sagacious writer has shewn us that, " however we may
approve of a sentiment which prompts the receiver of a benefit
lo reward his benefactor, it is impossible to adjust by rules the
degree of that reward." " The general rules," says he, " of
almost all the virtues, the general rules which determine what
are the offices of prudence, of charity, of generosity, of gra
titude, of friendship, are in many respects loose and inaccu
rate, admit of so many exceptions, and require so many mo
difications, that it is scarce possible to regulate our conduct
entirely by a regard to them. The comraon proverbial maxims
of prudence being founded in universal experience are, per
haps, the best general rules vvhich can be given about it. To
affect, however, a very strict and literal adherence to thera,
would evidently be the most absurd and ridiculous pedanti-y.
Of all the virtues I have just now mentioned, gratitude is that
perhaps of which ihe rules are the most precise, and admit ofthe
fewest exceptions. That as soon as we can, we should make a
return of equal, and if possible of superior value to the ser
vices we have received, would seem to be a pretty plain rule,
and which admitted of scarce any exceptions. Upon the most
superficial examination, however, this rule vvill appear to be in
the highest degree loose and inaccurate, and to admit of ten
thousand exceptions. If your benefactor attended yon in your
sickness, ought you lo attend hira in his ? or, can you fulfil
the obligation of gratitude by raaking a return of a different
kind ? If you ought to attend him, how long ought you to
attend hira ? the same lirae which he attended you, or longer ?
and hovv much longer ? If your friend lent you money in your
distress, ought you to lend him money in his ? How much
ought you to lend him ? When ought you to lend him ?
Now, or to-morrow, or next month ? And for how long a
time ? It is evident that no general rule can be laid dovvn, by
which a precise answer can in all cases be given to any of these
questions. The difference between his character and your's, be
tween his circumstances and your's, may be such, that you may
be perfectly grateful and justly refuse lo lend him a halfpenny ;
and on the contrary, you may be willing to lend, or even lo give

478 NOTES ON
hira ten times the sum which he lent you, and yet be justly ac
cused of the blackest ingratitude, and of not having fulfilled the
hundredth part of the obligation you lie under," — Smith's Moral
Sentiments, vol. i. p. 437.
The same observations may be applied to the sentiment of in
gratitude, and to the actions flovving from il. " Exaraine,"
says Mr. Hume, " the crime of ingratitude, which has place
wherever we observe good will expressed and known, together
with good offices perforraed on the one side, and a return of ill-
will or indifference, with ill offices or neglect on the olher.
Anatoraize all these circumstances, and examine by your rea
son alone in what consists the demerit or blame ; you never
will corae lo any issue or conclusion."
" Reason judges of raatter of fact and relations." "There
is no raatter of fact vvhich can be called crirae ; the ill-will or
the indifference reside in the persons who are ungrateful ; they
are not always crimes, but becorae so vvhen directed towards
persons who have before displayed good-will towards us." As
to the relation to be considered here, " it consists in the rela
tion of contrariety, between good-will and good offices in one,
and ill-will and ill offices in another ; but the relation of con
trariety does not prove the crime ; for if a person has ill-will
and ill offices towards me, and if I have indifference towards
him and do hira good offices, he has the same relation of
contrariety towards rae, yet ray conduct is often highly laudable.
Therefore we never can rest iramorality on relations, but must
have recourse to sentiment." Upon the whole he states, that
" the crime of ingratitude is not any particular individual fact,
but arises from a complication of circurastances, which being
presented to the spectator, excites the sentiment of blame by the
particular structure and fabric of his mind." — Vol. ii. p,
361, This accouut of ingratitude I allow, with Dr. Reid, to be
" true and intelligible ;" but with him I understand the word
sentiment to imply a judgment accompanied wilh feeling, not
a mere feeling without judgment. — Reid's Essays, p. 484,
Now that reason which has been employed to invent rules
for gratitude, implies judgment without feeling ; and if it be
unable to analyze the sentiment of ingratitude itself, it must

THE SPITAL SERMON. 479
be equally unable lo furnish rules for measuring the degrees
of ungrateful actions.
If, then, general rules aboul gratitude are confessedly so loose,
must we conclude that men know not how to be grateful ? Ex
perience proves the contrary. Where the affection is strong,
where the intentions of him that feels it are sincere, where his
exertions are active, and his general disposition is benevolent,
small is the danger of error in defect or in excess.
In regard to the principles that have been laid down for de
termining whether we are lo assist a virtuous raan, or a bene
factor less virtuous, I would say of them, as Adam Smith says
of the works of the Casuists, " That they attempt to direct
by precise rules what it generally belongs only to feeling and
sentiraent to judge of. They could be of little use lo one who
should consult them upou occasion, even supposing their de
cisions lo be just, because, notwithstanding the multitude of
cases collected in them, yet upon account of the still greater va
riety of possible circurastances, it is a chance if among all those
cases there be found one exactly parallel to that under consi
deration. None of them tend lo aniraate us to what is generous
and noble ; none of them tend to soften us to what is gentle
and humane ; many of them, on the contrary, lend rather to
teach us to chicane wilh our ovvn consciences ; and by their vain
subtilties, serve lo authorize innumerable evasive refinements
with regard to the most essential articles of our duty." — Vol. ii.
p. 393,
Should it, however, be asked, whether the general character
of a benefactor, or his motives upon any particular occasion to
confer a benefit, are lo be totally disregarded ? my answer is,
that they are not. But, without giving any countenance to the
rules which have sometimes been laid down for our behaviour, I
will slate clearly from Adam Smith, some considerations which
have been confusedly and darkly insisted upon by other authors,
" What gratitude chiefly desires, is not only lo make the be
nefactor feel pleasure in his turn, but lo make him conscious
that he meets with this reward in consequence of his past con
duct, to make him pleased with that conduct, and to satisfy him
that the person upon whom he bestowed his good offices vvas
not unworthy of them. What most of all charms us in our be.

480 NOTES ON
nefactor is the concord between his sentiments and our ovvn,
with regard to what interests us so nearly as the worth of our
own character, and the esteem that is due to us. We are de
lighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves,
and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an atten
tion not unlike that with vvhich we distinguish ourselves. To
maintain in hira these agreeable and flattering sentiments is
one of the chief ends proposed by the returns vve are disposed
to make to him. A generous mind often disdains the inter
ested thought of extorting new favours frora its benefactor,
by what raay be called the importunities of its gratitude. But
10 preserve, and to increase his esteera, is an interest which the
greatest raind does not think unworthy of its attention. And
this is the foundation of what I formerly observed, that when
we cannot enter into the motives of our benefactor, when his
conduct and character appear unworthy of our approbation, let
his services be ever so great, our gratitude is always sensibly
diminished."— Vol. i. p. 233.
Here we have a stateraent of facts, not a code of rules. Con
sidered as a stateraent, it is very intelligible, it is very just,
too, and it is, raoreover, so very obvious frora every man's
experience, that no man needs to be reminded of il for the pur
pose of restraining his gratitude. His sentiraents will suggest
the whole, without any assistance from the severe and minute
operations of his reason, as the word is understood by sorae
writers. Esteera for virtue, and indignation against vice, are natural
affections, and they are so conducive both to general and parti
cular good, that we raust often wish the profession of thera more
sincere, the feeling of thera raore intense, and the effects of
thera raore frequent than they generally are. But gratitude,
and filial or parental love, are affections equally natural, and
when they operate only in a just proportion to other affections,
requiring other duties, they also contribute both directly to par
ticular and indirectly to general good. The presence of them
is one of the virtues which attract our esteera, and the absence of
thera one of the vices which provoke our indignation. I con
tend, therefore, that being sometimes parts of virtue, and
often the instruraents of happiness, they ought not lo be ex-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 481
eluded from any system wbich professes to instruct us in vir
tue, or to guide us to happiness. I further contend, that they
would be less meritorious, and less salutary, if they were per
mitted to influence our behaviour solely by the measure of moral
merit or demerit in their objects. Nay, I contend still further,
that virtue may exist under circumstances where the quantity
of moral worth in a fellow-creature is not regarded, as, for in
stance, in the feeling of compassion, and in the acts to which
compassion prompts us, towards distress considered merely as
distress. And it may exist also under circumstances where the
want of moral worth is not considered, as in forgiveness, and
in the acts to which forgiveness incites us, towards an envious
rival, or a malicious enemy.
In regard to friends, children, or benefactors, the direct causes
which call our affections into action, are the relative situation, or
the relative deserts of our fellow-creatures, Bul the indirect
causes of restraining those affections are accidental — they may
vary indefinitely — they cannot be illustrated by extreme cases,
nor do they admit any rules clear, precise, and comprehensive.
The former causes can be ascertained more easily and more
frequently than the latter ; and in practical cases (for of specu
lative and hypothetical ones, there is no end, and indeed no use),
the latter can rarely have such force as to supersede entirely
the moral obligations which result from the forraer.
.General benevolence requires, doubtless, that we should con
sider the virtue of another man, as one of the causes for which
he may become an object of kind affection and kind offices ;
but not to the exclusion of olher causes. " Our understanding
and power," says Hutcheson, " are limited, so that we cannot
knovv many other natures, nor is our utmost power capable of
promoting the happiness of many : our actions are therefore
influenced by some stronger affections than this general bene
volence. There are certain qualities found in some beings more
than in others, which excite stronger degrees of good-will, and
determine our attention to their interests, while that of others
is neglected. The ties of blood, benefits conferred upon us,
and the observation of virtue in others, raise much more vigo
rous affections, than that general benevolence which we may
VOL. II. 2 I

482 NOTES ON
have toward all. These qualities or relations we may call the
causes of love." — Hutcheson on the Passions, page 309.
More than once I have had occasion to remark, that the doc
trines of the new philosophy are founded upon partial and
confused views of real facts, and become erroneous and mis
chievous by the excess lo which they are indiscriminately pushed.
" Araong the irregularities of our natural sentiments," Smith
says, " our love and admiration for some virtues is such,
that we would wish to bestow upon them all sorts of honours
and rewards, even those which we must acknowledge to be the
proper recompences of some other qualities with which those
virtues are not always accompanied. But nature bestows upon
every virtue and every vice that precise reward or punishment
which is best fitted to encourage the one, or to restrain the
other. She is directed by this sole consideration, and pays litlle
regard to the different degrees of merit and deraerit which they
may seem to possess in the sentiraents and passions of man." —
i. 420. Now, supposing our modern philanthropists to be ac
tuated, not by an undue love of paradox, but by a sincere
regard for virtue, still I must contend that they are mistaken,
when they would transfer to the virtuous man those rewards
which are due to the benefactor. The same voice of nature
which prompts us to reward the one, prompts us also lo reward
the other ; and the same course of moral causes and effects
which procures a reward for the one, procures it also for the
other. The proper reward of a benefit conferred is tbe return
of benefit. " The proper rewards of truth, justice, and hu
manity," says Smith, " are the confidence, the esteera, and love
of those we live with. Huraanity does not desire to be great, but
to be beloved. It is not in being rich that truth and justice
would rejoice, but in being trusted and believed, recorapences
which those virtues always acquire." — P. 416. But when we
take upon ourselves to neglect the benefactor, and to prefer as
the object of benefits frora ourselves the more virtuous raan,
we not only withdraw frora that benefactor the recorapence due
to his acts of kindness towards ourselves, but virtually inflict a
kind of punishment upon him for the want of equal worth.
We give to the virtuous raan a reward which he did not seek,
directly or indirectly, and we refuse to the benefactor a reward

THE SPITAL SERMON, 483
to which by the coraraon sentiments and the common prac
tice of mankind he is evidently entitled. But if the person
thus preferred were in reality a virtuous man, he might not
be in haste to accept the kindness that was offered him upon
such conditions, he raight feel the dignity of conscious worth
insulted by the mockery of such homage, he might disdain to
take any share in the unhallowed spoils holden out to him by
ingratitude. If it were my misfortune to meet with any huraan being who
should maintain, that the moral deserts of his fellow-creatures
are the only measure for his kindness towards iheni, and that by
disregarding all other measures he would himself act raost con
formably to the principles of virtue, and most effectually for the
happiness of his species, I should, for the refutation of his error,
fix upon the claims of a benefactor to whom he objects sorae
faults, and I should expostulate with the objector in these serious
terras :
Who art thou that judgest another ? Who hath laid open to
thee every thought of thy benefactor's heart, or made lo thee
every effect, and every tendency of his actions, known ? Who
hath revealed to thee every extenuating circurastance of his mis
conduct, or every secret, minute, and exquisitely delicate motive,
which in the sight of heaven may have enhanced the merit of his
better deeds ? Who has thrown open to Ihy view the register in
which are recorded all that he hath done well, and all that he
hath done araiss, " from his youth upward even until novv ?" If
the tree which is very good can easily be discerned from the tree
which is very corrupt, yet in most of the objects that are placed
before thee, canst thou determine how many blossoras of virtue
have faded away by want of nourishment, from opportunity, or
encouragement, or example f How many have reached their
full maturity, unobserved by thee ? How many roots of good in
tention may yet be exerapt from decay, and in due season bring
forth fruit, sorae ten, and sorae an hundred fold ?
And, besides all this — In searching for the raote that is in thy
brother's eye, art thou quite sure tbat the beara is cast out frora
thine own ? Art thou superior to the wayward prejudices of edu
cation ? to the mechanical force of custom — to the blind irape-
luosity of appetite — to the sudden and irregular sallies of imagi-
2 I 2

484 NOTES ON
nation^to the false colourings in vvhich passion is wont to deco
rate or to blacken the objects of desire or of aversion ? And
while thou art subject to all, or lo any, of these iraperfections, is
it not probable that lo sorae virtues thou mayest be more partial,
and more indulgent to sorae vices, than " the wisdora which is
from above" may warrant ? Conscious thou mayest be of errors,
of infirmities, of evil dispositions, or of evil habits ; and while
the stings of afiiiction, or the shafts of adversity pierce thy soul,
if they with whora thou hast wept when they wept, and rejoiced
when they rejoiced, should raake thee no return of syrapathy
and succour, — if under pretences of a regard to truth, they should
add insult to neglect, — if frora pleas of conformity to justice,
they sbould recount thy faults, instead of assuaging thy sorrows,
— is it possible that thou shouldest consider Ihem as doing to an
other man, what another man, even in their estiraation, ought to
do unto them ? As a comforter, who is called upon lo administer
comfort, thou canst not err ; but as a self-appointed judge, thou
mayest err, and injure by error. Unknown thou raust be in part
to thyself, and thy benefactor, in the wbole extent of his agency,
is yet raore unknown. But his good will and good services to
thee are known, aud known to thee would be thy duty also, if
the voice of nature within thee were heard. Turn away then
frora the refineraenls of vain philosopy, and ask thy own heart
for " it will tell thee more than seven watchmen who sit on a
high tower." — Eccles. xxxvii. 14.
Note 54, p. 380.
The consequences " of the radical position, that we are
bound in justice to do all the gcod we can, and that all moral
duty is comprised in justice," are stated with great clearness by
Mr. Green : " Allow the first position," says he, " and all the
inferences follow so clearly, and irresistibly, that it seems impos
sible to elude their force, however subversive they may be of the
principles which have hitherto governed the conduct of man
kind. " If we are bound in justice lo do all the good in our power,
to produce the greatest sum of happiness in sentient nature,
which it is within the compass of our faculties to effect, then.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 485
doubtless, justice being altogether an inflexible duty, admitting
no dispensation, no remission, no, not for a moment, our whole
mind must be solely directed to this single purpose ; and the
desire to effect it must constitute the only legitimate motive of
human action. Then, whatever leads us lo act upon any olher
incitement, or with any other view, must be extirpated or sub
dued, as revolting against the rules of justice. Then, every pas
sion and emotion of the human heart raust be extinguished as
abhorrent to our duty ; it being in the essence of all affections
of this kind, lo prompt us to act upon particular motives, some
times not apparently conducive to the general good, and never
certainly grounded upon it. Then patriotism, friendship, grati
tude, affection, pity, all the public and privale virtues, all the
social and doraestic charities, which have hitherto been consi
dered as the best blessings and surest hope, as well as the grace
and ornament of our nature, must be effectually rooted from our
feelings, as creating an unjust preference in favour of certain in
dividuals, or descriptions of individuals, independently of their
disposition and their power to co-operate with us in proraoting
the general good. Then, whatever obstructs us in the pursuit
of this good, is an abateable nuisance. All determinate rules are
blind restrictions. All legal property is inveterate injustice : I
have a right to as much as I conceive will best enable me to ac
complish my grand project : and nobody has a right to any other
portion upon any other title. All law is usurpation upon reason ;
all judicial process, fetters and oppression ; prevailing sentiments
and manners, antiquated prejudice. If we accept the principle,
we must take the consequences — Ihey are potentially included."
— See page 15th of Mr. Green's examination of the leading prin
ciples of the new System of Morals.
I perfectly agree with Mr. Green, that " what gives force to
the whole body of the new system of morals, is the opinion
which has lately prevailed, that virtue consists altogether in
utility — that it is the beneficial or pernicious tendency of any
action, which alone constitutes it virtuous or vicious," — Seepage
16th of the above-mentioned Work. Mr. Hurae is the avowed,
and, perhaps, the most able advocate for that opinion ; yet, he
allows to our affections that force which his followers deny.
" The social virtues of humanity and benevolence, exert their

486 NOTES ON
infiuence iraraedlately, by a direct tendency or instinct, which
keeps chiefly in view the simple object, — moving the affections,
and comprehends not any scheme or system, nor the consequence
resulting frora the concurrence, imitation, or example of others,
A parent flies to the relief of his child ; transported by that na
tural sympathy, which actuates hira, and which affords us leisure
to reflect on the sentiraents or conduct of the rest of mankind in
like circurastances. A generous man embraces cheerfully an
opportunity of serving his friend ; because he then feels himself
under the dorainion of the beneficent affections, nor is he con
cerned vvhether any other person in the universe was ever before
actuated by such noble motives, or will ever aftervvards prove
their influence. In all these cases, the social passions have in
view a single individual object, and pursue alone the safety and
happiness of the person loved and esteemed. With this they are
satisfied ; in this they acquiesce. And as the good resulting
from their benign influence, is in itself complete and entire, it
also excites the raoral sentiraent of approbation, without any
reflection upon further consequences, and without the raore en
larged views ofthe concurrence or imitation of the other mem
bers of society." — Essays, vol. ii, pp. 371, 372.
If the justice upon which some late philosophers have expa
tiated, and whieh lends to destroy all rights to property and all
inequalities of possession, were realized, it would supersede the
necessity of justice as the word is ordinarily understood. " The
rules of equity or justice depend entirely upon the particular
slate and condition in which raen are placed, and owe their
origin and existence lo utility, which results to the public frora
their strict and regular observance. Reverse, in any considera
ble circurastance, the condition of men ; produce extreme abun
dance, or extrerae necessity : implant in the huraan breast per
fect moderation and humanity, or perfect rapaciousness and ma
lice : by rendering justice totally useless, you thereby totally
destroy its essence, and suspend its obligation upon raankind." —
Easays, vol. ii. p. 254.
A raan of plain coraraon sense, would be surprised to hear,
that a terra which, according to the received opinion of man
kind, pre-supposes the existence of property and unequal posses
sion, should be adopted in a system which tends to destroy pro-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 487
perty and equalize possession — that a common name is given to
subjects so widely different as justice, in the language of the old
philosophy, and justice according to the doctrines of tbe new —
that the virtue which, according to the old, derives its origin
from utility, should be quite incompatible wilh the virtue
which, according to the new, is founded upon the sarae ge
neral principle of utility, and described by the same appellation
of justice: "Non noslmm est tantas componere lites."
Note 55, p. 381,
Mr. Green properly denies that, because " the end of virtue is
the general good, it is tendency of it to this end, which deter
mines us to distinguish it as virtue, and because the final cause
of moral distinction is utility, therefore that utility must be its
proximate cause also," — P. 22, Nay, he affirms, " that there is
no single instance in the vvhole moral economy of man, in which
the end lo be attained is the motive appointed to attain it.
Thus the end of parental affection is the preservation of helpless
infancy. But do we love our children on that account ? The ul
timate end here too is the general good ; but does it form any
part of the incitement ?" — P. 23. " So far," says he, " are we from
estimating virtue on this principle, that, if a man could bring
hiraself, by any effort, to perform any one ofthe virtues wilh this
view, to discharge, for example, very punctually, all the duties
of gratitude and humanity without any of the ordiuary motives
to such actions, without any kind of grateful emotion or fellow-
feeling, but purely from a conviction of the ultimate tendency of
such conduct to promote the general good, he would be an ob
ject lo us rather of disgust and aversion." — P. 27.
Note 56, p. 381.
We are told that, " if by gratitude we understand a senti
ment of preference which I entertain towards another upon the
ground of my having been the subject of his benefits, it is no
part either of justice or virtue:" and in a note subjoined to this
sentence we are further told, that " this argument is stated with
great clearness in an Essay on the Nature of true Virtue, by

488 NOTES ON
Jonathan Edwards, Author of a celebrated Work on the Free
dom of the Will."— Political Justice, vol. i, p. 129.
The principle contained in the position about gratitude, and
the fact contained in the note about Mr. Edwards, shall be con
sidered separately.
As every enquiry concerning the merit of gratitude is of the
highest importance, it becomes us to remeraber carefully what
the question before is not, as well as what it is.
The question is not, whether any social affection, e. g, the
gratitude we feel to our benefactors, or (we may add by way of
illustration only) the love we have for our parents, or the regard
we bear to our country, may not sometiraes be carried lo such
an excess as to be criminal.
No raan will deny tbat Blossius would have been crirainal, if
he had set fire to the capitol of Rorae, in consequence of his
personal attachment, and probably personal obligations, to Tibe
rius Gracchus. — Cicero de Amicitia, vol. ii. p. 545.
No man will deny that Agesilaus would have been crirainal if,
in obedience to his father, he had passed a sentence of which his
conscience did not approve. — Plutarch, vol. ii. p. 534. edit.
Xylandri, No man will deny that Themistocles was criminal when, for
the advantage of the Athenians, he made a proposal which the
Athenians had the raagnaniraity to reject, for burning the ships
of the Greek States which had sought shelter in the harbour of
Athens. — Plutarch, vol. i. p. 122.
Again, the question is not whether any oblique views of selfish
ness in a benefactor, or any general defects in his moral charac
ter, raay not weaken the feeling of gratitude, and slacken the
obligation to a grateful return — I say weaken, but not extin
guish : slacken, but not supersede.
The question is, whether siraply, universally, in the presence
or in the absence of any collateral considerations whatsoever,
the '' sentiment of preference which I entertain towards another
upon the ground of my having been the subject of his benefits
be, or be not, a part either of justice or virtue."
Seneca, I remember, where he is enquiring " a quibus accipi-
endura esset beneficiura," and where he answers, " ab his quibus
dedisse vellemus," makes a distinction in the high language of

THE SPITAL SERMON, 489
the stoical school. " Non loqui se de sapientibus, quos quidquiJ
oportet, et juvat, qui animum in potestate habent, et legem sibi
quam volunt, dicunt, et quara dixerunt, servant : sed de iraper-
fectis hominibus, honesta sequi volentibus, quorum affectus saepe
contumaciter parent," — Lib. ii. de Benefic.
In discussing, therefore, this question about gratitude, I pro
fess not to instruct those modern sages, if such there be, who,
i-evering the omnipotence of truth, the immutability of justice,
and the infallibility of reason, have reached the same empyreum
of virtue to which the wise raan of the Stoics aspired. I would
be understood to speak only de iraperfectis horainibus, honesta
tem sequi volentibus, and they, I suppose, comprize all the
known natives of Asia, Africa, and America, and all the inhabit
ants of Europe, except the chosen few who may have entered
into the school of our new philosophy, as Cato frequented that
of the Stoics, non solum disputandi causa, sed ita vivendi," —
Vide Ciceronis Orat. pro Muraena.
" The sentiment," says Sraith, " which most immediately and
directly prompts us lo reward is gratitude; lo us, therefore, that
action must appear to deserve reward, which appears to be the
proper and approved object of gratitude. To reward is lo re
compense, to remunerate, to return good for good received."
" A system of natural philosophy," says Sraith, " may appear
very plausible, and be for a long lirae generally received by the
world, and yet have no foundation in nature. But in moral phi
losophy, he who pretends lo account for the origin of our moral
sentiments cannot deceive us so grossly ; a departure so very far
from all resemblance to truth. If he deceives us at all, he is like
a person that would inforra us of what passes in our neighbour
hood, and the falsehoods he imposes upon us must have some
resemblance to truth, and even a considerable mixture of truth
in them." — Vol. ii. p. 321.
Now, is there any feeUng upon which raen are more " in their
own neighbourhood,'' than in the feeling of gratitude ? Is there
any subject upon which they can with more confidence apply
the observation of Hooker, that " the most certain token of evi
dent goodness is, if the general persuasion of all men do so ac
count il !" — Ecclesiast. Polit. p. 80. Will they not tell you that,
" of all the duties of benevolence, those vvhich gratitude recom-

490 NOTES ON
mends to us approach nearest to what is called a perfect and
complete obligation ?" That " what friendship, what generosity,
what charity, would prompt us to do vvith universal approbation,
is still raore free, and can still less be extorted by force, than the
duties of gratitude ? That we talk of the debt of gratitude, not
of charity, or generosity, nor even of friendship, when friendship
is mere esteera, and has not been enhanced and complicated with
with gratitude for good offices ?" — Moral Sentiraents, vol. i. p,
195, Will they not sissent to the raaxira of Chrysippus, " Qui
gratus futurus sit, ilium velut in certamen cursus corapositura, et
carceribus inclusum, opperiri debere suum tempus, ad quod,
velut dato signo, prosiliat ?" Seneca de Benef. lib. ii. Will they
not say, that mythology was never applied more laudably to the
illustration of raorality, than by the people who x^P^rwv lepbv
efiirobwv eiroiovvTO,'iva dvrairoboais e'irj. Alist. Ethic, li'O. v. cap,
V, edit. Wilkinson. Will they not tell you, that the gratitude of
raan reserables, vvith reverence be it spoken, the justice of God,
" tbe justice of one, that requireth nothing raincingly, but all
with pressed, and heaped, and even overenlarged raeasure." — See
Hooker, p. 93.
As to ingratitude, without maintaining it to be a vice, " sine
quo vix ullum magnum facinus accreverit," do they not feel
" esse istud grave vitiura, esse intolerabile, et quod dissociet ho
mines, et concordiara, qua irabecillitas nostra fulcitur, scindat ac
dissipet ?" — Vide Sen. de Benef. lib. i. & lib. vii.
Amidst all the iraperfections of human language, the princi
ples of gratitude have fixed and intelligible terras. I have, in
deed, read of one eicception, in the storehouse of Stoical refine
ments, and of the raethod, too, in which the exception is to be
solved, " A consuetudine quaedara quae diciraus abhorrent ;
deinde, alia v ia ad consuetudinera redeunt. Dicimus eura qui
beneficiura bono anirao accepit gratiara retulisse, nihilorainus
illura in aere alieno relinquiraus, gratiara relaturura etiam cum
reddiderit, Exhortatio est ilia, non inficiatio beneficii." — Sen,
de Benef lib. xi. p. 28. But, when " gratitude, as a sentiment
of preference, upon the ground of our having been the subject
of benefits'' frora another man, is said to be " no part of justice
or virtue," " a consuetudine quae ita dicta sunt, abhorrent,
neque ulla via in consuetudinera redeunt."

THE SPITAL SERMON, 491
About eighteen years ago I read Mr. Edwards's Enquiry into
the modern prevailing notions of the Freedom of the Will, &c.
and I afterwards lent it to a learned friend, whom it corapletely
detached from the comraon opinions, or, perhaps I should rather
say, frora the popular language of raen, upon a subject over
which the serra Xoyofiaxias has been, and hereafter will be
drawn, again and again. Charmed as I was with the metaphy
sical acuteness and the fervent piety of the writer, I becarae very
desirous to read his Dissertations " concerning the end for which
God created the World, and the Nature of true virtue," I met
wilh them about the year 1790; and 1 found in them the same
romantic imagination, the sarae keen discernment, the same lo
gical subtlety, and the same unextinguishable ardour.
Mr. Edwards is a writer who exercises our minds, even where
he does not satisfy thera ; who interests us, vvhere he does not
persuade ; who instructs and improves us, where he does not ul
timately convince; and, as I know his authority to be very great,
araong a nuraerous and pious class of Christians, it is of sorae
importance that his real opinions should be clearly understood.
From his own words then, I will endeavour to show that, in his
estimation, gratitude is, in many respects, not unconnected with
justice : and that the virtue from which he distinguishes it, is
essentially different from the virtue of which the author of Po
litical Justice pronounces it to be no part.
" There is a secondary kind of beauty," says Edwards, " in the
virtue called justice, which consists in the agreement of different
things that have relation to one another in nature, manner, and
measure. There is this agreement, in nature and raeasure, when
he that loves has the proper returns of love ; where he that from
his heart promotes the good of another, has his good promoted
by the other; as tiiere is a kind of justice in a becoraing grati
tude." — P. 132. I have quoted these words already for another
purpose. But further, "if we should allow that to be universal, that in
gratitude there is the exercise of some kind of moral sense (as it
is granted there is something that may be so called), all the
moral sense that is essential to that affection is a sense of desert,
vvhich is to be referred to that sense of justice before spoken of,
consisting in an apprehension of that secondary kind of beauty

492 NOTES ON
that lies in uniforraity or proportion. Others love and kindness
to us appears to us lo deserve our love, or, in other words, it
seeras to us no olher than just, that, as they love us and do us
good, we should also love them and do thera good." — P. 164.
(I orait the words which relate to anger.)
" That fore-raentioned approbation of justice and desert,
arising from a sense of the beauty of natural agreement and pro
portion, will have a kind of reflex and indirect influeuce to cause
men lo approve benevolence, as men see that he who is benevo
lent and loves others, and does them good, deserves hiraself also
to be beloved and rewarded by others, as they see the natural con
gruity or agreeraent, and rautual adajttedness of these things ;
and having always seen this, the idea of benevolence is habitually
connected and associated, wilh the idea of being loved and re
warded 'oy others, which is grateful to self-love ; and by virtue of
this association of ideas, benevolence itself becomes grateful, and
the contrary displeasing." — P. 170.
Mr. Edwards, in another part of his book, makes gratitude, as
explained by hiraself, subject to conscience. " The other thing,"
savs he, " which belongs to the approbation of national con
science, is the sense of desert which was spoken of before ; con
sisting in a natural agreeraent between loving and being loved,
between shewing kindness and being rewarded." — P. 176.
Further still, " Another reason why the Ihings which have
been mentioned, i. e. natural affection, natural pity, &c. are mis
taken for virtue, is, that there is indeed a true negative moral
goodness in thera. They have this negative moral goodness, be
cause a being without them would be an evidence of a much
greater moral evil,"
Frora the foregoing passages it is plain that Mr, Edwards re
presents gratitude as a part of justice, according to his own ex
planation of the latter word. He does not indeed consider gra
titude as a part of what, according to his own peculiar systera,
and his own peculiar language, is true virtue. But we shall now
examine in what true virtue, according to Mr. Edwards, consists ;
and by such exaraination we shall see that wben Mr. Edwards,
and the author of Political Justice denied gratitude to be a part
of virtue, they apply the sarae terra virtue to subjects essentially

THE SPITAL SERMON. 493
different, and consequently that their notions of gratitude, as
forming no part of virtue, have little or no resemblance.
In p. 127, Mr. Edwards says, "True virtue most essentially
consists in benevolence to beings in general." In p. 128, he ex
plains that proposition by saying, that " he does not raean to say
that no one act of tbe mind, or exercise of love, is of the nature
of true virtue, but what has being in general, or the great systera
of universal existence, for its direct and immediate object ; so
that no exercise of love, or kind affection to any one particular
being, that is, but a small part of this whole, has any thing of
the nature of true virtue ; bul, that the nature of true virtue
consists in a disposition to benevolence towards being in general,
though from such a disposition may arise exercises of love to
particular beings, as objects are presented and occasions arise."
In p. 131 he says, "The first object ofa virtuous benevolence is
being simply considered ; and if being, simply considered, be its
object, then being in general is its object ; and the thing it has
an ultimate propensity to is the highest good of being in gene
ral ; and it will seek the good of every individual being, unless
it be conceived as not consistent with the highest good of being
in general."
Having thus stated the priraary object of virtuous love, he, in
p. 132, contends, "that the secondary object of a virtuous pro
pensity of heart, is a benevolent being !"
From these premises he concludes, in p. 135, " that true virtue
must consist chiefly in love to God, the Being of beings, infi-
finitely the greatest and best of beings, and this, he maintains,
apjiears, whether we consider the primary or secondary ground
of virtuous love."
Now gratitude, in his opinion, does not form a part of this
true and primary virtue, though we have before seen that he
allows a place to it in the secondary class of virtues ; and such a
part as even connects it with justice.
I am not disposed to rail at any raan for opinions, nor to cavil
wilh him about words. But I must confess that, in the book
upon Political Justice, there appears to rae " nec vola nec vesti
gium" of that virtue which Mr. Edwards calls " true and pri
mary ;" that virtue, which consists in the love of being in ge-

494 NOTES ON
neral ; that virtue, which necessarily has the Deity for its first
and greatest object.
Whatever virtue may be, according to the author of Political
Justice, evidently it is not the true virtue of which Mr. Edwards
speaks. In the book upon Political Justice much is said of a regard to
general good, by which, I suppose, was meant the good of man ;
and if in the judgment ofthe writer this regard was virtuous, I
suspect that Mr. Edwards, having in view what he calls true
virtue, would have raaintained such regard not to be virtuous.
" It is raanifest," says Edwards, " that no affection limited lo any
privale system, not dependent on, nor subordinate to being in
general, can be ofthe nature of true virtue; and this, whatever
the private systera be, let it be more or less extensive, consisting
of a greater or smaller number of individuals, so long as it con
tains an infinitely little part of universal existence, and so bears
no proportion to the great all comprehending system." — Disser
tations, p. 141.
My iraraediate concern is, not in the truth or falsehood of Mr,
Edwards's systera, but in the reserablance which it has, or has
not, to that position in the work upon Political Justice, vvhich
pronounces g^atitude, under a certain respect, to be no part of
justice or virtue.
In the Preface ofthe Enquiry into the Original of our Ideas of
Beauty and Virtue, Hutcheson supposes that, " it would have
moved the indignation of Lord Shaftesbury to find a dissolute set
of men searching into his writings for his insinuations against
Christianity, that they may be the less restrained frora their de
baucheries; when, at the same time, Iheywere incapable of re
lishing those noble sentiraents of virtue and honour which he has
placed in so lovely a light." Would not Mr. Edwards have felt
equal, or even greater indignation, if he had found the avowed
advocates of infidelity raisrepresenting, or at least misconceiving,
his notion of true virtue ; and misapplying the arguraents which
he urged in defence of it, to the discredit of that gratitude which,
under certain circumstances, and witb certain restrictions, he
approved as part of justice itself ? In p. 56 of Mr. Hall's ad
mirable Sermon, raany judicious, and, I think, decisive objec
tions are brought against the fundamental principle of Mr. Ed-

THE SPITAL SERMON, 495
wards; and they who wish to go more deeply inlo the subject,
would do well to peruse section sixth in Mr. Hutcheson's Illus
tration of the Moral Sense, where he exaraines " how far a regard
to the Deity is necessary to make an action virtuous." When
they have read Mr. Hutcheson, they may, with great advantage,
enquire by what raeans the love of God, according to the laws of
association, is generated, and to what extent we are capable of
reaching it ; and for this purpose let Ihem see Hartley on the
Pleasures and Pains of Theopathy. — P. 289 and p. 696 of the
notes and additions by Pistorius.
Since my examination of Mr. Edwards's opinion may have led
the mind of the reader to the love of God as reserabling benevo-
volence, he raay not think his time misspent in perusing what has
been said upon that subject by other and more sober writers,
" Our affections towards the Deity," says Hutcheson, " arise in
the same manner as towards our fellows, and are in proportion
to our attention to the causes of love in Hira, and the goodness of
our teraper. The reflection on his goodness raises approbation
and complacence ; his benefits raise gratitude, and both occasion
good-will or benevolence." — Illustrations on the Moral Sense,
p. 312.
" The love of God," says Mr. Bentham, " is a kind of sympathy
or good-will, which has the Deity for its object." — Introduction
upon Motives, p. lOS.
Barrow, after describing love in general lo be '' an affection or
inclination of the soul towards an object, proceeding frora an
apprehension and esteera of some excellency therein, its beauty,
worth, or usefulness ;" after observing that " these and other
properties well agree with that love which we owe to God;" and
after stating that " the faint reserablance of the Creator in things
created are apt to allure our affections to thera ;" then asks,
" why should not, frora a like, but so rauch greater cause, the
like effect proceed ? Whence can it be that the apprehension of
an object so infinitely lovely, so incomparably beneficial, if not
passing cursorily through our fancy, but deeply impressed upon
our mind, should act proportionably, affect, and incline us towards
him, with all that desire, that delight, that good will, which are
proper to love." — .Sermon, xxiii. vol, i.
They who might impute mysticism to Mr. Edwards, must

496 NOTES ON
allow that Bishop Butler possessed what Seneca calls " subtile
acumen ingenii in imam penetrans veritatem." " That," says
he, " which we more strictly call piety, or the love of God, and
which is an essential part of a right temper, some may, perhaps,
iraagine no way connected with benevolence ; yet surely Ihey
must be connected, if there be indeed in being an object infi
nitely good. Huraan nature is so constituted, that every good
affection iraphes the love of itself, i. e. becomes the object of a
new affection in the same person. Thus, to be righteous, implies
in it the love of righteousness ; to be benevolent, the love of
benevolence; lobe good, the love of goodness; whether this
righteousness, benevolence, or goodness, be viewed as in our own
mind, or in another's, and the love of God as a being perfectly
good, is the love of perfect goodness contemplated in a being or
person." Sermon xi. p. 259.
Butler was never slovenly nor lavish in the use of words, I
raust therefore warn ray readers, that when he speaks of" the love
of perfect goodness as contemplated in a being or person," he
shews, even in those farailiar words, his profound insight inlo
the constitution and operations of the huraan mind. My ob
servation shall be supported by the testiraony of no contemptible
philosopher, "In tracing our emotions and passions to their
origin, ray first thought was, that qualities and actions are the
priraary causes of emotions ; and that these emotions are after
wards expanded upon the being to which these qualities and
actions belong. But I am now convinced that this opinion is
erroneous : an attribute is not, even in iraagination, separable
frora the being to which it belongs ; and, for that reason, cannot
itself be the cause of any eraotion. We have, it is true, no know
ledge of any being or substance but by raeans of its attributes ;
and therefore no being can be agreeable lo us as otherwise than
by their raeans. But still, when an eraotion is raised, il is the
being itself, as we apprehend the raatter, that raises the emotion ;
and it raises it by means of one or olher of its attributes."' — Ele
ments of Criticisra, vol. i. p. 36 note.
At the conclusion of this long note, I ara refreshed to see that,
without any abrupt transition, my mind has been carried on, from
the singular opinions of a modern writer about the gratitude

THE SPITAL SERMON. 497
which we owe to man, to the just and luminous representations
given by other writers of the love which we owe to God.
Note i>7, p. 3S1.
" The apathy the Stoics talk is accompanied with somewhat
amiss in the moral character, in that which is the health of the
mind. Those who formerly airaed at this upon the foot of phi
losophy, appear to have had better success, in eradicating the
effects of tenderness and corapassion, than they had with the
passions of envy, pride, and resentment." — Butler, Sermon vi,
p. 96. Note 58, p. 382.
The cause of this remark, and the whole extent to which I
wish it to be carried, will be seen by the learned reader in the
words I am about to produce frora Epistles ascribed to Plato :
'AXX' oure dvBpwirois ijyovfiai rijv eirixeiprjatv irepl avTiiv Xeyo-
fievrjv dyaBbv, ei fir) rtalv bXiyots, brroaot bvvarol dvevpelv auroi
hid fiiKpds dvbei^ews' tuiv ye bfj dXXwv, rovs fiiv Karaippovfjaews
OVK opBajs kfiirX-rjaeiev dv oitbafirj efifieXovs' rovs be, vi^ijXrjs Kai
Xavvrjs eXiribos, ws rrifiv' arra fiefiadrjKOTas. — Plalonis, Op. edit.
Serran. vol. iii. p. 341. A salutary adraonition, indeed, is here
conveyed, both lo rash and incompetent teachers, and to their
misguided and conceited disciples.
Note 59, p. 382.
See vol. i. p. 388, ofthe Miscellaneous Works of Mr. Gibbon.
I cannot refuse myself the gratification of setting before the
reader, the opinion and words of Mr. Fellowes, in his instructive
and elegant work, called, " A Picture of Christian Philosophy."
" Patriotism, like extension, must begin at a point ; but may be
increased by gradual diffusion, till it becomes a philanthropy,
that knows no other limits than the limits of nature. But as the
circulation near the heart is more warra, fresh, and vigorous,
than at the extremities, so, every man's affection for his native
country ought to be more fervent and vivid than that philan-;
VOL. II. 2 K

498 NOTES ON
thropic heart which may interest him in the happiness of distant
regions. " A good Christian will be a citizen of his own country, be
fore he will claim the too often affected appellation of a citizen
of the world ; a name frequently abused to disguise a base insen
sibility to the best affections of the huraan heart,
" But though a good Christian will glory in a partial fondness
for his ovvn country, still he will feel a lively interest for the hap
piness of other nations. He will love justice and benevolence
more than his country; and he will never consent to violate these
sacred principles, though, by the violation he might increase her
opulence or her grandeur." — Page 102,3.
My ovvn benevolence and sense of duty impel me irresistibly
to continue this note.
Mr. Fellowes has written several books both upon political and
theological subjects, and, in ray opinion, tbe ablest of them is
the " Picture of Christian Philosophy" above raentioned, a third
edition of which was published at the beginning of this year.
He is curate of Harbury in Warwickshire, where I have often
seen hira eraployed among a well-chosen collection of books, and
have been much pleased with his conversation upon many inte
resting points of ethics, literature, and divinity. Now, in conse
quence of some reproaches that have been lately thrown upon
his intellectual and moral character, I ara bounden to say that I
ara acquainted with no clergyraan in this or any neighbouring
county who is raore respectable than Mr Fellowes for diligence
in his studies, for acuteness in his understanding, for purity in
his principles, for regularity and earnestness in the discharge of
his clerical duties, or integrity in the whole tenor of his life. He
possesses only a scanty incorae, and has no prospect, I believe, of
ecclesiastical preferraent. But he administers medicine to the
sick, he gives alras to the needy, he offers instruction to tbe igno
rant, he " visits the fatherless and the widow in their affliction,"
and keeps " hiraself," in no common degree, " unspotted from
the world." What, therefore, must have been ray surprise, and
my sorrow, when I found the author of the book on Christian
Philosophy described in one of our periodical publications as a
man " presuraptuous, idolizing his own conceptions, fancying his
own reason infallible, withheld by no sense of prudence from

THE SPITAL SERMON. 499
introducing speculations not necessary lo his subject, and often
highly dangerous ; already a latitudinarian in the widest sense of
the word, descending by a natural progress from the character of
a latitudinarian lo that of a fanciful, self-willed, and merely no
minal C;hristian, differing very little, except in name, from a
deist," and exposed in the course of his enquiries " even to athe
ism?" In the annals of raodern polemics there never was a
fouler charge against any book or any author. Mr. Fellowes, I
know, is not unacquainted with the writings of Grotius, and
perhaps, when he read the critique to which I allude, it called to
his raind what Grotius said of Calvin : " Qua vero huraanitate
solilus fuerit Calvinus excipere a se dissentientes, ex scriptis
liquet. Caslellionem, qui illara, quam Calvinus docebat, praedes-'
tinationem oppugnabat, nebulonem et salanara vocal. Cornher-
liura, et nebulonera et canera, Scriptorera de officio pii viri in
hoc religionis dissidio, qui erat Cassander, ipsi autem putaba-
tur esse Balduinus, appellat frontis ferreae horainem, pietatis ex-
pertera, profanura, impudicum, irapostorera, daropyov, pelulan-
tiae deditura. Ei scripto cum se opposuisset Balduinus, vocat
eum hominem nihili, obscoenum canera, improbum, falsarium,
multa scelerate ac nequiter cogitantem, et conspirantem cum
improbis nebulonibus, cynicum, scurram, perfidum, faluum bel-
luina rabie, satanse addiclura. Quid quod Bucerura ita vexavit,
ut virum raitem coegerit ha;c scribere longe verissima" "judi-
cas, prout araas, vel odisti ; amas autem et odisti, prout libel." —
Votum pro Pace Ecclesiastica, p. 655. Grot. Op. v. iii.
But whether or no Mr. Fellowes would apply to his reviewer
what Bucer said of Calvin, he may with justice speak of himself
in the words of his favourite writer Grotius : " Pacem amavi
semper amoque, et ad eara labores meos dirigo ; pacem autera
intelligo, illaesa ea veritate, quara nobis sacra scriptura et perpe
tua traditio consignant. Hanc qui araant, fieri non potest quin
in odia incurrant eorum, qui dissidiis frui volunt, qualiurn nimis
ferax est hsec aetas. Tales pacis hostes in me insurrecluros satis
praevidi, ac facile patior, solorque me conscientia honeslissirai
propositi," — Vid, Grot. Aniraadver. in Aniraadver. Riveli, p. 649,
towards the conclusion.
I have the honour to be personally acquainted with two re
spectable men, to whose counsels and exertions must be in a
2k2

500 NOTES ON
great degree ascribed the celebrity of the publication in which I
read the accuraulated and unfounded invectives against Mr. Fel
lowes just now cited. I esteem both of them for their hterary
attainments, and 1 applaud thera for their unwearied activity in
the defence of our constitution, ecclesiastical and civil. But I
know Mr. Fellowes to be as deterrained an enemy to real impiety,
to be as sincere a believer in the Gospel, to be as laborious a stu
dent, as sound a scholar, as masterly a yvriter, and as honest a
man, as either of those gentleraen ; and surely this is no ordinary
praise. The " Picture of Christian Philosophy," even according
to the concession of the reviewer, contains raany passages favour
able to virtue and religion, and much that is well conceived and
well written," though, in his estimation, "it is one ofthe last
books that should be recoraraended to the general reader." May
I then be perraitted to ask, whether the passages which received,
and perhaps extorted so much coraraendation, might not have
induced the critic to be more temperate in his censures, more
candid in his suspicions, and more wary in his predictions ?
If a writer, who, according to our critic, " warraly and skil
fully recommends benevolence," should adraire the talents, and
soraetiraes even adopt the opinions of Dr. Darwin, is it a neces
sary, or even a probable consequence, that his veneration for Dr.
Darwin is " next only to that which he feels for hiraself; that he
is " an arrogant speculator,'' and that, " without any regard to
consequences, he plunges, or would incite his readers to plunge,
into " wanton and hasty disputation ?" It is a raark of the
reviewer's own benevolence, that he represents Mr. Fellowes as
" bending the gospel to his ovvn whims," as looking with " an
unfavourable eye upon the writings of the Apostles," as having
" it in view to raake the doctrines of genuine Christianity resem
ble the tenets of modern philosophy ?" firj yevoiro. Mr. Fel
lowes does not handle the word of God thus sottishly, nor thus
deceitfuHy. He has not so learned Christ as to confound the
truths of the gospel with the impious effusions of writers who
revile the precepts of their Redeemer, or deny the existence of
their Maker. He has sense enough to be a Christian without
bigotry, and virtue enough to be a philosopher without profane
ness. He professes Christianity from conviction, he explains it
with perspicuity, he defends it with ardour, and he comments

THE SPITAL SERMON. 501
upon the temper and actions of its blessed author with reverence
the most profound, and eloquence the raost impressive.
After all, it must be confessed that Mr. Fellowes does not
assent to some positions of Mr. Wilberforce ahout original sin.
But for the attempt to refute Mr. Wilberforce, sorae enlightened
believers may applaud, and some orthodox churchmen, I believe,
would pardon him. As lo the stale of my mind about the
book which gave rise lo the Strictures of Mr. Fellowes, the de
scription of it lies iu a narrow compass — rd fiiv c$ dpxrjs ov
fiefivrjfiai, rd bi fieaa oil avvirjfii, rd be eirl irdatv oil boKifidSw.
— M. A. P, C. xvii. N. Ill C.
To the authority of a writer who conceals his name, I raay,
vilhout the iraputation of " fancying ray own reason infallible,"
oppose my calm and serious opinion. Upon two or three points
of controversial divinity I dissent frora Mr. Fellowes ; and had 1
assuraed the office of a reviewer, I should have specified them.
But the general merits of his work are very great indeed ; and if
I ara not strangely raistaken, few persons, however extensive
may be their knowledge, however rooted their faith, however
exalted their piety, have perused it wiihout increase of that
knowledge, without confirmation of that faith, or without the
most active and delightful exercise of that piety. Many of the
observations are judicious, and some of them profound. The
style is clear, aniraated, and elegant. The spirit of the writer
is, as it ought to be, tolerant towards Christians of every sect,
but indignant against those wretches who would underraine the
principles of morality, or who scoff at the evidences of religion,
natural and revealed. I have lately conversed with some intelli
gent persons, whose sentiraents about Mr. Fellowes's book are
similar to mine, and in the honour of their impartial suffrages,
as well as the consciousness of his own raeritorious exertions, he
will find ample compensation for the injustice which has been
done to him by some unknown accuser.
Note 60, p. 382.
" Defiez-vous de ses cosraopoHtes qui vont chercher au loin dans
leurs livres des devoirs qu'ils d6daignenl de reraplir autour d'eux.
Tel Philosophe aime les Tartares pour tire dispense d'ainier ses
voisins.

502 NOTES ON
" L'homme naturel est tout pour lui ; il est I'unite num6-
rique, rentier absolu, qui n'a de rapport qu'k lui-ra6me ou Jl
son serablable. L'homme civil n'est qu'une unite fractionnaire
qui tient au d^nominateur, et dont la valeur est dans son rapport
avec I'entier, qui est le corps social." — Rousseau, .flimihus,
book i. Note 61, p. 383.
'O bi XwKpdrrjs (ieXriov, oi/K 'ABrjvalos, ovbe "EXXtjj', aXXcf
Koafiios eivat ipriaas. — Plutarch <tepl tpvyrjs, page 600. edit.
Xylan. The title bf " Citizen of the World " was assumed by
other philosophers, to gratify, it should seera, their vanity or
spleen. Thus Diogenes, epwrrjBels iroBev e'irj ; KoafiorroXirrjs, eifirj.
— D, Laertius, vol. i, page 345. edit, of Amsterdara 1692. It is
recorded of Aristippus, that he said elvat irarpiba rbv Koafiov. —
Page 138. — This is not the only instance in which I have seen a
resemblance between Aristippus and some modern writers upon
ethics. Note 62, p. 383,
" Jam vero exsilium, si rei naturara, non ignominiain nominis
quaerimus, quantum demum a perpetua peregrinatione differt ?
In qua setates suas philosophi noblissirai consurapserunt, Xeno-
crates, Crantor, et innuraerabiles alii, qui serael egressi, nun
quara doraura reverterunt.
" Socrates quidera, cum rogaretur, cujatem se esse diceret,
mundanura inquit ; totius enim mundi se incolara et civera arbi-
Irabalur." — Cicer. edit. Grut. vol. ii. p. 402, 3.
Note 63, p, 383,
See the Crito of Plato, where Socrates supposes hiraself ad
dressed by the laws — kuI ev iroXefiw Kal ev biKaarrjpiw Kal iravra-
XoiJ iroirjreov 9 dv KeXevot -Ij wvXts re Kal fj irarpis. — P. 145, of
Plato's Dialogue, by Forster. Note 64, p. 383.
These are instances — earparevaaro es 'Afi^iiroXiv, Kal Sevo-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 503
0i3vra af' 'iirirOv ireaovra ev rrj Kard AijXiov fidxfli biiawaev viro-'
Xapwv. — earparevaaro be Kal eis Jloribatav bid BaXdrTrjS — D.
Laertius, vol. i. page 93. Note 65, p. 383.
Various are the instruments which the Deity has employed for
securing the interests of virtue. We have reason, we have affec
tions, we have, what Adam Sraith calls, " a sense of propriety,
a sense of raerit and deraerit, and a sense of duiy," influenced by
the authority of coraraands and prohibitions, and by the sanc
tions of reward and punishraent. Each of them has its proper
office in the course of our agency, and all of them are subser
vient to one common end, our improvement, and our happiness,
as moral beings. There are, indeed, philosophers who leave us
no other guides than omnipotent truth, inflexible justice, and
reason, which, according to their representations, will, at last, be
jilaced beyond the reach of error. Yet, " reason alone," as says
Butler, " whatever any one raay wish, is not, in reality, a suffi
cient motive of virtue, in such a creature as man ; but this reason,
joined with those affections which God has impressed on his
heart." — See Butler, page 88.
But as to that constant and direct regard to general good,
whicli justice, truth, and reason, are said lo exact from all men
at all limes, and under all circumstances, the philosophy which
thus exalts them may be found, upon a near inspection, lo incur
the charge which a great writer has brought against the dograas
of the Stoics, and " to be ultiraately only a more refined system
of selfishness, by which we may reason ourselves out of all vir
tue." — Vol, ii. page 49. On the other hand, there are well-
meaning but mistaken religionists, who seem to think that we
ought not to be " grateful from gratitude, to be charitable from
huraanity, to protect the helplessness of our children, and sup
port the infirraities of our parents, from natural affection, to be
generous and just, from the love of raankind, but to perform all
these different duties solely because God has commanded us lo
perform thera." — Smith's Moral Sentiments, vol. i. page 429.
Now, when I spoke of what vve as Christians are bounden to
be, I grant with Adam Sraith, that "there is no precept in Chris-

504 isroTES ON
tianity which pronounces the sense of our duty to be the only
principle of our conduct;" but that revelation conspires wilh
" philosophy and comraon sense, in representing it as the ruling
and the governing principle." The second precept of the Gospel
is, to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, and we love our
selves surely," as the same philosopher well observes, " for our
own sakes, and not raerely because we are commanded to do so."
The same observation may be applied to all the directions of reli
gion about prudence, temperance, and every other virtue, which
moralists describe as included in the duly we owe to ourselves.
Thus, by the constitution of our nature, we are capable both
of general and particular benevolence; and bythe authority of
religion we are commanded to exercise both, " in loving our
neighbour as ourselves." Note 66, p. 384.
In justice to Barrow, Taylor, and sorae olher of the older and
more celebrated divines who have adorned the Church of Eng
land, I will once for all make a remark, which may not be very
congenial to the temper and prejudices of these times, but which
long, and I hope impartial, observation vvill justify rae in making
with great affiance in the truth of it. Without any attempt to
preserve the peculiar forms of philosophical investigation, with
out any habit of employing the technical language of it, without
any iraraediate consciousness of intention lo exhibit their opinions
in what is called a philosophical point of view, their incidental
representations of raan in all the varieties of his raoral powers
and his social relations, have so rauch depth, so much precision,
and so much comprehension, as would have procured them the
name of philosophers, if they had not borne the different and not
less honourable name of C'hristian teachers. In their professional
writings I have often seen the germ of thoughts which have been
expanded into fuller luxuriance, and decked with brighter co
lours, in the more popular productions of later tiraes. The pas
sages quoted frora their works in these notes, will abundantly
illustrate my observation ; and of eloquence corabined with phi
losophy, a nobler instance can scarcely be found than in the
words of Barrow, where he describes the spirit of benevolence.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 505
sometimes diffusing itself over the collective interests of man, and
sometimes emanating in the sweet and lovely charities of private
Jife. " Charity," says he, " is a right noble and worthy thing;
greatly perfective of our nature; much dignifying and beautify
ing our soul. It rendereth a man truly great, enlarging his
mind into a vast circumference, and to a capacity near infinite;
so that it by a general care doth reach all things ; by an univer
sal affection dolb erabrace and grace the world. By it our rea
son obtaineth a field or scope of eraployraent worthy of it, not
confined to the slender interests of one person or one place, but
extending to the concerns of all men. Charity is the iraitation
and copy of that iraraense love, which is the fountain of all being
and all good ; which made all Ihings, which preserveth the vvorld,
which sustaineth every creature.
" Charity rendereth us as angels, or peers to those glorious
and blessed creatures, who, wiihout receiving or expecting any
requital from us, do heartily desire and delight in our good, are
ready to proraote it, do willingly serve and labour for it. No
thing is more amiable, raore admirable, more venerable, even in
the common eye and opinion of men ; it hath in it a beauty and
a majesty apt to ravish every heart : even a spark of it in gene
rosity of deahng, breedeth adrairation ; a glimpse ofit in forraal
courtesy of behaviour procureth much esteem, being deemed to
accomplish and adorn a man ; how lovely therefoie, and truly
gallant is an entire, sincere, constant, aiid uniform practice
thereof, issuing frora pure good-will and affection !" — Barrow's
Sermons, vol. i. p. 375.
They who read these notes will have no reason to suspect that
I ara wholly insensible to the charms of just thinking and beau
tiful composition in other writers, whose opinions upon specula
tive topics of religion are widely different from my own, but
whose talents have been most laudably eraployed in supporting
the cause of virtue according to the coramon apprehensions, and
for the comnion benefit ofthe civilized world.
One of the happiest illustrations I have ever seen, both ofthe
more enlarged, and the more liraited benevolence, is in Hutche
son, and it well deserves to be quoted: "This universal benevo
lence towards all raen we may compare to that principle of gra-

506 NOTES ON
vitation, which perhaps extends to all bodies in the universe ;
but like the love of benevolence, increases as the distance is di
minished, and is strongest when bodies come to touch each
other. Now this increase of attraction, upon nearer approach,
is as necessary lo the frame of the universe, as that there should
be any attraction at all ; for a general attraction, equal in all
distances, would, by the contrariety of such multitudes of equal
forces, put an end to all its regularity of motion, and perhaps
stop it altogether." — Inquiry, p. 222, In the foregoing words
there is a coraplete description of philanthropy, so far as man,
by his nature, is capable of feeling, or by reason or religion is
required to practise it ; and there is a coraplete refutation, loo,
of the strange notions that have gone abroad, under the im
posing name of philosophy.
In No. 45 ofthe Adventurer, written by Dr. Johnson, imagery
nearly the same as that of Hutcheson is applied lo the same
subject :
" The reigning philosophy informs us, thatthe vast bodieswhich
constitute the universe, are regulated in their progress, through
the etherial spaces, by the perpetual agency of contrary forces ;
by one of which they are restrained frora deserting their orbits,
and losing themselves in the iraraensity of heaven , and held off
by the other frora rushing together, and clustering round their
center with everlasting cohesion. The sarae contrariety of im
pulse, may be, perhaps, discovered in the motions of men ; we
are formed for society, not for corabination ; we are equally un
qualified to live in a close connection with our fellow-beings, and
in total separation frora them : we are attracted towards each
other by general sympathy, but kept back from contact by pri
vate interests."
Mr. Green, whose penetration, whose taste, whose large views
in philosophy, and whose great talents for composition, entitle
him to my respect, has quoted sorae admirable lines frora Pope,
in Order to illustrate the progress of our affections :
" God acts frora whole to parts, the huraan soul
Must rise from individual to the whole.
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake.
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake :

THE SPITAL SERMON. 507
The centre mov'd, a circle straight succeeds.
Another still, and still another spreads.
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace.
Its country next, and next all human race."
I will give the reader an opportunity of comparing these lines
wilh a passage which they reserable strongly, but which Mr, Pope
in all probability had not seen : " oXws ydp eKaaros fjfiwv, olov
kvkXois iroXXols ireptyeypairrat. rols fiiv, afiiKporepots, rols bi
fiei$oai, Kal rols fiiv rrepiexovai, rols bi irepiexofievois , Kard rds
btotpopovs Kai aviaovs irpbs dXXfjXnvs ax^aets. irpSiros fiiv ydp
earl kvkXos Kal irpoaexeararos, bv avros ns KaBdirep irepl Kevrpov
rrjV eaurou yeypairrai btavoiav, ev i^ kvkXw to re awfia irepiexs-
rat, Kal rd tov awfiaros eveKa irapeiXrjfifieva, axebbv yap o /3pa-
Xvraros Kal fiiKpov belv aiiroij irpoaairrofievos rov Kevrpov kvkXos
euros, bevrepos bi dirb tovtov, Kal irXeov fiev dfearHs roii Kev
rpov, irepiexwv be rbv irpdrov ev <^ rerdxarat yovels, abeXipot,
yvvrj, iralbes' 6 bi dirb rovrwv rpiros, ev (^ Belot, Kal nrBibes,
irdirrrot re Kai rirBat, Kal dbeXfwv iralbes, 'en bi dve-ipioi' fieB' bv
6 TOVS aXXous Trepte^wv o'uyyevels' rovrw be dtpe^rjs, 6 twv brjfio-
Twv Kal fier avrbv 6 tUv <j>vXerwv, e'lB birXtrwv' Kal Xoiirbv oiirws
6 fiiv darvyetrovwv' d be OfioeBvwv' b be e^wrdrw Kal fieytaros,
irepiexwv Te irdvras rovs kvkXovs, b roU iravros dvBpwirwv yevovs."
—Slob, Serm. 82, page 481.
Note 67, p. 385.
" Quid si vero gravior sit error, et qui apud sequos judices
facile possit sacra autoritate, aut veterum consensu revinci ?
Cogitandum hic quoque quanta sit vis inclitae opinionis, et quan
tum libertatem judicii raiuuat in suara cujusque sectara studium.
Malum, in Gallenus ait, quavis scabie insanabilius. Apposite ad
hanc rem Origenes — evx^pearepov ye dvBpwiros rds irepl dXXa
avvrjBeias, Kifv bvaairoairdarws avrwv exrj, KaraXei-ipai dv, ?) ras
irepl Td Aoyfiara." — Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, lib. ii. cap. xx,.
In his note Grotius adds, to the same purpose, the following
words from Chrysostom — orav bi Kat ev boyfiaaiv ij awrjBeta rj,
joefiawTepa yiverai' irdvra ydp ns eiiKoXwrepov dfiei-ipete, ») rd
irepl rds BprjaKeias. — Chrysostom in 1 Cor. ii.

508 NOTES ON

Note 68, p. 386.
I have chosen lo speak of that sympathy which arises from the
participation of religious duties in the sanctuary, rather than of
that which proceeds frora sirailarity of opinion upon abstruse
and poleraical questions of divinity. The raoral effects of the
latter, I fear, are too often unfavourable lo benevolence ; and
wilh the highest respect for the talents and erudition of those
persons who are raost capable of exaraining such questions, I
will venture to express ray most fixed and soleran judgment,
that they ought to be very rarely introduced, and very tem
perately discussed in discourses from the pulpit, eptbavrewv
be Kal ifiavreXiKrewv Xoyovs dtjiereov, ot aijrovs re Karareivovatv
ev irpayfiaai yXiaxpois Kal bvaBewpijTOts, rovs re iraparvyxd-
rovras ovbafiws oiKobofiovat. The foregoing passage is taken
frora Plutarch, edit, Xylan, vol. ii, p, 614., and for obvious rea
sons I have oraitted the last word in Plutarch, and substituted
for it the better phraseology of an inspired writer, vvho raore
than once has condemned biaKpiaeis biaXoytafiwv. — Rora. xiv, I,
1 know not that philosophy, either ancient or modern, has
ever described the beauty of true boliness in colours so correct
and so glowing as the great apostle of the Gentiles in his
Epistle to the Colossians, My soul is always enraptured vvhen I
read '¦ 6 Xoyos rou XpiVrou evoiKetrw ev iifilv irXovaiws, ev
irdarj aoipiif btbuaKovres Kal vovBerovvres eavrovs, \PaXfiols
Kal vfivois Kal wbals irvevfiariKals, ev x«P""t ^bovres ev rrj
Kapbiif vfiwv 7-ji Kvpiw." — Coloss, cap. iii. v. 16,
When devotion is thus made the indirect, but powerful in
strument of instruction,- when prayer and thanksgiving are
offered up to the throne of heaven, both " with the spirit and
with the understanding,"— when the duties of exiernal religion
are performed with " singleness of heart" tovvards God, and
with " love unfeigned" towards men,— then, indeed, and then
only, may Christian worshippers be said " TdrrjsEipijvrjs biwKetv.
Kal rd rfjs o'lKoboftrjs rrjs eis dXXrjXovs." — Rora. cap. xiv, ver. 19.
If the opinions seriously delivered in ray serraon, and un
folded raore fully in this note, should unfortunately give offence
to the fiery zealot or the captious bigot, be it reraerabered that

THE SPITAL SERMON. 509
I have the authority of a sincere believer, and most profound
philosopher, in my favour. " As for the fruit towards those
that are within it is peace ; which containeth infinite blessings j
it establisheth faith ; it kindleth charity ; the outward peace of
the church dislilletb into peace of conscience ; and it turneth
the labours of writing and reading of controversies, into
treatises of mortification and devotion." — Bacon's Works. Lon
don, 1730. vol. iii. p. 304. Note 69, p. 386.
The sober and sincere Christian will find that an "enlightened
conscience" is necessary lo produce in his actions and his opi
nions, loo, all the salutary effects which Socrates ascribes to
ippovrjais. " This," says he, " is not the true way lo virtue, if
we exchange pleasures for pleasures, pains for pains, fear for
fear, add the greater for the less, like pieces of money — aXX' ^
eKelvo fiovov rb vofitafia opBbv, dvrl oi) bel iravra ravra
KaraXXdrreaBat, ippovrjais. Kal roiirov fiiv irdvra Kal fierd tovtov
wvovfievd re Kal irnrpaaKOfieva roi ovn if, Kal dvbpeia Kal aw-
ippoavvrj Kal biKaioavvrj. Kal ^vXXrjfibriv dXrjBios dperfj fierd
fpovr'jaews, Kal irepyiyvofiivwv Kal drroyiyvofievwv Kal ijbovwv
Kal fojiwv, Kal rwv aXXwv irdvrwv rwv toiovtwv' X'^P'^o/"^''*^
bi (ppovrjaews, Kal dXXarrofieva dvrl dXXrjXwv, fifj aKiaypaipia
ns jJ TOidvrrj dperrj, Kal rw dvri avbpairobwbrjs re, Kal oiibev
vyiis oi)b' dXrjBis exij." — Plato, Phaedo, ed. Forster, p. 185, 6.
Note 70, p. 38/.
" The other part of spiritual worship is a fervor, and a holy
zeal of God's glory, greatness of desire, and quietness of action.
Of all this the Jews were not careful al all, excepting the zea
lous among them ; and they were not only fervent but inflamed :
and Ihey had the earnestness of passion for the holy warmth of
religion ; and instead of an earnest charity, they had a cruel
discipline," — Taylor's Sermons, 112,
Note 71, P- 386.
" The animosity of hostile factions, whether civil or ecclesias-

510 NOTES ON
tical, is often still more furious than that of hostile nations, and
their conduct towards one another is often more atrocious.
" The real, revered, and irapartial spectator, therefore, is
upon no occasion, at a greater distance than araidst the vio
lence and rage of contending parties. To them it raay be said,
that such a spectator scarce exists any vvhere in the universe.
Even to the great Judge of the universe they irapute all their
own prejudices, and often view that divine Being as animated by
all their ovvn vindictive and iraplacable passions. Of all the cor
rupters of moral sentiments, therefore, faction and fanaticism
have always been by far the greatest." — A. Smith's Moral Senti
ments, vol. i. p. 386.
The preceding observations of A. Smith are very judicious ;
but those whieh follow from Mr. Hutcheson are far more inter
esting. Lord Shaftesbury, says he, in his Essay on Wit and
Humour, observes, " that the various sects, parties, factions,
cabals of raankind in larger societies, are all influenced by a pub
lic spirit : that some generous notions of public good, sorae
strong friendly dispositions, raise thera at first, and excite raen
of the sarae faction or cabal to the raost disinterested mutual
succour and aid : that all the contentions of the different fac
tions, and even the flercest wars against each other, are influ
enced by a sociable public spirit in a liraited system." " But
certain it is, that men are little obliged to those who often art
fully raise and ferment this party spirit, or cantonize them into
several sects for the defence of very trifling causes. When men's
heads are filled with some trifling opinions; when designing
raen raise in their rainds sorae unaccountable notion of sanctity
and religion, in tenets or practices, vvhich neither increase our
love to God, or our own species ; when the several factions are
taught to look upon each other as odious, contemptible, profane,
because of their different tenets or opinions ; even when these
teneLs, whether true or false, are perhaps perfectly useless to the
public good ; when the keenest passions are raised about such
trifles ; and men begin to hale each other for what, of itself,
has no evil in it ; and to love the zealots of their own sect for
what is no way valuable; nay, even for their fury, rage, and
malice against opposite sects (which is what all parlies com
raonly call zeal), 'lis then no wonder if our moral sense be

THE SPITAL SERMON. 511
much impaired, and our natural notions of good and evil almost
lost ; when our admiration, and love, or contempt, and hatred,
are thus perverted from their natural objects," — Inquiry, pp.
209, 210.
For the wise and virtuous Hutcheson I feel the sarae venera
tion which Dr. Reid and Dr. A, Smith have frequently expressed.
But from my conversation with men of letters, I have reason to
fear that his writings are too much neglected. If, therefore,
the frequent, and, I trust, the pertinent quotations I have made
from thera, should be instrumental in bringing thera back to the
notice of my countryraen, I shall have rendered no inconsider
able service to the cause of virtue.
Note 72, p. 387.
In following the Apostle's injunction, we should always " keep
it in aira to bring ourselves, by practicable gradations, to univer
sal benevolence, even to the worst of men, so as to shew them
all the kindness that may not prove an encourageraent to vice,
or endanger mischief to ourselves : in iraitation of that power
who causeth his sun to shine upon the good and upon the evil,
and sendeth his rain upon the just and the unjust ; and we trust
will turn every evil perraitted, to answer sorae good and holy
purpose." — Tucker upon Holiness, vol. iii. part ii. p. 173.
Note 73, p. 387.
" There are people who seem to have placed the corner stone
of their faith in that text — " He that is not with us, is against
us ; and he that gathereth not with us, scattereth." " With
such there is no raediura to be preserved ; a favourable word
spoken of any tbey do not like, is taken for a declaration of hos
tility against themselves. They are more eager lo run down an
adversary than to labour at their own improvement, as being
the less troublesome task ; and more afraid lest another should
attain any good thing than that themselves should miss it. For
seeking their credit rather by differing from others than by their
intrinsic merit, they cannot hear with patience whatever tends lo
lessen that difference, which they strive lo widen as far as pos-

512 NOTES ON
sible; so that he who presumes to doubt ofa single truth must
be a heretic, and infidel, a man of no principles ; and he that be
lieves a single point wiihout sufficient warrant lo their liking,
must be a bigot, an enthusiast, a crafty designer upon the
liberties of mankind." — Light of Nature, vol. iii. part ii. chap,
vii, on Religion, pp, 256, 7. The reader will reraeraber, that I
raake frequent and large quotations from Tucker because his
works are scarce.
The two proverbial sayings, " He that is not with us is
against us, and he that is not against us is with us," are most
judiciously explained by Jeremy Taylor, in the Ductor Dubitan
tiura, p, 762. Note 74, p. 388.
A free thinker of this kind " hates trouble, thinks all painful
investigation needless, as tending only to perplex, and makes his
decisions easily, without scruple or diffidence."
" His delight is wholly in opposition. If men believe what is
taught them, it is enough, no matter what else they believe.
Ridicule is his trusty weapon, as doing its work much quicker
or cleverer than argument, for what cannot stand that touch
stone must needs be absurd. He affects to appear mighty full
of doubts, but in reality never doubted of any thing ; for what
he pretends to doubt of he is absolutely sure must be false,
because he discerns the character of absurdity in it by his moral
sense. " He takes his idea of Christianity sometiraes from the ex
travagances of the Methodists, sometiraes from the tyrannical
policy of the Papists, and perceives no inconsistency in making
it either the delusion of silly enthusiasts or the deep-laid schemes
of crafty deceivers, to raise immense riches and power, accord
ing as serves his preseni purpose. He runs down charity and
cries up benevolence, but grossly raistakes both the one and the
other ; for he places charity solely in building churches or giving
money to beggars, and benevolence in easiness of carriage and a
cheerful conversation, or in doing any obliging office for a
friend or acquaintance that raay be done wiihout much trouble
to yourself He abhors persecution as an invasion of the rights
of mankind; but he criticises and teases, derides and runs

THE SPITAL SERMON. 513
down, wilh his contemptuous sneer, whatever he does not like,
the only means of persecution in bis power ; as if mankind had
not a right to candid and equitable judgment with respect lo
their good name as well as to their liberties and properties."
These observations make a part of the admirable comparison
which Tucker has drawn between a bigot and a free-thinker,
and are to be found in vol. iii. p-art ii. pp. 312, 13, ofthe Light
of Nature.
I fear that in a neighbouring state the cause of infi(lelity
has, in far too many instances, been supported by a worse kind
of persecution. But of my own countryraen in general I am
happy 10 say  " The baleful dregs
Of these late ages, this inglorious draught
Of wickedness and folly, have not yet.
Blest be the eternal Ruler of the world !
Defil'd to such a depth of sordid sharae
The native honours of the human soul.
Nor so effac'd the image of its Sire."
Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination, book ii.
Note 75, p. 388.
I have met with several persons who were ready enough lo
confess, and even eager lo avow and defend their infidelity.
I must, however, acknowledge that their language, in ray pre
sence at least, was decorous ; and that their aira, as it appeared
to nie, was rather to vanquish by disputation than to insult by
profaneness. The yell of blasphemy never assailed my ears frora
more than one huraan voice, and that voice has for these eleven
years been silenced by death. Firmly, but not in the gall of
bitterness, I bestowed upon the offender the discipline he de
served for a raost unprovoked outrage, and I have often ex
pressed my joy that a table stood between us, for be had the
grim visage of a ruffian, and his hands I knew had been im
brued in the blood of a fellow-creature ; e'lbios avroU to 'ovofia,
says an old writer, oIk eirtfivrjaBljaofiai ; but I am glad that he
was not an Englishman.
VOL. II, 2 L

514 NOTES ON

Note 76, p. 388.
" Is the idea," exclairas the pious and eloquent Mr. Hall, " of
an Alraighty and perfect Ruler unfriendly to any passion which
is consistent with innocence, or an obstruction to any design
which it is not shameful to avow ? Eternal God ! on what are
thine enemies intent ? What are those enterprises of guilt and
horror that, for the safety of their performers, require to be en
veloped in a darkness which the eye of Heaven must not pierce ?
Miserable men ! proud of being the offspring of chance, in love
with universal disorder ; whose happiness is involved in the be
lief of there being no witness to their designs, and who are
at ease only because they suppose themselves inhabitants of a
forsaken and fatherless world !" — P. 71, 2.
Am I told that Mr, Hall is a professed teacher of religion,
and that his imagination is disturbed by the frightful scenes
that have been passing before hini ? Let us hear, then, the
words of a philosopher, calraly investigating the characters of
true benevolence. " Though our effectual good offices can very
seldora be extended to any wider society than that of our own
country, our good will is circurascribed by no boundary, but
may embrace the iraraensity of the universe. We cannot forra
the idea uf any innocent and sensible being whose happiness
we should not desire, or to whose raisery, when distinctly
brought horae to the imagination, we should not have sorae
degree of aversion.
****** " This universal benevolence, how noble and ge
nerous soever, can be the source of no solid happiness lo any
man who is not thoroughly convinced that all the inhabitants
of the universe, the meanest as well as the greatest, are under
the imraediate care and protection of that great, benevolent,
and all-wise Being, who directs all the raoveraents of nature;
and who is deterrained, by his own unalterable perfections, lo
raaintain in it, at all tiraes, the greatest possible quantity of
happiness. To this universal benevolence, on the contrary, the
very suspicion ofa fatherless world raust be the raost raelancholy
of all reflections, from the Ihought thai all the unknown re
gions of infinite and incomprehensible space may be filled

THE SPITAL SERMON. 515
with nothing but endless misery and wretchedness." — A. Smith's
Moral Sent. vol. ii. pp. 113, 14.
Upon the inference which ought to be drawn from supersti
tion, as it affects the truth of natural religion, the sentiments of
another great philosopher are so just, so important, and so ori
ginal, that my readers will thank me for producing the whole.
" Examine," says Mr. Hurae, " the religious principles which
have prevailed in the world — you will scarcely be persuaded that
they are any thing but sick men's dreams ; or perhaps, will re
gard them raore as the playsome whirasies of monkies in human
shape, than the serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a
being who dignifies hiraself with the narae of rational. To op
pose the torrent of scholastic religion by such feeble maxims as
these, that it is impossi'ole for the same thing to be and not to
be ; that the vvhole is greater than a part ; that two and three
make five ; is pretending lo stop the ocean with a bulrush." —
" But what is the inference," says the sagacious and teraperate
Dugald Stewart, " to which we are led by these observations ?
Is it (to use the words of this ingenious writer, i. e. Mr. Hume),
that the whole is a riddle, an enigraa, an inexplicable mystery ;
and that doubt, uncertainly, and suspense, appear the only result
ofour most accurate scrutiny concerning this subject ? Or should
not rather the melancholy histories which he has exhibited of
the follies and caprices of superstition, direct our attention to
those sacred and indelible characters on the huraan raind, which
all these perversions of reason are unable to obliterate ; like that
image of himself which Phidias wished to perpetuate, by stamp
ing it so deeply on the buckler of his Minerva, ' ul nemo delere
posset aut divellere, qui totara statuara non imminuerit.' In
truth, the raore striking the contradictions, the more ludicrous
the ceremonies, to which the pride of huraan reason has thus
been reconciled ; the stronger is our evidence that religion has
a foundation in the nature of man. When the greatest of mo
dern philosophers declares, that ' he would rather believe all the
fables in the Legend and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that
this universal frarae is without raind ;" he has expressed the
sarae feeling, which in all ages and nations has led good men,
unaccustomed to reasoning, lo an implicit faith in the creed of
their infancy ; a feeling which affords an evidence of the exist-
2l2

516 NOTES ON
ence ofthe Deity, incoraparably raore striking, than if, unmixed
with error, and undebased by superstition, this raost iraportant
of all principles had coraraanded the universal assent of raankind.
Where are the other truths in the whole circle of the sciences,
which are so essential to human happiness, as to procure an easy
access, not only for theraselves, but for whatever opinions raay
happen to be blended with thera ? Where are the truths so vene
rable and commanding, as to irapart their own subliraity to
every trifling raeraorial vvhich recals thera lo our reraembrance ;
to bestow solemnity and elevation on every mode of expression
by which they are conveyed ; and which, in whatever scene they
have habitually occupied the thoughts, consecrate every object
which it presents to our senses, and the very ground we have
been accustomed to tread ? To attempt to weaken the authority
of such irapressions, by a detail of the endless variety of forms
which they derive from casual associations, is surely an employ
ment unsuitable to the dignity of philosophy. To the vulgar it
may be amusing, in this, as in other instances, to indulge their
wonder at what is new or uncoraraon ; but to the philosopher it
belongs to perceive, under all these various disguises, the work
ings of the sarae coramon nature ; and in the superstitions of
Egypt, no less than in the lofty visions of Plato, to recognize the
existence of those moral ties which unite the heart of man to
the author of his being," — Stewart's Eleraents, 359. Animated
with the enthusiasm with which this eloquent passage must in
spire a true religionist, vvill he not instantly repeat Pope's Uni
versal Prayer, " meekly kneeling upon his knees ?''
Upon a subject which the words prefixed to this note suggest
to my mind, I must detain the reader's attention somewhat
longer than usual.
Lord Bacon says (Essay xvii.) that " a little philosophy in
clineth a raan's mind lo Atheism, but that depth in philosophy
bringeth it about lo religion." Sir Matthew Hale, in his adrai
rable work De Homine, quotes these words with high approba
tion, and I think that, with the latitude which must always be
allowed to general positions. Bacon is very right. He has made,
also, another remark, the propriety of which has again and again
struck my mind, in the course of my own observations upon the
dispositions and characters of men. " Atheists," says he, " will

THE SPITAL SERMON. 517
ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within
themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent
of others : nay more, you shall have Atheists striving to get dis
ciples, as it fareth with other sects." — Essay 17.
" To the great Searcher of all hearts — to him who espieth our
thoughts afar off, and who knoweth of what we are raade," would
I leave the sacred prerogative of deciding how far the opinions
of men are necessarily, or in some cases, actually produced by
vicious habits, and the propagation of them secretly accompanied
by malignant motives. I must, however, take the liberty of say
ing, that one class of unbelievers in this country confirm, beyond
all other men, lo my mind, the justness of Mr. Hume's remark,
that, " It is almost impossible for us to support any principle or
sentiraent against the universal consent of every one wilh whom
we have any fellowship or correspondence : that, of all our opi
nions, those vvhich we form jn our own favour, however lofty or
presuming, are at bottom the frailest, and the most easily shaken
by the contradiction and opposition of others ; and that, our great
concern in the case makes us soon alarraed, and keeps our pas
sions upon tbe watch." — Essays, vol. ii. p. 202. More, or less,
this remark may be applied to every raan wbo is actuated even
by the most honest love of fame. But I think it peculiarly ap
plicable to those persons who have reached the greatest extremes
of infidelity ; and in whora I have observed a strange mixture of
outward positiveness and inward distrust — a watchful, captious,
and fretful turn of mind, araidst the sraoothest professions of
moderation and candour — an unceasing solicitude lo obtain, not
merely triumph from the praise, but support from the assent of
others — a latent proneness to measure the probability of their
own tenets by the zeal and increase of their followers, at the
very moment when they ascribe the permanency of established
opinions, not to the solidity of the reasonings by which they are
defended, but to the influence of the numbers by whom they are
professed. " Parum favet," says Mosheim, " memoriae magni Baconi
Cudworthus, quem inter occultos impietatis erga Deum patronos
numerasse videtur." — Note on Cudworth's Works, 4to. vol. ii.
p. 109.
Let rae not be suspected of entertaining any such unjust pre-

518 NOTES ON
judice against Lord Bacon, when I examine, and would restrain
another proposition of the same great man, which in my hearing
has been sometiraes repeated with exultation, and oppo.sed tothe
celebrated passage in Plutarch, where he says of superstition —
bel fiev dfieXei rrjs irepl Bewv bo^rjs, wairep '6\pews XijfirjV uipatpelv
rfjv beiaibaifioviaV ei be rovro dbvvarov, fifj avveKKoirretv, firjbi
TvtpXoiv rfjv irianv fjv oi irXelaroi irepl BeHv exovai.— -^ol. ii. p.
109, " Atheism," says Bacon, " leaves a man lo sense, to philoso
phy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation, all which raay be
guides to an outward morality, even though religion were not.
But, superstition dismounteth all these, and erecteth an absolute
monarchy in the minds of raen. Therefore atheism did never
perturb States."* — Essay 18,
Would not Bacon have qualified this proposition, if he had
lived in our own days ? In order to determine whether atheisti
cal tenets were compatible with virtuous conduct, has it not
hitherto been usual to appeal to the example of Atticus and some
other amiable Epicureans, and to the good qualities and good
habits of a few particular raen who have lived in later ages? But
it was reserved for these tiraes to survey the practical effects of
Atheism upon a wider scale. Bacon's observation may be very
just, so far as it concerns a few solitary individuals reraoved

* I believe, that when Bacon made this observation upon the
pacific temper of Atheism, he had chiefly in view the Epicureans
of antiquity, from whose tenets and whose practice we know very
well, that many of them, in pursuit of their favourite evBvfiia,
professedly stood at a distance frora the bustle of political life.
Their successors, however, in the present age, have not in this
respect followed the exaraple of their predecessors. Sorae of
thera reraind us of Jortin's reraark, " that the learned age of
Augustus, with all its polite advantages, was sadly corrupted in
matters of religion ; that the Epicurean doctrine had spread itself
through the Roman empire, and that persons of the brightest
abilities and highest stations being unhappily infected vvith it,
were men of that First Philosophy, which in a Christian country,
and in the eighteenth century, hath been pubhcly recoraraended
to us by patriots and geniuses, compared vvith whora Epicurus
was a gentleraan, a philosopher, a reasoner, and a scholar," —
Jortin's 6th Dissertation, towards the conclusion.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 519
from the bustle of the world, preserving, as it were, in the gar
den of Epicurus, the natural calraness and serenity of their own
minds ; enjoying the conversation of speculative and literary
friends, endowed wilh a constitutional suavity of teraper, and
furnished by education or exaraple with a delicate sense of ho
nour and decorum. But will there be no difference, when Atheism
passes from the few to the many — from men of leisure and re
flection, 10 men whose understandings are chiefly employed in
the busy scenes of life, whose pursuits are often directed to low
and sordid objects, and whose appetites seek for gratification in
the foulest dregs of sensuality ? Frora men disciplined by erudi
tion, and exalted by genius, to raen of raoderate talents and
scanty attainraents, to forward sciolists, to beardless striplings,
and unlettered raechanics ? Will there be no difference when, in
the propagation of atheism, the stratagems of confederacy lend
their aid to the efforts of individuals ; when many of those who
act, involuntarily forward the purposes of those who project, and
when parls, the raost discordant in their elementary principles,
and the most destructive of each other by immediate collision,
are directed by powers unresisted, because unseen, and becorae
subservient to a coraraon systera by their number, by their ex
tent, by the regularity of their separate force, and by the concen
tration of their ultimate tendencies ? Will there be no difference,
when atheism mingles with the secular interests of raen, both in
private and in public life ? will there be no difference when it is
admitted as a leading principle into systeras of ethics or politics?
When, from external circurastances it has an opportunity of
waging undisguised and unceasing war against its real or iraa
ginary foes ! When, like its antagonist, superstition, it forras
alliances with prejudice, or pride, or fanalacisra ? When it is
able either to gratify the inclinations of its votaries, or lo incite
the passions of other men, in the subversion of old governraents
and the erection of new ? When it becomes giddy and flippant,
from the countenance of fashion ? When it has grown fearless
from the authority of public favour? When it is seized with the
arabition of distinguishing itself by romantic adventure ? When
it has soared to high rank, wrested the sceptre frora kings, and
wields the collective force of raighty nations ? Does the philoso-

520 NOTES ON
pher appeal to experience for the decision of these awful ques
tions ? To experience let us go.
Far be it frora me to plead directly or indirectly the cause of
superstition, to palliate its absurdities, errors, and extravagancies
— to varnish over the crimes with which it has stained the page
of history, sullied the lustre of Christianity, and debased the na
ture of man created in God's own image, by domestic animosities,
by seditious tumults, by " chains and stripes, and arbitrary pu
nishment" inflicted upon the weak, or the wise, or the virtuous,
by massacres, by assassinations, and " by grim and piercing fires
blown into seven fold rage.''
These are the dreadful effects of superstition. They are so
frequent too, that in certain seasons of public affairs, and certain
dispositions of the public mind, a religionist might venture lo
pause, ere he pronounced thera quite incidental. But to those
effects, frequent as they have been, and dreadful as they were,
may be opposed other and good effects, not, I grant, proceeding
immediately from superstition itself, but from virtues which will
grow with it — frora sentiraents which it cannot eradicate — frora
kind affections and honest intentions, which even raistaken piety
will soraetiraes foster. Of atheisra itself, it cannot be said that
the direct tendency of it is to sweeten natural piety, to increase
our reverence for laws, or to aniraate our love of that reputation
wbich is founded upon virtuous habits and virtuous propensities.
But if atheisra be corapatible with any such habits, or any such
propensities, be it remembered, that superstition is equally coni-
[latible with them.
Charron, as I find him quoted by Bayle, tells us that, " an ha
bitual and universal kind of atheisra, cannot lodge but in a very
strong and bold soul —
" Illi robur et ses triplex
Circa pectus erat, 
it must be furious and maniac."
At sorae distance from the foregoing words, Charron thus pro
ceeds, " to get loose fi-om, and cast off the sense and fear of the
Deity, a thing interwoven in our nature, requires a monstrous
and furious strength of the soul ; and is hardly lo be found, al
though those great and notorious atheists, who through an ex-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 521
treme and furious insolence had a mind to withdraw their alle
giance to the Deity, and to shake off a superior being, did what
they could to acquire it."
If Mr. Charron had contemplated the characters of modern
atheists, he would have found that the measures of some were
indeed strongly marked by maniacal fury ; but that the nuraber
of even determined atheists * was much greater than he sup
posed it likely to be— that their unremitted endeavours to shake
off the idea of a Deity were not wholly unsuccessful, and that
their tenets may be lodged in cold and phlegmatic, as well as in
fiery and intrepid spirits. To some secret misgivings of soul,
lo sorae painful, though teraporary, distrust in the truth of those
doctrines which Ihey avow wilh confidence, and propagate with
activity, to that sense of the Deity which is attended, not perhaps
by a direct dread of his displeasure as a raoral governor, but by
a confused and overwhelraing apprehension of his possible ex
istence and his power, alraost all atheists are, I believe, raore or
less subject. Neither the solemnity of their professions, nor the
levity of their raillery, is a proof to the contrary. Yet, after
Ihey have declared for atheistical principles openly, clung lo
them eagerly, and argued for them stoutly, I suspect that they
are rarely brought over to a sincere and firm conviction on the
side of theism. It is therefore extreraely difficult lo deterraine
to what extent such a conviction might operate in the iraprove
ment of their moral conduct. General habits, and general dis
positions acquired under the influence of atheisra, might be too
* Falster belongs not lo the class of deterrained atheists. To
a reader of sensibility, what can be raore acceptable than this
simple and irapressive lale ?
" De Deo semel in vita dubitavl, juvenis undeviginti anno
rum, quum iiislitutionibus Iheologicis operam darem ; non diu
post, Deo bene juvante, in viam reductus per Balduinum, qui ad
Stellas, divinae Mentis Testes et Praecones, rae ablegaverat hoc
versu : Sidera qui spectat, juret is esse Deum.
" A quo quidem tempore, aniraus ita flararaa caelesli raihi
ardet, ul (quod cum immortali honore nominis divini dixerira
certus sira, on oure Bdvaros, ovre Swij, oure ayyeXot, oiire dpxal,
oire bvvdfieis, oijre evearwra, ovre fieXXovra, o'vre v\jjwfia, oiire
ftdBos, oure ns Kriats erepa bvvrjaerai fie xu'P^'"^'^ """o rfjS dydirrjs
roU Qeoii,Tijs ev Xptarw Irjaov rip Kupi^ ijfiwv. — Araoenitates Philo-
logicae, tom. i. page 46.

522 NOTES ON
stubborn to yield lo the authority of mere opinion. There are,
however, frequent instances of raen who have been converted
from lower degrees of infidelity ; and if that conviction pro
ceeded, not frora the sudden alarms of their conscience, but the
sober exercise of their judgraent, the salutary effects of it were
visible in their actions as well as their tenets. On the other hand,
we see in too raany instances the transition of the huraan raind
frora superstitious terrors to impious defiance, where the change
is wrought hastily, where it is displayed ostentatiously, and fol
lowed by a rapid progress frora pitiable or ridiculous imbecillity
lo the most odious and incorrigible depravity. The infidel trans
formed into the devotee may have more weaknesses, but he is in
danger of fewer criraes, than the devotee transformed into the
infidel. Whatsoever may be the coraparative raerits or demerits of su
perstition, the utraost care, I grant, should be used in every stage
of education to prevent its first approaches, and where it has un
fortunately taken possession of the raind, great exertions, accom
panied with great circuraspection and tenderness, are necessary
to efface its impressions frora the imagination, and to slacken its
hold upon the affections and passions. So fearfully, however,
and so wonderfully are we made, so intricate are the associations
of our ideas, such is the latent force of habit, and such, loo, is
soraetiraes the close connection between our virtues and our
infirraities, that by atterapting to remove all the errors of super
stition indiscriminately and hastily, vve raay chance to loosen frora
their roots the best principles of the heart, and to check their
fairest fruits ere Ihey have arrived at maturity.
But, if a contrary experiment vvere made to destroy by argu
ment the attachraent of a man to atheism, and if, during the
process, caution were used, neither to scare his imagination with
superstition, nor to agitate his spirits with fanaticism, can it be
supposed that the virtues which really accompanied his former
conviction would be diminished ; that his good sense would be
crippled, that his philosophy would be shackled, that " his natu
ral piety'- would be relaxed, or that the " outward morality ''
produced by his obedience lo laws, and his regard to reputation,
would be impeded ?

THE SPITAL SERMON. 523
What, I would ask, are the general effects of superstition and
atheism upon the ha|)piness and the conduct of mankind ? Super
stition, it is granted, has many direct sorrows, but atheisra has no
direct joys. Superstition admits fear raingled with hope, but
atheism, while il excludes hope, affords a very imperfect security
against fear. Superstition is never exposed to the dreary vacui
ties in the soul, over which atheism is wont to brood in solitude
and silence ; bul atheism is sometiraes haunted by forebodings
scarcely less confused, or less unquiet, than those by which su
perstition is annoyed. Superstition stands aghast at the punish
ments reserved for wicked men in another state ; but atheism
cannot disprove the possibility of such a state to all raen, accora
panied by consciousness, and fraught with evils equally dreadful
in degree, and even in duration, with those punishments. Su
perstition has often preserved men from crimes ; but atheism
tends lo protect them frora weaknesses only. Superstition ira
poses fresh restraints upon the sensual appetites, though it may
often let loose the malignant passions ; but atheism takes away
many restraints from those appetites, without throwing equal
checks upon those passions, under many circurastances which
may excite thera iu the minds of its votaries. Superstition is
eager from a vicious excess of credulity, but atheism is often ob
stinate from an excess of incredulity, equally vicious. Supersti
tion is sometimes docile frora conscious weakness ; but atheism
is always haughty from real or supposed strength. Superstition
errs, and perverts only in consequence of error ; but atheism re
jects, and, for the most part, disdains to exaraine after rejection.
Superstition catches at appearances, but atheisra starts back from
realities. Superstition may,, in some favourable moment, be
awakened to the call of truth ; but atheism is generally deaf lo
the voice of that " charmer, charm she ever so wisely.''
When I read the 'A^ua^taTa pijfiara of Lucretius and other an
tient atheists, — when I see them o-aXoKi^ovras cai dXa5oveuo/ze vous
upon their superiority lo popular prepossessions and vulgar ter
rors, I am sometimes led to suspect, that, like heroes who laugh
at spectres by daylight, and shudder at Ihem in the dark, they
were struggling with inquietude, which Ihey wished to conceal
as well as to assuage, and endeavouring to collect that courage
from the bustle of their words which they did not habitually feel

524 NOTES ON
within the recesses of their hearts. My preseni concern, I am
aware, is not wilh the speculative proofs, but with the raoral
effects of atheisra. Yet, upon a question which, in the abstruser
parts of it, is by a very wise raan called " perdifficilis* et perob-
scura," and to the consideration of vvhich, " oranes duce natura
vehiraur," we raay, without the iraputation of folly, venture to
ask, whether the arguraents against iheisra be such as usually to
produce a steady assent and lo warrant an unlimited affiance.
Without the iraputation of perverseness we may not be in haste
to apply lo the judgment of every atheist, vvhat Taylor f says of
the will, that, " like the magnetic needle, it vvas full of trembling
and uncertainty ere it becarae fixed at its beloved point, wavered
at first, because at first it doubted, and then was al rest, because
it could doubt no more." After reaching that state of rest,
atheisra, indeed, may have the credit of rescuing a man from the
agitations of delusive hopes, and the torraents of groundless
fears. But raay it not destroy, at the same time, other fears
which are very salutary in checking our fantastic desires, and in
calming our turbulent resentments ; and may it not extinguish
other hopes loo, which seem necessary to support the bulk of
mankind in their passage through this vale of tears ?
The mischiefs of superstition arise frora the abuses of religion,
which in the absence of those abuses is indisputably productive
of good, in addition to all the other advantages we derive from
our moral faculties. But atheisra, however used, cannot on the
whole be so good as religion, either to individuals or to corarau
nities ; and in a being, subject, as man is, to so raany siarts of
fancy, so raany caprices of huraour, so many wrong biasses
frora opinion, and so many blind impulses from passion, it leaves
hira defenceless against raany evils. Compared with sound, clear,
and enlarged notions of religion, can atheism be said lo present
to our minds so many delightful and raagnificent views of na
ture ? to furnish the poet with such a profusion of iraagery, or
the orator with so raany topics of persuasion ? to consecrate the
social virtues by so many endearments to our affections, or to
exalt our spirits lo so many arduous atchieveraenls of self-de-
* See Cicero De Natura Deum, Ub. i.
t See Ductor Dubitant. p. 754.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 525
nial, self-command, magnanimity, and forgiveness ? Compared
even with superstition under its milder aspects, does it supply so
raany incentives lo virtue, so many restraints from vice, so raany
consolations under sorrow, or so many sources of reflection to
heighten the very purest and most exquisite joys which terres
trial objects can bestow ? The atheist, indeed, may cease to
tremble at the idea of an invisible, irresistible, vindictive deity,
in the howling storm, or the convulsive earthquake, or " when
the moon, in dim eclipse, sheds disastrous twilight on half the
nations," But he has, also, ceased to rely for protection upon
that benevolent power which may shelter him " from the arrow
that flieth by day, and frora the pestilence that walketh in dark
ness.'' In truth, the tranquillity of which atheism boasts so
loudly, and so lavishly, araounts only to exeraption frora pain,
and that exeraption is to be obtained by the loss of many
pleasures. According to the various teraperaraent of men's minds, and
the various events of their life, atheism is marked by various
effects. Shall indifference be stated as the result of it ? That
indifference, as might easily be shewn from the hints of one ce
lebrated author, and the sarcasms of another, will sometimes
pass onward frora speculation to action : it will loosen principles
as well as prejudices, and reconcile its votaries to nameless im
purities, from which the natural sentiments of mankind recoil,
and of which the indirect but invariable tendency is, to obstruct
the most useful duties, and to contaminate the sweetest comforts,
of domestic life. Measuring its own high exploits with the cre
dulity and weakness of the herd, has atheism produced con
tempt ? Such, at least, is the present constitution ofthe huraan
mind, that we are not apt to be very scrupulously just, nor very
actively benevolent, in behalf of those whom we despise unfeign
edly ; and if the negligent or scornful disposition by which we
are governed in our private transactions with other men should
communicate itself to laws, and laws in their turn should re-act
upon that disposition, precarious indeed is the protection which
they would afford to the feeble against the strong, or to the ho
nest against the cunning. This, however, is not the only instance
in which atheisra may be unfavourable to philanthrophy. Pos
sible it is, as we know from recent facts, that alheism in some

526 NOTES ON
cases raay generate hatred ; and where hatred has been so gene
rated, there, in the conflicts of opinion against opinion, and in
terest against interest — in competition for power or fame — in ap
peals lo the prepossessions or the pride of contending parties, the
consequence of atheisra would be a jealous, doralneering, savage
spirit of intolerance. Atheisra thus would end where supersti
tion has been said to begin ; and in the tenets of atheism will be
found not one of those correctives, which usually accorapany the
tenets of superstition. There is no eye to detect specious hypo
crisy — no hand to curb successful wickednesses — no refuge frora
the partial or erroneous decisions of raan, in the sentence of a
judge, who is disinterested and infallible — no tribunal, before
which the weak and unoffending raay hereafter be perraitted to
plead "Irumpet-tongued," against the oppressor — no avenger of
calumniated innocence, insulted wisdora, and persecuted inte
grity. In the ordinary course of huraan affairs, superstition, though
it should pervade the mass of a people, has been experimentally
found consistent with a state of society, not quite intolerable —
with a wise and upright administration of laws — with the gra
dual improvement of individuals in rational religion — and with
a gentle exercise even of absolute power. Where, indeed, super
stition is not raoved to and fro by the hidden springs of state
craft ; where it is not united with a saturnine and revengeful
teraper ; where it is not irritated by the acrimony of disputants ;
where it is not seduced by the inflamraatory harangues of
zealots, nor raade infuriate by the contagion of popular rage,
under such circumstances, I should grant that Plutarch's repre
sentation of it is not too favourable — ij rwv iroXXHv koi dfiaBHv
oil irdvv fioxBrjpwv bidBeais irpbs rbv Geov, e'l^et fiiv dfieXet rw
aepofiivw Kal Tifiwvn fiefityfievov nvd aipvyfibv Kal ipofiov, jj Kal
betaibaifiovia KeKXrjrat' fivptaKis be fielSov ean Kal irXiov avrrj
TO eueX?rt Kat irepixapes, Kal irdaav evirpa^ias ijvrjaiv ws eK BeiHv
oliaav evxbfievov Kal bexdfievov. — Vol. ii. page 1100, It should
be observed, that in the passage which, in page 94, is quoted
from Plutarch, he professedly speaks of that superstition which
in the sentence iraraedlately following he describes as ov fo/iepdv
Ttva, oijbi aKvBpwwrjv.
They who attend to the distinction I would make between

THE SPITAL SERMON, 527
moderate and excessive superstition vvill not be long perplexed
by the seeming contradiction between the opinions of Plutarch,
as delivered in his famous Treatise upon Superstition, and those
which occur in the passages I have quoted from auother part of
his works. In the forraer, Plutarch soraetimes assuraes the
strong language of the Stoics about the passions, and sometiraes
indulges himself in rhetorical exaggeration. But in the latter
he preserves a more temperate and argumentative forra of writ
ing ; and if his observations upon the practical effects of the
Epicurean system be just, they may, with great propriety, and
greater force, be applied to the malignant influence of modern
atheism upon the morals and the welfare of mankind.
In the opening of the Treatise above-mentioned, Plutarch
says, arraaa fiiv ^evb^s Kpiats ciXXcis re K^v fj irepl ravra,
(i, e. what relate lo the Deity,) fioxQrjpbv' rfj be, (i. e, a wrong
judgment accompanied by superstition,) kuI irdBos irpoaean
fioxOrjporarov. — Page 164, Afterwards he defines atheism and
superstition according to the view which he was going to lake of
them respectively — i; fiev dBeorrjs Xbyos earl bie-tpevafievos, ij bi
betaibaifiovia, irdBos eK Xdyou i//euSous eyyeyevjj^e'vov, — Page
165. Bul the superstition * against which he inveighs as more
odious and raore pernicious than atheisra, is a superstition rarely
found even in kind, and yet more rarely in degree, araong Chris
tians ; for it is a superstition which aroTrois ovofiaat Kal pijfiaat
fiapjiapiKols Karaiaxvvet Kat irapavofiel rb Belov Kal irdrpiov di,i-
wfia rrjs eiiae/ieias, page 166; which rou 0eoi;apj^))v ws rvpavviba
(poBelrat aKvOpwirfjv Kal dirapairrjrov, page 166; which oiibi
ToXfid fiorjBelv ovbe biaXveiv rb avfiftePrjKos, oijbe Bepaireveiv,
oiibi avrtrdrreBai, fii) bb^y Beofiaxelv Kal dvnreivetv KoXaSofievrj'
page 168 ; which e/craTreivoT Kat avvrpifiet rbv dvBpwirov oiofievov
elvai deov, eivai bi /3Xa/3epov, Xu7r»;pov, efiirXrjKrov, dirtarov,
evfierdfioXov, rtfiwprjTiKbv, wfibv, fiiKpoXvirov , page 165, and 170,
The atheism also, of which Plutarch speaks as less degrading to
the huraan character, and less destructive of huraan happiness,
than that superstition, is not the atheisra of our own days, bnt
an atheisra vvhich is merely \pevbrjs viroXrjipis, dXX 'cXkos ov
* Plutarch in several passages seems to allude lo Oriental su
perstitions, and sometimes to Jewish.

528 NOTES ON
iroiovaa, ovbe aipvyfibv, ovbi bbvvrjv rapdrrovaav' page 164 ; that
which is merely aKivrjros irpbs rb Belov' page 170; that in which
reXos earl rov fifj vofiiSeiv rbv Bebv, rb firj <po(iela6ai, page 165.
Adverting, probably, to such superstition in its most hideous
form, and to such alheism in its least offensive, Lord Bacon tells
us, " It were betier to have no opinion of God at all, than such
an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the one is unbelief, the
other is conturaely, and certainly superstition is a reproach of
tbe Deity." — Essay xiii. in which Bacon often refers to the Trea
tise of Plutarch. Yet the sarae great philosopher informs us in
Essay xvii. " I had rather believe all the follies in the Legends,
the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frarae is
without a mind."
The remarks of Fabricius upon Plutarch are very judicious :
Sane atheismura queralibet in se superstitione quacunque melio-
rem esse, nerao sanus dixerit : neque hoc usquara facit Plutar
chus, qui contrarium disertis verbis docet libro, " quod non sua
viter possit vivi secundum Epicurum.'' — P. 1101 and 1104.
Cum enira el superstitio et atheisnius ambo res sint pessimae et
turpissimae, et superstitionis praesertim quodam modo innurae
rabiles sint gradus, saltern non fert Plutarchus eos qui atheis
mura faciunt diroXoyrjfia beiaibaifiovias, ut loquitur libio " de
discrimine araici et adulatoris." — P. 66. Dantur eliam genera
qusedam superstitionis tam flagitiosa, ut in Deum aeque injuria
sint quam atheismus ipse, et gravius bellura eliam indicant ho-
nestati, virtuti, et societati humanae, non quam atheismus uni
verse ex principiis suis deducens consecutiones omnes, maliti-
amque illam exserens, sed, quam atheismus nonnullorura homi
num in sola speculatione falsissime acquiescentium, et naturae
bonitate non adraittentium errorera hunc in actiones . suas inte
grum influere. — Vide Bib. Graeca, lib. iv. p. 351. edit. Hamburg,
1708, As to the passage which Fabricius has cited from Bodinus, a
good raan raay hesitate hefore he gives unqualified assent to the
first position, Superstitio quantacunque sit, quovis atheisrao tole
rabilior est. Experience, however, to a very great degree con
firms the justness ofthe next observation. Nam qui superstitione
aliqua obligatur, hunc nurainis metu in officio quodam modo, et
naturae legibus continet, Atheum vero, qui nihil nisi restim

THE SPITAL SERMON, 529
metuit aut judicem, ad omnia scelera proclivi lapsu ruere opor
tet. The following remark is founded upon the principles of
the soundest philosophy : At tametsi actionum humanarum
praestantiam sapientissimus quisque non solum flnibus ipsis meti-
tur, verumetiam omnibus partibus et causis, scilicet, efficienti
form^, subjecto fine, suramam tamen et praecipuam causam
omnium actionum ipso fine dijudicat. — Bodin. Colloq. Hjptaplo-
mere MS. Libro v.
Happy were it for the advocates of modern atheism, if they
seriously considered the conclusion of that Treatise wbich has
been supposed to favour their cause : fevKreov oiv rfjv beiatbai-
fiovtav daipaXws re Kal avfitpepovrws, ovx wairep ot XrjarCiv Kal
Brjpiwv eipobov, ij irvp direpiaKeirrws Kal dXoylarws irepttpevyovres,
ifiiriirrovaiv e'ts dvobias (idpadpa Kal Kprjfivovs exovaas' oirws
ydp evioi (pevyovres rfjv beiaibaifioviav efiiriirrovatv ets dBeorrjra
rpdj^eiov Kat avrirvirov, virepirrjbrjaavres ev fieaw Keifievrjv rfjv
evaejietav. — Plutarch, vol. ii, p. 17L
Upon the various effects of superstition, where it has spread
widely and thriven long, we can reason from facts. But in the
original frame of the human mind, and in the operations of all
those moral causes which regulate our conduct, or affect our
happiness, there seeras to be a most active, constant, and invinci
ble principle of resistance to the encroachraents of atheism.
" All nature cries aloud" against them, " through all her works,"
not in speculation only, but in practice.
Much, I know, has been said ingeniously by Bayle ; and, in
opposition to Bayle, much has been said yet more ingeniously by
Warburton, about the comparative mischiefs of alheism and
superstition. But I bless Heaven, that by the moral constitution
of our nature, no experiments ever have been made, which may
enable us to calculate precisely the aggregate of evils, that would
arise from the permanent influence of atheism. Enough have
we seen of its activity, of its subtlety, of its malignity, as a tem
porary, a concurrent, perhaps a predominant cause, in the
crimes and miseries of mankind ; enough, I say, have we seen,
to shrink with horror from the possible repetition of such events ;
and to execrate that innovator who, in the blindness of infatua
tion, or the hardihood of wickedness, should exclaim of a na
tional constitution, facilitated by such events, " esto perpetua."
VOL. II. 2 M

.~jZi) NOTE- ON
In a DeifbbourlD2 countrv it has already s j:Jil into decay.
Tnere it wanted alike the simplicity of nature and the graces of
art. It was balky without solidity, elaborate witiioci srminetry,
and lofty without magnificence. It seLzed, indeed, the a^szitioii
ofa gjjectaior, by the vaitness of its dimeniions and the novdty
of its form ; and it impressed him with momentary awe, be
cause it stood upon ruins. But it had no foundation in t'oe
common sense of men, no superstructure from their general
habits, no ceraent from their nobler affeciiocs, no embeUish
ments from their unperverted imaginations, nor pillar? from
their social virtues. It started up, but to vanish — it towered,
but to fall — and it has fallen, I sincerely hope, lo rise no more.
Alheism, thus brought from theory to the test of experiment,
has exposed to the world the brillleness of its materials and tbe
clumsiness of its workmanship. It may deface, but cannot
adom — it may mutilate, but cannot even repair — it may pluck
down the labours of others, but cannot preserve its own. Un
der such an architect, even " the pillared firmament would be
rotteimess, and earth's base built on stubble." — Milton's Comus.
The want of durability, about which I ara now speaking, is
doubtless a circurastance highly favourable to the happiness of
mankind. So far, however, as we can argue to the future from
the past, it were not difficult to conjecture sorae of the conse-
sequences that would issue from the very wide dissemination
and the very long continuance of alheism. What then are those
consequences ? I answer, without hesitation — they are unblush
ing profligacy, unprincipled selfishness, and unrelenting cruelty.
These are the consequences which I should forebode in pri
vale life ; and, in public, I should look for conspiracy without
unanimity, energy without constancy, success without security,
and popularity without glory, to be quickly followed by irre
trievable ruin and indelible disgrace.
Are not the scenes in which such evils have existed partially,
but glaringly, intended for our admonition ? Yes, surely.
"Those scenes may teach individuals to suspect the soundness,'
and the innocence, too, of every theory which aims at the de
struction of all the received opinions, and all the established.
usages, which mankind have been accustomed lo respect. They
may farther animate the members of religious societies to clear

THE SPITAL SERMON. 531
away those impurities wbich flow from superstition, and furnish
occasions for cavil and misrepresentation lo the charapions of
infidelity — to renounce, in their actions as well as in their pro
fessions, every claim of spiritual doraination over the consciences
of raen ; to remove every palpable error from their doctrines j
to rectify every grosser abuse in their discipline ; and thus to
exhibit religion under that pure and lovely form in which we
trace at once the characters of cultivated reason and of heavenly
inspiration. In this earthly state, where happiness as well as virtue will
always be imperfect, shocks will now and then be felt, by the
force of which both civil and religious establishraents may be
shaken to their centre, Araidst the fury of those storras, which
in all ages have been permitted lo disturb the political sky, and
of which the ultimate effects, under the providence of God, may
be as beneficial in the moral world as those of earthquakes and
hurricanes are thought lo be in the natural, the stalely palace,
the lofty throne, the hallowed temple itself, may be " laid low,
even to the ground." But though " the rains should descend,"
though " the floods should roll,'' and though " the winds should
blow," the Word which came down from heaven can never fail.
When such is my conviction as lo the security and final suc
cess of Christianity against its most formidable assailants, must
I not feel at least an equal degree of confidence for the ultiraate
prevalence of those proofs which relate lo the existence of a
God ? Most assuredly I do,
Atterapts have, indeed, been made by philosophers to under
mine those proofs, by scoffers to debase them, and by political
upstarts to overthrow them. Through the artifices and violences
of these innovators, the law of natural religion has been op
posed, but not destroyed ; and the light of it, loo, has for a
season been darkened, but not, I trust, extinguished for ever.
Upon the philosophical merits of those opinions which have
lately gone abroad to the prejudice of theism, my conviction has
been strengthened by the observations of that sound and judi
cious philosopher whose writings have been already mentioned
in this note. " It is not merely," says he, " in order lo free the
mind from the influence of error, that it is useful to examine the
foundation of established opinions. It is such an examination
2m2

532 KOTES ON
alone that, in an inquisitive age like the present, can secure a
philosopher from the danger of unlimited scepticism. To this
extrerae, indeed, the complexion of the tiraes is more likely to
give hira a tendency, than to iraplicit credulity. In the forraer
ages of ignorance and superstition, the intimate association which
had been forraed, in the prevailing systeras of education, be
tween trutli and error, had given an ascendant over the minds
of men, which it never could have acquired if divested of such
an alliance. The case has of late years been most remarkably
reversed ; the coraraon sense of mankind, in consequence of the
growth of a more liberal spirit of inquiry, has revolted against
many of those absurdities which had so long held human reason
in captivity ; and it was, perhaps, more than could be reasonably
expected, that in the first raoraents of their emancipation philo
sophers should have stopped short at the precise 'ooundary
which cooler reflection and more raoderate views would have
prescribed. The fact is, that they bave passed far beyond it ;
and that, in their zeal lo eradicate prejudices, they have at
terapted to lear up by the roots raany of the best and happiest
and essential principles of our nature. Having reraarked the
wonderful influence of education over the mind, they bave con
cluded that raan is wholly a factitious being ; not recollecting
that this very susceptibility of education presupposes certain ori
ginal principles which are coramon to the whole species ; and
that, as error can only take a perraanent hold of a candid raind
by being grafted on truths which it is unwilling or unable to
eradicate, even tbe influence which false and absurd opinions
occasionally acquire over the belief, instead of being an argu
ment fdr universal scepticism, is the most decisive argument
against it ; inasmuch as it shews that there are some truths so
incorporated and identified with our nature, that they can re
concile us even to the absurdities and contradictions with which
we suppose them to be inseparably connected. The sceptical
philosophers, for example, of the present age, have frequently
attempted to hold up lo ridicule those contemptible and puerile
superstitions which have disgraced the creeds of some of the
most enlightened nations, and which have not only comraanded
the assent but the reverence of men of the most accomplished
understandings. But these histories of human imbecillity are.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 533
jn truth, the strongest testimonies which can be produced to
prove how wonderful is the influence of the fundamental princi
ples of morality over the belief, when they are able to sanctify,
in the apprehensions of mankind, every extravagant opinion, and
every unmeaning cereraony, which early education has taught
us to associate with Ihem."
If then the belief of a Deity be, as perhaps it is, one of those
*:otvat eVvoiai* which are said to be engraven on the heart of

* " I come now to consider of those rational instincts, as I
call them, the innate principles engraven in the huraan soul ;
which, though they are truths acquirable and deducible by ra
tional consequence and argumentation, yet they seem to be in
scribed in the very crasis and texture of the soul, antecedent to
any acquisition by the industry or the exercise of the discursive
faculty in man ; and therefore they may be well called anticipa
tions, pre-notions, or sentiraents characterized and engraven in
the soul, born with it, and growing up with it, till they receive
a check by ill custoras or educations, or an iraproveraent and
advanceraent by the due exercise of the faculties, 1 shall shew
first what they are; secondly, what moves me lo think that such
are connatural.
1. "Touching the forraer, I think those iraplanted and con
natural anticipations are these; naraely, that there is a God,
that he is of greatest power, wisdora, goodness, and perfection ;
that he is pleased with good and displeased witb evil ; that he is
placable; that he is to he feared, honoured, loved, worshipped,
and obeyed ; that he will reward the good and punish the evil ;
a secret sentiraent ofthe iraraortality of the soul, or that it sur
vives the body to be capable of rewards and punishraents accord
ing to its deportment in this life ; certain coramon notions of
moral good and evil, of decorum and turpe ; that faith and pro
mises are to be kept ; that a man mast do as he would be done
by ; that a man must be grateful for benefit received. These
and some such common notions, or intimate propensions, seem
to be connaturally engraven in the soul, antecedently to any
discursive ratiocination ; and though they are not so distinct
and explicit, yet they are secret biasses inclining the humane
nature priraarily to what is useful and convenient for it, in pro
portion to the state of an intellectual nature." — Hale, De Ho
mine, p. 60.
Mr. Locke probably would have refused his assent to Lord
Hale's posiiion. " The name of God," says Mr. Locke, " being
once mentioned in any part of the world to express a superior,

534 NOTES ON
man; if (to change the metaphor) it be a sentiment, which,
though it does not always produce a full harvest of virtue, sel
dom fails at least to check the ranker weeds of vice ; if it be a
sentiment which superstition by its foulest infections cannot quite
corrupt, nor infidelity by its mightiest efforts can quite extirpate ;
a sentiraent which recurs to our rainds upon every survey we take
of the operations of nature, and every reflection we eraploy upon
the only cause which can sustain and regulate them ; a senli-

powerful, wise, invisible being, the suitableness of such a notion
to the principles of comraon reason, and the interest raen will
always have to mention it often, raust necessarily spread it far
and wide, and continue it down lo all generations ; though yet
the general reception of this name, and sorae iraperfect and un
steady notions, conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of man
kind, prove not the idea lo be innate ; but only that they who
made the discovery, had raade a right use of their reason, Ihought
maturely of the causes of things, and traced them lo their origi
nal ; from whom other less considering people, having once re
ceived so iraportant a notion, it could not easily be lost again.''
— See Locke upon the Understanding, book flrst, chap, iv,
paragraph 10,
Though we should grant to Mr, Locke, " That the Deity has
stamped no original characters on our minds," and though it
ought to be granted lo him, " That our idea of a raost perfect
being is not the sole proof of God," yet we must remember
what he says in book iv. chap. x. " It is plain to me we have a
more certain knowledge of the existence of a God than of any
thing our senses have not imraediately discovered to us. Nay, I
presurae I raay say, that we more certainly know that there is a
God than there is anything else wiihout us. When I say we
know, I mean there is such a knovvledge within our reach, which
we cannot raiss, if we will but apply our minds to that as we do
to several other enquiries."
As lo Mr. Locke's opinion about the origin of our ideas, I
would refer the reader lo chapter the first, section the fourth, of
Stewart's Eleraents. And in respect lo the dispute about the
source ofour notions of a God, I am inclined lo say wilh Mo
sheira, " Crediderira fere, si diligenter discutiantur omnia quse
de notione Dei, utrbm adventitia sit, an verb innata, inter viros
doctos disputanlur, resque potius qukra verba et vocabula, pon-
derentur, mintls de hac re dissentionis fore, qukra videtur mul
tis." — Mosheira's Notes upon Cudvvorth, vol. ii. p, 137.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 535
ment which rushes upon us irresistibly, when we gaze upon the
goodly face of the earth, explore the depths of the ocean, and
look up to the firraament of heaven ; then, doubtless, the arti
fices of crafty sophists, the recantations of apostate priests, the
rhapsodies of rhetorical babblers, and all the claraours of ruf
fians loaded with pillage and reeking with blood, never have
been nor ever will be of sufficient efficacy to obliterate such a
sentiraent from the minds of a vvhole people. Disgusted we raay
have been with so rauch arrogance as we have lately witnessed ;
we may have been provoked at so much profligacy ; we may
stand araazed and confounded at so much audacity, combined
with so much ferocity ; but the wisdom of God, we should re
member, often finds the instruraents of his righteous though
unsearchable purposes in the follies and in the criraes of man.
So iraperfect is our acquaintance with the symbols which
savages employ to express their ideas, that, without irapeaching
the veracity, we raay soraetimes doubt the correctness, of travel
lers, whose wish, it may be, was rather to surprise than lo de
ceive their readers. Nations, however, I would grant, there
may have been a few,* so iraraersed in barbarism and ignorance
as not to have invented or adopted any rites, however uncouth,
for the duties of religion ; or to have formed any notions, how
ever indistinct, of an invisible and most powerful Being, to
whom adoration is to be paid.
But wheresoever a Deity has been once known, where his ex
istence and his attributes have been explored by philosophical re
searches into causes and effects, where his will has been collected,
however imperfectly, from the moral constitution of the world.

* See Mr. Locke's book i. chap. iv. paragraph 9, of his Essay
on the Human Understanding, where he speaks of barbarous
nations that have no idea of a God. It were easy to produce
instances of other nations from later travellers than Sir Thomas
Roe, The idea of a God, of which Mr. Locke speaks, is very
different from the notion of one God, which has been historically
and philosophically investigated with great erudition and great
judgment by Meiners, in his work De Vero Deo. " The Indians
of the West," says Bacon, " have naraes for their particular Gods,
but they have no name for God.'' — Essay 17.

536 NOTES ON
or announced authoritatively by his sacred word, where the wor
ship of him has been recognised by traditions, custoras, and laws,
where his narae has been pronounced vvith reverence, where his
altars have been adorned with the free-will offerings of a grateful
and an humble spirit, where his temples have resounded with
hymns of praise, where his wrath has been deprecated, his favour
iraplored, and his agency felt, as it were, in prosperity or adver
sity — araong such a people, there never has been a coraplete,
universal, instantaneous bound from habitual belief and habitual
piety into unbelief and impiety upon principle ; nor among such
a people will there ever be an unlimited range of aciion, and a
continued succession of triumphs, to the dark and chilling
subtleties of scepticism, or to the wild and daring dograas of
atheism. Why then should we be dismayed ?
"Mighty are the waves of the sea, and rage horribly." — But in
Heaven above and in the earth beneath, and in the water under
the earth, a voice there is far mightier.
Note 77, p. 388.
" The consequent of this discourse," says Jeremy Taylor, " in
order to conscience is, that no raan lose his peace concerning the
controverted articles and disputes of Christendora. If he inquires
after truth earnestly, as after Ihings of great concernraent; if he
prays to God to assist, and uses those raeans which are in his
hand, and are his best for the finding it ; if he be indifferent to
any proposition, and loves it not for any consideration but be
cause he thinks it true ; if he will quit any interest rather than
lose a truth ; if he dares own what he hath found and believed j
and if he loves it so rauch the raore, by how much he believes it
more conducing to piety and the honour of God ; he hath done
what a good and a wise man should do ; he needs not regard
what any man threatens, nor fear God's anger, when a man of
another sect threatens him with damnation ; for, he that heartily
endeavours to please God, and searches what his will is that he
may obey it, certainly loves God, and nothing that loves God can
perish. — Ductor Dubitantium, p. 755, 4th edit.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 537

Note 78, p. 388.
" Presque partout," says even M. Helvetius, (p. 167, de I'Es
prit,) " I'Evangile, les Ap6tres, et les Pferes prSchent la Douceur
et la Tolerance," He then gives instances from St, Paul, St,
Chrysostom, St. Basil, and St, Augustin, But where should we
find a nobler lesson for the candour which is truly Christian, than
in the language in which St, Augustin addresses the Manicheans,
in whose errors he had himself been once involved ! I will give
the whole passage, as I find it quoted by Grotius de Jure Bell, et
Pac. lib, ii, cap. xx. " Illi saeviant in vos, qui nesciunt quo cum
labore verum inveniatur, et qukra difficile caveantur errores.
Illi in vos saeviant, qui nesciunt qukra rarura et arduum sit car-
nalia phantasmala piae raentis serenilate superare. Illi in vos
saeviant, qui nesciunt quanta, difficultate sanetur oculus interioris
hominis, ut possit intueri solem suum. Illi in vos saeviant, qui
nesciunt quantis geraitibus et suspiriis fiat ut ex quantulacunque
parte possit intelligi Deus. Postremo illi in vos saeviant qui nullo
tali errore decepti sunt, quali vos deceptos vident. Ego autem
saevire in vos omnino non possum, quos sicut me ipsum illo tem
pore, ita nunc debeo sustinere, et tant^ patienliS. vobiscum agere,
quanta mecum egerunt pro.ximi mei, ciirn in vestro dogmate
rabiosus et caecus errarem."
Oh ! that " these words were written on the tablet" of every
Christian heart! — That "Iheywere printed" in every book of
religious controversy, " that they were graven wilh an iron pen
and lead in the rock for ever !" — Job xix. 23, 24,
Note 79, P- 389,
" It was an old trick of the Jewish zeal,"
" Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenli,
Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos."
Juvenal, xiv, 104,
" They would not shew the way to a Samaritan, nor give a cup of
cold water but to a circumcised brother. That was their zeal."
— Taylor, Sermon xiv. p. 136.

538 NOTES ON
Note SO, p. 389,
I am now very near the conclusion of my notes on the first
head, and I shall be glad to convince the reader how much the
opinions defended in it resemble those of Barrow,
" The good raan doth not plant his bounty in one small hole,
or spout il on one narrow spot ; but with an open hand disse
minates it ; vvith an impartial regard distils it all about. He
stints it not to his own family or relations ; to his neighbours, or
friends, or benefactors ; to those of his own sect and opinion, or
of his huraour and disposition ; to such as serve him or oblige
him, or please him ; whom some private interest ties, or some
particular affection endears him to ; but scatters it indifferently
and continually towards all men that need it, towards mere
strangers ; yea, towards known enemies, towards such as never
did hira any good, or can be able to do him any ; yea, towards
those who have done evil to him, and, raay be presuraed, ready lo
do more ; nothing in his neighbour but absence of need, nothing
in himself but defect of ability, doth exist or live in his obedi
ence! In that irpoBvfiia, that proclivity and promptitude of
mind which St. Paul speaketh of, he doeth good every where ;
wherever a man is, there is room for his wishing vvell, and doing
good, if he can : he observes that rule of the Apostle, as we have
opportunity, let us do good unto all men," — Vol, i. p. 423.
Note 81, p. 390,
In Barrow's Sermon, just now quoted, there is a passage
quoted from Chrysostora, which is exactly to ray purpose :
eciv 'ibrjs rivet KaKws irdaxovra ftrjbiv irepiepydSov Xoiirbv' e^et
7-0 biKaiwfia rrjs jSorjBeias, rb Kakios iraBelv avrbv. TOTf 9E0Y
coTi Kq.v "EXXrjv, K^v 'lovbalos. — Chrysostora in Hebrews, Orat x.
Note 82, p. 390.
Aristotle, I remember, in his Topics, gravely recoraraends the
arguraent frora authority, and, in truth, there are circurastances
in which authority must be allowed to supply the place of doubt-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 539
ful and imperfect reasoning. The reader may, if he pleases, pass
by what Aristotle says upon so trite a subject. But, as the
passage occurred to me, I shall produce it without laying any
great stress upon it. " Ilapao-T/^atveo-Oat bi Kal rds eKdarwv
bo^as, oiov on 'EfiireboKXrjs Terrapd iprjai tUv awfidrwv arotx'sia.
etvai Beirj ydp dv ns Tb viro nvos eiprjfievov evbo^ov." — Top,
lib. i. p. 189. Note 83, p. 390.
The passages I have quoted from M. Turgot may be found in
article I, of Ihe Appendix to his Life, containing a translation
of the article Foundation, which had been inserted before by M,
Turgot, in the French Encyclopedia, The Life was written by
M, Condorcet, I have only the translation of it, which was pub
lished in London in the year 1787. My opinion about M, Tur
got, and his more judicious and temperate associates, corresponds
in kind and degree with that of Mr. Dugald Stewart, as it raay
be found occasionaUy, in chapters 4lh, 5th, and 6lh, of his
Elements of Philosophy. Note 84, p. 390.
While I was writing these notes, a subject of no ordinary im
portance struck me unexpectedly ; and if I drop some remarks
upon it, the reader, who looks attentively and seriously on these
eventful limes, will, I hope, pardon the digression. With a small
expenditure of ingenuity in the vulgar and raischievous arts of
exaggeration and perversion, several of M. Turgot's arguraents
may be applied lo the prejudice of our English Universities,
This, I am aware, is not precisely the fittest opportunity for me
to enter into a formal defence of them, or to expatiate upon
their peculiar and indisputable advantages, — upon those powerful
correctives of singularity and frowardness which are found in
the allrition of mind against mind on a spot where different
classes live together under a system of general discipline, — upon
the force of established rules in producing early habits of regu
larity and decorum, — upon the strong though easy yoke that is
thrown over the impetuosity of youth, — upon the salutary influ
ence among well-informed and well-disposed young men, of that

540 NOTES ON
ofiTjXiKia which is so beautifully described, and so frequently ex
tolled by the writers of antiquity, — upon the propensity of the
heart unassailed by care, and untainted by selfishness, to forra
the best friendships from the best motives, — upon the generous
sense of sharae that must prevail among enlightened equals ob
serving the conduct of equals, and cultivating honour, not as a
showy and artificial fashion, but as a natural sentiment, and even
as an indispensable duty, — upon the goodly effects that are
wrought on the temper as well as taste, by the daily and hourly
view of edifices, agreeable from convenience, or striking frora
magnificence, or venerable from antiquity, — upon the desire
which pictures, statues, inscriptions, public harangues, and other
local circumstances, may excite in men of vivid conceptions and
glowing arabition, not raerely to adraire but to perpetuate and
to share in the celebrity of places adorned through many succes
sive ages by many bright luminaries of the schools, the pulpit,
the bar, and the senate, — upon the tendency of well-regulated
arauseraents, and well-directed studies, to plant within our bo
soms those attachments lo the seat of our education, which may
afterwards expand inlo the love ofour country, — upon the facility
of access to well-stored libraries, — upon the efficacy of oral in
struction, judiciously and diligently communicated, — upon the
competitions that will arise among nurabers, whose judgments
on the qualifications of each other are too frequent to be eluded,
loo irapartial to be resisted, and too weighty lo be slighted, —
upon the institution of prizes for compositions to be recited in
the Halls of Colleges, or the Theatres of the Universities, — upon
the distribution of literary distinctions in seasons of general ex
amination, — or, upon the connection of other academical rewards,
lucrative or honorary, with moral and intellectual excellence.
Waving, therefore all such pertinent and interesting topics, I
would only request that the usefulness of these seminaries, like
that of every human institution, may be judged by their fruits.
If any intelligent adrairer of M. Turgot had met, as on a tour
to Carabridge it was my good fortune last year to meet, vvith so
many persons of various condition, of polished taste, of profound
science, of masculine sense, of unaffected raanners, and of spirits
elevated without haughtiness, independent without turbulence,
and liberal without latitudiaarianism, he might have felt, as I did.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 541
a momentary relief from that inquietude which the present con
dition of the civilized world must inflict upon every man of re
flection, and perhaps he would have joined with me in ex
claiming, —
Dii patrii, quorum semper sub numine Troja est,
Non tamen omnino Teucros delere paratis.
Cum tales animos juvenum, et tara certa tulistis
Pectora. ^neid 9th.
Let me add, that I have often experienced a similar effect in con
versation wilh many wise and worthy raembers of the Sister Uni
versity. But why should a point of such magnitude as the credit of Ox
ford and Cambridge stand only on the testimony of an individual
to the facts which he has seen within the circle of his own irame
diate acquaintance? As to the raerits of men, ingenious,
learned, eminently great, or exemplarily good, who in past ages
have gone forth from these retreats into the bosom of society,
" pleni sunt oranes libri, plena exemplorum vetustas," But even
in later tiraes the torpor of old age has not crept upon thera, the
sorceries of indolence have not enfeebled them, the poison of
luxury has not corrupted them, the foul mists of barbarism have
not gathered over them, the dim and baleful light of superstition
has not glimmered around them, the portentous raeteors of infi
delity have not glared upon thera, the merciless terapest of de
solation has not yet swept them away. No, For among the aca
demics who, during my own life, have been distinguished by
classical, oriental, theological, or mathematical knowledge, by
professional skill, or by parliamentary abilities, I with triumph
recollect the names of
Archbishops Herring, Seeker, Newcome, and Markham; of
Bishops Hoadley, Sherlock, Lowth, Hurd, Pearce, Newton, Ed
mund Law, Philip Yonge, Ross, Squire, Ellys, Shipley, Horne,
Bagot, Moss, Douglas, Watson, Halifax, Porteus, Horsley,
Cleaver, Randolph, Pretyman, Beadon, Pococke, John Law, Ben
nett, and Percy; of Dr. S. Johnson, roi rrj pw firj, Kal 'iaxvi, Koirwy
"aiiv dpiarevaavTOS'" of the late Dr. Warton, Mr. Thomas
Warton, Mr. Spence, Dr. Farmer, Mr. G. Steevens, Mr. Upton,
Mr. Uvedale Price, Dr. Zachary Gray, Mr, Jackson of Leicester,

542 NOTES ON
Dr, Clarke of Chichester, Mr, Bowyer the printer. Dr. Charles
Ashton, of Jesus College, Cambridge ; Dr. Taylor, editor of De
mosthenes ; Dr, Jortin, Mr. Mudge, Dr, Galley, Dr. Adam As
kew, Dr. Jurin, Dr. Salter, and Mr. Mann, of the Charter-house,
Dr. Hartley, Dr. Conyers Middleton, Orator TunstaU ; of Sir
William Jones, a man who was raised far above his contempora
ries, el natur^ admirabili, et exquisite doctrin^, et singulari in
dustria, (vide Cie. in Brut. p. 138.) Mr. Bryant, Mr. Halhed,
Mr. Costard, Mr. Swinton, Mr. Richardson the orienlal Lexico
grapher, Dr. Joseph White, Dr. Hunt, late of Christ Church ; Mr.
Carlyle, Dr. Kennicott, Dr. Sandford, of Baliol ; Dr. Thoraas
Shaw ; of Richard Dawes, Richard Porson, roH irdvv BavfiaaroU'
of Dr. Muisgrave, Mr. Tyrwhit, Mr. Toup, Mr. Merrick, Dr.
N. Forster, editor of Plato's Dialogues ; Dr. Charles Bur
ney, roi) KptriKwrdrov Kal iroXvfiaBeardroV Dr. Rowth, roi;
eralpov efioii (ppovifiwrdrov Kal biKaiordrov' Dr. Winstanley, Dr.
Huntingford, Mr. Wakefield roii 0tXo7rovou, ipiXoXoyov, Kal iptXe-
XevBepov Mr. Burgess, Mr. George Glasse, Mr. Whiter, Mr.
Harris of Salisbury, Mr. Horne Tooke, Mr, Weston, author of
Herraesianax, Mr. R. P. Joddrell, Mr. E. Poore, Mr. W. Seward,
Dr. Edwards late of Coventry, Dr. Edwards, jun, of Jesus Col
lege, Cambridge; Mr. Parkhurst, Dr. Sharpe, late of the Temple;
Dr. Rennell, Dr, Blaney, Dr, Holmes, Dr. Wheeler, lale of Christ
Church ; Dr. Cyril Jackson, Dr. William Jackson, Mr. Sawkins,
Mr. Lowth, and Mr. Rennell of Winchester ; Mr. Howes of Nor
wich, Toii ArjXiov KoXvfifirjrov' of Mr, Rowth of Beccles, Mr.
Twining of Colchester, rov ' ArnKwrdrov' of Dr, Philip Barton,
Mr. Falconer, Mr, Abrahara Tucker of Merton, Archdeacon
Chapman, Mr. Robert Parr, my revered uncle. Dr. Morell, Dr.
Battie, Dr, Barford, Dr. John Burton of Eton, Dr. Ashton and
Dr. Lyne of ditto. Dr. Hallara, the late Mr, E. Chamberlayne,
Sir J. Macdonald and .Mr. G. Bailey, of Mr. Daniel Caches, the
late Messrs. David and G. Graham ; of Mr, Hare, the late Drs,
Barnard and Roberts of Eton, Dr. Davies, Dr. Benjamin and
Dr. George Heath, Mr, GoodaU of Eton, the lale Dr. John Sura
ner and Dr, Cooke, Provosts of King's, Mr. Williara Cooke of
ditto ; the late Dr. Sumner of Harrow, my beloved instructor,
guide, and friend; the late Dr, Burton of Winchester, Mr.
Woodison of Kingston, Dr. Bateman of Sedborough, Mr. Tem-
pleman of Richmond, Mr, P. Whalley of Christ's Hospital,

THE SPITAL SERMON. 543
London ; of Dr. Vincent of Westminster ; the lale Dr. Crusius,
Drs. Beardmore and Raine of the Charterhouse, Mr, Butler of
Shrewsbury, Dr. V. Knox of Tunbridge, Dr. James, late Master
of Rugby, Dr. Valpy of Reading ; of Mr. Bennett Langton, Dr.
Shaw of the Museum, Drs. Chandler and Shaw of Magdalen *
College, Oxford ; Mr. Orator Crowe of Oxford, Dr. Parsons of
Baliol, Mr. Hollwell and Mr. Pelt of Christ Church ; Mr. Mitford,
the elegant and learned Historian of the History of Greece, Pro
fessor Martyn, Dr. Syraonds, Professor of Modern History, Cam
bridge ; Dr. Seale, the late Dr. Zouch, Mr. Robert Smith of King's,
rrj aKptfiel^, Kal beivorrjTi, Kal fieyaXoirpeirei^ el)boKifiovvTOs ; of
Mr. Freer and the late Mr. Brundish of Caius College; the late
Messrs.Cowper and Tyson ofBennetCollege,the late HenryHorner
of Emanuel, the late John Tweddel of Trinity College, Cambridge:
" Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit,
Nulli flebilior qukra mihi."
Of Messrs. Losche, Larabert, Ramsden, Matthias, and the late
John Baynes of ditto, Mr. Malthus of Jesus College, Cambridge :
Mr. Green of Ipswich, Mr. Guard and Dr, Williaras of Corpus,
Mr. Fellowes of Oriel, Messrs. Hooley, Phillip Sraith, and Hamley
of New College, the lale Mr. Ben well, of Trinity College, Oxford,
Mr, Nares of the Museum ; of Messrs. Williara Beloe, Thomas
Maurice, Henry Headly, Edward Maltby, Thoraas Monroe, Dr.
Martin Davy, and Sir Thomas Rivers, my worthy and accom
plished pupils ; of Mr. Wise, Mr. Swinton, Mr. Watson, Dr. Pet-
tingale, Mr. Whitaker, Mr. Gough, Mr. Gale, Mr. Cole, Mr. J.
Brand, Dr, G. King, Dr. Lort, Mr. Borlace, Mr. Edward King,
Dean Milles, Dr. Pegge, Mr. Watson, Dr, Stukeley, Mr. E, Lye,
Mr, D. Barrington, Bishop Lytlelton, the learned Antiquaries ;
of the late Dr. Stephen Hales, Mr, G, Harvest, Dr. G. Fothergill,
Mr. Seed, Archdeacons Sharpe and Ibbetson, Dr. Balguy, Dr.
Brown of Newcastle, Dr. Owen, Dr. Randolph of Corpus College,
Dr, Richard Grey, Dr. Townson, Archdeacon Totty, Dr, Gloster
Ridley, Dr. Hall, Chaplain to Archbishop Seeker, Dr. Adams and
Mr, Griffiths of Pembroke College, Oxford ; Dean Tucker, Mr.
* I have not intentionally oraitted any narae which appeared
to me worthy of being inserted : but I am aware, that the better
meraory, or the fuller information of olher men, may enable them
to enlarge the list.

644 NOTES ON
Town, Mr, Jones of Nayland, Samuel and John Wesley, Mr.
Harvey, Drs. Powell, Ogden, and Rutherforth, of St. John's,
Cambridge, Mr. Hubbard of Emanuel, my venerable tutor. Arch
deacon Blackburne, Dr. John Jebb ; of Dr. Sturges of Winches
ter, Mr. Wintle of Pembroke College, Oxford ; Dr. Manwaring,
Margaret Professor, Carabridge ; Dr. Bell of Westminster, Dr.
Hay of Sidney College, Dr. Craven and Mr. Gisburne of St.
John's, Cambridge ; Dr. Paley, rou KaBapoH rols bvofiaat, Kal
aatpoiJs, Kal avverov ; Mr. Marsh, the very learned editor of Mi
chaelis, Messrs. Hall, Kett, Grey, and Richards, Bampton Lec
turers ; of the late Mr. Gray, Mr. West, Mr. Neville, Mr. Ma
son, Mr. Shenstone, Dr. Edward Young, Lord G. Lyttleton,
Messrs. Churchill, Lloyd, Anstie, Bowles, Coleridge, Sotherby,
Holler, Woodhull, Pye, Duncombe, Francis, Franklin, Fawkes,
Hole, Dunster, Christopher Pitt, William Whitehead, and Gif
fard ; of the late Dr. Smith and Mr. Jones, of Trinity College,
Cambridge ; Professors Waring, Vince, and Mr, Manning, of
Cambridge ; Dr. Milner, of Queen's College, Cambridge ; Mr,
Robinson, Savihan Professor of Geometry at Oxford ; of Sir
George Baker, Dr. Heberden, the late Sir Clifton Wintringhara,
Dr, Warren, Dr. Beddoes, Dr, Plumplree, Dr. Lawrence, the
learned friend of Dr. Sarauel Johnson ; of the late Lord Mans
field, Lord Thurlow, Judge Blackstone ; the late Mr. Charles
Yorke, the lale Judge Wilson, Lord Eldon, Sir Williara Scott,
tov (iaBvippovos Kal awippovos, Sir William Wynne, Dr. Lawrence,
of the Coraraons, Mr. Bentham, Professor Woddeson, Mr.
Erskine, rou dtpdbpa evapyovs, Kal ijbeos, koi av^rjTiKOv, Kal irtari-
Kov ; of Mr. Mansfield, Mr. Gibbs, Serjeant Lens, the late Felix
Vaughan ; of the late Lords Chesterfield, Chatham, Guildford,
and Orford ; the Duke of Grafton, Lord Holland, the Marquis
WeUesley, Lord Castlereagh, the late Charles Townsend, Mr.
Windham, Mr, Canning, Mr. Addington, the Speaker of the
House of Coramons, Mr, Tierney, Mr. Grey, Mr, Pitt, and my
illustrious and amiable friend Mr. Fox.
Surely, in such men we have "a cloud of witnesses," when we
are pleading for " the excellency of our strength, and the joy of
our glory." Their pursuits, indeed, are not similar, nor their
talents equal. Some instruct, and others please. Some excel
in solidity of judgment, and others in splendour of imagination.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 545
Some are known by their eloquence, others by their writings,
and a few, perhaps, have been content lo exercise their powers
only in academical contests, or literary conversation. But they
have all obtained distinction among their contemporaries, and
many of them will attract the admiration of posterity. ,
I have thrown together the foregoing names of academical
worthies as they occurred to me, per lancem saturam, and yet
they have enough of the evavvoirrov to warrant me in applying,
with a sraall alteration, to the places where they were educated,
much of that distinct and appropriate praise which Cicero be
stowed upon Athens, as " omnium fere doclrinanim inventrices,
ubi dicendi vis scribendique, vel reperta est, vel perfecta."
From the sincere, the ardent, the anxious regard which I bear
to both Universities, I have soraetiraes wished to see a fevv altera
tions adraitted inlo our academical studies, and perhaps in both
of them might be pointed out academical men who are capable
of planning those alterations wilh wisdora, and of conducting
them with full and visible effect. Such men will not be wholly
inattentive to the profound and coraprehensive observations
which Lord Bacon has made in his sectmd book upon the Ad
vancement of Learning, (vide vol. ii. of his Works, p. 452), and
probably Ihey will have the satisfaction to find in raany instances,
that the objections of this great man have been removed, either
by the improvements vvhich have been happily adopted since his
time in our Universities, or by the studies which are successfully
prosecuted in the Capital, in Manchester, and several other large
towns of this kingdora. They will pardon me, however, for
saying with Bacon, that "Learning vvould be much advanced if
there were more inteUigence mutual between the Universities of
Europe than there now is." Upon other points, as Bacon says,
from Caesar's letter lo Oppius, " nonnuUa mihi in mentem ve
niunt, et multa reperiri possunt, de quibus rogo eos, ut cogita-
tionem suscipiant." I disdain to countenance the trite and fri
volous objections of superficial observers. But I think myself
authorized, and even bound, to slate my meaning a little more
particularly, and for this purpose I vvill employ the words of
Morhoff— " Studium philosophise moralis non possuraus, quin
serio commenderaus. Jejuna est hujus sludii in nostris acade-
miis iractatio, cilra haec tamen faciat ad viros bonos formandos.
VOL. II. 2 N

546 NOTES ON
Scilicet sunt, quse inflant, scientiae, ut quae circa notiones intem-
perantius versantur ; quaedara etiara pectus salurant, ut rerura
naluralium cognitio. Ut boni verfe simus, uni huic disciplinse,
et post illam, Theologiae, debemus." Vid. Polyhist. vol. ii. p.
483. edit. Lubec, 1732.)
Be the imperfections of these seminaries what they may, I am
acquainted wilh no other situations, where young raen can have
so many opportunities for contemplating either religion under
an aspect, which is solemn wiihout gloominess, or morality with
features, which have exactness without austerity ; — where Ihey can
be so successfully trained up to habits which may for a while de
tain, and afterwards preserve Ihem, from the contagious exaraple
of crowded and dissipated cities ; — where they can be so largely
stored witb principles that raay enable thera to detect the fallacy
and to escape the contamination of those metaphysical novelties,
which are said to have gained a wide and dangerous ascendancy
in some places of education upon the Continent.* Even in a
comparative point of view, our Universities hold a very high rank
among dirdarjs rfjs 'Evpwirrjs oipBaXfiovs. But in the opinion of
English scholars, who, it should seera, are not wholly unqualifled
to decide upon a question of English experience, they are entitled
to raore direct and araple coraraendation.

* In this charge I do not include the University of Gottingen,
which has long and deservedly flourished under the auspices of
Mr. Heyne, a raan whose taste, judgment, erudition, and can
dour, are alraost unparalleled. Decidedly as I should prefer an
English University for the youth of England, I should be
ashamed of throwing out the slightest insinuation lo the dis
credit of the Universities in Scotland. I have derived from
Scotch writers great information upon some of the greatest sub
jects that can interest huraan curiosity, or exercise the huraan un
derstanding. I feel a most sincere respect for Dr. Beattie, Dr.
Carapbell, Dr. Dunbar, Mr. Dalzell, Mr. Millar, and other Scotch
Professors; and, so far as the iraproveraent of a young man's
head or heart may depend upon the exertions and example of an
individual, I should gladly entrust a child of my own to the saga
cious, the enlightened, and the virtuous Dugald Stewart. In the
writings of this excellent man, I find the perspicuity of Dr.
Reid, the acuteness of Adam Smith, and the precision of David
Hume.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 547
After the recent downfall, and amidst the rapid decay of sirailar
Institutions in foreign countries, our Universities are the main
pillars, not only of the learning, and perhaps the science, but of
the virtue and piety, whether seen or unseen, which yet remain
among us, and therefore, woe be to every frantic visionary and
every ruffian vandal, who would raze them from their old and
sacred foundations.
I have been led into the foregoing reflections by the unusual
circumstances which characterise our own times ; and, with a
deep and fearful sense of the danger that accompanies them, I
have endeavoured to speak of them wiihout adopting the un
couth language of party, and without alluding very pointedly to
the more transient politics of the day. But the cause of mora
lity, which has a right to be protected from the caprices of
paradox and the artifices of sophistry, the cause of religion,
which I revere as the most faithful guide and the most power
ful guardian of morality — the cause of both, while both are
adapted to the nature, and both are conducive to the happiness
of mortal and immortal man — these causes, I trust, will never
cease to employ my understanding and to interest my heart.
Must I not look, then, with anguish upon the situation of the
ingenious and well-disposed young men, whose reverence for
the Deity has been extinguished by a misguided and extrava
gant concern for the interests of mankind, — whose love of man
kind, considered as a species, is made ineffectual to every good
purpose by the opinions they are taught to hold of individuals
as inevitably and almost irremediably depraved by their connec
tion with society, — whose ardour in the pursuit of some useful
or honourable employment, having been once chilled by hyper
bolical representation of its abuses, can never be rekindled lo
the performance ofits duties, — whose pride, having been wounded
by their own detection of their own errors, infuses a dis
trust of every principle, speculative or practical, raaintained by
other men, — whose benevolence, having been dissipated upon the
exaggerated or supposed miseries of life, retains no sympathy
with its joys, — whose understandings, havingbeen early and im-
perceptily warped from the directions of common sense, do not
always recover their proper tone for study or action, — whose
conscience, having lost the restraints of fear, and the encourage-
2n 2

548 NOTES ON
ments of hope, from a judgment to come, is secretly annoyed
by strange and irregular paroxysms of inquietude, which scepti
cism can neither account for nor assuage, — and finally, to whose
iraagination the past exhibits a wild and hideous scenery of woe,
the present is a cheerless void, and the future seeras a dark and
dreary maze ? Amidst the possibility of such effects frora such
causes, alaxpov aiwirq.v.
If, therefore, araong the readers of this discourse there be
any academic who, in the giddiness of youth or the rashness of
conceit, should have endeavoured to " compose himself* into a
Heteroclite who is not to be tried by ordinary measures," — if,
decoyed by the authoritative air, or the singular phraseology of
any favourite writers, he should bave given them an undue
share of credit for originality and correctness of thinking, — if he
should suppose that any one man, by any series of reasoning, can
lay open the laws of the moral world wilh the clearness and full
ness of Newton when he unfolded those of the natural, — if, from
the uniformity which is ascribed to the active and passive pro
perties of matter, he should have transferred any precarious or
fantastic analogies lo the complex operations of mind, — if he
should have drawn his notions of duty, not frora general rules,
but from particular, iraprobable, extrerae cases, which, if Ihey
ever occur, raust be treated as exceptions to those rules, — if he
should have founded his opinions of human nature, not upon
focts, nor deductions from facts, but upon arbitrary assuraptions
and chimerical suppositions, — if, upon questions the most ab
struse and important, he should have ventured to decide in
direct opposition lo the principles or modifications of principle,
admitted by raen of the most enlarged and cultivated under
standings, — if he should have been induced to raeasure truth by
its want of conforraity to general opinion, and justice by the
contrariety of its dictates to the notices of our experience and
the impulses of our affections, — let me appeal to that docility
which is so useful, lo that ingenuousness which is so becoming
and so amiable in the character of a young man. Let me in
treat him, not indeed to repress his curiosity, but to gratify it
* See Hooker's Sermon upon Pride,

THE SPITAL SERMON. 549
by extending and diversifying his enquiries. From dazzling
coruscations of paradox, which will only lead him into error,
into singularity, or into artificial sensibUity, let me turn his at
tention lo that pure and steady light which has been thrown
upon moral truth in the pages of Abraham Tucker, Dr. Hartley,
Paley, Locke, Reid, Dugald Stewart, Hutcheson, Archbishop
King, Bishop Cumberland, Hooker, Taylor, Cudworth, Barrow,*
and Butler. In order to avert the iraputation of unmanly pre
judice, let me send him, when previously disciplined by reading
and reflection, to the writings of Shaftsbury, Adam Sraith, and
Hume, who, upon the nice and intricate texture, the resem
blances and syrapathies of our social affections, upon the virtues
of justice and benevolence, and upon many other interesting
parts of ethics, are instructive and profound. Let me beseech
him now and then to suspend his judgment, tiU he has an oppor
tunity for perusing a work which ere long will be published by
Mr. Mackintosh, a man whom I am proud lo call my friend,
because he has explored the deepest recesses, the most complex
qualities, and the reraotest tendencies of huraan aciion ; because
lo the researches of philosophy he adds the graces of taste ; be
cause, with powers coraraensurate to the amplitude and dignity
of hi* subject, lie can, and he also will, slate without obscurity,
reason without perplexity, assert without dogmatism, instruct
without pedantry, counsel without austerity, and even refute
without acrimony. Let me assure him that, though the bat
teries of opposition have been hitherto opened only against pa
rental affection and gratitude, the mine is laid for all the other
affections by which we are endeared to each other as friends, as
neighbours, or as countrymen ; and that, unless the wise con
stitution of nature were such as to exclude the possibility of
an explosion, all the boasted systems of perfectibility and of uni
versal philanthropy would be shivered in the common wreck.
Let me further inform him, that superstition is not the only
venom which pollutes and cankers the natural sentiraents of the
heart ; that philosophy, no less than religion, may be disgraced

* ndvres fiev aotpoi' eyii bi "ClKrjpov fiiv aejiw' BavfidSw bi
Bdppovov, Kal (piXCi TaiXwpov. See Lucian in Vit&. Daemonact.
vol, ii. p. 394,

550 NOTES ON
by Pharisaical votaries ; and that, in the drudgeries which may
be necessary to uphold the cause of metaphysical as well as of
theological mysticism, self-delusion is often the vassal of zeal,
hypocrisy, and pride. Above aU, let me remind him, that as a
social being he has an arduous part to sustain in the view, and
for the sake, of society itself; that by his tenets and his habits he
must become the object of praise or blame, of esteem or hatred,
to the wise and good ; and that a sentence far more awful awaits
him hereafter, when he is suramoned before the tribunal of his
omniscient Maker.
In the foregoing parts of this note I have studiously avoided
the insertion of Mr. Gibbon's narae in the list of learned Acade
mics, and my reasons for this caution will be obvious to every
one who has read the account of his life and writings contained
in his posthumous works.
Singular it is, that in our days both Cambridge and Oxford
should have been treated disrespectfully by two eminent per
sons who belonged to thera ; Carabridge by Mr. Gray, and Ox
ford by Mr, Gibbon, Long, therefore, have I wished to make
a public avowal of ray dissent upon this subject, even from men
whose claims upon my respect are large from the uncomraon
powers of their understandings, the splendid variety of their at
tainraents, and the acknowledged merit of their writings. Hi
therto I have entered my protest against a set of writers who
are seldom indebted to our Schools for literature, or lo our
Universities for science, against self-appointed and self-deluded
reforraers, who, ' with litlle knowledge of character or fact,
wrest, to the discredit of their countrymen, the strictures of
foreign writers upon foreign institutions, and against the rest
less crew of innovators, who would have disgusted Mr, Gray by
the wildness of their fancies, and dismayed Mr. Gibbon by the
loudness of their clamours. In the sarae spirit of justice I now
proceed to notice olher animadversions, which are supported by
the authority of two great names ; and therefore may be sup
posed to have let loose upon our academical societies, the
prattle of the ignorant, and the taunts of the superficial,
Wilh a licence for exaggeration, which has always been
granted to the enthusiasm of poetry, Pindar, I remember, com
pliments Demophilus and Arcesilaus for excellencies far surpass-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 551
ing their time of life.— See Pylh, Ode iv. Strophe 13, and
Ode v. Antislrophe iv.
When Lord Orford, however, said of Mr. Gray, that " he
never v^-as a boy," it may be doubled whether this observation
had one properly, which Cicero wished to find in the praise
Caesar bestowed on him " Modo sit hoc judicii non benevo-
lentiae testimonium." — Cicero in Bruto, p. 150, vol. i. edit. Gru
ter. But, upon comparing the materials which have been col
lected about Mr. Gray by his friends, with the representation
which Mr. Gibbon has given of himself, I am inclined to
think that the lad of Cambridge had a stronger claim than
the lad of Oxford to be ranked among those who, ante annos
mentemque gerunt, animumque virilera.
Be it reraerabered, at the sarae tirae, to the honour of both,
that they surpassed rather than disappointed the expectations
of their most partial friends ; that their powers and their at
tainraents encreased with their years ; and that, wilh a felicity
very uncoraraon they may defy the severest criticism to discover
in tbem illud ingeniorum velut praecox genus, which, as Quinc-
tilian says, non temere unquam pervenit ad frugem. — Lib. r.
ch. 3. But let us attend to other circumstances in which the
difference between these Censors of their respective universities is
more striking.
Mr. Gray resided at Cambridge nearly four years before he
began to travel, and Mr. Gibbon was at Oxford only fourteen
months, Mr. Gray wenl to Cambridge with all the advantages,
wbich a boy of ardent curiosity and intense application might be
expected to derive from the noble seminary of Eton. Mr.
Gibbon, after leaving Westminster school for the recovery of
his health, and spending three years, partly with one master,
who was not very learned, and partly with another, who was
not very industrious, entered at Oxford.
Mr. Gray was out of humour with Cambridge because the
most favoured studies of the [place were dissirailar to his own.
Mr. Gibbon was displeased with Oxford, because in his opi
nion no studies at all were generally encouraged, or systemati
cally pursued.
Mr. Gray was the petulant satirist of Cambridge in confiden
tial letters, which at first he did not intend, and which after-

552 NOTES ON
wards he might not wish to see the light, Mr, Gibbon comes
forth the grave accuser of Oxford, when preparing for the view of
distant ages the various events of his life, and the final result of
his observation ; and when bestowing upon his narrative all the
accuracy which could be obtained from the exercise of a tena
cious raeraory, of a coraprehensive understanding, and of talents
for coraposition, disciplined by long practice, and invigorated
by repeated success.
Without enquiring how far the delicacy of friendship was pre
served at the expence of its discretion or its freedora, when the
editor of Mr. Gray published sorae offensive passages in his let
ters, which " throw the blarae on the raode of education rather
than on the mode of the tiraes,'" (vid. p. 12,) how far such a raea
sure is justified by the plea of " necessity not to adrait this pic
ture of Mr. Gray's raind, vvhen eraployed in drawing a general
likeness of it, and to let his own forcible colours express its true
light of shadow ;" how far Bishop Sprat is to be censured for
stifling sorae letters of Mr. Cowley, in which he had " expressed
the native tenderness and innocent gaiety of his heart" (p. 4),
or Mr. Mason is lo be coraraended for not keeping back sorae
epistolary effusions of Mr. Gray, who, " though a virtuous,
a friendly, and an araiable raan," was less distinguished by such
tenderness and such gaiety than Mr. Cowley, I cannot pass over
sorae other particulars in which Mr. Mason is entitled to high
coraraendation. Mingling the feelings of a friend with the
duty of a biographer, he endeavoured only to extenuate the sin
gularities of which he manifestly did not quite approve. From
the dislike which Mr. Gray had conceived against mathematics,
from his confidence in the proficiency that he had made in clas
sical knowledge, from the disgust which he had felt at the bane
ful influence of " jacobinism upon good manners as well as
good letters," Mr. Mason would account for sarcasms, some of
which, I readily allow, it might have been unfair for him lo sup
press. Wilh equal judgment and liberality Mr. Mason lakes care
to inform his readers, that " whatever truth there might be in
Mr. Gray's satire at the lime it was written, it can by no means
affect the piesent state of the university,"
This assertion he wisely supports by a just and general princi
ple. " There is usually," says he, "a much greater fluctuation

THE SPITAL SERMON. 553
of taste and manners in an academical than a national body j
occasioned (to use a scholastic metaphor) by that very quick suc
cession of its component parts, which often goes near to destroy
its personal identity. Whatever, therefore, may be true of such
a society at one time, may be, and generally is, len years afler ab
solutely false." — P, 12, Mr. Mason properly compares the
changes which happen in an universily to those which soraetimes
arise in a nation, and doubtless each of those bodies may at dif
ferent periods, and in different degrees, be affected by temporary
causes, beneflcial or injurious. But he does not raean to deny that,
independently of those causes, they will be more or less raarked
by a perraanent peculiarity of character, which distinguishes
them from olher comraunities. The constitution of a country
gives a certain character to the people, and the discipline of an
universily gives a certain character lo its merabers. Though the
constitution be radically good, a governraent raay, for a while,
be less wise or just, and a people raay be less free or happy, than
the constitution is forraed lo make thera respectively; and though
the discipline of an university be good, the manners of acaderaies
may at one season be more relaxed than at another. But good
principles in a constitution, and a good systera of discipline in
an university, will always produce sorae proportion of good
effects, and must lend constantly, though gradually, to counter
act the influence of causes less favourable to the welfare of a peo
ple or to the virtue and learning of an academical body. This,
surely, is true of the English nation, and it is no less true of the
English universities.
The frolics of fancy, and even the ebullitions of spleen, must
not be treated with the rigour which we usually employ against
the oblique insinuations of envy, or the virulent calumnies of
malevolence. But truth ought to be vindicated alike from every
kind and every degree of misrepresentation. At that very time,
then, in which Mr. Gray spoke so contemptuously of Cambridge,
that very universily abounded in men of erudition and science,
with whom the flrst scholars in Europe would not have dis
dained to converse ; and who shall convict me of exaggeration
when I bring forward the names of Bentley ; Dawes ; Ashton of
Jesus J Provost Snape ; Middleton ; Tunstal, the public orator j
Baker of St, John's ; Edmund Law ; John Taylor ; Thomas John-

554 NOTES ON
son ; Waterland ; Whaley, afterwards Regius Professor of Divi
nity; Sraith, the nephew of Cotes, afterwards Master of Trinity;
Roger Long ; Coulson, the correspondent of Sir Isaac Newton ;
and Professor Saunderson ?
After the opportunities which Mr. Gray enjoyed, and of which
he, doubtless, had availed hiraself, for observing the stale of
literature and the characters of literary men upon the Continent,
he did not merely visit the university, but flxed his chief residence
there ; and of a choice, to which he adhered so steadily and so
long, the scantiness of his fortune, the love of books, and the
easy access he had lo them in raany libraries, will hardly be con
sidered as the sole motives.
At a later period, when experience had enabled him to correct
the precipitation of youth, and the fastidiousness of pedantry ;
when prejudice had yielded lo reflection, and flippant conceit
had subsided into a calm and manly sense of dignity; "when
the abbreviation of time," as Mr. Gibbon says in his Meraoirs,
" and the failure of hope, had begun to tinge with a biowner
shade the evening of life," the courtesy, the respect, the admira
tion, and the public honours of that university, were all employed
to soothe the dejected spirits, and to gratify the honest pride, of
this illustrious acaderaic. The men of Cambridge gazed only
upon the transcendental merits of Mr. Gray ; and Mr. Gray had
ceased to look with Lyncean eyes upon real or imaginary weak
nesses in the men of Cambridge.
In regard to the noble editor of Mr. Gibbon's Posthuraous
Works, he, I believe, was not a raember of either university; and
therefore, it raight not have been quite discreet in hira lo con
trovert the opinions of his friends upon the strength only of his
own observation. He seems, indeed, to have gone out a little in
quest of information ; and of the little information wilh which
he was fortunate enough to meet he has permitted his readers to
partake, — See note p, 52, vol. i.
Readily do I assent to the favourable account he has given of
Brazen-nose and Oriel Colleges, and as to another Society, which
he believed deserving of fuller praises, and in which Mr. Gibbon
justly supposes learning to have been made " a duly, a pleasure,
and even a fashion," long have I thought, and often have I said,
that the highest station in our ecclesiastical establishment would

THE SPITAL SERMON. 555
not be more than an adequate recompense for the person who
now presides over it. Upon petty and dubious questions of cri
ticism, I may not always have the happiness to agree with that
celebrated man. But I know that, with magnanimity enough to
refuse two bishopricks, he has qualifications enow of head and
heart to adorn the primacy of all England, and lo protect all the
substantial interests of the English Church. I will enumerate
those qualifications in such terms as are most familiar to such a
man : r; iroXvfiaBia, ij efiiretpla, ij evfiovXla, ij dyxivoia, ij eXev-
depiorrjs, ij (ptXirovia, rb aefivov, to eirteiKes, rb ipiXoiptXov, rb ipi-
Xo^evov, Kal (ptXoKaXov.
They vvho coraplain of what is oraitted in this catalogue are
not likely to approve of what is inserted in it. Let me, however,
endeavour to propitiate them by slating, that I shall thank other
men for supplying what I may have overlooked, and by ob.
serving, that the moral excellencies, for which heathen philosophy
has found a narae, raay, by a Christian spirit, be easily exalted
into Christian graces.
For coraraunicating to the public all he had discovered about
the present state of Oxford, Lord Sheffield is to be coraraended.
Yet I could wish, that upon a subject so delicate to the feelings of
academical raen, and so iraportant to the credit of our national
learning and national virtue, his lordship had been pleased to en
large his enquiries, to suspend for a while his judgment upon
generalities, to imitate the example of Socrates in what he said
about the writings of Heraclitus, and to display his wisdom, his
modesty, and his candour, by inferring that what he did not
know of Oxford might not be bad, because that which he did
know was very good. If his Lordship had conversed with his
accomplished and amiable friend, the late Chancellor of Oxford,
he might have obtained, in that quarter, more copious and accu
rate information than from young gentlemen, who, with the
very best intentions, seldom have much of that knowledge which
was suited to the occasion, or from Mr, Gibbon, who, wilh the
very worst prejudices, had little or no communication with the
place when he wrote his Memoirs, If he had been anxious lo
discover whether the College of St, Mary Magdalen were a mo
nastery for drones, or a seminary for scholars, he might have
been informed that the examination for Demyships is quite as

556 NOTES ON
strict and quite as judicious as the exaraination fur almost any
place of eraolument or honour in any olher society ; that the can
didates do not depend now, as they once did, upon the recom
mendation of friends, but upon their ovvn literary attainments
and moral character ; that their exercises during term are exa
mined by a President whose knowledge of the Greek philoso
phers, and Greek fathers, and of the Greek and Latin languages,
is at least equal to that of Mr, Gibbon ; and that araong the young
men who have been elected within these few years, there are
many endowed with such a share of classical learning as would
be highly esteeraed by our best instructors in our best public
schools. If he had further consulted such irapartial and intelli
gent raen, as surely may be met with in every other college, he
would have found the exceptions to Mr. Gibbon's opinion so
numerous, and so raeritorious, as lo constitute the general rule.
But, as raatters novv stand, the noble editor has said too rauch,
if he meant lo corapliment parts of the academical body without
regard to the whole, and too little, if he meant lo do justice
to the whole, as well as parts, Acaderaiae aluranus ebm ipse non
esset, hanc doctorum et vivorum horainum turbara effugere de
buit, nequis se prseteritura, aut non satis laudatura, queri posset.
— Cicer. Brut, p, 151,
It can hardly have escaped the notice of an intelligent reader,
that while the raind of Mr, Gibbon was lurned towards the want
of regularity and activity in the studies of Oxford, the attention
of his editor has been very much bent on the want of restraint
over its expences. The manner, too, in which this subject is
treated, forms a very striking contrast with the diffidence and
good sense of Isaac Casaubon in one of his letters to Daniel
Heinsius. Cupio in Grecis Latinis et Hebraicis Uteris filium raeura serib
exerceri. Hoc in AngliS. posse fieri sperare non possura ; nam
hic locupletissima sunt collegia ; sed quorum ratio toto genere
diversa est ab institutis omnium aliorum coUegiorura. Quo
suraptu filium possim istic alere honeslfe, scire velira. Quod si
res raeae ferunt ut par sira futurus illi impensae, expecta me istic
non multo post tuas acceptas. — Vid, No, 132, p. Ill, in the 4lo
ed. published at the Hague, 1638, by S. T. Gronovius ; and No.
962, p. 563, in the fol. ed, of Casaubon's Epistolae et Praefationes,

THE SPITAL SERMON. 557
published at Rotterdam, 1709, by Theodore Janson, ab Alme-
loveen. The prudence and parental affection of Isaac Casaubon ira
pelled hira to make enquiries upon the spot ; from enquiries he
proceeded lo experiment ; and by experiment he found that the
stateliness of the buildings, the largeness of the pulilic revenues,
the hospitable livings of the heads of houses, and the expences of
the more opulent academics, were not incompatible wilh the
economical plan which he had formed for his second son Meric,
The eldest, as it appears from other letters, had, like Mr. Gibbon,
gone over from protestantism to the church of Rome.
For the credit of Oxford, and with a view to the removal of
vulgar prejudices, I will pursue this topic a little farther. In
stead of being sent, as the father intended lo send him, (if Ox
ford had been too expensive) lo the care of that great scholar
Daniel Heinsius, Meric entered at Christ Church ; he soon be
came a student there ; he took both his degrees in arts : he pub
lished several useful works in literature and theology : he was pre
ferred by Archbishop Laud : he was created doctor of divinity by the
order of Charles I, : though deprived of his livings, he refused to
accept any employment under CromweU, when an iraraediate
present of nearly four hundred pounds, an annual pension of
three hundred pounds, and the valuable books of his father, which
had been purchased by James I, and then deposited in the royal
library, were proffered to him at different times. He recovered
his ecclesiastical preferment after the restoration : he lived
prosperously and studied diligently, lUl he had reached his se
venty-second year ; and by his learning, affability, charity, and
piety, he proved himself worthy of all the attentions which had
been shewn lo him, by the parent vvho loved hira, the universily
vvhich had educated him, and the princes who had succoured
him. As to Isaac, the father, he had firmness enough not to be
deten-ed by appearances from examining realities ; he had saga
city enough lo estimate all the aids and all the encouragements
which Oxford then afforded to men of letters; and they who wish
to know the respect and gratitude with which he speaks of the
place, would do well to consult the following letters : No. 893,
p. 535. No, 899, p. 537, in the fol. edit., and No. 198, p, 247,
and No, 98, p, 825 in the quarto.

558 NOTES ON
But, to return to Mr, Gibbon and his noble editor. Most
undoubtedly I concur with Lord S, " that the general ex
pences. Or rather extravagancies, of our young men, might be
more effectually restrained," But I do not allow the expences,
" in which they are permitted to indulge, to be quite inconsis
tent with a necessary degree of study, or with those habits of
morality which should be promoted by all means possible at so
early a period of life," Of Scotch universities I have already
spoken : but I have seen scarcely any one instance in which they,
who, " from the apprehension of expence, dissipation, and other
evil consequences, arising from the want of restraint in our uni
versities,'' thought theraselves " forced to send their sons ' lo
olher serainaries, have ultiraately had reason to rejoice in the
experiraent, on account of more restraints on the prodigality of
their children, less dissipation in their habits, or fewer evil con
sequences to their fortunes, — their morals, or their religion.
And what right has a parent to be surprised at the disappoint
ment of his hopes, or the irregularity of his son, when, if we
may believe Mr. Gibbon, " in the most celebrated universities of
Holland, Gerraany, and Italy, the students, who swarm from dif
ferent countries, are loosely dispersed in the privale lodgings at
the houses of the burghers, when they dress according to
their fancy and fortune, and their swords, though less frequently
than of old, are soraetimes stained with each other's blood?" —
P. 32. vol. i. of Gibbon's Posth. Works. I do not acquiesce,
then, in the representation which the noble Lord has given of
the unavoidable and unparalleled expences which he imputes lo
our universities. Much less shall I admit the charge which his
Lordship has insisted on, " that the heads of our colleges at Ox
ford and Cambridge are vain of having under their care chiefly
men of opulence, who may be supposed exerapt from the neces
sity of economical controul," Readily should I grant all the
mischievous consequences which his Lordship describes so fully
and so earnestly, if he had established the several facts. But to
the eKfiaprvpia of his Lordship, founded, as he confesses, upon
hearsay, let me oppose a more direct testiraony. For thirty years
it has been my lot to visit both universities, to converse with very
well informed members of them, and to see many changes in
governors, instructors, and customs. But with very few excep-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 559
tions, indeed, I must pronounce this hearsay statement inaccu
rate, and, I would beg leave to add, that the tutors of colleges,
who, if it were accurate, would be more concerned in it than
heads of houses, are for the most parts as guiltless as I believe
those heads to be
" Pluris est oculatus testis unus, quam aurili decem."
Plautus in Truculent.
" To the Universily of Oxford," says Mr. Gibbon, p. 34, vol. i.
" I acknowledge no obligation, and she will as cheerfully re
nounce me for a son as I am willing to disclaim her for a mo
ther." Be it so. Let me further grant, that Mr, Gibbon in his
sixteenth year, was not " devoid of capacity and application :"
that even " his childish reading had displayed an early though
blind propensity for books : that in the discipline of a well-con
stituted academy, and under the guidance of skilful and vigilant
professors, he would gradually have arisen from translations lo
originals, from the Latin to the Greek classics, from dead lan
guages to living science,'- But must the whole system of Ox
ford be reprobated, and the conduct of olher tutors in other Col
leges arraigned, because in one College, and at one time, they to
whom the office of instruction had been consigned, were defec
tive in skill or vigilance ?
Academical societies partake of those inequalities, and those
vicissitudes, lo which other human affairs are inevitably exposed.
All Colleges have not the same advantages wilh each other at the
same period, and the same College may be more fortunate in the
talents and diligence of tutors at one time than at another. Of
this general, this obvious, and very raomentous truth, Mr. Gib
bon himself was not insensible, when he told us, in page 51 of
his Memoirs, that " many students had been attracted, at a more
recent period, by the merit and the reputation of Sir WUliam
Scott, then tutor of University CoUege."
But instead of condemning the University promiscuously and
contemptuously, a raan of good sense would adopt the distinc
tion which Quintilian lays down upon a subject not wholly dissi
milar — " Ut fugiendae sint magnse scholae, (cui ne ipse quidem
rei assentior, si ad aliquem merito concurritur) non tamen hoc
eo valet ut fugiendae sint omnino scholae, Aliud est vitare eas,
aliud eligere," — Lib. i. cap, ii, page 19, edit, Capperon.

560 NOTES ON
Often has it fallen in my way to lament the inconveniences
whieh young men have suffered frora a wrong choice of Colleges;
and for a wrong choice I have often been able lo account by the
partialities of parents, who have been atthe Universities, — by the
obstinacy of those who have not been there, — by the prevalence of
political or personal, over literary or moral considerations, — by
the desire of immediate, though temporary, emoluments, — by the
recoraraeudations of thoughtless, though well-meaning acquaint
ance, — by popular opinions, which had little foundatio'n, — and by
vagrant reports, which had none at all. The credulity of fathers
may be pitied, but their inattention, or their rapacity cannot be
justifled, in a point of such high iraportance to the inteUectual
or moral improvement — to the temporal and eternal welfare of
their children.
When Mr, Gibbon entered at Magdalen other Colleges were
open lo him, and in other Colleges he might have found no room
for those complaints, which he has urged so strenuously, and
which he has taught other raen to apply so indiscrlrainately and
so unjustly.
In 1779, Mr. Gibbon, in the vindication of some passages
(vol, ii. p, 602) in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of his
History, was pleased to say, " Far be it from me, or from any
faithful historian, to impute to respectable societies the faults of
sorae individual raerabers."
Is the office, then, of hira who writes Meraoirs, less connected
with fidelity than the office of hira who writes History ? " The
general persuasion of mankind," as Mr. Gibbon elsewhere ob
serves, upon another subject (see p. 555), " that when much has
been positively asserted, soraething must be true, may contribute
to encourage a secret suspicion which would naturally diffuse
itself over the whole body" of the University, Is it possible, then,
for any man of comraon sense to read the Meraoirs of Mr,
Gibbon, without suspecting that something more is meant, than
imraediately raeets the ear ; without feeling, that insinuation in
one place is lo be interpreted by statement in another, without
carrying on his distrust from St, Mary Magdalen College to other
Colleges, or without supposing, that in Mr. Gibbon's estiraation,
what Oxford was, when he wrote his Memoirs, bore no very faint
or distant resemblance to what Oxford had been, in his sight.

THE SPITAL SERMON, 561
when he first became an academic ? Does not the conduct of his
noble Editor, in looking out for particular societies that might
be excepted, strongly shew the general impression that had been
made upon his mind ?
Had Mr. Gibbon so little discernment as not to foresee the con
clusions that would be drawn frora his narrative ? Has he shewn
any disposition, or raade any effort, to prevent bis readers frora
drawing thera ? Has he not attempted to counteract the effects
of any iraportant distinction that raight be set up between actual
defects, as he conceived them to be, when he was a boy, and possi
ble improvements, which had taken place when he was a man ?
Do not Mr. Gibbon's own thoughts, as expressed in his own
words, point directly to the University at large ? I will repel
contradiction and baffle evasion, by planting those words in the
view of cavillers who, however they may murmur at me, cannot
misunderstand Mr. Gibbon.
" In all the Universities of Europe, excepting our own, the
languages and sciences are distributed among a nuraerous list of
effective professors. The students, according to their taste,
calling, and their diligence, apply themselves to their proper mas
ters, and, in the annual repetition of public and private lectures,
these masters are assiduously employed. Our curiosity may in
quire, what nuraber of professors has been instituted at Oxford ;
for I shall now confine myself to my own University, by vvhom
are they appointed, and what may be the probable chances of
merit or incapacity ; how many are stationed to the three facul
ties, and how many are left for the liberal arts ; what is the form,
and what the substance of their lessons ? But all these questions
are silenced by one short and singular answer : The greater part
ofthe public professors have, for these many years given up even
the pretence of teaching." — P. 36.
To this answer, which is founded upon the evidence of Dr.
Adam Sraith, the raembers of the University may give a raore
detailed reply than I can do. But what I know, I will relate.
Dr, Trapp, Mr, Hawkins, and Dr. Lowth, have published their
lectures as Poetry professors. Mr. Wharton has inserted one
lecture in his edition of Theocritus. The gentleman, vvho is now
professor, reads lectures, and has published a part of thera, I be
lieve, in English, That the lectures of Sir Williara Scott upon
VOL, II, 2 o

562 NOTES ON
History, if given to the world, " would form a most valuable trea
tise," Mr. Gibbon hiraself had been assured.
In addition to this respectable testimony I would beg leave to
say, that many years ago Sir William read to me a part of one
lecture, which contained sorae curious raatter on the revenues of
the Grecian Stales, and which seemed to me perfectly worthy of
the writer, frora variety of learning, acuteness of observation,
and elegance of style. The Coraraentaries of Dr, Blackstone, and
a very excellent work of Professor Woodison, are proofs that the
institution of the Vinerian Professorship is not wholly useless.
Dr. Benthara forraerly read lectures in the Divinity School, and
the same office is now perforraed with great ability by Dr, Ran
dolph, whose cares as a prelate have not raade hira inattentive to
his duties as a Professor. In Cheraistry and in Anatomy, lectures,
I know, were for sorae years regularly given; and, I believe,
they were largely attended. The lectures of the late Saxon Pro
fessor are much applauded, and his successor, I ara persuaded,
will justify the choice of the University by his knowledge,
his activity, and his judgment. I have not heard whether
Dr. Hunt or Dr. White read lectures in the Oriental lan
guages, nor am I sure that such lectures would have been of
great use, according to the raethod in vvhich those languages are
novv learned. But I know that both the Professors just now
mentioned, hold a very high rank in the estimation of foreign
scholars. Dr. Hunt supplied many valuable notes to the Prae-
lectiones Hebraicae of Dr. Lowth ; he read in the Schools, and
then printed, one Oration de Antiquitate, elegantiy, et utilitate
linguse Arabicae, 1738 ; and another, De usu Dialectorum Orien-
taliura et Praecipue Arabicse, in Hebraico Codice interpretando,
in 1748. He, in 1744, addressed lo Oxford Students, " A Dis
sertation on Proverbs vii. 22, 23," and this Dissertation in 1775,
was republished by Dr. Kennicott, who added lo it critical obser
vations of Dr. Hunt on olher passages in Proverbs, and two very
learned Serraons on two very difficult subjects.
Dr. White was always ready lo assist young men who applied
to him for instruction. He is author of a very judicious Sermon
upon the Septuagint. He published an inaugural speech,
which, in point of composition, far excels that which is usually
found in the Clavis Pentateuch of Dr. Robertson, He translated

THE SPITAL SERMON. 563
and edited, in two vols. 4to the Syriac Version of part of the
New Testament, which belonged to Dr. Gloucester Ridley. He
is said to be now engaged in preparing the Epistles, He long
ago completed, and raight with very little exertion publish, what
Pocock junior left unfinished, in the translation of AbdoUatiph's
Egyptian History. He has lately done signal service to young
clergymen, by an edition of the received Text of the New Testa
ment, with the most important variations in Griesbach, and by a
Diatessaron, * drawn up in conformity lo the Chronology ap
proved by Archbishop Newcome ; and to his professional studies,
he, in his Bampton Lectures, was much indebted for the happy
choice of a subject, and for the very masterly manner in which it
has been treated.
The foregoing statement is sufficient to shew the slenderness
of Mr, Gibbon's information, and the rashness of his conclusions.
I therefore leave it with the men of Oxford to adduce the particu
lars which I have omitted, and to expatiate upon those which I
have merely enumerated.
In regard to Cambridge, the persons there appointed to Pro
fessorships have in few instances disgraced them by notorious
incapacity, or criminal negligence, A late work of Dr, Hay fur
nishes us with a decisive proof of his abiUties and his activity.
Dr. Waring and Mr, Vince, in their writings, have done honour
to the science, not only of their University, but of their age. The
profound researches of Dr. Waring, I suppose, were not adapted
to any form of communication by lectures. But Mr. Vince has,
by private instructions, been very useful both to those who were
novitiates, and to those who were proficients, in Mathematics,
Dr. Halifax, Dr. Rutherforth, and Dr. Watson, very abundantly
conveyed the information which belonged lo their departments,
sometimes in the disputes of the schools, and soraetimes by the
publication of their writings. Chemistry has been adorned, not
* I do not take upon myself to offer advice to English Bishops ;
but I should be very happy to hear that the candidates for orders
were instructed to read the Greek Testament in Dr, White's
Diatessaron, and to make use of Novum Lexicon Graeco Lati
num in Novum Testamenlura, first prepared by Christian Schoett-
genius, afterwards enlarged by Krebsius, and edited al Leipsic,
1790, by M. Gottlieb Lebereol Spohn.
2o2

564 NOTES ON
by the labour only, but by the sagacity of Dr. Watson, and Dr.
Milner, Mr. Porson, the Greek Professor, has not read raore
than one lecture, but that one was iribaKos el ieprjs bXiyrj Xifids.
He has written, however, books, of utility far more extensive
than lectures could be ; and I speak from my own actual obser
vation, when I state, that the Greek Plays edited by this wonder
ful man, have turned the attention of several academics towards
philological learning, which, it must be confessed, has few and
feeble attractions to the eagerness of curiosity, or the sprightli
ness of youth.
Whatsoever lectures rasly, or raay not, have been given by
other Professors, I ara convinced that Mr, Gibbon, if he had
visited Cambridge, would have been " alraost," if not " altoge
ther" a convert. Surprised he might fiave been to find, and
ready, I trust, he would have been to embrace, many opportu
nities for congratulating other men upon the enjoyraent of those
advantages, which, during his own lirae, raay not have been, in
in his own College, accessible to hiraself. He would have seen
many elegant scholars, and raany deep raalheraaticians araong
the tutors. He would have seen the raost generous eraulation,
and the most indefatigable diligence in the younger merabers of
the University. He would have seen plans of study recoraraended
for their use — exercises prescribed for the display of their inge
nuity, or the exertions of their industry — rewards proposed for
their merit in Mathematics, in Poetry, in Prose, in Greek Com
positions, in Latin, and in English. In almost every College he
would have seen young men who were able to understand
" originals" without the dim and delusive light of "translation; "
— who were well acquainted with " Greek, as well as Latin
Classics ;" — and who bad iraproved their taste, while they enlarged
their knowledge by the aid of the " dead languages." He would
have seen days, and weeks, and years, eraployed in the most in
tense labour upon " living science." He would have seen amuse
ments, exercise, society, health, and sometimes even life cheer
fully sacrificed to the acquisition of that knowledge which no
learned man ever despised who possessed il, and no candid man
would depreciate who possesses it not. Such was the state of
Cambridge when Mr. Gibbon wrote his Memoirs, and such it
now is, perhaps to a greater extent, when Mr, Gibbon is nura-

THE SPITAL SERMON, 565
bered among the dead. Some of the foregoing facts, I allow,
Mr. Gibbon could not know ; but far the greater part of ihem
were within his reach, and to search for them would have been
creditable to his accuracy as a reporter, his delicacy as a gentle
man, and his liberality as a scholar. That search, indeed, was a
duty equally obvious and indispensable ; and that duty ought to
have been discharged deliberately and completely before Mr.
Gibbon, rousing all his antipathy, and collecting all his might,
had ventured to exaggerate real defects, to disregard real excel
lencies, or to throw before readers of all ages and in all nations,
one glittering description, one vague suggestion, one invidious
comparison, one contemptuous scoff, or one serious charge.
If Mr. Gibbon, as was said of Dante, " intended Reforraation,
his censures were not wise : if he did not intend Reforraation,
his censures were not good." — Vide Adventurer, No. 87.
Ill would it become me tamely and silently to acquiesce in
the strictures of this formidable accuser, upon a seminary lo
which I owe many obligations, though I left it, as must not be
dissembled, before the usual tirae, and, in truth, had been
almost compelled lo leave it, not by the want of a proper
education, for I had arrived at the first place in the first form of
Harrow School, when I was not quite fourteen ; not by the want
of useful tutors, for mine were eminently able, and to me had
been uniforraly kind ; not by the want of ambition, for I had
begun to look up ardently and anxiously to academical distinc
tions ; not by the want of attachment to the place, for I regard
ed it then, as I continue to regard it now, with the fondest and
most unfeigned affection ; bul by another want, which it were
unnecessary to name, and for the supply of which, afler some
hesitation, I determined to provide by patient toil and resolute
self-denial, when I had not completed ray twentieth year. I
ceased, therefore, to reside with an aching heart : I looked
back with mingled feelings of regret and hurailiation to ad
vantages of which I could no longer partake, and honours to
which I could no longer aspire ; I visited my corapanions, my
rivals, and my instructors, when either my leisure or my circura
stances perraitted ; I was assisted in the raost gracious manner
by the Chancellor and several Heads of Houses, when the degree
ofa Master had become requisite for me, in the pursuit ofa most

566 NOTES ON
precious object, which I was not fortunate enough to attain ;
and upon the access, with which I was honoured at a very early
period, to the presence of raen high in academical rank and
conspicuous for literary excellence, often have I reflected with
pleasure and with the pride of an ancient writer,* who has more
than once recorded his own intimacy wilh the poets and the
statesmen of the Augustan age. The unreserved conversation
of scholars, the disinterested offices of friendship, the use of va
luable books, and the example of good men, are endearments by
which Carabridge will keep a strong hold upon my esteem,
my respect, and my gratitude, lo the latest moment of my
life. Never shall I have the presumption lo " disclaim her as
a mother," and never raay she have just occasion to " renounce
me as a son ;" ecrrt bi ovx ovros dxdpiaros fibvov. Sans ov bpd
KaKtos ij Xeyei, dXXd Kal oaris atwrrd Kat diroKpvirret, XijBrj
irapabibovs Kal dipaviSwv rds x^P^''''^^- — Julian, Oral. II, p. 172,
edit, D. Petavius, 1614.t
Such are the seductions of Mr. Gibbon's style, and the con
tagion of his scorn ; such is the skilfulness with which his ob
servations are engrafted upon his narrative ; such is the air of
plausibility, and even authority, which his acknowledged venera
tion for learning diffuses over his severe aniraadversions upon
two learned societies, that the use of generalities is not to be
slighted, where they can be pertinently opposed lo generalities,
and raay fortify the evidence frora detail. There is a very nu
merous and a very officious class of censors, vvho find it much
easier lo assurae the iraportance of pronouncing decisions, than
to endure the drudgery of exaraining facts. Among such per-

* See Horace, Sat. x. lib. i. Sat, i, lib, ii, Epist. xx. lib, i,
t When Julian wrote this Oration he had received some im
portant favours frora Constantine and Eusebia. Whatever
motives raight afterwards induce him lo apostatize from Chris
tianity, he probably would not have been a proselyte to sorae
modern notions about gratitude. For in the sentence iramedi
ately preceding he writes — OuSevos yap, olfiat, twv dXXwv
dbiKrjfidrwv 'eXarrov fiiaovfiev dxapiariav, Kal oveibiiofiev rols
dvBpinrois, brav ev iraBovres irpbs rovs eiiepyeras watv
ifX"P'arot.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 567
sons one very fruitful source of error is their voluntary or acci
dental inattention to the peculiar constitution of foreign Uni
versities and that of our own. Cambridge and Oxford, unlike
the former, are composed of Colleges, founded in different ages,
endowed with distinct revenues, subject to different statutes,
governed by different heads, independent of each other in
many points of internal regulation, yet united under a gene
ral code of laws, which have not only appointed restraints upon
foppery, laziness, and vice, but provided encouragements for
various degrees of effort and talent in various branches of science
and erudition.
Other mistakes arise frora the want of due consideration that
English Universities, being filled with the sons of English pa
rents, must, in some measure, sympathize with the general state
of England itself, and share, raore or less, in the gradual and suc
cessive changes of manners, custoras, opinions, and intellectual
pursuits. Hence their streets are no longer crowded with
striplings of twelve or fourteen. Their discipline no longer
requires those punishments which are retained in schools. Their
undergraduates, upon admission, are usually presuraed to have
made a greater proficiency than Mr. Gibbon clairas to himself.
The elements of the learned languages are no longer taught, as
in the days of Cheke and Smith, by professors ; nor does there
seem to be rauch propriety in thus teaching them, when students
are to be eraployed in the works of Aristotle, of Plato, of Longi-
nus, of Quintilian, and other writers of antiquity, for the pe
rusal of which it is expected that they have been sufficiently pre
pared 'oy their school-raasters. Rhetoric, with all its tawdry
appendages and tedious incurabrances of tropes and figures, is
no longer made an essential part of education, because compo
sition, aud criticism upon coraposition, are regulated by laws
more favourable to perspicuity and elegance, lo ease and vigour,
lo uniformity without saraeness, and variety wiihout incongru
ity, to the eraancipation of good sense frora pedantry, and the
dominion of genius over art. The uncouth jargon and the fri
volous distinctions of Logic are no longer considered as instru
ments indispensibly necessary for the detection of errors or the
expression and arrangement of truths, because the understand
ings of men have happily escaped from the fetters of forms and

568 NOTES ON
words, and are accustoraed to explore, through a clearer rae
diura and over a wider range, the properties and relations of
things. The noisy jarrings of Thoraists and Scotists, of Nomi
nalists and Realists, have long been hushed. The labours of in
dividuals, residing upon the same spot, and prosecuting the sarae
enquiries, are invigorated by corapetition rather than relaxed by
co-operation. Their opinions, instead of being cramped by
systems; are enlarged by principles ; and in their pretensions to
literary farae their appeals -raust be made, not lo the sufferings
of the wrangling partisan, or the solitary recluse, but before the
tribunal of an unprejudiced and enlightened public.
The raultiplication of books, the facility of procuring thera,
and the custora of reading thera, raay be considered as additional
reasons for the diminished usefulness of lectures upon the ab
struser parts of science, and upon various subjects of classical
and even orienlal literature.
Under these circurastances, which Mr. Gibbon was well qua
lified lo appreciate, if he had been disposed lo exaraine thera,
the instruction, which forraerly was conveved by Professors to
a promiscuous multitude of the young, the old, the trifling loi
terer, and the attentive student assembled in schools, is now
consigned with happier effect to private and public tutors within
the waUs of colleges. The plans for such instruction admit suf
ficient comprehension and sufficient regularity for use. The
divisions are easily adapted to the capacities of those who under
stand what they have heard, and retain what they have under
stood. The tutor can interrogate, vvhere the lecturer perhaps
would only dictate, and therefore, in his intercourse with learn
ers he has raore opportunities for ascertaining their proficiency,
correcting their misapprehensions, and relieving their embar
rassments. Doubtless, when the present condition of academi
cal affairs is corapared with that of which we read in the last
century, and those which preceded it, appearances are much
changed, but the substance remains unirapaired. .\ conceited
and superficial spectator may easily deceive himself ; but a dis
passionate and judicious observer will understand and often ap
prove. A witling raay glean materials for raillery ; but a scholar
wUI find ample room for reflection and commendation. Reports
may sometiraes misguide those vvho are content to hear only ;

THE SPITAL SERMON, 569
but facts wiU interest, and upon the whole, satisfy those who
frequently and carefully inspect.
" The Schools of Oxford and Carabridge (says Mr. Gibbon),
were founded in the dark age of false and barbarous science, and
they are still tainted with the vices of their origin. The legal
incorporation of these societies by the charters of Popes and
Kings, h-ad given thera a raonopoly of the public instruction,
and the spirit of raonopolists is narrow, lazy, and oppressive :
their work is more costly and less productive than that of inde-
pendant artists ; and the new improvements, so eagerly grasped
by the corapetition of freedora, are adraitted, with slow and sul
len reluctance in those proud corporations, above the fear of a
rival and below the confession of an error." — P. 35. After read
ing the foregoing passages, shall I be told that Mr. Gibbon had
not in view other Colleges besides his own, another University
besides his own, and other tiraes besides his own ? In speaking
of his own College, p. 37, he enuraerates particulars ; and, if
particulars of other Colleges were known, why were they not
produced to illustrate general hints or to establish general po
sitions ? Real iraproveraents in science are adraitted cautiously,
but not reluctantly ; and such caution upon such subjects is raore
becoraing in a learned body than eagerness.
" Our Colleges (says Mr. Gibbon, p. 37), are supposed to be
schools of science as well as of education : * nor is it unrea
sonable to expect, that a body of literary men, devoted to a life
of celibacy, exerapt from the care of their own subsistence, and
araply provided with books, should devote their leisure to the
prosecution of study, and that some effects of their studies
should be manifested to the world." I adrait the premises but
deny the inference, which by implication is to be drawn frora
them. The University Presses of Oxford and Carabridge, in
Mr. Gibbon's life-time, and since his death, have produced nu-
* In the catalogue I have given of distinguished academics
may be found the names of persons who published while they
resided in the University, as well as of others who became au
thors after leaving them. To that catalogue I would add the
naraes of the late Archdeacon Ibbetson, of Mr. Collins the poet,
of Mr. Cumberland, Dr. Ford, Dr. Tateham, Mr. Scarlet, Mr.
JekyI, Dr. R. Shepherd, Sir G. Shuckburgh, Dr. Maskelyne, and,
if I have not been misinformed. Baron Maseres.

570 NOTES ON
merous effects of those studies, which are equally honourable to
the writers and to the Universities. Mr, Gibbon thus proceeds ;
" The shelves of their library groan under the weight of Bene
dictine folios ; of the editions of the Fathers, and the collections
of the middle ages, which have issued from the single Abbey of
St, Gerraain des prfes at Paris." Are there no books, then,
in science, criticisra, natural philosophy, history, and polite lite
rature ? Are there no raanuscripts in Greek, Latin, and the
Oriental languages f Has Mr. Gibbon never visited the libraries
of Corpus, All Souls, Queen's, New College, Worcester, and
Christ-Church ? Did he never deign to cast a glance on the
Bodleian Catalogue, in two voluraes folio ? Did he never hear of
additional books, sufficient perhaps to fill another folio ? " A
coraposition of genius," Mr. Gibbon says, " must be the offspring
of one raind. But such works of industry as may be divided
araong raany hands, and raust be continued during raany years,
are the peculiar province of a laborious coraraunity," True,
Nacti sunt hanc Spartam Oxonienses, et prseclarissirafe ornave-
runt. So say I. But Mr. Gibbon says, p. 38, "If 1 enquire
into the manufactures of the Monks of Magdalen, if 1 extend
the enquiry to the other Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, a
silent blush, or a scornful frown vvill be the only reply."
Were I to speak of the foregoing passage as it deserves, I
should employ " those harsh epithets which raight be interpreted
as the expressions of resentraent, though I should be constrained
to use thera as the only words in the English language which
could accurately represent my cool and unprejudiced senti
ments." Thus wrote Mr. Gibbon (vol. ii. p. 579), about Mr,
Davis, and thus I should have written about Mr. Gibbon.
Dr, Horne was a Monk of Magdalen ; but he coraposed seve
ral volumes of Sermons, lo which Mr, Gibbon will not refuse
the praise of ingenuity ; and he also drew up a Commentary on
the Psalms for nobler purposes than the amuseraent of scholars
or the confutation of critics. Dr, Chandler is a Monk of Mag
dalen ; but he has published Travels into Greece and Asia Mi
nor, which have been well received in the learned world, and,
wilh great credit to himself, he has re-published the Marmora
Oxoniensia. Dr, Routh is a Monk of Magdalen ; but he is now
engaged in a work of great difficulty and of great use, for

THE SPITAL SERMON. 571
which he is peculiarly qualified by his profound knowledge of
the tenets and the language of the earlier fathers in the Chris
tian Church ; and long before the death of Mr, Gibbon, this
very Monk had sent forth an edition of iwo dialogues in Plato ;
an edition which, in common with many of my countrymen, I
have myself read with instruction and with delight ; an edition
which the first scholars on the Continent have praised, which
Charles Burney " loves," and which even Richard Porson " en
dures." " It is the peculiar felicity of youth," says Mr. Gibbon, vol. i,
p, 55, " that the most unpleasing objects and events seldom
make a deep or lasting impression. It forgets the past, enjoys
the present, and anticipates the future," The observation is
well founded and well expressed. But he frora whom il pro
ceeds has exhibited a fresh instance of human infirraity in the
variance vvhich subsists between his opinion and his practice.
May we not suspect that the tranquillity which Mr, Gibbon de
rived from his thoughtlessness as a boy was not granted to his
hours of reflection when he became a full-grown man ? While
Mr, Gibbon was preparing the Memoirs of his own life and
writings, he certainly had not " forgotten the past," The mo
tives which enabled him to " enjoy the present," will not excite
the envy of a wise or a good man, and " in the future," he had
only to anticipate the pain he was about to inflict, and the re
proaches he was about to call down upon a race of academics, by
whose faults he had never been injured, and into whose virtues
and studies he had very slightly enquired.
If Mr, Gibbon had intended only to convince the public that
all the literary exploits, for which he was so justly celebrated,
had been alchieved suo marte, he might have been content
shortly and poignantly to notice the injudicious regulations of
the Palaestra when he frequented it, and the ignorance or neg
ligence of the Gymnasiarchs, who were appointed to instruct
him. But why are eight or nine pages employed in doing that
which might have been done as effectually and more decorously
in four or five sentences ?
I have sometimes been inclined to think that Mr. Gibbon had
received, or fancied himself to have received, provocations more
recent than any which he has stated in his Memoirs, What they

572 NOTES ON
were must be left to conjecture, and for conjecture there are
sorae grounds.
That Mr. Gibbon was not inattentive to the reports at Oxford
relative to hiraself is apparent frora the forty-seventh page of his
Meraoirs. " The good sense of my father was astonished at my
strange departure from the religion of my country. In the first
sally of passion he divulged the secret, which prudence might
have suppressed, and the gates of Magdalen College were for
ever shut against my return. Many years afterwards, when the
name of Gibbon was become as notorious as that of Middleton,
it was industriously whispered at Oxford that tbe Historian had
formerly turned Papist. My character stood exposed to the re
proach of inconstancy, and this invidious topic vvould have been
handled without mercy by ray opponents, could they have sepa
rated ray cause frora that of the University."
As to the secret, if it had been kept, did Mr. Gibbon, the con
vert, raingle so little sincerity with his zeal, as to be capable of
returning lo Magdalen, even if he had not been forbidden lo re
turn ? When the secret had been told, what olher inconveni
ence, or I should rather say effect, can we suppose Mr. Gibbon
lo have experienced, according lo Mr. Gibbon's own account,
except that of being removed frora a society in which he had
never been instructed, and frora a religion of which he had no
longer approved. The raen of Magdalen were faithful to their
oaths, when they did not perrait a Papist lo reside in a Protes
tant Society. The men of Oxford spoke tiulh when Ihey said
that " the Historian had formerly turned Papist." In regard
to the opponents of Mr. Gibbon, who were not men of Magda
len ; their compassion, their candour, their inability to deter
mine whether his conversion to the Church of Rome was an act
of inconstancy, or " an honest sacrifice of interest to con
science ;" their good sense in discerning that such conversion,
under either supposion, was wholly unconnected with the points
in dispute between theraselves and Mr. Gibbon ; all or any of
these reasons may have produced their silence. But as lo the
one reason, which alone Mr, Gibbon has assigned for what Ihey
did do, and from which he has inferred what under olher cir
curastances Ihey would have done, il is utterly inadraissible.
The cause of Mr. Gibbon, as a convert to Papacy, is separate in

THE SPITAL SERMON, 573
all its principles, and all its circumstances, from the cause of the
University lo which his opponents belonged. If the men of Mag
dalen were right in preventing Mr. Gibbon's return, the Univer
sity would have claimed no praise. If the men of Magdalen
were wrong, the University would have deserved no blame.
It must be owned that Mr. Gibbon's opponents did not bestow
any commendation upon his possible integrity. But, did they
take any advantage of his actual delusion ? Did they expatiate
in any general harangues upon the proneness of the human mind
lo wander from one extreme to another; " to try all Ihings" with
equal eagerness ; and ultimately " lo hold fast" that which may
not be good ? Did they attempt any analysis of those mental
idiosyncrasies, which seek for gratification in variety, and find it
in singularity ? Did they draw up any scale of gradation, accord
ing to which we may pass on from the exercise of subtlety lo the
love of sophistry, from impatience under doubt to captiousness
amidst proofs, or from indiscriminate inquisitiveness wilh con
scious ignorance, to excessive refinement with conscious know
ledge ? Did they produce any arguraents or any exaraples to
shew, that frora the offensive and perilous obstinacy of dogma
tism, there is a surer refuge in the wariness and moderation of
academic philosophy, than in the versatility and indifference of
the sceptical ? They did not ; and therefore, after noticing the
ungracious terms in which this forbearance is mentioned, and
the unsatisfactory raanner in which it is explained, we must look
for some other cause of Mr. Gibbon's dislike to the University.
Had, then, the oral traditions of Oxford preserved and disse
minated any of those childish foibles and trifling infirmities,
which mean and malicious adversaries often bring forward to
insult the learned, or to degrade the virtuous ? Was it the cus
tom of Oxford to say, that the erudition of Mr. Gibbon was su
perficial, that his judgment was weakj that his taste was incor
rect, and that his compositions were unworthy of that fame
which he had acquired, and which, in his reply to Mr. Davis, he
represents " as the motives and the rewards of his labours ?"
Did the members of Oxford, in their corporate capacity, pass
any direct vote of censure upon a work which from its matter in
some places could not be expected to please, and from its man
ner in other places may have been intended to provoke ? Shrink-

574 NOTES ON
ing from the danger of assailing Mr. Gibbon with the weapons
of arguraent, did they endeavour to strike hira down with the
iron mace of the law ? Did they raise against this raighty cham-
pion!;of infidelity the passions of a blind and infuriate rabble, just
as upon another occasion, but without their concurrence, and, I
trust, approbation, those passions have been since stirred up
against a well-known Heresiarch? Did they hold him up to
public abhorrence as a sly and malevolent enemy, who, instead
of destroying the outworks of Christianity by the batteries of
opposition, was attempting lo sap the very citadel by the mines
of insinuation? NU horum. What, then, was the wrong?
Two confederate Doctors, it seems, of this University, men
" whose zeal (vol. ii. p, 603) was indeed enlightened by sorae
rays of knowledge," but whose habits of study and conversation
appeared to have left thera in total ignorance of the principles
which universally regulate the opinions and practice of man
kind,'' (p. 615.) had ventured lo write against Mr. Gibbon. The
same offence had been coramitted by Mr. Davis, who was a
Batchelor of Arts in Oxford, and wbo had undertaken, as Mr
Gibbon informs us, " to write before he had read," They who
have perused Mr. Gibbon's Vindication, can have no doubt of
his talents to convert defensive war into that which is offensive ;
and they may be supposed to believe, that the correction which
had been forraerly inflicted on the two Doctors and the Bache
lor of Arts was quite equal to the crimes of which they had been
guUty. How far, then, is the University responsible for those
crimes ? I have never been told that a vote of thanks was
passed in favour of the two Doctors ; though I have somewhere
heard that the Bachelor of Arts was honoured with the degree of
Master, But if this was the enormity which roused Mr. Gibbon's indig
nation, and inflicted so deep, so lasting, so venomous a wound
upon his feelings, we may surely apply to him what he had ob
served of Mr, Davis, " that in his philosophy all sins are of
equal magnitude." — Vol. ii. p. 542.
It were unnecessary for me to vindicate either the propriety
of the general usage or the conduct of Oxford, in bestowing a
mark of distinction upon Mr. Davis, whose purpose it was to
elucidate questions which Oxford could not slight ; and whose

THE SPITAL SERMON. 575
exertions, though not completely successful, do credit to the
education which Oxford furnished. Academical degrees, I am
aware, may sometimes be lavished wilh intemperate zeal, and
soraetimes refused by churlish bigotry. The cabals of interested
or prejudiced individuals may overrule the good sense and defeat
the good nature of a learned body. Great, however, is the
aggregate of wisdom and liberality, for which our Universities
are indebted to the influence of literatnre, philosophy, and reli
gion ; and where, let me ask, are we to look for a community,
nuraerous in its members, and fluctuating in its component
parts, so exempt from huraan frailty, as never to be blinded by
prepossession, never beguiled by suspicion, never warped by
party, never, even with right intention, led astray inlo measures
which a calm and sagacious bye-stander would pronounce wrong?
Suffice it then to say, that the practice of conferring degrees
upon authors has from lime imraemurial been adopted in foreign
as well as in our own Universities ; and that, on many important
occasions, it has been employed in favour of many celebrated
men, who, being engaged in the best causes, and actuated by
the best motives, have put forth the greatest abilities with the
greatest effect.
When a writer has spoken so frequently, and, in truth, so hand
somely of hiraself, as Mr. Gibbon, and so acriraoniously of almost all
his antagonists, it is no violation either of charity or decorum, to
exaraine the soundness of his pretensions, not to veracity, in
deed, but to impartiality and candour. WUUng I am to make
all due allowances for the soreness of a controversialist, for the
irritability of a valetudinarian, for indolence, impatient of being
disturbed in that sweet repose which succeeds exertion, and for
conscious merit, indignant at rude interruption in the career of
its triumphs. I must, however, take tbe liberty of saying, that
Mr. Gibbon retained his resentments more stedfastly, and felt
them more painfully, than his discretion or his pride would suf
fer him to acknowledge. The softness of his expressions often
gave a sharper edge to the severity of his invectives, and the
gaiety of ridicule is often employed by him, not as a check but
as a disguise to tbe fierceness of anger. The haughtiness of de
fiance itself had few charms for his mind, unless it were accom
panied by the poignancy of sarcasm ; and, instead of crushing

576 NOTES ON
his opponents vvith confutation only, he chose rather to pierce
thera again and again with sneers, exulting, it should seem, in
the abilities which he possessed, ita ferire, ut, ii quos vicisset,
crebris et minutis ictibus se mori sentirent. — Suetonius, in Vit.
Calig. par, 30.
A raan of his various, extensive, and recondite learning, must
have known morem fuisse Graiis, ctira inter se bellum gessissent,
ut ii qui vicissent, tropaeum aliquod in finibus staluerent, victorise
modo in praesenti^ declarandae caus&, non ut in perpetuum*
belli memoria raaneret. — Cicero de Invenlione, lib, ii, p, 79-
Vide Grut. edit.
But the literary hostilities in which Mr, Gibbon was engaged
were, it seeras, not to be conducted on the equitable and huraane
conditions Graiorura cura Graus concerlantiura. His adversa
ries were for the raost part jidpjiapoi, ij on dv e'iiroi ns. — Vide
Dera. Olynph. ni. p. 33. edit. Reiske. In the war upon their
part draKra, doptara, dbiopBwra diravra. — Vide Deraosth. Phil. i.
vol. i. p, 50. And on the part of Mr. Gibbon irbXefios fjv dairov-
bos, aKripvKros, diravaros. Orat, de Cor, vol. i. p, 314. Thucyd.
lib. ii. par, 1, Plutarch, vol, ii. p. 1095. Julian, Orat, iii, p.
368, Where he professed to despise only, be attacked, or repelled
attacks, like one who haled odio Vatiniano. Not content with
disarming and vanquishing his antagonists, he trampled them
under foot. As if dissatisfied with the proud eminence of his
own fame, unless it rested on the base of other men's infamy, he
has endeavoured to perpetuate the remembrance of his enraity
when the causes of hostility had ceased, and when, according to
his own belief (not raine), and his own wishes, his foes were
sinking apace inlo that gulph where bigots, sciolists, and dunces
are forgotten. iEternun) iniraicitiarum monumentum, aeneum
statuit tropseura. — Cie. de Inv. lib. ii.
This charge is not adduced rashly, and it shall be supported
strongly. Mr. Gibbon, in the opening of his answer to Mr. Davis and
other opponents, says, " That he might have acted in strict
* Oi)be irap'"EXXrjaiv ol irpwrot XiBivov Kai xf'-^MiJv arijaavres
Tpoiraiov evboKifiovai, — Plutarch, Quaest. Roman, vol, ii. p. 273,

THE SPITAL SERMON, 577
conformity to the rule of prudence, if he had persevered in pa
tient silence ; but that the defence of his own honour urged him
to repel with vigour an unjust and unprovoked attack. His
adversary, indeed, (Mr. D.) does not appear to bave recollected
that modesty is an amiable and useful qualification, till he had
arrived at the last page of his work ;" nor did he find, till Mr.
Gibbon politely informed him of it, that a " mature judgment
was indispensably requisite for the successful execution of any
work of literature, and more especially of criticism," Mr. Gib
bon, however, ''could not" remain cold and indifferent with re
gard to the atterapts which were made " to deprive him of the
rnost valuable object of his possessions, or at least of his hopes,"
With strong marks, therefore, or I sbould rather say wilh strong
professions, of reluctance, " he proceeded upon his hostile march
over a dreary desert, where thirst, hunger, and intolerable weari
ness, were much more to be dreaded than the arrows of the ene
my," and in my opinion, as well as his own, he was lucky
enough " to pick up something curious and useful, even in the
barren waste of controversy." Now, let us attend to the con
cluding paragraph : " It is not without some mixtui-e of morti
fication and regret, that I novv look back upon the number of
hours which I have consumed, and the number of pages which
I have filled, in vindicating my literary and moral character
from the charge of wilful misrepresentations, gross errors, and
servile prejudices. I cannot derive any triumph or consolation
from the occasional advantages which I have gained over three
adversaries, whom it is impossible for me to consider as objects
either of terror or esteem. The spirit of resentraent, and every
other lively sensation, have long been extinguished, and the pen
would long since have dropped frora my weary hand, had I not
been supported in the execution of this ungrateful task by the
consciousness, or at least the opinion, that I was discharging a
debt of honour to the public and to myself. I am impatient to
dismiss, and to disraiss for ever, this odious controversy, with
the success of which I cannot surely be elated, and I have only
to request, that, as soon as my readers are convinced of my in
nocence, they will forget my vindication." — Vol. ii. p, 628,
Why then, let me ask, was that vindication republished by
the noble Editor ? Why was any discretionary power of repub-
VOL. II. 2 P

578 NOTES ON
lishing it granted to a gentleman who was surrounded by so
many incentives to republish it, whose judgment, so far as the
contents of it were unfavourable to our Universities, was under
no guidance from his personal experience, whose habitual reve
rence for Mr. Gibbon might have produced habitual and implicit
confidence, and whose attachment to him, sincere and rooted as
it was, might have exposed him to the keenest sympathy, even in
the sup])osed wrongs of a friend so beloved and so admired ?
Why was not the republication of it explicitly, peremptorily,
and solemnly forbidden by the learned author ? Did he mean a
second tirae to vindicate himself ? No, surely; for his vindica
tion was, in his own view at least, complete before. As to his
adversaries, Ihey " were no objects of terror or esteem :" and
after having said concerning one of thera, "that his book is
hastening to oblivion, and will cease to be read," he apprehends
" that grararaarians may already reproach him for the use of an
improper tense." Was it his purpose, then, to protect the cha
racters of other men from adversaries who were lurking in am
buscade, and lying on the walch for a favourable opportunity to
rush upon their prey, whether among the living or among the
dead. This doubtless were an important and honourable pur
pose ; but it was not, nor could it be, the purpose of Mr. Gib
bon. So far then as I can explain the fact from circumstances,
the vindication was republished because it had been written
with effort ; because it had been published wilh success ; be
cause, from the dexterity of the reasoning, the nicely of the
distinctions, the clearness of the explanations, the occasional
felicity of the retorts, and the general splendour of the style, it
raight increase the farae of Mr. Gibbon for ability as a writer,
even at the expence of his reputation for consistency as a rao
ralist ; because, having been inserted in a work which must at
tract the attention of posterity, it will stand as a lofty and last
ing meraorial of Mr. Gibbon's opinion, that " the charapions
who are enlisted in the service of authority commonly wear the
uniform of the regiraent ; that, oppressed by the sarae yoke, and
covered by the same trappings, they heavily move along, per
haps not wilh an equal pace, in the sarae beaten track of preju
dice and preferraents ;" and that " our two Universities most
undoubtedly contain the same mixture, and most probably the

THE SPITAL SERMON. 579
same proportion of zeal and moderation, of reason and supersti
tion,"— Vide the Vindication, vol, ii, p, 602, 603, If the last
observation be just, the fate both of the persons lo whora it is
applied, and of the writer by whora it was raade, seems remark
able, Cambridge, upon this one occasion, displayed all her ex
cellencies, and Oxford, in a luckless hour, exposed all her faults.
In the Cambridge Professor Mr. Gibbon found only reason and
moderation ; so much reason, that he " would not have blushed
(vol. ii. p, 599 and 600) to caU Dr. Watson his antagonist ;"
and so much moderation that, " supposing the only question
which reraained between them to relate to the degree of the
weight and effect of those secondary causes which established
Christianity," and " being persuaded that the Doctor's philoso
phy, like his own, was not of the dogmatic kind, he would have
been happy to call him his friend." But, in the Oxford Doctors,
and the Oxford B. A. he had found only the impetuosity of zeal,
and the blindness of superstition. He therefore "enjoyed the
present and anticipated the future,'' when he confuted and in
sulted them ; and that he " did not forget the past," when he
spoke of the place in which they vvere educated.
Hinc, or as sorae wUl choose to read with Bentley, Haec illae
lacrymse. When Aristotle had occasion to express his dissent from the
opinions of his master Plato, about ideas, he thought it incum
bent upon him to make one apology : 'Afitpdiv ydp ovroiv <pi-
Xolv, oaiov irpoTifidv rfjv dXrjBeiav. But Mr. Gibbon was lied
by no bonds of friendship to the University of Oxford, and there
fore he was incurabered with no obligations to contend, or even
to search for the whole truth, when he spoke of its defects.
Aristotle, however, in spile of his sraooth professions, has been
charged by others, as well as by Plato, with jealousy and ingrati
tude ; and my own charity, I confess, restrained as it is by my
conviction, will not permit me lo lavish on Mr. Gibbon unquali
fied praise for delicacy, justice, or placability.
Let me, however, commend him where commendation is due.
Mr. Gibbon, in his Memoirs, acknowledges " Mr. Viner's bene
faction to the University of Oxford, not lo have been unprofit
able, since it had produced the excellent Commentaries of Sir
W. Blackstone."— Vol. i. p. 63.
2p2

580 NOTES ON
He observes, too, " with pleasure, that, in the University of
Oxford, Dr. Lowth, with equal eloquence and erudition, had exe
cuted his task as a Professor, in his incomparable Praelections
on the Poetry ofthe Hebrews."— Vol. i. p. 37. In reality, when
the merits of Dr. Lowth occurred lo the mind of Mr. Gibbon, he
cannot be said laudare maligne ; for in the heat of his contro
versy, or in the pride of his triumph over his Oxford antago
nists, he pauses for a moraent, to quote wilh approbation a pas
sage in Isaiah which had "been elegantly translated by Dr.
Lowth, and to mention with pleasure the labours of the respect
able prelate, who, in that translation, as well as in a former
work, had very happily united the most critical judgment with
the taste and spirit of poetry." — Vol. ii. p. 561,
In one part of his Meraoirs he supposes other raen likely " to
assert that in the course of forty years many iraproveraents had
taken place in Magdalen College and in the University, and he
acknowledges himself not unwiUing to believe that sorae tutors
might have been found more active than one, and less con
temptible than another, of his own instructors," — P, 51. Afler
admitting, however, what was possible, he does not claim the
merit of having enquired what was true ; and in many instances
he has spoken of Oxford with a severity which could be justified
only by his conviction that the iraprovements, which niight have
taken place in some degree, had not taken place in any degree
whatsoever. In the same page, he mentions Dr. John Burton as a man of
whom it is recorded, " that he knew some Latin, some Greek,
sorae Ethics and Metaphysics ; that he taught his pupils what
he knew ; that he referred thera to proper masters for the lan
guages and sciences of which he was ignorant, and that another
man like Burton, (for another raan there was,) might, accord
ing to the measure of his capacity, be diligent and useful."
These concessions are quite as remarkable for their wariness,
as for their courtesy. The commendation of Burton rests, not
upon Mr, Gibbon's own knowledge, but upon the vague and
general testimony of other persons. The coraraendation of that
other man, Benthara, does not rise into panegyric, because, we
are told, " that he preferred the school-knowledge to the new
philosophy, Bergursdicius to Locke,'' Nay, the coraraendation

THE SPITAL SERMON. 58J
granted to Dr. Burton, as a tutor, is sullied a little by the ac
count that is given of his iraperfections in another character ;
for "this hero (Dr, Burton) appears," says Mr, Gibbon, "in his
own writings a stiff and conceited pedant," In this cautious
and frugal spirit has Mr, Gibbon been pleased rji x^'P' aireipeiv
his civilities upon Dr, Burton.
But upon Sir WiUiam Scott and Archbishop Markham he
bravely pours them forth oXw r^ OuXanry, and with all which he
says of these very excellent men I was delighted, because it is
said elegantly and deservedly. Indeed, if it had been Mr, Gib
bon's fortune lo be placed under the tuition of Dr. Burton, he
would in all probability have been a much better Greek scholar ;
and under the auspices of such teachers as a Scott and a Mark
ham, he certainly would not have been a worse writer, a worse
historian, a worse philosopher, or a worse raan,
" The expression of gratitude," says Mr. Gibbon, "is a virtue
and a pleasure : a liberal mind will delight to cherish and cele
brate the memory of its parents, and the teachers of science are
the parents of the mind."
" Applauding the filial piety which it was impossible for him
to imitate," but for the purpose, as it aftervvards appears, of
giving fuller effect to that filial impiety which it was both possi
ble and proper for him to restrain, Mr, Gibbon produces the
celebrated words of a celebrated prelate, in which he had told an
antagonist, who was equally celebrated, that "he (Dr. Lowth)
had been educated in the University of Oxford ; that he had
enjoyed all the advantages, both public and private, which tbat
famous seat of learning so largely affords; that he had spent
many years in that illustrious society, in a well-regulated course
of discipline and studies ; and in the agreeable and improving
commerce of gentlemen and scholars ; in a society where emula
tion without envy, ambition without jealousy, contention with
out animosity, incited industry and awakened genius ; where a
Uberal pursuit of knowledge, and a genuine freedom of thought,
was raised, encouraged, and pushed forward, by example, by
commendation, and by authority : that he had breathed there
the same atmosphere whicli the Hookers, the ChUlingworlhs,
and the Lockes had breathed before," &c. &c. This " eloquent
passage " I have read again and again, with the same glow of

582 NOTES ON
enthusiasm which Mr, Gibbon, or any other human being, ever
felt upon reading it, I transcribe it now, as Mr, Gibbon pro
fessed to transcribe it before, " with pleasure ;" and, afler perus
ing it, after syrapalhising witb it, after reflecting upon it, afler
considering the authority of the writer, his sagacity, his learn
ing, his opportunities for obtaining inforraation, his ability to
use inforraation when obtained, his respect for those who had
instructed him, and his gratitude lo those who had encouraged
him, after contrasting his opinion, his situation, and his words,
with the opinion, situation, and words of Mr. Gibbon, I cannot
help exclairaing with confidence, Utri credere debetis, Acaderaici ?
I will "forbear lo enquire,'" as Mr. Gibbon has forborne,
" what benefits or what rewards were derived by Hooker, or Chil-
lingworth, or Locke, from their academical institution."
Yet, these three men, be it reraerabered, were sagacious with
out refineraent, and delicate without fastidiousness. They were
calra but not cold : they had sensibility with self-coraraand ra
ther than querulousness with self-conceit. One of them was or
thodox but not credulous; another was in some respects scepti
cal but not licentious ; and a third was raoderate but not irreve
rent or indifferent. Their views were extensive, their situation
was interesting, and their writings were not barren of allusion lo
the events and characters of their own days. But, in what part
of their large and useful works do these venerable raen speak of
Oxford, in that insidious, that affrontive, I had alraost said, that
vindictive spirit, which Mr. Gibbon has indulged ?
What would they have said of Mr. Gibbon's philosophy, if they
had found hira not only retaining and even cherishing his resent
ments for the space of forty years, but endeavouring to perpe
tuate in his last, perhaps his most deliberate and raost elaborate
work, all the rash conclusions of his youth, all the hasty assump
tions of his very boyhood, all the unkind suggestions of his pre
judice, and all the unmanly complaints of his wrath ?
What would they have said of his logic, when, from his own
case, with a weakly frame of body, with a coldness of tempera
ment which raade hira sland aloof from the gaiety of corapa
nions, and from the generous sympathy of friends, with peculia
rities not very pliant, it should seem, to persuasion, nor obedient
to authority ; wilh an education which can hardly be allowed to

THE SPITAL SERMON. 583
have prepared him for the lectures bf a very learned tutor upon
books generally esteemed lo be above the ordinary reach of
school boys ; with irapatience to learn, which is sometiraes mis
taken for willingness lo be taught ; with a waywardness of cu
riosity which might have impelled him to dispute where he
should have been contented to observe, and discuss principles be
fore he had collected facts ; with a passion for " desultory read
ing," which, having been pampered by indulgence, might have
resisted every atterapt to direct its course or to contract its
range ; he Ihought himself authorized to argue to the case of
other young men, whose educations, habits, and dispositions,
were not similar to his own ? When from his own College, wilh
which, I confess, he was reasonably enough disgusted, he argued
to other Colleges with which he was very imperfectly acquainted;
when, from his own want of proficiency, during a short and in
terrupted residence of fourteen months, he argued to the profi
ciency mad,e by olher young men, who resided there regularly for
the space of four years ; when, from the general state of the Uni
versity, if such it were, about his own tirae, he argued to the
general state of it at a very distant period, and under instructors
who might be very different in their attainments, their skill, and
their diligence ? Non sat commode
Divisa sunt temporibus tibi, Dave, haec.
Mr, Gibbon, in some of the foregoing strictures, includes Cam
bridge as well as Oxford ; and this circumstance enables me to
resume more directly the vindication of both Universities from
olher objectors as well as Mr. Gibbon,
Mr, Gibbon, it should seera, considered the colourings in Dr.
Lowth's description of Oxford as overcharged, and the outline
too bold. Would he have assented then lo the measured lan
guage of another great author, who resided more than fourteen
months, or even four years, in the sister University ; and who, as
Mr, Gibbon himself tells upon another occasion, " to a great de
gree of well-digested reading adds a clearness of judgement and
a niceness of penetration, capable of taking things from their
first principles, and observing their most minute differences ?" —
Vol. ii. p. 27, Post. Works.

584 NOTES ON
" Ingenious men," says Bishop Hurd, " delight in dreams of
reformation. In comparing this proposition of Cowley (for the
advancement of experimental philosophy) with that of Milton
addressed to Mr, Hartlib, we find that these great poets had
amused themselves with sorae exalted, and in tbe main, conge
nial fancies, on the subject of education. That of the two plans
proposed, this of Mr, Cowley was betier digested and is the less
fenciful, if a preference in this respect can be given to either,
when both are manifestly Utopian ; and that our Universities, in
their present form, are well enough calculated to answer all the
reasonable ends of such institutions, provided we allow for the
unavoidable defects of them ' when drawn out into practice," —
Vol, i, p. 219, Kurd's edit, of Cowley's Works.
If the question had hung, as it were in scales, between the zeal
of Bishop Lowth and the sobriety of Bishop Hurd, the evidence
of Sir William Jones might have turned the balance, " There is
no branch of literature,"says this great scholar, of wbora we shall
all exclaim in his own words immediately preceding, it is happy
for us that this man was born — " there is no liberal art, no sub
lime or useful science, which may not here be learned to perfec
tion, without having recourse to any foreign instructor. All na
ture lies open to our inspection. The surprising fabric of this
visible world bas been explained to us, not by conjectures or opi
nions, but by demonstration ; the works of poets, critics, rheto
ricians, historians, philosopers, the accumulated wisdom of all
nations and all ages, are here made accessible and familiar to the
students of every class, in whose minds they are preserved as in
a curious repository, whence they may at any time be extracted
for the honour and benefit of the human species." — P. 8 of an
Oration intended to have been spoken in the Theatre of the Uni
versity of Oxford, 9th of July, 1773.
Mr, Gibbon probably spoke the truth, when he said, " that his
three antagonists frora Oxford inspired him vvith no terror,"
But Bishop Lowth, Bishop Hurd, and Sir W. Jones, are three
men who raight have excited his esteera ; and the opinions of
these three men, upon the merits ofthe English Universities differ,
toto coelo, from the opinion of Mr. Gibbon,
There are men (I know not whether Mr. Gibbon was of the
number) to whom such an opponent as Dr. Johnson, upon such

THE SPITAL SERMON. 585
a topic, as the honour of Cambridge and Oxford, might have
been an object both of " terror and esteem." Now, in a paper
of the Idler, Johnson has employed quite as good sense, in quite
as good English, for the credit of our Universities, as Mr. Gibbon
has since misemployed for their discredit.
" If literature," says he, " is not the essential requisite of the
modern academic, I am yet persuaded that Cambridge and Ox
ford, however degenerated, surpass the fashionable academics of
our metropolis, and the gymnasia of foreign countries. The
number of learned persons in these celebrated seats is still consi
derable ; and more conveniences and opportunities for study still
subsist in them than in any other place.
" There is at least one very powerful incentive to learning — I
raean the genius of the place. This is a sort of inspiring deity,
which every youth of quick sensibility and ingenuous disposition
creates to himself, by reflecting that he is placed under those ve
nerable walls where a Hooker and a Hammond, a Bacon and a
Newton, once pursued the sarae course of science, and from
whence they soared to the most elevated heights of literary fame.
This is that incitement, which Tully, according to his own testi
mony, experienced at Athens, when he contemplated the portico
where Socrates sat, and the laurel-groves where Plato disputed.
Bul there are other circumstances, and ofthe highest importance,
which make our colleges superior to all places of education.
These institutions, though somewhat fallen from their priraary
simplicity, are such as influence in a particular manner the moral
conduct of their youths ; and, in this general depravity of raan
ners and laxity of principles, pure religion is no where more
strongly inculcated. * * * *
" English Universities render their students virtuous, at least
by excluding all opportunities of vice ; and by teaching them
the principles of the Church of England, confirm them in those
of true Chrislianity,"
I had finished the first division of this note, before I began the
second about Mr, Gibbon ; and I had reached nearly the end of
that second division, before the sentiments of Dr. Johnson, as
ihey may be found in the Idler, occurred to my mind. I am too
discreet, too honest, and perhaps too proud, lo be intentionally
guilty of plagiarism frora any writer whatsoever. Bul, I am loo

586 NOTES ON
ingenuous to dissemble the sincere, and exquisite satisfaction
that I feel, upon finding that my own opinions, and even ray own
words, on the encourageraent of learning, the preservation of
morals, and the infiuence of religion, correspond so nearly with
the opinions and the words of such an observer as Dr. Johnson,
upon such a question as the merits of the English Univessities.
" For the lime I have spent," and the efforts I have made, in
this note, I with great sincerity, and great confidence, urge the
plea of Mr. Gibbon, that " I ara conscious of having discharged
a raoraentous duty to the interests of the public, and to ray own
feelings." I do not, however, like Mr. Gibbon, desire the reader
to forget the contents of that note when he is " convinced of
their truth." On the contrary, I would exhort hira to remeraber
thera when he is sensible of their iraportance, as well as truth;
and, for the freedora of sorae parts, the seriousness of others, and
the length of the whole, no vindication will be required by the
considerate, as no apology would be accepted by the frowaid.
Possible it is, however, that some readers may be a litlle wearied
with the agonistical raanner in which I have been now and then
corapelled to write about the strictures of Mr. Gibbon, and
therefore, I will endeavour to refresh, to entertain, and even to
instruct them, by adverting to his style.
The raost accurate and masterly observations which I have
ever seen from the pen of my contemporaries, either upon the
beauties or the faults of Mr. Gibbon's language, appeared in the
English Review, and were written, I believe, by Mr. Whitaker, a
man, whose variety of knowledge, keenness of discernment, bril
liancy of imagination, and vigour of diction, qualified him most
eminently for the task which he has executed most successfully.
But this very powerful writer, and very honest raan, wUl I hope
excuse rae for observing, that in the Bibliotheca of Photius, p.
354, there is a critique upon the declamations of Himerius the
Sophist, which, with one or two exceptions that I have ventured
to orait, may be applied with the strictest justice to the historical
writings of Mr. Gibbon.
'Ev oIs earl iraai rbv fiiv rrjs Xe^ews rvirov Kal rb avrb axvfia
(pvXdrrwv, rfj re irepifloXfj Kal rrj rpoirfj xpwfievos' ******
Uapabeiyfiaai bi ei, iaropias re Kal eK fivBwv iravrobarrwv
fieard auroO ruyxavei rd ypdfifiara, tj irpbs diribei^iv, ») irpos

THE SPITAL SERMON. 687
bfioiOTpra, ij irpbs ijbovwv Kal KdXXos Siv Xeyei, tovtois direvBvvwv
TOV Xoyov Kal iroiKiXXofievos' Kal rd irpoolfita bi Kal ot eiriXoyot,
ean bi ov Kal ol olov dyioves dirb tovtwv avrw btaaKevdSovraf
rroXXfi be Kexprjrai Kal ry irpobtarvirwaei' aXXct roioiiros <Jv iv
TOIS Xoyois, daejirjs (ws brjXov earl) rrjv BprjaKeiav, ei Kal tovs
XaBpaiovs fiifie'iTai riov kvvwv, KaB' ijfiHv vXaKruJv. — Photius,
edit. Hoeschelius, p. 354. Note 85, p, 397.
Mr. Peter Whalley, the learned editor of Ben Jonson's Works,
was master of tbe school of Christchurch Hospital. Araong the
scholars educated there, I will just mention the name of Joshua
Barnes, the well-known editor of Homer ; of Mr. Jereraiah
Markland, whose works are enumerated in the 19th page of Ni
chols's Anecdotes of Bowyer, and Mr. Richards, of Oriel College,
Oxford, now living, who gained a prize or two in the Universily,
who has lately published some very elegant Sermons for the
Bampton Lectureship, and is author of several poeras, in which
the nervousness of Dryden is united with the ease of Goldsmith.
I respect Mr. Richards as a truly good man, yet more than as a
good writer. Mr. Coleridge the Poet was of the sarae school.*
Note 86, p. 397.
I have seen two or three instances of awkward and mutilated
experiments to realize the plan of education proposed by M.
Rousseau ; and with sorrow, but not surprise, I have been a wit
ness of their unhappy consequences. My consolation, however,
was, that if the trial had been more correct and more complete,
consistency must have been purchased at the expence of comraon

-* I just now recollect the naraes of Provost George, of Mr.
Cracherode and Mr. Sawkins of Christ Church, of Dr. Lang
horne, Mr. L. Sterne, Mr. Russel of Corpus, Oxford ; of Mr.
Maty and Dr. Scott of Trinity, Carabridge ; of Dr. Hay of Mag
dalen, Cambridge ; of Dr. Apthorpe, and (I believe) Mr. Dutens,
as worthy of being inserted in the list of distinguished academics.

588 NOTES ON
d'iscretion, and success Itself would have been more pernicious
than faUure — " Quse res
" Nec modum habet neque consilium, ratione modoque
" Tractari non vult."
By the incubation of modern philosophy upon modern philan
thropy, other schemes have since been hatched by other experi
mentalists. I will not deprive them of the praise which raay be
due lo indefatigable perseverance and occasional ingenuity. But
their opinions, when corapared with those of Rousseau, have
fewer charms lo the fancy, from the embroidery of description,
and a feebler hold upon the judgraent, from the regularity of
systera. On the first view, indeed, they produce the wildness of
araazeraenl rather than the vivacity of adrairation. They after
wards perplex the understanding in a dark and barren wil
derness of metaphysics, and they cramp the affections by confused
representations of their contrariety lo the dictates of reason, per
fected by a long series of triuraphs over education and custora.
They beguile young and superficial readers by the witchery of
new terms, and against their lapse from a stale of illumination,
they supply them with no other security than the habit of
despising, and a dexterity in controverting the farailiar language
of fellow-creatures, with whora it is their privilege to converse
without being understood, and to act without being iraitated.
They instruct their disciples to try all things by the test of their
theory alone, and they direct thera, after trial, to hold fsist that
which is good, because it is singular, for singularity, it should
seera frora their exoterics, is a presuraptive evidence of reason in
what they think, truth in what they speak, and justice in what
they do.
The projects of these reformers, even where they resemble that
of Rousseau, are not wise ; and where Ihey differ from it, they
are not good. As to religion, not content with thrusting to a
distance every prejudice in its favour, they anxiously store the
mind vvith every prejudice against the utUity and the truth of it.
The milder virtues they push aside to make way for the sterner ;
and, in speculation, at least, they carry the sterner lo an extent
which no efforts of frail humanity can, in practice, ever reach.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 589
After inculcating the most enlarged love of mankind, they teach
individuals to strip themselves of all the qualities for which alone
they are now beloved, by the visible and unalterable constitution
of our nature. After vague and magnificent promises of effecting
progressive and indefinite iraproveraent in social life, they would
proceed lo overturn every known institution, and to supersede
almost every known principle to vvhich society seems to be in
debted for its preservation and existence.
Undoubtedly the reforms projected by our new school, reverse
the order in which civilization has been hitherto supposed lo pro
ceed ; and the substance of its tenets has been thrown togelher,
not unsuccessfully I think, into a Cento, which lately was sent
to a friend of mine, and in which the selection of the topics fully
compensates for the diversity of the allusions, tbe inequality of
the style, and the uncouthness of the versification. For reasons
of delicacy, " celabitur auctor," But the Cento itself (for so it
was properly called by the writer) shall be produced, and it
runs thus —
Nostrorum quae sit sententia Dia Catonum :
Quid velit, el possit, nova quse sapientia fertur,
Quantaque sit virtus, alieni. vivere quadr^,
Expediam : memori tu signa in raente teneto.
Qui genus huraanum ingenio exsuperare videntur,
Et sese rationis inire elementa, viasque
Nullius ante solo tritas accedere jactant.
Res sibi conantur, non se subraittere rebus :
Publica privatis miscent, et sacra profanis :
Concubitu dant frsena vago ; nata esse maritis
Jura negant. Sua cuique Deus fit dira Cupido.
En, quae tot peperit, scelerosa atque irapia facta,
Religio passim obleritur, pietasque fidesque
Funditus eversae ingentem traxere ruinam,
Conlemptseque jacent, Non sancti judicis ora
Tristia formidant, nec verba minacia legum,
Felices sine re, et tuti sine vindice, cives.

690 NOTES ON
Quamvis limite humum multo signavit arator
Comraunera priils, et raulto sudore subegit,
Magnus ab integro rerum jam nascitur ordo:
Terra iterum comraunis erit, ne in coraraoda peccet
Publica neu prisc» subeant vestigia fraudis.
Aude igitur conteranere opes, et te quoque dignura
Finge novis rebus, placido cura viderit orbem
Lumine Libertas, et Justitia omnibus omnia
Annuerit, faustfeque aequaverit omnibus omnes.
Haec tibi si quando surgit felicior aetas,
Et nova signa novis prseceptis ponere fas est,
Obscurala diu, et speciosa vocabula rerum
E tenebris retrahes studio exproraesque fideli
Pluriraa, quse nunquam genitor produxerat usus,
Neglectis propriis, aliena negotia solum
Curabis, sumesque animum censoris araici :
Ignosces viliis : niorura arabitiosa recides
Ornamenta : parum Claris dabis undique lucem.
Nam si cullor eris veri, securus amoris
Atque odii, pariter narranda tacendaque dices,
Vulgabis commissa fide, positoque pudore,
Vivere nec voto metues nec criraine aperto.
Has inter curas, tibi ne labor improbus artus
Merabraque conficiat paulatira, inhiansque lucello
Mentera affigat humo non haec in munera nalam.
Non uxor salvura te vult, non filia. Qui te
Pascit ager, tuus est, et, deficiente crumeni,
Hinc nummos atque hinc tibi convectare licebit,
Arreptisque frui. Facit hsec meliora probatque
Utilitas,* justi quae soli est mater et aequi.

* What Aristotle says of old age in the present course of hu
man affairs, might be applied lo youth formed according to the
new school : fiaXXov iHai Kara Xoyiafiov, ij Kara rb ^Bos' 6 ftev

THE SPITAL SERMON. 591
Quid mores sensusque velint, quid prosit amicis,
Ne tibi sit curae. Toti te credere mundo,
Non patriae, genitum fingas. Scelera ipsa nefasque
Hac mercede placent, famamque merentur honestam.
Lenire armatos, pacisque iraponere morem
Ante tubae sonitum : Naturae jura volentes
Per populos serere, et natorum foeda patrumque
Sanguine purpureis sceptra extorquere Tyrannis,
Hae tibi erunt artes. Sine regibus et sine bellis
Vivendi simul haec fuerint fundamina jacta,
Materiem superabit opus, Ratione Magistri.
Quid qubd ab huraanis rebus semolus, et extra
Sejunctus longfe flammanlia raoenia mundi,
Nec bene proraerilis capitur, nec langitur iri,
Quera perhibent regnare, Deus. Natura beatis
Oranibus esse dedit, sua si bona, numine freti
Non ullo, norint ; ipsi sibi fortiter aequam
Si mentem, precibus spretis et thure, par&rint.
Scilicet in coelo vita hand peritura piorum,
Culparumque graves poenae quas nescia veri
Religio quondam intonuit, sunt fabula vulgi.
Nox manet una oranes, et in omnia saecula somnus.
Amidst the ease, the freedom, and the vigour of conversation
as it is conducted in this country, few are the rainds which can
be long seduced frora their allegiance to the authorily of cora
mon sense ; and, if I am not deceived as to the present state of
public opinion, we may apply to some modern theories what
Chrysippus said about the boasted MeyapiKa epwTtjfiara of Stilpo
and Manedemus, aipobpd eirl aotpla yevofievwv avrwv evbo^wv,
vvv eis (iveibos avrwv o Xoyos ireptrerpairrai, ils rwv fiiv iraxv-

ydp Xbytafios tov avfifepovTOS, rb bi r'jBos rrjs dperrjs earl. And
again : dvaiaxwroi fidXXov ^ ai<rj^uvr»jXoi, Sta yap ro ^ij tppovri-
Betv bfioiws roH KaXov Kal rov avfitpepovros, oXiywpoHai rov boKelv.
— Arist. Rhetoric, lib. ii, cap. 15, edit, Cantab, 1728.

592 NOTES ON
repov, rwv bi eKfavws aoiptSofiivwy Ipya.— Plutarch, de Stoico-
rura Repugnantiis, vol. ii. p. 1036.
Whatsoever disapprobation I may have expressed of certain
opinions, and whatsoever consequences I may apprehend frora
them to the innocence of individuals, and the welfare of society,
I sincerely and anxiously disclaira all contempt for the abilities,
and aU hatred to the persons of the writers by whom those opi
nions are maintained. On the contrary, I think with a very
judicious writer, " that professing to neglect their opinions,"
we may encourage thera to overrate " the size of their own un
derstandings, and the comprehensiveness of their views, and to
impute our neglect to poverty and narrowness of intellect : but
that a candid exaraination of the subjects which they discuss
may lend to convince them that, in favouring iraprobable and
unfounded hypotheses, so far frora enlarging the bounds of hu
man science, they are contracting il ; that so far from proraoting
the improvements of the human raind, they are contracting it,
and throwing us back again into the infancy of knowledge." —
See p. 154. of an Essay on Population,* with remarks on the
speculation of Mr. Condorcet, Mr. Godwin, and olher writers,
published in 1798.
* The reader raay compare the last chapter of this wor'K with
Aristotle's representation of vois and dewpta, in cap. vii. and viii.
lib. X. edit. Oxon. of the Ethics, and with the hypothesis of Dr.
Hutton : " That this life, instead of being considered as a slate
of probation for moral agents, should rather be considered as a
state of inforraation for beings capable of intellectual know
ledge." — ^Vide Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge,
vol. iii. p. 172.
To rae it seeras more probable, from analogy and from reve
lation, that intellect, under whatsoever modifications it may
hereafter exist, upon whatsoever objects it may be employed,
and lo whatsoever degree it may be improved, will be connected
wilh virtuous action ; and that happiness, indefinitely increas
ing, will be the result of indefinite progression in both. Of
what high importance, then, must be the moral habits wbich we
acquire, and even the raoral principles which we adopt, in this
preparatory state ? " In ray Father's house," said Christ, " there
are raany raansions,"' and who shall assign limits to the wisdom
of the Deity in appointing means of iraproveraent, and through
iraprovement of happiness, not only to the philosopher and the

THE SPITAL SERMON. 593
Gladly do I bestow the tribute of my commendation on the
general merits of this work, in soundness of matter, accuracy of
reasoning, elegance of diction, and usefulness of effect. I ad
mit unequivocally the fundamental principle of the writer, that
by those general laws of nature, which constitute all experience,
and therefore should regulate all our enquiries, " population,
under certain circumstances, will increase in a geometrical pro
portion, and the produce ofthe earth in an arithraetical only."
I adrait the justness of his reraark upon the resolute and extra
ordinary " adherence of Mr. Condorcet to his favourite princi
ples," while he was "surrounded by so many facts" which
glaringly "contradicted them," and lived among an "enlightened
people, debased by such a fermentation of disgusting passions,
fear, cruelty, revenge, ambition, raadness, and folly, as would
have disgraced the most barbarous nation in the most barbarous
age, and must have given a raost tremendous shock to his ideas
about the necessary and irresistible progress ofthe human raind."
—See p. 1 44 of the above-raentioned Essay.
I assent, in a very great degree, to his praise " on the spirit
and energy of Mr. Godwin's stile, the force and precision of
sorae of his reasonings, and the ardent lone of his thoughts."' —
P. 173.
I allow, not the truth only, but the iraportance of his observa
tion, that " man is a rational, and, yet at the same time, a com
pound being, in whom the passions will act, as disturbing forces
to the decisions of his understanding."
More particularly I am pleased with the conclusion of cap. vii.
where he presents his readers with a most luminous description
" of the vices of mankind as the great precursors in the army of
destruction ; of sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague,
advancing in dreadful array, and sweeping off their thousands
and tens of thousands ; and gigantic famine stalking in the rear.

Christian, but to the wild barbarian and the " ignorant savage ?"
Whether or no the term "probationary" be applicable to the
situation of man, considered as an intellectual as well as a mo
ral being in this life, the " evidence for a future stale Qf felicity"
appears to me quite as conclusive from his present condition un
der the one character as under the oilier.
VOL. II. 2 a

594 NOTES ON
and levelling with one mighty blow the population, with the
food of mankind ;" with chapter viii, where he examines Mr.
Condorcet's " sketch of the history of the huraan mind ;'' with
chapter ix. where he refutes the " conjectures of the sarae philo
sopher on the organic perfectability of raan, and the indefinite
prolongation of huraan life ;" and with chapter x. where he de
monstrates, that " Mr. Godwin's scheme of equality never can be
realized, and that were it realized it would soon cease, and drive
us back frora the transient blessings of an ill-directed aud over
strained benevolence to all the terrible evils of the raost corrupt
and ferocious selfishness.''
Viewed on the fairer side of his character, Mr. Condorcet
seeras lo have been worthy of happier tiraes than those in which
he lived, of better colleagues than those wilh whora he acted,
and of eneraies far nobler than those bywhom he was destroyed.
His knowledge was various and recondite, his genius was vigorous
and coraprehensive, and upon one atrocious deed, to which he
was impelled by tbe frenzy of political resentraent, and the way
wardness of philosophical fanaticisra, who does not wish that
" the accusing angel may drop a tear ?" Kupte, fifj arriays aurjf
rfjv dfiapriav ravrrjv' ijfids bi tovs KaraKpivovras avrbv fivaai
dirb TOV irovrjpov. Note 87, p. 400,
In the Ductor Dubitantium, p. 1706, where Taylor is speaking
of the parental authority, when it may appear to clash wilh that
of God, he mentions an excellent maxim of the lawyers : " In
coraparalione personarum, inest laesio et injuria," This very
sensible maxim maybe applied to many cases of morality: to the
distinctions, for instance, that might be set up between one dis
tressed person and another, upon account of their religious te
nets; to the clairas of a native and a foreigner upon our com
passion ; to the comparative rights of a good man and a bene
factor to our assistance, &c, &c.
The decisions which a raan of fertUe imagination or poleraical
acuteness, raight raake upon such cases, are plausible rather than
instructive in theory ; and the general rules drawn from thera,
would, in practice, be often fallacious, [n the mere statement of

THE SPITAL SERMON. 595
such distinctions, for the purpose of wholly excluding the pleas of
one claimant, and establishing those of the other, " inest laesio et
injuria." Note 88, p, 401,
For my knowledge of the suit presented to the King and his
Council, by the Citizens of London, in 1552, and of the prearable
to the Ordinances and Rules drawn out for the good government
of the house of Bridewell, as it is supposed by Sir Martin. Bowes,
and addressed lo the Governors, or rather Almoners of Bridewell,
in 1557 ; I am indebted lo the Postscript lo some Considerations
on the original and proper Objects of the Royal Hospital of Bride
well, printed at London in 1798. The pamphlet is weU written,
and seeras to have been well intended. But upon making some
inquiries about the actual state of that Hospital, I had lately the
satisfaction lo hear that it is very judiciously governed, A short
account of the Royal Hospitals may be found in pages 34 and 3-5
of Mr. Entick's Survey of London, Westminster, and Southwark,
vol. ii. Henry VIH. in the last year of his reign, gave Ihe
Priory of St. Bartholomew to the City, for the relief of the poor.
He founded two religious houses, Christ Church out of the Grey
Friars, and litlle St. Bartholomew's out of St, Bartholomew's
Hospital, But King Edward VI. by the advice of Bishop Ridley,
the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, founded
Christ's Hospital in the Grey Friars' Convent, for the relief and
education of young and helpless children. By the advice of Bi
shop Ridley, he gave the old palace of Bridewell to the City, for
the lodging of poor way-faring persons, the correction of vaga
bonds, strumpets, and idle persons, and for finding Ihem work ;
and as the City had appointed Christ's Hospital for the education
of poor children, and St, Bartholomew's, and St, Thomas's in
Southwark, for the maimed and diseased, Edward, in the seventh
year of his reign, by a charter, dated June 6th, formed the Go^
vernors of these Foundations inlo a Corporation, The Priory of
Bethlehem was suppressed by King Henry VIII, and in the
year 1546, the Mayor and Commonalty purchased the said Priory
from the Crown ; and it was by them converted inlo an Hospital
for the use of lunatics, at a certain expence to be paid weekly by
the relations or parish of the patient admitted, — Entick, iii. 406.
2a2

596 NOTES ON

Note 89, p. 401.
These words convince me that thievery, actuaUy committed,
though not proved by legal process, and presuraed only from the
temptations lo which vagrants are exposed, was within the view
of the Founders and Governors of Bridewell, When they speak
directly of prisoners, they describe Ihem as persons vvho were
" quil at the Sessions ;" but it appears to me that they raeant to
afford protection to other unhappy beings who had lost their
credit in consequence of the suspicions to which they lay open
for want of honesty ; and even of the prisoners acquitted, it raay
be supposed that their raoral innocence was often doubtful,
whatever circumstances might produce their legal exemption
from punishment. Note 90, p. 402,
1 found this speech of the King in a note to p. 1 1 of the above^
mentioned Considerations on BrideweU Hospital.
Note 91, p. 402.
" Quoties audisset, cito ac nullo cruciatu defunctum quem
piam, sibi et suis eiiBavaaiav similera (hoc enim verbo uti so
lebat) precabalur," — Suet, in vitH Aug. par. 99, p. 285, edit.
Graevii. Note 92, p. 402.
" I have understood concerning divers vicious persons, that
none have been so free in their donatives and offerings to religion
and the priest, as they j and the hospitals that have been built,
and the highways mended at the price of souls, are too many for
Christendom to boast of in behalf of charity." — Jeremy Taylor's
12th Sermon, p. II7.
[The contents of the printed Sermon, from p. 403, I, 5, to p,
409, 1, 5, were not preached.]

THE SPITAL SERMON. 597
Note 93, p. 403.
I quote from the old translation retained in our Prayer-book.
The later translation, printed in our Bibles, says, "but a
moment." Note 94, p, 404,
" Robbery," says Beccaria, " is commonly the effect of misery
and despair, the crime of that unhappy part of mankind to
whom the right of exclusive property has left but a bare exist
ence," — Essay on Crimes and Punishraents, chap xxii. p. 83, I
agree with Beccaria about the mitigation of punishment for rob
bery, unaccompanied by violence, and about the increased seve
rity of punishment when violence does accompany it. But I
totally dissent from him where, in the sentence just now quoted,
he calls exclusive property a " terrible, and perhaps unnecessary
right ; " and I have separated his words from the context, for the
purpose of opposing lo them the wiser opinion of Plutarch ;
" 'AXX' oirov rb 'ibiov eanv, diroXXvrai rb Koivbv, oirov fiiv ovv
firj 'laov eariv. Oil ydp oixeiov Krrjats, dXX dtpaipeats dXXorpiov,
Kal irXeove^a irepl rb Koivbv, dbiKias ^p^e Kat btatpopds' ^v opw
Kal fierpip rov ibiov Karairavovres ol vofioi rrjs 'iaa vefiovarjs els
rb Koivbv dpxv^ ''"' bvvdfiews eirwvvfioi yeyovaatv." — Plutarch,
vol, ii, page 644. The learned reader, wiihout any warning
from me, will attend to the legal and moral sense of 'to-ov as used
by the Greek writers.

Note 95, p. 405.
When I apply the word evil here to punishraent as well as to
crime, I speak only of physical evil. For the application of the
word to punishment I have very high authority in Mr. Bentham :
" The general object which all laws have, or ought lo have, in
coramon, is lo augment the total happiness of the community ;
and therefore, in the first place, to exclude, as far sis may be,
every thing that tends to subtract from that happiness : in other
words, lo exclude mischief. But all punishraent is mischief: all
punishment in itself is evU. Upon the principle of utility, if it
ought at all to be admitted, it ought only to be admitted in as

598 NOTES ON
far as it promises to exclude sorae greater evil." — Introduction
to the Principles of Morals, chap. xiu. p. 166.
Note 96, p. 405.
" If the passions, or the necessity of war, have taught men lo
shed the blood of their fellow-creatures, the laws, which are in
tended lo moderate the ferocity of mankind, should not increase
it by examples of barbarity, the more horrible, as this punish
ment is usually attended wilh formal pageantry. What are the
true and most useful laws ? Those compacts and conditions
whicli all would propose and observe, in those moments when
private interest is silent, or corabined with that of the public.
What are the natural sentiraents of every person concerning the
punishment of death ? We may read them in the contempt and
indignation vvith which every one looks on the executioner, who
is nevertheless an innocent executor of the public will ; a good
citizen, who contributes to the advantage of society ; the instru
ment of the general security within, as good soldiers are with
out. What then is the origin of this contradiction ? Why is this
sentiment of mankind indelible, to the scandal of reason ? It is,
that in a secret corner of the raind, in which the original impres
sions of nature are still preserved, men discover a sentiment
which tells thera that their lives are not lawfully in the power of
any one ; but of that necessity only, which with its iron sceptre
rules the universe." — Beccaria on Crimes and Punishments, edit.
4, chap, xviii, p, 1 12. See Sir William Teraple, oo Popular Dis
contents, vol, iii, page 55, Note 97, p. 405.
In Julian's first Oration there is a passage which no benevo
lent raan can read without heaving a sigh, and imploring the
pity of legislators, judges, and magistrates, upon the poor, in
this raelancholy and awful season of scarcity : Uei^uKe yap ov
rpviprj fiovov -fjBos btaipBeipeiv, aXXa koi ij rwv dvayKaiwv evbe^s
biatra, ef wv oiirrw rb Kpiveiv 6 Xoyos irpoaXafiwv eirerai rals
XP^iais viro rijs eiriBvfiias dvarreiBofievos. — -Page 46,

THE SPITAL SERMON. 599
Note 98, p, 406.
To oe TWV oofiarwv yevos av, iroXXdv fiev Xbywv Kal KaXivv
fiaXa efiireipov rjyrjfiai' ipo^ovfiat bi fiijirws daroxov dfia Kal
iptXoaoipwv avSpwv fj Kal jroXiriKwv, — Plat, Tiniaeus, vol, iii.
page 19, Note 99, p. 406.
I think that in our moral, and perhaps our legal treatment of
offenders, sufficient attention is not shown to the feeling of
shame. The reader, if he pleases, may consult Beccaria in the
23d chapter, where he treats of infaray considered as a punish
ment, and says that " it should not be loo frequent, because the
power of opinion grows weaker by repetition, nor inflicted on a
number of persons at the same lime, because the infamy of
many resolves itself into the infamy of none.'' Mr. Howard,* in
his admirable book upon prisons, states, in several instances, the
wisdom and the humanity of the laws in some foreign countries,
where punishments are infamous rather than painful. The most
remarkable instance of which I have ever read occurs in Sto
baeus. I would not gravely recommend it as an exaraple worthy
of iraitation ; but I will produce it as a fact which is very singu
lar, and which shows the great stress laid by the laws upon the
efficacy of shame. Hap' 'IvSots edv ns diroareprjOfj baveiov, ij
irapaKaraBijKrjS, ovk ean Kpiats' aXX' avrbv aindrat b iriarevaas'
b bi rexvirov irrjpwaas x^'P" '5 dipBaXfibv Bavdrw irjfiioiiTat' rov
bi fieytara dbtKrjaavra, b (iaaiXevs KeXevei KeipaaBai, ws eaxdrrjs
ovarjs ravrrjs drtfiias. — Slob. p. 293.
Note IOO, p, 406.
The effects of remorse, as it relates to the opinion of mankind,
are most luminously described by Adam Smith : " The violator
ofthe more sacred laws of justice can never reflect on the senti
ments which mankind must entertain with regard to hira, with
out feeling all the agonies of shame, and horror, and consterna-
* See his Account of the " Spanish Manlle," page 76.

600 NOTES ON
tion. When his passion is gratified, and he begins coolly to
reflect on his past conduct, he can enter into none of the motives
which influenced it. They appear novv as detestable lo him as
they did always to other people. By sympathizing with the ha
tred and abhorrence which other men must entertain for him, he
becoraes in sorae measure the object of his own hatred and ab
horrence." " The remembrance of his criraes has shut out all
feUow-feeling with him from the hearts of his fellow-creatures.
The sentiraents which they entertain wilh regard to him are the
very thing which he is most afraid of Every thing seems hos
tile, and he would be glad to fly to sorae inhospitable desert,
where he might never more behold the face of a huraan creature,
nor read in the countenance of raankind the conderanation of
his crimes. But solitude is slill more dreadful than society. His
own thoughts can present hira with nothing but what is black,
unfortunate, and disastrous, the raelancholy forebodings of in
comprehensible misery and ruin. The horror of solitude drives
him back into society, and he coraes again inlo the presence of
mankind, astonished to appear before Ihem loaded with shame
and distracted wilh fear, in order to supplicate sorae litlle pro
tection frora the countenance of those very judges who he knows
have already unaniraously condemned hira. Such is the nature
of that sentiment which is properly called remorse ; of all the
sentiraents which can enter the human breast the most dreadful,
Il is made up of shame frora the sense of impropriety of past
conduct, of grief for the effects of it, and of the dread and terror
of punishraent from the consciousness of the justly provoked
resentment of all rational creatures." — Theory of Moral Senti
ments, vol, i, pp, 209 — 211,7th edition.
Note 101, p. 407,
" The all-wite Author of nature has made man, if I may say
so, the iramediate judge of raankind ; and has in this respect, as
in raany others, created hira after his own image, and appointed
him his vice-gerenl upon earth, lo superintend the behaviour of
his brethren. They are taught by nature to acknowledge that
power and jurisdiction which has thus been conferred upon him,
lo be more or less humbled or mortified when Ihey have incurred

THE SPITAL SERMON. 601
his censure, and to be more or less elated when they have ob
tained his applause."— Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, vol.
i. page 320-1. Note 102, p. 408.
" I do not pretend to lessen that just abhorrence which crimes
deserve, but lo discover the sources from whence they spring,
and I think I may draw the following conclusion : That the pu
nishment of a crirae cannot be just (that is necessary) if the laws
have not endeavoured lo prevent that crirae by the best means
vvhich times and circumstances would allow." — Beccaria on
Crimes and Punishments, page 131.
Note 103, p, 410,
I have often had occasion to observe both the justness and the
importance of a remark in Mosheira's notes upon Cudworth :
" Qui Theologorum scita et dogmata vituperare volunt, eos ante
omnia decet, et sententiam eorum investigare, et sermonis, quo
utuntur illi, generi adsuescere, Sed, ut hodie vivitur, nulli sunt
audaciores et vehementiores in communibus sententiis et opinio-
nibus vellicandis et reprehendendis, qukra illi, qui ne vocabulo-
rum quidem, quibus ulimur, veras poteslates et notiones per-
spectas habent," — Vol. ii. page 589,
" In later tiraes," says Mr. Hurae, " philosophy of all kinds, es
pecially ethics, have been raore closely united with theology than
ever they were observed among the heathens ; and as this latter
Science admits of no terras of coraposition, but bends every
branch of knowledge lo its own purpose, without rauch regard to
the phenomena of nature, or to the unbiassed sentiments of the
mind, hence reasoning, and even language, have been warped
from their natural course, and distinctions have been endea
voured to be established, where the difference of the object was,^
in a manner, imperceptible. Philosophers, or rather divines un
der thai disguise, treating all raorals as on a like footing with
civil laws, guarded by the sanctions of reward and punishraent,
were necessarily led lo render this circumstance of voluntary or
involuntary the foundation of their whole theory." — Essays, p.
391, vol, ii. edit. 1767.

602 NOTES ON
Whatsoever may have been the errors of philosophers under
the disguise of theologians, Adara Smith seeras to have ihought
that between the belief of futurity and the raoral sentiments of
mankind, there is not any necessary or invincible contrariety ;
and I suppose that he would not have refused to the doctrines of
revelation araong those who acknowledge its authority that effi
cacy, which he granted to the dictates of natural religion. " Our
reverence for general rules of conduct, says he, is still further
enhanced by an opinion, which is first impressed by nature, and
afterwards confirraed by reason and philosophy, that these ira
portant rules of morality are the commands and laws of the
Deity, who vvill finally reward the obedient, and punish the
transgressors of their duty." — Theory, vol. i. p. 407-
But though a philosopher vvould regard the operations of our
moral faculties, and the influence of future rewards conjointly, it
may yet be true that theologians slight the forraer and attend to
the latter only. Let us then examine the fact, keeping in view
Mr. Hurae's observation upon the difference between the antient
and the raodern way of treating ethics.
Mr. Hurae, it is apparent, speaks of writers who have some
claira to phUosophical acuteness, and therefore the point in dis
pute will not be al all affected by the extravagant decrees of coun
cils, the glooray visions of fanatics, or the frantic ravings of
evangelical itinerants.
That araong Christians ethics should be more frequently con
nected with theology than they were among heathens, is a fact
for which we may easily account, when we consider, not only
that the evidences by which Christianity is accompanied are far
brighter and more numerous than those which belong lo the
religions of antiquity ; but that the doctrines of it have a closer
and raore direct connection with the principles of virtue ; and as
one peculiar and professed design of the Gospel was to establish
the belief of a future life, it were strange if the teachers of it
overlooked a consideration upon whieh the author of it so rauch
insisted. They would show, indeed, a very iraperfect knowledge
of huraan nature itself, if, in restraining raen from vice, or en
couraging them to virtue, they were not lo avaU themselves of
the influence which the prospect of futurity must have upon the
generality of mankind. But they are not inattentive lo other

THE SPITAL SERMON. 603
considerations which may excite their hearers or their readers to
a virtuous conduct from other motives. They dwell upon the
reasonableness, as well as the authority of their Lord's com
mands. They shew the tendency of those commands to proraote
our present as well as our future welfare. In recoraraendiug
virtue from a regard to temporal concerns, they insist upon the
benefits of health, of reputation, serenity of mind, and the pub
lic as well as the private good of their fellow-creatures,
Mr. Hume in the same essay tells us that " every man may
employ terms as he pleases." But whatever innovations may
have been made by theologians in language, they certainly are
not greater than those which he has himself employed, when, in
conformity to the genius of the Latin rather than the English
tongue, he transfers the word virtue to endowments of the mind,
merely intellectual, and when he extends the word approbation
and disapprobation, lo blemishes, defects, and their conlrai-ies,
which, in the coraraon judgraent ofthe world, are loosely con
nected with the idea of morality. Though Christian divines un
questionably have treated morals as guarded by the sanctions of
rewards and punishments, they have not ceased to " regard the
phaenomena of nature and the unbiassed sentiments of the
mind," nor have " they warped reasoning and language from
their natural course," Consistent they certainly were iu as
suming the distinction of voluntary and involuntary, when they
speak of laws : " for, as Taylor says, we cannot be under a law,
and promises and threatenings, if we cannot chuse, and, whether
we affirm or deny the liberty of the will, there must be in every
action, good or bad, the action of the wUl." — Ductor Dubitan
tium, p. 794.
" The goodness or badness of actions,'' says Butler, " does not
arise from hence, that the epithets interested or disinterested may
be applied lo them, any more than any other indifferent epithet,
suppose inquisitive or jealous, may or may not be applied to
them; not from their being attended with present or future plea
sure or pain, but from their being what they are ; namely, what
becomes such creatures as we are, what the state of the case re
quires, or the contrary," — Pref. to Sermons, p. 27.
Here then morality is founded upon human nature, considered
as a system or constitution, and not immediately or solely upon a
law, with the sanction of rewards and punishments.

604 NOTES oti
Again, having shown that this " huraan nature consists in rea
son, appetites, passions, and affections, considered as having a
natural respect to each other, and being naturally subordinate
to the one superior principle of reflection or conscience," and
thus showing that raan hath the rule of right within hiraself,
Butler puts this question : " What obligations are we under to-
attend lo and follow it ? I answer, says he. It has been proved
that raan by his nature is a law to himself, without the particu
lar distinct consideration of the positive sanctions of that law,
the rewards and punishments which we feel, and those which
frora the light of reason we have ground to believe are annexed
to it. The question then carries its own answer along wilh it.
Your obligation to obey this law is its being tbe law of your na
ture. That your conscience approves of and attests to such a
course of aciion is itself alone an obligation. Conscience does
not only offer itself to show us the way we should walk in, but it
likewise carries its own authority with it, that it is our natural
guide ; the guide assigned us by the Author of our nature." —
Sermons, p. 49. The will then acts in obedience lo the dictates
of conscience. It chuses what conscience pronounces right ; but
the choice is often made without reference to the sanctions of an
external law.
Jeremy Taylor seeras to have caught a glirapse of the princi
ple, which is so largely and so perspicuously unfolded by Butler,
when he says, " Since the order and perfection of every creature
is to do actions agreeable to the end and perfection of his nature,
it is a pursuance of the end of God and of his own felicity. Al
though to do so is not virtue in beasts, because they are directed
by an external principle, and theraselves chuse it not ; yet in
men it is virtue, and it is obedience : and although it is natural
to do so, and it is unnatural to do otherwise, yet because it is
also chosen in many instances, in thera it is a virtue or a vice
respectively : and though it be no eminent virtue lo do so, yet it
is a prodigious sin to do otherwise ; for sins against nature are
ordinarily and in most instances the worst ; which does demon
strate that even things of nature and the actions of our prirae
appetites, when they can be considered and chosen, never can be
indifferent," — Ductor Dubitantium, p, 759.
The first and great commandraent is the love of God: but lo

THE SPITAL SERMON. 605
love God is right, and from the very constitution of the mind it
is natural, independently of the comraand, and of the rewards
annexed to it. " In respect to the love of God, says Butler, in the
strictest and raost confined sense, we only offer and represent the
happiest object of an affection, supposed already in our raind.
Some degree of goodness must be previously supposed. This
always implies the love of itself, an affection to goodness. The
highest, the adequate object of this affection is perfect goodness ;
which therefore we are to love wilh all our heart, with all our
soul, and with all our strength, Must we then, forgetting our
own interest, as it were go out of ourselves, and love God for his
own sake ? No more forget your ovvn interest, no raore go out
of yourselves, than when you prefer one place, one prospect, the
conversation of one raan to that of another. Does not every
affection necessarily iraply that the object of it be itself loved ?
If it be not, 'lis not the object of the affection. You raay and
ought if you can, but it is a great mistake lo think you can, love
or fear or hate any thing, from consideration that such love or
fear or hatred may be a raeans of obtaining good or avoiding
evil. But the question, whether we ought lo love God for his
sake or for our own, being a raere mistake in language; the real
question vvhich this is raistaken for, will, I suppose, be answered
by observing that the goodness of God already exercised towards
us, our present dependence upon him, and our expectation of
future benefits, ought and have a natural tendency to beget in us
the affection of gratitude and greater love towards Him, than the
sarae goodness exercised towards others, were it only for this
reason, that every affection is raoved in proportion lo the sense
we have of the object of it : and we cannot but have a raore
lively sense of goodness when exercised towards ourselves, than
when exercised tovvards others. I added expectation of future
benefits, because the ground of that expectation is present good
ness.'" — Serraons, p. 277-
Upon this iraportant subject, the sentiraents of so great a
writer as Butler are of the highest raoment, and therefore I shall
point out another instance in which his raode of reasoning does
not lie open to the objection of Mr, Hurae : " If," says he, " we
are constituted such sort of creatures, as from our very nature,
to feel certain affections or movements of mind, upon the sight.

606 NOTES ON
or contemplation of the meanest inanimate part of the creation,
for the flowers of the field have their beauty ; certainly there
must be somewhat due lo Hira hiraself, who is the author and
cause of all Ihings ; who is more intimately present to us than
any thing else can be, and wilh whom we have a nearer and
more constant intercourse than we can have wilh any creature ;
there must be some raoveraents of raind and heart which corres
pond to His perfections, or of which those perfections are the
natural object. And thus, when we are coraraanded to love the
Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our raind, and
with all our soul ; soraewhat raore must be meant, than raerely
that we live in the hope of rewards, or fear of punishraents from
Him ; some-what more than this must be intended ; though these
regards theraselves are most just and reasonable, and absolutely
necessary to be recollected, in such a world as this." — Pref. to
Sermons, p. 31.
Similar, though not entirely the same, is the language of
Jeremy Taylor : " No man can be loved for himself ; our perfec
tions in this world cannot reach so high ; it is well if we would
love God at that rate, and I very rauch fear, that if God did us no
good, we might admire His beauties, but we should have but a
sraall proportion of love towards Him ; and therefore it is, that
God, to endear the obedience, that is, the love of his servants,
signifies what benefits he givea us, what great good things he
does for us, I ara the Lord God that brought thee out of the
land of Egypt : and, does Job serve God for nought ? And he
that coraes lo God must believe that He is, and that He is a
rewarder; all his olher greatnesses are objects of fear and won
der, it is his goodness that raakes hira lovely," — Serraons, p. 646.
In the view of both these writers, not only the absolute and
general, but the relative and particular goodness of God, and the
effects of the latter too, in that which we receive frora him here,
as well as that which we expect from him hereafter, in that
which we know, as well as believe, in that which we experience
in his works, as well as learn frora his word, are represented as
being in part the foundation of our love to him. Here then it
may be objected so far as a course of behaviour, materially virtu
ous, proceeds from hope and fear, so far it is only a discipline
and strengthening of self-love," The answer which Butler

THE SPITAL SERMON. 607
makes to this question, deserves to be weighed most seriously, for
it is not at variance either with the language, or the sentiments,
or the experience of mankind, and has no less tendency to make
them virtuous and happy, than any principles inculcated in any
system of philosophy which has fallen within my notice. " Do
ing what God commands, because he coraraands it, is obedience,
though it proceeds from hope or fear. And a course of such
obedience will form habits of it. And a constant regard lo vera
city, justice, and charity, may form distinct habits of these parti
cular virtues; and wUI certainly form habits of self-government
and of denying our inclinations, whenever veracity, justice, or
charity requires it. Nor is there any foundation for this great
nicely, with which some affect to distinguish in this case, in order
to depreciate all religion, proceeding frora hope or fear. For,
veracity, justice, and charily, regard to God's authority and lo
our own chief interest, are not only all three coincident, but each
of thera is, in itself, a just and natural raotive or principle of
action. And he who begins a good life from any one of them,
and perseveres in it, as he is already in some degree, so he cannot
fail of becoming more and raore of that character, which is cor
respondent to the constitution of nature as raoral : and to the
relation which God stands in to us as moral governor of it, nor
consequently can he fail of obtaining that happiness which this
constitution and relation necessarily suppose connected with that
character." — Analogy, p. 147.
Mr. Hume, as I infer from several striking marks of coinci
dence between his opinion and Butler's, in the Essay upon Bene
volence, was not unacquainted wilh the writings of our Prelate,
If he had adverted lo the passages just now quoted, he would
either have qualified his propositions upon the exclusive regard
which theologians are said to pay to the sanctions of reward and
punishment, or he vvould have spoken of Butler as a splendid ex
ception to their practice. If his reading had been extended to
Barrow, Taylor, and many other English divines, he would have
found more exceptions ; and even without feeling any conviction
from their arguments upon questions of faith, he would not have
spoken so unhandsomely of their knowledge in the science of
Ethics, Many of my readers will be glad to contrast the temperate and

608 NOTES ON
serious opinions of Dr, Ferguson, with the harsh and exaggerated
stateraent of Mr, Hurae,
" Power employed to determine the will of a free-agent raust
operate in presenting motives of choice ; in presenting happiness
as the reward of fidelity, and misery as the punishraent of neg
lect ; and, whether this be done by so ordering the nature of
Ihings, that virtue shall be its own reward, and vice its own
punishment ; or vvhether it be done by a subsequent act of will
and discretion, in rewarding the good and punishing the wicked,
in a way not previously connected with the part they have acted,
the reality ofthe obligation and the sanction is the same : for if,
in the nature of things raoral good be constituent of happiness,
and moral evil of misery, what can Almighty power do raore to
deterraine the choice of the one, and the rejection of the other ?
If we conceive any sanction of raoral law as different frora this,
it must, however, terminate in the same effect. * * *
"If it should be thought necessary to consider moral law as
the comraand ofa superior, this raay be done without departing
frora that original doctrine of nature we have staled — that moral
good is the specific excellence and felicity of huraan nature, and
moral depravity its specific defect and wretchedness. * * *
" The Sovereign of the universe, by having made things as
they are, has given his command, and promulgated his law in
behalf of raorality ; and in every instance of conformity to his
law, and in every infraction of it, continues to apply the sanction
of happiness and misery, * * * *
" In choosing what is moraUy good, it is happy lo know that
we obey our Creator ; and in obeying our Creator, it is happy to
know that what he coraraands is the specific good and felicity of
our nature. To separate these considerations were doubtless of
ill effect, and the sanctions of raorality would be less powerful
upon either principle apart, than they are upon the foundation
of both united. Merely to obey without a sense of goodness an4
rectitude in the command, would be greatly short of that duty
which we owe to our beneficent Maker ; and the love of virtue
is no doubt greally encouraged by the consideration, that Al
mighty power, in the established order of ihings, is exerted in its
favour." — Ferguson's Principles of Moral and Political Science,
pp. 170, 171.

THE SPITAL SERMON, 609
" Man is formed for religion, as well as society. He is capa
ble of perceiving universal intelligence in the fabric of the uni
verse. He perceives in the predilection for justice and innocence,
in the horrors at guilt which are impressed on his own mind, the
will of that sovereign authority which reigns in the system of na
ture. To hira the consciousness of integrity and goodness is
peace and araity with God, The consciousness of depravity and
wickedness is rebellion and enmity ; the one rendering existence
itself a blessing in the confidence of present and future protec
tion ; the other rendering life itself a curse, under the horrors
of present remorse, and the fear or apprehension of future and
impending evils. Such is religion in the forra of raere reflection
as it operates in the raind ; in the form of a public establishment
it operates in the manner of compulsory law, with the denuncia
tions of future punishment, and the hopes of future reward." —
P, 176,
Numerous and weighty indeed are the reasons, which induce
far the greater part of enlightened Christians to believe that the
scriptural passages in which ij rfjs Kpiaews ijfiipa, or, what is
sometimes * equivalent, ij ijfiepa is mentioned, should be inter
preted literally, and that the rewards and punishments of another
life will be dispensed judicially. There are, however, some per
sons, who, with equal solicitude for the interests of virtue, and
equal reverence for the authority of Scripture, contend, that the
well-known principle of dvBpwiroirdBeia may be applied to such
passages, and that the justice of the Deity will be administered
by a regular series of causes and effects, producing happiness to
the righteous, and misery to the wicked.
But, knowing the force of imagination upon opinion, and of
custom upon practice, I should myself deprecate any changef in

* 9 Cor, i. 14, Phil, i. 6, 10. 1 Thess, v. 2. Vid. Schleusner
and Schwartz in voce.
t A similar caution upon another subject is shewn by the
learned Author of the Treatise upon Obligation, prefixed to
the Abridgement of Dr. Taylor's Elements of Civil Law. In
p. 6 he describes " Reason as the faculty which enables us to
perceive the various relations which ideas bear to each other."
This doubtless is the most precise sense of the word, and in this
sense it is used by Mr. Hume, as appears in a forraer note.
VOL. II. 2 R

610 NOTES ON
the language of public instruction ; and leaving raen of solid
learning and profound reflection to theii- own views on the sub-
But the author, of whora I am now speaking, further allows,
what Mr. Hume omits, and Dr. Reid properly raaintains, that " by
reason many persons mean not only that faculty of the mind
which enables us to perceive the relations between ideas, but also
those rules of prudence vvhich guide us to happiness, or that
voice of conscience which points out our duty." — P. 22, In
p, 55, also, he raentions the proper sense " according lo whieh
Reason enables us to perceive relations betvveen ideas," and the
iraproper but popular sense in which " it often stands for a sen
timent of obligation, an approbation of virtue, or a desire of hap
piness." But in p. 28 he tells us, that " Divines and moralists
who are lo adapt their discourses lo popular language, do well in
ascribing a line of virtue to reason, and laying the blarae of all
the faults we corarait on our passions ; because those lo whom they
chiefly address theraselves, as he had already observed, raean by
reason a desire of happiness, or a sense of duty ; and by passions,
those appetites which cannot be gratified but at the expence of
one of these. Nor does there arise any inconvenience from this
misuse of these words; nay, as they can plead long prescription
for having been received in these senses in comraon life, one
would nnt choose in some cases to hazard the innovation of con
fining them to their strict philosophical meaning."
The distinction which this writer raakes between Reason and
Sensation, as the latter word is explained in p. 7. appears to me
raore exact in the terras than Mr. Hume's distinction betvveen
reason and sentiment, I further grant, that obligation, when
first traced to its first principles, must be resolved inlo sensation,
as the word is employed by this Author. I accede likewise to his
distinction between the priraary sense ofthe word Obligation,
according to which we as social creatures, are influenced by
benevolence, and as religious creatures by gratitude, and
the secondary sense, according to which we in both characters
are actuated bya regard to our ovvn welfare. The conclusion of
the Treatise is so connected with the subject of this note, and
the purpose for which 1 have written it, that I shall produce
the vvhole : " There is such an entire conforraity between the
laws of God, the happiness of each individual, and the com
mon good, and so difficult is it for us to separate these sen
tiraents of love and gratitude, wbich arise from contemplating
the goodness of God, from that fear which his power occfisions,
that we cannot reflect upon the divine coinmands without
being forcibly influenced by both these motives, and feel our
selves under an obligation in both senses uf that word to
practise them. But still, whether the Supreme Being, or a

THE SPITAL SERMON, 611
ject, I would recoraraend lo their serious attention the conclu
sion of Hutcheson's chapter De Intellectu Divino,
" Quum tanta pietate curaque religiosa, ne quid Dei virtutibus
derogetur, moveri videanlur, conlrariarum in hac ardua ques
tione sententiarum patroni ; a maledictis, conturaeliis, iracun-
dia contentionibus, et odiis, abslineant, neque inter se convicia,
philosophia indigna, jactent." — Synops, Metaphysic, p, 106,
future slate, is the object of our consideration, the province of
reason is exactly the sarae as il is in any olher matter; she
only presents the different relations which ideas bear to each
other, and connects together different propositions, how many
steps soever there may be between Iherii ; for after having
shewn, by a long deduction from our own existence, that there
is a God, and what his wiU is, there she must give over, and
leave it to the sensations of gratitude or fear, to induce every one
to practise it, and the serraons of all our divines fully prove what
I advance ; for after Ihey have shewn, either by the Christian
revelation or the structure of man, and this material system,
what are the divine coraraands; do they suppose they have done
all that is incumbent on them ? or, thai by having convinced
the understanding they have influenced the practice ? No, they
apply at least to these two sensations, and endeavour to raake
you virtuous, either by exciting your gratitude by displaying the
goodness of God, or your fears by shewing you what you will
suffer in consequence of being vicious."
All I bave to observe on the foregoing passage is, that the
goodness of the Deity, as it becoraes the object of our gratitude,
is raanifested not only in the blessings which he has bestowed
upon us in this life, but in the prospect which he has opened to
us of a future state, whether by reason or by revelation. Hence, in
the raind of a religionist the raotives to action are coraplex ; for
with piety, with benevolence, with a general sense of duly, and
a general love of rectitude, are raingled the suggestions of calm
self-love in the desire of attaining, and the apprehension of
losing that happiness which is reserved for the righteous. A
Christian teacher ought, therefore, to avail himself from every
quarter, of man as he is, and of things relative to raan as they
are; to eraploy every cause which is adapted to every raoral
faculty of our nature ; lo raake every primary, and every secon
dary obligation, instruraental in promoting our moral iraprove
ment ; lo engage the judgment, the affections, and the iraagina
tion, upon the side of virtue ; to draw forth topics of conviction
and persuasion from the past, the present, and the future ; to
warra his hearers with gratitude, to animate them wilh hope,
and to restrain them by fear.
2r 2

612 NOTES ON
Gassendi was not a divine. But upon the beauty and utUity
of virtue and piety he has delivered some opinions, to which the
enlightened divines of the Church of England will not, I am
sure, refuse their assent. And as those opinions are so closely
connected with the subject which I am now considering, I will
produce thera at full, " Ne specialia plura consecter, id atliugo
solum, qubd reputant multi virtuli nimiura detrahi, dura esse
dicitur propter aliud. Inferunt enim exinde sequi, ut virtus sit
in genere utilium quod ab honeslorum genere est diversura ;
sicque fore, ut proprife ipsS. dicamur uti, non frui, qiibd fruitio
non sit, nisi earura rerura, quse el propter se, et honestse sunt,
quo raodo ait Cicero non parandam solum, sed eliam fruendani
sapientiam esse; dicente aliunde B. Augustino, iniquum fieri
horainem, cum fruitur utendis, aut utitur fruendis, Verunta
men, ut concedatur quicquid est propter aliud, posse quodam
modo dici utile ; negatur tamen quicquid est utUe, ad illiberale
illud genus spectare in quo pecunia priraas tenet, et honesto op-
ponitur ; quatenus ipsura quoque honestura suara utilitatem,
verilm liberalera sortilur ; ebm Cicero etiam aliique deraonstrent
nihil verfe utile esse, nisi id, quod honestura est. Quare et cilm
ex hoc genere habebitur virtus, nihil ipsi proptereli decedet, ne
que aut diceraur e^ uti, eo modo, quo uti diciraur pecunia ; ne
que non frui eo raodo, quo quavis re honesta frui diciraur, dum
ex ea capimus voluplatera. Favet certfe idem S. Doctor, cbra
verba ipsius alio loco haec sunt : Frui diciraur ea re, de qua ca-
piraus voluptatem ; utiraur ea, quam referimus ad id, unde vo
luptas capienda est. Omnis itaque huraana perversio est, quod
etiara vitiura vocatur, fruendis uti velle, atque utendis frui,
Et rursiis: oranis ordinatio, quae virtus etiam norainatur, fruen
dis frui et utendis uti , fruendura est autura honeslis, utendum
vero utilibus, &c,
" At inquies, id, quod universfe de virtute dicitur, dici-ne etiam
potest de ipsa pietate in divinum nuraen ? si quidera non vide
tur posse sincera esse pictas nisi Deus purfe ac praecise prop
ter seipsum et ametur, quia infinite bonus sit, et colatur, quia
inflnitfe excellat ; nuUatenus verb qui amat, et colit, ad se
suumve comraodura suaraque voluplatera respiciat. Ego verb,
absit pietali cujusquam detractura contendara. Cum sint, qui
non raodb id faciendura suadeant (fierique adtb posse suppo-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 613
nant) sed etiam, ut fidem quaerant dogmati, objeclionemque
prseoccupent, se id facere confidant, et jactent : ipse sanfe neque
invideo, neque contradico ; quin etiam et probo, et exosculor
eam beatitatera, qu^ seu ipsi, seu alii tantam ccelitus gratiam
consequuntur. Scilicet hoc divinum donum, ac supra naturam
reputandum est, ut quis se ad Deum hac ratione amandum, co-
lendumque accingere possit, Ast hic agitur de pietate, seu uni-
versfe de virtute, quae secundum naturam est, juxta quam quic
quid homo agit, quodam cum respectu ad seipsum agit. An
liceat verb addere Deura ita sese huic naturse infirmitati accom-
modasse, ut cura in sacris literis vix ullum exstet monumentum
quo illud istorura dogma exprimatur, cereberriraa taraen oc-
currant quibus commendantur, qui Deum ideo multura amant,
quia multa peccata diraisit, mullurave gratiae contulit ; qui et
diligunt propter spera, quae ipsis reposita in ccelis est ; et officia
varia charitatis exercent, et persequutionem patiuntur fidem
servant, &c, ob regnum sibi praeparatum ab ipsa mundi consti-
tutione, ob mercedem copiosam, quse in coelis manet ; ob coro-
nam justitiae, quam Deus dUigentibus se repromisit, &c. Ex
quibus, aliisque effici videtur, non improbari, si quis respiciat
ad aeternas illas delicias, quibus est futurum, ut olira, si Deum
am&rit, colueritque, frualur,
" Nam et quod filium, poliusque servum in divina famiUa
deceat agere ; non obstat, quin dicere liceat, ideo filium am
plius amare parentem, quam servus amet Dominum, quia et am
plius ab eo accepit, et insuper haereditatera accepturura se ab eo
sperat, Alioquin certe si ab eo exhseredatum iri pernosset, et
servus se haeredem iri institutum confideret : quaeso utrius amor
futurus esset vehementior ? Ac non teslor quidem istorura con
scientiam quid acturi essent, si Deus amari, et coli, conlentus
nihil prorsus ipsos amatores, cultoresque sui curaret ; nihil bene
ficii, illis conferret ; nuUura lota aeternitate sperandum bonum
faceret ? Nimirum quasi agnituri, responsurique bona fide sint,
nihilo-ne minus amantes, venerantesque Dei forent, Velim
solum grave non sit, si rogentur, id-ne saltem non faciant, quia
Deum ea ratione amare, ipsique servire suavissimum sil ; suavis-
simumque adeo ducant mentem sic habere in Deura corapara-
tam ; ut ob ipsum plane, nullo vero raodo sui caus& faciant,
Suavitas haec certe ab EO non excluditur, qui suave esse claraat

614 NOTES ON
jugum suum, hoc est, legem suara, cujus caput est, ut ex toto
corde, ex tola aniraa, ex lola raente, ex tolls viribus diligaraus
Deum." — (Tora. ii. p. 710). It were an abuse of language lo
say, that the influence of Religion, as stated by Gassendi, that
gratitude for favours personally received, and the hope of
blessedness lo be personally enjoyed hereafter, are proofs of self
ishness. Unquestionably they point to objects related lo self;
to the gratifications of self, lo calm self-love, or the general
desire of happiness, to the particular affections of gratitude and
hope excited by particular objects. But they are not instances
of selfishness, or that vicious regard to our own good, which
makes us neglect or oppose the good of others. For such a
creature as man not to feel that gratitude would be an imper
fection, and even a crirae. Not to feel that hope would also be
an iraperfection, and in various circurastances would weaken
those raotives, which, by the very constitution of our nature
incite us lo right acts. Hope and gratitude are real parts of
our nature, and they concur with other parts in raoving us to
fill up the raeasure of our duty, and to obtain the happiness of
which we are capable by that nature.
Hitherto we have been speaking of the connection which the
love of God has or has not with the consideration of rewards.
In respect to the love of our neighbour, I shall endeavour lo
guide the reader to that which he cught to know, and though
the words are not taken from a professed theologian, they were
written by a man of distinguished piety, and they are founded
upon principles of which the raost learned and orthodox Chris
tian will hardly disapprove. " That desire of the good of others
which we approve as virtuous, cannot be alleged to be volun
tarily raised from the prospect of any pleasure accompanying
the affection itself, nay, it is often attended with pain when the
object is in distress," — Hutcheson's Inquiry concerning moral
Good and Evil, p. 139; see also p. 141, 2, and 149, 50.
" We do not by an act of our will raise in ourselves that be
nevolence which we approve as virtuous, with a view to obtain
future pleasures of self-approbation by our moral sense." What
will most effectually convince us of the truth of this point, is re
flection upon our ovvn hearts, whether we have not a desire of
the good of others, generally without any consideiation or in-

THE SPITAL SERMON. 615
tention of obtaining these pleasant reflections on our own vir
tue ; nay, often this desire is strongest where we least imagine
virtue, in natural affection toward offspring, and in gratitude to
a great benefactor ; the absence of which is, indeed, the greatest
vice, but the affections themselves are not esteeraed in any con
siderable degree virtuous. The sarae reflection will also con
vince us that these desires or affections are not produced by
choice, with a view lo obtain this private good. In like man
ner, if no volition of ours can directly raise affections from the
forraer prospects of interest, no raore can any volition raise
them from prospects of eternal rewards, or lo avoid eternal
punishraents. The former raotives differ frora these only as
smaller from greater, shorter from more durable. If affections
could be directly raised by volition, the sarae consideration
would raake us angry at the most innocent or virtuous cha
racter, and jealous of the most faithful and affectionate, or
sorrowful for the prosperity of a friend ; which we all find to
be impossible. The prospect of a future state may, no doubt,
have a greater indirect influence, by turning our affection to the
qualities in the objects naturally apt to raise the acquired affec
tion, than any other consideration." — Ib. p. 140 — 42. Again ;
" If any one should ask, since none of these motives of self-in
terest excite our benevolence, but we are in virtuous actions in
tending solely the good of others, to what purpose serves our
moral sense, our sense of pleasures from the happiness of others ?
To what purpose serves the wise order of nature by vvhich virtue
is even made generally advantageous in this life ? To what end
are eternal rewards appointed and revealed ? The answer to
these questions was given partly already : all these motives may
make up desire to have benevolent affections, and consequently
turn our attention to those quaUties in objects which excite
them ; they may overbalance all apparently contrary motives,
and all temptations to vice. But farther, I hope it wUl be still
thouo-ht an end worthy of the Deily to make the virtuous
happy by a wise constitution of nature, whether the virtues
were in every action intending lo obtain this happiness or not.
Beneficent actions tend to the public good, it is therefore good
and kind to give all possible additional motives to them ; and
to excite men who have some weak degrees of good affection to

616 NOTES ON
promote the public good raore vigorously by motives of self-in-'
terest ; or even to excite those who have no virtue at all lo ex
ternal acts of beneficence, and to restrain them from vice." —
Ib, 149, 150.
I have made these quotations very ample, because I wished to
do justice lo the opinions of the ingenious and amiable writer ;
and with great satisfaction I shall add from him the following
note ; " Let it be also reraerabered, that every consideration sug
gested in the Gospel, as an additional motive to beneficent ac
tions, is not imraediately to be looked upon as the proper motive
to virtue, or what would engage our approbation of actions flow
ing from it alone. Whoever would appeal to the general strain
of Christian exhortations, will find disinterested love more incul
cated, and motives of gratitude more frequently suggested than
any others." — Ib. pp. 150, 151,
It were sufficient to evince by one illustrious instance, the truth
of Mr. Hutcheson's observation.
" Finally, brethren,'' says the Apostle, " whatsoever Ihings
are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report : if there be any virtue, and
if there be any praise, think on these things." — Ep. to the Philip'
plans, iv. 8,
My intention through this long note, is to vindicate from mis
representation the doctrine of rewards and punishraents, as it is
really laid down in the Scriptures, and as it has been really ex
plained by wise and learned Theologians. The result upon the
whole is this : It is a part of our present condition to be the sub
jects of future rewards and punishraents, Il is a part of our
present nature to be influenced, and very strongly too, by the
hope of the one and the fear of the other : bul that hope and
that fear, however necessary they may be lo regulate, do not ob
struct the proper energies of other parts of the sarae nature.
They leave us to be actuated by the love of God and the love of
our neighbour, in consequence of regards quite distinct frora the
peculiar objects which they may themselves present to our mind.
— ^They leave us lo the coraplex feeling of admiration and love
which we experience from the abstract consideration of the di
vine power, wisdom, and goodness manifested in His general

THE SPITAL SERMON. 617
works — They leave us to an indirect feeling of gratitude, where we
sympathise wilh our fellow-creatures whom we consider, toge
ther with ourselves, as the objects of that divine goodness — They
leave us to the exercise of all those theopathelic affections, which
are excited by our meditations upon the goodness of God, where
soever, and howsoever it may have coraraunicated happiness to
other beings — They leave us to return acts of beneficence merely
from gratitude, and to perform acts of kindness merely from
compassion. To the original and direct force of these affections,
they bring an additional and distinct force of their own. But,
because man is designed for another life, his attention to the in
terest he has in that life is adapted lo his actual situation here ;
and because the interest itself is so very precious, the attention
he pays to it cannot be too frequent or too earnest.
In conformity to the principles which this note is intended to
illustrate, I have, in the earlier parls of my discourse, not merely
explained the commands of Christianity, bul examined the ten
dencies both of our general and more liraited affections, as they
can be discovered in the constitution of our minds ; and I have
scarcely touched upon future rewards till the conclusion of my
discourse. The Ihought of them, at this moraent, raakes a deep
irapression upon my soul — May every reader sympathise with me
in that impression, and receive in the last day the recompence of
the jusl ! Note 104, p. 410.
The duty of glorifying God has been misrepresented no less
than the duty, which we considered in a former note, of acting
from the expectation of reward. I will therefore lay before my
readers what I think a very judicious statement of it, in the words
of Le Clerc, translated by Mosheim in his notes upon Cudworth :
 " Sacree Kterae nonnunquam Deum dicunt ob gloriam suam
agere et egisse aliquid : quod non ita capi debet, ac si finis ejus
primarius esset, rerum conditarum admirationem et laudes sibi
acquirere ; nara hoc Ulud est, quod inter homines gloriam Dei
vocant : sed hoc sibi volunt sacri scriptores, Deum, quum finem
suum ob oculos habet positum, seu, quod idem est, accommodate
ad perfectiones suas agit, necessario adrairationem et laudes om
nium naturarura intelligentiura, quae quidem recte utuntur

618 NOTES ON
ratione sua, sibi coraparare. --Quin etiara Deus horainibus laudes
et gloriara suara, tanquara necessariura officiura, iraperat; non
ideo, ac si laudibus eorura egeret, aut felicitas ejus alienis laudi-
bus augeri posset, sed quo horaines id agant, quod ratio, qua in
struxit eos, postulat, et ista ratione ipsiraet beati ac felices eva-
dant. Nullus enira horao, nulla gens veram consequi potest
felicitatera, nisi Deura iUis, qui debentur ipsi, honoribus afficiat :
quod quidem, si res ita posceret, facilfe ostendi posset. Igitur ob
gloriam agere, et ideo agere, ut bonitatis divinae alii participes
fiant, duo fines sunt, qui nullo modo sibi refraganlur." — Vol. ii.
p, 589.
After many interruptions frora many causes, and wilh the
obliging, but precarious, and irregular aid of five or six friends,
when they were at leisure lo write what I dictated to thera, or
what I set before thera, I ara now arrived at the end of a labour,
which I must confess has been more irksome to rae than any
effort I ever raade in original coraposition. My activity, however,
and I may add, ray patience, were supported through every stage
of it, by the desire which I felt to place before ray readers the
decisions of the raost approved authors on the raost useful ques
tions ; and by the hope which I entertained, that the curiosity of
sorae, and the industry of others, raight be excited lo a fuller
perusal of the works to which I have referred them. Most of
those authors have, indeed, been long famiUar to me, and the
coincidence of their sentiraents wilh those of each other and with
my own, was so frequent, that I sometiraes found it more diffi
cult to determine what I should orait, than what I should pro
duce. From the celebrity of Mr. Hurae's name, the depth of his re
searches, the acuteness of his reasonings, the felicity of bis illus
trations, the captivating beauties of his style, and the araiable
qualities of his heart, a suspicion has arisen, that his opinions
about religion are very widely diffused araong the more enlight
ened inhabitants of North Britain. With peculiar satisfaction,
therefore, I have endeavoured to shew incidentally, from the
writings of Adara Sraith * and Dugald Stewart, that on the ques
* Having frequently quoted Dr. Sraith's Theory of Moral

THE SPITAL SERMON. 619
tion concerning the Being of a God, those two great men are
neither advocates for scepticism with their illustrious country-
Sentiments, I ara glad to slate that Dr. Hutton allows syrapa
thy " to be a principle, and to have been successfully employed
as such in the formation of moral sentiments, though he doubts
whether it be a first principle, endeavours to trace it up to those
instinctive passions and actions which cannot be farther under
stood, and describes it as a rational prepress ofthe human mind,
proceeding upon conscious principles." — Vol. iii. p. 252.
For the fuller confirmation of my opinion about the philoso
phers of Scotland, I would refer the reader to Dr. Huttton's
Investigation of the Principles of Knovvledge, in part iii. sec, i.
chap. ii. iii. section iv. chap, i. ii. iii. iv, ; and to Dr, Ferguson's
Principles of Moral and Political Science, part ii. chap. ii. ; and
section viii, and chap. v. section iv. " where piety to Almighty
God is represented as a raodification of benevolence justly enti
tled to the first and the highest place.'' The writings of Dr,
Gregory, senior, are extensively read in England, and do credit
to the ingenuity, the sensibility, and the piety of the author.
Though ray raind was vigorously exercised, rather than ulti
mately convinced, by the elaborate work of Dr. Gregory, junior,
upon Liberty and Necessity, 1 feel great respect for him as a
very acute reasoner, and a very instructive moralist. Let me
add, tv irapobw, that the style in his Conspectus Medicinae Theo-
reticae is jierspicuous and elegant.
Among the Latin corapositions which have corae forth from
the Universities of Scotland since the time of Dr. Hutcheson, I
have seen none so distinguished by the best effects of early prac
tice and well-formed taste, so accurate in the choice of phraseo
logy, so easy in the structure of the sentences, and so harmoni
ous in the cadence of the periods, as the writings of Dr. Gregory,
junior, and Professor Dalziel.
While this sheet was in the press, I heard that the learned Dr.
White had published AbdoUatiph, of vvhich I spoke in p. 563 ;
and it occurred to rae that ray friend Mr. George Dyer vvas edu
cated at Christ's Hospital, and that the naraes of Bishop Butler,
the late Mr. H. Brown, Dr. Bever, the CivUian, Dr. Nowel of St.
Mary Hall, the late Dr. Hutchins of Lincoln, Dr. Bandinel of
Oxford, Mr. Cox of King's College, Mr. Wishart of Trinity, Cara
bridge, Dr. Peckard of Magdalen, and Mr. Frend of Jesus, ditto;
Mr. Burdon and the lale Messrs. Blackall and H. Horaer of
Emanuel ; and Sir E. Law,* (novv Attorney General), should have
been inserted in the list of those persons who in my lifetime have
done honour to our Universities. After all tuy eft'orts to do jus-
* Afterwards Lord EUenborough,

620 NOTES ON
man, nor zealots for infidelity wilh the later philosophers of
France. On the contrary, they distinguish, as Mr. Hurae rarely
does, between the sober advances of Theologians in the broad
and beaten road of common sense, and their hasty strides in the
obscure and winding bye-paths of Metaphysics. They separate,
as the French Philosophers seldom do, supersition, which must
enfeeble and debase the mind, from religion, which ought lo in
vigorate and exalt it. They seem to consider the belief of a
Deity, not only as warranted in its proofs by the phenoraena of
nature, but as favourable in its effects to the happiness and moral
improvement of mankind. They assign to Iheisra, not only the
truth of a doctrine, but the energy ofa sentiraent, and ihe cora-
prehensiveness of a principle. They adrait, not only the capacity
of the huraan understanding to infer the existence of a God from
his works, but the propensity of the huraan heart to view him as
the Governor and Judge, as well as the Creator of the world, to
do him horaage by acts of reverential and grateful adoration, to
look upon his will as a rule of aciion, to feel in his displeasure
an object of raost alarming, but salutary fear, and to rejoice in
the hope of his favour, as animating our strongest affections and
noblest faculties in the pursuit of virtue. As lo the works of Dr,
Reid, they, I suppose, like those of Dr. Beattie, are more gene
rally known in this country, than Sraith's " Theory of Moral
Sentiraents,'' or Stewart's " Eleraents of the Philosophy of the
Huraan Mind,'' and I ara sure that the greater part of ray readers
have long anticipated rae in any testiraony which I might be

lice to my contemporaries, I raust say of my catalogue of our
academical worthies, what Fabricius said upon another occca-
sion : " Plures aliorum industria facile adjiciet." — B. Graec, vol.i.
p. 502. edit. Harles.
I ought lo apologize lo the learned reader, for not having
slated, in p. 503, that the military services of Socrates, for which
I have quoted the testimony of D. Laertius, are controverted by
Athenaeus, in chapter xiv, and xv. of book v. But the futility
and injustice of Athenaeus's objections will be obvious to any
one who reads the notes of Menagius and Casaubon, upon sec
tions 22 and 23, liber ii. of D. Laert. and Casaubon's animad
versions upon Athenseus, liber v. chap, xv, where the subject is
professedly and largely discussed.

THE SPITAL SERMON. 621
disposed to pay, lo their ingenuity, or their liberality, or their
piety. For the use which I have made of some authors, who are
generally and perhaps justly believed not to look with a very
favourable eye on the evidences of revelation, no apology can
be necessary to the dispassionate, and to the uncandid none
would be satisfactory. They who speak truth, howsoever disco
vered, have a right lo be heard — they who assisi others in disco
vering il, have the yet higher claim lo be applauded; and surely,
upon the propriety of any practice recommended by reason, as
well as inculcated in the Scriptures, the testimony of supposed
Deists is not less weighty among the impartial, nor less accept
able lo the serious, than that of professed Christians, Passion,
I am afraid, influences speculation as well as conduct, and the
consequence is, that prejudices are transferred from persons lo
Ihings ; that discussion assuraes the fierceness and the obstinacy
of altercation ; and that victory is pursued as more precious
than truth. Such must ever be the case, while the infirmity or
the malignity of men is permitted to turn their thoughis so
eagerly, and lo fix them so stiffly, on the points in which they
differ — I rejoice, therefore, that the object I had in view was
such as naturally led ray attention towards a variety of topics,
upon which the wiser and the greater part of the authors to
whora I had recourse were fortunate enough to agree.
I disdain to avert any imputation of pedantry, which the illi
terate or the petulant may throw upon the passages which I
have occasionally iniroduced from the writers of antiquity.
Conscious I am not of any unbecoming arrogance, in acknow
ledging that much of ray lirae has been employed in the perusal
of their works ; and for the application of their opinions to a
subject which is eminently interesting, 1 will assign a reason, the
validity of which will hardly be disputed by the wise and good :
" Td TWV irpeafivrepwv eiriX'^iprjfiaTa, rovs fiiv dpyovs Kal dfpvels
mov dvairavei Kat dvairifiirXrjat, rols bi tpiXorifiois Kal (ptXoXoyois,
dpxvv evbibwatv o'lKeiav Kal roXfiav eirl to irjrelv Kal dvix^eveiv
rfjv dXtjBeiav." — Plut, Sympos, vol. U. lib. vi. p. 694. edit. Xylan.
So far as the merit of mere expression is concerned, in the
numerous and ample quotations which occur in these Notes,

622 NOTES ON
sensible as I am of the excellence of olher writers, and of my
own defects, I rejoice lo say, in the words of Callimachus,
fivBos b' OVK ifibs, dXX' erepwv."
But I do not wish to be sheltered frora responsibUity for the
matter contained in them, because I have not ventured explicitly,
or by implication, to approve of any passage which did not ap
pear to me likely, either to elucidate some iraportant doctrine, or
to enforce sorae necessary duty. Be it observed, however, that
both in ray own Discourse, and in the Notes lo it, I disclaim all
intention of amusing the reader with unsubstantial refinements
and unprofitable novelties. Yet, if my own opinions, or the
arguments I have employed to justify Ihem frora other writers,
should answer any of the purposes to which they are directed ;
if they should throw any light upon the connection which sub
sists between sound morality and pure religion ; if they should
facihtate the progress of any one human being in wisdora with
out casuistry, benevolence without singularity, and piety with
out superstition, I shall confidently affirm, with Jeremy Taylor,
that " no raan ought to be offended because a Serraon," or even
Notes upon a Serraon, " are not like curious enquiries after new
nothings, but pursuances of old truths." — See Epistle Dedica
tory lo Taylor's Discourses.
For the passages which occasionally allude lo general politics,
as connected with morality and religion, my apology shall be
offered in the words of Sir William Temple :
" Under favour of those who would pass for wits in our age,
by saying things which David tells us the fool said in his ; and
set up with bringing those wares to raarket which, God knows,
have been always in the world, though kept up in corners, be
cause they used to raark their owners, in forraer ages, with the
naraes of buffoons, profane or irapudent raen, who deride all
forra and order, as well as piety and truth, and under the notion
of fopperies, endeavour to dissolve the very bonds of all civil
society, though by the favour and protection thereof they them
selves enjoy so rauch greater proportions of wealth and of plea
sures than would fall to their share ifall lay in coramon, as they
seera to design (for then such possessions would belong of right
to the strongest and bravest amongst us) ; under favour of

THE SPITAL SERMON. 623
such men I believe it will be found, at one tirae or other, by
all who shall try, that, whilst huraan nature continues what it
is, the sarae orders in state, the same discipline in armies, the
same reverence for things sacred, and respect of all civil institu
tions, the same virtues and dispositions of princes or magistrates,
derived by interest or iraitation into the customs and humours of
the people, will ever have the same effects upon the strength and
greatness of all governments, and upon the honour and autho
rity of those that rule, as well as the happiness and safety of
those that obey." — Preface to Observations upon the United
Provinces.

*,* The referring figure was inadvertently omitted at the word'ep7a?ii/*£9a
on the Spital Sermon, p. 365. The note will be found in p. 42S.

VOL. 11.

2s

A SERMON,
PREACHED ON THE LATE FAST DAY,
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1803.
AT THE
PARISH CHURCH OF HATTON,
WARWICKSHIRE.

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TO
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GEORGE, LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN,
AND
SPENCER, LORD BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH,
THE FOLLOWING SERMON
IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
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February 16, 1804.

A SERMON, &c.

1 MACCABEES, iii. 21.
Wefightfor our lives and our laius.
These -words were addressed by Judas, a distin
guished leader of the Jews, to his countrymen,
when the Syrians, leagued with the Samaritans,
were preparing to oppress them. Their cause was
just, their danger was imminent, and the example
of their valour may, I should hope, be without im
propriety recommended to imitation, even before a
Christian audience. The first part, then, of this
discourse will be employed in examining, whether
or no, the principle of patriotism be warranted by the
authority of the gospel ; and the second, in con
formity to the express language of the text, will be
directed to such topics as are more immediately
suggested to our minds by the present solemnity.
That to love our country ardently is an amiable
quality, that to promote the interest of it diligently
is a meritorious service, and that to die in the de
fence ofit, voluntarily, is a noble instance of mag
nanimity, are truths most congenial to the unde-
bauched sentiments of the heart, and supported by
the unequivocal concurrence, and the uniform ex
perience of all ages, whether ancient or modern,
and of all nations, whether barbarous or civilized.
Propositions, indeed, collaterally or incidentally
connected with those truths, like many other ques-

630
tions which branch out from the wide and complex
generality of ethics, may in theory have often been
perplexed by intricate subtilties, and in practice
often perverted to criminal purposes. Hence the
embellishments of rhetoric, and the charms of
poetry, have been injudiciously or corruptly lavished
upon those actions, which, under the specious co
lour of a regard for our country, wound the purest
feelings of humanity, violate the plainest dictates
of justice, and deform the goodly works of our
Creator by wild desolation and merciless carnage.
But the calm and impartial voice of reason will
ever separate the claims of true patriotism frprn
those of the false, by an appeal to principles which
unfold the real duties, and ascertain the real in
terests of society ; and, as religion itSelf is intended
for the direction and the benefit of rational and
social beings, we may safely infer that, what rea
son authorizes, religion does not forbid. On the
contrary supposition, indeed, we should let loose
upon multitudes the same disorders which the un
limited and unqualified application of thc rule for
the forgiveness of enemies would inevitably bring
upon individuals. The interests of the present life
would not only be severed from those of the future,
but would appear wholly incompatible with them ;
the analogy which seems to pervade the whole mo
ral world, and to connect obligation with our expe
rience of utility, sympathy with our perception of
pain and pleasure in other men, and approbation
or disapprobation with our sense of their conduct,
as right or wrong, would be obscured ; the aggre-

PREACHED AT HATTON. 631
gate of moral improvement arising from the various
relations in which we stand to each other would be
diminished; the exercise of passive courage, as it
has been called, would become not merely the su
preme, but almost the sole duty of man ; self-love,
which now contains within itself the germ of so
many social virtues, and by proper culture adds so
largely to the stock of social happiness, would be
useless, as a part of our nature co-operating with
benevolence in the formation of our social charac
ter; self-defence would cease to be vindicated by
the plea of self-preservation ; the weak would be
delivered over as a prey to the strong, the unoffend
ing to the tyrannical ; and nations the most enlight
ened and refined would be exposed to the fierce and
sudden incursions of barbarous hordes, who would
in a moment destroy all that had been effected by
the wisdom and the labour of successive ages, mu
tilate every monument of art, and efface every ves
tige of civilization and science.
It were a gross affront, then, to religion, to sup
pose that it was intended to introduce such a mass
of evils ; to thwart the suggestions of coramon
sense ; to cramp the efforts of common justice ;
and to throw down every security for that national
independence, without which society would resem
ble a state of nature, and might relapse into it
without any visible increase of wretchedness or
degradation to our species.
Though the first teachers of Christianity, from
their peculiar and important ofl'ice, and the first
converts to it, from their peculiar and trying situa-

632 A SERMON,
tion, were directed to lay down their lives in the
cause of their Master, still their attachment to that
cause was, from the beginning, perfectly compa
tible with any other obligations that required them
to make a similar sacrifice for any other purpose,
by which the real good of mankind could have
been promoted. For the frequency, and for the
earnestness of those directions we may account, by
the extraordinary diflBculties which the primitive
Christians were to overcome, and the extraordinary
severities which they were to undergo. But be
fore we allow the inconsistency of such directions
with the general duties of man as a social being, it
must be shown that any interdict against those
duties was ever pronounced, that any dispensation
from them was ever offered, or even any disappro
bation of them was ever hinted, by Jesus Christ.
The Roman might have fought in the ranks of
Caesar ; the Athenian might have peaceably endea
voured to mitigate the servitude of Greece ; the
Jew niight have employed the remains of civil
power in his own country, for the advantage of his
countrymen ; and yet each might have lived a faith
ful disciple of Jesus, and each might have died an
heroic martyr for the honour of his blessed name.
If the author of our faith, when arraigned as
Caesar's enemy before the representative of C-aesar,
declined all discussion upon the just or the unjust
pretensions of earthly potentates, and declared " his
own kingdom not to be of this world" — if, in the
way of a direct moral answer to a direct political
question, he shunned all dispute upon the right of

PREACHED AT HATTON, 633
taxation, and ordered the Pharisees and Herodians
" to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,
and unto God the things that are God's" — if John,
his immediate precursor, when asked by his hearers
what " they should do for the remission of sins,"
exhorted the publicans not, indeed, to throw up
their office, but to discharge it faithfully, and " ex
act no more than that which was appointed to
them ;" and instructed the soldiers not to cast away
their arms, nor to murmur against their leaders,
but " to do no violence, to accuse no man falsely,"
and " to be content with their wages" — if his im
mediate followers. Saint Paul and Saint Peter, incul
cated civil obedience from motives not only of
prudence but of conscience, and founded civil
authority not only upon the command of God but
upon usefulness to mankind, which very usefulness
is always the effect of causes adapted to that very
purpose by the will of God — if they told us that
" magistrates were ordained not only for a terror to
evil works," which endanger and disgrace society,
but " for the praise of those who by doing well"
uphold and adorn it — if Saint Paul recommends
" intercessions, prayers, and giving of thanks to be
made for kings and all" subordinate governors, for
the temporal as well as the spiritual end of " lead
ing a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and
honesty" — if Saint Peter advises us not only " to
fear God, and to love the brotherhood," but " to
honour the king" — if all these social virtues, as the
means of social happiness, were not only practica
ble, and therefore obligatory, under a pagan magis-

634
tracy, but more practicable, and therefore more obli
gatory in a Christian state, surely it were the hardi
ness of misrepresentation, rather than the dexterity
of sophistry, to maintain that Christ, or John, or
Peter or Paul, considered their followers as having
no personal interest in the tranquillity and prospe
rity of the communities to which they belonged ;
as bounden by no personal ties to act, and even to
suffer in conformity to the laws of those commu
nities ; as feeling no regard for the comforts, for the
property, and for the lives of those very beings
who had been described to them as the objects of
their personal love and personal services, under the
endearing and sacred relation of neighbours. "When
our blessed Lord, who " might have prayed his
father to send legions of " angels to succour him,"
set an example of submission to established judica
tures, and underwent an ignominious punishment
upon the cross ; and when his disciples endured,
and encouraged others to endure, persecution, they,
in these very instances, sustained the part of good
patriots ; for they employed their own patience and
constancy, and those of other men, for instruments,
which not only evinced the truth and efficacy of
religion, but preserved, too, the peace and the order
of society : they forbad to Christians the use of
resistance under the plea of performing duties which
might be sincerely and completely performed with
out it ; and they at the same time left it with the
judgment, or, I should rather say, with the con
science of men, to settle the right to resist, upon
other subjects, and under other circumstances, which

PREACHED AT HATTON. 635
had no connection whatsoever with the belief or the
propagation ofthe Gospel.
If the extraordinary dispensations of the Deity
were at variance with the ordinary, their usefulness
would be less visible, and of course the evidence for
them would be less credible. But the blessings of
Revelation, we should remember, though conferred
by such a being as God, are yet adapted to such a
being as man. They are meant to improve human
nature progressively, not to change it suddenly and
totally; to correct, not destroy, the influence of
national opinions, customs, and institutions ; to mi
tigate, not annihilate, physical evils ; and to forward
their proper uses, as furnishing opportunities for
moral good, among creatures whose industry, pa
tience, fortitude, and benevolence, are to be exercised
in a state of moral discipline. They are designed
not to answer any curious questions, " why we were
not placed in a situation where we should have no
need of harsh and turbulent passions," * but to point
out the real " purposes for which those passions
were given us," while they are under the restraints
of reason and religion, and to interest our hopes and
fears in attaining that limited degree of excellence
which our actual condition admits, and our actual
duty, therefore, requires. Thus considered, the love
of our country, as inciting us to repel injuries and
to fight for our lives- and our laws, is one among
many other virtues which meliorate that condition,
and constitute that duty ; and if it necessarily forms
* See Butler's Ninth Sermon.

636
a part of natural religion, we may presume that
some place is assigned to it even in revealed.
It so happens, however, that the conduct of the
blessed Jesus upon the important subject of patriot
ism has been strangely misrepresented by one
writer, who was the secret enemy, and by another
who was the professed advocate of the gospel ; and
as both of them have acquired no common share of
popularity by the plausibility of their arguments,
and the elegance of their style, it cannot be impro
per, on the present occasion, to examine their
showy and delusive sophisms.
Now one of them exults in the discovery that,
while Christianity sets up the highest pretensions
to a perfect code of ethics, it omits not only the
praise, but the very mention of patriotism ; and
from this omission, which first is broadly assumed
as a fact, and then is petulantly sneered at as an
imperfection, the objector would induce us to doubt
the divinity of its original : for patriotism, it is
granted alike by the infidel and the believer, is ne
cessary, always to the well being, and sometimes to
the existence of society ; and therefore the infidel
may justly triumph over the credulity and incon
sistency of the believer, when the one opposes and
the other defends a religion which is silent, and by
silence inefficient, upon a practice so essential to
the dearest interests of mankind. The other writer
expatiates upon the same fact as a singularity, but not
asadefect; and from premises which hepartly holds in
common with hisprecursor in thebye-pathsof paradox,
he draws <i conclusion quite opposite : that, because

PREACHED AT HATTON. 637
the founder of Christianity did not inculcate patriot
ism, his religion thus far contains one internal evi
dence of having descended from heaven : for it dis
dains to make the prejudices of men the instrument
of their faith ; it overlooks, and by overlooking dis
countenances, what false religions have expressly
noticed, and earnestly encouraged ; and by these
means it would eventually increase the sum of vir
tue and felicity among the sincere and consistent
followers of Christ.
But, the misrepresentations of the former writer
will be completely refuted by considering that Chris
tianity, when it binds us to universal benevolence,
must include patriotism as a part ; for the obliga
tion to do good must ever be co-extensive with the
power of doing it ; and therefore to act for the be
nefit of many when the opportunity occurs, is the
office of a Christian, no less than to act for the be
nefit of a few.
Thus far, while we agree with one of the writers
to whom I have alluded, about the solid advantages
of true patriotism, we can at the same time protect
our holy religion from the charge of not having re
commended it ; and, in the sequel, while we equally
agree with the other writer on the mischievous
tendencies of false patriotism, we shall not rest our
defence of revelation upon the fantastic and hardy
presumption, that because Christ was silent about
the false, he consequently was indifferent about the
true. One distinction, I am aware, pervades the
whole controversy ; and since it is very pertinent, as
well as very intelligible, I shall now lay it before

638 A SERMON,
you. If by silence be meant the absence of ex
press, or, as dialecticians would say, formal appro
bation or disapprobation, we accede to the statement
as it respects both kinds of patriotism. But if the
word be employed to mean implicit or virtual ap
probation or disapprobation, we oppose the state
ment as it concerns both. For under certain cir
cumstances, which the course of human affairs fre
quently realizes, the virtues which Christ enjoins,
have in themselves the essential merit of true pa
triotism, and the vices which he forbids, contain in
themselves the essential mabgnity of that which is
false. The error of the ingenious person whose opinions
I am now going to examine, is perhaps the more
dangerous, because it is accompanied with an osten
tatious eagerness in the defence of the gospel ; and
therefore in the very threshold of that examination
I think it proper for me to observe, that the whole
difficulty which he has started may be solved by
distinguishing between the right and the wrong ap
plication of terms, and between the use and abuse
of principles.
If patriotism mean that well directed and well-
measured love of our country -which induces us to
promote the welfare of it, both in preference to pri
vate advantage and in subordination to general
good, we maintain that his assumption is false ; we
reject the aid which is offered to our cause by his
inference from it, and we assert that in conformity
to those restrictions which are imposed by the
higher considerations of that general good, patriot-

PREACHED AT HATTON. 639
ism, SO far from being virtually prohibited by our
heavenly Master, is substantially enjoined. But if
patriotism be really and solely, as our panegyrist
defines it, that " which commands us to oppress all
countries, in order to advance the imaginary pros
perity of our own ; and to copy the mean partiality
of an English parish officer, who thinks injustice
and cruelty meritorious when they are useful to his
village ; " in this sense of the term we allow that
the gospel does not, either in reality or appearance,
give encouragement to such patriotism, and we as
sert, that upon one and the same ground of violated
benevolence, it condemns both the officer who serves
his village, and the citizen who would serve his
country by such odious means, and from such nar
row views. We contend, however, at the same time,
that the definition is imperfect and fallacious — im
perfect, because it does not discriminate the ima
ginary from the real interests of our country ; and
fallacious, because it would insinuate that the real
can be forwarded only by the same injustice and
cruelty which, according to the hypothesis we are
now considering, are employed to promote the ima
ginary. Surely, if the language of this celebrated
definition be correct, we may, as it has been well re
marked, affirm with equal propriety, that " hu
mility,"* which, by the general consent of mankind
is praiseworthy, " should be called meanness ; that
generosity should be called profusion ; " that all
other actions supposed by the same consent, to be
* See Dr, Maclaine's Letter to Soame Jenyns, p. 183,
VOL. II. 2 T

640 A SERMON,
in alliance with virtue, whensoever they are not
carried to pernicious excess, and when they are not
prompted by unworthy motives, must be looked
upon as similar to actions which are so carried and
so prompted ; that all philosophy when it professes
to separate the excess from the mean, deludes us ;
and that all language when it supplied terms for the
marks of that separation has contributed to the de
lusion. What then is the result ? If there be a genuine
and salutary patriotism, the gospel has in effect re
cognised and approved it. If there be a spurious
and dangerous patriotism, the same gospel neither
directly nor indirectly favours it. But that there is
such a spurious, and that there also is such a ge
nuine patriotism, we readily admit ; that the pro
perties of the one, and the obligation to shun it, are
equally intelligible with the properties of the other,
and the obligation to practise it, we strenuously
maintain ; and we trust, moreover, firmly, that by
an accurate use of words, and by a dispassionate
attention to things, as the objects of those words,
we shall be able to vindicate the honour of our holy
Master against the scoffs of the unbeliever and the
misconceptions of the visionary.
Harsh, indeed, as I have often thought, when
communing with my own heart, and often lamented,
when I have been instructing you, my brethren, who
are committed to my charge — very harsh and very
unfair Is the treatment wbich revelation has expe
rienced in the doctrines whieh it propounds for our
belief, and in the rules which it prescribes for our

PREACHED AT HATTON, 641
conduct. Those doctrines, though few and simple,
have been multiplied by the misguided zeal of its
followers, and encumbered with dark and mystical
interpretations, which, under the venerable, the
usurped, the prostituted name of orthodoxy, have
confounded the judgment, and enflamed the pas
sions of the christian world. Those rules, however
agreeable to the common sense, and however con
ducive to the common interests of mankind, have
been distorted by ingenious sophistry, by monastic
gloominess, or by frantic enthusiasm ; and Instead
of making us " wise unto salvation," they have
sometimes degenerated into frivolous and unprofit
able austerities, and sometimes been pleaded in vin
dication of the most desperate outrages. For pur
poses of superstition, or fanaticism ; for the support
of metaphysical reveries, or the disguise of spiritual
domination, the believer appeals to the authority of
Christ and his apostles for the truth of dogmas
which they in reality never taught, or the necessity
of observances which they never imposed. The un
believer craftily admits the propriety of the appeal,
and then charges upon the Christian law those ab
surdities which exist only in the extravagant con
ceits, or arbitrary practises, of Christian interpreters.
But " the wisdom which is from above will ever
be justified of her children," and this too, effectually
and eminently, in the question which we are now
discussing. If valour, as an instrument of patriotism, be em
ployed, as it too often has been, to carry into effect
2t2

642 A SERMON,
those violences,* which distract the world with
bloodshed ann " devastation ;" if it be used " as an
engine* by which the strong plunder the weak,
the proud trample upon the humble, and the guilty
oppress the innocent ;" doubtless, in the view of
religion, no less than of reason, such love of our
country impelling us to the use of such an engine,
is as a passion, " the offspring * of pride, avarice,
and ambition :" and, as a habit, it is equally hateful
in the eye of a righteous and benevolent Deity, and
of every considerate and virtuous man. The Christian
will acknowledge with the philosopher, that " an
army of victorious warriors, returning triumphant
on this vile principle, however graced with the flat
tering title of heroes, and ensigns of glory, are in
truth no better than a band of public robbers ; or
as our great poet, a Christian and lover of mankind,
finely expresses it, " An impious crew
Of men conspiring to uphold their state.
By worse than hostile deeds ; violating the ends
For which our country is a name so dear,"f
On the other hand, if valour be useful in pre
venting unprovoked and destructive injuries ; " if
it be as requisite to repel an invader, as to invade a
foe ;" if it be ever " necessary to the defence and
support of christian communities ; if it enable a
christian prince to oppose the assaults and devasta-
* See pages S3 and 57, of Jenyns's View of the internal
Evidence ofthe Christian Religion.
t Brown on the Characteristics, p. 339, and Milton's Samp
son Agonistes.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 643
tions of a licentious usurper," if it be ever " employed
in the cause of oppressed" individuals, " or oppressed
nations, not from the mere impulse of interest, or
thirst of fame, but from a generous regard to pub
lic good, then active courage must be as much a
moral virtue as passive ; it is blended with bene
volence, and discovers the strength of that very di
vine principle,"* which Christianity has repeatedly
and forcibly recommended. Thus, too, if patriotism
be, as men of sense rightly understand it to be,
" a zeal for the happiness of the country to which
we belong; and where the most numerous, inti
mate, and affecting of our social relations are formed
and cultivated ;"-|- then, it is sound as a principle ;
then, it is precise as a term ; then, it is lovely as a
quality ; then, it is indispensable even as a duty ;
for it connects our private with our public virtues ;
it leads us to protect immediately our governors and
our fellow citizens, and eventually our neighbours,
our friends, our venerable parents, and our beloved
children. All, as members of the same community,
are linked together by the ties of a common inter
est ; all, as men, are related to us by the participa
tion of a common nature ; all are objects of our
moral agency by the authority of a common religion,
and by our common exertions all are to be defend
ed. One part may be nobler in itself, or nearer to

* See Kenrick's Answer to S. Jenyns, pp. 51, 65, and Mac
laine's Letters, pp. 175, 177, 178.
t Series of Letters addressed to Soame Jenyns, by Dr. Mac-
laine, p. 183.

644

A SERMON,

us In our domestic situations, than another ; but
he that is anxious to save the whole, means well and
acts well by every part, be it more or less distant,
and be It inclusive of more or fewer objects.
It has been said, ingeniously perhaps, though in
some instances rather incautiously, that Christianity
lays down no rules, as the religions of Numa, of
Mahomet, or Confucius seem to provide them, for
the administration of public affairs — that it con
tains no specific code for the magistrate, the legis
lator, or the warrior ; but effects all its peculiar and
salutary purposes by the authority of its sanctions,
and the influence of its precepts, over the hearts of
individuals only. The observation is, I grant, de
fensible, when it is properly understood ; for, Idt it
not be imagined that magistrates, legislators, and
warriors, as such, are unconcerned in those precepts
here, or in those sanctions hereafter. They, too, are
individuals ; they are endowed with moral faculties ;
they are placed in a state of moral probation ; they
are invested with privileges which ever must be ac
companied by correspondent and commensurate
duties ; and therefore they ought to remember that
the observance and breach of those duties are sub
jects not only of applause or censure from man, but
of reward or punishment from God.
That Christianity does not directly prescribe any
rules for worldly policy, is indeed a circumstance
which might lead us to some important reflections
on the consistency of such conduct in its author,
with the peremptory and explicit pretensions of his
rehgion to be calculated for the universal benefit of

PREACHED AT H.AT'rON. 645
mankind. But if governors were actuated by the
same benevolent spirit which Christianity was meant
to infuse into the minds of those whom they are
appointed to govern — if justice and mercy, which
are recommended to all the followers of our blessed
Redeemer, without regard to the infinitely varied
and continually changing distinctions of climate,
custom, laws, rank, and fortune, and the obligations
to which are modified, but not suspended, by such
distinctions, really pervaded the whole of a commu
nity, every corruption would be purified ; every
abuse would be corrected ; every violence would be
averted; and the blessings of public as well as pri
vate life would be more widely diff'used, and more
permamently secured. The honest magistrate, the
wise legislator, the brave warrior, and the upright
patriot might, each in his own province, claim to
himself the appellation of a good Christian. In
serving mankind he might deliberately obey God,
and while he increases his fame he might save his
soul. It may be worth while to observe, that the ob
jections of infidelity. If well founded, have scarcely
been pushed to a proper extent on the subject now
before us. They who have been actively employed
in censuring the Mosaic economy, seem to have
usually acknowledged the excellence of the deca
logue, in which, as all parties appear to agree, is
compressed the substance of the Jewish law. Yet,
the absence of patriotism from that series of com
mands and prohibitions, has never given rise to any
specific objections founded on such absence, against

646
the wisdom, or the virtue, or even the extraordinary
claims of Moses. The practice of the Jews them
selves is also a clear, prominent, and decisive proof
that, in the decalogue, they were not sagacious
enough to discern, as others have done in the gos
pel, any implied interdict against the love of our
country. In various periods of the Jewish history do we
not read of valiant judges, captains, and kings,
who repelled the incursions of neighbouring states,
barbarous in manners, ferocious in spirit, and ad
dicted to the most odious overt-acts of plunder and
devastation ? Was it not the love of their country
which prompted Sampson, at the hazard of his
own life, to crush the Philistines assembled in the
temple of their idol, and excited David to go forth,
without staff or sword, against a champion gigantic
in stature, bold from conscious strength, and trained
from his youth upwards, in the use of arms ? Did
not Nehemiah thus address the rulers, and the
nobles, and the rest of the people, " Be not ye
afraid of your adversaries ; remember the Lord
which is great and terrible, and fight for your bre
thren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives
and your houses : " and in this generous call upon
the bravery of his associates, are not public mingled
with private considerations ? the interests of the
state with the safety of families ? the impulses of
patriotism with the instincts of nature ? Did not
Judas say to the men who were with him, " Fear
ye not their multitude. Remember how our fathers
were delivered in the Red Sea, when Pharaoh pur-

PREACHED AT HATTON. 647
sued them with an army. Now, therefore, let us
cry unto heaven, and remember the covenant of our
fathers, and destroy this host before our face this
day." Upon a subsequent occasion, " when the battle
was begun, and the cry of the city went up to
heaven with trumpets and a great sound," did not
the same patriot call aloud unto his host, " Fight
this day for our brethren ? "
Who can read without admiration and sympathy
the heroic and pious words of Eleazer ; when bowed
down with age, and preparing to undergo a cruel
death for the sake of his countrymen, he thus ex
claims, " I will show myself such a man as mine
age requireth, and leave a notable example to such
as be young, to die willingly and courageously for
the honourable and holy laws." -" Thus," says the
sacred historian, " this man died, leaving his death
for an example of a noble courage, and a memorial
of virtue, not only unto young men, but to all his
nation." Again, in the chapter whence my text is taken,
when the forces of Samaria and Syria were collect
ed against the Jews, and when, " being so few,
they doubted how they should be able to fight
against a multitude so great and so strong," did
not their leader thus dispel their fears, and rouse at
once their piety and their patriotism ? " The vic
tory of a battle standeth not in the multitude of an
host ; but strength cometh from heaven. They
come against us in much pride and iniquity, to de-

648
stroy us and our wives and children, and to spoil
us ; but we fight for our lives and our laws."
The Jews, it is apparent, were not conscious of
disobeying the decalogue, in its matter or its spirit,
when they fought for their country ; and yet the
decalogue contains no instruction for them so to
fight. Where then, let me ask, is the penetration,
or rather where is the fairness of those writers, who,
while they cavil at the omission of patriotism in the
gospel of Christ, are silent as to that omission in
the laws of Moses, announced as those laws were,
with the utmost solemnity, and containing, one
would imagine, the most important duties which
the Jews were required to perform ? Where, again,
is the impartiality of a noble writer, who, when
speaking of the Jewish dispensation, tells us
"that under it the virtue of patriotism had illus
trious examples ; that in some manner it was re
commended to us as honourable, and worthy of
our imitation : that Saul himself, as ill a prince as
he is represented, appears both living and dying, to
have been respected and praised for the love he
bore his country:"* but, when he comes to speak
of the Christian dispensation, exchanges statement
for sarcasm ; finds only one solitary instance of at
tention to, what he calls, " heroic virtue ; " degrades
the value of that one by a sneer at a single word ;
overlooks the proper import of that word,-|" as con-
¦* See Lord Shaftesbury, at the conclusion of Part the
Second of his Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Huraour.
t See Lord Shaftesbury's note, in which he hath produced

PREACHED AT HATTON. 649
nected with the reasoning of the apostle, and pro
bably mistakes the meaning of the very term which
is alone applicable to his contemptuous and insi
dious concession.
But to return to our argument on the decalogue.
If it be said that Christianity professes to be a
more perfect system of morality, we answer that
such perfection is supposed to consist, not pe
culiarly in the instructions which it gives even im
plicitly for the love of our country; but in the
precepts it contains for that general benevolence to
our species, in all their moral and all their social
relations, which by fair construction must include,
and which in practice does include, such love. We
add, too, that upon comparing the different situa
tions of the two lawgivers, and the different charac
ters of their laws, we should be naturally led to
expect some exhortations to patriotism in a re
ligion which, like that of Moses, professedly inter
mingled political with religious regulations ; which
was ushered in with preparations not only for pre
serving, but founding a government, and which was
intended, avowedly, for the exclusive use of one
people, rather than in a religion which, like that of
Christ, was totally unconnected in its origin, and
its progress too, with politics ; which is equally de-
the words of St. Paul, in chap. v. vers^ 7, of the Epistle to the
Romans. 1 differ from Lord Shaftesbury in his representation
of the word peradventure, and in the sense affixed by him to
the Greek term, which is translated di. good man. At some fu
ture time I hope to publish my refutation of his Lordship's
criticism.

650 A SERMON

signed for the use of all states, as well as of all pri
vate Individuals, wheresoever it is known ; which is
perfectly silent about the forms of all government,
be they regal or republican, but which, through the
whole of its moral provisions, has an equal tenden
cy to increase and to perpetuate the best possible
effects of all possible forms. The plain fact is, that
neither Moses nor Christ ever censured genuine
patriotism ; nor, be the actual conduct of Jews or
Christians what they may, did they ever recommend
the fictitious.
But farther. Has it ever been objected to Chris
tianity, that the author of it has upon no occasion
explicitly said, " love thyself ? " Yet, the various
duties of temperance, chastity, and even prudence,
which the gospel enjoins, contain the virtues which
are comprised in that love : and we may say the
same patriotism, as implied in the duty of uni
versal benevolence.
When our blessed Lord enforced the second and
great commandment, " Thou shalt love thy neigh
bour as thyself," mark, I beseech you, how correct
and how comprehensive, as well as intelligible, is
the import of this injunction I Our Saviour not
only recognizes self love as a part of our nature,
and under some circumstances of our duty, but he
makes it the very measure of our love to our neigh
bour. Nay farther, in the explanation which is
immediately given of the principle upon which we
are to love our neighbour, he virtually inculcates the
love of our countrymen as well as of strangers. A
traveller falls among thieves, is plundered by them.

PREACHED AT HATTON 651
and is left wounded on the spot. He is seen by two
of his countrymen who neglect him, and by one
Samaritan who relieves him. If the conduct of his
countrymen heightens the merit of the Samaritan,
the conduct of the Samaritan enhances the demerit
of his countrymen, and probably for the purpose of
elucidating both these points their characters are
contrasted. In the christain acceptation ofthe word,
both the Jew and the Samaritan were the neighbours
of the sufferer, and by the christain rule both were
obliged to relieve him. But the levite and the
priest, as it is apparent from the fact, and as it is also
designedly suggested to us by the story, were under a
stronger obligation to afford that relief than the Sa
maritan. They were born in the same country ;
they worshipped in the same temple ; and therefore
their guilt in neglecting the sufferer was greater
than would have been the guilt of the Samaritan.
Here then in the very precept which directly com
mands us to love a stranger, we have an implied
and forcible direction to love our countrymen more
especially. The fact is, that the universal benevo
lence enjoined by Christianity, when judiciously
and consistently explained, will always be found
to imply the good of our country, as a great part
of the great family of mankind.
I have elsewhere* had occasion to remark, that
universal good, as an immediate object, is per
haps far too extensive for the efforts, and even the
* In my Spital Sermon, and the notes to it. Printed in this
volume.

652 A SERMON,
comprehension of any one moral agent. Why then,
you may ask, is universal benevolence enjoined,
and how can universal good be promoted ? My
brethren! the one is enjoined, because the other
can be promoted by the active and sincere appli
cation of the principle to all the objects of our
moral agency, infinitely diversified as they are, in
nuraber and in magnitude ; because the very cul
tivation of the principle has a tendency to pro
duce a virtuous disposition, and because that dis
position will lead us to act according to our dif
ferent powers and different duties, and sufficient op
portunities for acting may arise in our dift'erent
situations. To far the greater part of raankind,
the country in which they live is the noblest ob
ject upon which their benevolence can be expand
ed ; and he who in obedience to the commands of
his Saviour, exerts his personal talents, or sacri
fices his personal interests, for the benefit of that
country, must in this world deserve the approba
tion of his fellow-creatures, and may be sure of
an adequate reward in the world to come.
But here, my brethren ! I must very seriously
intreat you to observe, that patriotism, either as
approved by reason or warranted by Christianity,
must by no means be confined to that love of our
country which consists in the endurance of pain or
in the surrender of life itself. These doubtless are
illustrious instances, and they are solid proofs too
of patriotism, where the cause is good. But in the
employments of peace as well as in the struggles
of war, many are the opportunities which we

PREACHED AT HATTON. 653
have for vigorous exertion, many are the uses to
which we may apply our time and our abihties,
many are the sacrifices which we may make of our
fortune and our repose for the pubhc advantage, and
many are the blessings which we may thus confer
on the country in which we live.
We may iraprove the moral as well as the politi
cal state of that country by assisting in the esta
blishment or execution of salutary laws. We may
show the sincerity of our patriotism by the general
activity of our benevolence, and by our solicitude
to promote alike the spiritual and the temporal wel
fare of those who are endeared to us by social in
tercourse. We may be industrious, and the en-
couragers of industry. We may be learned, and
the patrons of learning. We may be innocent, and
the .protectors of innocence. By our counsels we
may suggest, or by our contributions we may fa
cilitate, extensive projects for the employment of the
idle, the reformation of the dissolute, and the relief
of the sick, the aged, and the indigent. We may
enlighten ignorance, correct prejudices, restrain in
tolerance, assuage animosities, and diffuse around
us the blessings of Christian charity. We may di
rect our neighbours, our families, and our country
men to the knowledge of every Christian truth. We
may animate them, at once by precept and example,
to the practice of every Christian duty. In reality,
every accession to national virtue brings with it an
additional security for national prosperity : and
surely he, who by the authority of his station, or
the influence of his advice, accustoms a whole

654 A SERMON,
people to the love of truth, justice, and mercy,' to
faith in Christ and piety towards God, has a splen
did claim to be ranked among the most useful
friends of his country, and the noblest benefactors
of raankind.
There is another point of view in which I wish
you to consider the subject. For the frequency
with which some commands occur in the Scriptures ;
for the earnestness with which they are enforced,
and for the phraseology in which they are expressed,
satisfactory reasons may be assigned from the known
and peculiar circumstances of the world, when our
Lord appeared in it. Upon contemplating those
circumstances you will, perhaps, find araple reason
for adrairing both the wisdom and the humanity of
our blessed Saviour, when he abstained frora any
exphcit and positive directions for the love of our
country. The passion, I am aware, is noble in itself: it
takes a strong hold upon some of our best affec
tions ; it delights the iraagination ; it warms the
heart ; it gathers strength from the instantaneous
and the instinctive sympathy of every spectator.
But, upon all these accounts, it is liable to be
abused very grossly and very perniciously, by hur
rying us into eager co-operation with the ambitious,
and into iraplicit confidence in the artful. Hence
has often arisen the misapplication of a term which,
in its original sense, was precise ; and hence too has
proceeded the perversion of a principle which, in its
native character, is most meritorious.
Now, when our Lord was upon earth, the Roman

PREACHED AT HATTON. 655
empire was stretching itself far and wide, and the
Roman armies were leagued in a fell conspiracy
against the tranquillity and the liberties of the
world. The Jews also, among whora he lived,
were bigoted to their own religious tenets, to their
own ceremonial observances, to their traditions, to
their temple, and to their false and proud notions
of a Messiah, who was to erect for them a tempo
ral kingdom. Under the influence of that bigotry,
misguided by error, and infuriate from zeal, they
would gladly " have bound all other nations in
chains," and in thus exalting their own country to
the disadvantage, and even with the subjugation of
the whole human species, they would have looked
upon themselves as instruraents naturally, or, it
may be, even preternaturally, appointed to accom
plish the will, and to promote the glory of God
among his favoured people. Araidst such propen
sities, then of the Jews, such practices of the Ro
mans, and such wicked passions as were coraraon
to both, a precept iramediately and earnestly direct
ing rnen to love their country, would have been
soon misunderstood, and soon misapplied. Through
the glosses of interpreters, and the blindness of
hearers, patriotism would have quickly mounted up
to the highest class in the catalogue of virtues. In
speculation it would have been so perverted as to
debase the authority, and to counteract the influ
ence of every obligation to universal benevolence.
In practice it would have produced such arabition
in governors, such irapetuosity in leaders, and such
frenzy among their followers, as would have plunged
VOL. ir. 2 u

656 A SERMON,
them Into undertakings wholly inconsistent with
common prudence, common equity, and common
humanity. The argument which I am now enforcing may
be pursued to a much greater extent. While a
strong passion is striving for the mastery within us,
perturbation of judgraent always arises ; and when
the conflict ceases, the strength of every adverse
passion, as a great philosopher* acutely reraarks,
is transferred to the predominant. Now a peremp
tory comraand from Christ, on the subject of pa
triotism, would, upon its first entrance into the
rainds of his followers, have been welcomed by
their national prejudices and their national pride ;
and though reflection or humanity might, for a
time, have preserved some of them from the abuse
of it, yet, with the bulk of raankind, their influence,
after a short and feeble resistance, would have been
pushed into a contrary direction, by that agreeable
feeling which often accompanies a brisk agitation
of the spirits, by the blind impetuosity of intense
action, by the fascinating desire of teraporal and
spiritual power, and by extravagant notions of ad
vantage to their country, and glory to their religion.
Experience, indeed, will assist us in conjecturing
the probable effects of such a comraand upon the
earlier believers in Revelation, as well as upon the
Jews : and perhaps a sense of that probability,
among other reasons, induced our Lord and his
apostles to insist so largely and so frequently upon
* See Mr, Hume's Dissertation on the Passions.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 657
the slender connection of the gospel on its first pub
lication with secular concerns, and upon the duty of
its followers to lay down their lives peaceably and
patiently in the defence of their faith. If the be
nign tendencies of its spirit havc, in later ages,
been counteracted by the m-ost absurd misconcep
tions of its letter ; if metaphorical phrases have
been transformed into absolute propositions — if so
litary passages have been stretched on the rack of
interpretation into general rules — if expressions
picked up at random, or wrenched from the context
have been pleaded as decisive warrants for the sense
less enterprises of the crusader, and the merciless
severities of the inquisitor ; we may conclude that
the duty of patriotism would not have been verv
accurately understood by the primitive Christians,
especially at a time when their forefathers had been
recently irritated by obloquy from the Jew, and by
persecution from the Gentile. Under the circum
stance just now mentioned of any positive direction
to fight for their lives and their laws, Christianity,
though ushered in with a soleran proclamation of
" peace upon earth " and " good-will towards men,"
would, when Christians formed the raajority of a
nation, have soon been employed, as Mahometan
ism was, to disturb that peace, and to stifle that
good-will. Rushing precipitately from the love of
their Saviour to the contempt or hatred of tlieir
species ; blending intolerance with ambition ; fired
at once with religious zeal and military enthusiasm,
they would have appealed to thc authority of their
Master, not in his predictions of events, but in his
2 u 2

658 A SERMON,
precepts for conduct, when, he spoke of " sending
upon the earth not peace but a sword." They
would have aspired to conquest from motives of
mistaken piety, and with the approbation of mis
guided conscience they would have unsheathed
their weapons indiscriminately against every puny
sect of heretics, and every populous community of
heathens. They would have disdained either to re
nounce, or to dissemble " that favourite maxim *
which has so often been ill interpreted and ill ap
plied, that ' whoever is found to be an enemy to
God, ought also to be declared an enemy to his
country'." Multiform and irregular as may be the caprices
of fanaticism, it steadily enough keeps in -view the
gratification of latent pride ; nor is it ever insensi
ble to the allurement of domination over the tem
poral possessions and social rights, as well as the
religious opinions of mankind. Hence proselyte-
makers, when emboldened by numbers, and fur
nished with arms, fondly gaze upon the whole world
as a land of promise, which they are theraselves,
like Abrahara in the land of Canaan, to traverse
" in the length -|- of it, and in the breadth of it,"
and not only to traverse but to subdue, and after
subduing to reforra, and after reforraing to retain,
and all this they will tell you for the honour of
their country, the natives of which are appointed to

* See Mosheira's Ecclesiastical History of the Seventeenth
Century, sec. ii. part 2.
f Gen, xiii. 17.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 659
be " a light to lighten the Gentiles ; " to march on
ward through difficulty and danger as the harbingers
of a triumphant Redeemer, and to announce the
proffer of immortal bliss in the willing or the un
willing ears of every near and every reraote people.
Enchanted with such illusions, they will measure
duty by inclination, right by power, and the lawful
ness of the means by the supposed importance of
the end. They will cast away mercy as an obstacle
to justice, and prudence as a reproach to godliness.
They will listen to no distinctions between false and
genuine patriotism. They will submit to no com
promise between the errors which they have deter
mined to extirpate, and the truths which they think
themselves bounden to disseminate. They will be
checked in their career by no suggestion that " the
glory of celestial objects is one," and " the glory of
terrestial is another." They will acknowledge no
king but Jesus, and he that " is not with them" for
the sake of Jesus, in every hardy enterprise, and
every ferocious outrage, stands accursed as a recreant
traitor who is secretly against them, who meanly
shrinks from the crown of martyrdora, and basely
truckles for his life by the forfeiture of his soul-
If the history of man may be credited, such is the
nature of man : and shall Christians boast of com
plete exemption from the common infirmities of
that nature ?
But if Christianity had been thus propagated
with undisguised violence : if that violence had
been owing to the rapid transition of the human
mind, from the love of our own religion and our

660 A SERMON,
own country, to the detestation of other religions,
and other countries ; if that transition had been
occasioned by erroneous notions of any encourage
ments which the Scriptures afford to that love :
what, I would ask, must have been the conse
quence ? They who now amuse themselves with
talking of Christians, as required to set their affec
tions exclusively upon " heavenly things," would
have been clamorous against their unseemly and
baneful activity in earthly affairs ; against the in
flammatory language, a^ well as the unsocial genius
of the Christian law — against the want of philan
throphy, or the want of discernment in Christ him
self. But by leaving the duty of patriotism to be
understood in the way of legitiraate deduction from
the principle of general benevolence, and by sub
jecting it to the control of equity and sound dis
cretion, as necessary attendants upon that principle
when applied to practice, our blessed Master has
sufficiently guarded his religion from numerous ob
jections which, if just, raust have appeared very
formidable even to the ablest of its defenders, and
the warmest of its well-wishers.
While, however, we reflect upon the reasons
which may be pertinently alleged for the silence of
our Lord in his public ministry, about the regard
we owe to our country, let us not forget that in his
actions he felt and cherished it with the most glow
ing ardour, and in the raost unspotted purity.
Did he not first announce to his countryraen the
glad tidings of salvation ? did he not, in his own
native land, priraarily and chiefly heal the sick.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 661
cleanse the lepers, give sight to the blind, and com
mand the deaf to hear ? Did he not warn his coun
trymen again and again of the calamities which
hung over them, and endeavour to calm that bois
terous and factious disposition by the correction of
which those calaraities might have been averted ?
Did he not cast an affectionate eye of corapassion
upon the holy city, and in strains the most tender
thus bewail its approaching ruin ? " O! Jerusalem !
Jerusalem! Thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee ; how often
would I have gathered thy children together, even
as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not. Behold your house is left unto
you desolate."
The sum of my reasoning is this : if from the
national temper and political situation of the Jews
and Romans, to whom our Lord raore iraraedlately
addresses hiraself, any precept about the love of our
country would, probably, have been raisconceived
by the rash, and abused by the crafty ; if the duty
itself, in all its essential points, is evidently iraplied
in the injunctions of the Gospel about universal
benevolence ; if the affection itself is sanctioned by
the example of our Saviour, surely we are furnished
with a sufficient answer to the severe reproaches of
infidels, and the wild misrepresentations of be
lievers. The Gospel, in reality, separates the arti
ficial from the genuine virtue. It omits all mention
of false patriotism, and by such oraission, as well
as by the general spirit of its laws, raay be said to
discountenance it. It includes whatsoever is sound

662 A SERMON,
and praiseworthy in true patriotism, under the more
comprehensive and more noble duty of charity ;
and In the life of Its blessed author it exhibits sorae
particular and practical illustrations of that pa
triotism, which every head may understand, and
every heart raust feel.
Having thus endeavoured to rescue the character
of our holy religion from the unjust cavils of its
adversaries, and the injudicious panegyrics of its
defenders, I must not decline the no less difficult
and no less iraportant task of impressing its real
meaning upon the memory and conscience of you
my hearers, who " bow the knee in the name of
Jesus Christ."
The philosopher knows, that from the numerous
and complicated relations of man in a state of moral
discipline, every virtue must have its boundary.
The religionist knows, that through the hypocrisy
or the madness of God's creatures, the awful name
of God has been profanely usurped in justification
of the most ridiculous follies, the most palpable
errors, and the most atrocious criraes. The calm and
sagacious observer of human life must know, that
while on the one hand, the duty of obeying our go
vernors has been strained to an extent quite incom
patible with the natural and social rights of his fel
low subjects, the duty of loving our country on the
other is also exposed to such raisrepresentations
as may be very injurious to the peace, the pros
perity, and the independence of foreign states.
Attend to me therefore, while I guard the applica
tion of what has been already said to you, by the

PREACHED AT HATTON. 663
following well-meant, and I hope well-timed expla
nation. The religionist then, be it observed, will ever se
parate genuine from spurious patriotisra ; that
which interests the virtuous from that which de
coys the thoughtless ; that which is consistent with
general good from that which is adverse to it. The
religionist will distinguish anxiously and minutely
between the effusions of prejudice, wrath, and self-
interest, and the dictates of that well-founded and
well-regulated principle which is mild without luke
warmness, earnest without temerity, firm without
obstinacy ; which respects loyalty as conducive to
the good order, and sometimes even to the preser
vation of society ; and which loves freedom as the
source of all that is noble in our nature, or most
desirable In our existence.
Upon questions which involve the happiness of
thousands and tens of thousands, the religionist
will pause before he approves, and explore before
he decides. He looks to the latent as well as
the avowed motives of every action ; to the distant
as well as the immediate consequences of every
event ; to the substantial as well as the brilliant
qualities of every character ; to the real as well as
the ostensible merits of every cause, before he ad
mits into his own grave and authoritative sentence
the hallowed name of patriot. He listens with at
tention indeed, but sometimes with disgust or with
anguish or with terror, to the music of courtly adu
lation ; to the shouts of popular applause ; to the
specious harangues of unprincipled declaimers, and

664 A SERMON,
the deceitful glosses of hireling panegyrists. Re
membering the instability of huraan affairs, and thc
deceitfulness of the huraan heart, he often discerns
a lust of domination in national prowess ; a spirit
of delusion in national vauntings ; and a tendency
to ultiraate ruin even in national successes. Fixing
his views upon the raoral as well as the physical
properties of things, and considering them under
the awful and unalterable relation in which they
are placed, to the governraent of an oraniscient and
righteous Deity, he finds no occasion for triumph
when " the prophets prophecy falsely," when
priests or " kings bear rule by their raeans," and
when a misguided "people love to have it so." No
approbation is to be expected frora his suffrage by
the factious incendiary, by the rapacious adven
turer, by the ruthless oppressor, or by the arabitious
and tyrannous conqueror, when bedecked with
titles and loaden with spoils, and reeking with the
blood of fellow-chrlstians and fellow-men, he calls
himself the saviour of his country. Upon the
worthless, shameless, pitiless ruffain, who, plunging
his weapon into the bosom of a disarmed, fallen, sup
pliant antagonist, would bring back the atrocities of
savage hordes into the conflicts of Christian coraba
tants, tarnish the annals of his country to the latest
posterity, and agitate the whole civilized world
with astonishraent at the flagitious overt act, indig
nation at the dastardly excuse, and horror at the
portentous exaraple, upon the cool-headed and
flinty-hearted sophist, who from motives of grovel
ling avarice or rampant ambition, deliberately puts

PREACHED AT HATTON. 665
" evil for good, and good for evil," — upon the per
fidious counsellor, who would " fashion, wrest, and
bow his reading in opening or sustaining titles mis-
create, the right of which suits not in active colours
with the truth ;"* and this too when he " erapawns
the person or the honour of his royal raaster, and
would awake the sleeping sword of war," — upon all
such wretches the religionist looks down as the be
trayers of their .sovereign, the corruptors of their
fellow subjects, and the murderers of their species.
Nay, what is more tremendous but most sure, he
knows that upon the souls of such wretches will
be fixed, at the last day, immediate and strict re
sponsibility for all the accumulated and aggravated
miseries of war, unjustly begun or unmercifully
prosecuted. Yes, ray brethren! before the tribu
nal of Almighty God these false patriots whom
I have been describing to you, will be responsible
for every sort of interruption and every degree of di
minution in the happiness of sensitive, and in the
improvement of moral creatures. They will be re
sponsible for every rude check which they may have
given to the delicacies of manners, to the tendernesses
of humanity, and to all those agreeable or useful
kinds of social intercourse which acquire facility
from custom or regularity from law. They will be
responsible for the gradual transition of the national
character from a sense of security obtained with
difficulty to a spirit of wanton annoyance ; from
the remembrance of injuries repeatedly suffered to
* See Shakspeare's Henry the Fifth, act i. scene 2.

666 A SERMON,
a spirit of vindictive retaliation ; and even from
habits of courage long exercised to a spirit of bru
tal ferocity. They will be responsible for the tem
pestuous confusion of public affairs; for the di
minished comforts of private life ; for the increas
ing pressure of taxation ; for the sudden decay of
trade ; for the violent interruptions of agriculture ;
for " the goodly fruits of the earth," which, having
been cherished by the " former and the latter rain,"
are wantonly laid waste ; for ancient temples pro-
phaned by an impious soldiery ; for gorgeous cities
rased from their foundations ; for kings driven
from their lawful thrones, and peasants from their
lowly cottages ; for lirabs crippled irreparably by
disease, or mutilated by wounds ; for constitutions
exhausted by Incessant fatigue, or sapped by pesti
lential climates ; for combatants hurried from a
field of slaughter to appear before the judgment-
seat of God, with all their " secret faults" and all their
" presumptuous sins," unexpiated by repentance ;
for the " cries of the orphan, for the tears of the
widow,* for the blood of dead men, and for the
groans of innocent virgins deploring the loss of
husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers, who have
been swallowed up in the dreadful controversy."
Since " the very hairs of our head are all num
bered," and not " a sparrow falls to the ground"
unnoticed in the sight of God, awful indeed is the
account which must one day be rendered for the
collective sufferings of a nation.
* Shakspeare's Henry the Fifth, act ii. scene 5.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 667
If the rulers of the earth would ponder these
things they might be wise without craftiness, good
without weakness, and great without guilt.
From the loathsome and terrific forms which
lurk under the glare of false patriotism, I gladly
turn to the contemplation of that purer lustre, in
which the true love of our country is arrayed in the
eye both of God and of man. To him, then, who
goeth forth to the battle sincerely and seriously, in
the well-applied narae, and for the well-understood
glory of the Lord of Hosts — to him who would deliver
the " meek and humble" from the cruel "despiteful-
ness" of the mighty and "the proud" — to him who
" snappeth asunder the spear of the destroyers,
and burneth their chariots in the fire " — to such a
patriot, contending in such a cause, and for such
ends, even religion holds forth encouragement in
the " promise of the life that now is, and of that
which is to come." His merits indeed will be re
warded by the ardent gratitude and the rapturous
admiration of the people among whom he was born,
and whom he has rescued from enemies abroad, or
from oppressors at home. His name will be pro
nounced with reverence in the assemblies of princes
and the festivities of nations. His feats are trans
mitted from generation to generation by the testi
mony of faithful and impartial historians ; they are
holden up to wonder and to imitation in the sub
lime and animated eloquence of statesmen and pa
triots ; they are consecrated as it were by the calm
and solemn applause of wise and virtuous sages ;
nay more, they are recorded in the infallible and

668 A SERMON,
imrautable registry of heaven, where " the spirits of
just men raade perfect " may even now be permitted
to sympathize with kindred excellence : and where
angels and archangels, upon such occasions as these,
may not disdain to behold and to approve.
From these general, but I trust not unseasonable
nor unprofitable observations, 1 should imraediately
proceed to the topics suggested to us by the pe
culiar solemnity of this day, if I had not very cogent
reasons for laying before you some preparatory
remarks, which cannot fail to be understood by
those among you, who have been my attentive and
well-disposed hearers.
The late war was marked by some unusual and
deplorable circumstances, which led rae from mo
tives of prudence, of moderation, of sincerity and
of piety, to abstain as much as possible from politi
cal discussion, and even political allusions, when I
addressed you in the sanctuary. Looking as I did
seriously to the peculiar character of " the tiraes and
the seasons," I contented rayself with adverting
only to such subjects as were closely connected with
the interests of morality and religion, and such as
had a direct tendency to preserve your minds from
every licentious and every unholy tenet, which
had been broached in a neighbouring country. I
always wish to speak of my clerical brethren not
with the affrontive smoothness of candour, but with
the manly and respectful openness of justice. The
zeal of many among them I am sure was accorapa
nied by honest intention, though perhaps not al
ways by profound knowledge ; and their just abhor-

PREACHED AT HATTON. 669
rence of the atrocities which were committed by
our enemy led them astray, sometimes into inter
pretations of prophecy which have not been war
ranted by subsequent events, and soraetiraes into
presages of divine judgments, about which the
ignorance and wrath of man seldom harmonize with
the righteous but unsearchable counsels of God.
Certainly, however, it was not then my duty to dog
matize upon what was doubtful, or to exaggerate
what might be true, when by so doing I was more
likely, from the violent teraper of men at that
juncture, to inflame the partizan, than to instruct
the Christian. It was not my fortune at the same
time to discover much decorum or much usefulness
in the different conduct of certain teachers, who
seemed to be aiming, some at fleeting popularity, a
few perhaps at secular advantage, and raore I be
lieve at the gratification of their own blind preju
dices and irapetuous passions upon obscure, intri
cate, and extraordinary questions, about which
many enlightened men were accustoraed to suspend
their judgment in obedience to their conscience, and
to chain up their speech from their desire of peace.
I would not, however, be understood to censure
without any distinction or any limitation, the intro
duction of politics into a christian pulpit ; though
I could wish every topic so introduced to be well
considered, every statement well founded, and
every admonition well timed. I am aware that
from the impulses of self-preservation, the influence
of custom, and the dictates of coraraon sense, we
always carry about us a lively feeling for the inter-

670 A SERMON,
ests of our country ; and that in promoting thosc
interests we are happy to find our opinions and our
actions warranted, raore or less, by the authority of
that religion in the belief of which we profess to
live, and hope to die. Whether the sphere of our
agency be appointed to us in a high or a low sta
tion ; whether we be endowed with an ample or a
scanty portion of knowledge ; whether we approve
or disapprove of public measures, it were criminal,
as perhaps it is nearly impossible, for us to be indif
ferent to the public safety. Indeed that safety it
self is always the professed end both of our appro
bation and disapprobation ; and our anxiety to
preserve it most effectually is always the motive by
which good men are actuated, howsoever they may
differ in opinion about the means. Even the fac
tious do homage to the principle of patriotism, by
their reiterated though deceitful appeals to it ; and
the honest evince its usefulness and strengthen its
efficacy, when they endeavour to accoraplish the
purposes which it seems to point out by those in
struments which it k known to authorize. But,
in proportion as this feeling of regard to our
country recurs frequently and acts intensely, it be
coraes us to be upon the watch against self-delusion,
self-conceit, and the excess of self-love. Besides,
when the happiness and the merits of foreign na
tions, as well as that to which we belong, are deeply
interested, we cannot be too wary in declaiming
against the sins, and exulting over the misfortunes
of others, nor too dispassionate in weighing the
causes and consequences of our own.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 671
The fact is, that in the terrible contests of nations,
waris always tobe ranked among the severest scourges
of God ; that it ought to be laraented unfeignedly
even where it may be completely justified; that
through the infirmities, the errors, the jarring in
terests, and the wayward affections of men, the op
portunities for such justification are not very fre
quent ; that during the dark and contentious nego
ciations which precede hostilities, injuries, and loud
complaints of injuries, are often reciprocal ; that
appeals are soraetimes made to heaven by both par
ties with equal plausibility in words, and equal pre
sumption in spirit ; that moderation is not always
found among the brave, nor sincerity among the
eloquent ; that araidst the hideous din of arms, the
irregular agitations of hope and fear, the boisterous
rage of multitudes, and the mischievous willingness
of their leaders, it is extremely difficult for the
wisest and best of raen to separate truth from
falsehood, or to ascertain the boundaries of right
and wrong ; and that for these numerous and
weighty reasons, the merits of war as points of dis
cussion merely political, are seldom admissible into
the house of God, and generally even as subjects of
moral investigation are better adapted to other
times and other places. Yet upon the coolest and
fullest consideration, I am convinced that in repel
ling the invader, " we are fighting for our lives
and our laws," and therefore do not offend against
the spirit of our benevolent religion, and the will
of our heavenly Father.
Under this conviction I stand acquitted by my
VOL. II. 2 X

672 A SERMON,
own heart, in deviating for once from my usual
practice. But you will take notice that while I
urge the duty of " fighting for our lives and our
laws," as recommended by the text, I shall very re
luctantly advert to a preceding passage, so far as
the contents of it raay be eraployed with the
poignancy of personal reproach, in representing the
governors (I say not the armies) of another country
as " coming against us with much pride and ini
quity." The station to whicli they have risen, by
whatsoever meaus ; the power which they have
recently acquired ; the spirit which they have again
and again manifested, are most unfavourable to the
ordinary and peaceful intercourse of nations ; and
surely circumstances so novel and so prorainent, are
sufficient to justify the disapprobation of raoralists,
the vigilance of statesmen, the jealousy of rivals in
every honourable branch of commerce, andthe appre
hensions of neighbouring comraunities for their ulti
mate and even their immediate security. With rea
sonable dissent, however, from sorae popular rumours,
and with very slender or improbable evidence for the
exactness of others, I will not in the house of God
echo and re-echo personalities, to the asperity and
perhaps in some points to the injustice of which we
may in part Impute " those perils and those cala
raities" which we have this day deplored upon our
knees before the throne of God. Having some
tirae ago endeavoured to prepare your rainds for
the service, which the wisdom of our ecclesiastical
governors has appointed for the present solemnity ;
having this day joined you in the performance of

PREACHED AT HATTON. 673
it, and having explained to you the principles of
Christianity, upon duties intimately connected with
the best purposes for which that solemnity could be
intended, I will not presume to repeat what I do not
believe, or to imitate what I do not approve.
Whether to gain the praise or to shun the displea
sure of mortal man, I will not dissemble ray wishes
that the acrimony of personal railing may never
be permitted to find a place in supplications ad
dressed to that Being, who " weigheth men in
the balance, and who searcheth the hearts and
reins." Sound policy is never at variance with sub
stantial justice ; and at such a juncture as this
it stands in need of assistance, not from far-fetched
surmises, or frivolous cavils, or virulent invectives,
but from that caution which is able to appreciate
the differences of real and apparent danger, and
that firmness which alike disdains to have recourse
lo the meanness of submission and the insolence of
defiance. If then the honest and generous zeal of
the public has been stirred up without such in
glorious expedients, can it be- wise to disturb the
calm and pious reflections of individuals assembled
in the sanctuary? If upon the most momentous
perhaps of all national questions, we are united in
exertion and in sentiment, can it be virtuous to
throw stumbling blocks in the way of good men by
unnecessary and uncertain assumptions, which may
for one moment divide them in their prayers?
These plain but serious questions will be much
better answered by the common sense of a re-
2x2

674 A SERMON,
ligionist, than by the subtilties of a polemic, or the
declamations of a zealot.
In conformity to the express language of the text,
I will now call your attention to the peculiar and
alarming situation of public affairs. I wish not to
perplex your rainds with the intricacies of political
controversy, but to animate your zeal and to direct
your conduct upon an occasion most important to
you in all your various relations, as masters of fa
milies, as servants, as parents, as children, as Eng
lishmen, and as Christians. We are threatened with
invasion from a foreign eneray whose power is
becorae enormous, whose views are most ambitious^
whose spirit is most unquiet, -whose armies are for
midable from unexampled numbers and from recent
success, and whose attempts against us are the raore
to be dreaded from the military skill, the political
sagacity, and perhaps I should add the peculiar
temper of their leader. The annals of our history
scarcely present to us any period in which the
danger of all that is dear to us was so extensive, or
so imminent ; and thankful I ara to heaven, that at
no crisis whatsoever were Englishmen equally pre
pared lo encounter such danger, by the united good
sense, loyalty, and courage of our countrymen.
In the reign of King John, when a French
prince poured his legions into this kingdom, we
were governed by a weak and a wicked sovereign,
who had alienated from himself the hearts of his
people : and the vassals of many proud and powerfiil
Enghsh barons crowded to the same standard, and

PREACHED AT HATTON. 675
fought in the same cause, with French invaders.
But mark, I beseech you, the better condition in
which you are placed, by the merciful providence of
God. The progress of knowledge and civilization,
the improved principles of government, the order
and impartiality which pervade the administration
of public justice, have secured this happy land both
from thc open and the secret tyranny of sovereigns ;
and proper it is for me to add, that he who now
reigns over us, has a claim to our respect and our
obedience, from the exemplary decorum, which
common fame has uniformly and justly ascribed to
him in private life, and from the general avoidance
of those public measures which strike at the
foundation of our free and venerable constitution.
Whatsoever may have been the errors of a long
and eventful reign, it were want of sagacity not to
perceive, and want of candour not to acknowledge,
that, in the course of it, strange occurrences have
arisen in various parts of Europe, such, I am sure,
as might embarrass the most discreet, irritate the
most patient, and astound the most intrepid. Our
sovereign, however, has not, like John, undet the
plea of exercising his own proper prerogative^
trampled upon our rights ; he has not, for the at
tainment of purposes, peculiarly and exclusively his
own, seized upon our property ; he has not delibe
rately violated the laws which he had sworn to de
fend ; he has not arrogantly provoked the rich and
the powerful ; he has not inhumanly insulted and
oppressed the poor. Thus far, in the conduct and
character of our sovereign, we have a security for

676 A SERMON,
that unanimity, and we have incitements to that ar
dour, which the folly and the criraes of the unhappy
John had destroyed in the minds of his offended
tind injured subjects.
In the reign of Henry the Sixth, the French made
on our coasts some predatory incursions, which,
however mischievous for a season, do not appear to
have left behind them any lasting consequences.
But the intellectual faculties of the king, we should
remember, were feeble from nature and torpid from
superstition. His very innocence excited affection
without inspiring reverence, and his misfortunes
procured for him the tenderness of compassion ra
ther than the steadiness of attachment. The ma
nagement of foreign affairs was unsuccessful, and the
administration of internal politics was unpopular.
The mind of his queen was impatient of control,
fertile in machinations, unwearied by difficulty, and
unsubdued even by defeat. His title to royalty
was disputed by a subtle, watchful, and high spi
rited competitor, who was neither to be awed by
resistance nor soothed by concession. His nobles
were fickle, turbulent, and perfidious ; and his
people were prone to revolt upon every delusion
practised on their creduhty, and' every instigation
applied to their fury. But from the inconveniences,
and perils attendant upon such a state of things, we
are fortunately exempt.
Doubtless ye have often heard of the mighty pre
parations that menaced the liberties of England in
the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the Spanish
Armada approached our shores. At that time, the

PREACHED AT HATTON. 677
seeds of discord were widely scattered over the land.
The naval power of Spain seemed to be quite as su
perior to that of England, as the disciplined hosts
of France are now said to be to the regular force
usually maintained in this kingdom. The character
of the Spanish monarch was distinguished by unre
lenting pride, by gloomy bigotry, and by ferocious
revenge. The perils from within were, to calm and
considerate observers, equally alarming. A great
part of the people were yet attached to the doctrines
and discipline of popery. The emissaries of the
court of Rome were numerous and indefatigable.
Their intrigues were deep, and their temper was
vindictive. Their adherents were to be found ready
for action in every crowded city and in every lonely
village. Their priests had taught their followers to
believe that rebellion was a duty, and that to rush
into treason against their sovereign was an act of
allegiance to their Saviour and their God. If pro
vidence had permitted the Spaniards to land among
us thousands would have hastened to enlist under
their banners, and the cross of Christ would have
been raised aloft in the defence of desolation and
murder, against every Englishman who obeyed a
Protestant Queen, or who worshipped his Maker
according to the pure and holy forms of a Protest
ant Church.
Be ye serious, my brethren, be faithful to your
Country, be thankful to your God, when you reflect
that, in the present day, the torch of religious dis
cord will not be lighted up among us ; that from
our earhest infancy we have been trained in the

678simple and salutary discipline of Protestantism ;
that no priests are at hand to persuade us to hurl
our sovereign from the throne, or to imbrue our
hands in the blood of our countrymen, under the
penalties of everlasting damation ; that no secret
plots have been formed against that religion which
we have been accustomed to venerate ; that we are
Protestants surrounded by Protestant brethren ; tbat
among those who yet adhere to the Church of
Rome, the intolerant and malignant spirit of their
forefathers has, in most of them, been corrected by
the diffusion of useful knowledge, enlarged inquiry,
and civilized manners among them, as well as our
selves ; that by the raore enlightened part of them,
Catholicism is no longer confounded with Popery ;
that the obedience which Catholics profess to owe,
or are accustomed to pay, to their spiritual head, is
no longer incompatible with the rights of sove
reigns, the observance of treaties, or the security of
states ; that the rival clairas of aspirants to power,
whicli engendered or embittered the disputes of po
lemics about religious doctrines, are no longer heard
in this country, or reraain raatters of research only
to the antiquary, the historian, and the philosopher ;
that the severities which were formerly inflicted
upon Papists by the prudence, or the jealousy, or
the vengeance of Protestants, have been gradually
relaxed ; that with raingled feelings of honest gra
titude and reasonable hope, raany learned and
worthy persons araong them are beginning to look
forward to a complete, though perhaps distant, de
liverance, from every galling restraint, and every in-

PREACHED AT HATTON. 679
suiting suspicion ; that all of them have a common
interest with ourselves in repelling the comraon foe ;
that regulations in France are not a pledge for in
dulgences to England ; that policy, though it has
led our enemy to restore a National Church in the
country, which, as he expects to govern it long, he
may wish to propitiate, will suggest different mea
sures under the different circumstances of another
country, which, after conquering it, he may be
compelled to abandon ; and that his complete suc
cess, instead of procuring for sectaries any enlarge
ment of protection, or even any mitigation of in
conveniences, would involve the civil and religious
rights both of Catholics and Protestants in equal,
helpless, and hopeless ruin.
These are weighty considerations, and they will
encourage you to repose the firmest confidence, not
only in your own strength, but in the ready and
vigorous co-operation of that party which, in the
reign of Elizabeth, was so dangerous to the safety
of the Sovereign, to the existence of the National
Church, and to the property, liberty, and lives of
your Protestant ancestors.
Will not the heart of Israel then be roused and
warmed like " the heart of one man," in the sup
port of that cause which you are sumraoned to
defend? Are they not the words of sound and
sober wisdom by which you were instructed, in the
prayer just now read to you, to implore the protec
tion of Heaven to the National Church ? Has not
that Church been adorned by the talents, the erudi
tion, the virtues, and the piety of its teachers.

680
through many generations ? Was it not conse
crated at first by the blood of many learned and
holy martyrs ? Is not the stability of it experimen
tally found to be consistent with your intellectual
improvement and your social welfare ? Have not
the doctrines of it, when heard by you in this sanc
tuary, inspired you with the love of God, and the
love of your neighbour ? Have they not consoled
you within your own private families, in seasons of
sickness, sorrow, and adversity? Will they not
guide your feet through the paths of innocence
and virtue in this life ? Do they not open to your
faith and to your hopes the glorious prospect of
immortality in the life to come ? And will you,
then, tamely surrender these precious privileges to
the fury of your eneraies, flushed with victory, fear
less of retaliation, or irapelled by that blind antipa
thy which the scorner ever feels towards the virtu
ous and the devout ? May not sorae of them be
tempted to throw down your altars, and to slay
your priests with the sword ? Instigated by that
rage for proselytism which is common to infidelity
and to superstition, may they not teach you to
make a mock of sin, to renounce your Redeemer,
and perhaps to blaspherae even your Creator ?
How then are these raultiplied and aggravated
evils to be averted ? I answer, by your union and
concord ; by your firmness and valour ; by your
well-founded affiance in the assistance of God, to
repel the attacks of adversaries, raany of whora are
too likely to insult you for believing in that God,

PREACHED AT HATTON. 681
and to persecute you for endeavouring to worship
him in spirit and in truth.
These are the reasons that should induce you to
be unaminous in preserving your religion. And
now, my brethren, when we turn to the considera
tion of " our Laws " and our Government, we shall
meet with arguments equally forcible to guide our
judgments and to strengthen our resolution. It is
not the vulgar and braggart prattle of national
vanity — it is not the fond and empty jargon of
visionary theorists, when we say that the civil con
stitution of England far surpasses that of every
other country, either in antient or modern times.
The principles of it lie deep in the opinions and
customs of ages far remote from our own. But
they have been gradually matured by the influence
of many various causes, through many successive
generations. They are to be classed, not among
the effects which, as accident produces them at one
time, may by accident be destroyed at another ; nor
among the contrivances which the ingenuity and
enthusiasm of a single man would push at once to
perfection, and the jealousy or the caprice of a suc
cessor might throw aside, upon the plea of defect ;
but, among the productions of human wisdom,
calmly reflecting upon the collective evidence of
human experience in the past, and warily adapting
the result to the present exigences of human af
fairs, and to their probable capacities of admitting
improvement or reformation. They have been re
cognized by the fears and the hopes, and they have
been strengthened by the successes and the disap-

682
pointments, of kings, of nobles, and of priests,
whose mutual contentions have imposed upon them
the necessity of employing against their rivals
those popular rights which they inight otherwise
have been unwilling to favour, or even to endure.
They have been rescued from many perils by the
sagacity of statesmen, the firmness of patriots, and
the courage of heroes. They are diffused through
our civil and our political code of laws. They
mingle with the prejudices of our youth and the
reflections of our manhood. They are endeared
to us by long possession, by acknowledged right,
and by enjoyraent, which the inevitable fluctuations
of public measures and public events have, in our
O'wn days, rarely disturbed. They bind our affec
tions to the Throne, because it forms our surest
safeguard frora raultiplied and petty tyrannies ; to
the Parliament, because it has the power of giving
salutary checks, and aids no less salutary, to the
Throne ; and to both, because the stability and pro
per dignity of both are intimately connected with
their duties and proper energies, in preserving con
stitutional freedom, and in promoting the comraon
weal. They pervade all the classes of the commu
nity. They protect alike the palace of the monarch,
the raansion of the nobleraan, and the cottage of
the labourer. They give security to the persons
and the property, not only of the opulent and the
powerful, but of the raanufacturer and the husband
man. They, in a word, are equally beneficial to
all, and by the counsels and the endeavours of all
they are now to be defended.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 683
At such a momentous crisis every impartial and
intelligent observer of political events, as affected
by the established customs and complicated inte
rests of a people, will turn his attention towards
other circumstances, which are peculiarly favour
able to this kingdom.
Where property is very unequally divided, where
the many toil by harsh compulsion for the advan
tage of the few, where the middle classes of the
community bear a very small proportion in influence
to the higher, or, in number, to the lower orders of
citizens ; where despotism inflicts without control,
and imbecility suffers without redress ; where de
pendence is abject without connection, and obe
dience is implicit without attachment ; in such states
military operations are usually confined to hosts of
mercenaries ; and in the absence of that fury which
is inspired by religious fanaticism, or by personal
revenge, nations are sometimes content to change
their masters with little regret for the past and
little solicitude about the future. But among a
free people, that latent power which is diffused
through society, and which is necessary for the pre
servation of freedom itself from encroachment, and
those dormant energies of the mind which accom
pany that power, silently, but effectually, prepare
men for great exertions upon great occasions. The
materials of which that power is formed, may, in
deed, be usually of too close and too subtle a tex
ture to be easily discerned by an eye, which is in
tensely and almost exclusively fixed upon the coarse
and complicated tactics of ordinary war. But their

684 A SERMON
firmness is seen and felt in the hour of trial, and
though pierced, they are seldom rent asunder by
external violence.
Now, without entering at large into the abuses
which provoked, or the crimes which disgraced, a
late revolution, I raay be permitted to say that, in
the course of it, striking instances were exhibited
of that principle which concentrates the public opi
nion, the public will, and the public force, for the
maintenance of a cause which every man supposed
that he understood, because every man knew that
he was interested in it. But we have long been in
possession of that object, at which our eneraies
were dooraed to aim injudiciously, and therefore
unsuccessfully. We rank it araong our political,
but they found it only araong their natural rights.
From the influence of habit we are enlightened but
not dazzled by liberty, even in its meridian splen
dour. But they, for a time, were compelled to gaze
upon it only through the excessive and delusive
glare of speculation, and in practice, after a dawn,
which from the beginning was sometimes over
spread with clouds, and which ended in dark and
angry tempests, the light which they had been per
mitted to see so faintly, and with so many sudden
and irregular interruptions, vanished from their
view, perhaps not to re-appear through so many
joyless ages.
Whatsoever then be the good, whether moral or
physical, which rational freedom is capable of pro
ducing, our own experience will tell us, that our
own share of such good has been most ample in-

PREACHED AT HATTON. 685
deed. For, amidst all the follies, and all the vices,
which luxury may have engendered among us, it
may still be asked, where, among the nations of
Europe, can be seen a whole people, less infected
with those impious tenets, which have relaxed the
tone of all social virtues, or with those loathsome
impurities, which, from familiarity, have almost
ceased to be infamous, in many parts of the conti
nent ? Where, among persons of every rank, are
instances of fidelity, integrity, and benevolence,
more numerous in private life ? Or, where does the
public spirit manifest itself with more promptitude
and more perseverance, upon every opportunity
which occurs for giving effect to enterprizes of
great public utility ? Amidst the remains of feudal
manners or feudal rights, corrected, as they have
been by progressive civilization, where is the pea
sant less exposed to insolent and vexatious oppres
sion from the rich ? Or, where has the noble less
to apprehend from that envy and that malignity
which conscious inferiority is too apt to inspire?
Where is power lodged with individuals, more gene
rally subservient to the purposes of protection ; and
where are the privileges conferred upon them more
frequently connected with social duties? Where
shall we find so many aids to strengthen the sinews
of war, or to restore in a short time the springs of
action, which war may have impeded or irapaired ?
Where shall we meet with so many capitals, the ac
quisition of which sustains or increases so effectu
ally the population of a country—employs so many
persons usefully in the distribution of labour—

686 A SERMON,
opens so many sources of advantage or pleasure to
the artificer, the seller, and the consumer, and pours
the productions of art and nature through so raany
near and so many distant channels ? Where have men
of genius arisen more frequently, or their merits been
raore readily acknowledged, while the general ac
tivity of that good sense which is embodied amorig
the people seeras to stand so little in need of assist
ance frora splendid discoveries, or is so constantly
at hand to separate the truths from the refinements
contained in them, and quietly to incorporate
every useful suggestion into our established code of
politics and ethics ? Where can be seen a greater
diversity of interests supporting and supported by
each other through a greater diversity of ranks —
diffusing the coraforts and conveniences adapted to
various situations — niore abundantly furnishing op
portunities and incentives either to corporeal or
raental exertion raore extensively, and securing the
fruits of both to every raan with the consent
and co-operation of all raen more perraanently ?
Where has civihzation, improved by commerce, by
agriculture, by knowledge, by religion, by laws, by
popular habits and popular sentiments, displayed a
more complex, and at the same time a more beau
tiful form of society, for the contemplation of the
philosopher, for the satisfaction of the citizen, and
for the exercise of talents and virtue in the legis
lator, the statesman, and the patriot ?
By the very structure of the huraan mind, the
sense of such blessings must accompany the enjoy
ment of them ; and though from the constitution

PREACHED AT HATTON, 687
of human affairs, they may be liable to teraporary
changes in excess or diraiuution, yet uppn every fit
occasion the manly character of our countrymen,
and the principles of our mixed government, as il
lustrated by experience, will present to every un
derstanding some rallying point of opinion and ac
tion ; some corrective quality to speculative errors,
or to practical abuses : some lenient and salutary
expedients for accommodation to the advocates of
every system, and the champions of every party.
Even in times of peace and prosperity, that sense of
our real situation though calra is not inert ; for, in
the view of the profound observer, it fixes a barrier
almost impenetrable between obedience and ser
vility ; between the patience of subjects under the
errors of their governors, and the apathy of vassals
to their crimes ; between the loftiness of free-born
citizens, and the audacity of a licentious rabble ;
between the murmurs of transient discontent, and
the enormities of inveterate faction ; between the
sober processes of improvement, and the tumul
tuous frolics of innovation ; between the wisdom
which repairs, and the rashness which subverts.
But in seasons less auspicious to the tranquiUity
and happiness of the state, this general syrapathy in
general good is marked by stronger characters in
the general conduct of the people. It points the
best energies of self-love, and of social, to the same
common and important purpose. It urges every
man to depend on himself, and to act from himself,
as " if the moment of victory should lie on his
VOL. II, 2 Y

688
single arm."* It prepares the minds of all men to
awake on the approach of real danger, to guard
their collective interests by their collective strength,
and to preserve the unparalleled advantages which
they are conscious of possessing by personal sacri
fices and personal exertions, fully proportionate to
the number and the magnitude of the objects for
which they are called upon to contend.
You, my hearers, are not without your portion in
the blessings which I have just now enumerated.
In the present state of society, you go forth in the
morning to your daily labours without fear, in the
evening you return without inquietude to your
homely meals, and through the stillness of the night
you repose in your beds without alarm. But, if
your enemies were long to prevail, would they not,
like the Egyptian task-rnasters of old, coramand
you to make brick and to supply yourselves with
straw ? Would they listen to your complaints when
you " were hungry and thirsty," and your souls
were fainting within you ? Would they suffer you
to rehearse in carols of joy all the mighty feats and
all the glorious triumphs of your forefathers in de
fence of that liberty which is now your own ? No.
They would not perrait your tongues to utter that
word so familar to the ears, and so captivating to
the hearts of Englishraen. They would put out
every spark of the holy fire which now glows in
your bosoms. They would force you to endure the
* See Paradise Lost, book vi. line 239.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 689
scorching sun and the chilhng frost, but without
recompensing your toil. By compulsion you would
till the land, and by violence they would reap your
harvests, or they w^ould plunder your barns. From
the character of freemen and of Englishmen they
would degrade you into vassals, too irapotent to be
dreaded, and too conteraptible to be pitied. Day
after day and year after year, they would conderan
you to the most ignorainious drudgery, as " hewers
of wood and drawers of water ;" and the agility of
your youth, the vigour of your manhood, and even
the last lingering remains of your strength, in tre
mulous and languid old age, would be exhausted at
the will and for the benefit of your iraperious and
obdurate conquerors. Many of the evils here men
tioned already impend over other countries which
are unable to break their chains ; and if the power
of your enemy were equal to his fierceness, the same
evils, attended by various circumstances of aggra
vation, would inevitably overtake yourselves and
your posterity.
But from such a prospect a mind truly English*
must recoil with indignation. You, I am confident,
would disdain to bow down your necks to that yoke,
which has been thrown by your enemies on many
other people whom their promises had cajoled, or
their menaces had scared. Your spirit will never
yield obedience to the commands of such oppress
ors. Your hands, instead of being cramped by the
fetters which your enemies have forged for them,
should rather be raised up in wielding the sword of
2y2

690

A SERMON,

justice, and in pointing the sharpest edge of it
against the invader.
Among men whose understandings have been
darkened, whose courage has been stifled, and whose
sensibility has been blunted by familiarity with
slavery, a change of masters, as I have before ob
served, often is little more than a change of wretch
edness. The difference, though seen for a while
by the imagination, ceases gradually to be fell by
the heart. Either the memory of it passes away
like a shadow in the next generation, or the popular
traditions which record it serve only to " point a
raoral, and to adorn a tale."* But, upon a people
whose rainds have been invigorated and disciplined
by liberty such as yours — liberty, not the reluctant
grant of hurabled tyranny — not the precarious gift
of caprice or ostentation — not the hard earned re
corapense of recent and bloody struggles — not the
intricate and fantastic raachlnery of busy upstarts,
or daring experlraentalists ; but liberty which is
adapted to your condition, as intellectual, social, and
religious beings ; which seeras venerable to you
from hereditary claims, which is precious to you
frora personal enjoyraent, and which would become
yet more venerable and more precious frora the
consciousness of resolute, though unsuccessful en
deavours to preserve it ; upon such a people the
most offensive and systematic severities must be
employed to repress the frowns of just indignation,
* See Johnson's Translation ofthe Tenth Satire of Juvenal.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 691
and the throbs of virtuous pride. The memories of
such a people, their fancy, their reason, their feel
ings, their habits, and their very senses are eneraies
which must ever keep the jealousy of the oppressor
upon the alert, and ever put his invention too upon
the rack to defeat their influence by unceasing and
unusual schemes of oppression. He must deface
the appearance, or he must alter the uses of every
external object which may be endeared to them by
antiquity, by magnificence, by symmetry, by utility,
by immediate creation, by long inheritance, by the
bounty of nature, or by the ingenuity of art. He
must rescind every law, abolish every custom, inter
dict every pursuit, and restrain or even punish every
opinion, which may be associated with the remem
brance of their better days, and of " the old time
before them." He must bereave them of the power
to drag out their miserable existence upon the same
spot witb their companions and their friends ; to
eat their daily bread under the same roof with
their wives and their children ; and to obtain the
last solace of huinan wretchedness in resting from
their labours under the same sod with their beloved
fathers. He must hurry them into foreign climes ;
some to glut his rapacity in the accumulation of
treasures, not a pittance of which they would be
permitted to share ; and more to pamper his am
bition by shedding their blood in the purchase of
laurels, destined, alas ! for the brow of those leaders
from whom they had again and again experienced
the insolence of conquerors, and the raahgnity of
persecutors.

692 A SERMON,
The Cappadocians, we are told, rejected liberty,
because they understood not the value of it. The
Athenians abused liberty, and when deprived of it
sunk rapidly into the meanest vices of slavery.
But the Swiss loved their country while their
country was free ; and Englishmen have yet weigh
tier reasons for attachraent to their native land;
because with equal freedom it enjoys the advan
tages of superior civilization ; and because the
loss of these proud distinctions will inevitably ex
pose them to more galling coercion, and more ig
nominious subjection. Conscious that a spirit of
discontent lurks in the bosom of almost every indi
vidual, and rankles through every class of the cora
raunity, the oppressor will be equally upon his
guard against secret and open resistance, and equally
prepared to crush every rising confederacy, and
every straggling insurrection. Even your sighs
however involuntary, your murmurs however just,
your interviews however harmless, will be watched,
will be recorded, and must await their interpretation
from his humours, or his fears, or his resentment.
You raay be thrust into dungeons upon the idlest
pretences, and for the slightest delinquencies you
may be conderaned to the scaffold. If impatience
of the yoke shonld madden at last into despair,
and despair should incite you to take up arras ;
destitute of resources, and scattered over the land by
the whim or the policy of your cruel masters, you
will be compelled to plan without concert, to attack
without effect, and to perish In the field of battle
without the ordinary alleviations of your fall from

PREACHED AT HATTON. 693
pity or from glory. How dreadful then would be
the reverse of your fortune, when, from the enjoy
ment of security, order, and independence, you have
been precipitated into a state of bondage, where in
nocence cannot avail for your safety, where virtue
will increase your danger, and where bravery itself
will accelerate your destruction.
Consider, I beseech you, some striking circum
stances which mark the situation into which you
are thrown by the mighty and unprecedented ar
maments of your enemies. The wealth, the strength,
and above all the generous and high spirit of this
country, form, I do not say the sole, but I do confi
dently affirm, the very strongest obstacle to the am
bition of your foes. Against us, therefore, must be
directed their utmost force. The bravest of their
legions, and the most expert of their generals, must
be employed in reraoving that obstacle, and by the
removal of it in paving the way for the ruin and
the subjugation of all Europe. Well is our adver
sary aware that the skill and the courage of his
army are to be called forth, not against a band of
cowardly slaves or reluctant hirelings, but against
hosts of men, valiant from the very constitution of
their minds, robust and vigorous from the frame of
their bodies, and proud of sacred and ancient rights,
which have often been endangered by the attacks of
tyrants, but as often preserved by the magnanimity
of patriots ; of men who can recount with exulta
tion the victories of their forefathers and their own
over the best disciplined armies of France, and who
therefore would blush to sully by treachery or timi^

694 A SERMON,
dity, the well-earned reputation of their country ;
of raen who by their activity or their ingenuity have
acquired that personal opulence, and those personal
enjoyraents, which are utterly unknown to any
other nation ; of raen who In every article of their
coramerce, in every produce of their soil, in every
fleece of wool and in every blade of grass, behold the
fruits of their own industry, the materials of their
own happiness, and signals too for their own prow
ess in the day of battle.
To the collective might then of our adversaries,
let us oppose our own without hesitation, and with
out dismay. We have much to defend, we have
the means of defending it, and if our resolution be
equal to our raeans, the splendour ofour success will
not be disproportionate to the justice of our cause.
On the other hand, It well behoves us to consider
what we must suffer, should we by any disgraceful
and disastrous infatuation be unfaithful to our
selves. If, indeed, the arras of our eneray were di
rected against some countries on the continent, he
raight cherish the hope of retaining thera, and
therefore in the midst of violence he might some
tiraes remember mercy, and even for his own sake
he might try to concihate a defeated and humbled
foe. But, with all the giddiness of his pride, and all
the fierceness of his rage, he has not yet arrived at
that extravagant pitch of phrensy, which can inspire
hira with the faintest hope of keeping England for
any long time as a conquered country. He may
expect sometiraes to put to flight our armies, and
sometiraes to gain possession of our towns. But of

PREACHED AT HATTON. 695
complete and permanent conquest he cannot think
even in his dreams. What then must be the real
object of these tremendous preparations for war? My
brethren ! the answer lies in one word. Desolation.
This undoubtedly is, and this alone can be the aim
of our invaders.
To the immortal honour of this country be it
spoken, no affront has, upon the present occasion,
been offered to the good sense of it by those gaudy
eulogies upon liberty, and those vehement invectives
against despotism, which had been eraployed to be
guile and to enslave other nations, less fortunate
than our own. No attempt has been made to call
into action the causes to which other invaders often
have recourse for the accomplishment of their pur
poses ; impatience, I mean, of subordination, fond
ness for change, discontent under grievances real or
iraaginary, and the preference of experiments for
attaining that perfection which has been ostenta
tiously described in theory, to the enjoyment of that
partial but progressive good, which is practically
and visibly placed within our reach. No lure from
the participation of power has been spread before
the seditious, no incitement has been holden out to
the profligate, from a share in the spoil, no promise
of exclusive favour has been hinted even to the sub
missive. Persuasion seems to have been cast aside
for once, as an incumbrance to action, and hypocrisy
itself stands mute before the footstool of Usurp
ation. Thus, the sagacity which puts you on your guard
against artifice; the magnanimity which fortifies

696
you against danger; the fidelity with which you
adhere to the cause of your Country, and the de
terraination which you have made, not to exchange
English freedom for any wily, or I should rather
say, irapudent offers of French equality, have been
recognised by your very eneraies, in the face of the
whole Christian world. They may, in some in
stances, have wronged, but they do not insult you ;
they may hate, but they do not despise you ; they
may have alarmed, but they do not even try to de
ceive you ; their proceedings, in every stage of the
contest, have been consistent and intelligible. In
vasion was threatened, from the first moraent ; and
the threat remains, as it began, without disguise and
without mitigation. Your forces, in the opinion of
the enemy, may be encountered, but your good
will, he is aware, cannot be conciliated. Men of
sense and moderation have not forgotten the hard
ships cruelly iraposed upon other countries ; men
of spirit can ill brook the challenge arrogantly given
to our own; loyalists stand aghast at the ravages of
a military chieftain ; republicans are incensed at
the pageantries of a perpetual dictator. By his
measures in France, the expectations of visionary
theorists have been disappointed, and the predic
tions of deep and dispassionate observers have been
realized. From his success in England, the rich
would be in danger of beggary, the poor must look
for captivity, the peaceable have every thing to fear,
and even the turbulent have nothing to hope.
Hence, no confederate bands of traitors lie in
ambuscade, to hail the invader with their shouts.

PREACHED AT HATTON. 697
and- to second his unparalleled attempts for our de
struction. The dark forest, the deep morass, the
craggy rock, the steep and untrodden mountain,
here afford no shelter to his flying legions. The
elements will be deaf to his call, and the raging sea
will lift up its opposing waves, when baffled efforts
compel him to look for safety in retreat. If he
lands, he must advance ; if he advances, he must
fight ; if he fights he may perish ; and even if he
prevails to-day, he must negociate to-morrow.
Conscious of these difficulties, he will let loose
havoc upon the land ; and shall we, then, be tame
spectators of the scene ? Shall we sit before him
with folded arms, or crouch beneath him with
bended knees, while all the fair works of art and
nature are defaced by the detroyer ? Shall we wait
in stupid indifference, or with base timidity, 'till the
evil reaches our own doors ? 'Till the cries of the
orphan and the widow assail our ears ? 'Till the
humble cottage shares the same fate with the stately
palace, and dissolves in flames before our affrighted
eyes ? Doubtless, confusion and distress will be felt
through many parts of the kingdom. Our fields in
some places will be laid waste ; our arsenals may
be assailed ; our metropolis itself may be exposed
to pillage ; and who among us can be so sottish or
so headstrong, as to say, that national evils of such
magnitude, when known to him only by report, will
not alarm and afflict his soul ?
But that which you hear of others, must also be
seen and suffered by yourselves, unless you are true
to your duty. Your own harvests will be plundered,

698 A SERMON,
your own houses will be destroyed, your wives and
your children will be inhuraanly torn from the tender
embraces of husbands and fathers, and brutally
violated in the sight of you, their legal and natural
protectors : your sons, to whom ye look forward for
comfort and succour to your grey hairs, will perish
in the bloom of their youth ; masters, servants,
friends, and neighbours, raay alike fall a prey to the
devouring sword, and does not the very raention, I
would ask you, of such evils awaken within you an
instantaneous, ardent, invincible deterraination to
avert them, " with all your heart, and all your mind,
and all your soul, and all your strength ? "
Were your governors, indeed, employed in ro
mantic and adventurous schemes of conquest, you
might pause a little before you added approbation
to obedience, and spontaneously tendered your aid to
annoy those who had not offended you, to plunder
those who had not injured you, and to crush those
who cannot resist you. But when your country is
invaded, there is no room for hesitation in your
judgraent, as there can be no plea for slackness in
your actions. Every ear raust be open to the ge
neral and awful summons ; every heart must be
inaccessible to fear; and ever hand must be up
lifted for resistance. You are called upon to defend
your liberties, your laws, and your religion. You
are sharing a common danger, and promoting a
common interest, with your governors, with your
equals, and with your inferiors. You go forth to
the combat, not as savage destroyers, not as ambi
tious conquerors, not as insatiable plunderers, but as

PREACHED AT HATTON. 699
self-preservers, as Englishmen, and as Christians.
You are encouraged, in the support of a just cause,
by the example of the brave, the arguments of the
wise, and the exhortations of the good. You are
preparing to bequeath to your posterity those bless
ings, which the foresight, or the heroism, or the
virtues of your great progenitors procured for them
and for yourselves. You are contending, not for
unsubstantial renown, but for solid security ; not
alone for national honour, which indeed may be
often precarious, or merely ideal, but for national
independence, which is always intelligible, and
always must be inestimable. You are avenging the
blood of the innocent, the honest, and the valiant.
You are protecting your neighbours from oppres
sion, your families from poverty, your sovereign
from injury and insult, and your country from dis
grace and perdition.
In the pursuit of ends so justifiable, by means so
meritorious, you may without impiety look up for
succour to Almighty God ! and whether ye perish in
the struggle, or survive it, the approbation of that
God will be the sure and most araple reward of your
loyalty, your patriotism, and your fortitude co-ope
rating with your benevolence.

700

Far the greater part of the foregoing Discourse was delivered
from the pulpit, and the whole of it would long ago bave been
sent to tbe press, if I had been able to procure the aid of a
transcriber. My intention was to subjoin such Notes as ap
peared to be pertinent and useful. But the delay which my
diligent and very sensible Printer unexpectedly found in getting
the necessary types, determined me to abandon my design. So
iraportant, however, seems to me the matter which some of
those Notes contain, and especially one in which I have endea
voured to vindicate the character of Moses, as a lover of his
Country, from the most formidable objection which has ever
been urged against it, that I shall rejoice to avail myself of a
proper opportunity for submitting my thoughts to the consider
ation both of serious Christians and of candid unbelievers.
For obvious but weighty reasons of decorum, I am anxious
to guard some expressions which occur in p. 672 of the Sermon,
from misconception. Though I could wish that two or three
passages in the late Fast Service had been omitted or softened ;
yet I shall not be content with saying that, according to my
judgment, it is, upon the whole, far preferable to many others
which have witbin my memory preceded it. In truth, I think
the general spirit, and the general matter of that service highly
honourable to the good sense, the taste, and the piety of the
persons who composed it. My heart, I must confess, is always
refreshed by the perusal of those supplications to Heaven,
which are calculated at once to satisfy the enlightened and
conscientious members of the Established Church, and to con
ciliate Christiani who dissent from it peaceably and sincerely.
Such supplications, are, I ara sure, conformable to the benevo
lent genius of our holy religion ; and for the best ends, they
exhibit the best principles of that Church, which, araong other
excellent lessons conveyed to us, in its public forms of devo
tion, has instructed us to pray that " God, the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ," who is " our only Saviour and the Prince of
Peace, would take from us all hatred and prejudice, and what
soever else may hinder us from godly union and concord ; and
that as there is but one body and one spirit, and one hope of

701
our calling ; one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God, and
Father of us all ; so we may henceforth be all of one heart and
one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith
and charity."
Be it observed, to the credit ofthe Church of England, that
the prayer in which the foregoing words is contained, is an
nually read upon a state occasion ; and to the honour of the
present age be it remembered, that the heavenly spirit of that
prayer is infused into the service for the late Fast, in that part
where we are directed to " beseech Almighty God, to give us
all grace, to put away from us all rancour of religious dissen
tion, that they who agree in the essentials of our most holy faith,
and look for pardon through the merits and intercession of the
Saviour, may, notwithstanding their differences upon points of
doubtful opinion, and in the forms of external worship, still be
united in the bonds of Christian charity, and fulfil his blessed
Son's commandment, of loving one another as God has loved
us." The authors to whom I allude in p, 636 of the Sermon are.
Lord Shaftesbury, in part the Second of an Essay on the free
dom of Wit and Humour, and Mr, Soame Jenyns, in his View
ofthe Internal Evidence ofthe Christian Religion,
Upon particular passages in the works of those writers I had
now and then made some observations, which it has not been
my fortune to see in any book that has fallen in my way. But
as their general reasoning has been fully examined by Dr,
John Leland, Dr. Maclaine, Dr. Brown, and other writers, I
have been content with pursuing the sarae track, and shall
offer my apology nearly in the words of Torquatus : " Dicam
de gravissimis rebus ; nihil scilicet novi, ea tamen, quae lectores
probaturos esse confidam." — Cie. de finih. lib. i.

END OF VOL. II.

J, D. NICHOLS AND JON, 25, PiBLUMENT-STREET.

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