Confequently, nothing is adverted to by the Law of Honour, but what tends to incommode this intercourfe.

Hence, this law only prefcribes and regulates the duties betwixt equals; omitting fuch as relate to the Supreme Being, as well as thofe which we owe to our inferiors.

For which reafon, profanenefs, neglect of public worship or private devotion, cruelty to fervants, rigorous treatment of tenants or other dependants, want of charity to the poor, injuries done to tradesmen by infolvency or delay of payment, with numberlefs examples of the fame kind, are accounted no breaches of honour; because a man is not a lefs agreeable companion for thefe vices, nor the worfe to deal with, in thofe concerns which are usually tranfacted between one gentleman and another.

Again, the Law of Honour being conftituted by men occupied in the purfuit of pleafure, and for the mutual conveniency of fuch men, will be found, as might be expected from the character and defign of the law-makers, to be, in moft inftances, favourable to the licentious indulgence of the natural paffions.

Thus it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkennefs, prodigality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme; and lays no ftrefs upon the virtues oppofite to these.

Chapter III.

THE LAW OF THE LAND.

THAT part of mankind who are beneath the Law of Honour, often make the Law of the Land the rule of life; that is, they are fatisfied with themselves, fo long as they do or omit nothing, for the doing or omitting of which the Law can punish them.

Whereas every fyftem of human Laws, confidered as a rule of life, labours under the two following defects:

I. Human Laws omit many duties, as not objects of compulfion; fuch as piety to God, bounty to the poor, forgiveness of injuries, education of children, gratitude to benefactors.

The Law never speaks but to command, nor commands but where it can compel; confequently those duties, which by their nature must be voluntary, are left out of the ftatute-book, as lying beyond the reach of its operation and authority.

II. Human Laws permit, or, which is the fame thing, fuffer to go unpunifhed, many crimes, because they are incapable of being defined by any previous defcription Of which nature is luxury, prodigality, partiality in voting at thofe elections in which the qualification of the candidate ought to determine the fuccefs, caprice in the difpofition of men's fortunes at their death, disrespect to parents, and a multitude of fimilar examples.

For this is the alternative; either the Law must define beforehand and with precifion the offences which it punishes, or it must be left to the difcretion of the magiftrate to determine upon each particular accufation, whether it constitutes that offence which the Law defigned to punish, or not; which is in effect leaving to the magiftrate to punifh or not to punish, at his pleafure, the individual who is brought before him; which is juft so much tyranny. Where, therefore, as in the inftances above-mentioned, the diftinction between right and wrong is of too fubtile, or of too fecret a nature, to be afcertained by any preconcerted language, the law of moft countries, efpecially of free states, rather than commit the liberty of the fubject to the difcretion of the magiftrate, leaves men in fuch cases to themfelves.

Chapter IV.

THE SCRIPTURES.

WHOEVER expects to find in the Scriptures a specific direction for every moral doubt that arises, looks for more than he will meet with. And to what a magnitude fuch a detail of particular precepts would have enlarged the facred volume, may be partly understood from the following confideration. The laws of this country, including the acts of the legislature and the decifions of our fupreme courts of juftice, are not contained in fewer than fifty folio volumes; and yet it is not once in ten attempts that you can find the cafe you look for, in any law-book whatever; to fay nothing of those numerous points of conduct, concerning which the law profeffes not to prescribe or determine any thing. Had then the fame particularity, which obtains in human laws fo far as they go, been attempted in the Scriptures, throughout the whole extent of morality, it is manifeft, they would have been by much too bulky to be either read or circulated; or rather, as St. John fays, "even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

Morality is taught in Scripture in this wife. Gen, eral rules are laid down of piety, juftice, benevolence, and purity: fuch as worshipping God in fpirit and in truth; doing as we would be done by ; loving our neighbour as ourself; forgiving others, as we expect forgiveness from God; that mercy is better than facrifice; that not that which entereth into a man (nor, by parity of reason, any ceremoni, al pollutions) but that which proceedeth from the heart, defileth him. These rules are occafionally il luftrated, either by fictitious examples, as in the para. ble of the good Samaritan; and of the cruel fervant, who refufed to his fellow-fervant that indul

gence and compaffion which his mafter had fhewn to him: or in inftances which actually prefented themfelves, as in Chrift's reproof of his difciples at the Samaritan village; his praife of the poor widow, who caft in her laft mite; his cenfure of the Pharifees who chose out the chief rooms-and of the tradition, whereby they evaded the command to fuftain their indigent parents: or laftly, in the refolution of questions, which thofe who were about our Saviour propofed to him, as in his answer to the young man who asked him, "What lack I yet?" and to the honest fcribe who had found out, even in that age and country, that "to love God and his neighbour was more than all whole burnt-offerings and facrifice.”

And this is in truth the way in which all practi. cal sciences are taught, as Arithmetic, Grammar, Navigation, and the like. Rules are laid down, and examples are fubjoined; not that these examples are the cafes, much lefs all the cafes which will actually occur, but by way only of explaining the principle of the rule, and as fo many fpecimens of the method of applying it. The chief difference is, that the examples in Scripture are not annexed to the rules with the didactic regularity to which we are now-a-days accustomed, but delivered difperfedly, as particular occafions fuggefted them; which gave them, however, efpecially to thofe who heard them, and were prefent to the occafions which pro duced them, an energy and perfuafion, much be, yond what the fame or any inftances would have appeared with, in their places in a system.

Befide this, the Scriptures commonly prefuppofe, in the perfons to whom they speak, a knowledge of the principles of natural juftice; and are employed not fo much to teach new rules of morality, as to enforce the practice of it by new fanctions, and by á greater certainty: which laft feems to be the proper bufinefs of a revelation from God, and what was moft wanted.

Thus the "unjuft, covenant breakers, and extor tioners," are condemned in Scripture, fuppofing it known, or leaving it, where it admits of doubt, to moralifts to determine, what injuftice, extortion, or breach of covenant, is.

The above confiderations are intended to prove that the Scriptures do not fuperfede the use of the fcience of which we profefs to treat, and at the fame time to acquit them of any charge of imperfection or infufficiency on that account.

Chapter V.

THE MORAL SENSE.

"THE father of Caius Toranius had been proscribed by the triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to the interefts of that party, discovered to the officers, who were in pursuit of his father's life, the place where he concealed himself, and gave them withal a description, by which they might diftinguish his perfon when they found him. The old man, more anxious for the fafety and fortunes of his fon, than about the little that might remain of his own life, began immediately to inquire of the officers who feized him, whether his fon was well, whether he had done his duty to the fatisfaction of his generals. That fon, replied one of the officers, fo dear to thy affections, betrayed thee to us; by his information thou art apprehended, and dieft. The oflicer with this ftruck a poniard to his heart, and the unhappy parent fell, not fo much affected by his fate, as by the means to which he owed it."

« Caius Toranius triumvirum partes fecutus, profcripti patris uti prætorii et ornati viri latebras, ætatem notafque corporis, quibus agnofci poffet, centurionibus edidit, qui eum perfecuti funt. Senex de filii magis vita, et incre mentis, quam de reliquo fpiritu fuo follicitus; an incolumis effet, et an im peratoribus fatisfaceret, interrogare eos cœpit. Equibus unus: ab illo, inquit, quem tantopere diligis, demonstratus, noftro miniftreio, filii indicio occideris;