a heart, eyes, hands, and the like, as not to have them united, and conspiring in their influence, for common preservation and defence?

In like manner, when man indulges narrow and contracted views, and consults and acts for himself alone, as if he were an unallied, selfsufficient, and dependent frame,—are not all his benevolent affections, all his natural powers of doing good, in effect represented as absurd and vain; as fit only to be discouraged, and rooted out of the soul? Is not the life of reason lost? The social, the divine life!-employed in the most exalted pursuits, and abounding in the purest and sweetest pleasures of which human nature is capable. And if the glowings of humanity were universally checked and repressed, and the mutual communication of kind and friendly offices universally suspended, what could this open to our view, but one wide and general scene of distress and misery! What could it portend less than inevitable ruin to the whole species!

To openness of heart and mutual confidence would, then, succeed everlasting distrusts and uneasy suspicions; to delight in the prosperity of others, a malignant spirit of envy; to concord and harmony, disunion and alienation of affection; to compassion, hardness of heart. These

are the necessary attendants on a selfish, unsocial disposition. And they, in their turn, must propagate and spread the mischief much further; begetting mutual reproaches and animosities; rage, revilings, cool deliberate malice, and other inflamed and unnatural passions; which deface the light and lustre, and the strong tendencies to good, which, in the language of the son of Syrac, God originally poured out over all his rational works; and anticipate the blackest horrors of hell itself.

That mankind, therefore, are a society, or system, linked together by inviolable bonds of reason, instinct, interest, no one who has examined his own inward frame, or made observations on the general propensities and workings of human nature in others; no one, who has reflected justly on the fatal consequences of the contrary scheme, can be tempted to doubt. That this is a sentiment, which most powerfully enforces universal benevolence and sympathy; that enlarges and raises the heart above the influence of every base earthborn passion; that inspires it with great designs of public usefulness, and gives it godlike feelings, the generous and good experience, and have ever allowed. There can be no true religion, no right knowledge of God, or of his immutable laws of nature and providence, where this is not admitted

as a fundamental principle: and all the duties of social morality, may be deduced, and in a great measure, derive their obligation, from it. Accordingly, we find that St. Paul has wisely assigned it as a reason, the first and chief reason (within the scope of which, all others are comprehended) why we should put away lying, and speak every man truth with his neighbour.

To which might have been added, with equal propriety, if the circumstances of the case had required such a particular and more copious exhortation, grounded on the same principle"Be affable and obliging, modest and condescending, .compassionate and tender-hearted. Rejoice with those that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep."+ Aim in your several stations, to be as useful as possible, and to communicate the most diffusive and general good. Endeavour to instruct the ignorant, and reclaim the vicious; to revive the disconsolate, to relieve the miserable. Avoid criminal artifice and fraud, and practise strict justice and fidelity in all its branches. Let not prejudice or pride, or any views of private advantage tempt you, let not a misguided and headstrong zeal ever transport you, to violate these holy and immutable obligations. In a word, reduce all your appetites, all

* Eph. iv. 25.

+ Rom. xii. 15.

your affections and desires to that calm temperature; and in the various relations of life, behave with that equity and candour, that gentleness and goodness, that mutual respect and honour, as will best subserve the great ends, for which human nature was constituted social, and of human society at large for as men, we are all members one of another.*

Having so far endeavoured to shew that the social instincts and affections of human nature are universal and mutual, and directed in their exercise, throughout the whole system, from man to man; and as this most certainly infers, that all mankind are, in the disposition and order of nature, one great and closely compacted body; we may, and must, conclude upon the whole, that their social state and character were intended not barely for good, but for universal good: And this must be the true aim, and should be the natural and direct subserviency, of every relative and social obligation.

Besides, the idea of men, as a community, necessarily implies in it, that there is a governor of this community; to whom the whole, and every individual member of it, is accountable. A society without laws, and laws without government, and government without a supreme * Eph. iv. 25.

administrator of government, and dispenser of justice, are as much contradictions, as a living body without a head. The governor therefore,

who, in the present case, can be no other than the Creator of mankind, and the Father of their social frame, must be like a constituent vital member of the society, without whom the whole would instantly dissolve.

And from hence it appears, that the authority of God is most properly introduced, to support the obligation of all relative duties. The social nature from whence they spring, the motives by which they are enforced, the pleasures which they yield at present, the happiness to which they ultimately tend, are all His wise contrivance and constitution. Without Him, nature and all its laws are no more than empty sounds without a meaning. By His influence and power, they are invigorated; separated from Him, they die, or are reduced to a state of nonexistence.

Can we then, without renouncing our reason, consider anything as a natural, and not regard it likewise as a divine, law? Can any office in society be a dictate of nature, which is not at the same time a duty of piety?

Can we esteem ourselves to be truly moral men for treating with a becoming tenderness and respect the inferior