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Title:  Human Nature and Other Sermons

Author:  Joseph Butler

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HUMAN NATURE AND OTHER SERMONS

by Joseph Butler




INTRODUCTION.



Joseph Butler was born in 1692, youngest of eight children of a
linendraper at Wantage, in Berkshire.  His father was a
Presbyterian, and after education at the Wantage Free Grammar School
Joseph Butler was sent to be educated for the Presbyterian ministry
in a training academy at Gloucester, which was afterwards removed to
Tewkesbury.  There he had a friend and comrade, Secker, who
afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury.  Butler and Secker
inquired actively, and there was foreshadowing of his future in the
fact that in 1713, at the age of twenty-one, Butler was engaged in
anonymous discussion with Samuel Clarke upon his book on the a
priori demonstration of the Divine Existence and Attributes.

When the time drew near for call to the ministry, Butler, like his
friend Secker, had reasoned himself into accordance with the
teaching of the Church of England.  Butler's father did not oppose
his strong desire to enter the Church, and he was entered in 1714 at
Oriel College, Oxford.  At college a strong friendship was
established between Butler and a fellow-student, Edward Talbot,
whose father was a Bishop, formerly of Oxford and Salisbury, then of
Durham.  Through Talbot's influence Butler obtained in 1718 the
office of Preacher in the Rolls Chapel, which he held for the next
eight years.  In 1722 Talbot died, and on his death-bed urged his
father on behalf of his friend Butler.  The Bishop accordingly
presented Joseph Butler to the living of Houghton-le-Spring.  But it
was found that costs of dilapidations were beyond his means at
Houghton, and Butler had a dangerous regard for building works.  He
was preferred two years afterwards to the living of Stanhope, which
then became vacant, and which yielded a substantial income.  Butler
sought nothing for himself, his simplicity of character, real worth,
and rare intellectual power, secured him friends, and the love of
two of them--Talbot first, and afterwards Secker, who made his own
way in the Church, and became strong enough to put his friend as
well as himself in the way of worldly advancement, secured for
Butler all the patronage he had, until the Queen also became his
active friend.

Joseph Butler was seven years at Stanhope, quietly devoted to his
parish duties, preaching, studying, and writing his "Analogy of
Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of
Nature."  In 1727, while still at Stanhope, he was appointed to a
stall in Durham Cathedral.  Secker, having become chaplain to the
Queen, encouraged her in admiration of Butler's sermons.  He told
her that the author was not dead, but buried, and secured her active
interest in his behalf.  From Talbot, who had become Lord
Chancellor, Secker had no difficulty in obtaining for Butler a
chaplaincy which exempted him from the necessity of residence at
Stanhope.  Butler, in accepting it, stipulated for permission to
live and work in his parish for six months in every year.  Next he
was made chaplain to the King, and Rector of St. James's, upon which
he gave up Stanhope.  In 1736 Queen Caroline appointed him her Clerk
of the Closet, an office which gave Butler the duty of attendance
upon her for two hours every evening.  In that year he published his
"Analogy," of which the purpose was to meet, on its own ground, the
scepticism of his day.  The Queen died in 1737, and, in accordance
with the strong desire expressed in her last days, in 1738 Butler
was made a Bishop.  But his Bishopric was Bristol, worth only 300 or
400 pounds a year.  The King added the Deanery of St. Paul's, when
that became vacant in 1740, and in 1750, towards the close of his
life, Joseph Butler was translated to the Bishopric of Durham.  He
died in 1752.

No man could be less self-seeking.  He owed his rise in the Church
wholly to the intellectual power and substantial worth of character
that inspired strong friendship.  Seeing how little he sought
worldly advancement for himself, while others were pressing and
scrambling, Butler's friends used their opportunities of winning for
him the advancement he deserved.  He was happiest in doing his work,
of which a chief part was in his study, where he employed his
philosophic mind in strengthening the foundations of religious
faith.  Faith in God was attacked by men who claimed especially to
be philosophers, and they were best met by the man who had, beyond
all other divines of his day--some might not be afraid to add, of
any day--the philosophic mind.

H.M.



HUMAN NATURE, AND OTHER SERMONS.



SERMON I.
UPON HUMAN NATURE.
ROMANS xii. 4, 5.



For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not
the same office:  so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and
every one members one of another.

The Epistles in the New Testament have all of them a particular
reference to the condition and usages of the Christian world at the
time they were written.  Therefore as they cannot be thoroughly
understood unless that condition and those usages are known and
attended to, so, further, though they be known, yet if they be
discontinued or changed, exhortations, precepts, and illustrations
of things, which refer to such circumstances now ceased or altered,
cannot at this time be urged in that manner and with that force
which they were to the primitive Christians.  Thus the text now
before us, in its first intent and design, relates to the decent
management of those extraordinary gifts which were then in the
Church, {1} but which are now totally ceased.  And even as to the
allusion that "we are one body in Christ," though what the apostle
here intends is equally true of Christians in all circumstances, and
the consideration of it is plainly still an additional motive, over
and above moral considerations, to the discharge of the several
duties and offices of a Christian, yet it is manifest this allusion
must have appeared with much greater force to those who, by the many
difficulties they went through for the sake of their religion, were
led to keep always in view the relation they stood in to their
Saviour, who had undergone the same:  to those, who, from the
idolatries of all around them, and their ill-treatment, were taught
to consider themselves as not of the world in which they lived, but
as a distinct society of themselves; with laws and ends, and
principles of life and action, quite contrary to those which the
world professed themselves at that time influenced by.  Hence the
relation of a Christian was by them considered as nearer than that
of affinity and blood; and they almost literally esteemed themselves
as members one of another.

It cannot, indeed, possibly be denied, that our being God's
creatures, and virtue being the natural law we are born under, and
the whole constitution of man being plainly adapted to it, are prior
obligations to piety and virtue than the consideration that God sent
his Son into the world to save it, and the motives which arise from
the peculiar relation of Christians as members one of another under
Christ our head.  However, though all this be allowed, as it
expressly is by the inspired writers, yet it is manifest that
Christians at the time of the Revelation, and immediately after,
could not but insist mostly upon considerations of this latter kind.

These observations show the original particular reference to the
text, and the peculiar force with which the thing intended by the
allusion in it must have been felt by the primitive Christian world.
They likewise afford a reason for treating it at this time in a more
general way.

The relation which the several parts or members of the natural body
have to each other and to the whole body is here compared to the
relation which each particular person in society has to other
particular persons and to the whole society; and the latter is
intended to be illustrated by the former.  And if there be a
likeness between these two relations, the consequence is obvious:
that the latter shows us we were intended to do good to others, as
the former shows us that the several members of the natural body
were intended to be instruments of good to each other and to the
whole body.  But as there is scarce any ground for a comparison
between society and the mere material body, this without the mind
being a dead unactive thing, much less can the comparison be carried
to any length.  And since the apostle speaks of the several members
as having distinct offices, which implies the mind, it cannot be
thought an allowable liberty, instead of the BODY and ITS MEMBERS,
to substitute the WHOLE NATURE of MAN, and ALL THE VARIETY OF
INTERNAL PRINCIPLES WHICH BELONG TO IT.  And then the comparison
will be between the nature of man as respecting self, and tending to
private good, his own preservation and happiness; and the nature of
man as having respect to society, and tending to promote public
good, the happiness of that society.  These ends do indeed perfectly
coincide; and to aim at public and private good are so far from
being inconsistent that they mutually promote each other:  yet in
the following discourse they must be considered as entirely
distinct; otherwise the nature of man as tending to one, or as
tending to the other, cannot be compared.  There can no comparison
be made, without considering the things compared as distinct and
different.

From this review and comparison of the nature of man as respecting
self and as respecting society, it will plainly appear that there
are as real and the same kind of indications in human nature, that
we were made for society and to do good to our fellow-creatures, as
that we were intended to take care of our own life and health and
private good:  and that the same objections lie against one of these
assertions as against the other.  For,

First, there is a natural principle of BENEVOLENCE {2} in man, which
is in some degree to SOCIETY what SELF-LOVE is to the INDIVIDUAL.
And if there be in mankind any disposition to friendship; if there
be any such thing as compassion--for compassion is momentary love--
if there be any such thing as the paternal or filial affections; if
there be any affection in human nature, the object and end of which
is the good of another, this is itself benevolence, or the love of
another.  Be it ever so short, be it in ever so low a degree, or
ever so unhappily confined, it proves the assertion, and points out
what we were designed for, as really as though it were in a higher
degree and more extensive.  I must, however, remind you that though
benevolence and self-love are different, though the former tends
most directly to public good, and the latter to private, yet they
are so perfectly coincident that the greatest satisfactions to
ourselves 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 equally a proof that we
were made for both.

Secondly, this will further appear, from observing that the SEVERAL
PASSIONS and AFFECTIONS, which are distinct {3} both from
benevolence and self-love, do in general contribute and lead us to
PUBLIC GOOD as really as to PRIVATE.  It might be thought too minute
and particular, and would carry us too great a length, to
distinguish between and compare together the several passions or
appetites distinct from benevolence, whose primary use and intention
is the security and good of society, and the passions distinct from
self-love, whose primary intention and design is the security and
good of the individual. {4}  It is enough to the present argument
that desire of esteem from others, contempt and esteem of them, love
of society as distinct from affection to the good of it, indignation
against successful vice--that these are public affections or
passions, have an immediate respect to others, naturally lead us to
regulate our behaviour in such a manner as will be of service to our
fellow-creatures.  If any or all of these may be considered likewise
as private affections, as tending to private good, this does not
hinder them from being public affections too, or destroy the good
influence of them upon society, and their tendency to public good.
It may be added that as persons without any conviction from reason
of the desirableness of life would yet of course preserve it merely
from the appetite of hunger, so, by acting merely from regard
(suppose) to reputation, without any consideration of the good of
others, men often contribute to public good.  In both these
instances they are plainly instruments in the hands of another, in
the hands of Providence, to carry on ends--the preservation of the
individual and good of society--which they themselves have not in
their view or intention.  The sum is, men have various appetites,
passions, and particular affections, quite distinct both from self-
love and from benevolence:  all of these have a tendency to promote
both public and private good, and may be considered as respecting
others and ourselves equally and in common; but some of them seem
most immediately to respect others, or tend to public good; others
of them most immediately to respect self, or tend to private good:
as the former are not benevolence, so the latter are not self-love:
neither sort are instances of our love either to ourselves or
others, but only instances of our Maker's care and love both of the
individual and the species, and proofs that He intended we should be
instruments of good to each other, as well as that we should be so
to ourselves.

Thirdly, there is a principle of reflection in men, by which they
distinguish between, approve and disapprove their own actions.  We
are plainly constituted such sort of creatures as to reflect upon
our own nature.  The mind can take a view of what passes within
itself, its propensions, aversions, passions, affections as
respecting such objects, and in such degrees; and of the several
actions consequent thereupon.  In this survey it approves of one,
disapproves of another, and towards a third is affected in neither
of these ways, but is quite indifferent.  This principle in man, by
which he approves or disapproves his heart, temper, and actions, is
conscience; for this is the strict sense of the word, though
sometimes it is used so as to take in more.  And that this faculty
tends to restrain men from doing mischief to each other, and leads
them to do good, is too manifest to need being insisted upon.  Thus
a parent has the affection of love to his children:  this leads him
to take care of, to educate, to make due provision for them--the
natural affection leads to this:  but the reflection that it is his
proper business, what belongs to him, that it is right and
commendable so to do--this, added to the affection, becomes a much
more settled principle, and carries him on through more labour and
difficulties for the sake of his children than he would undergo from
that affection alone, if he thought it, and the cause of action it
led to, either indifferent or criminal.  This indeed is impossible,
to do that which is good and not to approve of it; for which reason
they are frequently not considered as distinct, though they really
are:  for men often approve of the action of others which they will
not imitate, and likewise do that which they approve not.  It cannot
possibly be denied that there is this principle of reflection or
conscience in human nature.  Suppose a man to relieve an innocent
person in great distress; suppose the same man afterwards, in the
fury of anger, to do the greatest mischief to a person who had given
no just cause of offence.  To aggravate the injury, add the
circumstances of former friendship and obligation from the injured
person; let the man who is supposed to have done these two different
actions coolly reflect upon them afterwards, without regard to their
consequences to himself:  to assert that any common man would be
affected in the same way towards these different actions, that he
would make no distinction between them, but approve or disapprove
them equally, is too glaring a falsity to need being confuted.
There is therefore this principle of reflection or conscience in
mankind.  It is needless to compare the respect it has to private
good with the respect it has to public; since it plainly tends as
much to the latter as to the former, and is commonly thought to tend
chiefly to the latter.  This faculty is now mentioned merely as
another part in the inward frame of man, pointing out to us in some
degree what we are intended for, and as what will naturally and of
course have some influence.  The particular place assigned to it by
nature, what authority it has, and how great influence it ought to
have, shall be hereafter considered.

From this comparison of benevolence and self-love, of our public and
private affections, of the courses of life they lead to, and of the
principle of reflection or conscience as respecting each of them, it
is as manifest that WE WERE MADE FOR SOCIETY, AND TO PROMOTE THE
HAPPINESS OF IT, AS THAT WE WERE INTENDED to TAKE CARE OF OUR OWN
LIFE AND HEALTH AND PRIVATE GOOD.

And from this whole review must be given a different draught of
human nature from what we are often presented with.  Mankind are by
nature so closely united, there is such a correspondence between the
inward sensations of one man and those of another, that disgrace is
as much avoided as bodily pain, and to be the object of esteem and
love as much desired as any external goods; and in many particular
cases persons are carried on to do good to others, as the end their
affection tends to and rests in; and manifest that they find real
satisfaction and enjoyment in this course of behaviour.  There is
such a natural principle of attraction in man towards man that
having trod the same tract of land, having breathed in the same
climate, barely having been born in the same artificial district or
division, becomes the occasion of contracting acquaintances and
familiarities many years after; for anything may serve the purpose.
Thus relations merely nominal are sought and invented, not by
governors, but by the lowest of the people, which are found
sufficient to hold mankind together in little fraternities and
copartnerships:  weak ties indeed, and what may afford fund enough
for ridicule, if they are absurdly considered as the real principles
of that union:  but they are in truth merely the occasions, as
anything may be of anything, upon which our nature carries us on
according to its own previous bent and bias; which occasions
therefore would be nothing at all were there not this prior
disposition and bias of nature.  Men are so much one body that in a
peculiar manner they feel for each other shame, sudden danger,
resentment, honour, prosperity, distress; one or another, or all of
these, from the social nature in general, from benevolence, upon the
occasion of natural relation, acquaintance, protection, dependence;
each of these being distinct cements of society.  And therefore to
have no restraint from, no regard to, others in our behaviour, is
the speculative absurdity of considering ourselves as single and
independent, as having nothing in our nature which has respect to
our fellow-creatures, reduced to action and practice.  And this is
the same absurdity as to suppose a hand, or any part, to have no
natural respect to any other, or to the whole body.

But, allowing all this, it may be asked, "Has not man dispositions
and principles within which lead him to do evil to others, as well
as to do good?  Whence come the many miseries else which men are the
authors and instruments of to each other?"  These questions, so far
as they relate to the foregoing discourse, may be answered by
asking, Has not man also dispositions and principles within which
lead him to do evil to himself, as well as good?  Whence come the
many miseries else--sickness, pain, and death--which men are
instruments and authors of to themselves?

It may be thought more easy to answer one of these questions than
the other, but the answer to both is really the same:  that mankind
have ungoverned passions which they will gratify at any rate, as
well to the injury of others as in contradiction to known private
interest:  but that as there is no such thing as self-hatred, so
neither is there any such thing as ill-will in one man towards
another, emulation and resentment being away; whereas there is
plainly benevolence or good-will:  there is no such thing as love of
injustice, oppression, treachery, ingratitude, but only eager
desires after such and such external goods; which, according to a
very ancient observation, the most abandoned would choose to obtain
by innocent means, if they were as easy and as effectual to their
end:  that even emulation and resentment, by any one who will
consider what these passions really are in nature, {5} will be found
nothing to the purpose of this objection; and that the principles
and passions in the mind of man, which are distinct both from self-
love and benevolence, primarily and most directly lead to right
behaviour with regard to others as well as himself, and only
secondarily and accidentally to what is evil.  Thus, though men, to
avoid the shame of one villainy, are sometimes guilty of a greater,
yet it is easy to see that the original tendency of shame is to
prevent the doing of shameful actions; and its leading men to
conceal such actions when done is only in consequence of their being
done; i.e., of the passion's not having answered its first end.

If it be said that there are persons in the world who are in great
measure without the natural affections towards their fellow-
creatures, there are likewise instances of persons without the
common natural affections to themselves.  But the nature of man is
not to be judged of by either of these, but by what appears in the
common world, in the bulk of mankind.

I am afraid it would be thought very strange, if to confirm the
truth of this account of human nature, and make out the justness of
the foregoing comparison, it should be added that from what appears,
men in fact as much and as often contradict that PART of their
nature which respects SELF, and which leads them to their OWN
PRIVATE good and happiness, as they contradict that PART of it which
respects SOCIETY, and tends to PUBLIC good:  that there are as few
persons who attain the greatest satisfaction and enjoyment which
they might attain in the present world, as who do the greatest good
to others which they might do; nay, that there are as few who can be
said really and in earnest to aim at one as at the other.  Take a
survey of mankind:  the world in general, the good and bad, almost
without exception, equally are agreed that were religion out of the
case, the happiness of the present life would consist in a manner
wholly in riches, honours, sensual gratifications; insomuch that one
scarce hears a reflection made upon prudence, life, conduct, but
upon this supposition.  Yet, on the contrary, that persons in the
greatest affluence of fortune are no happier than such as have only
a competency; that the cares and disappointments of ambition for the
most part far exceed the satisfactions of it; as also the miserable
intervals of intemperance and excess, and the many untimely deaths
occasioned by a dissolute course of life:  these things are all
seen, acknowledged, by every one acknowledged; but are thought no
objections against, though they expressly contradict, this universal
principle--that the happiness of the present life consists in one or
other of them.  Whence is all this absurdity and contradiction?  Is
not the middle way obvious?  Can anything be more manifest than that
the happiness of life consists in these possessed and enjoyed only
to a certain degree; that to pursue them beyond this degree is
always attended with more inconvenience than advantage to a man's
self, and often with extreme misery and unhappiness?  Whence, then,
I say, is all this absurdity and contradiction?  Is it really the
result of consideration in mankind, how they may become most easy to
themselves, most free from care, and enjoy the chief happiness
attainable in this world?  Or is it not manifestly owing either to
this, that they have not cool and reasonable concern enough for
themselves to consider wherein their chief happiness in the present
life consists; or else, if they do consider it, that they will not
act conformably to what is the result of that consideration--i.e.,
reasonable concern for themselves, or cool self-love, is prevailed
over by passions and appetite?  So that from what appears there is
no ground to assert that those principles in the nature of man,
which most directly lead to promote the good of our fellow-
creatures, are more generally or in a greater degree violated than
those which most directly lead us to promote our own private good
and happiness.

The sum of the whole is plainly this:  The nature of man considered
in his single capacity, and with respect only to the present world,
is adapted and leads him to attain the greatest happiness he can for
himself in the present world.  The nature of man considered in his
public or social capacity leads him to right behaviour in society,
to that course of life which we call virtue.  Men follow or obey
their nature in both these capacities and respects to a certain
degree, but not entirely:  their actions do not come up to the whole
of what their nature leads them to in either of these capacities or
respects:  and they often violate their nature in both; i.e., as
they neglect the duties they owe to their fellow-creatures, to which
their nature leads them, and are injurious, to which their nature is
abhorrent, so there is a manifest negligence in men of their real
happiness or interest in the present world, when that interest is
inconsistent with a present gratification; for the sake of which
they negligently, nay, even knowingly, are the authors and
instruments of their own misery and ruin.  Thus they are as often
unjust to themselves as to others, and for the most part are equally
so to both by the same actions.



SERMON II., III.
UPON HUMAN NATURE.
ROMANS ii. 14.



For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the
things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law
unto themselves.

As speculative truth admits of different kinds of proof, so likewise
moral obligations may be shown by different methods.  If the real
nature of any creature leads him and is adapted to such and such
purposes only, or more than to any other, this is a reason to
believe the Author of that nature intended it for those purposes.
Thus there is no doubt the eye was intended for us to see with.  And
the more complex any constitution is, and the greater variety of
parts there are which thus tend to some one end, the stronger is the
proof that such end was designed.  However, when the inward frame of
man is considered as any guide in morals, the utmost caution must be
used that none make peculiarities in their own temper, or anything
which is the effect of particular customs, though observable in
several, the standard of what is common to the species; and above
all, that the highest principle be not forgot or excluded, that to
which belongs the adjustment and correction of all other inward
movements and affections; which principle will of course have some
influence, but which being in nature supreme, as shall now be shown,
ought to preside over and govern all the rest.  The difficulty of
rightly observing the two former cautions; the appearance there is
of some small diversity amongst mankind with respect to this
faculty, with respect to their natural sense of moral good and evil;
and the attention necessary to survey with any exactness what passes
within, have occasioned that it is not so much agreed what is the
standard of the internal nature of man as of his external form.
Neither is this last exactly settled.  Yet we understand one another
when we speak of the shape of a human body:  so likewise we do when
we speak of the heart and inward principles, how far soever the
standard is from being exact or precisely fixed.  There is therefore
ground for an attempt of showing men to themselves, of showing them
what course of life and behaviour their real nature points out and
would lead them to.  Now obligations of virtue shown, and motives to
the practice of it enforced, from a review of the nature of man, are
to be considered as an appeal to each particular person's heart and
natural conscience:  as the external senses are appealed to for the
proof of things cognisable by them.  Since, then, our inward
feelings, and the perceptions we receive from our external senses,
are equally real, to argue from the former to life and conduct is as
little liable to exception as to argue from the latter to absolute
speculative truth.  A man can as little doubt whether his eyes were
given him to see with as he can doubt of the truth of the science of
optics, deduced from ocular experiments.  And allowing the inward
feeling, shame, a man can as little doubt whether it was given him
to prevent his doing shameful actions as he can doubt whether his
eyes were given him to guide his steps.  And as to these inward
feelings themselves, that they are real, that man has in his nature
passions and affections, can no more be questioned than that he has
external senses.  Neither can the former be wholly mistaken, though
to a certain degree liable to greater mistakes than the latter.

There can be no doubt but that several propensions or instincts,
several principles in the heart of man, carry him to society, and to
contribute to the happiness of it, in a sense and a manner in which
no inward principle leads him to evil.  These principles,
propensions, or instincts which lead him to do good are approved of
by a certain faculty within, quite distinct from these propensions
themselves.  All this hath been fully made out in the foregoing
discourse.

But it may be said, "What is all this, though true, to the purpose
of virtue and religion? these require, not only that we do good to
others when we are led this way, by benevolence or reflection
happening to be stronger than other principles, passions, or
appetites, but likewise that the WHOLE character be formed upon
thought and reflection; that EVERY action be directed by some
determinate rule, some other rule than the strength and prevalency
of any principle or passion.  What sign is there in our nature (for
the inquiry is only about what is to be collected from thence) that
this was intended by its Author?  Or how does so various and fickle
a temper as that of man appear adapted thereto?  It may indeed be
absurd and unnatural for men to act without any reflection; nay,
without regard to that particular kind of reflection which you call
conscience, because this does belong to our nature.  For as there
never was a man but who approved one place, prospect, building,
before another, so it does not appear that there ever was a man who
would not have approved an action of humanity rather than of
cruelty; interest and passion being quite out of the case.  But
interest and passion do come in, and are often too strong for and
prevail over reflection and conscience.  Now as brutes have various
instincts, by which they are carried on to the end the Author of
their nature intended them for, is not man in the same condition--
with this difference only, that to his instincts (i.e., appetites
and passion) is added the principle of reflection or conscience?
And as brutes act agreeably to their nature, in following that
principle or particular instinct which for the present is strongest
in them, does not man likewise act agreeably to his nature, or obey
the law of his creation, by following that principle, be it passion
or conscience, which for the present happens to be strongest in him?
Thus different men are by their particular nature hurried on to
pursue honour or riches or pleasure; there are also persons whose
temper leads them in an uncommon degree to kindness, compassion,
doing good to their fellow-creatures, as there are others who are
given to suspend their judgment, to weigh and consider things, and
to act upon thought and reflection.  Let every one, then, quietly
follow his nature, as passion, reflection, appetite, the several
parts of it, happen to be strongest; but let not the man of virtue
take upon him to blame the ambitious, the covetous, the dissolute,
since these equally with him obey and follow their nature.  Thus, as
in some cases we follow our nature in doing the works CONTAINED IN
THE LAW, so in other cases we follow nature in doing contrary."

Now all this licentious talk entirely goes upon a supposition that
men follow their nature in the same sense, in violating the known
rules of justice and honesty for the sake of a present
gratification, as they do in following those rules when they have no
temptation to the contrary.  And if this were true, that could not
be so which St. Paul asserts, that men are BY NATURE A LAW TO
THEMSELVES.  If by following nature were meant only acting as we
please, it would indeed be ridiculous to speak of nature as any
guide in morals; nay, the very mention of deviating from nature
would be absurd; and the mention of following it, when spoken by way
of distinction, would absolutely have no meaning.  For did ever any
one act otherwise than as he pleased?  And yet the ancients speak of
deviating from nature as vice, and of following nature so much as a
distinction, that according to them the perfection of virtue
consists therein.  So that language itself should teach people
another sense to the words FOLLOWING NATURE than barely acting as we
please.  Let it, however, be observed that though the words HUMAN
NATURE are to be explained, yet the real question of this discourse
is not concerning the meaning of words, any other than as the
explanation of them may be needful to make out and explain the
assertion, that EVERY MAN IS NATURALLY A LAW to HIMSELF, that EVERY
ONE MAY FIND WITHIN HIMSELF THE RULE OF RIGHT, AND OBLIGATIONS TO
FOLLOW IT.  This St. Paul affirms in the words of the text, and this
the foregoing objection really denies by seeming to allow it.  And
the objection will be fully answered, and the text before us
explained, by observing that NATURE is considered in different
views, and the word used in different senses; and by showing in what
view it is considered, and in what sense the word is used, when
intended to express and signify that which is the guide of life,
that by which men are a law to themselves.  I say, the explanation
of the term will be sufficient, because from thence it will appear
that in some senses of the word NATURE cannot be, but that in
another sense it manifestly is, a law to us.

I.  By nature is often meant no more than some principle in man,
without regard either to the kind or degree of it.  Thus the passion
of anger, and the affection of parents to their children, would be
called equally NATURAL.  And as the same person hath often contrary
principles, which at the same time draw contrary ways, he may by the
same action both follow and contradict his nature in this sense of
the word; he may follow one passion and contradict another.

II.  NATURE is frequently spoken of as consisting in those passions
which are strongest, and most influence the actions; which being
vicious ones, mankind is in this sense naturally vicious, or vicious
by nature.  Thus St. Paul says of the Gentiles, WHO WERE DEAD IN
TRESPASSES AND SINS, AND WALKED ACCORDING TO THE SPIRIT OF
DISOBEDIENCE, THAT THEY WERE BY NATURE THE CHILDREN OF WRATH. {6}
They could be no otherwise CHILDREN OF WRATH by nature than they
were vicious by nature.

Here, then, are two different senses of the word NATURE, in neither
of which men can at all be said to be a law to themselves.  They are
mentioned only to be excluded, to prevent their being confounded, as
the latter is in the objection, with another sense of it, which is
now to be inquired after and explained.

III.  The apostle asserts that the Gentiles DO BY NATURE THE THINGS
CONTAINED IN THE LAW.  Nature is indeed here put by way of
distinction from revelation, but yet it is not a mere negative.  He
intends to express more than that by which they DID NOT, that by
which they DID, the works of the law; namely, by NATURE.  It is
plain the meaning of the word is not the same in this passage as in
the former, where it is spoken of as evil; for in this latter it is
spoken of as good--as that by which they acted, or might have acted,
virtuously.  What that is in man by which he is NATURALLY A LAW TO
HIMSELF is explained in the following words:  Which show the work of
the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing
witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing
one another.  If there be a distinction to be made between the WORKS
WRITTEN IN THEIR HEARTS, and the WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE, by the
former must be meant the natural disposition to kindness and
compassion to do what is of good report, to which this apostle often
refers:  that part of the nature of man, treated of in the foregoing
discourse, which with very little reflection and of course leads him
to society, and by means of which he naturally acts a just and good
part in it, unless other passions or interest lead him astray.  Yet
since other passions, and regards to private interest, which lead us
(though indirectly, yet they lead us) astray, are themselves in a
degree equally natural, and often most prevalent, and since we have
no method of seeing the particular degrees in which one or the other
is placed in us by nature, it is plain the former, considered merely
as natural, good and right as they are, can no more be a law to us
than the latter.  But there is a superior principle of reflection or
conscience in every man, which distinguishes between the internal
principles of his heart, as well as his external actions; which
passes judgement upon himself and them, pronounces determinately
some actions to be in themselves just, right, good, others to be in
themselves evil, wrong, unjust:  which, without being consulted,
without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and
approves or condemns him the doer of them accordingly:  and which,
if not forcibly stopped, naturally and always of course goes on to
anticipate a higher and more effectual sentence, which shall
hereafter second and affirm its own.  But this part of the office of
conscience is beyond my present design explicitly to consider.  It
is by this faculty, natural to man, that he is a moral agent, that
he is a law to himself, but this faculty, I say, not to be
considered merely as a principle in his heart, which is to have some
influence as well as others, but considered as a faculty in kind and
in nature supreme over all others, and which bears its own authority
of being so.

This PREROGATIVE, this NATURAL SUPREMACY, of the faculty which
surveys, approves, or disapproves the several affections of our mind
and actions of our lives, being that by which men ARE A LAW TO
THEMSELVES, their conformity or disobedience to which law of our
nature renders their actions, in the highest and most proper sense,
natural or unnatural, it is fit it be further explained to you; and
I hope it will be so, if you will attend to the following
reflections.

Man may act according to that principle or inclination which for the
present happens to be strongest, and yet act in a way
disproportionate to, and violate his real proper nature.  Suppose a
brute creature by any bait to be allured into a snare, by which he
is destroyed.  He plainly followed the bent of his nature, leading
him to gratify his appetite:  there is an entire correspondence
between his whole nature and such an action:  such action therefore
is natural.  But suppose a man, foreseeing the same danger of
certain ruin, should rush into it for the sake of a present
gratification; he in this instance would follow his strongest
desire, as did the brute creature; but there would be as manifest a
disproportion between the nature of a man and such an action as
between the meanest work of art and the skill of the greatest master
in that art; which disproportion arises, not from considering the
action singly in ITSELF, or in its CONSEQUENCES, but from COMPARISON
of it with the nature of the agent.  And since such an action is
utterly disproportionate to the nature of man, it is in the
strictest and most proper sense unnatural; this word expressing that
disproportion.  Therefore, instead of the words DISPROPORTIONATE TO
HIS NATURE, the word UNNATURAL may now be put; this being more
familiar to us:  but let it be observed that it stands for the same
thing precisely.

Now what is it which renders such a rash action unnatural?  Is it
that he went against the principle of reasonable and cool self-love,
considered MERELY as a part of his nature?  No; for if he had acted
the contrary way, he would equally have gone against a principle, or
part of his nature--namely, passion or appetite.  But to deny a
present appetite, from foresight that the gratification of it would
end in immediate ruin or extreme misery, is by no means an unnatural
action:  whereas to contradict or go against cool self-love for the
sake of such gratification is so in the instance before us.  Such an
action then being unnatural, and its being so not arising from a
man's going against a principle or desire barely, nor in going
against that principle or desire which happens for the present to be
strongest, it necessarily follows that there must be some other
difference or distinction to be made between these two principles,
passion and cool self-love, than what I have yet taken notice of.
And this difference, not being a difference in strength or degree, I
call a difference in NATURE and in KIND.  And since, in the instance
still before us, if passion prevails over self-love the consequent
action is unnatural, but if self-love prevails over passion the
action is natural, it is manifest that self-love is in human nature
a superior principle to passion.  This may be contradicted without
violating that nature; but the former cannot.  So that, if we will
act conformably to the economy of man's nature, reasonable self-love
must govern.  Thus, without particular consideration of conscience,
we may have a clear conception of the SUPERIOR NATURE of one inward
principle to another, and see that there really is this natural
superiority, quite distinct from degrees of strength and prevalency.

Let us now take a view of the nature of man, as consisting partly of
various appetites, passions, affections, and partly of the principle
of reflection or conscience, leaving quite out all consideration of
the different degrees of strength in which either of them prevails,
and it will further appear that there is this natural superiority of
one inward principle to another, and that it is even part of the
idea of reflection or conscience.

Passion or appetite implies a direct simple tendency towards such
and such objects, without distinction of the means by which they are
to be obtained.  Consequently it will often happen there will be a
desire of particular objects, in cases where they cannot be obtained
without manifest injury to others.  Reflection or conscience comes
in, need disapproves the pursuit of them in these circumstances; but
the desire remains.  Which is to be obeyed, appetite or reflection?
Cannot this question be answered, from the economy and constitution
of human nature merely, without saying which is strongest?  Or need
this at all come into consideration?  Would not the question be
INTELLIGIBLY and fully answered by saying that the principle of
reflection or conscience being compared with the various appetites,
passions, and affections in men, the former is manifestly superior
and chief, without regard to strength?  And how often soever the
latter happens to prevail, it is mere USURPATION:  the former
remains in nature and in kind its superior; and every instance of
such prevalence of the latter is an instance of breaking in upon and
violation of the constitution of man.

All this is no more than the distinction, which everybody is
acquainted with, between MERE POWER and AUTHORITY:  only instead of
being intended to express the difference between what is possible
and what is lawful in civil government, here it has been shown
applicable to the several principles in the mind of man.  Thus that
principle by which we survey, and either approve or disapprove our
own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what
is in its turn to have some influence--which may be said of every
passion, of the lowest appetites--but likewise as being superior, as
from its very nature manifestly claiming superiority over all
others, insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty,
conscience, without taking in judgment, direction, superintendency.
This is a constituent part of the idea--that is, of the faculty
itself; and to preside and govern, from the very economy and
constitution of man, belongs to it.  Had it strength, as it had
right; had it power, as it had manifest authority, it would
absolutely govern the world.

This gives us a further view of the nature of man; shows us what
course of life we were made for:  not only that our real nature
leads us to be influenced in some degree by reflection and
conscience, but likewise in what degree we are to be influenced by
it, if we will fall in with, and act agreeably to, the constitution
of our nature:  that this faculty was placed within to be our proper
governor, to direct and regulate all under principles, passions, and
motives of action.  This is its right and office:  thus sacred is
its authority.  And how often soever men violate and rebelliously
refuse to submit to it, for supposed interest which they cannot
otherwise obtain, or for the sake of passion which they cannot
otherwise gratify--this makes no alteration as to the NATURAL RIGHT
and OFFICE of conscience.

Let us now turn this whole matter another way, and suppose there was
no such thing at all as this natural supremacy of conscience--that
there was no distinction to be made between one inward principle and
another, but only that of strength--and see what would be the
consequence.

Consider, then, what is the latitude and compass of the actions of
man with regard to himself, his fellow-creatures, and the Supreme
Being?  What are their bounds, besides that of our natural power?
With respect to the two first, they are plainly no other than these:
no man seeks misery, as such, for himself; and no one unprovoked
does mischief to another for its own sake.  For in every degree
within these bounds, mankind knowingly, from passion or wantonness,
bring ruin and misery upon themselves and others.  And impiety and
profaneness--I mean what every one would call so who believes the
being of God--have absolutely no bounds at all.  Men blaspheme the
Author of nature, formally and in words renounce their allegiance to
their Creator.  Put an instance, then, with respect to any one of
these three.  Though we should suppose profane swearing, and in
general that kind of impiety now mentioned, to mean nothing, yet it
implies wanton disregard and irreverence towards an infinite Being
our Creator; and is this as suitable to the nature of man as
reverence and dutiful submission of heart towards that Almighty
Being?  Or suppose a man guilty of parricide, with all the
circumstances of cruelty which such an action can admit of.  This
action is done in consequence of its principle being for the present
strongest; and if there be no difference between inward principles,
but only that of strength, the strength being given you have the
whole nature of the man given, so far as it relates to this matter.
The action plainly corresponds to the principle, the principle being
in that degree of strength it was:  it therefore corresponds to the
whole nature of the man.  Upon comparing the action and the whole
nature, there arises no disproportion, there appears no
unsuitableness, between them.  Thus the MURDER OF A FATHER and the
NATURE OF MAN correspond to each other, as the same nature and an
act of filial duty.  If there be no difference between inward
principles, but only that of strength, we can make no distinction
between these two actions, considered as the actions of such a
creature; but in our coolest hours must approve or disapprove them
equally:  than which nothing can be reduced to a greater absurdity.



SERMON III.



The natural supremacy of reflection or conscience being thus
established, we may from it form a distinct notion of what is meant
by HUMAN NATURE when virtue is said to consist in following it, and
vice in deviating from it.

As the idea of a civil constitution implies in it united strength,
various subordinations under one direction--that of the supreme
authority--the different strength of each particular member of the
society not coming into the idea--whereas, if you leave out the
subordination, the union, and the one direction, you destroy and
lose it--so reason, several appetites, passions, and affections,
prevailing in different degrees of strength, is not THAT idea or
notion of HUMAN NATURE; but THAT NATURE consists in these several
principles considered as having a natural respect to each other, in
the several passions being naturally subordinate to the one superior
principle of reflection or conscience.  Every bias, instinct,
propension within, is a natural part of our nature, but not the
whole:  add to these the superior faculty whose office it is to
adjust, manage, and preside over them, and take in this its natural
superiority, and you complete the idea of human nature.  And as in
civil government the constitution is broken in upon and violated by
power and strength prevailing over authority; so the constitution of
man is broken in upon and violated by the lower faculties or
principles within prevailing over that which is in its nature
supreme over them all.  Thus, when it is said by ancient writers
that tortures and death are not so contrary to human nature as
injustice, by this, to be sure, is not meant that the aversion to
the former in mankind is less strong and prevalent than their
aversion to the latter, but that the former is only contrary to our
nature considered in a partial view, and which takes in only the
lowest part of it, that which we have in common with the brutes;
whereas the latter is contrary to our nature, considered in a higher
sense, as a system and constitution contrary to the whole economy of
man. {7}

And from all these things put together, nothing can be more evident
than that, exclusive of revelation, man cannot be considered as a
creature left by his Maker to act at random, and live at large up to
the extent of his natural power, as passion, humour, wilfulness,
happen to carry him, which is the condition brute creatures are in;
but that FROM HIS MAKE, CONSTITUTION, OR NATURE, HE IS IN THE
STRICTEST AND MOST PROPER SENSE A LAW TO HIMSELF.  He hath the rule
of right within:  what is wanting is only that he honestly attend to
it.

The inquiries which have been made by men of leisure after some
general rule, the conformity to or disagreement from which should
denominate our actions good or evil, are in many respects of great
service.  Yet let any plain, honest man, before he engages in any
course of action, ask himself, Is this I am going about right, or is
it wrong?  Is it good, or is it evil?  I do not in the least doubt
but that this question would be answered agreeably to truth and
virtue, by almost any fair man in almost any circumstance.  Neither
do there appear any cases which look like exceptions to this, but
those of superstition, and of partiality to ourselves.  Superstition
may perhaps be somewhat of an exception; but partiality to ourselves
is not, this being itself dishonesty.  For a man to judge that to be
the equitable, the moderate, the right part for him to act, which he
would see to be hard, unjust, oppressive in another, this is plain
vice, and can proceed only from great unfairness of mind.

But allowing that mankind hath the rule of right within himself, yet
it may be asked, "What obligations are we under to attend to and
follow it?"  I answer:  It has been proved that man by his nature is
a law to himself, without the particular distinct consideration of
the positive sanctions of that law:  the rewards and punishments
which we feel, and those which from the light of reason we have
ground to believe, are annexed to it.  The question, then, carries
its own answer along within it.  Your obligation to obey this law is
its being the law of your nature.  That your conscience approves of
and attests to such a course of action 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:  it therefore belongs to our condition of
being; it is our duty to walk in that path, and follow this guide,
without looking about to see whether we may not possibly forsake
them with impunity.

However, let us hear what is to be said against obeying this law of
our nature.  And the sum is no more than this:  "Why should we be
concerned about anything out of and beyond ourselves?  If we do find
within ourselves regards to others, and restraints of we know not
how many different kinds, yet these being embarrassments, and
hindering us from going the nearest way to our own good, why should
we not endeavour to suppress and get over them?"

Thus people go on with words, which when applied to human nature,
and the condition in which it is placed in this world, have really
no meaning.  For does not all this kind of talk go upon supposition,
that our happiness in this world consists in somewhat quite distinct
from regard to others, and that it is the privilege of vice to be
without restraint or confinement?  Whereas, on the contrary, the
enjoyments--in a manner all the common enjoyments of life, even the
pleasures of vice--depend upon these regards of one kind or another
to our fellow-creatures.  Throw off all regards to others, and we
should be quite indifferent to infamy and to honour; there could be
no such thing at all as ambition; and scarce any such thing as
covetousness; for we should likewise be equally indifferent to the
disgrace of poverty, the several neglects and kinds of contempt
which accompany this state, and to the reputation of riches, the
regard and respect they usually procure.  Neither is restraint by
any means peculiar to one course of life; but our very nature,
exclusive of conscience and our condition, lays us under an absolute
necessity of it.  We cannot gain any end whatever without being
confined to the proper means, which is often the most painful and
uneasy confinement.  And in numberless instances a present appetite
cannot be gratified without such apparent and immediate ruin and
misery that the most dissolute man in the world chooses to forego
the pleasure rather than endure the pain.

Is the meaning, then, to indulge those regards to our fellow-
creatures, and submit to those restraints which upon the whole are
attended with more satisfaction than uneasiness, and get over only
those which bring more uneasiness and inconvenience than
satisfaction?  "Doubtless this was our meaning."  You have changed
sides then.  Keep to this; be consistent with yourselves, and you
and the men of virtue are IN GENERAL perfectly agreed.  But let us
take care and avoid mistakes.  Let it not be taken for granted that
the temper of envy, rage, resentment, yields greater delight than
meekness, forgiveness, compassion, and good-will; especially when it
is acknowledged that rage, envy, resentment, are in themselves mere
misery; and that satisfaction arising from the indulgence of them is
little more than relief from that misery; whereas the temper of
compassion and benevolence is itself delightful; and the indulgence
of it, by doing good, affords new positive delight and enjoyment.
Let it not be taken for granted that the satisfaction arising from
the reputation of riches and power, however obtained, and from the
respect paid to them, is greater than the satisfaction arising from
the reputation of justice, honesty, charity, and the esteem which is
universally acknowledged to be their due.  And if it be doubtful
which of these satisfactions is the greatest, as there are persons
who think neither of them very considerable, yet there can be no
doubt concerning ambition and covetousness, virtue and a good mind,
considered in themselves, and as leading to different courses of
life; there can, I say, be no doubt, which temper and which course
is attended with most peace and tranquillity of mind, which with
most perplexity, vexation, and inconvenience.  And both the virtues
and vices which have been now mentioned, do in a manner equally
imply in them regards of one kind or another to our fellow-
creatures.  And with respect to restraint and confinement, whoever
will consider the restraints from fear and shame, the dissimulation,
mean arts of concealment, servile compliances, one or other of which
belong to almost every course of vice, will soon be convinced that
the man of virtue is by no means upon a disadvantage in this
respect.  How many instances are there in which men feel and own and
cry aloud under the chains of vice with which they are enthralled,
and which yet they will not shake off!  How many instances, in which
persons manifestly go through more pains and self-denial to gratify
a vicious passion, than would have been necessary to the conquest of
it!  To this is to be added, that when virtue is become habitual,
when the temper of it is acquired, what was before confinement
ceases to be so by becoming choice and delight.  Whatever restraint
and guard upon ourselves may be needful to unlearn any unnatural
distortion or odd gesture, yet in all propriety of speech, natural
behaviour must be the most easy and unrestrained.  It is manifest
that, in the common course of life, there is seldom any
inconsistency between our duty and what is CALLED interest:  it is
much seldomer that there is an inconsistency between duty and what
is really our present interest; meaning by interest, happiness and
satisfaction.  Self-love, then, though confined to the interest of
the present world, does in general perfectly coincide with virtue,
and leads us to one and the same course of life.  But, whatever
exceptions there are to this, which are much fewer than they are
commonly thought, all shall be set right at the final distribution
of things.  It is a manifest absurdity to suppose evil prevailing
finally over good, under the conduct and administration of a perfect
mined.

The whole argument, which I have been now insisting upon, may be
thus summed up, and given you in one view.  The nature of man is
adapted to some course of action or other.  Upon comparing some
actions with this nature, they appear suitable and correspondent to
it:  from comparison of other actions with the same nature, there
arises to our view some unsuitableness or disproportion.  The
correspondence of actions to the nature of the agent renders them
natural; their disproportion to it, unnatural.  That an action is
correspondent to the nature of the agent does not arise from its
being agreeable to the principle which happens to be the strongest:
for it may be so and yet be quite disproportionate to the nature of
the agent.  The correspondence therefore, or disproportion, arises
from somewhat else.  This can be nothing but a difference in nature
and kind, altogether distinct from strength, between the inward
principles.  Some then are in nature and kind superior to others.
And the correspondence arises from the action being conformable to
the higher principle; and the unsuitableness from its being contrary
to it.  Reasonable self-love and conscience are the chief or
superior principles in the nature of man; because an action may be
suitable to this nature, though all other principles be violated,
but becomes unsuitable if either of those are.  Conscience and self-
love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead us the same
way.  Duty and interest are perfectly coincident; for the most part
in this world, but entirely and in every instance if we take in the
future and the whole; this being implied in the notion of a good and
perfect administration of things.  Thus they who have been so wise
in their generation as to regard only their own supposed interest,
at the expense and to the injury of others, shall at last find, that
he who has given up all the advantages of the present world, rather
than violate his conscience and the relations of life, has
infinitely better provided for himself, and secured his owns
interest and happiness.



SERMON IV.
UPON THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TONGUE.
JAMES i. 26.



If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his
tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.

The translation of this text would be more determinate by being more
literal, thus:  If any man among you seemeth to be religious, not
bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man's
religion is vain.  This determines that the words, BUT DECEIVETH HIS
OWN HEART, are not put in opposition to SEEMETH TO BE RELIGIOUS, but
to BRIDLETH NOT HIS TONGUE.  The certain determinate meaning of the
text then being, that he who seemeth to be religious, and bridleth
not his tongue, but in that particular deceiveth his own heart, this
man's religion is vain, we may observe somewhat very forcible and
expressive in these words of St. James.  As if the apostle had said,
No man surely can make any pretences to religion, who does not at
least believe that he bridleth his tongue:  if he puts on any
appearance or face of religion, and yet does not govern his tongue,
he must surely deceive himself in that particular, and think he
does; and whoever is so unhappy as to deceive himself in this, to
imagine he keeps that unruly faculty in due subjection when indeed
he does not, whatever the other part of his life be, his religion is
vain; the government of the tongue being a most material restraint
which virtue lays us under:  without it no man can be truly
religious.

In treating upon this subject, I will consider,

First, what is the general vice or fault here referred to; or what
disposition in men is supposed in moral reflections and precepts
concerning BRIDLING THE TONGUE.

Secondly, when it may be said of any one, that he has a due
government over himself in this respect.

I.  Now, the fault referred to, and the disposition supposed, in
precepts and reflections concerning the government of the tongue, is
not evil-speaking from malice, nor lying or bearing false witness
from indirect selfish designs.  The disposition to these, and the
actual vices themselves, all come under other subjects.  The tongue
may be employed about, and made to serve all the purposes of vice,
in tempting and deceiving, in perjury and injustice.  But the thing
here supposed and referred to, is talkativeness:  a disposition to
be talking, abstracted from the consideration of what is to be said;
with very little or no regard to, or thought of doing, either good
or harm.  And let not any imagine this to be a slight matter, and
that it deserves not to have so great weight laid upon it, till he
has considered what evil is implied in it, and the bad effects which
follow from it.  It is perhaps true, that they who are addicted to
this folly would choose to confine themselves to trifles and
indifferent subjects, and so intend only to be guilty of being
impertinent:  but as they cannot go on for ever talking of nothing,
as common matters will not afford a sufficient fund for perpetual
continued discourse, where subjects of this kind are exhausted they
will go on to defamation, scandal, divulging of secrets, their own
secrets as well as those of others--anything rather than be silent.
They are plainly hurried on in the heat of their talk to say quite
different things from what they first intended, and which they
afterwards wish unsaid:  or improper things, which they had no other
end in saying, but only to afford employment to their tongue.  And
if these people expect to be heard and regarded--for there are some
content merely with talking--they will invent to engage your
attention:  and, when they have heard the least imperfect hint of an
affair, they will out of their own head add the circumstances of
time and place and other matters to make out their story and give
the appearance of probability to it:  not that they have any concern
about being believed, otherwise than as a means of being heard.  The
thing is, to engage your attention; to take you up wholly for the
present time:  what reflections will be made afterwards, is in truth
the least of their thoughts.  And further, when persons who indulge
themselves in these liberties of the tongue are in any degree
offended with another--as little disgusts and misunderstandings will
be--they allow themselves to defame and revile such a one without
any moderation or bounds; though the offence is so very slight, that
they themselves would not do, nor perhaps wish him, an injury in any
other way.  And in this case the scandal and revilings are chiefly
owing to talkativeness, and not bridling their tongue, and so come
under our present subject.  The least occasion in the world will
make the humour break out in this particular way or in another.  It
as like a torrent, which must and will flow; but the least thing
imaginable will first of all give it either this or another
direction, turn it into this or that channel:  or like a fire--the
nature of which, when in a heap of combustible matter, is to spread
and lay waste all around; but any one of a thousand little accidents
will occasion it to break out first either in this or another
particular part.

The subject then before us, though it does run up into, and can
scarce be treated as entirely distinct from all others, yet it needs
not be so much mixed or blended with them as it often is.  Every
faculty and power may be used as the instrument of premeditated vice
and wickedness, merely as the most proper and effectual means of
executing such designs.  But if a man, from deep malice and desire
of revenge, should meditate a falsehood with a settled design to
ruin his neighbour's reputation, and should with great coolness and
deliberation spread it, nobody would choose to say of such a one
that he had no government of his tongue.  A man may use the faculty
of speech as an instrument of false witness, who yet has so entire a
command over that faculty as never to speak but from forethought and
cool design.  Here the crime is injustice and perjury, and, strictly
speaking, no more belongs to the present subject than perjury and
injustice in any other way.  But there is such a thing as a
disposition to be talking for its own sake; from which persons often
say anything, good or bad, of others, merely as a subject of
discourse, according to the particular temper they themselves happen
to be in, and to pass away the present time.  There is likewise to
be observed in persons such a strong and eager desire of engaging
attention to what they say, that they will speak good or evil, truth
or otherwise, merely as one or the other seems to be most hearkened
to:  and this though it is sometimes joined, is not the same with
the desire of being thought important and men of consequence.  There
is in some such a disposition to be talking, that an offence of the
slightest kind, and such as would not raise any other resentment,
yet raises, if I may so speak, the resentment of the tongue--puts it
into a flame, into the most ungovernable motions.  This outrage,
when the person it respects is present, we distinguish in the lower
rank of people by a peculiar term:  and let it be observed, that
though the decencies of behaviour are a little kept, the same
outrage and virulence, indulged when he is absent, is an offence of
the same kind.  But, not to distinguish any further in this manner,
men race into faults and follies which cannot so properly be
referred to any one general head as this--that they have not a due
government over their tongue.

And this unrestrained volubility and wantonness of speech is the
occasion of numberless evils and vexations in life.  It begets
resentment in him who is the subject of it, sows the seed of strife
and dissension amongst others, and inflames little disgusts and
offences which if let alone would wear away of themselves:  it is
often of as bad effect upon the good name of others, as deep envy or
malice:  and to say the least of it in this respect, it destroys and
perverts a certain equity of the utmost importance to society to be
observed--namely, that praise and dispraise, a good or bad
character, should always be bestowed according to desert.  The
tongue used in such a licentious manner is like a sword in the hand
of a madman; it is employed at random, it can scarce possibly do any
good, and for the most part does a world of mischief; and implies
not only great folly and a trifling spirit, but great viciousness of
mind, great indifference to truth and falsity, and to the
reputation, welfare, and good of others.  So much reason is there
for what St. James says of the tongue, IT IS A FIRE, A WORLD OF
INIQUITY, IT DEFILETH THE WHOLE BODY, SETTETH ON FIRE THE COURSE OF
NATURE, AND IS ITSELF SET ON FIRE OF HELL. {8}  This is the faculty
or disposition which we are required to keep a guard upon:  these
are the vices and follies it runs into when not kept under due
restraint.

II.  Wherein the due government of the tongue consists, or when it
may be said of any one in a moral and religious sense that he
BRIDLETH HIS TONGUE, I come now to consider.

The due and proper use of any natural faculty or power is to be
judged of by the end and design for which it was given us.  The
chief purpose for which the faculty of speech was given to man is
plainly that we might communicate our thoughts to each other, in
order to carry on the affairs of the world; for business, and for
our improvement in knowledge and learning.  But the good Author of
our nature designed us not only necessaries, but likewise enjoyment
and satisfaction, in that being He hath graciously given, and in
that condition of life He hath placed us in.  There are secondary
uses of our faculties:  they administer to delight, as well as to
necessity; and as they are equally-adapted to both, there is no
doubt but He intended them for our gratification as well as for the
support and continuance of our being.  The secondary use of speech
is to please and be entertaining to each other in conversation.
This is in every respect allowable and right; it unites men closer
in alliances and friendships; gives us a fellow-feeling of the
prosperity and unhappiness of each other; and is in several respects
servicable to virtue, and to promote good behaviour in the world.
And provided there be not too much time spent in it, if it were
considered only in the way of gratification and delight, men must
have strange notion of God and of religion to think that He can be
offended with it, or that it is any way inconsistent with the
strictest virtue.  But the truth is, such sort of conversation,
though it has no particular good tendency, yet it has a general good
one; it is social and friendly, and tends to promote humanity, good-
nature, and civility.

As the end and use, so likewise the abuse of speech, relates to the
one or other of these:  either to business or to conversation.  As
to the former:  deceit in the management of business and affairs
does not properly belong to the subject now before us:  though one
may just mention that multitude, that heedless number of words with
which business is perplexed, where a much fewer would, as it should
seem, better serve the purpose; but this must be left to those who
understand the matter.  The government of the tongue, considered as
a subject of itself, relates chiefly to conversation; to that kind
of discourse which usually fills up the time spent in friendly
meetings and visits of civility.  And the danger is, lest persons
entertain themselves and others at the expense of their wisdom and
their virtue, and to the injury or offence of their neighbour.  If
they will observe and keep clear of these, they may be as free and
easy and unreserved as they can desire.

The cautions to be given for avoiding these dangers, and to render
conversation innocent and agreeable, fall under the following
particulars:  silence; talking of indifferent things; and, which
makes up too great a part of conversation, giving of characters,
speaking well or evil of others.

The Wise Man observes that "there is a time to speak, and a time to
keep silence."  One meets with people in the world who seem never to
have made the last of these observations.  And yet these great
talkers do not at all speak from their having anything to say, as
every sentence shows, but only from their inclination to be talking.
Their conversation is merely an exercise of the tongue:  no other
human faculty has any share in it.  It is strange these persons can
help reflecting, that unless they have in truth a superior capacity,
and are in an extraordinary manner furnished for conversation if
they are entertaining, it is at their own expense.  Is it possible
that it should never come into people's thoughts to suspect whether
or no it be to their advantage to show so very much of themselves?
"O that you would altogether hold your peace, and it should be your
wisdom." {9}  Remember likewise there are persons who love fewer
words, an inoffensive sort of people, and who deserve some regard,
though of too still and composed tempers for you.  Of this number
was the Son of Sirach:  for he plainly speaks from experience when
he says, "As hills of sand are to the steps of the aged, so is one
of many words to a quiet man."  But one would think it should be
obvious to every one, that when they are in company with their
superiors of any kind--in years, knowledge, and experience--when
proper and useful subjects are discoursed of, which they cannot bear
a part in, that these are times for silence, when they should learn
to hear, and be attentive, at least in their turn.  It is indeed a
very unhappy way these people are in; they in a manner cut
themselves out from all advantage of conversation, except that of
being entertained with their own talk:  their business in coming
into company not being at all to be informed, to hear, to learn, but
to display themselves, or rather to exert their faculty, and talk
without any design at all.  And if we consider conversation as an
entertainment, as somewhat to unbend the mind, as a diversion from
the cares, the business, and the sorrows of life, it is of the very
nature of it that the discourse be mutual.  This, I say, is implied
in the very notion of what we distinguish by conversation, or being
in company.  Attention to the continued discourse of one alone grows
more painful, often, than the cares and business we come to be
diverted from.  He, therefore, who imposes this upon us is guilty of
a double offence--arbitrarily enjoining silence upon all the rest,
and likewise obliging them to this painful attention.

I am sensible these things are apt to be passed over, as too little
to come into a serious discourse; but in reality men are obliged,
even in point of morality and virtue, to observe all the decencies
of behaviour.  The greatest evils in life have had their rise from
somewhat which was thought of too little importance to be attended
to.  And as to the matter we are now upon, it is absolutely
necessary to be considered.  For if people will not maintain a due
government over themselves, in regarding proper times and seasons
for silence, but WILL be talking, they certainly, whether they
design it or not at first, will go on to scandal and evil-speaking,
and divulging secrets.

If it were needful to say anything further to persuade men to learn
this lesson of silence, one might put them in mind how insignificant
they render themselves by this excessive talkativeness:  insomuch
that, if they do chance to say anything which deserves to be
attended to and regarded, it is lost in the variety and abundance
which they utter of another sort.

The occasions of silence then are obvious, and one would think
should be easily distinguished by everybody:  namely, when a man has
nothing to say; or nothing but what is better unsaid:  better,
either in regard to the particular persons he is present with; or
from its being an interruption to conversation itself; or to
conversation of a more agreeable kind; or better, lastly, with
regard to himself.  I will end this particular with two reflections
of the Wise Man; one of which, in the strongest manner, exposes the
ridiculous part of this licentiousness of the tongue; and the other,
the great danger and viciousness of it.  When he that is a fool
walketh by the way side, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to
every one that he is a fool. {10}  The other is, In the multitude of
words there wanteth not sin. {11}

As to the government of the tongue in respect to talking upon
indifferent subjects:  after what has been said concerning the due
government of it in respect to the occasions and times for silence,
there is little more necessary than only to caution men to be fully
satisfied that the subjects are indeed of an indifferent nature; and
not to spend too much time in conversation of this kind.  But
persons must be sure to take heed that the subject of their
discourse be at least of an indifferent nature:  that it be no way
offensive to virtue, religion, or good manners:  that it be not of a
licentious, dissolute sort, this leaving always ill impressions upon
the mind; that it be no way injurious or vexatious to others; and
that too much time be not spent this way, to the neglect of those
duties and offices of life which belong to their station and
condition in the world.  However, though there is not any necessity
that men should aim at being important and weighty in every sentence
they speak:  yet since useful subjects, at least of some kinds, are
as entertaining as others, a wise man, even when he desires to
unbend his mind from business, would choose that the conversation
might turn upon somewhat instructive.

The last thing is, the government of the tongue as relating to
discourse of the affairs of others, and giving of characters.  These
are in a manner the same; and one can scarce call it an indifferent
subject, because discourse upon it almost perpetually runs into
somewhat criminal.

And, first of all, it were very much to be wished that this did not
take up so great a part of conversation; because it is indeed a
subject of a dangerous nature.  Let any one consider the various
interests, competitions, and little misunderstandings which arise
amongst men; and he will soon see that he is not unprejudiced and
impartial; that he is not, as I may speak, neutral enough to trust
himself with talking of the character and concerns of his neighbour,
in a free, careless, and unreserved manner.  There is perpetually,
and often it is not attended to, a rivalship amongst people of one
kind or another in respect to wit, beauty, learning, fortune, and
that one thing will insensibly influence them to speak to the
disadvantage of others, even where there is no formed malice or ill-
design.  Since therefore it is so hard to enter into this subject
without offending, the first thing to be observed is that people
should learn to decline it; to get over that strong inclination most
have to be talking of the concerns and behaviour of their neighbour.

But since it is impossible that this subject should be wholly
excluded conversation; and since it is necessary that the characters
of men should be known:  the next thing is that it is a matter of
importance what is said; and, therefore, that we should be
religiously scrupulous and exact to say nothing, either good or bad,
but what is true.  I put it thus, because it is in reality of as
great importance to the good of society, that the characters of bad
men should be known, as that the characters of good men should.
People who are given to scandal and detraction may indeed make an
ill-use of this observation; but truths, which are of service
towards regulating our conduct, are not to be disowned, or even
concealed, because a bad use may be made of them.  This however
would be effectually prevented if these two things were attended to.
First, That, though it is equally of bad consequence to society that
men should have either good or ill characters which they do not
deserve; yet, when you say somewhat good of a man which he does not
deserve, there is no wrong done him in particular; whereas, when you
say evil of a man which he does not deserve, here is a direct formal
injury, a real piece of injustice done him.  This therefore makes a
wide difference; and gives us, in point of virtue, much greater
latitude in speaking well than ill of others.  Secondly, A good man
is friendly to his fellow-creatures, and a lover of mankind; and so
will, upon every occasion, and often without any, say all the good
he can of everybody; but, so far as he is a good man, will never be
disposed to speak evil of any, unless there be some other reason for
it, besides, barely that it is true.  If he be charged with having
given an ill character, he will scarce think it a sufficient
justification of himself to say it was a true one, unless he can
also give some further account how he came to do so:  a just
indignation against particular instances of villainy, where they are
great and scandalous; or to prevent an innocent man from being
deceived and betrayed, when he has great trust and confidence in one
who does not deserve it.  Justice must be done to every part of a
subject when we are considering it.  If there be a man, who bears a
fair character in the world, whom yet we know to be without faith or
honesty, to be really an ill man; it must be allowed in general that
we shall do a piece of service to society by letting such a one's
true character be known.  This is no more than what we have an
instance of in our Saviour himself; {12} though He was mild and
gentle beyond example.  However, no words can express too strongly
the caution which should be used in such a case as this.

Upon the whole matter:  If people would observe the obvious
occasions of silence, if they would subdue the inclination to tale-
bearing, and that eager desire to engage attention, which is an
original disease in some minds, they would be in little danger of
offending with their tongue; and would, in a moral and religious
sense, have due government over it.

I will conclude with some precepts and reflections of the Son of
Sirach upon this subject.  Be swift to hear; and, if thou hast
understanding, answer thy neighbour; if not, lay thy hand upon thy
mouth.  Honour and shame is in talk.  A man of an ill tongue is
dangerous in his city, and he that is rash in his talk shall be
hated.  A wise man wilt hold his tongue till he see opportunity; but
a babbler and a fool will regard no time.  He that useth many words
shall be abhorred; and he that taketh to himself authority therein
shall be hated.  A backbiting tongue hath disquieted many; strong
cities hath it pulled down, and overthrown the houses of great men.
The tongue of a man is his fall; but if thou love to hear, thou
shall receive understanding.



SERMON V.
UPON COMPASSION.
ROM. xii. 15.



Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.

Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and
public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to
contribute to the good of others.  Whoever will consider may see
that, in general, there is no contrariety between these; but that
from the original constitution of man, and the circumstances he is
placed in, they perfectly coincide, and mutually carry on each
other.  But, among the great variety of affections or principles of
actions in our nature, some in their primary intention and design
seem to belong to the single or private, others to the public or
social capacity.  The affections required in the text are of the
latter sort.  When we rejoice in the prosperity of others, and
compassionate their distresses, we as it were substitute them for
ourselves, their interest for our own; and have the same kind of
pleasure in their prosperity, and sorrow in their distress, as we
have from reflection upon our own.  Now there is nothing strange or
unaccountable in our being thus carried out, and affected towards
the interests of others.  For, if there be any appetite, or any
inward principle besides self-love; why may there not be an
affection to the good of our fellow-creatures, and delight from that
affection's being gratified, and uneasiness from things going
contrary to it? {13}

Of these two, delight in the prosperity of others, and compassion
for their distresses, the last is felt much more generally than the
former.  Though men do not universally rejoice with all whom they
see rejoice, yet, accidental obstacles removed, they naturally
compassionate all, in some degree, whom they see in distress; so far
as they have any real perception or sense of that distress:
insomuch that words expressing this latter, pity, compassion,
frequently occur:  whereas we have scarce any single one by which
the former is distinctly expressed.  Congratulation indeed answers
condolence:  but both these words are intended to signify certain
forms of civility rather than any inward sensation or feeling.  This
difference or inequality is so remarkable that we plainly consider
compassion as itself an original, distinct, particular affection in
human nature; whereas to rejoice in the good of others is only a
consequence of the general affection of love and good-will to them.
The reason and account of which matter is this:  when a man has
obtained any particular advantage or felicity, his end is gained;
and he does not in that particular want the assistance of another:
there was therefore no need of a distinct affection towards that
felicity of another already obtained; neither would such affection
directly carry him on to do good to that person:  whereas men in
distress want assistance; and compassion leads us directly to assist
them.  The object of the former is the present felicity of another;
the object of the latter is the present misery of another.  It is
easy to see that the latter wants a particular affection for its
relief, and that the former does not want one because it does not
want assistance.  And upon supposition of a distinct affection in
both cases, the one must rest in the exercise of itself, having
nothing further to gain; the other does not rest in itself, but
carries us on to assist the distressed.

But, supposing these affections natural to the mind, particularly
the last; "Has not each man troubles enough of his own? must he
indulge an affection which appropriates to himself those of others?
which leads him to contract the least desirable of all friendships,
friendships with the unfortunate?  Must we invert the known rule of
prudence, and choose to associate ourselves with the distressed? or,
allowing that we ought, so far as it is in our power to relieve
them, yet is it not better to do this from reason and duty?  Does
not passion and affection of every kind perpetually mislead us?
Nay, is not passion and affection itself a weakness, and what a
perfect being must be entirely free from?"  Perhaps so, but it is
mankind I am speaking of; imperfect creatures, and who naturally
and, from the condition we are placed in, necessarily depend upon
each other.  With respect to such creatures, it would be found of as
bad consequence to eradicate all natural affections as to be
entirely governed by them.  This would almost sink us to the
condition of brutes; and that would leave us without a sufficient
principle of action.  Reason alone, whatever any one may wish, is
not in reality a sufficient motive of virtue in such a creature as
man; but this reason joined with those affections which God has
impressed upon his heart, and when these are allowed scope to
exercise themselves, but under strict government and direction of
reason, then it is we act suitably to our nature, and to the
circumstances God has placed us in.  Neither is affection itself at
all a weakness; nor does it argue defect, any otherwise than as our
senses and appetites do; they belong to our condition of nature, and
are what we cannot be without.  God Almighty is, to be sure, unmoved
by passion or appetite, unchanged by affection; but then it is to be
added that He neither sees nor hears nor perceives things by any
senses like ours; but in a manner infinitely more perfect.  Now, as
it is an absurdity almost too gross to be mentioned, for a man to
endeavour to get rid of his senses, because the Supreme Being
discerns things more perfectly without them; it is as real, though
not so obvious an absurdity, to endeavour to eradicate the passions
He has given us, because He is without them.  For, since our
passions are as really a part of our constitution as our senses;
since the former as really belong to our condition of nature as the
latter; to get rid of either is equally a violation of and breaking
in upon that nature and constitution He has given us.  Both our
senses and our passions are a supply to the imperfection of our
nature; thus they show that we are such sort of creatures as to
stand in need of those helps which higher orders of creatures do
not.  But it is not the supply, but the deficiency; as it is not a
remedy, but a disease, which is the imperfection.  However, our
appetites, passions, senses, no way imply disease:  nor indeed do
they imply deficiency or imperfection of any sort; but only this,
that the constitution of nature, according to which God has made us,
is such as to require them.  And it is so far from being true, that
a wise man must entirely suppress compassion, and all fellow-feeling
for others, as a weakness; and trust to reason alone to teach and
enforce upon him the practice of the several charities we owe to our
kind; that, on the contrary, even the bare exercise of such
affections would itself be for the good and happiness of the world;
and the imperfection of the higher principles of reason and religion
in man, the little influence they have upon our practice, and the
strength and prevalency of contrary ones, plainly require these
affections to be a restraint upon these latter, and a supply to the
deficiencies of the former.

First, The very exercise itself of these affections in a just and
reasonable manner and degree would upon the whole increase the
satisfactions and lessen the miseries of life.

It is the tendency and business of virtue and religion to procure,
as much as may be, universal good-will, trust, and friendship
amongst mankind.  If this could be brought to obtain; and each man
enjoyed the happiness of others, as every one does that of a friend;
and looked upon the success and prosperity of his neighbour as every
one does upon that of his children and family; it is too manifest to
be insisted upon how much the enjoyments of life would be increased.
There would be so much happiness introduced into the world, without
any deduction or inconvenience from it, in proportion as the precept
of REJOICING WITH THOSE WHO REJOICE was universally obeyed.  Our
Saviour has owned this good affection as belonging to our nature in
the parable of the LOST SHEEP, and does not think it to the
disadvantage of a perfect state to represent its happiness as
capable of increase from reflection upon that of others.

But since in such a creature as man, compassion or sorrow for the
distress of others seems so far necessarily connected with joy in
their prosperity, as that whoever rejoices in one must unavoidably
compassionate the other; there cannot be that delight or
satisfaction, which appears to be so considerable, without the
inconveniences, whatever they are, of compassion.

However, without considering this connection, there is no doubt but
that more good than evil, more delight than sorrow, arises from
compassion itself; there being so many things which balance the
sorrow of it.  There is first the relief which the distressed feel
from this affection in others towards them.  There is likewise the
additional misery which they would feel from the reflection that no
one commiserated their case.  It is indeed true that any
disposition, prevailing beyond a certain degree, becomes somewhat
wrong; and we have ways of speaking, which, though they do not
directly express that excess, yet always lead our thoughts to it,
and give us the notion of it.  Thus, when mention is made of delight
in being pitied, this always conveys to our mind the notion of
somewhat which is really a weakness.  The manner of speaking, I say,
implies a certain weakness and feebleness of mind, which is and
ought to be disapproved.  But men of the greatest fortitude would in
distress feel uneasiness from knowing that no person in the world
had any sort of compassion or real concern for them; and in some
cases, especially when the temper is enfeebled by sickness, or any
long and great distress, doubtless, would feel a kind of relief even
from the helpless goodwill and ineffectual assistances of those
about them.  Over against the sorrow of compassion is likewise to be
set a peculiar calm kind of satisfaction, which accompanies it,
unless in cases where the distress of another is by some means so
brought home to ourselves as to become in a manner our own; or when
from weakness of mind the affection rises too high, which ought to
be corrected.  This tranquillity, or calm satisfaction, proceeds
partly from consciousness of a right affection and temper of mind,
and partly from a sense of our own freedom from the misery we
compassionate.  This last may possibly appear to some at first sight
faulty; but it really is not so.  It is the same with that positive
enjoyment, which sudden ease from pain for the present affords,
arising from a real sense of misery, joined with a sense of our
freedom from it; which in all cases must afford some degree of
satisfaction.

To these things must be added the observation which respects both
the affections we are considering; that they who have got over all
fellow-feeling for others have withal contracted a certain
callousness of heart, which renders them insensible to most other
satisfactions but those of the grossest kind.

Secondly, Without the exercise of these affections men would
certainly be much more wanting in the offices of charity they owe to
cache other, and likewise more cruel and injurious than they are at
present.

The private interest of the individual would not be sufficiently
provided for by reasonable and cool self-love alone; therefore the
appetites and passions are placed within as a guard and further
security, without which it would not be taken due care of.  It is
manifest our life would be neglected were it not for the calls of
hunger and thirst and weariness; notwithstanding that without them
reason would assure us that the recruits of food and sleep are the
necessary means of our preservation.  It is therefore absurd to
imagine that, without affections, the same reason alone would be
more effectual to engage us to perform the duties we owe to our
fellow-creatures.  One of this make would be as defective, as much
wanting, considered with respect to society, as one of the former
make would be defective, or wanting, considered as an individual, or
in his private capacity.  Is it possible any can in earnest think
that a public spirit, i.e., a settled reasonable principle of
benevolence to mankind, is so prevalent and strong in the species as
that we may venture to throw off the under affections, which are its
assistants, carry it forward and mark out particular courses for it;
family, friends, neighbourhood, the distressed, our country?  The
common joys and the common sorrows, which belong to these relations
and circumstances, are as plainly useful to society as the pain and
pleasure belonging to hunger, thirst, and weariness are of service
to the individual.  In defect of that higher principle of reason,
compassion is often the only way by which the indigent can have
access to us:  and therefore, to eradicate this, though it is not
indeed formally to deny them that assistance which is their due; yet
it is to cut them off from that which is too frequently their only
way of obtaining it.  And as for those who have shut up this door
against the complaints of the miserable, and conquered this
affection in themselves; even these persons will be under great
restraints from the same affection in others.  Thus a man who has
himself no sense of injustice, cruelty, oppression, will be kept
from running the utmost lengths of wickedness by fear of that
detestation, and even resentment of inhumanity, in many particular
instances of it, which compassion for the object towards whom such
inhumanity is exercised, excites in the bulk of mankind.  And this
is frequently the chief danger and the chief restraint which tyrants
and the great oppressors of the world feel.

In general, experience will show that, as want of natural appetite
to food supposes and proceeds from some bodily disease; so the
apathy the Stoics talk of as much supposes, or is accompanied with,
somewhat amiss in the moral character, in that which is the health
of the mind.  Those who formerly aimed at this upon the foot of
philosophy appear to have had better success in eradicating the
affections of tenderness and compassion than they had with the
passions of envy, pride, and resentment:  these latter, at best,
were but concealed, and that imperfectly too.  How far this
observation may be extended to such as endeavour to suppress the
natural impulses of their affections, in order to form themselves
for business and the world, I shall not determine.  But there does
not appear any capacity or relation to be named, in which men ought
to be entirely deaf to the calls of affection, unless the judicial
one is to be excepted.

And as to those who are commonly called the men of pleasure, it is
manifest that the reason they set up for hardness of heart is to
avoid being interrupted in their course by the ruin and misery they
are the authors of; neither are persons of this character always the
most free from the impotencies of envy and resentment.  What may men
at last bring themselves to, by suppressing their passions and
affections of one kind, and leaving those of the other in their full
strength?  But surely it might be expected that persons who make
pleasure their study and their business, if they understood what
they profess, would reflect, how many of the entertainments of life,
how many of those kind of amusements which seem peculiarly to belong
to men of leisure and education they became insensible to by this
acquired hardness of heart.

I shall close these reflections with barely mentioning the behaviour
of that divine Person, who was the example of all perfection in
human nature, as represented in the Gospels mourning, and even, in a
literal sense, weeping over the distresses of His creatures.

The observation already made, that, of the two affections mentioned
in the text, the latter exerts itself much more than the former;
that, from the original constitution of human nature, we much more
generally and sensibly compassionate the distressed than rejoice
within the prosperous, requires to be particularly considered.  This
observation, therefore, with the reflections which arise out of it,
and which it leads our thoughts to, shall be the subject of another
discourse.

For the conclusion of this, let me just take notice of the danger of
over-great refinements; of going beside or beyond the plain,
obvious, first appearances of things, upon the subject of morals and
religion.  The least observation will show how little the generality
of men are capable of speculations.  Therefore morality and religion
must be somewhat plan and easy to be understood:  it must appeal to
what we call plain common sense, as distinguished from superior
capacity and improvement; because it appeals to mankind.  Persons of
superior capacity and improvement have often fallen into errors
which no one of mere common understanding could.  Is it possible
that one of this latter character could even of himself have thought
that there was absolutely no such thing in mankind as affection to
the good of others? suppose of parents to their children; or that
what he felt upon seeing a friend in distress was only fear for
himself; or, upon supposition of the affections of kindness and
compassion, that it was the business of wisdom and virtue to set him
about extirpating them as fast as he could?  And yet each of these
manifest contradictions to nature has been laid down by men of
speculation as a discovery in moral philosophy; which they, it
seems, have found out through all the specious appearances to the
contrary.  This reflection may be extended further.  The
extravagances of enthusiasm and superstition do not at all lie in
the road of common sense; and therefore, so far as they are ORIGINAL
MISTAKES, must be owing to going beside or beyond it.  Now, since
inquiry and examination can relate only to things so obscure and
uncertain as to stand in need of it, and to persons who are capable
of it; the proper advice to be given to plain honest men, to secure
them from the extremes both of superstition and irreligion, is that
of the Son of Sirach:  In every good work trust thy own soul; for
this is the keeping of the commandment. {14}



SERMON VI.
UPON COMPASSION.
PREACHED THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT.
Rom. xii. 15.



Rejoice with then that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.

There is a much more exact correspondence between the natural and
moral world than we are apt to take notice of.  The inward frame of
man does in a peculiar manner answer to the external condition and
circumstances of life in which he is placed.  This is a particular
instance of that general observation of the Son of Sirach:  All
things are double one against another, and God hath made nothing
imperfect. {15}  The several passions and affections in the heart of
man, compared with the circumstances of life in which he is placed,
afford, to such as will attend to them, as certain instances of
final causes, as any whatever, which are more commonly alleged for
such:  since those affections lead him to a certain determinate
course of action suitable to those circumstances; as (for instance)
compassion to relieve the distressed.  And as all observations of
final causes, drawn from the principles of action in the heart of
man, compared with the condition he is placed in, serve all the good
uses which instances of final causes in the material world about us
do; and both these are equally proofs of wisdom and design in the
Author of nature:  so the former serve to further good purposes;
they show us what course of life we are made for, what is our duty,
and in a peculiar manner enforce upon us the practice of it.

Suppose we are capable of happiness and of misery in degrees equally
intense and extreme, yet, we are capable of the latter for a much
longer time, beyond all comparison.  We see men in the tortures of
pain for hours, days, and, excepting the short suspensions of sleep,
for months together, without intermission, to which no enjoyments of
life do, in degree and continuance, bear any sort of proportion.
And such is our make and that of the world about us that any thing
may become the instrument of pain and sorrow to us.  Thus almost any
one man is capable of doing mischief to any other, though he may not
be capable of doing him good; and if he be capable of doing him some
good, he is capable of doing him more evil.  And it is, in
numberless cases, much more in our power to lessen the miseries of
others than to promote their positive happiness, any otherwise than
as the former often includes the latter; ease from misery
occasioning for some time the greatest positive enjoyment.  This
constitution of nature, namely, that it is so munch more in our
power to occasion and likewise to lessen misery than to promote
positive happiness, plainly required a particular affection to
hinder us from abusing, and to incline us to make a right use of the
former powers, I.E., the powers both to occasion and to lessen
misery; over and above what was necessary to induce us to make a
right use of the latter power, that of promoting positive happiness.
The power we have over the misery of our fellow-creatures, to
occasion or lessen it, being a more important trust than the power
we have of promoting their positive happiness; the former requires
and has a further, an additional, security and guard against its
being violated, beyond and over and above what the latter has.  The
social nature of man, and general goodwill to his species, equally
prevent him from doing evil, incline him to relieve the distressed,
and to promote the positive happiness of his fellow-creatures; but
compassion only restrains from the first, and carries him to the
second; it hath nothing to do with the third.

The final causes, then, of compassion are to prevent and to relieve
misery.

As to the former:  this affection may plainly be a restraint upon
resentment, envy, unreasonable self-love; that is, upon all the
principles from which men do evil to one another.  Let us instance
only in resentment.  It seldom happens, in regulated societies, that
men have an enemy so entirely in their power as to be able to
satiate their resentment with safety.  But if we were to put this
case, it is plainly supposable that a person might bring his enemy
into such a condition, as from being the object of anger and rage,
to become an object of compassion, even to himself, though the most
malicious man in the world; and in this case compassion would stop
him, if he could stop with safety, from pursuing his revenge any
further.  But since nature has placed within us more powerful
restraints to prevent mischief, and since the final cause of
compassion is much more to relieve misery, let us go on to the
consideration of it in this view.

As this world was not intended to be a state of any great
satisfaction or high enjoyment, so neither was it intended to be a
mere scene of unhappiness and sorrow.  Mitigations and reliefs are
provided by the merciful Author of nature for most of the
afflictions in human life.  There is kind provision made even
against our frailties:  as we are so constituted that time
abundantly abates our sorrows, and begets in us that resignment of
temper, which ought to have been produced by a better cause; a due
sense of the authority of God, and our state of dependence.  This
holds in respect too far the greatest part of the evils of life; I
suppose, in some degree, as to pain and sickness.  Now this part of
the constitution or make of man, considered as some relief to
misery, and not as provision for positive happiness, is, if I may so
speak, an instance of nature's compassion for us; and every natural
remedy or relief to misery may be considered in the same view.

But since in many cases it is very much in our power to alleviate
the miseries of each other; and benevolence, though natural in man
to man, yet is in a very low degree kept down by interest and
competitions; and men, for the most part, are so engaged in the
business and pleasures of the world, as to overlook and turn away
from objects of misery; which are plainly considered as
interruptions to them in their way, as intruders upon their
business, their gaiety, and mirth:  compassion is an advocate within
us in their behalf, to gain the unhappy admittance and access, to
make their case attended to.  If it sometimes serves a contrary
purpose, and makes men industriously turn away from the miserable,
these are only instances of abuse and perversion:  for the end, for
which the affection was given us, most certainly is not to make us
avoid, but to make us attend to, the objects of it.  And if men
would only resolve to allow thus much to it:  let it bring before
their view, the view of their mind, the miseries of their fellow-
creatures; let it gain for them that their case be considered; I am
persuaded it would not fail of gaining more, and that very few real
objects of charity would pass unrelieved.  Pain and sorrow and
misery have a right to our assistance:  compassion puts us in mind
of the debt, and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the
distressed.  For, to endeavour to get rid of the sorrow of
compassion by turning from the wretched, when yet it is in our power
to relieve them, is as unnatural as to endeavour to get rid of the
pain of hunger by keeping from the sight of food.  That we can do
one with greater success than we can the other is no proof that one
is less a violation of nature than the other.  Compassion is a call,
a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural
call for food.  This affection plainly gives the objects of it an
additional claim to relief and mercy, over and above what our
fellow-creatures in common have to our goodwill.  Liberality and
bounty are exceedingly commendable; and a particular distinction in
such a world as this, where men set themselves to contract their
heart, and close it to all interests but their own.  It is by no
means to be opposed to mercy, but always accompanies it:  the
distinction between them is only that the former leads our thoughts
to a more promiscuous and undistinguished distribution of favours;
to those who are not, as well as those who are, necessitous; whereas
the object of compassion is misery.  But in the comparison, and
where there is not a possibility of both, mercy is to have the
preference:  the affection of compassion manifestly leads us to this
preference.  Thus, to relieve the indigent and distressed, to single
out the unhappy, from whom can be expected no returns either of
present entertainment or future service, for the objects of our
favours; to esteem a man's being friendless as a recommendation;
dejection, and incapacity of struggling through the world, as a
motive for assisting him; in a word, to consider these circumstances
of disadvantage, which are usually thought a sufficient reason for
neglect and overlooking a person, as a motive for helping him
forward:  this is the course of benevolence which compassion marks
out and directs us to:  this is that humanity which is so peculiarly
becoming our nature and circumstances in this world.

To these considerations, drawn from the nature of man, must be added
the reason of the thing itself we are recommending, which accords to
and shows the same.  For since it is so much more in our power to
lessen the misery of our fellow-creatures than to promote their
positive happiness; in cases where there is an inconsistency, we
shall be likely to do much more good by setting ourselves to
mitigate the former than by endeavouring to promote the latter.  Let
the competition be between the poor and the rich.  It is easy, you
will say, to see which will have the preference.  True; but the
question is, which ought to have the preference?  What proportion is
there between the happiness produced by doing a favour to the
indigent, and that produced by doing the same favour to one in easy
circumstances?  It is manifest that the addition of a very large
estate to one who before had an affluence, will in many instances
yield him less new enjoyment or satisfaction than an ordinary
charity would yield to a necessitous person.  So that it is not only
true that our nature, i.e., the voice of God within us, carries us
to the exercise of charity and benevolence in the way of compassion
or mercy, preferably to any other way; but we also manifestly
discern much more good done by the former; or, if you will allow me
the expressions, more misery annihilated and happiness created.  If
charity and benevolence, and endeavouring to do good to our fellow-
creatures, be anything, this observation deserves to be most
seriously considered by all who have to bestow.  And it holds with
great exactness, when applied to the several degrees of greater and
less indigency throughout the various ranks in human life:  the
happiness or good produced not being in proportion to what is
bestowed, but in proportion to this joined with the need there was
of it.

It may perhaps be expected that upon this subject notice should be
taken of occasions, circumstances, and characters which seem at once
to call forth affections of different sorts.  Thus vice may be
thought the object both of pity and indignation:  folly, of pity and
of laughter.  How far this is strictly true, I shall not inquire;
but only observe upon the appearance, how much more humane it is to
yield and give scope to affections, which are most directly in
favour of, and friendly towards, our fellow-creatures; and that
there is plainly much less danger of being led wrong by these than
by the other.

But, notwithstanding all that has been said in recommendation of
compassion, that it is most amiable, most becoming human nature, and
most useful to the world; yet it must be owned that every affection,
as distinct from a principle of reason, may rise too high, and be
beyond its just proportion.  And by means of this one carried too
far, a man throughout his life is subject to much more uneasiness
than belongs to his share; and in particular instances, it may be in
such a degree as to incapacitate him from assisting the very person
who is the object of it.  But as there are some who upon principle
set up for suppressing this affection itself as weakness, there is
also I know not what of fashion on this side; and, by some means or
other, the whole world almost is run into the extremes of
insensibility towards the distresses of their fellow-creatures:  so
that general rules and exhortations must always be on the other
side.

And now to go on to the uses we should make of the foregoing
reflections, the further ones they lead to, and the general temper
they have a tendency to beget in us.  There being that distinct
affection implanted in the nature of man, tending to lessen the
miseries of life, that particular provision made for abating its
sorrows, more than for increasing its positive happiness, as before
explained; this may suggest to us what should be our general aim
respecting ourselves, in our passage through this world:  namely, to
endeavour chiefly to escape misery, keep free from uneasiness, pain,
and sorrow, or to get relief and mitigation of them; to propose to
ourselves peace and tranquillity of mind, rather than pursue after
high enjoyments.  This is what the constitution of nature before
explained marks out as the course we should follow, and the end we
should aim at.  To make pleasure and mirth and jollity our business,
and be constantly hurrying about after some gay amusement, some new
gratification of sense or appetite, to those who will consider the
nature of man and our condition in this world, will appear the most
romantic scheme of life that ever entered into thought.  And yet how
many are there who go on in this course, without learning better
from the daily, the hourly disappointments, listlessness, and
satiety which accompany this fashionable method of wasting away
their days!

The subject we have been insisting upon would lead us into the same
kind of reflections by a different connection.  The miseries of life
brought home to ourselves by compassion, viewed through this
affection considered as the sense by which they are perceived, would
beget in us that moderation, humility, and soberness of mind which
has been now recommended; and which peculiarly belongs to a season
of recollection, the only purpose of which is to bring us to a just
sense of things, to recover us out of that forgetfulness of
ourselves, and our true state, which it is manifest far the greatest
part of men pass their whole life in.  Upon this account Solomon
says that IT IS BETTER TO GO TO THE HOUSE OF MOURNING THAN TO GO TO
THE HOUSE OF FEASTING; i.e., it is more to a man's advantage to turn
his eyes towards objects of distress, to recall sometimes to his
remembrance the occasions of sorrow, than to pass all his days in
thoughtless mirth and gaiety.  And he represents the wise as
choosing to frequent the former of these places; to be sure not for
his own sake, but because BY THE SADNESS OF THE COUNTENANCE, THE
HEART IS MADE BETTER.  Every one observes how temperate and
reasonable men are when humbled and brought low by afflictions in
comparison of what they are in high prosperity.  By this voluntary
resort to the house of mourning, which is here recommended, we might
learn all those useful instructions which calamities teach without
undergoing them ourselves; and grow wiser and better at a more easy
rate than men commonly do.  The objects themselves, which in that
place of sorrow lie before our view, naturally give us a seriousness
and attention, check that wantonness which is the growth of
prosperity and ease, and head us to reflect upon the deficiencies of
human life itself; that EVERY MAN AT HIS BEST ESTATE IS ALTOGETHER
VANITY.  This would correct the florid and gaudy prospects and
expectations which we are too apt to indulge, teach us to lower our
notions of happiness and enjoyment, bring them down to the reality
of things, to what is attainable, to what the frailty of our
condition will admit of, which, for any continuance, is only
tranquillity, ease, and moderate satisfactions.  Thus we might at
once become proof against the temptations with which the whole world
almost is carried away; since it is plain that not only what is
called a life of pleasure, but also vicious pursuits in general, aim
at somewhat besides and beyond these moderate satisfactions.

And as to that obstinacy and wilfulness, which renders men so
insensible to the motives of religion; this right sense of ourselves
and of the world about us would bend the stubborn mind, soften the
heart, and make it more apt to receive impression; and this is the
proper temper in which to call our ways to remembrance, to review
and set home upon ourselves the miscarriages of our past life.  In
such a compliant state of mind, reason and conscience will have a
fair hearing; which is the preparation for, or rather the beginning
of, that repentance, the outward show of which we all put on at this
season.

Lastly, The various miseries of life which lie before us wherever we
turn our eyes, the frailty of this mortal state we are passing
through, may put us in mind that the present world is not our home;
that we are merely strangers and travellers in it, as all our
fathers were.  It is therefore to be considered as a foreign
country; in which our poverty and wants, and the insufficient
supplies of them, were designed to turn our views to that higher and
better state we are heirs to:  a state where will be no follies to
be overlooked, no miseries to be pitied, no wants to be relieved;
where the affection we have been now treating of will happily be
lost, as there will be no objects to exercise it upon:  for God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no
more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any
more pain; for the former things are passed away.



SERMON VII.
UPON THE CHARACTER OF BALAAM.
PREACHED THE SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.
NUMBERS xxiii. 10.



Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like
his.

These words, taken alone, and without respect to him who spoke them,
lead our thoughts immediately to the different ends of good and bad
men.  For though the comparison is not expressed, yet it is
manifestly implied; as is also the preference of one of these
characters to the other in that last circumstance, death.  And,
since dying the death of the righteous or of the wicked necessarily
implies men's being righteous or wicked; i.e., having lived
righteously or wickedly; a comparison of them in their lives also
might come into consideration, from such a single view of the words
themselves.  But my present design is to consider them with a
particular reference or respect to him who spoke them; which
reference, if you please to attend, you will see.  And if what shall
be offered to your consideration at this time be thought a discourse
upon the whole history of this man, rather than upon the particular
words I have read, this is of no consequence:  it is sufficient if
it afford reflection of use and service to ourselves.

But, in order to avoid cavils respecting this remarkable relation in
Scripture, either that part of it which you have heard in the first
lesson for the day, or any other; let me just observe that as this
is not a place for answering them, so they no way affect the
following discourse; since the character there given is plainly a
real one in life, and such as there are parallels to.

The occasion of Balaam's coming out of his own country into the land
of Moab, where he pronounced this solemn prayer or wish, he himself
relates in the first parable or prophetic speech, of which it is the
conclusion.  In which is a custom referred to, proper to be taken
notice of:  that of devoting enemies to destruction before the
entrance upon a war with them.  This custom appears to have
prevailed over a great part of the world; for we find it amongst the
most distant nations.  The Romans had public officers, to whom it
belonged as a stated part of their office.  But there was somewhat
more particular in the case now before us:  Balaam being looked upon
as an extraordinary person, whose blessing or curse was thought to
be always effectual.

In order to engage the reader's attention to this passage, the
sacred historian has enumerated the preparatory circumstances, which
are these.  Balaam requires the king of Moab to build him seven
altars, and to prepare him the same number of oxen and of rams.  The
sacrifice being over, he retires alone to a solitude sacred to these
occasions, there to wait the Divine inspiration or answer, for which
the foregoing rites were the preparation.  AND GOD MET BALAAM, AND
PUT A WORD IN HIS MOUTH; {16} upon receiving which, he returns back
to the altars, where was the king, who had all this while attended
the sacrifice, as appointed; he and all the princes of Moab
standing, big with expectation of the Prophet's reply.  And he took
up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me
from Aram, out of the mountains of the east, saying, Come, curse me
Jacob, and come, defy Israel.  How shall I curse, whom God hath not
cursed?  Or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied?  For
from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold
him:  lo, the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned
among the nations.  Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number
of the fourth part of Israel?  Let me die the death of the
righteous, and let my last end be like his. {17}

It is necessary, as you will see in the progress of this discourse,
particularly to observe what he understood by RIGHTEOUS.  And he
himself is introduced in the book of Micah {18} explaining it; if by
RIGHTEOUS is meant good, as to be sure it is.  O my people, remember
now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of
Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal.  From the mention of
Shittim it is manifest that it is this very story which is here
referred to, though another part of it, the account of which is not
now extant; as there are many quotations in Scripture out of books
which are not come down to us.  Remember what Balaam answered, that
ye may know the righteousness of the Lord; i.e., the righteousness
which God will accept.  Balak demands, Wherewith shall I come before
the Lord, and bow myself before the high God?  Shall I come before
him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old?  Will the Lord
be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers
of oil?  Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit
of my body for the sin of my soul?  Balaam answers him, he hath
showed thee, O man, what is good:  and what doth the Lord require of
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God?  Here is a good man expressly characterised, as distinct
from a dishonest and a superstitious man.  No words can more
strongly exclude dishonesty and falseness of heart than doing
justice and loving mercy; and both these, as well as walking humbly
with God, are put in opposition to those ceremonial methods of
recommendation, which Balak hoped might have served the turn.  From
hence appears what he meant by the righteous, whose death he desires
to die.

Whether it was his own character shall now be inquired; and in order
to determine it, we must take a view of his whole behaviour upon
this occasion.  When the elders of Noah came to him, though he
appears to have been much allured with the rewards offered, yet he
had such regard to the authority of God as to keep the messengers in
suspense until he had consulted His will.  And God said to him, Thou
shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people, for they
are blessed. {19}  Upon this he dismisses the ambassadors, with an
absolute refusal of accompanying them back to their king.  Thus far
his regards to his duty prevailed, neither does there anything
appear as yet amiss in his conduct.  His answer being reported to
the king of Moab, a more honourable embassy is immediately
despatched, and greater rewards proposed.  Then the iniquity of his
heart began to disclose itself.  A thorough honest man would without
hesitation have repeated his former answer, that he could not be
guilty of so infamous a prostitution of the sacred character with
which he was invested, as in the name of a prophet to curse those
whom he knew to be blessed.  But instead of this, which was the only
honest part in these circumstances that lay before him, he desires
the princes of Moab to tarry that night with him also; and for the
sake of the reward deliberates, whether by some means or other he
might not be able to obtain leave to curse Israel; to do that, which
had been before revealed to him to be contrary to the will of God,
which yet he resolves not to do without that permission.  Upon
which, as when this nation afterwards rejected God from reigning
over them, He gave them a king in His anger; in the same way, as
appears from other parts of the narration, He gives Balaam the
permission he desired:  for this is the most natural sense of the
words.  Arriving in the territories of Moab, and being received with
particular distinction by the king, and he repeating in person the
promise of the rewards he had before made to him by his ambassadors,
he seeks, the text says, by SACRIFICES and ENCHANTMENTS (what these
were is not to our purpose), to obtain leave of God to curse the
people; keeping still his resolution, not to do it without that
permission:  which not being able to obtain, he had such regard to
the command of God as to keep this resolution to the last.  The
supposition of his being under a supernatural restraint is a mere
fiction of Philo:  he is plainly represented to be under no other
force or restraint than the fear of God.  However, he goes on
persevering in that endeavour, after he had declared that God had
not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither had he seen perverseness in
Israel; {20} i.e., they were a people of virtue and piety, so far as
not to have drawn down by their iniquity that curse which he was
soliciting leave to pronounce upon them.  So that the state of
Balaam's mind was this:  he wanted to do what he knew to be very
wicked, and contrary to the express command of God; he had inward
checks and restraints which he could not entirely get over; he
therefore casts about for ways to reconcile this wickedness with his
duty.  How great a paradox soever this may appear, as it is indeed a
contradiction in terms, it is the very account which the Scripture
gives us of him.

But there is a more surprising piece of iniquity yet behind.  Not
daring in his religious character, as a prophet, to assist the king
of Moab, he considers whether there might not be found some other
means of assisting him against that very people, whom he himself by
the fear of God was restrained from cursing in words.  One would not
think it possible that the weakness, even of religious self-deceit
in its utmost excess, could have so poor a distinction, so fond an
evasion, to serve itself of.  But so it was; and he could think of
no other method than to betray the children of Israel to provoke His
wrath, who was their only strength and defence.  The temptation
which he pitched upon was that concerning which Solomon afterwards
observed, that it had cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men
had been slain by it:  and of which he himself was a sad example,
when his wives turned away his heart after other gods.  This
succeeded:  the people sin against God; and thus the Prophet's
counsel brought on that destruction which he could by no means be
prevailed upon to assist with the religious ceremony of execration,
which the king of Moab thought would itself have affected it.  Their
crime and punishment are related in Deuteronomy {21} and Numbers.
{22}  And from the relation repeated in Numbers, {23} it appears,
that Balaam was the contriver of the whole matter.  It is also
ascribed to him in the Revelation, {24} where he is said to have
taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of
Israel.

This was the man, this Balaam, I say, was the man, who desired to
die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like
his; and this was the state of his mind when he pronounced these
words.

So that the object we have now before us is the most astonishing in
the world:  a very wicked man, under a deep sense of God and
religion, persisting still in his wickedness, and preferring the
wages of unrighteousness, even when he had before him a lively view
of death, and that approaching period of his days, which should
deprive him of all those advantages for which he was prostituting
himself; and likewise a prospect, whether certain or uncertain, of a
future state of retribution; all this joined with an explicit ardent
wish that, when he was to leave this world, he might be in the
condition of a righteous man.  Good God! what inconsistency, what
perplexity is here!  With what different views of things, with what
contradictory principles of action, must such a mind be torn and
distracted!  It was not unthinking carelessness, by which he ran on
headlong in vice and folly, without ever making a stand to ask
himself what he was doing:  no; he acted upon the cool motives of
interest and advantage.  Neither was he totally hard and callous to
impressions of religion, what we call abandoned; for he absolutely
denied to curse Israel.  When reason assumes her place, when
convinced of his duty, when he owns and feels, and is actually under
the influence of the divine authority; whilst he is carrying on his
views to the grave, the end of all temporal greatness; under this
sense of things, with the better character and more desirable state
present--full before him--in his thoughts, in his wishes,
voluntarily to choose the worse--what fatality is here!  Or how
otherwise can such a character be explained?  And yet, strange as it
may appear, it is not altogether an uncommon one:  nay, with some
small alterations, and put a little lower, it is applicable to a
very considerable part of the world.  For if the reasonable choice
be seen and acknowledged, and yet men make the unreasonable one, is
not this the same contradiction; that very inconsistency, which
appeared so unaccountable?

To give some little opening to such characters and behaviour, it is
to be observed in general that there is no account to be given in
the way of reason, of men's so strong attachments to the present
world:  our hopes and fears and pursuits are in degrees beyond all
proportion to the known value of the things they respect.  This may
be said without taking into consideration religion and a future
state; and when these are considered, the disproportion is
infinitely heightened.  Now when men go against their reason, and
contradict a more important interest at a distance, for one nearer,
though of less consideration; if this be the whole of the case, all
that can be said is, that strong passions, some kind of brute force
within, prevails over the principle of rationality.  However, if
this be with a clear, full, and distinct view of the truth of
things, then it is doing the utmost violence to themselves, acting
in the most palpable contradiction to their very nature.  But if
there be any such thing in mankind as putting half-deceits upon
themselves; which there plainly is, either by avoiding reflection,
or (if they do reflect) by religious equivocation, subterfuges, and
palliating matters to themselves; by these means conscience may be
laid asleep, and they may go on in a course of wickedness with less
disturbance.  All the various turns, doubles, and intricacies in a
dishonest heart cannot be unfolded or laid open; but that there is
somewhat of that kind is manifest, be it to be called self-deceit,
or by any other name.  Balaam had before his eyes the authority of
God, absolutely forbidding him what he, for the sake of a reward,
had the strongest inclination to:  he was likewise in a state of
mind sober enough to consider death and his last end:  by these
considerations he was restrained, first from going to the king of
Moab, and after he did go, from cursing Israel.  But notwithstanding
this, there was great wickedness in his heart.  He could not forego
the rewards of unrighteousness:  he therefore first seeks for
indulgences, and when these could not be obtained, he sins against
the whole meaning, end, and design of the prohibition, which no
consideration in the world could prevail with him to go against the
letter of.  And surely that impious counsel he gave to Balak against
the children of Israel was, considered in itself, a greater piece of
wickedness than if he had cursed them in words.

If it be inquired what his situation, his hopes, and fears were, in
respect to this his wish; the answer must be, that consciousness of
the wickedness of his heart must necessarily have destroyed all
settled hopes of dying the death of the righteous:  he could have no
calm satisfaction in this view of his last end:  yet, on the other
hand, it is possible that those partial regards to his duty, now
mentioned, might keep him from perfect despair.

Upon the whole it is manifest that Balaam had the most just and true
notions of God and religion; as appears, partly from the original
story itself, and more plainly from the passage in Micah; where he
explains religion to consist in real virtue and real piety,
expressly distinguished from superstition, and in terms which most
strongly exclude dishonesty and falseness of heart.  Yet you see his
behaviour:  he seeks indulgences for plain wickedness, which not
being able to obtain he glosses over that same wickedness, dresses
it up in a new form, in order to make it pass off more easily with
himself.  That is, he deliberately contrives to deceive and impose
upon himself in a matter which he knew to be of the utmost
importance.

To bring these observations home to ourselves:  it is too evident
that many persons allow themselves in very unjustifiable courses who
yet make great pretences to religion; not to deceive the world, none
can be so weak as to think this will pass in our age; but from
principles, hopes, and fears, respecting God and a future state; and
go on thus with a sort of tranquillity and quiet of mind.  This
cannot be upon a thorough consideration, and full resolution, that
the pleasures and advantages they propose are to be pursued at all
hazards, against reason, against the law of God, and though
everlasting destruction is to be the consequence.  This would be
doing too great violence upon themselves.  No, they are for making a
composition with the Almighty.  These of His commands they will
obey; but as to others--why, they will make all the atonements in
their power; the ambitious, the covetous, the dissolute man, each in
a way which shall not contradict his respective pursuit.
Indulgences before, which was Balaam's first attempt, though he was
not so successful in it as to deceive himself, or atonements
afterwards, are all the same.  And here, perhaps, come in faint
hopes that they may, and half-resolves that they will, one time or
other, make a change.

Besides these there are also persons, who, from a more just way of
considering things, see the infinite absurdity of this, of
substituting sacrifice instead of obedience; there are persons far
enough from superstition, and not without some real sense of God and
religion upon their minds; who yet are guilty of most unjustifiable
practices, and go on with great coolness and command over
themselves.  The same dishonesty and unsoundness of heart discovers
itself in these another way.  In all common ordinary cases we see
intuitively at first view what is our duty, what is the honest part.
This is the ground of the observation, that the first thought is
often the best.  In these cases doubt and deliberation is itself
dishonesty, as it was in Balaam upon the second message.  That which
is called considering what is our duty in a particular case is very
often nothing but endeavouring to explain it away.  Thus those
courses, which, if men would fairly attend to the dictates of their
own consciences, they would see to be corruption, excess,
oppression, uncharitableness; these are refined upon--things were so
and so circumstantiated--great difficulties are raised about fixing
bounds and degrees, and thus every moral obligation whatever may be
evaded.  Here is scope, I say, for an unfair mind to explain away
every moral obligation to itself.  Whether men reflect again upon
this internal management and artifice, and how explicit they are
with themselves, is another question.  There are many operations of
the mind, many things pass within, which we never reflect upon
again; which a bystander, from having frequent opportunities of
observing us and our conduct, may make shrewd guesses at.

That great numbers are in this way of deceiving themselves is
certain.  There is scarce a man in the world, who has entirely got
over all regards, hopes, and fears, concerning God and a future
state; and these apprehensions in the generality, bad as we are,
prevail in considerable degrees:  yet men will and can be wicked,
with calmness and thought; we see they are.  There must therefore be
some method of making it sit a little easy upon their minds; which,
in the superstitious, is those indulgences and atonements before
mentioned, and this self-deceit of another kind in persons of
another character.  And both these proceed from a certain unfairness
of mind, a peculiar inward dishonesty; the direct contrary to that
simplicity which our Saviour recommends, under the notion of
becoming little children, as a necessary qualification for our
entering into the kingdom of heaven.

But to conclude:  How much soever men differ in the course of life
they prefer, and in their ways of palliating and excusing their
vices to themselves; yet all agree in one thing, desiring to die the
death of the righteous.  This is surely remarkable.  The observation
may be extended further, and put thus:  even without determining
what that is which we call guilt or innocence, there is no man but
would choose, after having had the pleasure or advantage of a
vicious action, to be free of the guilt of it, to be in the state of
an innocent man.  This shows at least the disturbance and implicit
dissatisfaction in vice.  If we inquire into the grounds of it, we
shall find it proceeds partly from an immediate sense of having done
evil, and partly from an apprehension that this inward sense shall
one time or another be seconded by a higher judgment, upon which our
whole being depends.  Now to suspend and drown this sense, and these
apprehensions, be it by the hurry of business or of pleasure, or by
superstition, or moral equivocations, this is in a manner one and
the same, and makes no alteration at all in the nature of our case.
Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them
will be what they will be:  why, then, should we desire to be
deceived?  As we are reasonable creatures, and have any regard to
ourselves, we ought to lay these things plainly and honestly before
our mind, and upon this, act as you please, as you think most fit:
make that choice, and prefer that course of life, which you can
justify to yourselves, and which sits most easy upon your own mind.
It will immediately appear that vice cannot be the happiness, but
must upon the whole be the misery, of such a creature as man; a
moral, an accountable agent.  Superstitious observances, self-deceit
though of a more refined sort, will not in reality at all mend
matters with us.  And the result of the whole can be nothing else,
but that with simplicity and fairness we keep innocency, and take
heed unto the thing that is right; for this alone shall bring a man
peace at the last.



SERMON XI {24a--see footnote}
UPON THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.
PREACHED ON ADVENT SUNDAY.
ROMANS xiii. 9.



And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in
this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

It is commonly observed that there is a disposition in men to
complain of the viciousness and corruption of the age in which they
live as greater than that of former ones; which is usually followed
with this further observation, that mankind has been in that respect
much the same in all times.  Now, not to determine whether this last
be not contradicted by the accounts of history; thus much can scarce
be doubted, that vice and folly takes different turns, and some
particular kinds of it are more open and avowed in some ages than in
others; and, I suppose, it may be spoken of as very much the
distinction of the present to profess a contracted spirit, and
greater regards to self-interest, than appears to have been done
formerly.  Upon this account it seems worth while to inquire whether
private interest is likely to be promoted in proportion to the
degree in which self-love engrosses us, and prevails over all other
principles; or whether the contracted affection may not possibly be
so prevalent as to disappoint itself, and even contradict its own
and private good.

And since, further, there is generally thought to be some peculiar
kind of contrariety between self-love and the love of our neighbour,
between the pursuit of public and of private good; insomuch that
when you are recommending one of these, you are supposed to be
speaking against the other; and from hence arises a secret prejudice
against, and frequently open scorn of, all talk of public spirit and
real good-will to our fellow-creatures; it will be necessary to
inquire what respect benevolence hath to self-love, and the pursuit
of private interest to the pursuit of public:  or whether there be
anything of that peculiar inconsistence and contrariety between them
over and above what there is between self-love and other passions
and particular affections, and their respective pursuits.

These inquiries, it is hoped, may be favourably attended to; for
there shall be all possible concessions made to the favourite
passion, which hath so much allowed to it, and whose cause is so
universally pleaded:  it shall be treated with the utmost tenderness
and concern for its interests.

In order to do this, as well as to determine the forementioned
questions, it will be necessary to consider the nature, the object,
and end of that self-love, as distinguished from other principles or
affections in the mind, and their respective objects.

Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness; and likewise a
variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites to
particular external objects.  The former proceeds from, or is, self-
love; and seems inseparable from all sensible creatures, who can
reflect upon themselves and their own interest or happiness so as to
have that interest an object to their minds; what is to be said of
the latter is, that they proceed from or together make up that
particular nature, according to which man is made.  The object the
former pursues is somewhat internal--our own happiness, enjoyment,
satisfaction; whether we have, or have not, a distinct particular
perception what it is, or wherein it consists:  the objects of the
latter are this or that particular external thing, which the
affections tend towards, and of which it hath always a particular
idea or perception.  The principle we call self-love never seeks
anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of
happiness or good:  particular affections rest in the external
things themselves.  One belongs to man as a reasonable creature
reflecting upon his own interest or happiness.  The other, though
quite distinct from reason, are as much a part of human nature.

That all particular appetites and passions are towards EXTERNAL
THINGS THEMSELVES, distinct from the PLEASURE ARISING FROM THEM, is
manifested from hence; that there could not be this pleasure, were
it not for that prior suitableness between the object and the
passion:  there could be no enjoyment or delight from one thing more
than another, from eating food more than from swallowing a stone, if
there were not an affection or appetite to one thing more than
another.

Every particular affection, even the love of our neighbour, is as
really our own affection as self-love; and the pleasure arising from
its gratification is as much my own pleasure as the pleasure self-
love would have from knowing I myself should be happy some time
hence would be my own pleasure.  And if, because every particular
affection is a man's own, and the pleasure arising from its
gratification his own pleasure, or pleasure to himself, such
particular affection must be called self-love; according to this way
of speaking, no creature whatever can possibly act but merely from
self-love; and every action and every affection whatever is to be
resolved up into this one principle.  But then this is not the
language of mankind; or if it were, we should want words to express
the difference between the principle of an action, proceeding from
cool consideration that it will be to my own advantage; and an
action, suppose of revenge or of friendship, by which a man runs
upon certain ruin, to do evil or good to another.  It is manifest
the principles of these actions are totally different, and so want
different words to be distinguished by; all that they agree in is
that they both proceed from, and are done to gratify, an inclination
in a man's self.  But the principle or inclination in one case is
self-love; in the other, hatred or love of another.  There is then a
distinction between the cool principle of self-love, or general
desire of our own happiness, as one part of our nature, and one
principle of action; and the particular affections towards
particular external objects, as another part of our nature, and
another principle of action.  How much soever therefore is to be
allowed to self-love, yet it cannot be allowed to be the whole of
our inward constitution; because, you see, there are other parts or
principles which come into it.

Further, private happiness or good is all which self-love can make
us desire, or be concerned about:  in having this consists its
gratification:  it is an affection to ourselves; a regard to our own
interest, happiness, and private good:  and in the proportion a man
hath this, he is interested, or a lover of himself.  Let this be
kept in mind; because there is commonly, as I shall presently have
occasion to observe, another sense put upon these words.  On the
other hand, particular affections tend towards particular external
things:  these are their objects:  having these is their end:  in
this consists their gratification:  no matter whether it be, or be
not, upon the whole, our interest or happiness.  An action done from
the former of these principles is called an interested action.  An
action proceeding from any of the latter has its denomination of
passionate, ambitious, friendly, revengeful, or any other, from the
particular appetite or affection from which it proceeds.  Thus self-
love as one part of human nature, and the several particular
principles as the other part, are, themselves, their objects and
ends, stated and shown.

From hence it will be easy to see how far, and in what ways, each of
these can contribute and be subservient to the private good of the
individual.  Happiness does not consist in self-love.  The desire of
happiness is no more the thing itself than the desire of riches is
the possession or enjoyment of them.  People might love themselves
with the most entire and unbounded affection, and yet be extremely
miserable.  Neither can self-love any way help them out, but by
setting them on work to get rid of the causes of their misery, to
gain or make use of those objects which are by nature adapted to
afford satisfaction.  Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the
enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several
particular appetites, passions, and affections.  So that if self-
love wholly engrosses us, and leaves no room for any other
principle, there can be absolutely no such thing at all as happiness
or enjoyment of any kind whatever; since happiness consists in the
gratification of particular passions, which supposes the having of
them.  Self-love then does not constitute THIS or THAT to be our
interest or good; but, our interest or good being constituted by
nature and supposed, self-love only puts us upon obtaining and
securing it.  Therefore, if it be possible that self-love may
prevail and exert itself in a degree or manner which is not
subservient to this end; then it will not follow that our interest
will be promoted in proportion to the degree in which that principle
engrosses us, and prevails over others.  Nay, further, the private
and contracted affection, when it is not subservient to this end,
private good may, for anything that appears, have a direct contrary
tendency and effect.  And if we will consider the matter, we shall
see that it often really has.  DISENGAGEMENT is absolutely necessary
to enjoyment; and a person may have so steady and fixed an eye upon
his own interest, whatever he places it in, as may hinder him from
ATTENDING to many gratifications within his reach, which others have
their minds FREE and OPEN to.  Over-fondness for a child is not
generally thought to be for its advantage; and, if there be any
guess to be made from appearances, surely that character we call
selfish is not the most promising for happiness.  Such a temper may
plainly be, and exert itself in a degree and manner which may give
unnecessary and useless solicitude and anxiety, in a degree and
manner which may prevent obtaining the means and materials of
enjoyment, as well as the making use of them.  Immoderate self-love
does very ill consult its own interest:  and, how much soever a
paradox it may appear, it is certainly true that even from self-love
we should endeavour to get over all inordinate regard to and
consideration of ourselves.  Every one of our passions and
affections hath its natural stint and bound, which may easily be
exceeded; whereas our enjoyments can possibly be but in a
determinate measure and degree.  Therefore such excess of the
affection, since it cannot procure any enjoyment, must in all cases
be useless; but is generally attended with inconveniences, and often
is downright pain and misery.  This holds as much with regard to
self-love as to all other affections.  The natural degree of it, so
far as it sets us on work to gain and make use of the materials of
satisfaction, may be to our real advantage; but beyond or besides
this, it is in several respects an inconvenience and disadvantage.
Thus it appears that private interest is so far from being likely to
be promoted in proportion to the degree in which self-love engrosses
us, and prevails over all other principles, that the contracted
affection may be so prevalent as to disappoint itself, and even
contradict its own and private good.

"But who, except the most sordidly covetous, ever thought there was
any rivalship between the love of greatness, honour, power, or
between sensual appetites and self-love?  No, there is a perfect
harmony between them.  It is by means of these particular appetites
and affections that self-love is gratified in enjoyment, happiness,
and satisfaction.  The competition and rivalship is between self-
love and the love of our neighbour:  that affection which leads us
out of ourselves, makes us regardless of our own interest, and
substitute that of another in its stead."  Whether, then, there be
any peculiar competition and contrariety in this case shall now be
considered.

Self-love and interestedness was stated to consist in or be an
affection to ourselves, a regard to our own private good:  it is
therefore distinct from benevolence, which is an affection to the
good of our fellow-creatures.  But that benevolence is distinct
from, that is, not the same thing with self-love, is no reason for
its being looked upon with any peculiar suspicion; because every
principle whatever, by means of which self-love is gratified, is
distinct from it; and all things which are distinct from each other
are equally so.  A man has an affection or aversion to another:
that one of these tends to, and is gratified by, doing good, that
the other tends to, and is gratified by, doing harm, does not in the
least alter the respect which either one or the other of these
inward feelings has to self-love.  We use the word PROPERTY so as to
exclude any other persons having an interest in that of which we say
a particular man has the property.  And we often use the word
SELFISH so as to exclude in the same manner all regards to the good
of others.  But the cases are not parallel:  for though that
exclusion is really part of the idea of property; yet such positive
exclusion, or bringing this peculiar disregard to the good of others
into the idea of self-love, is in reality adding to the idea, or
changing it from what it was before stated to consist in, namely, in
an affection to ourselves. {25}  This being the whole idea of self-
love, it can no otherwise exclude good-will or love of others, than
merely by not including it, no otherwise, than it excludes love of
arts or reputation, or of anything else.  Neither on the other hand
does benevolence, any more than love of arts or of reputation
exclude self-love.  Love of our neighbour, then, has just the same
respect to, is no more distant from, self-love, than hatred of our
neighbour, or than love or hatred of anything else.  Thus the
principles, from which men rush upon certain ruin for the
destruction of an enemy, and for the preservation of a friend, have
the same respect to the private affection, and are equally
interested, or equally disinterested; and it is of no avail whether
they are said to be one or the other.  Therefore to those who are
shocked to hear virtue spoken of as disinterested, it may be allowed
that it is indeed absurd to speak thus of it; unless hatred, several
particular instances of vice, and all the common affections and
aversions in mankind, are acknowledged to be disinterested too.  Is
there any less inconsistence between the love of inanimate things,
or of creatures merely sensitive, and self-love, than between self-
love and the love of our neighbour?  Is desire of and delight in the
happiness of another any more a diminution of self-love than desire
of and delight in the esteem of another?  They are both equally
desire of and delight in somewhat external to ourselves; either both
or neither are so.  The object of self-love is expressed in the term
self; and every appetite of sense, and every particular affection of
the heart, are equally interested or disinterested, because the
objects of them all are equally self or somewhat else.  Whatever
ridicule therefore the mention of a disinterested principle or
action may be supposed to lie open to, must, upon the matter being
thus stated, relate to ambition, and every appetite and particular
affection as much as to benevolence.  And indeed all the ridicule,
and all the grave perplexity, of which this subject hath had its
full share, is merely from words.  The most intelligible way of
speaking of it seems to be this:  that self-love and the actions
done in consequence of it (for these will presently appear to be the
same as to this question) are interested; that particular affections
towards external objects, and the actions done in consequence of
those affections are not so.  But every one is at liberty to use
words as he pleases.  All that is here insisted upon is that
ambition, revenge, benevolence, all particular passions whatever,
and the actions they produce, are equally interested or
disinterested.

Thus it appears that there is no peculiar contrariety between self-
love and benevolence; no greater competition between these than
between any other particular affections and self-love.  This relates
to the affections themselves.  Let us now see whether there be any
peculiar contrariety between the respective courses of life which
these affections lead to; whether there be any greater competition
between the pursuit of private and of public good, than between any
other particular pursuits and that of private good.

There seems no other reason to suspect that there is any such
peculiar contrariety, but only that the course of action which
benevolence leads to has a more direct tendency to promote the good
of others, than that course of action which love of reputation
suppose, or any other particular affection leads to.  But that any
affection tends to the happiness of another does not hinder its
tending to one's own happiness too.  That others enjoy the benefit
of the air and the light of the sun does not hinder but that these
are as much one's own private advantage now as they would be if we
had the property of them exclusive of all others.  So a pursuit
which tends to promote the good of another, yet may have as great
tendency to promote private interest, as a pursuit which does not
tend to the good of another at all, or which is mischievous to him.
All particular affections whatever, resentment, benevolence, love of
arts, equally lead to a course of action for their own
gratification; i.e., the gratification of ourselves; and the
gratification of each gives delight:  so far, then, it is manifest
they have all the same respect to private interest.  Now take into
consideration, further, concerning these three pursuits, that the
end of the first is the harm, of the second, the good of another, of
the last, somewhat indifferent; and is there any necessity that
these additional considerations should alter the respect, which we
before saw these three pursuits had to private interest, or render
any one of them less conducive to it, than any other?  Thus one
man's affection is to honour as his end; in order to obtain which he
thinks no pains too great.  Suppose another, with such a singularity
of mind, as to have the same affection to public good as his end,
which he endeavours with the same labour to obtain.  In case of
success, surely the man of benevolence hath as great enjoyment as
the man of ambition; they both equally having the end their
affections, in the same degree, tended to; but in case of
disappointment, the benevolent man has clearly the advantage; since
endeavouring to do good, considered as a virtuous pursuit, is
gratified by its own consciousness, i.e., is in a degree its own
reward.

And as to these two, or benevolence and any other particular
passions whatever, considered in a further view, as forming a
general temper, which more or less disposes us for enjoyment of all
the common blessings of life, distinct from their own gratification,
is benevolence less the temper of tranquillity and freedom than
ambition or covetousness?  Does the benevolent man appear less easy
with himself from his love to his neighbour?  Does he less relish
his being?  Is there any peculiar gloom seated on his face?  Is his
mind less open to entertainment, to any particular gratification?
Nothing is more manifest than that being in good humour, which is
benevolence whilst it lasts, is itself the temper of satisfaction
and enjoyment.

Suppose then, a man sitting down to consider how he might become
most easy to himself, and attain the greatest pleasure he could, all
that which is his real natural happiness.  This can only consist in
the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature adapted to our
several faculties.  These particular enjoyments make up the sum
total of our happiness, and they are supposed to arise from riches,
honours, and the gratification of sensual appetites.  Be it so; yet
none profess themselves so completely happy in these enjoyments, but
that there is room left in the mind for others, if they were
presented to them:  nay, these, as much as they engage us, are not
thought so high, but that human nature is capable even of greater.
Now there have been persons in all ages who have professed that they
found satisfaction in the exercise of charity, in the love of their
neighbour, in endeavouring to promote the happiness of all they had
to do with, and in the pursuit of what is just and right and good as
the general bent of their mind and end of their life; and that doing
an action of baseness or cruelty would be as great violence to THEIR
self, as much breaking in upon their nature, as any external force.
Persons of this character would add, if they might be heard, that
they consider themselves as acting in the view of an Infinite Being,
who is in a much higher sense the object of reverence and of love,
than all the world besides; and therefore they could have no more
enjoyment from a wicked action done under His eye than the persons
to whom they are making their apology could if all mankind were the
spectators of it; and that the satisfaction of approving themselves
to his unerring judgment, to whom they thus refer all their actions,
is a more continued settled satisfaction than any this world can
afford; as also that they have, no less than others, a mind free and
open to all the common innocent gratifications of it, such as they
are.  And if we go no further, does there appear any absurdity in
this?  Will any one take upon him to say that a man cannot find his
account in this general course of life as much as in the most
unbounded ambition, and the excesses of pleasure?  Or that such a
person has not consulted so well for himself, for the satisfaction
and peace of his own mind, as the ambitious or dissolute man?  And
though the consideration that God himself will in the end justify
their taste, and support their cause, is not formally to be insisted
upon here, yet thus much comes in, that all enjoyments whatever are
much more clear and unmixed from the assurance that they will end
well.  Is it certain, then, that there is nothing in these
pretensions to happiness? especially when there are not wanting
persons who have supported themselves with satisfactions of this
kind in sickness, poverty, disgrace, and in the very pangs of death;
whereas it is manifest all other enjoyments fail in these
circumstances.  This surely looks suspicions of having somewhat in
it.  Self-love, methinks, should be alarmed.  May she not possibly
pass over greater pleasures than those she is so wholly taken up
with?

The short of the matter is no more than this.  Happiness consists in
the gratification of certain affections, appetites, passions, with
objects which are by nature adapted to them.  Self-love may indeed
set us on work to gratify these, but happiness or enjoyment has no
immediate connection with self-love, but arises from such
gratification alone.  Love of our neighbour is one of those
affections.  This, considered as a VIRTUOUS PRINCIPLE, is gratified
by a consciousness of ENDEAVOURING to promote the good of others,
but considered as a natural affection, its gratification consists in
the actual accomplishment of this endeavour.  Now indulgence or
gratification of this affection, whether in that consciousness or
this accomplishment, has the same respect to interest as indulgence
of any other affection; they equally proceed from or do not proceed
from self-love, they equally include or equally exclude this
principle.  Thus it appears, that benevolence and the pursuit of
public good hath at least as great respect to self-love and the
pursuit of private good as any other particular passions, and their
respective pursuits.

Neither is covetousness, whether as a temper or pursuit, any
exception to this.  For if by covetousness is meant the desire and
pursuit of riches for their own sake, without any regard to, or
consideration of, the uses of them, this hath as little to do with
self-love as benevolence hath.  But by this word is usually meant,
not such madness and total distraction of mind, but immoderate
affection to and pursuit of riches as possessions in order to some
further end, namely, satisfaction, interest, or good.  This,
therefore, is not a particular affection or particular pursuit, but
it is the general principle of self-love, and the general pursuit of
our own interest, for which reason the word SELFISH is by every one
appropriated to this temper and pursuit.  Now as it is ridiculous to
assert that self-love and the love of our neighbour are the same, so
neither is it asserted that following these different affections
hath the same tendency and respect to our own interest.  The
comparison is not between self-love and the love of our neighbour,
between pursuit of our own interest and the interest of others, but
between the several particular affections in human nature towards
external objects, as one part of the comparison, and the one
particular affection to the good of our neighbour as the other part
of it:  and it has been shown that all these have the same respect
to self-love and private interest.

There is indeed frequently an inconsistence or interfering between
self-love or private interest and the several particular appetites,
passions, affections, or the pursuits they lead to.  But this
competition or interfering is merely accidental, and happens much
oftener between pride, revenge, sensual gratifications, and private
interest, than between private interest and benevolence.  For
nothing is more common than to see men give themselves up to a
passion or an affection to their known prejudice and ruin, and in
direct contradiction to manifest and real interest, and the loudest
calls of self-love:  whereas the seeming competitions and
interfering, between benevolence and private interest, relate much
more to the materials or means of enjoyment than to enjoyment
itself.  There is often an interfering in the former when there is
none in the latter.  Thus as to riches:  so much money as a man
gives away, so much less will remain in his possession.  Here is a
real interfering.  But though a man cannot possibly give without
lessening his fortune, yet there are multitudes might give without
lessening their own enjoyment, because they may have more than they
can turn to any real use or advantage to themselves.  Thus the more
thought and time any one employs about the interests and good of
others, he must necessarily have less to attend his own:  but he may
have so ready and large a supply of his own wants, that such thought
might be really useless to himself, though of great service and
assistance to others.

The general mistake, that there is some greater inconsistence
between endeavouring to promote the good of another and self-
interest, than between self-interest and pursuing anything else,
seems, as hath already been hinted, to arise from our notions of
property, and to be carried on by this property's being supposed to
be itself our happiness or good.  People are so very much taken up
with this one subject, that they seem from it to have formed a
general way of thinking, which they apply to other things that they
have nothing to do with.  Hence in a confused and slight way it
might well be taken for granted that another's having no interest in
an affection (i.e., his good not being the object of it) renders, as
one may speak, the proprietor's interest in it greater; and that if
another had an interest in it this would render his less, or
occasion that such affection could not be so friendly to self-love,
or conducive to private good, as an affection or pursuit which has
not a regard to the good of another.  This, I say, might be taken
for granted, whilst it was not attended to, that the object of every
particular affection is equally somewhat external to ourselves, and
whether it be the good of another person, or whether it be any other
external thing, makes no alteration with regard to its being one's
own affection, and the gratification of it one's own private
enjoyment.  And so far as it is taken for granted that barely having
the means and materials of enjoyment is what constitutes interest
and happiness; that our interest or good consists in possessions
themselves, in having the property of riches, houses, lands,
gardens, not in the enjoyment of them; so far it will even more
strongly be taken for granted, in the way already explained, that an
affection's conducing to the good of another must even necessarily
occasion it to conduce less to private good, if not to be positively
detrimental to it.  For, if property and happiness are one and the
same thing, as by increasing the property of another you lessen your
own property, so by promoting the happiness of another you must
lessen your own happiness.  But whatever occasioned the mistake, I
hope it has been fully proved to be one, as it has been proved, that
there is no peculiar rivalship or competition between self-love and
benevolence:  that as there may be a competition between these two,
so there many also between any particular affection whatever and
self-love; that every particular affection, benevolence among the
rest, is subservient to self-love by being the instrument of private
enjoyment; and that in one respect benevolence contributes more to
private interest, i.e., enjoyment or satisfaction, than any other of
the particular common affections, as it is in a degree its own
gratification.

And to all these things may be added that religion, from whence
arises our strongest obligation to benevolence, is so far from
disowning the principle of self-love, that it often addresses itself
to that very principle, and always to the mind in that state when
reason presides, and there can no access be had to the
understanding, but by convincing men that the course of life we
would persuade them to is not contrary to their interest.  It may be
allowed, without any prejudice to the cause of virtue and religion,
that our ideas of happiness and misery are of all our ideas the
nearest and most important to us; that they will, nay, if you
please, that they ought to prevail over those of order, and beauty,
and harmony, and proportion, if there should ever be, as it is
impossible there ever should be, any inconsistence between them,
though these last, too, as expressing the fitness of actions, are
real as truth itself.  Let it be allowed, 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.

Common reason and humanity will have some influence upon mankind,
whatever becomes of speculations; but, so far as the interests of
virtue depend upon the theory of it being secured from open scorn,
so far its very being in the world depends upon its appearing to
have no contrariety to private interest and self-love.  The
foregoing observations, therefore, it is hoped, may have gained a
little ground in favour of the precept before us, the particular
explanation of which shall be the subject of the next discourse.

I will conclude at present with observing the peculiar obligation
which we are under to virtue and religion, as enforced in the verses
following the text, in the epistle for the day, from our Saviour's
coming into the world.  THE NIGHT IS FAR SPENT, THE DAY IS AT HAND;
LET US THEREFORE CAST OFF THE WORKS OF DARKNESS, AND LET US PUT ON
THE ARMOUR OF LIGHT, &c.  The meaning and force of which exhortation
is, that Christianity lays us under new obligations to a good life,
as by it the will of God is more clearly revealed, and as it affords
additional motives to the practice of it, over and above those which
arise out of the nature of virtue and vice, I might add, as our
Saviour has set us a perfect example of goodness in our own nature.
Now love and charity is plainly the thing in which He hath placed
His religion; in which, therefore, as we have any pretence to the
name of Christians, we must place ours.  He hath at once enjoined it
upon us by way of command with peculiar force, and by His example,
as having undertaken the work of our salvation out of pure love and
goodwill to mankind.  The endeavour to set home this example upon
our minds is a very proper employment of this season, which is
bringing on the festival of His birth, which as it may teach us many
excellent lessons of humility, resignation, and obedience to the
will of God, so there is none it recommends with greater authority,
force, and advantage than this love and charity, since it was FOR US
MEN, AND FOR OUR SALVATION, that HE CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN, AND WAS
INCARNATE, AND WAS MADE MAN, that He might teach us our duty, and
more especially that He might enforce the practice of it, reform
mankind, and finally bring us to that ETERNAL SALVATION, of which HE
IS THE AUTHOR TO ALL THOSE THAT OBEY HIM.



SERMON XII.
UPON THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR.
ROM. xiii. 9.



And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in
this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Having already removed the prejudices against public spirit, or the
love of our neighbour, on the side of private interest and self-
love, I proceed to the particular explanation of the precept before
us, by showing, Who is our neighbour:  In what sense we are required
to love him as ourselves; The influence such love would have upon
our behaviour in life; and lastly, How this commandment comprehends
in it all others.

I.  The objects and due extent of this affection will be understood
by attending to the nature of it, and to the nature and
circumstances of mankind in this world.  The love of our neighbour
is the same with charity, benevolence, or goodwill:  it is an
affection to the good and happiness of our fellow-creatures.  This
implies in it a disposition to produce happiness, and this is the
simple notion of goodness, which appears so amiable wherever we meet
with it.  From hence it is easy to see that the perfection of
goodness consists in love to the whole universe.  This is the
perfection of Almighty God.

But as man is so much limited in his capacity, as so small a part of
the Creation comes under his notice and influence, and as we are not
used to consider things in so general a way, it is not to be thought
of that the universe should be the object of benevolence to such
creatures as we are.  Thus in that precept of our Saviour, Be ye
perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect, {26}
the perfection of the divine goodness is proposed to our imitation
as it is promiscuous, and extends to the evil as well as the good;
not as it is absolutely universal, imitation of it in this respect
being plainly beyond us.  The object is too vast.  For this reason
moral writers also have substituted a less general object for our
benevolence, mankind.  But this likewise is an object too general,
and very much out of our view.  Therefore persons more practical
have, instead of mankind, put our country, and made the principle of
virtue, of human virtue, to consist in the entire uniform love of
our country:  and this is what we call a public spirit, which in men
of public stations is the character of a patriot.  But this is
speaking to the upper part of the world.  Kingdoms and governments
are large, and the sphere of action of far the greatest part of
mankind is much narrower than the government they live under:  or
however, common men do not consider their actions as affecting the
whole community of which they are members.  There plainly is wanting
a less general and nearer object of benevolence for the bulk of men
than that of their country.  Therefore the Scripture, not being a
book of theory and speculation, but a plain rule of life for
mankind, has with the utmost possible propriety put the principle of
virtue upon the love of our neighbour, which is that part of the
universe, that part of mankind, that part of our country, which
comes under our immediate notice, acquaintance, and influence, and
with which we have to do.

This is plainly the true account or reason why our Saviour places
the principle of virtue in the love of our NEIGHBOUR, and the
account itself shows who are comprehended under that relation.

II.  Let us now consider in what sense we are commanded to love our
neighbour AS OURSELVES.

This precept, in its first delivery by our Saviour, is thus
introduced:- Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength; and thy neighbour as
thyself.  These very different manners of expression do not lead our
thoughts to the same measure or degree of love, common to both
objects, but to one peculiar to each.  Supposing, then, which is to
be supposed, a distinct meaning and propriety in the words, AS
THYSELF; the precept we are considering will admit of any of these
senses:  that we bear the SAME KIND of affection to our neighbour as
we do to ourselves, or, that the love we bear to our neighbour
should have SOME CERTAIN PROPORTION OR OTHER to self-love:  or,
lastly, that it should bear the particular proportion of EQUALITY,
that IT BE IN THE SAME DEGREE.

First, The precept may be understood as requiring only that we have
the SAME KIND of affection to our fellow-creatures as to ourselves;
that, as every man has the principle of self-love, which disposes
him to avoid misery, and consult his own happiness, so we should
cultivate the affection of goodwill to our neighbour, and that it
should influence us to have the same kind of regard to him.  This at
least must be commanded, and this will not only prevent our being
injurious to him, but will also put us upon promoting his good.
There are blessings in life, which we share in common with others,
peace, plenty, freedom, healthful seasons.  But real benevolence to
our fellow-creatures would give us the notion of a common interest
in a stricter sense, for in the degree we love another, his
interest, his joys and sorrows, are our own.  It is from self-love
that we form the notion of private good, and consider it is our own:
love of our neighbour would teach us thus to appropriate to
ourselves his good and welfare; to consider ourselves as having a
real share in his happiness.  Thus the principle of benevolence
would be an advocate within our own breasts, to take care of the
interests of our fellow-creatures in all the interfering and
competitions which cannot but be, from the imperfection of our
nature, and the state we are in.  It would likewise, in some
measure, lessen that interfering, and hinder men from forming so
strong a notion of private good, exclusive of the good of others, as
we commonly do.  Thus, as the private affection makes us in a
peculiar manner sensible of humanity, justice or injustice, when
exercised towards ourselves, love of our neighbour would give us the
same kind of sensibility in his behalf.  This would be the greatest
security of our uniform obedience to that most equitable rule.
WHATSOEVER YE WOULD THAT MEN SHOULD DO UNTO YOU, DO YE EVEN SO UNTO
THEM.

All this is indeed no more than that we should have a real love to
our neighbour; but then, which is to be observed, the words AS
THYSELF express this in the most distinct manner, and determine the
precept to relate to the affection itself.  The advantage which this
principle of benevolence has over other remote considerations is,
that it is itself the temper of virtue, and likewise that it is the
chief, nay, the only effectual security of our performing the
several offices of kindness we owe to our fellow-creatures.  When
from distant considerations men resolve upon any thing to which they
have no liking, or perhaps an averseness, they are perpetually
finding out evasions and excuses, which need never be wanting, if
people look for them:  and they equivocate with themselves in the
plainest cases in the world.  This may be in respect to single
determinate acts of virtue, but it comes in much more, where the
obligation is to a general course of behaviour, and most of all, if
it be such as cannot be reduced to fixed determinate rules.  This
observation may account for the diversity of the expression in that
known passage of the prophet Micah, TO DO JUSTLY, AND TO LOVE MERCY.
A man's heart must be formed to humanity and benevolence, he must
LOVE MERCY, otherwise he will not act mercifully in any settled
course of behaviour.  As consideration of the future sanctions of
religion is our only security of preserving in our duty, in cases of
great temptation:  so to get our heart and temper formed to a love
and liking of what is good is absolutely necessary in order to our
behaving rightly in the familiar and daily intercourses amongst
mankind.

Secondly, The precept before us may be understood to require that we
love our neighbour in some certain PROPORTION or other, ACCORDING AS
we love ourselves.  And indeed a man's character cannot be
determined by the love he bears to his neighbour, considered
absolutely, but the proportion which this bears to self-love,
whether it be attended to or not, is the chief thing which forms the
character and influences the actions.  For, as the form of the body
is a composition of various parts, so likewise our inward structure
is not simple or uniform, but a composition of various passions,
appetites, affections, together with rationality, including in this
last both the discernment of what is right, and a disposition to
regulate ourselves by it.  There is greater variety of parts in what
we call a character than there are features in a face, and the
morality of that is no more determined by one part than the beauty
or deformity of this is by one single feature:  each is to be judged
of by all the parts or features, not taken singly, but together.  In
the inward frame the various passions, appetites, affections, stand
in different respects to each other.  The principles in our mind may
be contradictory, or checks and allays only, or incentives and
assistants to each other.  And principles, which in their nature
have no kind of contrariety or affinity, may yet accidentally be
each other's allays or incentives.

From hence it comes to pass, that though we were able to look into
the inward contexture of the heart, and see with the greatest
exactness in what degree any one principle is in a particular man,
we could not from thence determine how far that principle would go
towards forming the character, or what influence it would have upon
the actions, unless we could likewise discern what other principles
prevailed in him, and see the proportion which that one bears to the
others.  Thus, though two men should have the affection of
compassion in the same degree exactly, yet one may have the
principle of resentment or of ambition so strong in him as to
prevail over that of compassion, and prevent its having any
influence upon his actions, so that he may deserve the character of
a hard or cruel man, whereas the other having compassion in just the
same degree only, yet having resentment or ambition in a lower
degree, his compassion may prevail over them, so as to influence his
actions, and to denominate his temper compassionate.  So that, how
strange soever it may appear to people who do not attend to the
thing, yet it is quite manifest that, when we say one man is more
resenting or compassionate than another, this does not necessarily
imply that one has the principle of resentment or of compassion
stronger than the other.  For if the proportion which resentment or
compassion bears to other inward principles is greater in one than
in the other, this is itself sufficient to denominate one more
resenting or compassionate than the other.

Further, the whole system, as I may speak, of affections (including
rationality), which constitute the heart, as this word is used in
Scripture and on moral subjects, are each and all of them stronger
in some than in others.  Now the proportion which the two general
affections, benevolence and self-love, bear to each other, according
to this interpretation of the text, demonstrates men's character as
to virtue.  Suppose, then, one man to have the principle of
benevolence in a higher degree than another; it will not follow from
hence that his general temper or character or actions will be more
benevolent than the other's.  For he may have self-love in such a
degree as quite to prevail over benevolence, so that it may have no
influence at all upon his action, whereas benevolence in the other
person, though in a lower degree, may yet be the strongest principle
in his heart, and strong enough to be the guide of his actions, so
as to denominate him a good and virtuous man.  The case is here as
in scales:  it is not one weight considered in itself, which
determines whether the scale shall ascend or descend, but this
depends upon the proportion which that one weight hath to the other.

It being thus manifest that the influence which benevolence has upon
our actions, and how far it goes towards forming our character, is
not determined by the degree itself of this principle in our mind,
but by the proportion it has to self-love and other principles:  a
comparison also being made in the text between self-love and the
love of our neighbour; these joint considerations afforded
sufficient occasion for treating here of that proportion.  It
plainly is implied in the precept, though it should be questioned,
whether it be the exact meaning of the words, as THYSELF.

Love of our neighbour, then, must bear some proportion to self-love,
and virtue, to be sure, consists in the due proportion.  What this
due proportion is, whether as a principle in the mind, or as exerted
in actions, can be judged of only from our nature and condition in
this world.  Of the degree in which affections and the principles of
action, considered in themselves, prevail, we have no measure:  let
us, then, proceed to the course of behaviour, the actions they
produce.

Both our nature and condition require that each particular man
should make particular provision for himself:  and the inquiry, what
proportion benevolence should have to self-love, when brought down
to practice, will be, what is a competent care and provision for
ourselves?  And how certain soever it be that each man must
determine this for himself, and how ridiculous soever it would be
for any to attempt to determine it for another, yet it is to be
observed that the proportion is real, and that a competent provision
has a bound, and that it cannot be all which we can possibly get and
keep within our grasp, without legal injustice.  Mankind almost
universally bring in vanity, supplies for what is called a life of
pleasure, covetousness, or imaginary notions of superiority over
others, to determine this question:  but every one who desires to
act a proper part in society would do well to consider how far any
of them come in to determine it, in the way of moral consideration.
All that can be said is, supposing what, as the world goes, is so
much to be supposed that it is scarce to be mentioned, that persons
do not neglect what they really owe to themselves; the more of their
care and thought and of their fortune they employ in doing good to
their fellow-creatures the nearer they come up to the law of
perfection, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Thirdly, if the words AS THYSELF were to be understood of an
equality of affection, it would not be attended with those
consequences which perhaps may be thought to follow from it.
Suppose a person to have the same settled regard to others as to
himself; that in every deliberate scheme or pursuit he took their
interest into the account in the same degree as his own, so far as
an equality of affection would produce this:  yet he would, in fact,
and ought to be, much more taken up and employed about himself, and
his own concerns, than about others, and their interests.  For,
besides the one common affection toward himself and his neighbour he
would have several other particular affections, passions, appetites,
which he could not possibly feel in common both for himself and
others.  Now these sensations themselves very much employ us, and
have perhaps as great influence as self-love.  So far indeed as
self-love, and cool reflection upon what is for our interest, would
set us on work to gain a supply of our own several wants, so far the
love of our neighbour would make us do the same for him:  but the
degree in which we are put upon seeking and making use of the means
of gratification, by the feeling of those affections, appetites, and
passions, must necessarily be peculiar to ourselves.

That there are particular passions (suppose shame, resentment) which
men seem to have, and feel in common, both for themselves and
others, makes no alteration in respect to those passions and
appetites which cannot possibly be thus felt in common.  From hence
(and perhaps more things of the like kind might be mentioned) it
follows, that though there were an equality of affection to both,
yet regards to ourselves would be more prevalent than attention to
the concerns of others.

And from moral considerations it ought to be so, supposing still the
equality of affection commanded, because we are in a peculiar
manner, as I may speak, intrusted with ourselves, and therefore care
of our own interests, as well as of our conduct, particularly
belongs to us.

To these things must be added, that moral obligations can extend no
further than to natural possibilities.  Now we have a perception of
our own interests, like consciousness of our own existence, which we
always carry about with us, and which, in its continuation, kind,
and degree, seems impossible to be felt in respect to the interests
of others.

From all these things it fully appears that though we were to love
our neighbour in the same degree as we love ourselves, so far as
this is possible, yet the care of ourselves, of the individual,
would not be neglected, the apprehended danger of which seems to be
the only objection against understanding the precept in this strict
sense.

III.  The general temper of mind which the due love of our neighbour
would form us to, and the influence it would have upon our behaviour
in life, is now to be considered.

The temper and behaviour of charity is explained at large in that
known passage of St. Paul:  {27} Charity suffereth long, and is
kind; charity envieth not, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh
not her own, thinketh no evil, beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things.  As to the meaning of the expressions,
seeketh not her own, thinketh no evil, believeth all things; however
those expressions may be explained away, this meekness, and in some
degree easiness of temper, readiness to forego our right for the
sake of peace, as well as in the way of compassion, freedom from
mistrust, and disposition to believe well of our neighbour, this
general temper, I say, accompanies, and is plainly the effect of
love and goodwill.  And, though such is the world in which we live,
that experience and knowledge of it not only may, but must beget, in
as greater regard to ourselves, and doubtfulness of the characters
of others, than is natural to mankind, yet these ought not to be
carried further than the nature and course of things make necessary.
It is still true, even in the present state of things, bad as it is,
that a real good man had rather be deceived than be suspicious; had
rather forego his known right, than run the venture of doing even a
hard thing.  This is the general temper of that charity, of which
the apostle asserts, that if he had it not, giving his BODY TO BE
BURNED WOULD AVAIL HIM NOTHING; and which he says SHALL NEVER FAIL.

The happy influence of this temper extends to every different
relation and circumstance in human life.  It plainly renders a man
better, more to be desired, as to all the respects and relations we
can stand in to each other.  The benevolent man is disposed to make
use of all external advantages in such a manner as shall contribute
to the good of others, as well as to his own satisfaction.  His own
satisfaction consists in this.  He will be easy and kind to his
dependents, compassionate to the poor and distressed, friendly to
all with whom he has to do.  This includes the good neighbour,
parent, master, magistrate:  and such a behaviour would plainly make
dependence, inferiority, and even servitude easy.  So that a good or
charitable man of superior rank in wisdom, fortune, authority, is a
common blessing to the place he lives in:  happiness grows under his
influence.  This good principle in inferiors would discover itself
in paying respect, gratitude, obedience, as due.  It were therefore,
methinks, one just way of trying one's own character to ask
ourselves, am I in reality a better master or servant, a better
friend, a better neighbour, than such and such persons, whom,
perhaps, I may think not to deserve the character of virtue and
religion so much as myself?

And as to the spirit of party, which unhappily prevails amongst
mankind, whatever are the distinctions which serve for a supply to
it, some or other of which have obtained in all ages and countries,
one who is thus friendly to his kind will immediately make due
allowances for it, as what cannot but be amongst such creatures as
men, in such a world as this.  And as wrath and fury and overbearing
upon these occasions proceed, as I may speak, from men's feeling
only on their own side, so a common feeling, for others as well as
for ourselves, would render us sensible to this truth, which it is
strange can have so little influence, that we ourselves differ from
others, just as much as they do from us.  I put the matter in this
way, because it can scarce be expected that the generality of men
should see that those things which are made the occasions of
dissension and fomenting the party-spirit are really nothing at all:
but it may be expected from all people, how much soever they are in
earnest about their respective peculiarities, that humanity and
common goodwill to their fellow-creatures should moderate and
restrain that wretched spirit.

This good temper of charity likewise would prevent strife and enmity
arising from other occasions:  it would prevent our giving just
cause of offence, and our taking it without cause.  And in cases of
real injury, a good man will make all the allowances which are to be
made, and, without any attempts of retaliation, he will only consult
his own and other men's security for the future against injustice
and wrong.

IV.  I proceed to consider, lastly, what is affirmed of the precept
now explained, that it comprehends in it all others, i.e., that to
love our neighbour as ourselves includes in it all virtues.

Now the way in which every maxim of conduct, or general speculative
assertion, when it is to be explained at large should be treated,
is, to show what are the particular truths which were designed to be
comprehended under such a general observation, how far it is
strictly true, and then the limitations, restrictions, and
exceptions, if there be exceptions, with which it is to be
understood.  But it is only the former of these, namely, how far the
assertion in the text holds, and the ground of the pre-eminence
assigned to the precept of it, which in strictness comes into our
present consideration.

However, in almost everything that is said, there is somewhat to be
understood beyond what is explicitly laid down, and which we of
course supply, somewhat, I mean, which would not be commonly called
a restriction or limitation.  Thus, when benevolence is said to be
the sum of virtue, it is not spoken of as a blind propension, but a
principle in reasonable 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 obligations, which require that we do good to some,
preferably to others.  Reason, considered merely as subservient to
benevolence, as assisting to produce the greatest good, will teach
us to have particular regard to these relations and circumstances,
because it is plainly for the good of the world that they should be
regarded.  And as there are numberless cases in which,
notwithstanding appearances, we are not competent judges, whether a
particular action will upon the whole do good or harm, reason in the
same way will teach us to be cautious how we act in these cases of
uncertainty.  It will suggest to our consideration which is the
safer side; how liable we are to be led wrong by passion and private
interest; and what regard is due to laws, and the judgment of
mankind.  All these things must come into consideration, were it
only in order to determine which way of acting is likely to produce
the greatest good.  Thus, upon supposition that it were in the
strictest sense true, without limitation, that benevolence includes
in it all virtues, yet reason must come in as its guide and
director, in order to attain its own end, the end of benevolence,
the greatest public good.  Reason, then, being thus included, let us
now consider the truth of the assertion itself.

First, It is manifest that nothing can be of consequence to mankind
or any creature but happiness.  This, then, is all which any person
can, in strictness of speaking, be said to have a right to.  We can
therefore OWE NO MAN ANYTHING, but only to farther and promote his
happiness, according to our abilities.  And therefore a disposition
and endeavour to do good to all with whom we have to do, in the
degree and manner which the different relations we stand in to them
require, is a discharge of all the obligations we are under to them.

As human nature is not one simple uniform thing but a composition of
various parts, body, spirit, appetites, particular passions, and
affections, for each of which reasonable self-love would lead men to
have due regard, and make suitable provision, so society consists of
various parts to which we stand in different respects and relations,
and just benevolence would as surely lead us to have due regard to
each of these and behave as the respective relations require.
Reasonable goodwill and right behaviour towards our fellow-creatures
are in a manner the same, only that the former expresseth the
principle as it is in the mind; the latter, the principle as it were
become external, i.e., exerted in actions.

And so far as temperance, sobriety, and moderation in sensual
pleasures, and the contrary vices, have any respect to our fellow-
creatures, any influence upon their quiet, welfare, and happiness,
as they always have a real, and often a near influence upon it, so
far it is manifest those virtues may be produced by the love of our
neighbour, and that the contrary vices would be prevented by it.
Indeed, if men's regard to themselves will not restrain them from
excess, it may be thought little probable that their love to others
will be sufficient:  but the reason is, that their love to others is
not, any more than their regard to themselves, just, and in its due
degree.  There are, however, manifest instances of persons kept
sober and temperate from regard to their affairs, and the welfare of
those who depend upon them.  And it is obvious to every one that
habitual excess, a dissolute course of life, implies a general
neglect of the duties we owe towards our friends, our families, and
our country.

From hence it is manifest that the common virtues and the common
vices of mankind may be traced up to benevolence, or the want of it.
And this entitles the precept, THOU SHALT LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR AS
THYSELF, to the pre-eminence given to it, and is a justification of
the apostle's assertion, that all other commandments are
comprehended in it, whatever cautions and restrictions {28} there
are, which might require to be considered, if we were to state
particularly and at length what is virtue and right behaviour in
mankind.  But,

Secondly, It might be added, that in a higher and more general way
of consideration, leaving out the particular nature of creatures,
and the particular circumstances in which they are placed,
benevolence seems in the strictest sense to include in it all that
is good and worthy, all that is good, which we have any distinct
particular notion of.  We have no clear conception of any position
moral attribute in the Supreme Being, but what may be resolved up
into goodness.  And, if we consider a reasonable creature or moral
agent, without regard to the particular relations and circumstances
in which he is placed, we cannot conceive anything else to come in
towards determining whether he is to be ranked in a higher or lower
class of virtuous beings, but the higher or lower degree in which
that principle, and what is manifestly connected with it, prevail in
him.

That which we more strictly call piety, or the love of God, and
which is an essential part of a right temper, some may perhaps
imagine no way connected with benevolence:  yet surely they must be
connected, if there be indeed in being an object infinitely good.
Human nature is so constituted that every good affection implies 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; to be
good, the love of goodness; whether this righteousness, benevolence,
or goodness be viewed as in our own mind or another's, and the love
of God as a being perfectly good is the love of perfect goodness
contemplated in a being or person.  Thus morality and religion,
virtue and piety, will at last necessarily coincide, run up into one
and the same point, and LOVE will be in all senses THE END OF THE
COMMANDMENT.


O Almighty God, inspire us with this divine principle; kill in us
all the seeds of envy and ill-will; and help us, by cultivating
within ourselves the love of our neighbour, to improve in the love
of Thee.  Thou hast placed us in various kindreds, friendships, and
relations, as the school of discipline for our affections:  help us,
by the due exercise of them, to improve to perfection; till all
partial affection be lost in that entire universal one, and thou, O
God, shalt be all in all.



SERMON XIII., XIV.
UPON THE LOVE OF GOD.
MATTHEW xxii. 37.



Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Everybody knows, you therefore need only just be put in mind, that
there is such a thing as having so great horror of one extreme as to
run insensibly and of course into the contrary; and that a
doctrine's having been a shelter for enthusiasm, or made to serve
the purposes of superstition, is no proof of the falsity of it:
truth or right being somewhat real in itself, and so not to be
judged of by its liableness to abuse, or by its supposed distance
from or nearness to error.  It may be sufficient to have mentioned
this in general, without taking notice of the particular
extravagances which have been vented under the pretence or endeavour
of explaining the love of God; or how manifestly we are got into the
contrary extreme, under the notion of a reasonable religion; so very
reasonable as to have nothing to do with the heart and affections,
if these words signify anything but the faculty by which we discern
speculative truth.

By the love of God I would understand all those regards, all those
affections of mind which are due immediately to Him from such a
creature as man, and which rest in Him as their end.  As this does
not include servile fear, so neither will any other regards, how
reasonable soever, which respect anything out of or besides the
perfection of the Divine nature, come into consideration here.  But
all fear is not excluded, because His displeasure is itself the
natural proper object of fear.  Reverence, ambition of His love and
approbation, delight in the hope or consciousness of it, come
likewise into this definition of the love of God, because He is the
natural object of all those affections or movements of mind as
really as He is the object of the affection, which is in the
strictest sense called love; and all of them equally rest in Him as
their end.  And they may all be understood to be implied in these
words of our Saviour, without putting any force upon them:  for He
is speaking of the love of God and our neighbour as containing the
whole of piety and virtue.

It is plain that the nature of man is so constituted as to feel
certain affections upon the sight or contemplation of certain
objects.  Now the very notion of affection implies resting in its
object as an end.  And the particular affection to good characters,
reverence and moral love of them, is natural to all those who have
any degree of real goodness in themselves.  This will be illustrated
by the description of a perfect character in a creature; and by
considering the manner in which a good man in his presence would be
affected towards such a character.  He would of course feel the
affections of love, reverence, desire of his approbation, delight in
the hope or consciousness of it.  And surely all this is applicable,
and may be brought up to that Being, who is infinitely more than an
adequate object of all those affections; whom we are commanded to
LOVE WITH ALL OUR HEART, WITH ALL OUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL OUR MIND.
And of these regards towards Almighty God some are more particularly
suitable to and becoming so imperfect a creature as man, in this
mortal state we are passing through; and some of them, and perhaps
other exercises of the mind, will be the employment and happiness of
good men in a state of perfection.

This is a general view of what the following discourse will contain.
And it is manifest the subject is a real one:  there is nothing in
it enthusiastical or unreasonable.  And if it be indeed at all a
subject, it is one of the utmost importance.

As mankind have a faculty by which they discern speculative truth,
so we have various affections towards external objects.
Understanding and temper, reason and affection, are as distinct
ideas as reason and hunger, and one would think could no more be
confounded.  It is by reason that we get the ideas of several
objects of our affections; but in these cases reason and affection
are no more the same than sight of a particular object, and the
pleasure or uneasiness consequent thereupon, are the same.  Now as
reason tends to and rests in the discernment of truth, the object of
it, so the very nature of affection consists in tending towards, and
resting in, its objects as an end.  We do indeed often in common
language say that things are loved, desired, esteemed, not for
themselves, but for somewhat further, somewhat out of and beyond
them; yet, in these cases, whoever will attend will see that these
things are not in reality the objects of the affections, i.e. are
not loved, desired, esteemed, but the somewhat further and beyond
them.  If we have no affections which rest in what are called their
objects, then what is called affection, love, desire, hope, in human
nature, is only an uneasiness in being at rest; an unquiet
disposition to action, progress, pursuit, without end or meaning.
But if there be any such thing as delight in the company of one
person, rather than of another; whether in the way of friendship, or
mirth and entertainment, it is all one, if it be without respect to
fortune, honour, or increasing our stores of knowledge, or anything
beyond the present time; here is an instance of an affection
absolutely resting in its object as its end, and being gratified in
the same way as the appetite of hunger is satisfied with food.  Yet
nothing is more common than to hear it asked, what advantage a man
hath in such a course, suppose of study, particular friendships, or
in any other; nothing, I say, is more common than to hear such a
question put in a way which supposes no gain, advantage, or
interest, but as a means to somewhat further:  and if so, then there
is no such thing at all as real interest, gain, or advantage.  This
is the same absurdity with respect to life as an infinite series of
effects without a cause is in speculation.  The gain, advantage, or
interest consists in the delight itself, arising from such a
faculty's having its object:  neither is there any such thing as
happiness or enjoyment but what arises from hence.  The pleasures of
hope and of reflection are not exceptions:  the former being only
this happiness anticipated; the latter the same happiness enjoyed
over again after its time.  And even the general expectation of
future happiness can afford satisfaction only as it is a present
object to the principle of self-love.

It was doubtless intended that life should be very much a pursuit to
the gross of mankind.  But this is carried so much further than is
reasonable that what gives immediate satisfaction, i.e. our present
interest, is scarce considered as our interest at all.  It is
inventions which have only a remote tendency towards enjoyment,
perhaps but a remote tendency towards gaining the means only of
enjoyment, which are chiefly spoken of as useful to the world.  And
though this way of thinking were just with respect to the imperfect
state we are now in, where we know so little of satisfaction without
satiety, yet it must be guarded against when we are considering the
happiness of a state of perfection; which happiness being enjoyment
and not hope, must necessarily consist in this, that our affections
have their objects, and rest in those objects as an end, i.e. be
satisfied with them.  This will further appear in the sequel of this
discourse.

Of the several affections, or inward sensations, which particular
objects excite in man, there are some, the having of which implies
the love of them, when they are reflected upon. {29}  This cannot be
said of all our affections, principles, and motives of action.  It
were ridiculous to assert that a man upon reflection hath the same
kind of approbation of the appetite of hunger or the passion of fear
as he hath of goodwill to his fellow-creatures.  To be a just, a
good, a righteous man, plainly carries with it a peculiar affection
to or love of justice, goodness, righteousness, when these
principles are the objects of contemplation.

Now if a man approves of, or hath an affection to, any principle in
and for itself, incidental things allowed for, it will be the same
whether he views it in his own mind or in another; in himself or in
his neighbour.  This is the account of our approbation of, or moral
love and affection to good characters; which cannot but be in those
who have any degrees of real goodness in themselves, and who discern
and take notice of the same principle in others.

From observation of what passes within ourselves, our own actions,
and the behaviour of others, the mind may carry on its reflections
as far as it pleases; much beyond what we experience in ourselves,
or discern in our fellow creatures.  It may go on and consider
goodness as become a uniform continued principle of action, as
conducted by reason, and forming a temper and character absolutely
good and perfect, which is in a higher sense excellent, and
proportionably the object of love and approbation.

Let us then suppose a creature perfect according to his created
nature--let his form be human, and his capacities no more than equal
to those of the chief of men--goodness shall be his proper
character, with wisdom to direct it, and power within some certain
determined sphere of action to exert it:  but goodness must be the
simple actuating principle within him; this being the moral quality
which is amiable, or the immediate object of love as distinct from
other affections of approbation.  Here then is a finite object for
our mind to tend towards, to exercise itself upon:  a creature,
perfect according to his capacity, fixed, steady, equally unmoved by
weak pity or more weak fury and resentment; forming the justest
scheme of conduct; going on undisturbed in the execution of it,
through the several methods of severity and reward, towards his end,
namely, the general happiness of all with whom he hath to do, as in
itself right and valuable.  This character, though uniform in
itself, in its principle, yet exerting itself in different ways, or
considered in different views, may by its appearing variety move
different affections.  Thus, the severity of justice would not
affect us in the same way as an act of mercy.  The adventitious
qualities of wisdom and power may be considered in themselves; and
even the strength of mind which this immovable goodness supposes may
likewise be viewed as an object of contemplation distinct from the
goodness itself.  Superior excellence of any kind, as well as
superior wisdom and power, is the object of awe and reverence to all
creatures, whatever their moral character be; but so far as
creatures of the lowest rank were good, so far the view of this
character, as simply good, must appear amiable to them, be the
object of, or beget love.  Further suppose we were conscious that
this superior person so far approved of us that we had nothing
servilely to fear from him; that he was really our friend, and kind
and good to us in particular, as he had occasionally intercourse
with us:  we must be other creatures than we are, or we could not
but feel the same kind of satisfaction and enjoyment (whatever would
be the degree of it) from this higher acquaintance and friendship as
we feel from common ones, the intercourse being real and the persons
equally present in both cases.  We should have a more ardent desire
to be approved by his better judgment, and a satisfaction in that
approbation of the same sort with what would be felt in respect to
common persons, or be wrought in us by their presence.

Let us now raise the character, and suppose this creature, for we
are still going on with the supposition of a creature, our proper
guardian and governor; that we were in a progress of being towards
somewhat further; and that his scheme of government was too vast for
our capacities to comprehend:  remembering still that he is
perfectly good, and our friend as well as our governor.  Wisdom,
power, goodness, accidentally viewed anywhere, would inspire
reverence, awe, love; and as these affections would be raised in
higher or lower degrees in proportion as we had occasionally more or
less intercourse with the creature endued with those qualities, so
this further consideration and knowledge that he was our proper
guardian and governor would much more bring these objects and
qualities home to ourselves; teach us they had a greater respect to
us in particular, that we had a higher interest in that wisdom and
power and goodness.  We should, with joy, gratitude, reverence,
love, trust, and dependence, appropriate the character, as what we
had a right in, and make our boast in such our relation to it.  And
the conclusion of the whole would be that we should refer ourselves
implicitly to him, and cast ourselves entirely upon him.  As the
whole attention of life should be to obey his commands, so the
highest enjoyment of it must arise from the contemplation of this
character, and our relation to it, from a consciousness of his
favour and approbation, and from the exercise of those affections
towards him which could not but be raised from his presence.  A
Being who hath these attributes, who stands in this relation, and is
thus sensibly present to the mind, must necessarily be the object of
these affections:  there is as real a correspondence between them as
between the lowest appetite of sense and its object.

That this Being is not a creature, but the Almighty God; that He is
of infinite power and wisdom and goodness, does not render Him less
the object of reverence and love than He would be if He had those
attributes only in a limited degree.  The Being who made us, and
upon whom we entirely depend, is the object of some regards.  He
hath given us certain affections of mind, which correspond to
wisdom, power, goodness, i.e. which are raised upon view of those
qualities.  If then He be really wise, powerful, good, He is the
natural object of those affections which He hath endued us with, and
which correspond to those attributes.  That He is infinite in power,
perfect in wisdom and goodness, makes no alteration, but only that
He is the object of those affections raised to the highest pitch.
He is not, indeed, to be discerned by any of our senses.  I go
forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive
Him:  on the left hand where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him:
He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him, Oh that
I knew where I might find Him! that I might come even to His seat!
{30}  But is He then afar off? does He not fill heaven and earth
with His presence?  The presence of our fellow-creatures affects our
senses, and our senses give us the knowledge of their presence;
which hath different kinds of influence upon us--love, joy, sorrow,
restraint, encouragement, reverence.  However, this influence is not
immediately from our senses, but from that knowledge.  Thus suppose
a person neither to see nor hear another, not to know by any of his
senses, but yet certainly to know, that another was with him; this
knowledge might, and in many cases would, have one or more of the
effects before mentioned.  It is therefore not only reasonable, but
also natural, to be affected with a presence, though it be not the
object of our senses; whether it be, or be not, is merely an
accidental circumstance, which needs not come into consideration:
it is the certainty that he is with us, and we with him, which hath
the influence.  We consider persons then as present, not only when
they are within reach of our senses, but also when we are assured by
any other means that they are within such a nearness; nay, if they
are not, we can recall them to our mind, and be moved towards them
as present; and must He, who is so much more intimately with us,
that IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING, be thought too
distant to be the object of our affections?  We own and feel the
force of amiable and worthy qualities in our fellow creatures; and
can we be insensible to the contemplation of perfect goodness?  Do
we reverence the shadows of greatness here below, are we solicitous
about honour and esteem and the opinion of the world, and shall we
not feel the same with respect to Him whose are wisdom and power in
the original, who IS THE GOD OF JUDGMENT BY WHOM ACTIONS ARE
WEIGHED?  Thus love, reverence, desire of esteem, every faculty,
every affection, tends towards and is employed about its respective
object in common cases:  and must the exercise of them be suspended
with regard to Him alone who is an object, an infinitely more than
adequate object, to our most exalted faculties; Him, OF WHOM, AND
THROUGH WHOM, AND TO WHOM ARE ALL THINGS?

As we cannot remove from this earth, or change our general business
on it, so neither can we alter our real nature.  Therefore no
exercise of the mind can be recommended, but only the exercise of
those faculties you are conscious of.  Religion does not demand new
affections, but only claims the direction of those you already have,
those affections you daily feel; though unhappily confined to
objects not altogether unsuitable but altogether unequal to them.
We only represent to you the higher, the adequate objects of those
very faculties and affections.  Let the man of ambition go on still
to consider disgrace as the greatest evil, honour as his chief good.
But disgrace in whose estimation?  Honour in whose judgment?  This
is the only question.  If shame, and delight in esteem, be spoken of
as real, as any settled ground of pain or pleasure, both these must
be in proportion to the supposed wisdom, and worth of him by whom we
are contemned or esteemed.  Must it then be thought enthusiastical
to speak of a sensibility of this sort which shall have respect to
an unerring judgment, to infinite wisdom, when we are assured this
unerring judgment, this infinite wisdom does observe upon our
actions?

It is the same with respect to the love of God in the strictest and
most confined sense.  We only offer and represent the highest object
of an affection supposed already in your mind.  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 WITH 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 own interest, no more go out of yourselves, than when you
prefer one place, one prospect, the conversation of one man to that
of another.  Does not every affection necessarily imply that the
object of it be itself loved?  If it be not it is not the object of
the affection.  You may, and ought if you can, but it is a great
mistake to think you can love or fear or hate anything, from
consideration that such love or fear or hatred may be a means of
obtaining good or avoiding evil.  But the question whether we ought
to love God for His sake or for our own being a mere mistake in
language, the real question which this is mistaken 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 same goodness exercised towards others; were it only
for this reason, that every affection is moved in proportion to the
sense we have of the object of it; and we cannot but have a more
lively sense of goodness when exercised towards ourselves than when
exercised towards others.  I added expectation of future benefits
because the ground of that expectation is present goodness.

Thus Almighty God is the natural object of the several affections,
love, reverence, fear, desire of approbation.  For though He is
simply one, yet we cannot but consider Him in partial and different
views.  He is in himself one uniform Being, and for ever the same
without VARIABLENESS OR SHADOW OF TURNING; but His infinite
greatness, His goodness, His wisdom, are different objects to our
mind.  To which is to be added, that from the changes in our own
characters, together with His unchangeableness, we cannot but
consider ourselves as more or less the objects of His approbation,
and really be so.  For if He approves what is good, He cannot,
merely from the unchangeableness of His nature, approve what is
evil.  Hence must arise more various movements of mind, more
different kinds of affections.  And this greater variety also is
just and reasonable in such creatures as we are, though it respects
a Being simply one, good and perfect.  As some of these actions are
most particularly suitable to so imperfect a creature as man in this
mortal state we are passing through, so there may be other exercises
of mind, or some of these in higher degrees, our employment and
happiness in a state of perfection.



SERMON XIV.



Consider then our ignorance, the imperfection of our nature, our
virtue, and our condition in this world, with respect to aim
infinitely good and just Being, our Creator and Governor, and you
will see what religious affections of mind are most particularly
suitable to this mortal state we are passing through.

Though we are not affected with anything so strongly as what we
discern with our senses, and though our nature and condition require
that we be much taken up about sensible things, yet our reason
convinces us that God is present with us, and we see and feel the
effects of His goodness:  He is therefore the object of some
regards.  The imperfection of our virtue, joined with the
consideration of His absolute rectitude or holiness, will scarce
permit that perfection of love which entirely casts out all fear:
yet goodness is the object of love to all creatures who have any
degree of it themselves; and consciousness of a real endeavour to
approve ourselves to Him, joined with the consideration of His
goodness, as it quite excludes servile dread and horror, so it is
plainly a reasonable ground for hope of His favour.  Neither fear
nor hope nor love then are excluded, and one or another of these
will prevail, according to the different views we have of God, and
ought to prevail, according to the changes we find in our own
character.  There is a temper of mind made up of, or which follows
from all three, fear, hope, love--namely, resignation to the Divine
will, which is the general temper belonging to this state; which
ought to be the habitual frame of our mind and heart, and to be
exercised at proper seasons more distinctly, in acts of devotion.

Resignation to the will of God is the whole of piety.  It includes
in it all that is good, and is a source of the most settled quiet
and composure of mind.  There is the general principle of submission
in our nature.  Man is not so constituted as to desire things, and
be uneasy in the want of them, in proportion to their known value:
many other considerations come in to determine the degrees of
desire; particularly whether the advantage we take a view of be
within the sphere of our rank.  Whoever felt uneasiness upon
observing any of the advantages brute creatures have over us?  And
yet it is plain they have several.  It is the same with respect to
advantages belonging to creatures of a superior order.  Thus, though
we see a thing to be highly valuable, yet that it does not belong to
our condition of being is sufficient to suspend our desires after
it, to make us rest satisfied without such advantage.  Now there is
just the same reason for quiet resignation in the want of everything
equally unattainable and out of our reach in particular, though
others of our species be possessed of it.  All this may be applied
to the whole of life; to positive inconveniences as well as wants,
not indeed to the sensations of pain and sorrow, but to all the
uneasinesses of reflection, murmuring, and discontent.  Thus is
human nature formed to compliance, yielding, submission of temper.
We find the principles of it within us; and every one exercises it
towards some objects or other, i.e. feels it with regard to some
persons and some circumstances.  Now this is an excellent foundation
of a reasonable and religious resignation.  Nature teaches and
inclines as to take up with our lot; the consideration that the
course of things is unalterable hath a tendency to quiet the mind
under it, to beget a submission of temper to it.  But when we can
add that this unalterable course is appointed and continued by
infinite wisdom and goodness, how absolute should be our submission,
how entire our trust and dependence!

This would reconcile us to our condition, prevent all the
supernumerary troubles arising from imagination, distant fears,
impatience--all uneasiness, except that which necessarily arises
from the calamities themselves we may be under.  How many of our
cares should we by this means be disburdened of!  Cares not properly
our own, how apt soever they may be to intrude upon us, and we to
admit them; the anxieties of expectation, solicitude about success
and disappointment, which in truth are none of our concern.  How
open to every gratification would that mind be which was clear of
these encumbrances!

Our resignation to the will of God may be said to be perfect when
our will is lost and resolved up into His:  when we rest in His will
as our end, as being itself most just and right and good.  And where
is the impossibility of such an affection to what is just, and
right, and good, such a loyalty of heart to the Governor of the
universe as shall prevail over all sinister indirect desires of our
own?  Neither is this at bottom anything more than faith and honesty
and fairness of mind--in a more enlarged sense indeed than those
words are commonly used.  And as, in common cases, fear and hope and
other passions are raised in us by their respective objects, so this
submission of heart and soul and mind, this religious resignation,
would be as naturally produced by our having just conceptions of
Almighty God, and a real sense of His presence with us.  In how low
a degree soever this temper usually prevails amongst men, yet it is
a temper right in itself:  it is what we owe to our Creator:  it is
particularly suitable to our mortal condition, and what we should
endeavour after for our own sakes in our passage through such a
world as this, where is nothing upon which we can rest or depend,
nothing but what we are liable to be deceived and disappointed in.
Thus we might ACQUAINT OURSELVES WITH GOD, AND BE AT PEACE.  This is
piety an religion in the strictest sense, considered as a habit of
mind:  an habitual sense of God's presence with us; being affected
towards Him, as present, in the manner His superior nature requires
from such a creature as man:  this is to WALK WITH GOD.

Little more need be said of devotion or religious worship than that
it is this temper exerted into act.  The nature of it consists in
the actual exercise of those affections towards God which are
supposed habitual in good men.  He is always equally present with
us:  but we are so much taken up with sensible things that, Lo, He
goeth by us, and we see Him not:  He passeth on also, but we
perceive Him not. {31}  Devotion is retirement from the world He has
made to Him alone:  it is to withdraw from the avocations of sense,
to employ our attention wholly upon Him as upon an object actually
present, to yield ourselves up to the influence of the Divine
presence, and to give full scope to the affections of gratitude,
love, reverence, trust, and dependence; of which infinite power,
wisdom, and goodness is the natural and only adequate object.  We
may apply to the whole of devotion those words of the Son of Sirach,
When you glorify the Lord, exalt Him as much as you can; for even
yet will He far exceed:  and when you exalt Him, put forth all your
strength, and be not weary; for you can never go far enough. {32}
Our most raised affections of every kind cannot but fall short and
be disproportionate when an infinite being is the object of them.
This is the highest exercise and employment of mind that a creature
is capable of.  As this divine service and worship is itself
absolutely due to God, so also is it necessary in order to a further
end, to keep alive upon our minds a sense of His authority, a sense
that in our ordinary behaviour amongst men we act under him as our
Governor and Judge.

Thus you see the temper of mind respecting God which is particularly
suitable to a state of imperfection, to creatures in a progress of
being towards somewhat further.

Suppose now this something further attained, that we were arrived at
it, what a perception will it be to see and know and feel that our
trust was not vain, our dependence not groundless?  That the issue,
event, and consummation came out such as fully to justify and answer
that resignation?  If the obscure view of the divine perfection
which we have in this world ought in just consequence to beget an
entire resignation, what will this resignation be exalted into when
WE SHALL SEE FACE TO FACE, AND KNOW AS WE ARE KNOWN?  If we cannot
form any distinct notion of that perfection of the love of God which
CASTS OUT ALL FEAR, of that enjoyment of Him which will be the
happiness of good men hereafter, the consideration of our wants and
capacities of happiness, and that He will be adequate supply to
them, must serve us instead of such distinct conception of the
particular happiness itself.

Let us then suppose a man entirely disengaged from business and
pleasure, sitting down alone and at leisure, to reflect upon himself
and his own condition of being.  He would immediately feel that he
was by no means complete of himself, but totally insufficient for
his own happiness.  One may venture to affirm that every man hath
felt this, whether he hath again reflected upon it or not.  It is
feeling this deficiency, that they are unsatisfied with themselves,
which makes men look out for assistance from abroad, and which has
given rise to various kinds of amusements, altogether needless any
otherwise than as they serve to fill up the blank spaces of time,
and so hinder their feeling this deficiency, and being uneasy with
themselves.  Now, if these external things we take up with were
really an adequate supply to this deficiency of human nature, if by
their means our capacities and desires were all satisfied and filled
up, then it might be truly said that we had found out the proper
happiness of man, and so might sit down satisfied, and be at rest in
the enjoyment of it.  But if it appears that the amusements which
men usually pass their time in are so far from coming up to or
answering our notions and desires of happiness or good that they are
really no more than what they are commonly called, somewhat to pass
away the time, i.e. somewhat which serves to turn us aside from, and
prevent our attending to, this our internal poverty and want; if
they serve only, or chiefly, to suspend instead of satisfying our
conceptions and desires of happiness; if the want remains, and we
have found out little more than barely the means of making it less
sensible; then are we still to seek for somewhat to be an adequate
supply to it.  It is plain that there is a capacity in the nature of
man which neither riches nor honours nor sensual gratifications, nor
anything in this world, can perfectly fill up or satisfy:  there is
a deeper and more essential want than any of these things can be the
supply of.  Yet surely there is a possibility of somewhat which may
fill up all our capacities of happiness, somewhat in which our souls
may find rest, somewhat which may be to us that satisfactory good we
are inquiring after.  But it cannot be anything which is valuable
only as it tends to some further end.  Those therefore who have got
this world so much into their hearts as not to be able to consider
happiness as consisting in anything but property and possessions--
which are only valuable as the means to somewhat else--cannot have
the least glimpse of the subject before us, which is the end, not
the means; the thing itself, not somewhat in order to it.  But if
you can lay aside that general, confused, undeterminate notion of
happiness, as consisting in such possessions, and fix in your
thoughts that it really can consist in nothing but in a faculty's
having its proper object, you will clearly see that in the coolest
way of consideration, without either the heat of fanciful enthusiasm
or the warmth of real devotion, nothing is more certain than that an
infinite Being may Himself be, if He pleases, the supply to all the
capacities of our nature.  All the common enjoyments of life are
from the faculties He hath endued us with and the objects He hath
made suitable to them.  He may Himself be to us infinitely more than
all these; He may be to us all that we want.  As our understanding
can contemplate itself, and our affections be exercised upon
themselves by reflection, so may each be employed in the same manner
upon any other mind; and since the Supreme Mind, the Author and
Cause of all things, is the highest possible object to Himself, He
may be an adequate supply to all the faculties of our souls, a
subject to our understanding, and an object to our affections.

Consider then:  when we shall have put off this mortal body, when we
shall be divested of sensual appetites, and those possessions which
are now the means of gratification shall be of no avail, when this
restless scene of business and vain pleasures, which now diverts us
from ourselves, shall be all over, we, our proper self, shall still
remain:  we shall still continue the same creatures we are, with
wants to be supplied and capacities of happiness.  We must have
faculties of perception, though not sensitive ones; and pleasure or
uneasiness from our perceptions, as now we have.

There are certain ideas which we express by the words order,
harmony, proportion, beauty, the furthest removed from anything
sensual.  Now what is there in those intellectual images, forms, or
ideas, which begets that approbation, love, delight, and even
rapture, which is seen in some persons' faces upon having those
objects present to their minds?--"Mere enthusiasm!"--Be it what it
will:  there are objects, works of nature and of art, which all
mankind have delight from quite distinct from their affording
gratification to sensual appetites, and from quite another view of
them than as being for their interest and further advantage.  The
faculties from which we are capable of these pleasures, and the
pleasures themselves, are as natural, and as much to be accounted
for, as any sensual appetite whatever, and the pleasure from its
gratification.  Words to be sure are wanting upon this subject; to
say that everything of grace and beauty throughout the whole of
nature, everything excellent and amiable shared in differently lower
degrees by the whole creation, meet in the Author and Cause of all
things, this is an inadequate and perhaps improper way of speaking
of the Divine nature; but it is manifest that absolute rectitude,
the perfection of being, must be in all senses, and in every
respect, the highest object to the mind.

In this world it is only the effects of wisdom and power and
greatness which we discern; it is not impossible that hereafter the
qualities themselves in the supreme Being may be the immediate
object of contemplation.  What amazing wonders are opened to view by
late improvements!  What an object is the universe to a creature, if
there be a creature who can comprehend its system!  But it must be
an infinitely higher exercise of the understanding to view the
scheme of it in that mind which projected it before its foundations
were laid.  And surely we have meaning to the words when we speak of
going further, and viewing, not only this system in His mind, but
the wisdom and intelligence itself from whence it proceeded.  The
same may be said of power.  But since wisdom and power are not God,
He is a wise, a powerful Being; the divine nature may therefore be a
further object to the understanding.  It is nothing to observe that
our senses give us but an imperfect knowledge of things:  effects
themselves, if we knew them thoroughly, would give us but imperfect
notions of wisdom and power; much less of His being in whom they
reside.  I am not speaking of any fanciful notion of seeing all
things in God, but only representing to you how much a higher object
to the understanding an infinite Being Himself is than the things
which He has made; and this is no more than saying that the Creator
is superior to the works of His hands.

This may be illustrated by a low example.  Suppose a machine, the
sight of which would raise, and discoveries in its contrivance
gratify, our curiosity:  the real delight in this case would arise
from its being the effect of skill and contrivance.  This skill in
the mind of the artificer would be a higher object, if we had any
senses or ways to discern it.  For, observe, the contemplation of
that principle, faculty, or power which produced any effect must be
a higher exercise of the understanding than the contemplation of the
effect itself.  The cause must be a higher object to the mind than
the effect.

But whoever considers distinctly what the delight of knowledge is
will see reason to be satisfied that it cannot be the chief good of
man:  all this, as it is applicable, so it was mentioned with regard
to the attribute of goodness.  I say goodness.  Our being and all
our enjoyments are the effects of it:  just men bear its
resemblance; but how little do we know of the original, of what it
is in itself?  Recall what was before observed concerning the
affection to moral characters--which, in how low a degree soever,
yet is plainly natural to man, and the most excellent part of his
nature.  Suppose this improved, as it may be improved, to any degree
whatever, in the SPIRITS OF JUST MEN MADE PERFECT; and then suppose
that they had a real view of that RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS AN
EVERLASTING RIGHTEOUSNESS, of the conformity of the Divine will to
THE LAW OF TRUTH in which the moral attributes of God consist, of
that goodness in the sovereign Mind which gave birth to the
universe.  Add, what will be true of all good men hereafter, a
consciousness of having an interest in what they are contemplating--
suppose them able to say, THIS GOD IS OUR GOD FOR EVER AND EVER.
Would they be any longer to seek for what was their chief happiness,
their final good?  Could the utmost stretch of their capacities look
further?  Would not infinite perfect goodness be their very end, the
last end and object of their affections, beyond which they could
neither have nor desire, beyond which they could not form a wish or
thought?

Consider wherein that presence of a friend consists which has often
so strong an effect as wholly to possess the mind, and entirely
suspend all other affections and regards, and which itself affords
the highest satisfaction and enjoyment.  He is within reach of the
senses.  Now as our capacities of perception improve we shall have,
perhaps by some faculty entirely new, a perception of God's presence
with us in a nearer and stricter way, since it is certain He is more
intimately present with us than anything else can be.  Proof of the
existence and presence of any being is quite different from the
immediate perception, the consciousness of it.  What then will be
the joy of heart which His presence and THE LIGHT OF HIS
COUNTENANCE, who is the life of the universe, will inspire good men
with when they shall have a sensation that He is the sustainer of
their being, that they exist in Him; when they shall feel His
influence to cheer and enliven and support their frame, in a manner
of which we have now no conception?  He will be in a literal sense
THEIR STRENGTH AND THEIR PORTION FOR EVER.

When we speak of things so much above our comprehension as the
employment and happiness of a future state, doubtless it behoves us
to speak with all modesty and distrust of ourselves.  But the
Scripture represents the happiness of that state under the notions
of SEEING GOD, SEEING HIM AS HE IS, KNOWING AS WE ARE KNOWN, AND
SEEING FACE TO FACE.  These words are not general or undetermined,
but express a particular determinate happiness.  And I will be bold
to say that nothing can account for or come up to these expressions
but only this, that God Himself will be an object to our faculties,
that He Himself will be our happiness as distinguished from the
enjoyments of the present state, which seem to arise not immediately
from Him but from the objects He has adapted to give us delight.

To conclude:  Let us suppose a person tired with care and sorrow and
the repetition of vain delights which fill up the round of life;
sensible that everything here below in its best estate is altogether
vanity.  Suppose him to feel that deficiency of human nature before
taken notice of, and to be convinced that God alone was the adequate
supply to it.  What could be more applicable to a good man in this
state of mind, or better express his present wants and distant
hopes, his passage through this world as a progress towards a state
of perfection, than the following passages in the devotions of the
royal prophet?  They are plainly in a higher and more proper sense
applicable to this than they could be to anything else.  I have seen
an end of all perfection.  Whom have I in heaven but Thee?  And
there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee.  My
flesh and may heart faileth:  but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion for ever.  Like as the hart desireth the water-
brooks, so longeth my soul after Thee, O God.  My soul is athirst
for God, yea, even for the living God:  when shall I come to appear
before Him?  How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, O God! and the
children of men shall put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings.
They shall be satisfied with the plenteousness of Thy house:  and
Thou shalt give them drink of Thy pleasures, as out of the river.
For with Thee is the well of life:  and in Thy light shall we see
light.  Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest, and receivest unto
Thee:  he shall dwell in Thy court, and shall be satisfied with the
pleasures of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple.  Blessed is the
people, O Lord, that can rejoice in Thee:  they shall walk in the
light of Thy countenance.  Their delight shall be daily in Thy name,
and in Thy righteousness shall they make their boast.  For Thou art
the glory of their strength:  and in Thy lovingkindness they shall
be exalted.  As for me, I will behold Thy presence in righteousness:
and when I awake up after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with
it.  Thou shalt shew me the path of life; in Thy presence is the
fulness of joy, and at Thy right hand there is pleasure for
evermore.



Footnotes:

{1}  1 Cor. xii

{2}  Suppose a man of learning to be writing a grave book upon HUMAN
NATURE, and to show in several parts of it that he had an insight
into the subject he was considering, amongst other things, the
following one would require to be accounted for--the appearance of
benevolence or good-will in men towards each other in the instances
of natural relation, and in others. {2a}  Cautions of being deceived
with outward show, he retires within himself to see exactly what
that is in the mind of man from whence this appearance proceeds;
and, upon deep reflection, asserts the principle in the mind to be
only the love of power, and delight in the exercise of it.  Would
not everybody think here was a mistake of one word for another--that
the philosopher was contemplating and accounting for some other
HUMAN ACTIONS, some other behaviour of man to man?  And could any
one be thoroughly satisfied that what is commonly called benevolence
or good-will was really the affection meant, but only by being made
to understand that this learned person had a general hypothesis, to
which the appearance of good-will could no otherwise be reconciled?
That what has this appearance is often nothing but ambition; that
delight in superiority often (suppose always) mixes itself with
benevolence, only makes it more specious to call it ambition than
hunger, of the two:  but in reality that passion does no more
account for the whole appearances of good-will than this appetite
does.  Is there not often the appearance of one man's wishing that
good to another, which he knows himself unable to procure him; and
rejoicing in it, though bestowed by a third person?  And can love of
power any way possibly come in to account for this desire or
delight?  Is there not often the appearance of men's distinguishing
between two or more persons, preferring one before another, to do
good to, in cases where love of power cannot in the least account
for the distinction and preference?  For this principle can no
otherwise distinguish between objects than as it is a greater
instance and exertion of power to do good to one rather than to
another.  Again, suppose good-will in the mind of man to be nothing
but delight in the exercise of power:  men might indeed be
restrained by distant and accidental consideration; but these
restraints being removed, they would have a disposition to, and
delight in, mischief as an exercise and proof of power:  and this
disposition and delight would arise from, or be the same principle
in the mind, as a disposition to and delight in charity.  Thus
cruelty, as distinct from envy and resentment, would be exactly the
same in the mind of man as good-will:  that one tends to the
happiness, the other to the misery, of our fellow-creatures, is, it
seems, merely an accidental circumstance, which the mind has not the
least regard to.  These are the absurdities which even men of
capacity run into when they have occasion to belie their nature, and
will perversely disclaim that image of God which was originally
stamped upon it, the traces of which, however faint, are plainly
discernible upon the mind of man.

If any person can in earnest doubt whether there be such a thing as
good-will in one man towards another (for the question is not
concerning either the degree or extensiveness of it, but concerning
the affection itself), let it be observed that WHETHER MAN BE THUS,
OR OTHERWISE CONSTITUTED, WHAT IS THE INWARD FRAME IN THIS
PARTICULAR is a mere question of fact of natural history not
provable immediately by reason.  It is therefore to be judged of and
determined in the same way other facts or matters of natural history
are--by appealing to the external senses, or inward perceptions
respectively, as the matter under consideration is cognisable by one
or the other:  by arguing from acknowledged facts and actions for a
great number of actions in the same kind, in different
circumstances, and respecting different objects, will prove to a
certainty what principles they do not, and to the greatest
probability what principles they do, proceed from:  and, lastly, by
the testimony of mankind.  Now that there is some degree of
benevolence amongst men may be as strongly and plainly proved in all
these ways, as it could possibly be proved, supposing there was this
affection in our nature.  And should any one think fit to assert
that resentment in the mind of man was absolutely nothing but
reasonable concern for our own safety, the falsity of this, and what
is the real nature of that passion, could be shown in no other ways
than those in which it may be shown that there is such a thing in
SOME DEGREE as real good-will in man towards man.  It is sufficient
that the seeds of it be implanted in our nature by God.  There is,
it is owned, much left for us to do upon our own heart and temper;
to cultivate, to improve, to call it forth, to exercise it in a
steady, uniform manner.  This is our work:  this is virtue and
religion.

{2a}  Hobbes, "Of Human Nature," c. ix. 7.

{3}  Everybody makes a distinction between self-love and the several
particular passions, appetites, and affections; and yet they are
often confounded again.  That they are totally different, will be
seen by any one who will distinguish between the passions and
appetites THEMSELVES, and ENDEAVOURING after the means of their
gratification.  Consider the appetite of hunger, and the desire of
esteem:  these being the occasion both of pleasure and pain, the
coolest self-love, as well as the appetites and passions themselves,
may put us upon making use of the PROPER METHODS OF OBTAINING that
pleasure, and avoiding that pain; but the FEELINGS themselves, the
pain of hunger and shame, and the delight from esteem, are no more
self-love than they are anything in the world.  Though a man hated
himself, he would as much feel the pain of hunger as he would that
of the gout; and it is plainly supposable there may be creatures
with self-love in them to the highest degree, who may be quite
insensible and indifferent (as men in some cases are) to the
contempt and esteem of those upon whom their happiness does not in
some further respects depend.  And as self-love and the several
particular passions and appetites are in themselves totally
different, so that some actions proceed from one and some from the
other will be manifest to any who will observe the two following
very supposable cases.  One man rushes upon certain ruin for the
gratification of a present desire:  nobody will call the principle
of this action self-love.  Suppose another man to go through some
laborious work upon promise of a great reward, without any distinct
knowledge what the reward will be:  this course of action cannot be
ascribed to any particular passion.  The former of these actions is
plainly to be imputed to some particular passion or affection; the
latter as plainly to the general affection or principle of self-
love.  That there are some particular pursuits or actions concerning
which we cannot determine how far they are owing to one, and how far
to the other, proceeds from this, that the two principles are
frequently mixed together, and run up into each other.  This
distinction is further explained in the Eleventh Sermon.

{4}  If any desire to see this distinction and comparison made in a
particular instance, the appetite and passion now mentioned may
serve for one.  Hunger is to be considered as a private appetite,
because the end for which it was given us is the preservation of the
individual.  Desire of esteem is a public passion; because the end
for which it was given us is to regulate our behaviour towards
society.  The respect which this has to private good is as remote as
the respect that has to public good; and the appetite is no more
self-love than the passion is benevolence.  The object and end of
the former is merely food; the object and end of the latter is
merely esteem; but the latter can no more be gratified without
contributing to the good of society, than the former can be
gratified without contributing to the preservation of the
individual.

{5}  Emulation is merely the desire and hope of equality with or
superiority over others with whom we compare ourselves.  There does
not appear to be any other GRIEF in the natural passion, but only
THAT WANT which is implied in desire.  However, this may be so
strong as to be the occasion of great GRIEF.  To desire the
attainment of this equality or superiority by the PARTICULAR MEANS
of others being brought down to our own level, or below it, is, I
think, the distinct notion of envy.  From whence it is easy to see
that the real end, which the natural passion emulation, and which
the unlawful one envy aims at, is exactly the same; namely, that
equality or superiority:  and consequently, that to do mischief is
not the end of envy, but merely the means it makes use of to attain
its end.  As to resentment, see the Eighth Sermon.

{6}  Ephes. ii. 3.

{7}  Every man in his physical nature is one individual single
agent.  He has likewise properties and principles, each of which may
be considered separately, and without regard to the respects which
they have to each other.  Neither of these is the nature we are
taking a view of.  But it is the inward frame of man considered as a
SYSTEM or CONSTITUTION:  whose several parts are united, not by a
physical principle of individuation, but by the respects they have
to each other; the chief of which is the subjection which the
appetites, passions, and particular affections have to the one
supreme principle of reflection or conscience.  The system or
constitution is formed by and consists in these respects and this
subjection.  Thus the body is a SYSTEM or CONSTITUTION:  so is a
tree:  so is every machine.  Consider all the several parts of a
tree without the natural reselects they have to each other, and you
have not at all the idea of a tree; but add these respects, and this
gives you the idea.  This body may be impaired by sickness, a tree
may decay, a machine be out of order, and yet the system and
constitution of them not totally dissolved.  There is plainly
somewhat which answers to all this in the moral constitution of man.
Whoever will consider his own nature will see that the several
appetites, passions, and particular affections have different
respects amongst themselves.  They are restraints upon, and are in a
proportion to, each other.  This proportion is just and perfect,
when all those under principles are perfectly coincident with
conscience, so far as their nature permits, and in all cases under
its absolute and entire direction.  The least excess or defect, the
least alteration of the due proportions amongst themselves, or of
their coincidence with conscience, though not proceeding into
action, is some degree of disorder in the moral constitution.  But
perfection, though plainly intelligible and unsupportable, was never
attained by any man.  If the higher principle of reflection
maintains its place, and as much as it can corrects that disorder,
and hinders it from breaking out into action, this is all that can
be expected in such a creature as man.  And though the appetites and
passions have not their exact due proportion to each other, though
they often strive for mastery with judgment or reflection, yet,
since the superiority of this principle to all others is the chief
respect which forms the constitution, so far as this superiority is
maintained, the character, the man, is good, worthy, virtuous.

{8}  Chap. iii., ver. 6.

{9}  Job xiii. 5.

{10}  Eccles. x. 3.

{11}  Prov. x. 19.

{12}  Mark xii. 38, 40.

{13}  There being manifestly this appearance of men's substituting
others for themselves, and being carried out and affected towards
them as towards themselves; some persons, who have a system which
excludes every affection of this sort, have taken a pleasant method
to solve it; and tell you it is NOT ANOTHER you are at all concerned
about, but your SELF ONLY, when you feel the affection called
compassion, i.e. Here is a plain matter of fact, which men cannot
reconcile with the general account they think fit to give of things:
they therefore, instead of that manifest fact, substitute ANOTHER,
which is reconcilable to their own scheme.  For does not everybody
by compassion mean an affection, the object of which is another in
distress? instead of this, but designing to have it mistaken for
this, they speak of an affection or passion, the object of which is
ourselves, or danger to ourselves.  Hobbes defines PITY,
IMAGINATION, OR FICTION OF FUTURE CALAMITY TO OURSELVES, PROCEEDING
FROM THE SENSE (he means sight or knowledge) OF ANOTHER MAN'S
CALAMITY.  Thus fear and compassion would be the same idea, and a
fearful and a compassionate man the same character, which every one
immediately sees are totally different.  Further, to those who give
any scope to their affections, there is no perception or inward
feeling more universal than this:  that one who has been merciful
and compassionate throughout the course of his behaviour should
himself be treated with kindness, if he happens to fall into
circumstances of distress.  Is fear, then, or cowardice, so great a
recommendation to the favour of the bulk of mankind?  Or is it not
plain that mere fearlessness (and therefore not the contrary) is one
of the most popular qualifications?  This shows that mankind are not
affected towards compassion as fear, but as somewhat totally
different.

Nothing would more expose such accounts as these of the affections
which are favourable and friendly to our fellow-creatures than to
substitute the definitions, which this author, and others who follow
his steps, give of such affections, instead of the words by which
they are commonly expressed.  Hobbes, after having laid down that
pity or compassion is only fear for ourselves, goes on to explain
the reason why we pity our friends in distress more than others.
Now substitute the word DEFINITION instead of the word PITY in this
place, and the inquiry will be, why we fear our friends, &c., which
words (since he really does not mean why we are afraid of them) make
no question or sentence at all.  So that common language, the words
TO COMPASSIONATE, TO PITY, cannot be accommodated to his account of
compassion.  The very joining of the words to PITY OUR FRIENDS is a
direct contradiction to his definition of pity:  because those
words, so joined, necessarily express that our friends are the
objects of the passion; whereas his definition of it asserts that
ourselves (or danger to ourselves) are the only objects of it.  He
might indeed have avoided this absurdity, by plainly saying what he
is going to account for; namely, why the sight of the innocent, or
of our friends in distress, raises greater fear for ourselves than
the sight of other persons in distress.  But had he put the thing
thus plainly, the fact itself would have been doubted; that THE
SIGHT OF OUR FRIENDS IN DISTRESS RAISES IN US GREATER FEAR FOR
OURSELVES THAN THE SIGHT OF OTHERS IN DISTRESS.  And in the next
place it would immediately have occurred to every one that the fact
now mentioned, which at least is doubtful whether, true or false,
was not the same with this fact, which nobody ever doubted, that THE
SIGHT OF OUR FRIENDS IN DISTRESS RAISES IN US GREATER COMPASSION
THAN THE SIGHT OF OTHERS IN DISTRESS:  every one, I say, would have
seen that these are not the same, but TWO DIFFERENT inquiries; and,
consequently, that fear and compassion are not the same.  Suppose a
person to be in real danger, and by some means or other to have
forgot it; any trifling accident, any sound might alarm him, recall
the danger to his remembrance, and renew his fear; but it is almost
too grossly ridiculous (though it is to show an absurdity) to speak
of that sound or accident as an object of compassion; and yet,
according to Mr. Hobbes, our greatest friend in distress is no more
to us, no more the object of compassion, or of any affection in our
heart:  neither the one nor the other raises any emotion in one
mind, but only the thoughts of our liableness to calamity, and the
fear of it; and both equally do this.  It is fit such sort of
accounts of human nature should be shown to be what they really are,
because there is raised upon them a general scheme, which undermines
the whole foundation of common justice and honesty.  See Hobbes of
Human Nature, c. 9. section 10.

There are often three distinct perceptions or inward feelings upon
sight of persons in distress:  real sorrow and concern for the
misery of our fellow-creatures; some degree of satisfaction from a
consciousness of our freedom from that misery; and as the mind
passes on from one thing to another it is not unnatural from such an
occasion to reflect upon our own liableness to the same or other
calamities.  The two last frequently accompany the first, but it is
the first ONLY which is properly compassion, of which the distressed
are the objects, and which directly carries us with calmness and
thought to their assistance.  Any one of these, from various and
complicated reasons, may in particular cases prevail over the other
two; and there are, I suppose, instances, where the bare SIGHT of
distress, without our feeling any compassion for it, may be the
occasion of either or both of the two latter perceptions.  One might
add that if there be really any such thing as the fiction or
imagination of danger to ourselves from sight of the miseries of
others, which Hobbes specks of, and which he has absurdly mistaken
for the whole of compassion; if there be anything of this sort
common to mankind, distinct from the reflection of reason, it would
be a most remarkable instance of what was furthest from his
thoughts--namely, of a mutual sympathy between each particular of
the species, a fellow-feeling common to mankind.  It would not
indeed be an example of our substituting others for ourselves, but
it would be an example of user substituting ourselves for others.
And as it would not be an instance of benevolence, so neither would
it be any instance of self-love:  for this phantom of danger to
ourselves, naturally rising to view upon sight of the distresses of
others, would be no more an instance of love to ourselves than the
pain of hunger is.

{14}  Ecclus. xxxii. 28.

{15}  Ecclus. xlii. 24.

{16}  Ver. 4, 5.

{17}  Ver. 6.

{18}  Micah vi.

{19}  Chap. xxii. 12.

{20}  Ver. 21.

{21}  Chap. iv.

{22}  Chap. xxv.

{23}  Chap. xxxi.

{24}  Chap. ii.

{24a}  In the Cassell edition the sermons jump from sermon VII to XI
with no explanation as to where VIII, IX and X are.  I've left the
numbering as is in case there is a good reason for it.--DP

{25}  P. 137.

{26}  Matt. v. 48.

{27}  1 Cor. xiii.

{28}  For instance as we are not competent judges, what is upon the
whole for the good of the world, there MAY be other immediate ends
appointed us to pursue, besides that one of doing good or producing
happiness.  Though the good of the Creation be the only end of the
Author of it, yet he may have laid us under particular obligations,
which we may discern and feel ourselves under, quite distinct from a
perception, that the observance or violation of them it for the
happiness or misery of our fellow-creatures.  And this is in fart
the ease, for there are certain dispositions of mind, and certain
actions, which are in themselves approved or disapproved by mankind,
abstracted from the consideration of their tendency to the happiness
or misery of the world approved or disapproved by reflection, by
that principle within, whirls is the guile of life, the judge of
right and wrong.  Numberless instances of this kind might be
mentioned.  There are pieces of treachery, which in themselves
appear base and detestable to every one.  There are actions, which
perhaps can scarce have any other general name given them than
indecencies, which yet are odious and shocking to human nature.
There is such a thing as meanness, a little mind, which as it is
quite distinct from incapacity, so it raises a dislike and
disapprobation quite different from that contempt, which men are too
apt to have, of mere folly.  On the other hand, what we call
greatness of mind is the object of another most of approbation, than
superior understanding.  Fidelity, honour, strict justice, are
themselves approved in the highest degree, abstracted from the
consideration of their tendency.  Now, whether it be thought that
each of these are connected with benevolence in our nature, amid so
may he considered as the same thing with it, or whether some of them
he thought an inferior kind of virtues and vices, somewhat like
natural beauties and deformities, or lastly, plain exceptions to the
general rule, thus such however is certain, that the things now
instanced in, and numberless others, are approved or disapproved by
mankind in general, in quite another view than as conducive to the
happiness or misery of the world.

{29}  St. Austin observes, Amor ipse ordinate amandus est, quo bene
amatur quod amandum sit, ut sit in nobis virtue qua vivitur bene,
i.e. The affection which we rightly have for what is lovely must
ordinate justly, in due manner end proportion, become the object of
a new affection, or be itself beloved, in order to our being endued
with that virtue which is the principle of a good life.  Civ. Dei,
1. xv. c. 22.

{30}  Job xxii.

{31}  Job ix. 2.

{32}  Eccius. xliii. 50.





End of Project Gutenberg Human Nature & Other Sermons, by Joseph Butler

