are generally difpofed to place great confidence in the probity of those who seem deeply impreffed with religious fentiments. Such perfons, they imagine, act under an additional tye, befides those which regulate the conduct of other men. The regard to the propriety of action as well as to reputation, the regard to the applause of his own breaft, as well as that of others, are motives which they fuppofe have the fame influence over the religious man, as over the man of the world. But the former lies under another reftraint, and never acts deliberately but as in the presence of that Great Superior who is finally to recompense him according to his deeds. A greater truft is repofed, upon this account, in the regularity and exactness of his conduct. And wherever the natural principles of religion are not corrupted by the factious and party zeal of fome worthless cabal; wherever the first duty which it requires, is to fulfil all the obligations of morality; wherever men are not taught to regard frivolous obfervances, as more immediate duties of religion, than acts of juftice and beneficence; and to imagine, that by facrifices, and ceremonies, and vain fupplications, they can bargain with the Deity for fraud, and perfidy, and violence, the world undoubtedly judges right in this respect, and juftly places a double confidence in the rectitude of the religious man's behaviour. CHAP CHA P. IV. In what cafes the fenfe of duty ought to be the fole principle of our conduct; and in what cafes it ought to concur with other motives. RELIGI IGION affords fuch ftrong motives to the practice of virtue, and guards us by fuch powerful restraints from the temptations of vice, that many have been led to fuppofe, that religious principles were the fole laudable motives of action. We ought neither, they said, to reward from gratitude, nor punish from refentment; we ought neither to protect the helplessness of our children, nor afford fupport to the infirmities of our parents, from natural affection. All affections for particular objects, ought to be extinguished in our breast, and one great affection take the place of all others, the love of the Deity, the defire of rendering ourselves agreeable to him, and of directing our conduct in every respect according to his will. We ought not to be grateful from gratitude, we ought not to be charitable from humanity, we ought not to be public-fpirited from the love of our country, nor generous and just from the love of mankind. The fole principle and motive of our conduct in the performance of all those different duties, ought to be a fenfe that God has com I fhall not at pre commanded us to perform them. The decifion of this queftion, which cannot, perhaps, be given with any very great accuracy, will depend upon two different circumftances; first, upon the natural agreeableness or deformity of the sentiment or affection which would prompt us to any action independent of all regard to general rules; and fecondly, upon the precision and exactness, or the looseness and inaccuracy of the general rules themselves. I. First, I fay, it will depend upon the natural agreeableness or deformity of the affection itself, how far our actions ought to arife from it, or entirely proceed from a regard to the general rule. All All thofe graceful and admired actions, to which the benevolent affections would prompt us, ought to proceed as much from the paffions themselves, aš from any regard to the general rules of conduct. A benefactor thinks himfelf but ill requited, if the perfon upon whom he has beftowed his good offices, repays them merely from a cold fenfe of duty, and without any affection to his perfon. A hufband is diffatisfied with the moft obedient wife, when he imagines her conduct is animated by no other principle befides her regard to what the relation fhe ftands in requires. Though a fon fhould fail in none of the offices of filial duty, yet if he wants that affectionate reverence which it fo well becomes him to feel, the parent may justly complain of his indiffer ence. Nor could a fon be quite fatisfied with a parent who, though he performed all the duties of his fituation, had nothing of that fatherly fondness which might have been expected from him. With regard to all fuch benevolent and focial affections, it is agreeable to fee the fenfe of duty employed rather to restrain than to enliven them, rather to hinder us from doing too much, than to prompt us to do what we ought. It gives us pleasure to fee a father obliged to check his own fondnefs, a friend obliged to fet bounds to his natural generofity, a perfon who has received a benefit, obliged to reftrain the too fanguine gratitude of his own temper. The contrary maxim takes place with regard to the malevolent and unfocial paffions. We ought to reward from the gratitude and generofity of our own hearts, without any reluctance, and without being obliged to reflect how great the propriety of rewarding: but we ought always to punish with reluctance, and and more from a fenfe of the propriety of punishing than from any favage difpofition to revenge. Nothing is more graceful than the behaviour of the man who appears to refent the greatest injuries, more from a sense that they deserve, and are the proper objects of refentment, than from feeling himself the furies of that difagreeable paffion; who, like a judge, confiders only the general rule, which determines what vengeance is due for each particular offence; who, in executing that rule, feels lefs for what himfelf has fuffered, than what the offender is about to fuffer; who, though in wrath remembers mercy, and is disposed to interpret the rule in the most gentle and favourable manner, and to allow all the alleviations which the most candid humanity could, confiftently with good fenfe, admit of. As the selfish paffions, according to what has formerly been obferved, hold in other refpects a fort of middle place, between the focial and unfocial affections, fo do they likewife in this. The pursuit of the objects of private intereft, in all common, little, and ordinary cafes, ought to flow rather from a regard to the general rules which prescribe such conduct, than from any paffion for the objects themselves; but upon more important and extraordinary occafions, we should be awkward, infipid, and ungraceful, if the objects themselves did not appear to animate us with a confiderable degree of paffion. To be anxious, or to be laying a plot either to gain or to fave a single shilling, would degrade the most vul. gar tradefman in the opinion of all his neighbours. Let his circumftances be ever fo mean, no attention to any fuch fmall matters, for the fake of the things themselves, muft appear in his conduct. His fituation |