3. Duties towards ourselves; as the preservation of life, care of health, chastity, sobriety, temperance, &c. This division has been retained by Dr. Paley, but still he does not seem to be satisfied with it.*

There are duties public and private, personal, domestic, social, and official. There are duties of peace and of war. There are duties appropriate to youth, to middle age, and to advanced life; duties of sex, of condition, of time, of place, and of circumstance. There are duties of patriotism and of good neighbourhood; duties of health and of sickness. The great and permanent relations of husband and wife, of parents and children, of master and servant, all bring their duties with them. Wealth brings its duties, influence its duties, knowledge its duties, talents their duties, rank its duties, and all the professions and employments of life their corresponding duties. It has not been easy to fix on a division which shall comprise all these particulars, and which shall, at the same time, be natural and perspicuous. After much reflection, I have concluded to use the following;

PART I. Our relation to God, and the moral duties thence arising.

PART II. Our relation to our country, and the moral duties thence arising; that is, the duties of patriotism.

PART III. The chief relations of mankind to one another, and the duties thence arising; that is, the duties which men reciprocally owe to each other.

PART IV.

selves.

Personal duties, or the duties of men to them

PART V. A review of the chief professions and employments of life, so far as regards the moral duties which they involve, their moral principles, practices, influences, tendencies, &c.

PART VI. A special consideration of certain duties and virtues, of a character peculiarly Christian; and a similar considertion of certain vices and evils.

The conclusion of the treatise embraces a review of the chief means on which we are to rely, for improving the moral condition of mankind, and for advancing human happiness.

* Moral and Political Philosophy, Book IV. P.

215.

PART FIRST.

OUR RELATION TO GOD, AND THE MORAL DUTIES THENCE ARISING.

CHAPTER I.

ELUCIDATION OF THIS HIGHEST OF OUR RELATIONS, AND OF THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF A BELIEF IN A SUPREME BEING.

THAT high and supreme relation, which connects man with his Maker, cannot fail, if our minds have not been debased by sin, or perverted by sophistry, to be considered by us, as of all, the most sublime and interesting. Our Maker is not only the supreme and ultimate cause of our existence, but our kind and unceasing Benefactor. As he has existed from everlasting, so he will continue to exist to everlasting. The heavens which cover us, and the earth which lies beneath our feet, as well as ourselves, are the workmanship of his hands. His power is infinite, his wisdom is unerring, his benevolence is perfect. Besides conferring upon us an immortal existence, all our hopes and prospects for time and eternity depend on our securing his favor and averting his displeasure.

Human excellence, even when most conspicuous, is blended with many imperfections, and seen amidst many defects. It is beheld only in detached and separate fragments, nor ever appears, in any one character, perfect and entire. So that when,

in imitation of the Stoics, we wish to form out of these fragments the image of a perfectly wise and good man, we are sensible, that it is a mere fiction of the mind, without any real being in whom it is embodied and realized. In the belief of a Deity, however, these conceptions are reduced to reality; the scattered rays of an ideal excellence are concentrated, and become the real attributes of that Being with whom we stand in

the nearest relation, who sits supreme at the head of the universe, and pervades all nature by his presence and power.

The idea of the Supreme Being has this peculiar property; that, as it admits of no substitute, so, from the first moment it is formed, it is capable of continual growth and enlargement. God himself is immutable, but our conception of his character is continually receiving fresh accessions, is continually becoming more extended and glorious, by having transferred to it new elements of sublimity and goodness, by attracting to itself, as a centre, whatever bears the impress of beauty, order, dignity, and happiness. It unites the splendor of every species of excellence; of all that is fair, great, and good in the universe. The idea of a Supreme Being, and of a superintending Providence, invests the universe with all that is finished and consummate in sublimity and excellence. The admiration of perfect wisdom and goodness for which we are formed, and which kindles such glowing rapture in the soul, finds in this idea a source of full and exhaustless satisfaction. Thus contemplated, the world presents a fair spectacle of order, beauty, and harmony, of a vast family nourished and watched over by an Almighty Father.

When we reflect, therefore, on the manner in which the idea of Deity is formed, and on the sublime interest which a belief in the Deity, the first fair, the first sublime, the first good, imparts to the universe, we must be convinced, that such an idea and such a belief, intimately present to the mind, must have a most powerful effect in imbuing the mind with right moral tastes, affections, and habits, the elements of moral character, and the springs of moral action. The efficacy of these views in producing and augmenting virtuous tastes and habits, will, indeed, be proportioned to the vividness with which they are formed, and the frequency with which they recur; yet some benefit will not fail to result from them even in their lowest degree. And as the object of religious worship will always be, in some measure, the object of imitation, hence arises a fixed standard of moral excellence; by the contemplation of which, the tendencies of man to wickedness are counteracted, the contagion of evil example is checked, and human nature rises above

its natural level. Our conception of the Deity, then, composed as it is of the richest moral elements, embraces, under the character of a Beneficent Parent and Almighty Ruler, whatever is venerable in wisdom, whatever is awful in authority, whatever is touching in goodness; and a belief in this Supreme Being, and in his superintending Providence, has always been accompanied by a salutary moral influence on mankind.*

The argument, which has been advanced respecting the great and special moral influence arising from a belief in a God and his superintending Providence, may be confirmed by an appeal to the recorded convictions of mankind, as seen in the writings of all times and every country. And this is a position of so much importance, that it may be well to set it in a perfectly clear light, by subjoining a few illustrations of this kind.

Mr. Addison, in the person of Cato, has well declared the natural and settled convictions of mankind at all times.

"If there's a power above us,

And that there is, all nature cries aloud

Through all her works, he must delight in virtue ;
And that which he delights in must be happy ;'

that is, must lead men to happiness. An oath for confirmation, an end of all strife, ‡ is coeval with any considerable advancement in civilization among all nations, and is a public recognition of the moral influence of a belief in a Divinity, equally familiar and venerable. The moral influence of a belief in a Divinity, shows, moreover, the indissoluble connexion which subsists between religion and morals, as also between religious sentiment and moral character and conduct. "Let no one," says Plato, "utter falsehood, or deceive, or commit any impure act with an invocation of the gods, unless he wishes to render himself hateful to the Divinity."§ The prayer of Cyrus when death was approaching, is instructive in the same point of view.||

The works of Cicero are everywhere rich in instruction to the same effect."However much," says he, "we may be disposed to exalt our advantages, it is nevertheless certain, that we have been surpassed in population by the Spaniards, in physical force Tragedy of Cato, V. 1.

* Robert Hall's Works, Vol. I. p. 30.

Heb. vi. 16.

§ Quoted by Rosenmüller, in Exod. xx. 7. || Xenophon, Cyri Disciplina, Lib. VIII. c. 7.

by the Gauls, in shrewdness and cunning by Carthage, in the fine arts by Greece, and in mere native talent by some of our Italian fellow-countrymen ; but, in the single point of attention to religion, we have exceeded other nations, and it is by the favorable influence of this circumstance upon the character of the people, that I account for our success in acquiring the political and military ascendency that we now enjoy throughout the world."* All who are familiar with the Greek tragedies know how many illustrations might be drawn from thence. I content myself with a single specimen from Sophocles' Edipus Tyrannus. The Chorus sings thus ;-line 863, &c.

Again,

"Grant me, henceforth, ye powers divine,

In virtue's purest paths to tread ;
In every word, in every deed,
May sanctity of manners ever shine,
Obedient to the laws of Jove,
The laws descended from above."

"Perish the impious and profane,
Who, void of reverential fear,
Nor justice nor the laws revere;

Who leave their God, for pleasure or for gain ;

Who swell by fraud their ill-got store;

Who rob the wretched and the poor."

But the most instructive passage to be found in all heathen antiquity, illustrative of the moral effect of a belief in "a power above us," is in Claudian, and must be familiar to every classical scholar. Such is a specimen of the recorded convictions of heathen writers on this subject; and it shows, among other things, how much superior, in its moral tendency, heathenism is to the atheism, or even to the skepticism of our days.

I scarcely know whether it may be advisable to add any thing to the preceding from Christian times and Christian authors; but, at the risk of doing what is superfluous, I will subjoin some few confirmations of this kind. To collect, however, the sentiments of individuals would be an endless task, and, after all, might not be satisfactory. It may be more useful to resort for testi

*

Quoted by A. H. Everett, in the Senate of Massachusetts, 1831.

In Rufinum, Lib. I.; translated in the London Quarterly Review, No. LXXXV. p. 187.