"Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. -Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness; even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.'

And more particularly that strong expression,† "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."

There can be no doubt with any reflecting mind, but that the propensities of our nature must be subject to regulation; but the question is, where the check ought to be placed, upon the thought, or only upon the action? In this question, our Saviour, in the texts here quoted, has pronounced a decisive judgment. He makes the control of thought essential. Internal purity with him is every thing. Now I contend that this is the only discipline which can succeed; in other words, that a moral system, which prohibits actions, but leaves the thoughts at liberty, will be ineffectual, and is therefore unwise. I know not how to go about the proof of a point which depends upon experience, and upon a knowledge of the human constitution, better than by citing the judgment of persons who appear to have given great attention to the subject, and to be well qualified to form a true opinion about it. Boerhaavespeaking of this very declaration of our Saviour, "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart," and understanding it, as we do, to contain an injunction to + Matt. v. 28.

*Matt. xxiii. 25, 27.

lay the check upon the thoughts-was wont to say, that, "our Saviour knew mankind better than Socrates." Haller, who has recorded this saying of Boerhaave, adds to it the following remarks of his own:* "It did not escape the observation of our Saviour, that the rejection of any evil thoughts was the best defence against vice for when a debauched person fills his imagination with impure pictures, the licentious ideas which he recals, fail not to stimulate his desires with a degree of violence which he cannot resist. This will be followed by gratification, unless some external obstacle should prevent him from the commission of a sin which he had internally resolved on." "Every moment of time," says our author, "that is spent in meditations upon sin, increases the power of the dangerous object which has possessed our imagination.” I suppose these reflections will be generally assented to.

III. Thirdly, had a teacher of morality been asked concerning a general principle of conduct, and for a short rule of life; and had he instructed the person who consulted him, "constantly to refer his actions to what he believed to be the will of his Creator, and constantly to have in view, not his own interest and gratification alone, but the happiness and comfort of those about him, " he would have been thought, I doubt not, in any age of the world, and in any, even the most improved, state of morals, to have delivered a judicious answer; because, by the first direction, he suggested the only motive which acts steadily and uniformly, in sight and out of sight, in familiar occurrences and under pressing temptations; and in the second, he corrected, what, of all tendencies in the human character, stands most in need of correction, selfishness, or a contempt of other *Letters to his Daughter.

men's conveniency and satisfaction. In estimating the value of a moral rule, we are to have regard not only to the particular duty, but the general spirit; not only to what it directs us to do, but to the character which a compliance with its direction is likely to form in us. So, in the present instance, the rule here recited will never fail to make him who obeys it considerate, not only of the rights, but of the feelings of other men, bodily and mental, in great matters and in small; of the ease, the accommodation, the self-complacency of all with whom he has any concern, especially of all who are in his power, or dependent upon his will.

Now what in the most applauded philosopher of the most enlightened age of the world would have been deemed worthy of his wisdom and of his character to say, our Saviour hath said, and upon just such an occasion as that which we have feigned.

"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."*

The second precept occurs in St. Matthew, (xix. 16,) on another occasion similar to this; and both of them, on a third similar occasion, in Luke (x. 27.) In these two latter instances, the question proposed was, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life ?"

Upon all these occasions, I consider the words of our Saviour as expressing precisely the same thing as what

* Matt. xxii. 35-40.

I have put into the mouth of the moral philosopher. Nor do I think that it detracts much from the merit of the answer, that these precepts are extant in the Mosaic code for his laying his finger, if I may so say, upon these precepts; his drawing them out from the rest of that voluminous institution; his stating of them, not simply amongst the number, but as the greatest and the sum of all the others; in a word, his proposing of them to his hearers for their rule and principle, was our Saviour's own.

And what our Saviour had said upon the subject, appears to me to have fixed the sentiment amongst his followers.

St. Paul has it expressly, "If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;"* "* and again, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."+

St. John, in like manner: "This commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."+

St. Peter, not very differently: "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently."Ş

And it is so well known, as to require no citations to verify it, that this love, or charity, or, in other words, regard to the welfare of others, runs in various forms through all the preceptive parts of the apostolic writings. It is the theme of all their exhortations, that with which their morality begins and ends, from which all their details and enumerations set out, and into which they

return.

*Rom. xiii. 9. + Gal. v. 14.

1 John iv. 21. § 1 Peter i. 22.

ས་འ

And that this temper, for some time at least, descended in its purity to succeeding Christians, is attested by one of the earliest and best of the remaining writings of the apostolical fathers, the epistle of the Roman Clement. The meekness of the Christian character reigns throughout the whole of that excellent piece. The occasion called for it. It was to compose the dissentions of the church of Corinth. And the

venerable hearer of the apostles does not fall short, in the display of this principle, of the finest passages of their writings. He calls to the remembrance of the Corinthian church its former character, in which "ye were all of you," he tells them, "humble-minded, not boasting of any thing, desiring rather to be subject than to govern, to give than to receive, being content with the portion God had dispensed to you, and hearkening diligently to his word; ye were enlarged in your bowels, having his sufferings always before your eyes. Ye contended day and night for the whole brotherhood, that with compassion and a good conscience the number of his elect might be saved. Ye were sincere, and without offence towards each other. Ye bewailed every one his neighbour's sins, esteeming their defects your own. His prayer for them was for the "return of peace, long-suffering, and patience."+ And his advice to those who might have been the occasion of difference in the society, is conceived in the true spirit, and with a perfect knowledge of the Christian character: “Who is there among you that is generous? Who that is compassionate? Who that has any charity? Let him say, If this sedition, this contention, and these schisms be upon my account, I am ready to depart, to go away whithersoever ye please, and do whatsoever ye shall * Ep. Clem. Rom. c. 2. Abp. Wake's Translation. + Ib. c. 53.