The Chriftian religion alfo acts upon public ufages and inftitutions, by an operation which is only fecondary and indirect. Chrif tianity is not a code of civil law. It can only reach public inftitutions through private character. Now its influence upon private character may be confiderable, yet many public usages and inftitutions, repugnant to its principles, may remain. To get rid of these, the reigning part of the community must act, and act together. But it may be long before the perfons who comRofe this body, be fufficiently touched with the Christian character, to join in the fuppreffion of practices, to which they and the public have been reconciled, by causes which will reconcile the human mind to any thing, by habit and intereft. Nevertheless, the effects of Christianity, even in this view, have been important. It has mitigated the conduct of war, and the treatment of captives. It has foftened the adminiftration of defpotic, or of nominally defpotic governments, It has abolished polygamy. It has restrained the licentioufnefs of divorces. It has put

an

an end to the exposure of children, and the immolation of flaves. It has fuppreffed the combats of gladiators*, and the impurities of religious rites. It has banished, if not unnatural vices, at least the toleration of them. It has greatly meliorated the condition of the laborious part, that is to fay, of the mass of every community, by procuring for them a day of weekly reft. In all countries, in which it is profeffed, it has produced numerous establishments for the relief of fickness and poverty; and, in some, a regular and general provision by law. It has triumphed over the flavery established in the Roman empire: it is contending, and, I trust, will one day prevail, against the worse flavery of the West Indies,

A Christian writert, fo early as in the

Lipfius affirms, (Sat. b. i. c. 12.) that the gladiatorial flows fometimes coft Europe twenty or thirty thoufand lives in a month; and that not only the men but even the women of all ranks were paffionately fond of thefe fhows. See Bishop Porteus's Sermon XIII.

Bardcfanes ap. Eufeb. Præp. Evang, vi. 10.

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fecond

fecond century, has teftified the resistance which Christianity made to wicked and licentious practices, though established by law and by public ufage. "Neither in Parthia, do the Chriftians, though Parthians, use polygamy; nor in Perfia, though Persians, do they marry their own daughters; nor, among the Bactri or Galli, do they violate the fanctity of marriage; nor, wherever they are, do they fuffer themselves to be overcome by ill-conftituted laws and manners.

Socrates did not deftroy the idolatry of Athens, or produce the flightest revolution in the manners of his country.

But the argument to which I recur is, that the benefit of religion being felt chiefly in the obfcurity of private ftations, neceffarily escapes the obfervation of history. From the first general notification of Christianity to the present day, there have been in every age many millions, whose names were never heard of, made better by it, not only in their conduct, but in their difpofition; and hap

pier, not fo much in their external circumstances, as in that which is inter præcordia; in that which alone deferves the name of happiness, the tranquillity and confolation of their thoughts. It has been, fince its commencement, the author of happiness and virtue to millions and millions of the human race. Who is there that would not wifh his fon to be a Chriftian?

Christianity alfo, in every country in which it is profeffed, hath obtained a fenfible, although not a complete influence, upon the public judgement of morals. And this is very important. For without the occafional correction which public opinion receives, by referring to fome fixed ftandard of morality, no man can foretell into what extravagancies it might wander. Affaffination might become as honourable as duclling; unnatural crimes be accounted as venial, as fornication is wont to be accounted. In this way it is poffible, that many may be kept in order by Christianity, who are not themfelves Chriftians. They may

be

be guided by the rectitude which it communicates to public opinion. Their confciences may suggest their duty truly, and they may ascribe these suggestions to a moral sense, or to the native capacity of the human intellect, when in fact they are nothing more than the public opinion reflected from their own minds; an opinion, in a confiderable degree, modified by the lessons of Christianity. "Certain it is, and this is a great deal to say, that the generality, even of the meanest and most vulgar and ignorant people, have truer and worthier notions of God, more juft and right apprehensions concerning his attributes and perfections, a deeper fense of the difference of good and evil, a greater regard to moral obligations and to the plain and moft neceffary duties of life, and a more firm and universal expectation of a future ftate of rewards and punishments, than, in any heathen country, any confiderable number of men were found to have had*.”

* Clark, Ev. Nat. Rev. p. 208, ed. v.

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