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 ftate of morals, to have delivered a judicious answer: because, by the first direction, he fuggefted the only motive which acts fteadily and uniformly, in fight and out of fight, in familar occurrences and under preffing temptations; and in the fecond, he corrected, what, of all tendencies in the human character, ftands most in need of correction, felfishness, or a contempt of other men's conveniency and fatisfaction. In eftimating 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 prefent inftance, the rule here recited will never fail to make him who obeys it, confiderate, not only of the rights, but of the feelings of other men, bodily and mental, in great matters and in fmall; of the eafe, the accommodation, the self-compla cency cency 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 philofopher of the moft enlightened age of the world, would have been deemed worthy of his wisdom, and of his character, to say, our Saviour hath faid, and upon just such an occafion as that which we have feigned. "Then one of them, which was a lawyer, afked him a question, tempting him, and faying, Mafter, which is the great commandment in the law? Jefus faid unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy mind; this is the first and great commandment; and the fecond is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Mat, xxii, 35-40. The fecond precept occurs in St. Mat thew, on another occafion fimilar to this (xix, (xix. 16.), and both of them upon a third fimilar occafion in Luke (x. 27). In these two latter inftances, the queftion proposed was, "What fhall I do to inherit eternal life?" Upon all these occafions, I confider the words of our Saviour as expreffing precisely the fame thing as what I have put into the mouth of the moral philofopher. Nor do I think that it detracts much from the merit of the answer, that these precepts are extant in the Mofaic code: for his laying his fin ger, if I may fo fay, upon these precepts; his drawing them out from the rest of that voluminous inftitution; his stating of them, not fimply amongst the number, but as the greatest and the fum of all the others; in a word, his propofing of them to his hearers. for their rule and principle, was our Saviour's own. And what our Saviour had faid upon the fubject, appears to me to have fixed the fentiment amongst his followers. St. St. Paul has it exprefsly, "If there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this faying, 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 thyfelft." St. John, in like manner, "This com mandment have we from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother alfo ." Seeing St. Peter, not very differently, that ye have purified your fouls in obeying the truth, through the spirit, unto unfeigned love of the brethren, fee that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently §." And it is fo 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 apo † Gal. v. 14. * Rom. xiii. 7. § 1 Pet. i. 22. 4 ftolic ftolic writings. It is the theme of all their exhortations, that with which their morality begins and ends, from which all their details and enumerations fet out, and into which they return. And that this temper, for fome time at leaft, defcended in its purity to fucceeding Christians, is attefted by one of the earliest and beft of the remaining writings of the apoftolical fathers, the epiftle of the Roman Clement. The meeknefs of the Chriftian character reigns throughout the whole of that excellent piece. The occafion called for it. It was to compofe the diffenfions of the church of Corinth. And the venerable hearer of the apoftles does not fall short, in the display of this principle, of the finest paffages 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 boafting of any thing, defiring rather to be subject than to govern, to give than to receive, being content with the portion God had |