CHA P. III.

Of the influence and authority of the general rules of morality, and that they are justly regarded as the laws of the Deity.

T

HE regard to thofe general rules of conduct, is what is properly called a fenfe of duty, a principle of the greatest confequence in human life, and the only principle by which the bulk of mankind are capable of directing their actions. Many men behave very decently, and through the whole of their lives avoid any confiderable degree of blame, who yet, perhaps, never felt the fentiment upon the propriety of which we found our approbation of their conduct, but acted merely from a regard to what they faw were the established rules of behaviour. The man who has received great benefits from another perfon, may, by the natural coldness of his temper, feel but a very small degree of the fentiment of gratitude. If he has been virtuously educated, however, he will often have been made to obferve how odious thofe actions appear which denote a want of this fentiment, and how amiable the contrary. Tho' his heart therefore is not warmed with any grateful affection, he will strive to act as if it was, and will endeavour to pay all thofe regards and attentions to his patron which the livelieft gratitude could fuggeft. He will viQ.3 23

fit

Part III. fit him regularly; he will behave to him respectfully; he will never talk of him but with expreffions of the highest efteem, and of the many obligations which he owes to him. And what is more, he will carefully embrace every opportunity of making a proper return for paft fervices. He may do all this too without any hypocrify or blameable diffimulation, without any felfish intention of obtaining new favours, and without any defign of impofing either upon his benefactor or the public. The motive of his actions may be no other than a reverence for the established rule of duty, á ferious and earneft defire of acting, in every refpect, according to the law of gratitude. A wife, in the fame manner, may fometimes not feel that tender regard for her husband which is fuitable to the relation that subfifts between them. If he has been virtuously educated, however, the will endeavour to act as if she felt it, to be careful, officious, faithful, and fincere, and to be deficient in none of those attentions which the fentiment of conjugal affection could have prompted her to perform. Such a friend, and fuch a wife, are neither of them, undoubtedly, the very beft of their kinds; and though both of them may have the most ferious and earnest desire to fulfil every part of their duty, yet they will fail in many nice and delicate regards, they will mifs many opportunities of obliging, which they could never have overlooked if they had poffeffed the fentiment that is proper to their fituation. Though not the very

first of their kinds, however, they are perhaps the fecond; and if the regard to the general rules of conduct has been very ftrongly impreffed upon them, neither of them will fail in any very effential part of their duty. None but those of the happiest mold are capable of fuiting with exact juftness, their fentiments and behaviour to the fmalleft difference of fituation, and of acting upon all occafions with the most delicate and accurate propriety. The coarse clay of which the bulk of mankind are formed, cannot be wrought up to fuch perfection. There is fcarce any man, however, who by discipline, education, and example, may not be so impreffed with a regard to general rules, as to act upon almost every occafion with tolerable decency, and through the whole of his life avoid any confiderable degree

of blame.

Without this facred regard to general rules, there is no man whose conduct can be much depended upon. It is this which constitutes the most effential difference between a man of principle and honour and a worthless fellow. The one adheres, on all occafions, fteadily and refolutely to his maxims, and preferves through the whole of his life one even tenor of conduct. The other, acts variously and accidentally, as humour, inclination, or intereft chance to be uppermoft. Nay, fuch are the inequalities of humour to which all men are fubject, that without this principle, the man who, in all his cool hours, had the most delicate fenfibility to the propriety of

Part III. conduct, might often be led to act abfurdly upon the most frivolous occafions, and when it was fcarce poffible to affign any serious motive for his behaving in this manner. Your friend makes you a vifit when you happen to be in a humour which makes it disagreeable to receive him: in your prefent mood his civility is very apt to appear an impertinent intrufion; and if you was to give way to the views of things which at this time occur, though civil in your temper, you would behave to him with coldness and contempt. What renders you incapable of fuch a rudeness, is nothing but a regard to the general rules of civility and hofpitality, which prohibit it. That habitual reverence which your former experience has taught you for these, enables you to act, upon all fuch occafions, with nearly equal propriety, and hinders those inequalities of temper, to which all men are fubject, from influencing your conduct in any very fenfible degree. But if without regard to these general rules, even the duties of politenefs, which are fo eafily observed, and which one can scarce have any ferious motive to violate, would yet be fo frequently violated, what would become of the duties of justice, of truth, of chastity, of fidelity, which it is often fo difficult to obferve, and which there may be fo many ftrong motives to violate? But upon the tolerable obfervance of thefe duties, depends the very existence of human fociety, which would crumble into nothing if mankind were not generally im

preffed

preffed with a reverence for those important rules of conduct.

This reverence is ftill further enhanced by an opinion which is first impreffed by nature, and afterwards confined by reafoning and philofophy, that thofe important rules of morality, are the commands and laws of the Deity, who will finally reward the obedient, and punish the tranfgreffors of their duty.

This opinion or apprehenfion, I say, seems first to be impreffed by nature. Men are naturally led to afcribe to thofe mysterious beings, whatever they are, which happen in any country, to be the objects of religious fear, all their own fentiments and paffions. They have no other, they can conceive no other to afcribe to them. Those unknown intelligences which they imagine but fee not, muft neceffarily be formed with some sort of refemblance to thofe intelligences of which they have experience. During the ignorance and darkness of pagan fuperftition, mankind feem to have formed the ideas of their divinities with fo little delicacy, that they afcribe to them, indifcriminately, all the paffions of human nature, thofe not excepted which do the leaft honour to our fpecies, fuch as luft, hunger, avarice, envy, revenge. They could not fail, therefore, to afcribe to those beings, for the excellence of whofe nature they still conceived the highest admiration, those sentiments and qualities which are the great ornaments of humanity, and which feem to raise it to a resemblance of divine perfection,

the