sages taken separately, and still more so from covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunk. all of them together, that revenge, as described ard, or an extortioner; with such an one, no in the beginning of this chapter, is forbidden not to eat." The use of this association against in every degree, under all forms, and upon vice continues to be experienced in one reevery occasion. We are likewise forbidden markable instance, and might be extended with to refuse to an enemy even the most im-good effect to others. The confederacy amongst perfect right: "if he hunger, feed him; if women of character, to exclude from their sohe thirst, give him drink;" which are ex-ciety kept-mistresses and prostitutes, contriamples of imperfect rights. If one who has butes more perhaps to discourage that condioffended us, solicit from us a vote to which his tion of life, and prevents greater numbers from qualifications entitle him, we may not refuse entering into it, than all the considerations of it from motives of resentment, or the remem- prudence and religion put together. brance of what we have suffered at his hands. His right, and our obligation which follows the right, are not altered by his enmity to us, or by ours to him.

On the other hand, I do not conceive that these prohibitions were intended to interfere with the punishment or prosecution of public offenders. In the eighteenth chapter of St. Matthew, our Saviour tells his disciples, "If thy brother who has trespassed against thee neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man, and a publican." Immediately after this, when St. Peter asked him, "How oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times ?" Christ replied," I say not unto thee until seven times, but until seventy times seven;" that is, as often as he repeats the offence. From these two adjoining passages compared together, we are authorised to conclude that the forgiveness of an enemy is not inconsistent with the proceedings against him as a public offender; and that the discipline established in religious or civil societies, for the restraint or punishment of criminals, ought to be upholden.

If the magistrate be not tied down with these prohibitions from the execution of his office, neither is the prosecutor; for the office of the prosecutor is as necessary as that of the magistrate.

Nor, by parity of reason, are private persons withholden from the correction of vice, when it is in their power to exercise it; provided they be assured that it is the guilt which provokes them, and not the injury; and that their motives are pure from all mixture and every particle of that spirit which delights and triumphs in the humiliation of an adversary.

We are likewise allowed to practise so much caution as not to put ourselves in the way of injury, or invite the repetition of it. If a servant or tradesman has cheated us, we are not bound to trust him again; for this is to encourage him in his dishonest practices, which is doing him much harm.

Where a benefit can be conferred only upon one or few, and the choice of the person upon whom it is conferred is a proper object of favour, we are at liberty to prefer those who have not offended us to those who have; the contrary being no where required.

Christ, who, as hath been well demonstrated, estimated virtues by their solid utility, and not by their fashion or popularity, prefers this of the forgiveness of injuries to every other. He enjoins it oftener; with more earnestness; under a greater variety of forms, and with this weighty and peculiar circum. stance, that the forgiveness of others is the condition upon which alone we are to expect, or even ask, from God, forgiveness for ourselves. And this preference is justified by the superior importance of the virtue itself. The feuds and animosities in families, and between neigh. bours, which disturb the intercourse of human life, and collectively compose half the misery of it, have their foundation in the want of a forgiving temper; and can never cease, but by the exercise of this virtue, on one side, or on both.

CHAPTER IX.

DUELLING.

Thus it is no breach of Christian charity, to DUELLING as a punishment is absurd; bewithdraw our company or civility when the cause it is an equal chance, whether the pu same tends to discountenance any vicious prac-nishment fall upon the offender, or the person tice. This is one branch of that extrajudicial offended. Nor is it much better as a reparadiscipline, which supplies the defects and the tion: it being difficult to explain in what the remissness of law; and is expressly authorised satisfaction consists, or how it tends to undo by St. Paul (1 Cor. v. 11.) "But now I have the injury, or to afford a compensation for the written unto you not to keep company, if any damage already sustained. man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or

* See also Exodus, xxiii. 4. "If thou meet thine enemy's ox, or his ass, going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again; if thou see the ass of him that hateth thee, lying under his burden, and wouldst forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him."

The truth is, it is not considered as either. A law of honour having annexed the imputation of cowardice to patience under an affront, challenges are given and accepted with no other

See a View of the Internal Evidence of the Chris tian Religion.

design than to prevent or wipe off this suspi- own reputation: where this is not the case, cion; without malice against the adversary, the guilt of duelling is manifest, and is greater. generally without a wish to destroy him, or In this view it seems unnecessary to distinany other concern than to preserve the duel-guish between him who gives, and him who list's own reputation and reception in the accepts, a challenge: for, on the one hand, world, they incur an equal hazard of destroying life; The unreasonableness of this rule of man- and on the other, both act upon the same perners is one consideration; the duty and con-suasion, that what they do is necessary, in orduct of individuals, while such a rule exists, is der to recover or preserve the good opinion of another. the world.

As to which, the proper and single question is this, whether a regard for our own reputation is, or is not, sufficient to justify the taking away the life of another?

Public opinion is not easily controlled by ci. vil institutions: for which reason I question whether any regulations can be contrived, of sufficient force to suppress or change the rule of honour, which stigmatises all scruples about duelling with the reproach of cowardice.

The insufficiency of the redress which the law of the land affords, for those injuries which chiefly affect a man in his sensibility and reputation, tempts many to redress themselves. Prosecutions for such offences, by the trifling

Murder is forbidden; and wherever human life is deliberately taken away, otherwise than by public authority, there is murder. The value and security of human life make this rule necessary; for I do not see what other idea or definition of murder can be admitted, which will not let in so much private violence, as to render society a scene of peril and blood-damages that are recovered, serve only to make shed. the sufferer more ridiculous.-This ought to be remedied.

If unauthorised laws of honour be allowed to create exceptions to divine prohibitions, there is an end of all morality, as founded in the will of the Deity: and the obligation of every duty may, at one time or other, be discharged by the caprice and fluctuations of fashion.

"But a sense of shame is so much torture; and no relief presents itself otherwise than by an attempt upon the life of our adversary. What then? The distress which men suffer by the want of money is oftentimes extreme, and no resource can be discovered but that of removing a life which stands between the distressed person and his inheritance. The motive in this case is as urgent, and the means much the same, as in the former: yet this case finds no advocate.

For the army, where the point of honour is cultivated with exquisite attention and refinement, I would establish a Court of Honour, with a power of awarding those submissions and acknowledgments, which it is generally the purpose of a challenge to obtain; and it might grow into a fashion, with persons of rank of all professions, to refer their quarrels to this tribunal.

Duelling, as the law now stands, can seldom be overtaken by legal punishment. The challenge, appointment, and other previous circumstances, which indicate the intention with which the combatants met, being suppressed, nothing appears to a court of justice, but the actual rencounter; and if a person be slain when actually fighting with his adversary, the law deems his death nothing more than man

Take away the circumstance of the duellist's exposing his own life, and it becomes assassina-slaughter. tion; add this circumstance, and what difference does it make? None but this, that fewer perhaps will imitate the example, and human life will be somewhat more safe, when it cannot be attacked without equal danger to the aggressor's own. Experience, however, proves that there is fortitude enough in most men to undertake this hazard; and were it otherwise, the defence, at best, would be only that which a highwayman or housebreaker might plead, whose attempt had been so daring and desperate, that few were likely to repeat the same. In expostulating with the duellist, I all along suppose his adversary to fall. Which supposition I am at liberty to make, because, if he have no right to kill his adversary, he has none to attempt it.

In return, I forbear from applying to the case of duelling the Christian principle of the forgiveness of injuries; because it is possible to suppose the injury to be forgiven, and the duellist to act entirely from a concern for his

CHAPTER X.

LITIGATION.

"Ir it be possible, live peaceably with all men ;" which precept contains an indirect con. fession that this is not always possible.

The instances in the fifth chapter of Saint Matthew are rather to be understood as proverbial methods of describing the general duties of forgiveness and benevolence, and the temper which we ought to aim at acquiring, than as directions to be specifically observed; or of themselves of any great importance to be

"Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also: and if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also; and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."

As to the rest, the duty of the contending parties may be expressed in the following directions:

Not by appeals to prolong a suit against your own conviction.

pense.

Not to influence evidence by authority or expectation;

Nor to stifle any in your possession, although it make against you.

observed. The first of these is, "If thine ene- | articles and items, which it is often very diffimy smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him cult to adjust separately. the other also ;" yet, when one of the officers struck Jesus with the palm of his hand, we find Jesus rebuking him for the outrage with becoming indignation; " If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me ?" (John xviii. 43.) It may Not to undertake or defend a suit against a be observed, likewise, that the several exam- poor adversary, or render it more dilatory or ples are drawn from instances of small and to-expensive than necessary, with the hope of lerable injuries. A rule which forbade all op-intimidating or wearing him out by the exposition to injury, or defence against it, could have no other effect, than to put the good in subjection to the bad, and deliver one half of mankind to the depredation of the other half; which must be the case, so long as some considered themselves as bound by such a rule, whilst others despised it. Saint Paul, though no one inculcated forgiveness and forbearance with a deeper sense of the value and obligation of these virtues, did not interpret either of them to require an unresisting submission to every contumely, or a neglect of the means of safety and self-defence. He took refuge in the laws of his country, and in the privileges of a Roman citizen, from the conspiracy of the Jews (Acts xxv. 11); and from the clandestine violence of the chief captain (Acts xxii. 25.) And yet this is the same apostle who reproved the litigiousness of his Corinthian converts with so much severity. "Now, therefore, there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded ?"

Hitherto we have treated of civil actions. In criminal prosecutions, the private injury should be forgotten, and the prosecutor proceed with the same temper, and upon the same motives, as the magistrate; the one being a necessary minister of justice as well as the other, and both bound to direct their conduct by a dispassionate care of the public welfare.

In whatever degree the punishment of an offender is conducive, or his escape dangerous, to the interest of the community, in the same degree is the party against whom the crime was committed bound to prosecute, because such prosecutions must in their nature originate from the sufferer.

Therefore great public crimes, as robberies, forgeries, and the like, ought not to be spared, from an apprehension of trouble or expense in carrying on the prosecution, from false On the one hand, therefore, Christianity ex-shame, or misplaced compassion. eludes all vindictive motives, and all frivolous There are many offences, such as nuisancauses, of prosecution; so that where the injury is small, where no good purpose of public example is answered, where forbearance is not likely to invite a repetition of the injury, or where the expense of an action becomes a punishment too severe for the offence; there the Christian is with-holden by the authority of his religion from going to law.

On the other hand, a law-suit is inconsistent with no rule of the Gospel, when it is instituted,

1. For the establishing of some important right.

2. For the procuring a compensation for some considerable damage.

ces, neglect of public roads, forestalling, engrossing, smuggling, sabbath-breaking, profaneness, drunkenness, prostitution, the keep. ing of lewd or disorderly houses, the writing publishing, or exposing to sale, lascivious books or pictures, with some others, the prosecution of which, being of equal concern to the whole neighbourhood, cannot be charged as a peculiar obligation upon any.

Nevertheless, there is great merit in the person who undertakes such prosecutions upon proper motives; which amounts to the same thing.

The character of an informer is in this country undeservedly odious. But where any public advantage is likely to be attained by information, or other activity in promoting the execution of the laws, a good man will despise a prejudice founded in no just reason, or will acquit himself of the imputation of interested designs by giving away his share of the penalty.

3. For the preventing of future injury. But since it is supposed to be undertaken simply with a view to the ends of justice and safety, the prosecutor of the action is bound to confine himself to the cheapest process which will accomplish these ends, as well as to consent to any peaceable expedient for the same purpose; as to a reference, in which the arbitra- On the other hand, prosecutions for the sake tors can do, what the law cannot, divide the of the reward, or for the gratification of pridamage, when the fault is mutual; or to a vate enmity, where the offence produces no compounding of the dispute, by accepting a com- public mischief, or where it arises from ignopensation in the gross, without entering into France or inadvertency, are reprobated under

the general description of applying a rule of fits justly creates, to draw or drive those whom law to a purpose for which it was not intended. we have obliged into mean or dishonest comUnder which description may be ranked an pliances. officious revival of the laws against Popish | priests, and dissenting teachers.

CHAPTER XI.

GRATITUDE.

EXAMPLES of ingratitude check and discourage voluntary beneficence: and in this, the mischief of ingratitude consists. Nor is the mischief small; for after all is done that can be done, towards providing for the public happiness, by prescribing rules of justice, and enforcing the observation of them by penalties or compulsion, much must be left to those offices of kindness, which men remain at liberty to exert or withhold. Now not only the choice of the objects, but the quantity and even the existence of this sort of kindness in the world, depends, in a great measure, upon the return which it receives: and this is a consideration of general importance.

CHAPTER XII.

SLANDER.

SPEAKING is acting, both in philosophical strictness, and as to all moral purposes: for if the mischief and motive of our conduct be the same, the means which we use make no difference.

And this is in effect what our Saviour declares, Matt. xii. 37:-" By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned:" by thy words, as well, that is, as by thy actions; the one shall be taken into the account as well as the other, for they both possess the same property of voluntarily producing good or evil.

Slander may be distinguished into two kinds; malicious slander, and inconsiderate slander. Malicious slander is the relating of either truth or falsehood, for the purpose of creating misery.

A second reason for cultivating a grateful temper in ourselves, is the following: The I acknowledge that the truth or falsehood same principle, which is touched with the of what is related, varies the degree of guilt kindness of a human benefactor, is capable of considerably; and that slander, in the ordinbeing affected by the divine goodness, and of ary acceptation of the term, signifies the cir. oecoming, under the influence of that affec- culation of mischievous falsehoods: but truth tion, a source of the purest and most exalted may be made instrumental to the success of virtue. The love of God is the sublimest malicious designs as well as falsehood; and if gratitude. It is a mistake, therefore, to im- the end be bad, the means cannot be innocent. agine, that this virtue is omitted in the Chris- I think the idea of slander ought to be contian Scriptures; for every precept which com-fined to the production of gratuitous mischief. mands us "to love God, because he first lov- When we have an end or interest of our own ed us," presupposes the principle of gratitude, and directs it to its proper object.

It is impossible to particularise the several expressions of gratitude, inasmuch as they vary with the character and situation of the benefactor, and with the opportunities of the person obliged; which variety admits of no bounds.

It may be observed, however, that gratitude can never oblige a man to do what is wrong, and what by consequence he is previously obliged not to do. It is no ingratitude to refuse to do, what we cannot reconcile to any apprehensions of our duty; but it is ingratitude and hypocrisy together, to pretend this reason, when it is not the real one: and the frequency of such pretences has brought this apology for non-compliance with the will of a benefactor into unmerited disgrace.

It has long been accounted a violation of delicacy and generosity to upbraid men with the favours they have received: but it argues a total destitution of both these qualities, as well as of moral probity, to take advantage of that ascendency which the conferring of bene

to serve, if we attempt to compass it by falsehood, it is fraud; if by a publication of the truth, it is not without some additional circumstance of breach of promise, betraying of confidence, or the like, to be deemed criminal.

Sometimes the pain is intended for the person to whom we are speaking; at other times, an enmity is to be gratified by the prejudice or disquiet of a third person. To infuse suspicions, to kindle or continue disputes, to avert the favour and esteem of benefactors from their dependents, to render some one whom we dislike contemptible or obnoxious in the public opinion, are all offices of slander; of which the guilt must be measured by the intensity and extent of the misery produced.

The disguises under which slander is conveyed, whether in a whisper, with injunctions of secresy by way of caution, or with affected reluctance, are all so many aggravations of the offence, as they indicate more deliberation and design.

Inconsiderate slander is a different offence, although the same mischief actually follow, and although the mischief might have been fore

seen.

The not being conscious of that design which we have hitherto attributed to the slanderer, makes the difference.

We will treat of these subjects in the follow. ing order: first, of the public use of marriage institutions; secondly, of the subjects collateral to marriage, in the order in which we have here proposed them; thirdly, of marriage itself; and, lastly, of the relation and recipro

The guilt here consists in the want of that regard to the consequences of our conduct, which a just affection for human happiness, and concern for our duty, would not have fail-cal duties of parents and children. ed to have produced in us. And it is no answer to this crimination to say, that we entertained no evil design. A servant may be a very bad servant, and yet seldom or never design to act in opposition to his master's inter

CHAPTER I.

TUTIONS.

THE public use of marriage institutions consists in their promoting the following benefi. cial effects.

1. The private comfort of individuals, espe cially of the female sex. It may be true, that all are not interested in this reason; neverthe less, it is a reason to all for abstaining from any conduct which tends in its general conse quence to obstruct marriage: for whatever promotes the happiness of the majority, is binding upon the whole.

est or will: and his master may justly punish OF THE PUBLIC USE OF MARRIAGE INSTIsuch servant for a thoughtlessness and neglect nearly as prejudicial as deliberate disobedience. I accuse you not, he may say, of any express intention to hurt me; but had not the fear of my displeasure, the care of my interest, and indeed all the qualities which constitute the merit of a good servant, been wanting in you, they would not only have excluded every direet purpose of giving me uneasiness, but have been so far present to your thoughts, as to have checked that unguarded licentiousness by which I have suffered so much, and inspired you in its place with an habitual solicitude about the effects and tendency of what you did or said. This very much resembles the case of all sins of inconsideration; and, amongst the foremost of these, that of inconsiderate slander. 3. The peace of human society, in cutting Information communicated for the real pur-off a principal source of contention, by assign. pose of warning, or cautioning, is not slander. ing one or more women to one man, and proIndiscriminate praise is the opposite of slan-tecting his exclusive right by sanctions of moder, but it is the opposite extreme; and, how-rality and law. ever it may affect to be thought to be excess of candour, is commonly the effusion of a frivolous understanding, or proceeds from a settled contempt of all moral distinctions.

BOOK III.

PART III.

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH RESULT
FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF THE
SEXES.

THE Constitution of the sexes is the foundation of marriage.

Collateral to the subject of marriage, are fornication, seduction, adultery, incest, polygamy, divorce.

Consequential to marriage, is the relation and reciprocal duty of parent and child.

2. The production of the greatest number of healthy children, their better education, and the making of due provision for their settle. ment in life.

4. The better government of society, by distributing the community into separate families, and appointing over each the authority of a master of a family, which has more actual influence than all civil authority put together.

5. The same end, in the additional security which the state receives for the good behaviour of its citizens, from the solicitude they feel for the welfare of their children, and from their being confined to permanent habitations. 6. The encouragement of industry.

Some ancient nations appear to have been more sensible of the importance of marriage institutions than we are. The Spartans obliged their citizens to marry by penalties, and the Romans encouraged theirs by the jus trium liberorum. A man who had no child, was entitled by the Roman law only to one half of any legacy that should be left him, that is, at the most, could only receive one half of the testator's fortune.

CHAPTER II.

FORNICATION.

THE first and great mischief, and by con. (sequence the guilt, of promiscuous concubin