piety. As soon as our minds unfold their powers we are taught to know our Creator. As we ripen in years and knowledge, tutors are provided for us, and we are conducted to places of public worship erected to the glory of our Creator, there being assembled we are invited to celebrate solemn festivals, there we are taught whence we came and wither we go, what we are and what we ought to be, what we should believe and what we ought to practise; we are led by the exercise of prayer to the source of all that assistance, which is necessary to enable us to surmount the obstacles, which nature, example, and habit, in spite of an education the most rigid and holy, oppose to our sanctification; there we are made to ratify, by engagements the most solemn and binding, at the table of the Lord, all that had been promised for us at our baptism. Now what are all these practices ? Are they not means to conduct us to the end of religion? Let us then put every thing in its proper place; let us value the means only as they lead to the end; and let us not imagine, when we have lost sight of the end, that we do any thing to purpose by continuing to make use of the means.

Here, my brethren, I finish my essay; for the rules laid down are sufficient to enable us to perceive the reasons, which induced Jesus Christ to rank the virtues enumerated, judgment, faith and mercy, among the weightier matters of the law. Can we refuse this rank to what Jesus Christ calls judgment, that is, attentive, impartial, incorruptible justice, such equity as that, which engageth a judge to go through the fatigue of a long and painful discussion of an intricate subject, to disregard the appearances of persons, never to suffer himself to be blinded by gifts, to determine a point and decide a cause only by the justice or injustice of it? Can we refuse

this rank to mercy, that is, to that benevolence, which inclines us always to tolerate the tolerable infirmities of our neighbors, to excuse them when any excuse can be made for them, to conceal and correct them rather than to envenom and publish them; or, to use the language of St. Paul, can we refuse to place in the highest order of virtues that charity, which suffereth long and is kind, which doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, beareth, believeth, hopeth, endureth all things, 1 Cor. xiii. 4. &c. My God what a discription! My God, how seldom is this virtue practised, how little is it understood, even among christians! Finally, Can we refuse to place among the weightier matters of the law, what Jesus Christ calls faith, that is, such a rectitude and candor as all the world praise though few practise, the virtue that makes at man sincere in his professions, steady in his friendships punctual in his contracts, faithful in all his engagements? Our attempt, our rules may serve to convince you, that these virtues ought to be placed in the highest rank, and that their places cannot be supplied by a punctual payment of tithes, or by any other duties of the same class. This is so clear, that it is needless to add any thing more of this article.

II. What we proposed to treat of in the second place demands a greater attention. We engaged to unmask such of our hearers as endeavor to acquire, by the performance of less important duties, a right to neglect other duties of the highest class, and of the utmost importance. And yet I have neither time nor courage to fulfil this engagement. All that the few remaining moments, all that the delica cy, or, if I may venture to use the words of an a

postle, all that the itching ears of our times will allow me to do, is to set you a task. This is it. Recollect our rules, avail yourselves of them to enable you to form a just notion of your state; and, to exemplify in a few articles what we cannot fully investigate, let one avail himself of our rules to enable him to make a just estimate of the decency of his outward deportment; let another judge by these of the value of those sacrifices, which he has made for religion; another of his assiduity in attending public worship; and another of the encomiums, which he makes on the dead, and which, he hopes, his survivors will after his decease make on him.

You are a man of a grave deportment. All the virtues seem painted in your countenance, your eyes habitually roll towards heaven, the smallest inadvertence offends and provokes you, your mouth never opens but to utter moral sentences and yet you are proud and affronted at a smile, a look, the least indication of humanity. Every body knows you are always full of your own importance, your reputation, your rank, and what is still worse, your virtue. It should seem, you are afraid of defiling yourself by touching other men, and always exclaiming, by your actions if not in so many words, Stand by thyself, come not near me, for I am holier than thou, Isa. lxv. 5. How little progress soever we have made in the knowledge of the human heart, and in the art of discerning the pretences, under which the most haughty souls conceal their pride, it is easy enough to see that, what you esteem above all other things is self. Ah! Woe be to you! you pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin: but you omit the weightier matters of the law. Do I impose on you? What place, then does humility occupy in your system of morality? What value do you set upon humility, that virtue, of which Jesus Christ has

given you so many excellent descriptions, and so many amiable models?

You have made great sacrifices for religion. You have left your country and your fortune, your honor and your family, yea your all to follow Jesus Christ: yet, were we to judge of your intention by your actions, we should affirm, that you followed him only to have a fairer opportunity to insult and betray him. It is notorious that you violate without remorse the most essential laws of that religion, for the sake of which you made such noble sacrifices. In this exile, to which you voluntarily condemned yourself for the sake of religion, we see you covetous, envious, revengeful, wearing, and glorying to wear the livery of the world. Ah! Woe be to you! you pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin but omit the weightier matters of the law. I ask again, Do I impose on you? What place, then, does the practical part of religion occupy in your system? Is christianity less proposed to your heart than to your mind? Is the person from whom it proceeds, less jealous of his precepts than of his doctrines? Satisfied that his disciples say Lord, Lord, is he indifferent whether they perform or omit what he commands?.

You are assiduous in attending public worship. You are scrupulously exact in the performance of every part. Our festivals are delicious days to you: but, alas! devotion sours your temper, and you become insufferable as you grow devout. You make your friends martyrs; you treat your children like slaves, and your domestics like animals of a species different from your own. You are more like a fury than a man. Your house is a hell, and it seems as if you came into a christian church only to learn of the God, who is worshipped there the art of becoming a tormentor of mankind. Ah!

Woe be to you! you pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin but you omit the weightier matters of the law. I ask again, Do I impose on you? What rank, then, in your system does discretion occupy? Where is that spirit of prudence, patience, gentleness and goodness, which the inspired writing's so often repeat, and so powerfully recommend in their writings?

You celebrate the praises of your dying friends, and incessantly exclaim, How comfortably he died! If you do not go so far as to place your departed friends, who in your opinion died in such a christian manner, among the number of the gods, you do not place them without scruple in the number of the saints. This sort of encomium is a model of that, at which you aspire, hence you often exclaim, speaking of your good departed friend, Let me die his death, and let my last end be like his! Numb. xxiii. 10. When you are seized with any illness, that threatens your life, you put on all the exterior of religion. I see one minister after another sitting at your bedside. I hear your constant sobs and groans. Here is nothing but weeping and sighing and holy ejaculations: but I stand listening to hear you utter one other word, that is, restitution, and that I never hear. I never hear you say, as Zaccheus said, If I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold, Luke xix. 8. I never see your coffers disgorge the riches you have obtained by extortion; you never hear, or never feel the cries of the laborers, which have reaped down your fields, whose hire is of you kept back by fraud, the cries of whom are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, James v. 4. You choose rather to set at defiance all those terrible judgments which God hath denounced against extortioners than to part from your idol, gain; you