the Gospel, the law of general affection is made the fundamental and diftinctive doctrine of our Saviour's revelation. He himself fo

66

points it out: By this fhall all men know "that ye are my difciples, if ye have love "one to another *:" and his Apostles extol it as the fulfilling of the whole law, and as the law of higheft dignity, the royal law. Thus St. Paul fays, "For all the law is " fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou fhalt love thy neighbour as thyself†:" and St. James, "If ye fulfil the royal law, accord

ing to the fcripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyfelf, ye do well." Hence also we may clearly perceive why they who caft off all feeling for their fellow-creatures, caft off alfo all reverence and regard towards God. The great fource of duty is then corrupted in them, and all that flows from it is poifoned; or rather the fource is totally dried up, and no good works of any kind can be produced.

For this reafon, that is, because the affections are fo intimately concerned in the due regulation of our lives, the heart, the fuppofed

*

John xiii. 5.

+ Gal. v. 13, 14.

James ii. 8.

feat

pro

A

feat of affection, is uniformly confidered in fcripture as the well-fpring of all duty. It is not to the reafon or to the mind that our well or ill-doing is referred, but to the heart, to the natural feeling or difpofition, either purified or corrupted. To do good from the cold conviction of reafon, or a certain abftracted perfuafion of general fitnefs and priety, is scarcely to perform it at all: it must be done with feeling, and from the heart, before it can be amiable in the fight of God or man, before it can do honour to humanity. good Chriftian, therefore, is not a tame, speculative well-doer, but a lively and active being, thrilling with affectionate difpofitions ; living, as it were, an expanded life, by fharing in the interests of innumerable perfons: loving his fellow-creatures, not nominally, or lukewarmly, but as himself; loving God, not with a dull metaphyfical esteem, but with the heart; with a heart overflowing with gratitude for countless inftances of goodness; in a word, with all his heart, with all his foul, and all his strength,

Having thus illuftrated what was at first propofed, that the precept of our Saviour in the text conducts us directly to the whole fourçe

$ 3

fource of moral feeling in our hearts; and having shown even more than that, namely, that it leads us alfo to the fource of religious duty; there is one remark of another kind, which I cannot reprefs my inclination to fuggeft, as it feems to arife immediately out of this general view of things.

It has appeared, from a careful examination, that the trueft knowledge of human nature is conveyed to us, by this fundamental precept of the Gofpel, on which I have difcourfed; that, by pursuing the light it gives, we gain an infight into ourfelyes, which no other inftructions can beftow. Let us then afk ourselves, what rank of wisdom and ability among men it is, that can difclofe a perfect moral system. From the firft dawnings of human knowledge to the present day the ablest men have been employed upon this subject, and every fyftem they have offered has appeared, in fome degree, deficient. Many of them have indeed contradicted each other, and confequently have left no probability of truth to more than one out of their number: and if this evangelical fyftem, which we are now confidering, be, in fact, the right, all the reft must be imperfect, or erroneous.

On

the

the one fide, then, will stand all the learning and abilities of the world, and they, in error; on the other fide, the Gofpel, and that, perfect. If the latter, as we conceive, proceeded from God, this is easily accounted for; the work of men is incomplete, the work of God is fuch as we expect from him. But what fay the adverfaries of our faith ?—that the Gospel is altogether a human work, the work of impofture. Admit this, and we have a very different statement of things, and one entirely unaccountable. On the one fide stands the wifdom of the whole world, on the other, Matthew, Mark, and their affociates; a few obfcure and low-bred men of Judea; who yet perform what all the wisdom of mankind had failed to do. It would be a matter of fome furprise if four or five men from the ordinary and labouring claffes of life, in the most enlightened country, could be found capable of comprehending the fpeculative systems of morality contrived by others: but to invent, to lay the whole foundation for themselves; to afford an exercise for the most fagacious men for ever, to trace out and to difcover the full extent of their vaft wifdom ;-what is this? it is furely fomething preternatural.

May we not, without exaggeration, fay, that it is full as miraculous as any thing attributed to any person in the hiftory they have left. To fpeak the tongues of all nations, without having learnt them, is not more wonderful than to fpeak the language of wisdom, the moft difficult of all languages, without preparatory instruction.

We have therefore gained by our enquiry, not only what we fought directly, an illuftration of our Saviour's doctrine, but incidentally, a ftrong argument in confirmation of our faith: let us take advantage of both ; and, cultivating that Chriftian benevolence which we have perceived to be the common fource of every human excellence, let us hold faft, without wavering, that profeffion, which alone can give us fuch divine instructions. ¿ which alone is truly worthy of God, and fu perior to all contrivance of mankind,

Now to God, &c.