parts of the government we live under, of which the king is the head: and the meaning of the precept is, that we ought to live in dutiful submission to legal authority. Government and society are united. We cannot have one without the other; and we submit to the inconveniences, for the sake of the advantages.

The end of society is mutual safety and convenience. Without it, even safety could in no degree be obtained: the good would become a prey to the bad; nay, the very human species to the beasts of the field.

Sull less could we obtain the conveniences of life; which cannot be had with out the labour of many. If every man depended upon himself for what he enjoyed, how destitute would be the situation of human affairs!

But even safety and convenience are not the only fruits of society. Man, living merely by himself, would be an ignorant unpolished savage. It is the intercourse of society which cultivates the human mind. One man's knowledge and experience is built upon another's; and so the great edifice of science and polished life is reared.

To enjoy these advantages, therefore, men joined in society; and hence it became necessary, that government should be established. Magistrates were created; laws made; taxes submitted to; and every one, instead of righting himself (except in mere self-defence), is enjoined to appeal to the laws he lives under, as the best security of his life and property. Gilpin.

§ 162. Duty to our Teachers and Instructors-arising from the great Importance of Knowledge and Religion-and the great Necessity of gaining Habits of Attention, and of Virtue, in our YouthAnalogy of Youth and Manhood to this World and the next.

We are next enjoined "to submit our selves to all our governors, teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters." Here another species of government is pointed out. The laws of society are meant to govern our riper years; the instructions of our teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters, are meant to guide our youth.

By our teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters," are meant all those who have the care of our education, and of our instruction in religion; whom we are to obey,

and listen to, with humility and attention, as the means of our advancement in knowledge and religion. The instructions we receive from them are unquestionably subject to our own judgment in future life; for by his own judgment every man must stand or fall. But, during our youth, it is highly proper for us to pay a dutiful submission to their instructions, as we cannot yet be supposed to have formed any judg ment of our own. At that early age it should be our endeavour to acquire knowledge; and afterwards unprejudiced to form our opinion.

The duty which young people owe to their instructors, cannot be shewn better, than in the effect which the instructions they receive have upon them. They would do well, therefore, to consider the advantages of an early attention to these two things, both of great importance, knowledge and religion.

The great use of knowledge in all its various branches (to which the learned lan-, guages are generally considered as an introduction) is to free the mind from the prejudices of ignorance; and to give it juster, and more enlarged conceptions, than are the mere growth of rude nature. By reading, you add the experience of others to your own. It is the improvement of the mind chiefly, that makes the difference between man and man; and gives one man a real superiority over another.

Besides, the mind must be employed. The lower orders of men have their attention much engrossed by those employments in which the necessities of life engage them and it is happy that they have. Labour stands in the room of education; and fills up those vacancies of mind, which, in a state of idleness, would be engrossed by vice. And if they, who have more leisure, do not substitute something in the room of this, their minds also will become

the prey of vice; and the more so, as they have the means to indulge it more in their power. A vacant mind is exactly that house mentioned in the gospel, which the devil found empty. In he entered and taking with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, they took possession. It is an undoubted truth, that one vice indulged, introduces others; and that each succeeding vice becomes more depraved. If then the mind must be employed, what can fill up its vacuities more rationally than the acquisition of knowledge? Let us therefore thank God for the opportunities

he

men.

planted. If we have sauntered away our youth, we must expect to be ignorant If indolence and inattention have taken an early possession of us, they will probably increase as we advance in life; and make us a burden to ourselves, and useless to society. If again, we suffer ourselves to be misled by vicious inclinations, they may daily get new strength, and end in dissolute lives. But if we cultivate our minds in our youth, attain habits of attention and industry, of virtue and sobriety, we shall find ourselves well prepared to act our future parts in life; and what above all things ought to be our care, by gaining this command over ourselves, we shall be more able, as we get forward in the world, to resist every new temptation, as it arises. Gilpin.

163. Behaviour to Superiors. We are next enjoined "to order ourselves lowly and reverently to all our bet

ters."

By our betters are meant, they who are in a superior station of life to our own; and by "ordering ourselves lowly and reverently towards them," is meant paying them that respect which is due to their

station.

The word "betters" indeed includes two kinds of persons, to whom our respect is due those who have a natural daim to it; and those who have an acquired one; that is, a claim arising from some particular situation in life.

Among the first, are all our superior relations; not only parents, but all other relations, who are in a line above us. All these have a natural claim to our respect. -There is a respect also due from youth to age; which is always becoming, and tends to keep youth within the bounds of modesty.

To others, respect is due from those particular stations which arise from society and government. Fear God, says the text; and it adds, "honour the king."

It is due also from many other situations in life. Employments, honours, and even wealth, will exact it; and all may justly exact it, in a proper degree.

But it may here perhaps be inquired, why God should permit this latter distinction among men? That some should have more authority than others, we can easily see, is absolutely necessary in government; but among men, who are all born equal,

why should the goods of life be distributed in so unequal a proportion?

To this inquiry, it may be answered, that, in the first place, we see nothing in this, but what is common in all the works of God. A gradation is every where observable. Beauty, strength, swiftness, and other qualities, are varied through the creation in numberless degrees In the same manner likewise are varied the gifts of fortune, as they are called. Why therefore should one man's being richer than another, surprise us more than his being stronger than another, or more prudent?

Though we can but very inadequately trace the wisdom of God in his works, yet very wise reasons appear for this variety in the gifts of fortune. It seems necessary both in a civil, and in a moral light.

In a civil light, it is the necessary accompaniment of various employments; on which depend all the advantages of society. Like the stones of a regular building, some must range higher, and some lower; some must support, and others be supported; some will form the strength of the building, and others its ornament; but all unite in producing one regular and proportioned whole. If then different employments are necessary, of course different degrees of wealth, honour, and consequence, must follow; a variety of distinctions and obligations; in short, differ ent ranks, and a subordination, must take place.

Again, in a moral light, the disproportion of wealth, and other worldly adjuncts, gives a range to the more extensive exercise of virtue. Some virtues could but faintly exist upon the plan of an equality. If some did not abound, there were little room for temperance: if so ne did not suffer need, there were as little for patience. Other virtues again could hardly exist at all. Who could practise generosity, where there was no object of it? Who humility, where all ambitious desires were excluded?

Since then Providence, in scattering these various gifs, proposes ultimately the good of man, it is our duty to acquiesce in this order, and to behave ourselves lowly and reverently" (not with serv lity, but with a decent respect) "to all our superiors."

Before I conclude this subject, it may

be proper to observe, in vindication of the ways of Providence, that we are not to suppose happiness and misery necessarily connected with riches and poverty. Each condition hath its particular sources both of pleasure and pain, unknown to the other. Those in elevated stations have a thousand latent pangs, of which their inferiors have no idea; while their inferiors again have as many pleasures, which the others cannot taste. I speak only of such modes of happiness or misery as arise immediately from different stations. Of misery, indeed, from a variety of other causes, all men of every station are equal heirs: either when God lays his hand upon us in sickness or misfortune: or when, by our own follies and vices, we become the ministers of our own distress.

Who then would build his happiness upon an elevated station? Or who would envy the possession of such happiness in another? We know not with what various distresses that station, which is the object of that envy, may be attended.-Besides, as we are accountable for all we possess, it may be happy for us that we possess so little. The means of happiness, as far as station can procure them, are commonly in our own power, if we are not wanting to ourselves.

Let each of us then do his duty in that station which Providence has assigned him; ever remembering, that the next world will soon destroy all earthly distinctions.One distinction only will remain among the sons of men at that time-the distinction between good and bad; and this distinction it is worth all our pains and all our ambition to acquire. Gilpin.

$164. Against wronging our Neighbours

by injurious Words.

We are next instructed "to hurt nobody by word or deed-to be true and just in all our dealings-to bear no malice nor hatred in our hearts-to keep our hands from picking and stealing-our tongues from evil speaking, lying, and slandering."

The duties comprehended in these words are a little transposed. What should class under one head is brought under another. "To hurt nobody by word or deed," is the general proposition. The under parts should follow: First, "to keep the tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering;" which is "to hurt nobody by word." Secondly, "to be true and just

in all our dealings;" and "to keep our hands from picking and stealing;" which is, "to hurt nobody by deed." As to the injunction, "to bear no malice nor hatred in our hearts," it belongs properly to neither of these heads; but it is a distinct one by itself. The duties being thus separated, I shall proceed to explain them.

And, first, of injuring our neighbour by our "words." This may be done, we find, in three ways; by "evil-speaking, by lying, and by slandering."

By "evil speaking," is meant speaking ill of our neighbours; but upon a supposition, that this ill is the truth. In some circumstances it is certainly right to speak ill of our neighbour; as when we are called upon in a court of justice to give our evidence; or, when we can set any one right in his opinion of a person, in whom he is about to put an improper confidence. Nor can there be any harm in speaking of a bad action, which has been determined in a court of justice, or is otherwise become notorious.

But on the other hand, it is highly disallowable to speak wantonly of the characters of others from common fame: because, in a thousand instances, we find that stories, which have no better foundation, are misrepresented. They are per haps only half told-they have been heard through the medium of malice or envysome favourable circumstance hath been

omitted-some foreign circumstance hath been added-some trifling circumstance hath been exaggerated-the motive, the provocation, or perhaps the reparation, hath been concealed-in short, the representation of the fact is, some way or other, totally different from the fact itself.

But even, when we have the best evidence of a bad action, with all its circumstances before us, we surely indulge a very ill-natured pleasure in spreading the shame of an offending brother. We can do no good; and we may do harm: we may weaken his good resolutions by exposing him: we may harden him against the world. Perhaps it may be his first bad action. Perhaps nobody is privy to it but ourselves. Let us give him at least one trial. Let us not cast the first stone. Which of our lives could stand so strict a scrutiny? He only who is without sin himself, can have any excuse for treating his brother with severity.

Let us next consider "lying;" which