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and is frequently fubject to great efforts of paffion and resentment; to the defires of ambition and lafcivioufnefs, and other vices, which have no fociety, which can have none, with Chriftian charity. Goodnature has oftentimes fomething that wants to be corrected in the very principles of it; fometimes it is an agreeable and easy weakness of mind, or an indolence or carelessness with refpect to perfons and things. But charity is reafon made perfect by grace it is a beneficence which arifes from a contemplation of the world, from a knowledge of the great Creator, and the relation we bear to him and to our fellow creatures: it is that reafon into which all duties owing from man to man are ultimately refolved; and when we choose to say in a word what is the character, the temper, or the duty of a difciple of the Gofpel, charity is the only word that can exprefs our meaning.

The fame fort of actions materially confidered do oftentimes proceed from very different principles. Liberality and hofpitality are natural effects of charity, which infpires us with the tender motions of compaffion and benevolence towards our fellowcreatures: but it is no very uncommon thing for men to be liberal out of pride, and hospitable out of vanity; to do their alms before men, that they may be feen of them; and of fuch our Saviour's judgment is, that they shall have no reward of their Father, which is in heaven.

This leads to an inquiry, by what means we may certainly distinguish the principles from which our actions are derived, without which we can have no well-grounded confidence towards God, how fpe

cious foever the appearance may be which we make in the eyes of the world? The ready answer to which inquiry is, that we muft confult our own hearts, and examine what paffes in them, in order to form a right judgment upon the motives of our own actions. But if we confider what is meant by searching the heart, we shall find that to search the heart, and to examine into the motives and principles of our actions, is one and the fame thing; and therefore this direction does not fet us one ftep forward in the inquiry. Befides, it is no eafy matter to come to the knowledge of our own hearts, fince from experience it is plain, that men do impose upon themselves at least as often as they do upon the world; and find an eafe and fatisfaction in doing the things, which fhall yield no fruit in the great day, when the fecrets of all hearts fhall be disclosed. And though in actions which require deliberation, and are not undertaken without a previous debate had with ourselves upon their expediency or inexpediency, an honeft man may judge. of his own motives and fincerity; yet a thousand things there are which men do habitually, and with fo much ease and readiness, as not to attend to the influence of any particular motive at the time of doing the action. Charitable perfons do not, in each fingle inftance of charity, fet before their minds the connection of that action with the honour of God, and the good of the world; nor can they perhaps be able to fay what particular motive led to each act of charity. A man of a regular chastity and fobriety does not every day,

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nor perhaps every month, reason himself into the obfervation of thefe duties, and exert the motives in his heart, upon which the practice of these duties is founded; nor can he answer, fhould he be examined to the point, how far his virtue is owing to this or the other motive, or how far to his natural temperament and conftitution. And fince no one virtue confists in a fingle act, or in any certain determinate number of fingle acts, but in a regular and habitual conformity to the rules of reafon and morality; which conformity the more habitual it is, the lefs we feel of the influence of any particular motives; it is hardly poffible for men to eftimate the good or evil of their actions, by confidering the immediate and fenfible connection between each action, and the motives producing it. For, as many motions of the body, which depend on the acts of our will, are exerted with the greatest reafon, and yet the reafon of exerting them is but feldom by any, and by fome hardly ever attended to; fo in moral actions a man of confirmed habitual goodness does many things right, without recurring back by reflection to the fpecial grounds and reasons of duty, in which the morality of fuch actions is founded.

For these reasons, and for others which might be affigned, it seems to me to be a very diftracting method, to put people upon inquiry into the motives of all their particular actions; and ftill more unreasonable it feems to be, to exclude fincerity from all actions that are not immediately influenced by a special confideration of the proper motives of

religion; because, in this cafe, the more naturally and habitually men do good, the more reason they will have to doubt of their fincerity.

We must therefore search after a more equitable and more practicable way of judging of our fincerity. Our Saviour tells us, we must love our neighbour as ourselves; making hereby that love, which naturally every man bears to himself, to be the standard of that love and charity which we ought to have to one another. As therefore it is fufficient to love our neighbour as ourselves; fo likewise it will be fufficient evidence of the fincerity of our charity, if we can give as good proof of our love towards our neighbour, as we ordinarily can do of our love towards ourselves.

Now certain it is, that the principle of felf-prefervation does generally act fo uniformly in men, that they do the things moft neceffary to their own well-being without much thought and reflection upon the reasons for fo doing; nor do we ever fufpect men fo far in the fincerity of their love to themselves, as to question whether the things which they do rightly for their own prefervation proceed from proper motives, and out of a due regard to their own well-being.

What the principle of felf-preservation is with respect to ourselves, the fame is charity with respect to our neighbour: and the more real and vigorous this principle is, the more eafily, and with the lefs deliberation, does it exert the acts of love and beneficence towards our fellow-creatures. Hypocrites and diffemblers, and self-interested perfons, have always a defign in what they do; and there

fore they neceffarily deliberate, whether it be worth their while to do good to others or no; and can therefore affign to themfelves a particular reafon for any good office they perform to their neighbour: and it is a great prefumption that a man acts upon a general principle of charity and humanity, when he lives well towards others, without having a particular reafon to affign in every inftance for fo doing.

It is either a principle of felf-love, or a principle of charity, that inclines us to do good to others. Where men act out of felf-love, and feek to promote their own intereft, to gratify their own vanity or ambition by ferving others, there is fo much defign in what they do, that they cannot but be conscious of the reasons which prevail with them and where there are no fuch reafons to be affigned, what cause is there for men to fufpect their own fincerity, or to imagine that the love they fhew to others proceeds from any thing but a good principle?"

It is therefore, if not a certain rule, yet at least a very reasonable prefumption, that we act upon a true principle of charity, when we feek the ease, and fatisfaction, and comfort of others, without being confcious to ourfelves of any felfifh views to our own intereft in what we do.

But to prevent mistakes, I would not be underftood, by laying down this rule, to condemn men always in the good they do to others, with a view to themselves: for furely, it is as reasonable to exchange good offices, as other lefs valuable conveniencies of life; and, indeed, the happiness of civil life confifts in this mutual exchange of good offices: and therefore, where men ferve others in an honeft

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