ture, and the decisions of our fupreme courts of justice, are not contained in fewer than fifty folio volumes; and yet it is not once in ten attempts that you can find the cafe you look for, in any law-book whatever; to fay nothing of those numerous points of conduct, concerning which the law profeffes not to prescribe or determine any thing. Had then the fame particularity, which obtains in human laws so far as they go, been attempted in the Scriptures, throughout the whole extent of morality, it is manifeft they would have been by much too bulky to be either read or circulated; or rather, as St. John fays, "even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.' Morality is taught in Scripture in this wife. General rules are laid down of piety, juftice, benevolence, and purity: fuch as worshipping God in spirit and in truth; doing as we would be done by; loving our neighbour as ourfelf; forgiving others, as we expect forgiveness from God; that mercy is better than facrifice; that not that which entereth into a man (nor, by parity of reason, any ceremonial pollutions), but that which proceedeth from the heart, defileth him. These rules are occafionally illustrated, either by fictitious examples, asinthe parable of the

good

i

good Samaritan; and of the cruel fervant, who refused to his fellow-servant that indulgence and compaffion which his master had shewn to him; or in inftances which actually prefented themselves, as in Chrift's reproof of his difciples at the Sa-, maritan village; his praife of the poor widow, who caft in her laft mite; his cenfure of the Pharifees, who chofe out the chief rooms--and of the tradition, whereby they evaded the command to fuftain their indigent parents: or laftly, in the refolution of questions, which those who were about our Saviour propofed to him; as in his anfwer to the young man who asked him, "What "lack I yet?" and to the honest scribe, who had found out, even in that age and country, that "to love God and his neighbour was more than "all whole burnt offerings and facrifice."

prac

And this is in truth the way in which all tical sciences are taught, as Arithmetic, Grammar, Navigation, and the like:-Rules are laid down, and examples are fubjoined; not that these examples are the cafes, much less all the cafes which will actually occur, but by way only of explaining the principle of the rule, and as fo many fpecimens of the method of applying it. The chief difference is, that the examples in Scripture are not annexed to the rules with the di

dactic regularity to which we are now-a-days accustomed, but delivered difperfedly, as particular occafions fuggefted them; which gave them however, especially to thofe who heard them, and were prefent to the occafions which produced them, an energy and perfuafion, much beyond what the fame or any inftances would have appeared with, in their places in a system.

Befide this, the Scriptures commonly prefuppofe, in the perfons to whom they speak, a knowledge of the principles of natural justice; and are employed not fo much to teach new rules of morality, as to enforce the practice of it by new fanctions, and by a greater certainty: which laft feems to be the proper bufinefs of a revelation from God, and what was moft wanted,

Thus the "unjust, covenant-breakers and ex"tortioners," are condemned in Scripture, fuppofing it known, or leaving it, where it admits of doubt, to moralifts to determine, what injuftice, extortion, or breach of covenant are.

The above confiderations are intended to prove that the Scriptures do not fuperfede the use of the fcience of which we profefs to treat, and at the fame time to acquit them of any charge of im perfection or infufficiency on that account.

CHAP,

CHAP. V.

THE

THE MORAL SENSE.

HE father of Caius Toranius had been profcribed by the triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to the interefts of that party, discovered to the officers, who were in pursuit of his father's life, the place where he "concealed himself, and gave them withal a defcription, by which they might diftinguish "his perfon, when they found him. The old man, more anxious for the fafety and for66 tunes of his fon, than about the little that

might remain of his own life, began imme"diately to inquire of the officers who feized "him, whether his fon was well, whether he "had done his duty to the fatisfaction of his "generals. That fon, replied one of the of "ficers, fo dear to thy affections, betrayed thee to us; by his information thou art apprehended, and dieft. The officer with this "ftruck a poniard to his heart, and the un"happy parent fell, not fo much affected by

"his fate, as by the means to which he owed " it."

Now the question is, whether, if this story were related to the wild boy, caught some years ago in the woods of Hanover, or to a favage without experience, and without inftruction, cut off in his infancy from all intercourse with his fpecies, and, confequently, under no poffible influence of example, authority, education, fympathy, or habit; whether, I fay, fuch a one would feel, upon the relation, any degree of that fentiment of disapprobation of Toranius's conduct which we feel, or not.

They who maintain the existence of a moral fenfe of innate maxims-of a natural confcience-that the love of virtue and hatred of vice are inftinctive-or the perception of right and wrong intuitive (all which are only different * "Caius Toranius triumvirum partes fecutus, profcripti patris fui prætorii et ornati viri latebras, ætatem, notafque "corporis, quibus agnofci poffet, centurionibus edidit, qui

eum perfecuti funt. Senex de filii magis vita, et incremen"tis, quam de reliquo fpiritu fuo folicitus, an incolumis effet, et an imperatoribus fatisfaceret, interrogare cos cœpit. "E quibus unus: Ab illo, inquit, quem tantoperè diligis, de"monftratus noftre ministerio, filii indicio occideris: pro"tinufque pectus ejus gladio trajecit. Collapfus itaque est ❝ infelix, auctore cædis, quam ipfa cæde, miserior.”

VALER, MAX. Lib. IX. Cap. 11. ways