mane accomplishment; and that is not felt | religious. The man who pays no homage towards a sermon on sobermindedness, or to sabbaths or to sacraments, will be cona sermon on the observation of the sacra- trasted in the open, liberal, and manly style ment, or a sermon on any of those perform- of all his transactions, with the low cunances which bear a more direct and exclu- ning of this drivelling methodistical presive reference to God. We shall find the tender; and the loud laugh of a multitude explanation of this phenomenon, which of scorners, will give a force and a swell to often presents itself in the religious world, this public outcry against the whole chain that distinction of which we have just racter of the sainthood. required that it should be kept in steady hold, and followed into its various applications. The aversion in question is often, in fact, a well founded aversion, to a topic, which, though religious in the matter of it, may, from the way in which it is proposed, be altogether secular in the principle of it. It is resistance to what is deemed, and justly deemed, an act of usurpation on the part of certain virtues, which, when unanimated by a sentiment of godliness, are entitled to no place whatever in the ministrations of the gospel of Christ. It proceeds from a most enlightened fear, lest that should be held to make up the whole of religion, which is in fact utterly devoid of the spirit of religion; and from a true and tender apprehension, lest, on the possession of certain accomplishments, which secure a fleeting credit throughout the little hour of this world's history, deluded man should look forward to his eternity with hope, and upward to his God with complacency, while he carries not on his forehead one vestige of the character of heaven, one lineament of the aspect of godliness. Now, this delusion on the part of the unbelieving world is very natural, and ought not to excite our astonishment. We are not surprized, from the reasons already adverted to, that the truth, and the justice, and the humanity, and the moral loveliness, which do in fact belong to every new crea|ture in Jesus Christ our Lord, should miss their observation; or, at least, fail to be recognized among the other more obvious characteristics into which believers have been translated by the faith of the gospel. But, on this very subject there is a tendency to delusion on the part of the disciples of the faith. They need to be reminded of the solemn and indispensable religiousness of the second class of virtues. They need to be told, that though these virtues do possess the one ingredient of being approved by men, and may, on this single account, be found to reside in the characters of those who live without God—yet, that they also possess the other ingredient of being acceptable unto God; and, on this latter account, should be made the subjects of their most strenuous cultivation. They must not lose sight of the one ingredient in the other; or stigmatize, as so many fruitless and in And lastly. The first class of virtues bear the character of religiousness more strongly, just because they bear that cha-significant moralities, those virtues which racter more singly. The people who are enter as component parts, into the service without, might, no doubt, see in every real of Christ; so that he who in these things Christian the virtues of the second class serveth Christ, is both acceptable to God, also; but these virtues do not belong to and approved by men. They must not them peculiarly and exclusively. For though expend all their warmth on the high and it be true, that every religious man must be peculiar doctrine of the New Testament, honest, the converse does not follow, that while they offer a cold and reluctant adevery honest man must be religious. And mission to the practical duties of the New it is because the social accomplishments do Testament. The Apostle has bound the not form the specific, that neither do they one to the other by a tie of immediate conform the most prominent and distinguish-nexion. Wherefore, lie not one to another, as ing marks of Christianity. They may also be recognized as features in the character of men, who utterly repudiate the whole style and doctrine of the New Testament; and hence a very prevalent impression in society, that the faith of the gospel does not bear so powerfully and so directly on the relative virtues of human conduct. A few instances of hypocrisy amongst the more serious professors of our faith, serve to rivet the impression, and to give it perpetuity in the world. One single example, indeed, of sanctimonious duplicity will suffice, in the judgment of many, to cover the whole of vital and orthodox Christianity with disgrace. The report of it will be borne in triumph amongst the companies of the ir ye have put off the old man and his deeds, and put on the new man, which is formed after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness. Here the very obvious and popular accomplishment of truth is grafted on the very peculiar doctrine of regeneration: and you altogether mistake the kind of transforming influence which the faith of the gospel brings along with it, if you think that uprightness of character does not emerge at the same time with godliness of character; or that the virtues of society do not form upon the believer into as rich and varied an assemblage, as do the virtues of the sanctuary; or that, while he puts on those graces which are singly acceptable to God, he falls behind in any of those graces them that if there be a place in our world, where the subtle evasion, and the dexterous imposition, and the sly but gainful concealment, and the report which misleads an inquirer, and the gloss which tempts the unwary purchaser-are not only currently practised in the walks of merchandize, but, when not carried forward to the glare and the literality of falsehood, are beheld with general connivance; if there be a place which are both acceptable to God, and ap- |ings, he would try to make the odiousness proved of men. of sin stand visibly out on every shade and Let, therefore, every pretender to Chris-modification of dishonesty; and to assure tianity vindicate this assertion by his own personal history in the world. Let him not lay his godliness aside, when he is done with the morning devotion of his family; but carry it abroad with him, and make it his companion and his guide through the whole business of the day; always bearing in his heart the sentiment, that thou God seest me; and remembering, that there is not one hour that can flow, or one occasion that can cast up, where his law is not pre-where the sense of morality has thus fallen, sent with some imperious exaction or other. and all the nicer delicacies of conscience It is false, that the principle of christian are overborne in the keen and ambitious sanctification possesses no influence over rivalry of men hasting to be rich, and the familiarities of civil and ordinary life. wholly given over to the idolatrous service It is altogether false, that godliness is a vir- of the god of this world-then that is the tue of such a lofty and monastic order, as place, the smoke of whose iniquity rises beto hold its dominion only over the solemni-fore Him who sitteth on the throne, in a ties of worship, or over the solitudes of tide of the deepest and most revolting aboprayer and spiritual contemplation. If it mination. be substantially a grace within us at all, it And here we have to complain of the will give a direction and a colour to the public injustice that is done to Christianity, whole of our path in society. There is not when one of its ostentatious professors has one conceivable transaction, amongst all the acted the hypocrite, and stands in disgracemanifold varieties of human employment, ful exposure before the eyes of the world. which it is not fitted to animate by its spirit. We advert to the readiness with which this There is nothing that meets us too homely is turned into a matter of general impeachto be beyond the reach of obtaining, from ment, against every appearance of seriousits influence, the stamp of something celes-ness; and how loud the exclamation is against tial. It offers to take the whole man under the religion of all who signalize themits ascendency, and to subordinate all his selves; and that, if the aspect of godliness movements; nor does it hold the place be so very decided as to become an aspect which rightfully belongs to it, till it be of peculiarity, then is this peculiarity convested with a presiding authority over the verted into a ground of distrust and suspientire system of human affairs. And there- cion against the bearer of it. Now, it so fore it is, that the preacher is not bringing happens, that in the midst of this world down Christianity-he is only sending it lying in wickedness, a man, to be a Chrisabroad over the field of its legitimate ope- tian at all, must signalize himself. Neither ration, when he goes with it to your count- is he in a way of salvation, unless he be ing-houses, and there rebukes every selfish one of a very peculiar people; nor would inclination that would carry you ever so we precipitately consign him to discredit, little with the limits of fraudulency; when even though the peculiarity be so very he enters into your chambers of agency, glaring as to provoke the charge of meand there detects the character of falsehood, thodism. But instead of making one man's which lurks under all the plausibility of hypocrisy act as a draw-back upon the your multiplied and excessive charges; reputation of a thousand, we submit, if it when he repairs to the crowded market- would not be a fairer and more philosophiplace, and pronounces of every bargain, cal procedure, just to betake one's-self to over which truth, in all the strictness of the method of induction-to make a walkquakerism, has not presided, that it is tainted ing survey over the town, and record an with moral evil; when he looks into your inventory of all the men in it who are so shops, and, in listening to the contest of very far gone as to have the voice of psalms argument between him who magnifies his in their family; or as to attend the meetarticle, and him who pretends to undervalue ings of fellowship for prayer; or as scruit, he calls it the contest of avarice, broken pulously to abstain from all that is quesloose from the restraints of integrity. He tionable in the amusements of the world; is not, by all this, vulgarizing religion, or or as, by any other marked and visible giving it the hue and the character of earth- symptom whatever, to stand out to general liness. He is only asserting the might and observation as the members of a saintly the universality of its sole preeminence over and separated society. We know, that even man. And therefore it is, that if possible of such there are a few, who, if Paul were to solemnize his hearers to the practice of alive, would move him to weep for the resimplicity and godly sincerity in their deal-proach they bring upon his master. But we also know, that the blind and impe- poverty-and who look with the most tuous world exaggerates the few into the wakeful eye over all the sufferings and nemany; inverts the process of atonement cessities of our species-and who open altogether, by laying the sins of one man their hand most widely in behalf of the upon the multitude; looks at their general imploring and the friendless-and to whom, aspect of sanctity, and is so engrossed with in spite of all their mockery, the men of this, single expression of character, as to be the world are sure, in the negociations of insensible to the noble uprightness, and the business, to award the readiest confidence tender humanity with which this sanctity-and who sustain the most splendid part in is associated. And therefore it is, that we offer the assertion, and challenge all to its most thorough and searching investigation, that the Christianity of these people, which many think does nothing but cant, and profess, and run after ordinances, has augmented their honesties and their liberalities, and that, tenfold beyond the average character of society; that these are the men we oftenest meet with in the mansions of all those great movements of philanthropy which bear on the general interests of mankind-and who, with their eye full upon eternity, scatter the most abundant blessings over the fleeting pilgrimage of time-and who, while they hold their conversation in heaven, do most enrich the earth we tread upon, with all those virtues which secure enjoyment to families, and uphold the order and prosperity of the commonwealth. DISCOURSE III. The Power of Selfishness in promoting the Honesties of mercantile Intercourse. "And if you do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same."-Luke vi. 33. IT is to be remarked of many of those particular testimony when it is rendered. duties, the performance of which confers The other is additional to my right-the the least distinction upon an individual, offering of a spontaneous good will which that they are at the same time the very I had no title to exact; and which, thereduties, the violation of which would con- fore, when rendered to me, excites in my fer upon him the largest measure of oblo- bosom the cordiality of a warmer acknowquy and disgrace. Truth and justice do ledgement. And yet, our Saviour, who not serve to elevate a man so highly above knew what was in man, saw, that much the average morality of his species, as of the apparent kindness of nature, was rewould generosity, or ardent friendship, or solvable into the real selfishness of nature; devoted and disinterested patriotism; the that much of the good done unto others, former are greatly more common than the was done in the hope that these others latter; and, on that account, the presence would do something again. And, we beof them is not so calculated to signalize the lieve it would be found by an able analyst individual to whom they belong. But that of the human character, that this was the is one account, also, why the absence of secret but substantial principle of many of them would make him a more monstrous the civilities and hospitalities of ordinary exception to the general run of character intercourse--that if there were no expectain society. And, accordingly, while it is tion either of a return in kind, or of a retrue, that there are more men of integrity turn in gratitude, or of a return in popuin the world, than there are men of very larity, many of the sweetening and cementwide and liberal beneficence-it is also true, ing virtues of a neighbourhood would be that one act of falsehood, or one act of dis-practically done away-all serving to prove, honesty, would stamp a far more burning infamy on the name of a transgressor than any defect in those more heroic charities, and extraordinary virtues, of which humanity is capable. So it is far more disgraceful not to be just to another, than not to be kind to him; and, at the same time, an act of kindness may be held in higher positive estimation than an act of justice. The one is my right --nor is there any call for the homage of a that a multitude of virtues, which, in effect, promoted the comfort and the interest of others, were tainted in principle by a latent regard to one's own interest; and that thus being the fellowship of those who did good, either as a return for the good done unto them, or who did good in hope of such a return, it might be, in fact, what our Saviour characterizes in the text-the fellowship of sinners. But if to do that which is unjust, is still And, perhaps, after all, the best way of arriving practically at the solution of this question would be, not by a formal induetion of particular cases, but by committing the matter to the gross and general experience of those who are most conversant in the affairs of business.-There is a sort of undefinable impression you all have upon this subject, on the justness of which however, we are disposed to lay a very considerable stress-an impression gathered out of the mass of the recollections of a whole more disgraceful than not to do that which | into an undisguised hostility against each is kind, it would prove more strikingly than other, in respect to their rights. The mere before, how deeply sin had tainted the disinterested principle would set up a feeble moral constitution of our species-could it barrier, indeed, against a desolating tide of be shown, that the great practical restraint selfishness, now set loose from the consion the prevalence of this more disgraceful deration of its own advantage. The genuthing in society, is the tie of that common ine depravity of the human heart would selfishness which actuates and characterizes burst forth and show itself in its true chaall its members. It were a curious but im- racters; and the world in which we live be portant question, were it capable of being re- transformed into a scene of unblushing solved-if men did not feel it their interest fraud, of open and lawless depredation. to be honest, how much of the actual doings of honesty would still be kept up in the world? It is our own opinion of the nature of man, that it has its honourable feelings, and its instinctive principles of rectitude, and its constitutional love of truth and of integrity; and that, on the basis of these, a certain portion of uprightness would remain amongst us, without the aid of any prudence, or any calculation whatever. All this we have fully conceded; and have already attempted to demonstrate, that, in spite of it, the character of man is tho-life-an impression founded on what you roughly pervaded by the very essence of sinfulness; because, with all the native virtues which adorn it, there adheres to it that foulest of all spiritual deformities-unconcern about God, and even antipathy to God. It has been argued against the orthodox doctrine of the universality of human corruption, that even without the sphere of the operation of the gospel, there do occur so many engaging specimens of worth and benevolence in society. The reply is, that this may be no deduction from the doctrine whatever, but be even an aggravation of it -should the very men who exemplify so much of what is amiable, carry in their hearts an indifference to the will of that Being who thus hath formed, and thus hath embellished them. But it would be a heavy deduction indeed, not from the doctrine, but from its hostile and opposing argument, could it be shown, that the vast majority of all equitable dealing amongst men, is performed, not on the principle of honour at all, but on the principle of selfishness-that this is the soil upon which the honesty of the world mainly flourishes, and is sustained; that, were the connexion dissolved between justice to others and our own particular advantage, this would go very far to banish the observation of justice from the earth; that, generally speaking, men are honest, not because they are lovers of God, and not even because they are lovers of virtue, but because they are lovers of their ownselves—insomuch, that if it were possible to disjoin the good of self altogether from the habit of doing what was fair, as well as from the habit of doing what was kind to the people around us, this would not merely isolate the children of men from each other, in respect of the obligations of beneficence, but it would arm them may have observed in the history of your own doings-a kind of tact that you have acquired as the fruit of your repeated intercourse with men, and of the manifold transactions that you have had with them, and of the number of times in which you have been personally implicated with the play of human passions, and human interests. It is our own conviction, that a well exercised merchant could cast a more intelligent glance at this question, than a well exercised metaphysician; and therefore do we submit its decision to those of you who have hazarded most largely, and most frequently, on the faith of agents, and customers, and distant correspondents. We know the fact of a very secure and well warranted confidence in the honesty of others, being widely prevalent amongst you: and that, were it not for this, all the interchanges of trade would be suspended; and that confidence is the very soul and life of commercial activity; and it is delightful to think, how thus a man can suffer all the wealth which belongs to him to depart from under his eye, and to traverse the mightiest oceans and continents of our world, and to pass into the custody of men whom he never saw. And it is a sublime homage, one should think, to the honourable and high-minded principles of our nature, that, under their guardianship, the adverse hemispheres of the globe should be bound to gether in safe and profitable merchandise; and that thus one should sleep with a bo som undisturbed by jealousy, in Britain, who has all, and more than all his property treasured in the warehouses of India-and that, just because there he knows there is vigilance to defend it, and activity to dispose of it, and truth to account for it, and all those trusty virtues which ennoble the III.] INFLUENCE OF SELFISHNESS ON MERCANTILE INTERCOURSE. character of man to shield it from injury, | to convict him of the deceitfulness of that and send it back again in an increasing tide of opulence to his door. moral complacency with which he looks to There is no question, then, as to the fact of a very extended practical honesty, between man and man, in their intercourse with each other. The only question is, as to the reason of the fact. Why is it, that he whom you have trusted acquits himself of his trust with such correctness and fidelity? Whether is his mind in so doing, most set upon your interest or upon his own? Whether is it because he seeks your advantage in it, or because he finds it is his own advantage? Tell us to which of the two concerns he is most tremblingly aliveto your property, or to his own character? and whether, upon the last of these feelings, he may not be more forcibly impelled to equitable dealing than upon the first of them? We well know, that there is room enough in his bosom for both; but to determine how powerfully selfishness is blended with the punctualities and the integrities of business, let us ask those who can speak most soundly and experimentally on the subject, what would be the result, if the element of selfishness were so detached from the operations of trade, that there was no such thing as a man suffering in his prospérity, because he suffered in his good name; that there was no such thing as a desertion of custom and employment coming upon the back of a blasted credit, and a tainted reputation; in a word, if the only security we had of man was his principles, and that his interest flourished and augmented just as surely without his principles as with them? Tell us, if the hold we have of a man's own personal advantage Let us, if possible, make this still clearer were thus broken down, in how far the virtues of the mercantile world would survive to your apprehension, by descending more it? Would not the world of trade sustain minutely into particulars. There is not one as violent a derangement on this mighty member of the great mercantile family, with hold being cut asunder, as the world of na- whom there does not obtain a reciprocal inture would on the suspending of the law of torest between himself and all those who gravitation? Would not the whole system, compose the circle of his various corresin fact, fall to pieces, and be dissolved? pondents. He does them good; but his eye Would not men, when thus released from is all the while open to the expectation of the magical chain of their own interest, their doing him something again. They which bound them together into a fair and minister to him all the profits of his employseeming compact of principle, like dogs of ment; but not unless he minister to them rapine let loose upon their prey, overleap of his service, and attention, and fidelity.' the barrier which formerly restrained them? Insomuch, that if his credit abandon him, Does not this prove, that selfishness, after his prosperity will also abandon him. If all, is the grand principle on which the he forfeit the confidence of others, he will brotherhood of the human race is made to also forfeit their custom along with it. So hang together; and that he who can make that, in perfect consistency with interest the wrath of man to praise him, has also, being the reigning idol of his soul, he may upon the selfishness of man, caused a most still be, in every way, as sensitive of enand his property; beauteous order of wide and useful inter-croachment upon his reputation, as he would be of encroachment upon course to be suspended? But let us here stop to observe, that, while be as vigilant, to the full, in guarding his there is much in this contemplation to mag-name against the breath of calumny, or susnify the wisdom of the Supreme Contriver, picion, as in guarding his estate against the there is also much in it to humble man, and inroads of a depredator. Now, this tie of |
