seen in a general way what is their real condition, both with regard to knowledge and virtue. But because this is not so pleasing a picture as human pride is accustomed to draw: and because those who are prepossessed with high notions of their own beauty, will not easily believe, that it is taken from the life; I shall endeavour to place it in another view, that it may be certainly known whether it resembles the original. I shall desire every one who is willing to know mankind, to begin his inquiry at home. First, let him survey himself; and then go on step by step among his neighbours. I ask then, first, Are you thoroughly pleased with yourself? Say you, who is not? Nay, I say, who is? Do you never think too well of yourself? Think yourself wiser, better, and stronger than you appear to be upon the proof? Is not this pride? And do you approve of pride? Were you never angry without a cause? Or farther than that cause required? Are you not apt to be so? Do you approve of this? Do not you frequently resolve against it? And do not you break those resolutions again and again? Can you help breaking them? If so, why do you not? Are not you prone to unreasonable desires, either of pleasure, praise, or money? Do not you catch yourself desiring things not worth a desire: and other things more than they deserve? Are all your desires proportioned to the real, intrinsic value of things? Do not you know and feel the contrary? Are not you continually liable to "foolish and hurtful desires ?” And do you not frequently relapse into them, knowing them to be such: knowing that they have before "pierced you through with many sorrows?" Have you not often resolved against these desires? And as often broke your resolutions? Can you help breaking them? Do so: help it if you can: and if not, own your helplessness. Are you thoroughly pleased with your own life? Nihilne vides quod nolis? Do you observe nothing there which you dislike? I presume you are not too severe a judge here. Nevertheless I ask, Are you quite satisfied, from day to day, with all you say or do? Do you say nothing, which you afterwards wish you had not said? Do nothing, which you wish you had not done? Do you never speak any thing contrary to truth or love? Is that right? Let your own conscience determine. Do you never do any thing contrary to justice or mercy? Is that well done? You know it is not. Why then do you not amend? Moves, sed nil promoves. You resolve and resolve, and do just as you did before. Your wife however is wiser and better than you. Nay, perhaps you do not think so. Possibly you said once, 'Thou hast no faults, or I no faults can spy; Thou art all beauty, or all blindness I.' But you do not say so now: she is not without faults: and you can see them plain enough. You see more faults than you desire, both in her temper and behaviour. And yet you cannot mend them: and she either cannot or will not. And she says the very same of you. Do your parents or her's live with you? And do not they too exercise your patience? Is there nothing in their temper or behaviour that gives you pain? Nothing which you wish to have altered? Are you a parent yourself? Parents in general are not apt to think meanly of their own dear offspring. And probably at sometimes you admire your's more than enough: you think there are none such. But do you think so, upon cool reflection? Is the behaviour of all your children, of most, of any of them, just such as you would desire? Toward yourself, toward each other, and toward all men? Are their tempers just such as you would wish, loving, modest, mild, and teachable? Do you observe no self-will, no passion, no stubbornness, no ill-nature, or surliness among them? Did you not observe more or less of these in every one of them, before they were two old? And have not those seeds ever since grown years up with them, till they have brought forth a plentiful harvest? Your servants or prentices are probably older than your children. And are they wiser and better? Of all those who have succeeded each other for twenty years, how many of them did their work "unto the Lord, not as pleasing man but God?" How many did the same work, and in as exact a manner, behind your back as before your face? They that did not were knaves; they had no religion; they had no morality. Which of them studied your interest in all things, just as if it had been his own? I am afraid, as long as you have lived in the world, you have seen few of these black swans yet. Have you had better success with the journeymen and labourers, whom you occasionally employ? Will they do the same work if you are at a distance, which they do while you are standing by? Can you depend upon their using you, as they would you should use them? And will they do this, not so much for gain, as for conscience' sake? Can you trust them as to the price of their labour? Will they never charge more than it is fairly worth? If you have found a set of such workmen, pray do not conceal so valuable a treasure; but immediately advertise the men, and their places of abode, for the common benefit of your countrymen. Happy you who have such as these about your house! And are your neighbours as honest and loving as they? They who live either in the same, or in the next house: do these love you as themselves? And do to you in every point, as they would have you do to them? Are they guilty of no untrue or unkind sayings, no unfriendly actions towards you? And are they (as far as you see or know) in all other respects, reasonable and religious men? How many of your neighbours answer this character? Would it require a large house to contain them? But you have intercourse not with the next neighbours only, but with several tradesmen. And all very honest: are they not? You may easily make a trial. Send a child or a countryman to one of their shops. If the shopkeeper is an honest man, he will take no advantage of the buyer's ignorance. If he does, he is no honester than a thief. And how many tradesmen do you know who would scruple it? Go a little farther. Send to the market for what you want. What is the lowest price of this?' Five shillings, Sir.' 'Can you take no less?' 'No, upon my word. It is worth it every penny.' An hour after he sells it for a shilling less. And it is really worth no more. Yet is not this the course (a few persons excepted) in every market throughout the kingdom? Is it not generally, though not always, cheat that cheat can? Sell as dear as you can, and buy as cheap? And what are they who steer by this rule better than a company of Newgate-birds? Shake them all together; for there is not a grain of honesty among them. But are not your own tenants at least, or your landlord, honest men? You are persuaded they are. Very good: remember then an honest man's word is as good as his bond. You are preparing a receipt or writing for a sum of money, which you are going to pay or lend to this honest man. Writing! What need of that? You do not fear he should die soon. You did not once think of it. But you do not care to trust him without it; that is, you are not sure but he is a mere knave. What, your landlord: Who is a justice of peace! It may be a judge; nay, a member of parliament: possibly a peer of the realm! And cannot you trust this honourable (if not right honourable) man, without a paltry receipt? I do not ask whether he is a whoremonger, an adulterer, a blasphemer, a proud, a passionate, a revengeful man. This it may be his nearest friends will allow? But do you suspect his honesty too? 13. Such is the state of the Protestant Christians in England. Such their virtue from the least to the greatest, if you take an impartial survey of your parents, children, servants, labourers, neighbours, of tradesmen, gentry, nobility. What then can we expect from Papists? What from Jews, Mahometans, Heathens? And it may be remarked, that this is the plain, glaring, apparent condition of human kind. It strikes the eye of the most careless, inaccurate observer, who does not trouble himself with any more than their outside. Now it is cer tain the generality of men do not wear their worst side outward. Rather, they study to appear better than they are, and to conceal what they can of their faults. What a figure then would they make, were we able to touch them with Ithuriel's spear? What a prospect would there be, could we anticipate the transactions of the great day? Could we "bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the thoughts and intents of the heart?" This is the plain, naked fact, without any extenuation on the one hand, or exaggeration on the other. The present state of the moral world is as conspicuous as that of the natural. Ovid said no more concerning both near two thousand years since, than is evidently true at this day. Of the natural world he says, (whether this took place at the fall of man, or about the time of the Deluge,) Jupiter antiqui contraxit tempora veris, Perq; hiemes, aæstusq; et inæquales autumnos, While the sad year through different seasons driven And a man may as modestly deny, that spring and summer, autumn and winter, succeed each other, as deny one article of the ensuing account of the moral world. Irrupit vena pejoris in ævum E |