partial and munificent Patrons of real Merit, they know not themselves the Nature of their Office, nor the Defign of their Elevation. Wealth and Power, if not acquired by virtuous and honourable Means, and employed to virtuous and honourable Purposes, are a Difgrace and Curfe to the Owner, and will be a fore Article of Account at the last great Day. Avaricious Princes, rapacious Ministers, and venal Tools, who confider nothing but themselves, and how they may support one another in the Exercife of Oppreffion and Corruption, have fo far forfeited all Pretenfions to Honour, that they seem to have extinguished the common Sentiments of Humanity itself. Think how dif honourable and contemptible a Figure the Jewish Nobility made that could force the Prophet Isaiah to make this fad Complaint. Ifa. i. 23. Thy Princes are rebellious, (thy great Men are rebellious and difobedient to the Laws of God) Companions of Thieves (advifing, affifting, and fharing in the Plunder of their Country) Every one loveth Gifts, and followeth after Re wards (regarding nothing but their private Interest, difpofing of no Favours, filling up no Offices without a valuable Confideration, feeing no Merit but in the beft Bidder) They judge not the Fatherless, neither doth the Caufe of the Widow come unto them. In short, great Men, who have large Poffeffions, extenfive Influence, and are fet in high Places, without great Souls, extenfive Generosity, and elevated Views and Designs, in fpite of all their illuftrious Titles and Badges of Honour, will appear odious and contemptible to Men of Senfe and Virtue, even in the lowest Stations of Life. And when the Influence of such Examples fhall, as it naturally will, infect the lower Part of the People, and

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and the Herd of Mankind, when public Spirit fhall become the Jeft of Knaves and Fools, that Nation is not far from its Ruin.

The Voluptuous have no better Title to Honour. As their whole Bufinefs and Employment in this World is to indulge every Appetite, to gratify every Demand of Luft or Fancy, without any Regard to the Reason, the Juftice, and Decency of the Action, they betray a fhameful Corruption of Heart and Weakness of Understanding. The Man of Pleafure, whofe whole Profeffion it is to pafs merrily through the World, to murder Time, and cool Reflection; to be ever jovial, ever gay; to deny himself nothing that his Eye can fee, or his Heart can wifh, is not only a despicable, and dishonourable, but a dangerous, Creature. If he cannot difcover, from the exalted Faculties and OpeIrations of his own Soul, that he is a rational free Agent, he must be very ignorant and filly; and, if he knows it, and confeffes it, and yet lives and acts in Defiance of that Conviction, he must be an irrefolute unaccountable wicked Creature. To fee a reasonable, immortal Being, endued with noble Faculties, capable of noble Reflections and generous Refolutions, facrificing his whole Attention to fome predominant Vanity, is a Reflection upon common Senfe. Be the Object of his Paffion in its own Nature ever so innocent, the Diverfions of the Field, or the Affembly; if a Pack of Dogs or Cards, Equipage or Show, Wine or Women, engrofs the whole Man; he departs thereby from his proper Rank in the Scale of Beings, finks below the Dignity of his Species, and sets himfelf upon the Level with the loweft Animal.-But if the Paffion fixes upon forbidden Objects; if it tempts

him

him to break Inclofures, and invades, in any kind or degree, the Property of his Neighbours, he then becomes doubly criminal; he adds the Malefactor to the Brute, and intitles himself to all the Guilt and Infamy due to the vileft Criminal: If a Man, not; content to gratify a Paffion in itself natural and innocent, in fuch a Manner, and under fuch Reftrictions, as Reason, Juftice, Order, and Religion, have prefcribed, he is fo far from having any Pretenfions to Honour, that he deserves the Contempt of the Wise, the Averfion of the Virtuous and Good, and the Cenfure and Correction of the Laws. A modern fine Gentleman, who triumphs over the Ruins of Innocence and Virtue, in the Vanity of making Prostitutes to a brutish Appetite, and the powerful Charms of his own dear irresistible Person, is an Animal deftitute of Religion, Reason, Decency, and common Honesty. It is true, Custom and Fashion, and falfe Notions of Gallantry, have, in great measure, defaced the Boundaries of Vice and Virtue, Infamy and Honour, in the fashionable World, and have not only encouraged these Sons of Infamy and Shame to appear without blushing in the Affemblies of the Great, the Fair, the Polite, and even the Virtuous, but also to be diftinguished to Advantage, and be encouraged to perfevere in their Iniquities, by the Indulgence they receive from thofe who are obliged, by all the Rules of Equity and Decency, to deteft and abhor them, and which, perhaps, would be the most likely Way to bring them to Shame and Repentance.—I cannot dismiss this Article without applying myself to these pernicious Destroyers, as an Advocate for that lovely Part of our Species, upon whofe Innocence, whofe Happiness

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Happiness, and Love, the most agreeable worldly Injoyments of our Sex, and the Comforts of focial Life, chiefly depend. Let me ask them a serious Question; Would any of them be pleased to have their Daughters, their Sifters, their Wards, or their Friends, feduced, betrayed, and debauched, by the moft deteftable Treachery, or compelled by Violence to Proftitution, Diseases, Beggary, Infamy, and Damnation ? Were this Question to be put to the greatest Reprobate upon Earth in cold Blood, I dare fay he would blush; but a Man of any Virtue, Humanity, and Goodnature, would be ftruck with Horror and Remorse, and would give me Hazael's Answer to the Prophet, Is thy Servant a Dog, that he should do this Thing? Yet fuch a fad Dog is every one that does the fame to another Man's Daughter, Sifter, or Friend; for here the Golden Rule of Juftice determines the Kind and Degree of Iniquity on both Sides of the Question to be the fame.-When we read of a Cyrus, an Alexander, a Scipio, not only exhibiting illustrious Examples of Humanity, Continence, and Honour, in the Warmth of youthful Paffions, the Poffeffion of Beauty, the Infolence of War, and the Triumphs of Victory, but encouraging others to do the fame; it ought to be an eternal Reproach upon the low Gallantries, the deteftable Hypocrify, the inhuman Treachery, and execrable Perjuries, made ufe of by a Set of poor Wretches, who call themselves fine Gentlemen and Men of Honour, when they have no other Pretenfions to Humanity itself, than the Power of propagating their own Species, and that not with half that Juftice and Decency as many of their Fellow-Brutes. Now, whether a Man that can facrifice every Thing that

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is virtuous, honourable, and lovely in the most beautiful Part of the Creation to a brutish Appetite, when he might have heightened and fanctified the fame Injoyment by a rational and religious Ufe of it, can have any Pretenfions to Reafon, Justice, Humanity, Decency, or Honour, let the fillieft, or the wickedeft, Reader judge, and pronounce accordingly.

Nor have the Covetous and Penurious a better Title to Honour, than the Selfish and Voluptuous. By the Covetous, I mean those who are intent upon getting; by the Penurious, those who are intent upon faving and hoarding up whatever they can get, without any Regard to the Demands of Justice, Humanity, or Charity. The Love of Money (the Scripture tells us) is the Root of all Evil, and Covetoufnefs has in it all the Guilt and Folly of the most stupid Idolatry. He that bows down to a Stock or a Stone, or offers Incense to an Idol, is not a more abfurd ridiculous Creature, than he who facrifices his Time, his Health, his Peace, his Soul and Body, to Heaps of Gold and Silver, which, when they exceed the ordinary Provifion for the Neceffaries and Conveniencies of Life, and the decent Support of a Family, are fo far from adding to the Comforts of Life, that they are really an Addition to its Burdens; and, instead of fecuring and increafing the Happiness of their Owners, too often pierce them through with many Sorrows. This is the Voice of uncorrupt Nature and unprejudiced Reason, confirmed by the unanimous Suffrage of wife and good Men in all Ages and Nations of the World. Were I to collect the Teftimonies of all the Heathen. Moralifts upon this Head, it would fill a Volume. In fhort, there is not extant a single Heathen Writer of MoraliH 4

ty,