In the first place, I acknowledge that it is a great thing to act according to any rule; for, generally speaking, men fail not so much in the choice of their rule, as in not being able to act up to it. To obey every impulse of passion; to yield to any or every temptation; to catch at all opportunities of all sorts of pleasure, with plan, prospect, and condition, is the lowest state of moral character. To proceed by some rule, to aim at some standard, to possess an authority over our conduct, and exercise our judgment at all, is the next state, and compared with the last, a state of improvement. To take for our guidance the rule of reason and the rule of scripture, to inquire after it, to inform ourselves of it, to endeavour to understand it, and when we do understand it to conform our behaviour to it, is the perfection of moral excellence; and like perfection in every thing, seldom perhaps absolutely and completely attained, but what we should always aim at, and gradually advance towards.

Again; I would by no means decry or disparage the law of honor universally. It holds many to order, whom nothing else would. Part of mankind seem, in a great measure, incapable of reasoning about their duty, or inquiring for themselves. These must of necessity proceed a great deal by the rule of honor and reputation; that is, in other words, by what they hear praised and esteemed by the persons they converse with. In a multitude of instances, the law of honor in all civilized countries, and we have no concern with any other on this subject, prescribes the same behaviour that reason and religion prescribe. St Paul himself, who had no extraordinary deserence for human judgment in these matters, enjoins upon his followers whatever things are praiseworthy, whatever things are of good report; which is a good general rule, though it may contain exceptions and defects.

Having premised thus much in behalf of the law of honor, and of those who go by it, and who challenge to themselves the character and title of men of honor, and who are certainly much to be preferred to those who go by no rule but present inclination, I shall now proceed to show that the rule is not, alone, either safe or complete. By safe, I mean sure to conduct to future and final happiness; by complete, I mean, containing all the duties which are required of us by the will of our Creator.

It is not safe or complete, because it omits some duties, and tolerates some vices; so that a person may be deemed and

may be a man of honor, notwithstanding he neglects some necessary duties, and allows himself in some vices.

It is my business to make this appear. Now, as the motive and law of honor is calculated principally, if not wholly, to secure and make easy the intercourse between people of equal, or nearly equal condition in life, by regulating the behaviour of such as are governed by or resting upon fidelity, punctuality, civility; between such this may be the view and object of the rule. It prescribes duties only between equals, or those who account themselves such; omitting, as well that whole class of duties which relate immediately to the Deity, as those which we owe to our inferiors; and the reason of the omission is substantially this; that a man is not the worse companion, nor the worse to deal with, in those concerns which are usually transacted between persons of honor. Hence it comes to pass, that the profanation of God's name and attributes, of his religion, religious ordinances, and all the effect of passions, levity, or infidelity, are no breaches of honor, nor accounted such, even by those who think them wrong. And if this be not a true account that I have given of the law of honor, that it is confined to the duties and offices between equals, we would desire to know how it happens that it is not the same as the law of God. At least, it is a demonstration that the law of Moses does not embrace the extent and compass of our duty; since there are points, such as those I have mentioned, relating to the Deity, which we acknowledge to be duties, though yet the violation of them is accounted no breach of the law of honor. The consequence of this is, that those who set up for persons of honor, and look no farther than to maintain the character of men of honor in the world, find no obligation or inducement to any of those duties which we owe immediately to God. They may allow the evil habits of cursing and swearing to grow upon them and keep hold of them; they may indulge themselves in the utmost licentiousness in the treatment of many things that belong to religion; they may be as remiss and negligent as they please in their attendance upon public worship, and behave as irreverently as they please when they do attend; they may utterly lay aside any act of private devotion; they may cease, in a word, from every expression of homage, piety, gratitude, and acknowledgment to the Supreme Preserver of us all, without suffering in their character as men of honor, or incurring a stain or imputation upon their honor on that account. Nevertheless, these are duties. God is entitled to our affection and devotion, our love and honor; and he has commanded that

we pay it. This is not disputed; nor do I insinuate that it is. What I argue is, that the law of honor is not considered to concern itself with these duties, even by those who confess thein to be duties.

This, then, will be admitted; that what respects the Divine Being lies out of the province of the law of honor. But in all that concerns man and man, in that great and important class of duties which are called relative duties, the law of honor may be depended upon as an adequate rule; and there, it is enough if we act but up to and support the character of men of honor. I wish it were so, for the sake of all who profess this character; but I fear the observations we have laid down, that the law of honor takes notice only of what passes between equals, will be found here also; and that those duties which we owe to our dependents and inferiors, which form together a very considerable part of a good man's virtues and a bad man's vices, are omitted in the law of honor; that is, may be either observed or violated, without any effect upon a man's honor, or reputation for honor, one way or other. Of this kind the following are examples; the cruel and barbarous treatment of our domestic servants; the worrying them out of their happiness by causeless or immoderate anger, habitual punishments, groundless suspicion, wanton restraint, harsh, scornful, or opprobrious language. It is not to be computed the quantity of misery a fierce, overbearing temper may produce in his family and amongst his dependents by these means. Yet what has all this to do with his honor? He is not the worse accounted as a man of honor for this behaviour. Notwithstanding, the justifiableness of such behaviour no one will assert; for a conduct which occasions so much unnecessary misery to any, no matter to whom, must be criminal.

Bounty to the poor is a christian duty; no one doubts it ; but I do not find it affects a man's honor either way, whether he is bountiful to the poor or not bountiful. And not only want of charity, but want of justice, is tolerated and connived at by the law of honor. The great and grievous injuries done to tradesmen by delay of payment, oftener by not paying their just demands at all, and by persons of rank and distinction, and who assume the name of men of honor, however inconsistent they be with any principle of moral probity and every pretension to it, are not inconsistent with the reputation of honor, provided the man be careful of his conduct amongst his equals, and preserve a regard to truth, fidelity, and punctuality in his dealings with his equals, or with persons of honor; for all these

instances proceed upon and produce the same principle; to wit, the observation we set out with, that the law of honor prescribes and regulates the duties only between equals; and though it may be right as far as it goes in most instances betwixt such and amongst such, it is altogether regardless of what is due from us on the one hand to our inferiors, or from them to us on the other. And these merely are two capital defects in the law, when it is considered as, or set up for, a complete rule of life.

But this is not all; we have something further to accuse the law of honor of; and that is, in one word, the licentious indulgence of our natural passions. If I was to describe the law of honor freely, I should call it a system of rules well contrived, by persons in the higher stations of life, to facilitate their intercourse with each other. Now such persons being occupied in a great measure in the pursuit of pleasure, it is not to be expected that they should lay down rules to themselves which trench upon their pleasures, or subject them to any great restraint in that which composes the business and object of their lives. And this remark will be verified by experience. The law of honor is careful to exclude all fraud, chicanery, falsehood, concealment in the mutual dealings of persons of honor; but I do not find that it lays much, if any, stress upon the virtues of chastity, sobriety, moderation, economy; because such stress would greatly check and contract the pleasures and pursuits of this description of men. There are some duties which the law of honor does embrace; but the violation of them contains not any great breach of it. These are decorum, civility, good manners, or the avoiding any of that shuffling and cunning which makes it impossible, or highly inconvenient, to deal with any man. The requiring strictness in those virtues would bear hard upon the manner of life of persons who come most within the reach and influence of the rule of honor. It is upon the same principle that the great christian duty of the forgiveness of injuries, of which you hear and read so much in the scripture, has no place at all amongst the virtues of a man of honor. Indeed it is hard to say whether, if the law of honor were to decide upon it, it would be judged a virtue or a vice; whether it would not be pronounced meanness, rather than magnanimity; an instance of weakness and pusillanimity, rather than of chastised affections or a sense of duty. Resentment is a natural passion, and it costs no little selfmortification to quell and quiet it; and mortification of any sort is not to be looked for in this class of mankind.

The substance of our assertion is, that the rule and law of honor is not alone a right or sufficient rule to go by; and I will comprise the sum of what I have delivered in support of the assertion in two or three queries.

First; Is it not true that a person may be negligent of every act of duty to the Divine Being, of every act of service, worship, or devotion whatever, without any impeachment of his honor?

Secondly; Is it not true, that the same person may be tyrannical and overbearing in his family and among his servants; rigorous in the extreme in the treatment of his dependents; utterly without any share of liberality to the poor? Is it not true that a person may be all these without impeachment of his honor?

Thirdly; Is it not true, that he may likewise distress or ruin his tradesman by dilatory and irregular payment, or by absolute insolvency, and yet pass for a man of honor among those who claim that title?

Fourthly; Is it not true, that he may live in the habitual guilt of fornication, adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, and be capable of the most desperate revenge, without impeachment of his honor ?

Fifthly and lastly; If these things be so, is the law of honor a safe rule of life? Is it enough to satisfy any man who is concerned for his final happiness, to be able to say of himself that he is, or to hear others call him, a man of honor; without inquiring whether he hath also fulfilled the duties, and compared himself with the measure of God's word, explained and applied by the sound judgment of unprejudiced reason?