as they gain our attention, which the bufinefs or diverfions of the world are always calling off by contrary attractions. The great art therefore of piety, and the end for which all the rites of religion feem to be inftituted, is the perpetual renovation of the motives to virtue, by a voluntary employment of our mind in the contemplation of its excellence, its importance, and its neceffity, which, in proportion as they are more frequently and more willingly revolved, gain a more forcible and permanent influence, till in time they become the reigning ideas, the ftanding principles of action, and the teft by which every thing propofed to the judgment is rejected or approved. To facilitate this change of our affections, it is neceffary that we weaken the temptations of the world, by retiring at certain feafons from it; for its influence arifing only from its prefence, is much leffened when it becomes the object of folitary meditation. A conftant refidence amidst noife and pleasure, inevitably obliterates the impreffions of piety, and a frequent abftraction of ourselves into a ftate, where this life, like the next, operates only upon the reason, will reinftate religion in its just authority, even without thofe irradiations from above, the hope of which I have no intention to withdraw from the fincere and the diligent. This is that conqueft of the world and of ourfelves, which has been always confidered as the perfection of human nature; and this is only to be obtained by fervent prayer, fteady refolutions, and frequent retirement from folly and vanity, from the cares of avarice, avarice, and the joys of intemperance, from the lulling founds of deceitful flattery, and the tempting fight of profperous wickednefs. NUMB. 8. SATURDAY, April 14, 1750. Patitur pænas peccandi fola voluntas ; Nam fcelus intra fe tacitum qui cogitat ullum, Facti crimen habet. Juv.. IF For he that but conceives a crime in thought, CREECH. F the most active and induftrious of mankind was able, at the close of life, to recollect diftinctly his paft moments, and diftribute them in a regular account, according to the manner in which they have been spent, it is fcarcely to be imagined how few would be marked out to the mind, by any permanent or visible effects, how fmall a proportion his real action would bear to his feeming poffibilities of action, how many chaẩms he would find of wide and continued vacuity, and how many interftitial spaces unfilled, even in the most tumultuous hurries of bufinefs, and the moft eager vehemence of purfuit. It is faid by modern philofophers, that not only the great globes of matter are thinly fcattered through the univerfe, but the hardeft bodies are fo porous, that, if all matter were compreffed to perfect fa lidity, lidity, it might be contained in a cube of a few feet. In like manner, if all the employment of life were crowded into the time which it really occupied, perhaps a few weeks, days, or hours, would be fufficient for its accomplishment, fo far as the mind was engaged in the performance. For fuch is the inequality of our corporeal to our intellectual faculties, that we contrive in minutes what we execute in years, and the foul often ftands an idle fpectator of the labour of the hands, and expedition of the feet. For this reafon the ancient generals often found themselves at leisure to purfue the ftudy of philofophy in the camp; and Lucan, with hiftorical veracity, makes Cæfar relate of himself, that he noted the revolutions of the stars in the midst of preparations for battle. -Media inter prælia femper Sideribus, cælique plagis, fuperifque vacavi. Amid the ftorms of war, with curious eyes, That the foul always exerts her peculiar powers, with greater or lefs force, is very probable, though the common occafions of our prefent condition require but a small part of that inceffant cogitation; and by the natural frame of our bodies, and general combination of the world, we are fo frequently condemned to inactivity, that as through all our time we are thinking, fo for a great part of our time we can only think. Left Left a power fo restless should be either unprofitably or hurtfully employed, and the fuperfluities of intellect run to wafte, it is no vain fpeculation to confider how we may govern our thoughts, reftrain them from irregular motions, or confine them from boundless diffipation. How the understanding is beft conducted to the knowledge of fcience, by what fteps it is to be led forwards in its purfuit, how it is to be cured of its defects, and habituated to new ftudies, has been the inquiry of many acute and learned men, whofe obfervations I fhall not either adopt or cenfure: my purpose being to confider the moral difcipline of the mind, and to promote the increase of virtue rather than of learning. This inquiry feems to have been neglected for want of remembering, that all action has its origin in the mind, and that therefore to fuffer the thoughts to be vitiated, is to poifon the fountains of morality; irregular defires will produce licentious practices; what men allow themselves to wish they will foon believe, and will be at laft incited to execute what they pleafe themfelves with contriving. For this reafon the cafuifts of the Roman church, who gain, by confeffion, great opportunites of knowing human nature, have generally determined that what it is a crime to do, it is a crime to think. Since by revolving with pleafure the facility, fafety, or advantage of a wicked deed, a man foon begins to find his conftancy relax, and his deteftation foften; the happiness of fuccefs glittering before him, withdraws his attention from the atrocioufnefs of the guilt, and and acts are at laft confidently perpetrated, of which the first conception only crept into the mind, disguised in pleasing complications, and permitted rather than invited. No man has ever been drawn to crimes by love or jealousy, envy or hatred, but he can tell how cafily he might at firft have repelled the temptation, how readily his mind would have obeyed a call to any other object, and how weak his paffion has been after fome cafual avocation, till he has recalled it again to his heart, and revived the viper by too warm a fondness. Such, therefore, is the importance of keeping reafon a conftant guard over imagination, that we have otherwife no fecurity for our own virtue, but may corrupt our hearts in the moft reclufe folitude, with more pernicious and tyrannical appetites and wishes than the commerce of the world will generally produce; for we are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by intereft, and palliated by all the artifices of felf-deceit, gives us time to form diftinctions in our own favour, and reafon by degrees fubmits to abfurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness. In this disease of the foul, it is of the utmost importance to apply remedies at the beginning; and therefore I fhall endeavour to fhew what thoughts are to be rejected or improved, as they regard the past, prefent, or future; in hopes that fome may be awakened to caution and vigilance, who, perhaps, VOL. IV. indulge E |