less negligent audience? Let each of you, my brethren, enlarge this thought, and by applying it to himself, let him judge whether my proposition be not sufficiently clear.

with all thy heart,

I carry my proposition further still. I affirm, not only that there is no duty so small in the moral law as not to proceed from primitive original right, but that God never prescribed an observance so insignificant in the ceremonial law as not to proceed from the same origin. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God Deut. vi. 5. this is the first principle of primitive law. If we ought to love God with all our hearts, we ought carefully to observe all the means which he hath appointed to cherish this love. Now, these means vary according to the various circumstances in which they to whom the means are prescribed may be. A worship charged with ceremonies would serve only to extinguish emotions of love, if prescribed to people in some conditions; yet the same sort of worship would inflame the love of other people in different circumstances. The Jews were in the last case. Born and brought up in slavery, employed, as they were, in manual occupations, they would have been destitute of all ideas under an economy without ceremonies. Surrounded with idolatrous nations, and naturally inclined, as they were, to idolatry, it was necessary, in order to prevent their copying such wretched examples, to which they had strong propensities and inducements, I say, it was necessary, if I may venture to speak so, not to give them opportunity to breathe, to keep them

constantly employed in some external action, every moment of the time devoted to religion.

Christians, I allow, are in circumstances altogether different. A mass of ceremonies would serve only to veil the beauty of that God, whom no man had seen at any time before the advent of Christ, and whom the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared, John i. 18. Whatever contributes to the concealment of the perfections of this God damps that love which a contemplation of them inspires. Yet, as we are full of infirmities on this earth, we want a few signs to produce and cherish in us the love of God. Where is the man who is capable of a devotion all disengaged from sense? who can fix his eyes immediately on the sun of righteousness, Mal. iv. 2. Where is the man who is capable of such abstract meditations and pure emotions as constitute the worship of angels and seraphim? Alas! my soul, how difficult is recollection to thee, even with all the assistance of a religious ceremonial! How hard dost thou find it to maintain a spirit of devotion even in this place, in this concourse of people, with all these voices, and with those ordinances which are appointed for the maintenance of it? What wouldst thou do, wert thou left to thine own meditations only, to practise a piety altogether spiritual and free from external action?

Let us finish this article. The least important parts of ceremonial worship, as well as the least virtues of morality, which we call little duties, or the less weighty matters of the lan, proceed from primi

tive law, by consequences more remote, but as real as those of the most important duties.

What we have been saying of the nature of little duties demonstrates the obligation of them. They all proceed from primitive law. You cannot, therefore, neglect the performance of them without confining what ought to be infinite.

But this is too vague. We will treat of the subject more at large, and in order to enable you more fully to perceive your obligation to little duties, I will speak of them in four different views, each of which will open a field of reflections.

I. They contribute to maintain a tenderness of conscience.

II. They are sources of re-conversion after great falls.

III. They make up by their frequency what is wanting to their importance.

IV. They have sometimes characters as certain of real love as the great duties have.

Now, my brethren, whatever engages us to the performance of little duties must preserve us from the commission of what the world calls little sins. This is all I have to propose to you at present.

I. An exact performance of little duties maintains tenderness of conscience. By conscience I mean that instant, and, in some sort, involuntary approbation of our own conduct when we discharge our obligations, and that sentence of condemnation which we cannot help denouncing against ourselves, whenever we are so unhappy as to violate them. In the language of St. Paul, it is the work of the law writ

ten in our hearts, our thoughts accusing or else excusing one another, Rom. ii. 18.

Conscience, considered in this point of light, is the same in our souls in regard to salvation as the senses are in our bodies in regard to health and life. The office of our senses is to inform us, by the short method of sensation, of whatever may be hurtful or beneficial to our bodies. If when any exterior body approached us we were always obliged to measure its size, to examine its configuration, to judge by the laws of motion, action, and reaction, whether its approach would be hurtful or beneficial to us, our frail machine would be crushed to atoms before we could finish the discussion. If it were necessary always before we took any nourishment to examine the nature of the aliments before us, to understand the properties and effects of them, we should die with hunger before we had finished our researches. God hath enabled the senses of our bodies to supply the place of tedious discussions. This beautiful economy is never disconcerted except when our bodies are disordered.

It is exactly the same in regard to conscience. If always when it was necessary to determine the morality of an action, we were obliged to turn over a large class of books, to consult our casuists, and to examine a whole system of rectitude, what would become of us? The short way of sentiment supplies the place of all this discussion. A sudden horror, excited by the idea of a crime which we are tempted to commit, a secret joy, excited by the idea of a vir tue, which we are going to practice, are, in urgent

cases, systems, books, and casuists to us. When we lose this moral sense, we lose our best guide, and are then exposed to an infallible misery of proceeding from one error to another, from a first pernicious practice to a second, and so in the end to a gulf of final wretchedness.

Such being the design of conscience, the end for which God hath appointed it, we can never be too diligent to avoid those things which impair it, as, on the other hand, we can never apply ourselves too eagerly to such practices as contribute to improve and perfect it. Now, I affirm, that the first of these effects is produced by allowing ourselves to commit little sins, and the second by an exact performance of little duties.

The commission of little sins leads on to the perpetration of great crimes; and we cannot assure ourselves that we should religiously practice great virtues, unless we scrupulously discharge other obligations comparatively small. Of the many examples which present themselves to my mind, which shall I select to elucidate this subject? Where originate the vexations caused by those public robbers, who are the scourge of many a country? In a neglect of small virtues, in a practising of what are called little sins. At first the man transgressed in a small degree the laws of frugality and modesty. Not content with a convenient situation, he, aspired to make a figure. His table became in his eyes too plain, he wished it might be furnished, not as formerly with plenty, but with taste and expensive delicacy. To compass these designs he was obliged