wearinefs which hangs always flagging upon the vacant mind. the It cannot indeed be expected of all to be poets and philofophers; it is neceffary that the greater part of mankind fhould be employed in the minute bufiness of common life; minute indeed, not if we confider its influence upon our happiness, but if we refpect the abilities requifite to conduct it. These muft neceffarily be more dependent on accident for the means of spending agreeably thofe hours which their occupations leave unengaged, or nature obligesthem to allow to relaxation. Yet even on these I would willingly imprefs fuch a fenfe of the value of time, as may incline them to find out for their careless hours amufements of more use and dignity than the compon games, which not only weary mind without improving it, but ftrengthen the paffions of envy and avarice, and often lead to fraud and to profusion, to corruption and to ruin. It is unworthy of a reasonable being to spend any of the little time allotted us, without fome tendency, either direct or oblique, to the end of our existence. And though every moment cannot be laid out on the' formal and regular improvement of our knowledge, or in the ftated practice of a moral or religious duty, yet none fhould be fo fpent as to exclude wifdom or virtue, or pafs without.poffibility of qualifying us more or lefs for the better employment of those which are to come. It is fcarcely poffible to pafs an hour in honeft converfation, without being able when we rife from it, to please ourselves with having given or received fome advantages; but a man may fhuffle cards, or rattle dice, from noon to midnight, witho tracing any new idea in his mind, or being able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or lofs, and a confufed remembrance of agitated paffions and clamorous altercations. However, as experience is of more weight than precept, any of my readers, who are contriving. how to spend the dreary months before them, may confider which of their past amusements fills them now with the greatest fatisfaction, and refolve to repeat thofe gratifications of which the pleasure is moft durable. NUMB. 81. TUESDAY, December 25, 1750. Difcite Juftitiam moniti VIRG. AMONG queftions which have been difcuffed without any approach to decifion, may be numbered the precedency or fuperior excellence of one virtue to another, which has long furnished a fubject of difpute to men whofe leifure fent them qut into the intellectual world in fearch of employment, and who have, perhaps, been fometimes withheld from the practice of their favourite duty, by zeal for its advancement and diligence in its celebration. The intricacy of this difpute may be alleged as a proof of that tenderness for mankind which providence has, I think, univerfally difplayed, by making attainments 'eafy in proportion as they are neceflary. That all the duties of morality ought to be practifed, is without difficulty difcoverable, because ignorance or uncertainty would immediately in volve the world in confusion and diftrefs; but which duty ought to be most esteemed, we may continue to debate, without inconvenience, so all be diligently performed as there is opportunity or need for upon practice, not upon opinion, depends the happiness of mankind 1; and controverfies merely fpeculative are of small importance in themfelves, however they may have. fometimes heated a difputant, or provoked a faction. Of the divine author of our religion it is impoffible to perufe the evangelical hiftories, without obferving how little he favoured the vanity of inquifitiveness; how much more rarely he conde fcended to fatisfy curiosity, than to relieve diftrefs; and how much he defired that his followers should rather excel in goodness than in knowledge. His precepts tend immediately to the rectification of the moral principles, and the direction of daily conduct, without oftentation, without art, at once irrefragable and plain, fuch as well-meaning fimplicity may readily conceive, and of which we cannot mistake the meaning, but when we are afraid to find it. The measure of juftice prescribed to us, in our tranfactions with others, is remarkably clear and comprehenfive: Whatfoever ye would that men fhould do unto you, even fo do unto them. A law by which every claim of right may be immediately adjusted, as far as the private conscience requires to be informed; a law, of which every man may find the expofition in his own breaft, and which may always be obferved without any other qualifications than honefty of intention and purity of will. Over this law, indeed, fome fons of fophiftry have been fubtle enough to throw mifts, which have darkened their own eyes. To perplex this univerfal principle, they have enquired whether a man, confcious to himfelf of unreafonable wifhes, be bound to gratify them in another. But furely there needed no long deliberation to conclude, that the defires, which are to be confidered by us as the measure of right, must be fuch as we approve, and that we ought to pay no regard to those expectations in others which we condemn in ourfelves, and which, however they may intrude upon our imagination, we know it our duty to resist and fupprefs. One of the most celebrated cafes which have been produced as requiring fome fkill in the direction of confcience to adapt them to this great rule, is that of a criminal asking mercy of his judge, who cannot but know, that if he was in the ftate of the fupplicant, he should defire that pardon which he now denies. The difficulty of this fophifm will vanish, if we remember that the parties are, in reality, on one fide the criminal, and on the other the community, of which the magiftrate is only the miniiter, and by which he is intrufted with the publick fafety. The magiftrate, therefore, in pardoning a man unworthy of pardon, betrays the truft with which he is invefted, gives away what is not his own, and, apparently, does to others what he would not that others fhould do to him. Even the community, whofe right is ftill greater to arbitrary grants of mercy, is bound by thofe laws which regard the great republick of mankind, and cannot justify fuch forbearance as may promote wickedness, wickednefs, and leffen the general confidence and fecurity in which all have an equal intereft, and which all are therefore bound to maintain. For this reason the ftate has not a right to erect a general fanctuary for fugitives, or give protection to fuch as have forfeited their lives by crimes against the laws of common morality equally acknowledged by all nations, because no people can, without infraction of the univerfal league of focial beings, incite, by prospects of impunity and fafety, thofe practices in another dominion, which they would themselves punish in their own. One occafion of uncertainty and hesitation, in those by whom this great rule has been commented and dilated, is the confufion of what the exacter cafuifts are careful to diftinguifh, debts of juftice and debts of charity. The immediate and primary intention of this precept, is to establish a rule of justice, and I know not whether invention, or fophiftry, can ftart a fingle difficulty to retard its application, when it is thus expreffed and explained, let every man allow the claim of right in another, which he fhould think himself entitled to make in the like circumflances. The difcharge of the debts of charity, or duties which we owe to others, not merely as required by juftice, but as dictated by benevolence, admits in its own nature greater complication of circumftances and greater latitude of choice. Juftice is indifpenfably and univerfally neceffary, and what is neceffary muft always be limited, uniform, and distinct. But beneficence, though in general equally enjoined by our religion, and equally needful to the conciliation of the divine favour, is |