Judgment, or Choice in them, no Design of acting to an End fuitable to our Nature and Station. Such Actions wou'd have come out, if there had been no such discerning, and directing Power, and might arife from fomething like Instinct among Brutes, who are regularly difpos'd in moft Cafes to do what is beft, and propereft for them; we fee the anxious Concern which they are under to preferve themselves and their Young, and yet there can be no Virtue in fuch Actions, however expedient and proper to be done. Or Actions, that are seemingly praise-worthy, may fometimes start out from the fudden Emotions of Paffion: We are intimately acquainted with their Influence, and must obferve how they often hurry, not only the Young and Unexperienced, but those who fhould be more confiderate, into fudden and immediate Action, without giving D 3 them

them Leisure to reflect, or choose at all: And in this Cafe, which may be owing to the Accidents of Conftitution, Education, or Company, and cannot poffibly be Virtue, nothing feems to be left, but to examine what is past by an After-reflexion, and then, as far as it was right and fit, to give our Approbation, and rejoice that it falls in with the Rules of Duty difcover'd by us.

It is plain from hence, that the first Step towards being Virtuous is to dif cern what our Duty is, and to approve or disapprove Things, juft as they are conformable or repugnant to it: But this inward Act of the Mind, tho' a neceffary Foundation, is ftill a Foundation only; if we ftop here, and do not direct our Affections and Actions fuitable to fuch a Difcernment, the Virtue is not half formed, and nothing will come out that is advantageous to ourselves or others; the

directing and governing Power must follow the difcerning; and Approbation must rise into Action, otherwife it is nothing, or fomething worse to us than nothing; it is fetting one Part of ourselves against the other, and raising a War in our own Breafts, and continually furnishing out new Matter of Self-upbraiding and Disapprobation. Not that we are to hope for an entire, unalterable Union and Correfpondence between our difcerning and approving and directing Faculties in this present State. Those Circumftances of our Nature, thofe Conditions of Mortality, thofe Jarrings and Oppofitions betwixt our Understanding and our Affections, which we call, and not improperly, our Infirmities and Corruptions, may and muft be, if not the Source of our Virtue, the Exercise, the Improvement of Virtue, and by confequence form the Eftimation and Value of it. Were

D 4

Were our Understandings fo formed as to perceive all the Relations of Things, without any fort of Labour or Induftry, and were our Affections fo happily difpos'd and ballanc'd, as eafily and conftantly to follow the first and most gentle Dictates of the Mind, we fhou'd indeed be much more perfect Beings; our Nature would be excellent, and would greatly display the Excellence of its Author. But with our Nature, our Virtues would take another Character, and muft frequently be things very different from thofe we use to call Virtues: They could not be fo much employ'd in the Government of our felves, or in refifting the Impreffions of Evil, but in raifing those nobler Faculties and Exercifes of another Kind, and employing them to the Service and Glory of him who gave them. Whereas in the present State of things, there is a continual Occa

fion for Oppofition and Vigilance, for preferving the Ballance of our Minds, and exerting that Self-Government, and thofe focial Virtues, which arife from it. We cannot conceive any thing more worthy, or more agreeable to the Supreme Being, than to see these his frail and infirm Creatures, whose Understandings are dark, whofe Paffions are irregular, who are befet with innumerable Difficulties and Temptations, both within themselves and from without, to fee them cautiously composing these Irregularities, and bravely combating these Difficulties, resolutely exerting the weak Powers they are endued with, going on from Strength to Strength, from Grace to Grace, and forming their Conduct in fome Imitation of the Divine Perfections: We cannot but conclude, that when they cry unto him in their Diftrefs, he must hear their Cry, and help their Infirmities,