devil, nor order, nor government, nor any other sort of society; but all is anarchy with them, and chaos, and hatred, and confusion.

To be able therefore to love the brotherhood, or to be able to help hating them, we must be ourselves of their number. There is that natural effect in a congeniality of principle and disposition, that good cannot love evil, nor evil good. If a child of the devil had the inducement of a thousand obligations, and ten thousand reasons beside for loving a child of God, he could not help hating him. And no matter whether he know him to be a child of God or not: for he hates him instinctively, and will as long as the same difference of principle shall continue between them, whether he be a stranger, or his own brother according to the flesh. Well therefore might the apostle write to the brethren, "Marvel not, if the world hate you :" for there is no wonder at all in it. Remember the word that I said unto you: (said our Lord once, and probably in the same apostle's hearing :) The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also." (John xv. 20.)

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§ 2. But this is rather tending towards the second part that I proposed for consideration, being the Practice of that of which we have just considered the doctrine, namely of THE GENERAL AND PARTICULAR ESTIMATION OF MANKIND, the latter more especially; that we might observe its signs, and how this part is carried on in the world; and how far in this respect the practice of the world may agree with its doctrine or profession. Let us now cast our eyes abroad therefore into that mighty abstract, and look upon some of the many classes of which it is compounded with a view to observe, how men are apt to look on each other: and we shall see, if they appear to love indeed, and as brethren ought to love.

There are, we know, two sorts of brethren in the world: there are brethren by nature, and brethren by grace. By

nature we are all brethren, as being descended from one common parent who took his spirit from God and his body from the earth: so that tracing our descent from its highest point or beginning, we may boast of God generally for the Head of our race, and the Founder of our dominion upon As David says, earth. "We make our boast of God all day long and will praise thy name for ever." (Psalm xliv. 9.) And if our earthly descent be not so much boasted, as one descent, whether it be of the father's or the mother's side-will not be sometimes so much as the other, we are brethren still of necessity at least in the lowest relation; and must be also in another that we shall still have less reason to boast, if we be not rather children of grace: for then we may have power to become the sons of God (John i. 12) again, and brethren by choice. We derive from God by inheritance the property not only of our lands, goods and chattels, with all the comforts and conveniences accruing to the creature thereby, but our property in the creature itself also, for whose sake these comforts and conveniences exist. And by descent (if I may presume to say it) we derive from God a portion of his excellent attributes: which is the life of our soul and the light of our mind, that ever living principle for the sake of which the creature itself was created. It comes alike from One that comes alike to all; "who giveth us richly all things to enjoy." (Tim. I. vi. 17.) He has provided for all his children bountifully, if not for all in the same way because they are not similarly related to him, nor in an equal proportion because they are not of equal standing in their several relations; and all that he requires of them in return is, that they live amicably together, and in a manner becoming their relation as brethren.

If our heavenly Father is pleased to bestow advantages on some of his children which he denies to others, it is with a view to the general good; and not, that they who have such advantages should arrogate any pre-eminence to themselves on that account, nor that they who

have them not should therefore be envious and dissatisfied with their condition: much less could it be his intention, that any child of his should take advantage of the talents afforded him to domineer and insult over his brethren, whether of the flesh or the spirit, on the one hand, or that every trifling inequality or defect in men's circumstances should be made a pretext for tumult and sedition on the other. "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace." (Cor. I. xiv. 33.) But confusion must necessarily follow soon or late instead of peace, and God's parental authority be superseded in a manner, when the order and equilibrium that he has established in his family shall be disturbed by the conduct of its members. When a man begins either to resist lawful government, or to domineer over his brethren, he is evidently setting aside, as far as in him lies, the arrangement of his heavenly Father that was, and trampling under or opposing his authority, as well as trampling on the necks of his children, or wantonly interrupting the provision that is made for their usual enjoyments. And one should think that any man might have more consideration for so good and gracious a Being as the Deity, if he had but ever so little conscience or gratitude belonging to him: but if he have no consideration or remorse on account of his brethren upon earth, he will have none on account of his and their Father in Heaven. "For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (John I. iv. 20.) We talk of loving like brethren: but I fear, the greater part of mankind have not learned, as yet, to love any but themselves; forgetting others, as if themselves were all ONLY CHILDREN of one common Parent! Peter, after exhorting us to the love of a particular brotherhood in the passage of my text, gives a model for universal love or charity in another; which is to "love as brethren:" (Pet. I. iii. 8:) let us therefore cast our eyes

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abroad; it matters not which way we look, since all men are thus related,-and see, how brethren are wont to love each other in the world, that we may know how to appreciate another authority.

1. Look at the military class, if you will, in the first place; and see how they are wont to love their brethren. Is not all their ambition to shine at their brethren's expense? If they can get their brethren to oppose them in arms, they will be glad to signalize themselves by cutting them down like stubble, and burning up their cities like heaps of straw. But if their brethren should be too weak to oppose them, though they must forego the triumph, they will not forego the mischief which they call the right of victory or conquest: they will take their brethren's property, if it be worth taking, and drive them all to market, like a flock of sheep*, wherever a market is to be found for them. And that,

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2. Another class of brethren will be very glad to supply as long as there shall seem any thing to be gained by the abominable traffic; let princes and governments determine what they will respecting it. spite of all, these Men-Merchants will take their poor appraised brethren from their insolent victors or purloiners, covenanting at so much a head; whether it be thirty pieces of gold, or thirty pieces of silver, does not matter, they will take them as fast as they may arrive at any port, and drive them, exactly as they would so many yoke of oxen, to their floating-prisons, which are not to be compared with ox-stalls for comfort; there fold or pen them up, bending their tortured bodies like the ribs of the ship, and keep them, it may be, without allowing any change of posture or position, and almost

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That is, the savage and African military will chiefly: not many soldiers of Europe, it is hoped. This passage was written and preached before much of the progress, if any, towards the abolition of slavery, which has lately been made under the auspices of several European governments.

without respiration, the whole length of a voyage that must be tiresome even to those who are free upon deck. This is how they love their brethren!

3. When the wretches, or as many of them as have escaped suffocation on the voyage, arrive at their second mart, another class, the Agriculturists, are presently brought acquainted with them; and then THEIR brotherly feelings are put to the test.. The agriculturists are supposed to have been in days of yore, that is before slavery came again into use, as feeling and respectable a class as any in society; but since that period, their hearts have been, by all accounts, much like those of another class, even in countries far remote from the horrors of slavery; but infinitely harder in its immediate neighbourhood, in those guilty regions where REAL MEN are heard to groan under the lash of men-drivers, if they be not rather demons in an human shape. There Nature is often pained to behold some artless child of African production lifting his suppliant hands in vain to one of the civilized monsters of Europe: there Christianity often bleeds for the poor pagan suffering inhuman torments under a pretended disciple of Christ; who does not think with his merciful Creator, "I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth; for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made." (Isai. lvii. 16.) But mortal suffering must have an end: the torture is overstrained for once; and thus the poor pagan striped and disjointed in body and mind escapes from mortal suffering through the gates of death. And what a disappointment for the survivor! "The Lord shall laugh him to scorn: for he hath seen that his day is coming." (Ps. xxxvii. 13.)

Such Christians are a perfect parody on their religion and its amiable Founder: such abominable tyranny is not the way to shew ourselves his disciples; no more is it to do like the merchant who trades in these objects of woe; no more is it to do like the soldier who creates them. But these, you will say, are all foreign and extravagant instances: we are