It is sufficiently apparent that the precepts we have tired, or rather the disposition which these precepts inculcate, relate to personal conduct from personal motives; to cases in which men act from impulse, for themselves and from themselves.  When it comes to be considered what is necessary to be done for the sake of the public, and out of a regard to the general welfare (which consideration, for the most part, ought exclusively to govern the duties of men in public stations), it comes to a case to which the rules do not belong.  This distinction is plain; and if it were less so the consequence would not be much felt:  for it is very seldom that in time intercourse of private life men act with public views.  The personal motives from which they do act the rule regulates.

The preference of time patient to the heroic cheer, which we have here noticed, and which the reader will find explained at large in the work to which we have referred him, is a peculiarity in the Christian institution, which I propose as an argument of wisdom, very much beyond the situation and natural character of the person who delivered it.

II.  A second argument, drawn from the morality of the New Testament, is the stress which is laid by our Saviour upon the regulation of the thoughts; and I place this consideration next to the other because they are connected.  The other related to the malicious passions; this to the voluptuous.  Together, they comprehend the whole character.

“Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications,” &c.  “These are the things which defile a man.” (Matt. xv. 19.)

“Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.—­Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness; even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Matt. xxiii. 25, 27)

And more particularly that strong expression, (Matt. v. 28.) “Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

There can be no doubt with any reflecting mind but that the propensities of our nature must be subject to regulation; but the question is, where the check ought to be placed, upon the thought, or only upon the action?  In this question our Saviour, in the texts here quoted, has pronounced a decisive judgment.  He makes the control of thought essential.  Internal purity with him is everything.  Now I contend that this is the only discipline which can succeed; in other words, that a moral system which prohibits actions, but leaves the thoughts at liberty, will be ineffectual, and is therefore unwise.  I know not how to go about the proof of a point which depends upon experience, and upon a knowledge of the human constitution, better