of amiable and worthy qualities of our fellow-creatures; and can we be insensible to the contemplation of perfect goodness? Do we reverence the shadows of greatness here below? are we solicitous about honour, and esteem, and the opinion of the world? and shall we not feel the same with respect to him, whose are wisdom and power in their original; who "is the God of judgment, by whom actions are weighed?" Thus love, reverence, desire of esteem, every faculty, every affection, tends towards, and is employed about its respective object in common cases: and must the exercise of them be suspended with regard to him alone, who is an object, an infinitely more than adequate object, to our most exalted faculties; him "of whom, and through whom, and to whom are all things?"
As we cannot remove from this earth, or change our general business on it, so neither can we alter our real nature. Therefore, no exercise of the mind can be recommended, but only the exercise of those faculties you are conscious of. Religion does not demand new affections, but only claims the direction of those you already have, those affections you daily feel; though unhappily confined to objects, not altogether unsuitable, but altogether unequal to them. We only represent to you the higher, the adequate objects of those very faculties and affections. Let the man of ambition go on still to consider disgrace as the greatest evil: honour as his chief good. But disgrace, in whose estimation? Honour, in whose judgment? This is the only question. If shame, and delight in esteem, be spoken of as real, as any settled ground of pain or pleasure, both these must be in proportion to the supposed wisdom and worth of him by whom we are contemned or esteemed. Must it then be thought enthusiastical to speak of a sensibility of this sort, which shall have respect to an unerring judgment, to infinite wisdom, when we are assured this unerring judgment, thin infinite wisdom, does observe upon our actions?
