can he obey the great law of his being. If any one will consider the degree of happiness he has been in the habit of receiving from, and imparting to, his most valued friend, and that, but for the wickedness of himself and the rest of mankind, he might derive from every other human being, and impart to as many as can come within his influence, an equal, or greater degree of happiness, he may form some notion of the inexhaustible felicity which, by the bounty of heaven, men may educe from each other. This is evident, from considering, that as all may become denizens of heaven but from their own guilt, so all, from their constitution, must necessarily be capable of communicating happiness here; and beyond all this, each individual may derive from God himself a yet greater degree of happiness than the whole aggregate of created beings can impart to him.

5. God being infinitely benevolent, and thus the great principle of all his actions being love; the Son of God being love; other intellectual creatures higher in order than ourselves being governed by this great law of love, and therefore sympathizing with us; and we being, as we have said, so constituted as to be capable of reciprocating felicity with each other, and thus also being governed by the law of love, it cannot be questioned that intellectual beings, from the lowest to the highest, in whatever part of the universe they exist, are also governed by this same great law: i.e. all, of whatever rank or order, are so constituted, as to be capable of deriving felicity from God, and reciprocating it with all other ranks, orders, and individuals throughout the universe. That no being can exist without dependence on God, is abundantly obvious; and to suppose the contrary of what is here assumed, is to imagine, that though love is the great principle of action of the Father, of the Son, and of the angels in heaven, and designed to be that of mankind; there exists in some part of the universe an order of intellectual beings who are a family of themselves, i. e. deriving felicity from God and themselves only, and incapable of interchanging it with other orders of intellectual beings; a supposition altogether opposed to what analogy teaches us, from the constitution of those orders with which we are acquainted, and therefore destitute of all probability whatever.

6. These views will be confirmed by considering, that there can be only three modes in which intellectual beings can associate; namely,

1. To educe to each other nothing but good.

2. To educe nothing but ill.

3. To educe a combination of good and ill.

As to the second, it is not for a moment imaginable, that a constitution, emanating from Infinite Wisdom, Power, and Benevolence, can be made to educe nothing but ill. And the supposition is wholly opposed to the actually existing state of things. It is

also as little to be imagined, that heaven can have decreed, that intellectual beings may sometimes educe good, and sometimes ill, to each other, as the one would be destructive of the other. It follows, therefore, that the Divine Being must have designed that all intellectual beings, in all places, and at all times, and in all their relations, shall educe nothing but good to each other. Consequently, when they act otherwise, they are rebelling against his holy will. Any other order of things, on the part of the Divine Being, would argue a want of wisdom, if he voluntarily chose it, of power, if he was able to have constituted them differently; or, if able, a want of will to exercise such wisdom and power most beneficially for his intelligent offspring; but as no deficiency of wisdom, power, or benevolence, can be attributed to the Most High, it is clear, that he has constituted the Universe as has been assumed, namely, so that intellectual beings, if they live according to the law of their existence, shall, in all their relations, educe nothing but good to each other.

7. We shall acquire a better notion of such a state of society by imagining one exactly opposite to it, or that in which all the associates are constantly exerting all their powers to educe the greatest degree of ill to one another; i. e. where they are governed by the following maxims: All things whatsoever ye would' not 'that men should do to you, do' to them. And all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do' not to them; adding, what may be supposed its necessary concomitant, if such a state of society could exist any where but in the imagination-a total neglect of God. If, then, such a state of things would be an unquestionable evil, any degree of it would be so proportionately.

8. To prevent the possibility of our mistaking in what our felicity does truly consist, we are so constituted, that we can live only in association with each other and the Divine Being. Man cannot begin to exist, nor, if he does, can he support that existence, without being associated with his fellows and Heaven. Nor, after he has lived to years of maturity, can the generations of men be carried on but by association. This principle, therefore, has dominion over all men, at all times, and in all places, and controls all their relations, corporeal, mental, and moral, and for the whole duration of their being. Dissociated, man can do nothing; and as this universally applies, so a thousand millions of human beings, unconnected with each other, would be as inefficient as so many grains of sand. This may be illustrated by an example: Suppose a man to endeavour to manufacture woollen for himself, the labour of a whole life would not produce a single yard; the same individual must keep the land in order, grow the wool, dig the iron and coals out of the earth, make his own tools, and perform every other operation directly and indirectly connected with the manufacture, &c. &c., besides

providing for himself food, other clothing, and habitation; all which is obviously impracticable.

9. The woollen coat, says Adam Smith, which covers the day labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts, in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others, who often live in a very distant part of the country! How much commerce and navigation, in particular; how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed, in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world! What a variety of labour, too, is necessary to produce the tools of the workmen; to say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver! Let us consider only, what a variety of labour is requisite, in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the feller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them.

10. Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long sea, and long land-carriage; all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates, upon which he serves up, and divides his victuals; the different hands employed in preparing his bread and beer; the glass window which lets in the heat and light, and keeps out the wind and rain; with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation; together with the tools of all the different workmen, employed in producing those different conveniences;-if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible, that without the assistance and co-operation

of many thousands, the very meanest person, in a civilized country, could not be provided; even according to what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated.-(Wealth of Nations, book I. chap. 1.)

11. From the land, including the fisheries, emanates all wealth; and the application of labour to it fits it for the purposes of man. Labour and land, therefore, may be likened to the two halves of a pair of scissors: and as land, or one of the halves of the scissors, is of no value, so neither is labour, nor the other half of the scissors. But unite the land and the labour, or the two halves of the scissors, and either becomes effective. We thus see, that land, and associated labour, is the source of all wealth; riches, of whatever kind, being simply the accumulation of labour.

12. To interchange the produce of labour, is the great business of men's lives. And all are necessarily exchangers, or as it may be otherwise expressed, as in the corporeal body, The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you:' so, in the social body, those who provide food cannot say to the clothiers, we 'have no need of you;' nor again, the clothiers to the builders, we have no need of you.'

13. And as in the corporeal body, if the whole were an eye, where were the hearing?'-or, if the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?' So, if all that was necessary for the social body was food, where were the clothing?—Again, if all that were required was clothing, where were the want of habitation? Thus, the necessity for associating would, to a very considerable extent, be at an end, and the great purpose for which society on earth was ordained, i. e. the making us indispensable to each other's well-being, and thereby, if we lived according to the divine will, generating love, the source of all the felicity we are capable of attaining, either in this or another state of existence, would be almost entirely frustrated. And instead of that progression in wisdom, and virtue, and happiness, which we should be making from the commencement of our existence, through all eternity, we should be misapplying ourselves during our whole sojourn here, and have to commence our education for eternity, after having passed into it. From what has been observed, we may perceive that—

14. MEN CAN LIVE ONLY IN ASSOCIATION.

15. It is, therefore, the sole source whence all its members can be benefitted.

16. The prosperity of an association must ever be proportional to the means each of its members possesses, and exerts, for the promotion of such prosperity.

17. It is, therefore, for the interest of all the members of an association, that each should have the greatest plenitude of means

in common with all the rest of his fellows; and that he should employ those means for the general good.

18. All the members of any nation of the world may be considered as forming one great or primary association.

19. And the law of association may thus be summed up. As the whole association is equal to all its members, and all the members are equal to the whole association, every member is under an obligation, as far as lies in him, to exert all his powers to bring himself, and all the other members, to the highest separate state of excellence; and the whole association to the highest combined state of excellence, which they are capable of attaining; or, as may be otherwise expressed, every member is bound to do all that lies in him, that the highest degree of good may be educed to all other members. In the language of inspiration,- There should be no schism in the body, but' the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.' This, then, is the Law of Nature, deducible from the constitution of man.

20. In strict accordance with it, is its republication, which thus commands every man, that cometh into the world,— Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;' or thus, All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' As the Most High is, as we have intimated, the Creator and Conservator of all things, the prosperity of all association is ever principally dependent on his favour; and men are promised the divine blessing proportionably as they love one another, and himself. To all men, therefore, of all nations, and in all ages, the following words of the Lord Jesus Christ are addressed:-Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment and the second,' which we have just quoted, 'is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Here, then, is the Law of Revelation.

21. The Law of Nature, thus republished in the Law of Revelation, may be called

THE DIVINE LAW.

Of this most holy law, from its being interwoven into our very constitution, it may be said to all men: It is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart,