is THE WELFARE OF THE WHOLE. Hence that reafonable purfuit, and moft heroic (though heroism be a paffion feldom joined with reafon), the LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY. Tranfported with this, and facrificing all other paffions to this, nations and people have, from the lowest and basest original, arrived at wealth and empire. A passion, which no power, no policy, no advantage of climate, no fuperiority in perfonal endowments, have ever been able to withftand. Inflamed and purified by this paffion alone, the Banditti of Rome came, in time, to give Law to the discipline and fcience of Greece; to the policy and commerce of Egypt; and to the opulence and immenfe power of Afia.

Whenever this paffion hath fhone strong amongst us, we have feen England become the Pacificator of the Continent, and rival Monarchs fue for our alliance-And what is it that is faid to have clouded this`fcene of glory? What, but the decline, the extinction, of the PATRIOT-PASSION; under the counterfeit profeffions of the Factious; the fecret difcouragements of the Corrupt;

Corrupt; and the open ridicule of the Profligate.

Now, what shall we fubftitute to fupply the loss of this effential virtue, the Salt of this animating principle? Something, no doubt, will be attempted, to prevent Government from falling into dishonour and contempt. There is a mimic paffion, which will be vainly bufied to repair this lofs, by the MULTIPLICATION OF OUR LAWS: For the decay of that genuine falt, the love of our Country, being, amongst its other mischiefs, attended with a constant disposition to brave or to evade the old eftablifhed Laws, there feems to have been as conftant a provocation in our Governors to counterwork this evil by the addition of new ones. But this will ill fupport the Patriot-paffion, or fupply the want of it; when men obferve, or fancy they obferve, that a multiplicity of Laws, instead of giving ftrength to the general, becomes a fnare and entanglement to particulars.

If we turn from the Community in its civil, to its religious capacity, we fhall find its effence (when purified, as ours, by the GOSPEL)

Ee 3

GOSPEL) to confift in the love of God, and in the practice of piety and virtue. And this Salt, the native temper of Englishmen hath, in all paft ages, eminently supplied: fo that the Piety of BRITAIN was long its characteristic badge. From what fatal concurrence of unlucky accidents we have fuffered this celeftial flame to go out and die away, even amidst the increase of its fuel (for never was the Chriftian Faith fo well proved to be a reasonable service as in thefe times), it is not my purpose, at prefent, to enquire. The lofs is notorious. It is feen by our actions, it is avowed in our fpeculations, and boafted of as our glory, that this Faith hath now no longer its wonted hold on the lives and confciences of

men.

V. And now this brings me ftill nearer to my Text. For the GOSPEL is that SPECIFIC SALT, which our bleffed Master intimates should, in these latter days, lofe its favour; and more than intimates, fhould find no fuccedaneum to fupply its place.

Yet

Yet fo infenfible are we grown even to the need of any, that we hardly feek or enquire for relief; contrary to the foregoing cafes, where we find men bufied, however vainly, to fupply the depraved ftate of their condition, by new inventions. And were it not for the humanity of certain well-bred Gentlemen, this crooked Generation would be in danger of forgetting that there was any fuch thing as A RULE OF RIGHT, which thefe new Inftructors offer to us, as an equivalent for THE RULE OF FAITH.

But, not trufting to this, other fantoms, it is true, have been raifed up to feafon our infipidity.

The MAN OF HONOUR ftands forth to affure us, that a fenfe of honour (from which facred name he takes his title), and not of Religion, is the true polifher and refiner of human manners. And yet we fee, modern Honour hath no other connexion with virtue than what FASHION hath chanced to make between them; and that Honour may thrive and

do well (as the practice of fashionable men fhews) amidst the breach of all God's Commandments and the King's.

The MAN OF SCIENCE, indeed, hath difcovered a still more exquifite relief, in our diftreffes. He bids us procure, for ourfelves, a TASTE: which, in the lucky abfence of our Religion, will answer every thing. This, fays he, is that true internal feeling, which Fanatics have fo much miftaken; and only wants to be new-touched by this Philofophy, to be indeed THE GOD

WITHIN.

Though if we reflect, that TASTE is governed by the Imagination, just as HONOUR is regulated on the Fashion, we may find reason to complain that our Betters have here (as ufual) only provided for themfelves; and that TASTE and HONOUR, like the Quales and Manna in the wilderness, are too delicate a repaft for the grofs appetites of the People: and that, however folid a confolation this new feafoning of the decayed falt of Religion may afford the polite and the well-bred, where fashion and fancy