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Chapter X. JUSTICE; OR, DUTIES TO ONE'S FELLOW-BEINGS. Justice, in the common use of the word, refers only to such rights and dues as can be precisely defined, enacted by law, and enforced by legal authority. Yet we virtually recognize a broader meaning of the word, whenever we place law and justice in opposition to each other, as when we speak of an _unjust law_. In this phrase we imply that there is a supreme and universal justice, of whose requirements human law is but a partial and imperfect transcript. This justice must embrace all rights and dues of all beings, human and Divine; and it is in this sense that we may regard whatever any one being in the universe can fitly claim of another being as coming under the head of justice. Such, as we have already intimated, is the sense in which we have used the term in the caption of a chapter which will embrace piety and benevolence no less than integrity and veracity. Section I. Duties To God. While we cannot command our affections, we can so *govern and direct our thoughts* as to excite the affections which we desire to cherish; and if certain affections must inevitably result from certain trains or habits of thought, those affections may be regarded as virtually subject to the will, and, if right, as duties. It is in this sense that gratitude and love to God are duties. We cannot contemplate the tokens of his love in the outward universe, the unnumbered objects which have no other possible use than to be enjoyed, the benignity of his perpetual providence, the endowments and capacities of our own being, the immortality of our natural aspiration and our Christian faith and hope, the forgiveness and redemption that come to us through Jesus Christ, and the immeasurable blessings of his mission and gospel, without fervent gratitude to our infinite Benefactor. Nor can we think of him as the Archetype and Source of all those traits of spiritual beauty and excellence which, in man, call forth our reverence, admiration, and affection, without loving in Him perfect goodness, purity, and mercy. These attributes might, indeed, of themselves fail to present the Supreme Being to our conceptions as a cognizable personality, were it not that the personal element is so clearly manifest in the visible universe and in God's constant providence. But there are numerous objects, phenomena, and event
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