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 than by citing the judgment of persons
who appear to have given great attention to the subject, and to be well
qualified to form a tru