dictate sometimes publication, and sometimes concealment.
Either the one or the other may be the mode of the action, according as
the end to be promoted by it appears to require. But from the motive,
the reputation of the deed, and the fruits and advantage of that
reputation to ourselves, must be shut out, or, in whatever proportion
they are not so, the action in that proportion fails of being virtuous.

This exclusion of regard to human opinion is a difference not so much in
the duties to which the teachers of virtue would persuade mankind, as in
the manner and topics of persuasion. And in this view the difference is
great. When we set about to give advice, our lectures are full of the
advantages of character, of the regard that is due to appearances and to
opinion; of what the world, especially of what the good or great, will
think and say; of the value of public esteem, and of the qualities by
which men acquire it. Widely different from this was our Saviour's
instruction; and the difference was founded upon the best reasons. For,
however the care of reputation, the authority of public opinion, or even
of the opinion of good men, the satisfaction of being well received and
well thought of, the benefit of being known and distinguished, are
topics to which we are fain to have recourse in our exhortations; the
true virtue is that which discards these considerations absolutely, and
which retires from them all to the single internal purpose of pleasing
God. This at least was the virtue which our Saviour taught. And in
teaching this, he not only confined the views of his followers to the
proper measure and principle of human duty, but acted in consistency
with his office as a monitor from heaven.

Next to what our Saviour taught, may be considered the manner of his
teaching; which was extremely peculiar, yet, I think, precisely adapted
to the peculiarity of his character and situation. His lessons did not
consist of disquisitions; of anything like moral essays, or like
sermons, or like set treatises upon the several points which he
mentioned. When he delivered a precept, it was seldom that he added any
proof or argument; still more seldom that he accompanied it with what
all precepts require, limitations and distinctions. His instructions
were conceived in short, emphatic, sententious rules, in occasional
reflections, or in round maxims. I do not think that this was a natural,
or would have been a proper method for a philos