dispraise, he must be affected by the commendations bestowed upon him when he has done well, and by the censures past on him when he has done ill.
These commendations and censures are also attended with great immediate rewards and punishments, likewise with the hopes and fears relating to another world; and when the moral sense is sufficiently generated, with great secret indeterminate pleasure or pain of this kind; and these associations add a particular force to the honour and shame belonging respectively to virtue and vice. At the same time it is easy to see, that some considerable progress in life is ordinarily required before men come to be deeply and lastingly affected by these things; also that this kind of honour and shame may, at last, from the superior force of the associated pleasures and pains, absorb, as it were, all the other kinds. A religious man becomes at last insensible, in great measure, to every encomium and reproach, excepting such as he apprehends will rest upon him at the last day, from Him whose judgment cannot err.
This is the general account of the honour and shame paid to virtue and vice respectively. I will now make a few short strictures upon some of the principal virtues and vices.
First, then, piety is not in general, and amongst the bulk of mankind, had in great honour. This proceeds from several causes; as that in the order of our progress it is the last of the virtues, and therefore, having few votaries, it must have few advocates; that in the first attempts to attain it, men often fall into great degrees of enthusiasm and superstition, and so expose themselves to the charges of folly, madness, and self-conceit; and that pretences to it are often made use of by hypocrites to cover the worst designs. Now from these and such like causes it happens, that men are much ashamed to be thought devout, fearing that exquisite uneasiness, which being ridiculed and contemned as fools, madmen, and hypocrites, occasions. At the same time it appears, that amongst those who have made considerable advances in religion, piety will be had in the greatest honour: these see evidently how it may be distinguished from enthusiasm, superstition, and hypocrisy; and are very little solicitous concerning the opinions of the profane world, who are apt to confound them; and therefore as far as their piety will permit any foreign desire to arise, they have an exquisite relish for the honour and esteem proceeding from the reputation of piety.
Benevolence springs up more early in life than piety, and has at first view a more immediate good influence upon society. There are also greater numbers who arrive at some imperfect degrees of it, than who arrive at like degrees of piety; neither are the degenerations and counterfeits of benevolence so common as those of piety. On these accounts much greater and more frequent encomiums are bestowed upon it by the bulk of man-
