SERMON VI. 1 Peter iii. 8. BE PITIFUL, BE COURTEOUS. THE HE two virtues, which the Apostle here exhorts us to cultivate, have this essential difference, that the former is a natural principle, the latter an acquired habit. They may act, therefore, independently of one another, and in fact they frequently do so; yet it seldom, if ever, happens that they have even their own inherent efficacy, when they are thus disunited. On this account the inspired writer recommends them both together to our cultivation, intimating at the same time, in the order of his phrase, which is the superior of the two, and which, therefore, ought first and principally to be practised. Following the same order, I shall first endeavour to discover why the principle of pity or compassion was made a part of our moral constitution: and this appears to have arisen from the ever-powerful exertion of that principle by our benevolent Creator. He gave it, in his mercy, to man, to remedy the slow, and oftentimes the defective, steps which his reason would take towards relieving the wants of his fellow-creatures. He ordained it to be a strong and active passion, powerfully to impel us to this salutary business. He bad it act not only powerfully, but suddenly; to precede reason, and even sometimes to over-rule it. The many unavoidable miseries and accidents to which human life is subject, made this necessary, in order that, in cases of exigency, Compassion might bring that assistance in good time, which Reason would lend too late. This then is the final cause of pity. And have we not reason to bless the Giver of all good, that a passion so disinterested, so amiable, so pleasurable was implanted in our nature? Surely we have; since hereby those actions, which would otherwise only have had the consciousness of rectitude, and a distant hope for their present reward, in common with many other duties of life, become, even in their immediate exertion, the purest sources of satisfaction and delight. But the other virtue of courtesy or affability arises nct so much from our original feelings, as from a rational and well-weighed experience of its utility to ourselves and to society. Pity may be called (as it certainly is) a quality of the heart; courtesy is rather a quality of the head. The one, we have seen, acts before reason, and frequently against it; the other is generally under the direction, and never appears in opposition to it: for if |