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it, his remains may moulder as conveniently with a beggar as with a prince by his side; and under a plain green sod, as under a marble tomb.

§. 5. It It may be questioned, whether a man's Money, though of a figurative importance only, be not more nearly related to him than his habitation, as long as he lives. For that we may carry about with us, as we do other things, if we have not too much of it; but this we cannot. And at the same time, our money has also the advantage of being more communicable, like our thoughts and words; though not often so freely communicated, and particularly as the latter, if it be often more desirable. Indeed, when we recollect what hands a piece of money may possibly pass through, and to what base purposes it may have been applied before it solicits our acceptance, we are almost ready to spurn it from us, or to shrink from the infamous guest. For that which goes forth in industry, and may take a turn in the walks of charity, will soon turn aside into the paths of vice and vanity: the thief and the prostitute, the false swearer, the murderer and the parricide, will each have received and misapplied it perhaps in succession, as well as the fop and the buffoon; and now it comes to try what sort of use we shall make of it. But before the shining metal with its royal semblance was presented to our consideration, we should like to have had it returned to the mint and cleansed from its many pollu tions.

And what, after all is this highly favoured, shining subject, which we can receive with more allowance than the frail child which it has holpen to seduce? It is not better than a piece of paper in this application, however important it might have been in the hands of a skilful artificer. It is a mere check for the ordinary accommodation of those who cannot write: by which means one man draws upon another continually for his commodities or service; as e. g. the tenant upon his landlord for the use of an estate; and the landlord again on his builder,

butcher, baker, tailor and others, for his house, meat, bread, clothes, &c. So that one hardly knows how to call a piece of gold or silver, Property: it is a mere order for something; and the rich are subject to it as well as the poor, and in an equal if not greater proportion. For the more orders of this kind any man issues, the more he is liable to receive. The value of these orders must be regulated too by the necessaries of life and it is rather an advantage to the country when they are depreciated; as it sends many idlers to live in the most neglected, and consequently cheapest neighbourhoods, where their presence is most wanted.

As for the scarcity or abundance of the circulating medium with any subject, whether it be a nation or an individual, that is another property, and of quite another description, being a characteristic instead of an essential like this to which it relates, and comparative instead of positive, as this is therefore, deferring such points to their proper head, let us continue our enumeration of essential incidentals, considering the next article of such foreign property that we meet in our way to the subject, being of course a degree nearer to the same.

§ 6. Dress therefore is not only nearer to the subject than either of the kinds of property before mentioned, but must also be regarded as more important in itself than its medium-money, &c., and more essential to human comfort than a fixed habitation, v. g. the inner shell, more than the outer so that we find it easier to dispense with this than with that; or, if need were, to lie under a hedge, than to go naked. At the same time, as there are still many tribes among the sons of Adam, who gladly dispense with one, living like the happy birds, sub diu, or in woods and thickets, and too many individuals who are obliged to dispense with both kinds, being houseless and naked; however conducive a dry house and warm clothing may be to human comfort in some cases, in none can they be considered so near or essential as some other kinds, there

being some that the subject cannot dispense with on any terms, or in any situation.

§ 7. For after the exterior covering of the body, by which is meant dress, should be mentioned, as nearer or more intimate and consequently more important, the interior covering, which is Diet. And even this, however taken and assimilated, will never become any thing more, i. e., more than a sort of covering to the body, or plating as we may call it to the metal of which the body is composed. It is like the dress of particles, and as apt to be overcharged as the general or exterior covering of the body; because neither the law of nature, nor the laws of man, nor the example of the world will teach moderation in this respect. Therefore while diet ranks with dress and habitation as a remote property, it certainly is at the same time one of greater necessity and deserving rather more concern than these. For if men can endure the privation of clothing less than that of a covering over head, the privation of food is less to be endured than either; as, without making any part of a man, it comes nearer to him than they, and may be regarded as the connecting link between his foreign and domestic properties, or kinds of property.

For considering the constituents of the body as domestic property, the food by which they are replenished and excited or increased will not seem far from an identity with them, v. g. with the constituents of the body, or of the outer man; although it is far, it is very far from any thing like a constituent of the spirit or inner man, and not suffered by our Lord to rank even with the animal life, which is its lowest ingredient: though it helps to replenish our veins, it is not in his estimation to be regarded as any part either of the human machine or of its general effect. "Therefore I say unto you (says he) take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" (Mat. vi. 25). § 8. To food for the body, which is so necessary

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both to the material and also to a part of its spiritual nature, should be added another incidental that is not less important as food for the mind and soul, and frequently also as a medium to bodily food; that is, the provision or materials for our intellectual and spiritual nourishment embodied in various forms, and taken by various channels or faculties-in writing, in speaking, in typifying, delineating by the eye, by the ear, the apprehension, memory, imagination, fear, sympathy, and many other means. Therefore books, maps, instruments; as well as lectures, operations, exhibitions, and literary opportunities of every sort; also correspondences, videttes, spies, diplomacies, &c.; in short, every source of Information—likewise every species of evidence and Record; every useful precedent, with every affecting narration, and every instructive example in writing—that is, the whole of a man's literary stuff and every other means of information and sympathy, with all that he can command or procure relating either to this world or to the world to come, belongs to this class of incidentals: the rule or doctrine of his secular mystery will belong to this class as well as the mystery of the kingdom of God in Christ. It is a man's store of mental provision, and as such might have been enumerated under the head of stock, though it is here distinctly mentioned, as it deserves.

And if this distinction be due in doctrine, another will be still more due in practice, which is not always sufficiently regarded; v. g., between matter of feeling, observ-ation or intelligence in the heart and in the closet, in fact and in possibility, in fruition and in possession; for the first mentioned sort of property, though still incidental in effect, is more like constituent than the last; being digested or transmuted into pleasure or regret, as well as learning, knowledge, skill, &c., and as different from that, as meat in our veins, from meat in the entrails or even in the cupboard. It seems necessary to make this distinction; because there seem to be persons in the world who can think

they have feelings and information or intelligence for every part of it in themselves, if their shelves only happen to be well loaded with the means or materials for those acquisitions, or, as it may be said, with the treasures of literature.

These are records of other men's labour and ingenuity, but not of the purchaser's: and the value of such records must depend on the use that is made of them. More important than what concerns any private estate, more important than what relates to any kingdom on earth, are the information and records of the kingdom of God in Christ and of our interest in the kingdom which are found in its gospel: "Whereby (says St. Peter) are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature" (Pet. II. i. 4). But these records must be read and well digested in order to nourish; they must be studied and acquired to swell the intellectual frame; and they must be practised if they are ever to establish the same. And if the intellectual frame be not nourished and kept up by such proper aliment, it will starve and go back. For the mind and soul either growing or declining continually like the body, will each require its proper food like that. As the body requires its meat and drink, the soul will likewise its occasions of feeling, and the mind its occasions of thinking; which are their proper diet, v. g. of each respectively. And considering what enters the mind and soul in this manner and to this effect-what an host of objects it is, and of mere incidental existence-will reduce the seeming dimensions of our united kingdom, as much as even the subtracting of its assimilated materials in the manner aforesaid can subtract from the dimensions of its nearest province in the body. It is well to have an idea of what may constitute and what appertain only to each: thus it will appear, how no sort of information or intelligence, not even in the mystery of the kingdom, can be any other than an incidental until it has been identified

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