it be such as cannot be reduced to fixed determinate rules. This
observation may account for the diversity of the expression in that
known passage of the prophet Micah, TO DO JUSTLY, AND TO LOVE MERCY.
A man's heart must be formed to humanity and benevolence, he must
LOVE MERCY, otherwise he will not act mercifully in any settled
course of behaviour. As consideration of the future sanctions of
religion is our only security of preserving in our duty, in cases of
great temptation: so to get our heart and temper formed to a love
and liking of what is good is absolutely necessary in order to our
behaving rightly in the familiar and daily intercourses amongst
mankind.

Secondly, The precept before us may be understood to require that we
love our neighbour in some certain PROPORTION or other, ACCORDING AS
we love ourselves. And indeed a man's character cannot be
determined by the love he bears to his neighbour, considered
absolutely, but the proportion which this bears to self-love,
whether it be attended to or not, is the chief thing which forms the
character and influences the actions. For, as the form of the body
is a composition of various parts, so likewise our inward structure
is not simple or uniform, but a composition of various passions,
appetites, affections, together with rationality, including in this
last both the discernment of what is right, and a disposition to
regulate ourselves by it. There is greater variety of parts in what
we call a character than there are features in a face, and the
morality of that is no more determined by one part than the beauty
or deformity of this is by one single feature: each is to be judged
of by all the parts or features, not taken singly, but together. In
the inward frame the various passions, appetites, affections, stand
in different respects to each other. The principles in our mind may