But, when

gross mistakes, through his ignorance. you are called upon to be wise, the design is that you may be wise to do good. Without this disposition, "Doth not their excellency which is in them go

away ? They die even without wisdom." A foundation of piety must first be laid; an inviolable respect to the holy and just and good law of God. This must be the rule of all your actions; and it must particularly regulate your practice of the law. You are sensible that it was always the custom of the civil law to begin with, "To the most high and gracious God :"† nor was it unusual for the instruments of the law to begin with the first two letters of the name of Christ, in Greek characters. The life of the lawyer should have its beginning there, and be carried on with a constant regard to it. The old Saxon laws had the Ten Commandments prefixed to them-Ten words of infinitely greater value than the famous Twelve Tables so much admired by Tully and other ancient writers; in the fragments of which, collected by Baldwin, there are some things horribly unrighteous and barbarous. These are to be the first laws with you: and, as all the laws that are contrary to these are ipso facto, null and void, so, in the practice of the law, every thing disallowed by these must be avoided. The man whom the scripture calls a lawyer was a Karaite, or one who strictly adhered to the written law of God, in opposition to the Pharisee and the Traditionist. I know not why every lawyer should not still be, in the best sense, a Karaite. By manifesting a reverence for the divine law, both that of reason and that of superadded gospel, you will do good in the world beyond what you can imagine. You will redeem your honourable profession from the injury which bad men have done to its reputation; and you will obtain a patronage for it very different from that which the

* When a sentence of Greek occurred in the text, he was able to afford no better gloss than this, "Hac Graica sunt, quæ nec legi, nec intelligi possunt-This is Greek, which can Deither be read nor explained."

† A Deo optimo maximo.

Satyr in the idle story of your Saint Evona has assigned to it.

Your celebrated Ulpian wrote seven books, to shew the several punishments which ought to be inflicted on Christians. It is to be hoped that you will invent as many services to be done to the cause of chrisHanity, services to be performed for the kingdom of your Saviour, and methods by which to demonstrate that you yourselves are among the best of Christians. I am not sure that our Tertullian was the gentleman of that name, who hath some Consulta in the Roman Digesta; which Grotius and others will not admit yet Eusebius tells us that he was well skilled in the Roman laws: and in his writings you find many law terms, particularly "Prescriptions against Heretics," which were, as we learn from Quintillian and others, the replies of defendants to the actions of the plaintiffs. I propose that others of the faculty study all possible "Prescriptions" against those who would injure the cause of christianity, and "apologies" for the church and cause of our Saviour. But, Sirs, it must first of all be done in your own virtuous, exact, upright conduct, under all temptations. The miscarriages of some individuals must not bring a blemish on a noble and useful profession.

But although the profession in general must not be blamed for the faults of a few, yet many will allow the justness of the following remark, which occurs in a late publication, entitled, "Examen Miscellaneum :" "A lawyer who is a knave deserves death more than the man that robs on the highway; for he profanes the sanctuary of the distressed, and betrays the liberties of the people." To avoid such a censure, a lawyer must shun all those indirect ways of "making haste to be rich," in which a man cannot be innocent: such ways as provoked the father of Sir Matthew Hale to abandon the practice of the law, on account of the extreme difficulty of preserving a good conscience in it. Sir, be prevailed upon constantly to keep a court of chancery in your own breast and scorn and fear to do any thing but that which your conscience will pronounce consistent with, and conducing to

"Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good-will towards men.' The very nature of your profession leads you to meditate on a judgment to come. O that you would so realize and antedate that judgment, as to do nothing but what you verily believe will be approved in it!

This piety must operate, very particularly, in the pleading of causes. You will abhor, Sir, to appear in a dirty cause. If you discover that your client has an unjust cause, you will faithfully advise him of it. The question is, "Whether it be lawful to use falsehood and deceit in contending with an adversary?""* It is to be hoped that you have determined this question like an honest man. You will be sincerely desirous that truth and justice should take place. You will speak nothing which shall be to the prejudice of either. You will detest the use of all unfair arts to confound evidences, to brow-beat witnesses, or to suppress what may give light in the case. You have nothing to object to that old rule of pleading a cause--"When the guilt of the party is clearly proved, the counsel ought to withdraw his support." I remember that Schusterus, a famous lawyer and counsellor, who died at Heidelberg in the year 1672, has an admirable passage in his epitaph. "Morti proximus vocem emisit ; Nihil se unquam suasisse consilio, Cujus jam jam moriturum peniterit."

I never

When at the point of death he could say, in the whole course of my practice gave an opinion of which I now repent." A lawyer, who can leave the world with such language as this, proves a greater blessing to the world than can be expressed.

I cannot encourage any gentleman to spend much time in the study of the canon law; which Baptista a

* Utrum fallaciis et deceptionibus ad convincendum adversarium uti liceat?

† Cognita iniquitate, a suscepto ejus patrocinio advecatus desistere debet.

Sancto Blasio has found to contradict the civil law in two hundred instances. The "decrees,” the “decretals," the "clementines," and "extravagants," which compose the hideous volumes of that law, would compel any wise man to make the same apology for his aversion to it which such a one once made: “I cannot, Sir, feed on that which is vile."* Agrippa, who was a doctor of that law, said of it, "It is neither of God nor for him: nothing but corruption invented it; nothing but avarice has practised it." Luther began the reformation with burning it. Nevertheless there is one point much insisted on in the canon law, which well deserves your serious consideration; that is,-RESTITUTION. When men have obtained riches without right, or have heaped up wealth in any dishonest and criminal ways, a restitution will be a necessary and essential part of that repentance which alone will find acccptance with Heaven. The solemnity of this thought may stand like an "angel with a drawn sword" in your way, when you may be under a temptation to leave the path of duty, to go after the (; wages of unrighteousness." Our law was once given to us in French. Many of you, gentlemen, know the modern French as well as the ancient. Mons. Placette has given you a valuable treatise of Restitution, in which there is a chapter, "Des cas ou les Avocats sont obliges a restituer--Of the cases in which counsellors are obliged to make restitution." In that chapter some persons will find a sad Bill of Costs taxed for them; and among other assertions, this is one: "Excessive fees must be disgorged by restitution." This should be considered.

It is an old complaint that a good lawyer is seldom a good neighbour." You know how to confute it, gentlemen, by making your skill in the law a blessing to the neighbourhood. It was affirmed as long ago, as in the time of Sallust, "Towns were

*Non possum, domine, vesci stercore humano.

† Si'l exige une recompense excessive et disproportionee a ce quil fait, il est oblige a restituer ce qu'il prend de trop.

happy formerly, when there were no lawyers; and they will be so again when the race is extinct ;"* but you may, if you please, be a vast accession to the happiness of the places where you reside.

You shall have some of my proposals for it, in a historical exhibition. In the life of Mr. John Cotton, the author relates the following, concerning his fath er, who was a lawyer. "That worthy man was very remarkable in two most admirable practices. One was, that when any one of his neighbours wishing to sue another, applied to him for advice, it was his custom, in the most persuasive and affectionate manner imaginable, to attempt a reconciliation between both parties; prefering the consolation of being a peacemaker, to all the fees which he might have obtained by blowing up the differences. Another was, he was accustomed, every night, to examine himself, with reflections on the transactions of the past day; and if he found that he had neither done good to others, nor got good to his own soul, he was as much grieved as Titus was, when he complained in the evening-" My friends! I have lost a day."

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What a noble thing would it be for you to find out oppressed widows and orphans; and as such can appear only "in forma pauperis; and are objects, in whose oppression might overcomes right," generously plead their cause! "Deliver the poor and needy, and rid them out of the hand of the wicked" --It will be a glorious and Godlike action!

Affluent persons, about to make their wills, may frequently ask your advice. You may embrace the opportunity of advising them to such liberality in behalf of pious purposes, as may greatly advance the kingdom of God in the world. And, when you have opportunity, by law, to rescue "the things that are God's from the sacrilegious hands that would "rob God," it may be hoped that you will do it with all possible generosity and alacrity. O excellent imitation of our glorious Advocate in the heavens!

*Sine Causidicis satis falices olim fuere, futuræpue sunt urbes.

Amici, diem perdidi.