more natural than any other,-viz. the rule of distri butive justice. II. Tranquillity and external advantages are the consequences of our prudent conduct; and rashness, profligacy, and folly, bring inconveniences and sufferings. These afford instances of a right constitution of nature; just as the prudent correction of children is a part of right education. Since then God governs the world by fixed laws,—and has endued us with a capacity of foreseeing the good and bad consequences of our behaviour; this plainly implies some sort of moral government. For in such a constitution of things, prudence and imprudence (which are of the nature of virtue and vice) must be, as they are, respectively rewarded and punished. III. From the natural course of things, vicious actions are, to a great degree, actually punished, as mischievous to society. It is necessary to the very being of society, that vices destructive of it should be punished, as being so ; e. g. falsehood, injustice, cruelty. The punishment of these, therefore, is as natural as society is; and this is an instance of a kind of moral government. And since this natural course of things is the government of God (though it be through the instrumentality of men) it follows, that mankind are so placed by Him, as to be accountable for their behaviour; and are often punished or rewarded under His government, as they are mischievous or beneficial to society. Nor does the objection avail, that good actions are sometimes punished (as in cases of persecution), and mischievous ones rewarded. For, First, this is not necessary; and therefore it is not natural, in the same sense that it is necessary, and therefore natural, that mischievous actions should be punished. And, Secondly, good actions are never punished, as being beneficial to society; nor ill actions rewarded, as being hurtful to it. Hence it appears that the Author of Nature has put mankind under a necessity of punishing vicious actions, as such, just as they are necessitated to preserve their lives by food. IV. In the natural course of things, virtue, as such, is actually rewarded, and vice, as such, punished; affording an instance, in the strictest sense, of a moral government begun and established, though not carried to that degree of perfection, which religion teaches us to expect. To see this clearly, however, we must make a distinction between actions themselves, and their qualities-as being virtuous or vicious. The gratification of any natural passion must be attended with delight, abstracted from all considerations of the morality; the pleasure is gained by the action itself, not by the virtuousness or viciousness of it. Thus, to say such an action produced pleasure or pain, is quite a different thing, from saying that a certain good or bad effect was owing to the virtue or vice of such action. In the one case, the action itself produced the effect; in the other, the morality, (i. e. its virtuousness or viciousness) produced it. Now virtue, or vice, are, as such, frequently attended with pleasure or pain; instances of this are seen in their immediate effects upon the mind; the vexation in light matters, and remorse in graver ones, arising from a consciousness of fault or crime, is something more than a sense of mere loss or harm. Indeed, in cases of severe injury, there is an inward satisfaction to a man, in the reflection"that he has not himself to blame." Whereas, inward peace, serenity, complacency, and joy of heart, always attend upon innocence and virtue. Now the fears of future punishment, or hopes of a better life, do afford to those that have a sense of religion, a present degree of pleasure or uneasiness more than can, perhaps, be well computed. Moreover, all good men are disposed to befriend the good, or discountenance the vicious, as such; even the generality of the world, do in some way, usually favor the virtuous; public honours and advantages being often, as if by common consent, the reward of virtuous conduct. Whereas infamy, disadvantage, and even death, are often the public punish ments of vice, as vice. Men have a sort of general resentment against injustice, as also a general feeling of regard for virtue, although individually they be neither injured nor benefitted. Upon the whole, then, besides the good or bad effects of vice or virtue upon men's own minds, the course of the world does in some measure turn upon the approbation or disapprobation of them, as such, in others. The sense of well and ill doing, the presages of conscience, the love of good characters, and the dislike of bad ones;-honour, shame, resentment, gratitude; all these in themselves, and in their effects, do afford manifest instances of virtue being favoured, and vice discountenanced, as such, more or less, in every age, in every relation, and general circumstance of it. God's having given us a moral nature, is a presumptive evidence of our being under His moral government; and His having placed us in a condition favourable to its developement, so that mankind are under a general sort of influence, to encourage virtue and discountenance vice, is a stronger, because a practical evidence of it. The first leads to the conclusion that He will finally support virtue effectually; the second is an example of His favouring it in some degree at present. This invariable rule of virtue, as such, being often rewarded, and vice, as such, punished,-arises partly from our moral nature, and partly from our social dependence: the first causing us frequently to enjoy satisfaction in well doing, and never in ill doing, as such; the second, disposing men to regard vice, in itself, as infamous, and to punish it; so that the villain cannot always avoid either infamy or punishment. But there is nothing correspondent to this, on the side of vice; because there is nothing in the human mind (logically speaking) contradictory to virtue, so as to dispose it to approve vice for its own sake'. Hence it follows, from our natural constitution and condition, that vice cannot at all be,-and virtue cannot but be,-favoured as such, by others occasionally; and be happy in itself in some degree; to what extent (though not inconsiderable) is not here insisted upon; but only that this is the case in some degree, every day's experience confirms. It is admitted that happiness and misery may be distributed by other rules than personal merit or demerit. The general laws whereby the world is governed may perhaps produce a sort of promiscuous distribution and though they do contribute to rewarding virtue, and punishing vice, as such; yet they may also contribute, not to the inversion of this rule : Any exception to this rule is a monstrosity, and so proves the rule. |