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

1 Any exception to this rule is a monstrosity, and so proves the rule.

(that is impossible), but to render persons prosperous, even though they be wicked; and afflicted, even though they be righteous; and to the rewarding some actions, though vicious, and punishing others, though virtuous. But where this takes place, there is a sort of violence done to our natural constitution; the voice of nature still declares itself on virtue's side;—and we acknowledge that such disorder is brought about by the perversion of some natural passion, which had been implanted in us for good.

Hence, we have a declaration, in some degree of present effect, from Him who is supreme in nature, which side He is of, a declaration for virtue, and against vice. And so far as a man is true to virtue, veracity, equity, justice, and charity, so far he is on the side of the Divine administration, and co-operates with it; and hence arise to him a satisfaction, a sense of security, and a hope of something further.

V. This hope is confirmed by the moral tendencies discernible in nature, to produce good or bad effects from virtue or vice, even more than is done in fact ;these tendencies being often thwarted by accidental They are indeed obvious as to individuals. But it may require some elucidation to show, that social power, when under the direction of virtue, has a necessary tendency to prevail over opposite power, not under such direction: just as power directed by reason

causes.