"the feft of our obedience; or had not fuch a teft "feemed neceffary to God's infinite wifdom, and "productive of univerfal good, he would never have

permitted the happiness of men, even in this life, to "have depended on fo precarious a tenure, as their ૮૬ "mutual good behaviour to each other. For it is "obfervable, that he who beft knows our formation, "has trufted no one thing of importance to our rea"fon or virtue: he trufts only to our appetites for the "fupport of the individual, and the continuance of

our fpecies; to our vanity or compaffion, for our "bounty to others; and to our fears, for the preserva❝tion of ourselves; often to our vices for the fupport " of government, and fometimes to our follies for the prefervation of our religion. But fince fome teft of "our obedience was necessary, nothing fure could have " been commanded for that end fo fit and proper,

and at the fame time fo useful, as the practice of "virtue: nothing could have been so justly rewarded " with happiness, as the production of happiness in "conformity to the will of God. It is this conformity "alone which adds merit to virtue, and conftitutes "thé éffential difference between morality and reliMorality obliges men to live honeftly and foberly, because fuch behaviour is moft conducive "to publick happiness, and confequently to their

“gion.

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own; religion, to purfue the fame courfe, because "conformable to the will of their Creator. Morality induces them to embrace virtue from prudential " confiderations; religion from those of gratitude and "obedience. Morality therefore, entirely abstracted " from

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"from religion, can have nothing meritorious in it; " it being but wisdom, prudence, or good œconomy, "which like health, beauty, or riches, are rather obli"gations conferred upon us by God, than merits in us "towards him; for though we may be juftly punished "for injuring ourselves, we can claim no reward for felf-preservation; as fuicide deferves punishment and infamy, but a man deferves no reward or honours "for not being guilty of it. This I take to be the meaning of all those paffages in our Scriptures, in "which works are reprefented to have no merit with"out faith; that is, not without believing in historical "facts, in creeds, and articles; but without being ❝done in pursuance of our belief in God, and in obe"dience to his commands. And now, having men❝tioned Scripture, I cannot omit obferving, that the "Christian is the only religious or moral inftitution "in the world, that ever fet in a right light these two "material points, the effence and the end of virtue "that ever founded the one in the production of hap“piness, that is, in universal benevolence, or, in their "language, charity to all men; the other, in the pro"bation of man, and his obedience to his Creator. "Sublime and magnificent as was the philosophy of "the ancients, all their moral systems were deficient "in these two important articles. They were all "built on the fandy foundations of the innate beauty "of virtue, or enthufiaftick patriotifm; and their great point in view was the contemptible reward of "human glory; foundations which were by no means able to fupport the magnificent ftructures which "they

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"they erected upon them; for the beauty of virtue, "independent of its effects, is unmeaning nonfenfe;

patriotifm, which injures mankind in general for "the fake of a particular country, is but a more "extended selfishness, and really criminal: and all "human glory but a mean and ridiculous delufion. "The whole affair then of religion and morality, "the fubject of so many thousand volumes, is, in fhort, no more than this: the Supreme Being, in

finitely good, as well as powerful, defirous to dif "fufe happiness by all poffible means, has created "innumerable ranks and orders of beings, all fubfer"vient to each other by proper fubordination. One "of these is occupied by man, a creature endued "with fuch a certain degree of knowledge, reafon, "and free-will, as is fuitable to his fituation, and placed for a time on this globe as in a school of probation and education. Here he has an opportunity given him of improving or debafing his na"ture, in fuch a manner as to render himself fit for a "rank of higher perfection and happiness, or to de"grade himself to a ftate of greater imperfection and

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mifery; neceffary indeed towards carrying on the "business of the universe, but very grievous and bur"thenfome to thofe individuals, who, by their own. "misconduct, are obliged to fubmit to it. The test of "this his behaviour, is doing good, that is, co-operat

ing with his Creator, as far as his narrow sphere of "action will permit, in the production of happiness. "And thus the happiness and mifery of a future ftate "will be the juft reward or punishment of promoting or preventing happiness in this. So artificially by

"this means is the nature of all human virtue and "vice contrived, that their rewards and punish

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ments are woven as it were in their very effence; "their immediate effects give us a foretaste of their "future, and their fruits in the prefent life are the proper famples of what they must unavoidably "produce in another. We have reafon given us to diftinguish these confequences, and regulate our con"duct; and, left that fhould neglect its poft, con"fcience alfo is appointed as an inftinctive kind of “monitor, perpetually to remind us both of our in"tereft and our duty."

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Si fic omnia dixiffet! To this account of the effence of vice and virtue, it is only neceffary to add, that the confequences of human actions being fometimes uncertain, and fometimes remote, it is not poffible in many cafes for moft men, nor in all cafes for any man to determine what actions will ultimately produce happiness, and therefore it was proper that revelation fhould lay down a rule to be followed invariably in oppofition to appearances, and in every change of circumftances, by which we may be certain to promote the general felicity, and be fet free from the dangerous temptation of doing Evil that Good. may come.

Because it may eafily happen, and in effect will happen very frequently, that our own private happiness may be promoted by an act injurious to others, when yet no man can be obliged by nature to prefer ultimately the happiness of others to his own; therefore, to the inftructions of infinite wif dom it was neceffary that infinite power should add penal fanctions. That every man to whom those

inftructions fhall be imparted may know that he can never ultimately injure himself by benefiting others, or ultimately by injuring others benefit himself; but that however the lot of the good and bad may be huddled together in the feeming confufion of our prefent ftate, the time fhall undoubtedly come, when the moft virtuous will be moft happy.

I am forry that the remaining part of this Letter is not equal to the firft. The author has indeed engaged in a difquifition in which we need not wonder if he fails, in the folution of queftions on which philofophers have employed their abilities from the earliest times,

And found no end, in wand'ring mazes loft.

He denies that man was created perfect, because the fyftem requires fubordination, and because the power of lofing his perfection, of rendering himself wicked and miferable, is the higheft imperfection imaginable. Befides, the regular gradations of the fcale of being required fomewhere fuch a creature as man with all his infirmities about him, and the total removal of thofe would be altering his nature, and when he became perfect he muft ceafe to be man.

I have already spent fome confiderations on the fcale of being, of which yet I am obliged to renew the mention whenever a new argument is made to reft upon it; and I must therefore again remark, that confequences cannot have greater certainty than the poftulate from which they are drawn, and that no system can be more hypothetical than this, and perhaps no hypothesis more abfurd.