Imatges de pàgina
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But, as he disdains not to appeal to men for the equity of his proceedings toward them when his character is impeached, we may, with humble reverence, plead for God, and vindicate that moral excellence which is the glory of his nature, and of which the image is the glory and the perfection of man.

Let us observe first of all, that to permit has two meanings. It signifies not to forbid, and it signifies not to hinder by superior power. In the first of these senses, God never permits sin. His law forbids every moral evil. By his laws and by his government, he gives every encouragement to good conduct, and every discouragement to bad. But he does not always, by his superior power, hinder it from being committed. This is the ground of the accusation; and this, it is said, is the very same thing as directly to will and to cause it.

As this is asserted without proof, and is far from being selfevident, it might be sufficient to deny it until it be proved. But, without resting barely on the defensive, we may observe, that the only moral attributes that can be supposed inconsistent with the permission of sin, are either goodness or justice.

The defenders of necessity, with whom we have to do in this point, as they maintain that goodness is the only essential moral attribute of the Deity, and the motive of all his actions, must, if they will be consistent, maintain, that to will, and directly to cause sin, much more not to hinder it, is consistent with perfect goodness, nay, that goodness is a sufficient motive to justify the willing and directly causing it.

With regard to them, therefore, it is surely unnecessary to attempt to reconcile the permission of sin with the goodness of God, since an inconsistency between that attribute and the causing of sin would overturn their whole system.

If the causing of moral evil, and being the real author of it, be consistent with perfect goodness, what pretence can there be to say, that not to hinder it is inconsistent with perfect goodness?

What is incumbent upon them, therefore, to prove is, that the permission of sin is inconsistent with justice; and, upon this point, we are ready to join issue with them.

But what pretence can there be to say, that the permission of sin is perfectly consistent with goodness in the Deity, but inconsistent with justice?

Is it not as easy to conceive, that he should permit sin, though virtue be his delight, as that he inflicts misery, when his sole delight is to bestow happiness? Should it appear incredible, that the permission of sin may tend to promote virtue, to them who believe that the infliction of misery is necessary to promote happiness?

The justice, as well as the goodness of God's moral government of mankind, appears in this: that his laws are not arbi

trary nor grievous, as it is only by the obedience of them that our nature can be perfected and qualified for future happiness; that he is ready to aid our weakness, to help our infirmities, and not to suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear; that he is not strict to mark iniquity, or to execute judgment speedily against an evil work, but is long-suffering, and waits to be gracious; that he is ready to receive the humble penitent to his favour; that he is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted of him; that of every man he will require an account, proportioned to the talents he has received; that he delights in mercy, but has no pleasure in the death of the wicked; and therefore in punishing will never go beyond the demerit of the criminal, nor beyond what the rules of his universal government require.

There were, in ancient ages, some who said, the way of the Lord is not equal; to whom the prophet, in the name of God, makes this reply, which, in all ages, is sufficient to repel this accusation. Hear now, O house of Israel, Is not my way equal, are not your ways unequal? When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity; for his iniquity which he has done shall he die. Again, when a wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he has committed, and doth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. O house of Israel, are not my ways equal, are not your ways unequal? Repent, and turn from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God.

Another argument for necessity has been lately offered, which we shall very briefly consider.

It has been maintained, that the power of thinking is the result of a certain modification of matter, and that a certain configuration of brain makes a soul; and, if man be wholly a material being, it is said, that it will not be denied, that he must be a mechanical being; that the doctrine of necessity is a direct inference from that of materialism, and its undoubted consequence.

As this argument can have no weight with those who do not see reason to embrace this system of materialism; so, even with those who do, it seems to me to be a mere sophism.

Philosophers have been wont to conceive matter to be an inert passive being, and to have certain properties inconsistent with the power of thinking or of acting. But a philosopher arises, who proves, we shall suppose, that we were quite mistaken in our notion of matter; that it has not the properties

we supposed, and, in fact, has no properties but those of attraction and repulsion; but still he thinks, that, being matter, it will not be denied that it is a mechanical being, and that the doctrine of necessity is a direct inference from that of materialism.

Herein, however, he deceives himself. If matter be what we conceived it to be, it is equally incapable of thinking and of acting freely. But if the properties, from which we drew this conclusion, have no reality, as he thinks he has proved; if it have the powers of attraction and repulsion, and require only a certain configuration to make it think rationally, it will be impossible to show any good reason why the same configuration may not make it act rationally and freely. If its reproach of solidity, inertness, and sluggishness be wiped off; and if it be raised in our esteem to a nearer approach to the nature of what we call spiritual and immaterial beings, why should it still be nothing but a mechanical being? Is its solidity, inertness, and sluggishness to be first removed to make it capable of thinking, and then restored in order to make it incapable of acting?

Those, therefore, who reason justly from this system of materialism, will easily perceive, that the doctrine of necessity is so far from being a direct inference, that it can receive no support from it.

To conclude this Essay: extremes of all kinds ought to be avoided; yet men are prone to run into them; and, to shun one extreme, we often run into the contrary.

Of all extremes of opinions, none are more dangerous than those that exalt the powers of man too high, on the one hand, or sink them too low on the other.

By raising them too high, we feed pride and vain glory; we lose the sense of our dependence upon God, and engage in attempts beyond our abilities. By depressing them too low, we cut the sinews of action and of obligation, and are tempted to think, that, as we can do nothing, we have nothing to do, but to be carried passively along by the stream of necessity.

Some good men, apprehending that, to kill pride and vain glory, our active powers cannot be too much depressed, have been led, by zeal for religion, to deprive us of all active power. Other good men, by a like zeal, have been led to depreciate the human understanding, and to put out the light of nature and reason, in order to exalt that of revelation.

Those weapons which were taken up in support of religion, are now employed to overturn it; and what was, by some, accounted the bulwark of orthodoxy, is become the strong hold of atheism and infidelity.

A regard to our own good, though we had no conscience, dictates this principle; and we cannot help disapproving the man that acts contrary to it, as deserving to lose the good which he wantonly threw away, and to suffer the evil which he knowingly brought upon his own head.

We observed before, that the ancient moralists, and many among the modern, have deduced the whole of morals from this principle, and that when we make a right estimate of goods and evils according to their degree, their dignity, their duration, and according as they are more or less in our power, it leads to the practice of every virtue: more directly, indeed, to the virtues of self-government, to prudence, to temperance, and to fortitude; and, though more indirectly, even to justice, humanity, and all the social virtues, when their influence upon our happiness is well understood.

1

Though it be not the noblest principle of conduct, it has this peculiar advantage, that its force is felt by the most ignorant, and even by the most abandoned.

Let a man's moral judgment be ever so little improved by exercise, or ever so much corrupted by bad habits, he cannot be indifferent to his own happiness or misery. When he is become insensible to every nobler motive to right conduct, he cannot be insensible to this. And though to act from this motive solely, may be called prudence rather than virtue, yet this prudence deserves some regard upon its own account, and much more as it is the friend and ally of virtue, and the enemy of all vice; and as it gives a favourable testimony of virtue to those who are deaf to every other recommendation.

If a man can be induced to do his duty even from a regard to his own happiness, he will soon find reason to love virtue for her own sake, and to act from motives less mercenary.

I cannot therefore approve of those moralists, who would banish all persuasives to virtue taken from the consideration of private good. In the present state of human nature these are not useless to the best, and they are the only means left of reclaiming the abandoned.

2dly, As far as the intention of nature appears in the constitution of man, we ought to comply with that intention, and to act agreeably to it.

The Author of our being has given us not only the power of acting within a limited sphere, but various principles or springs of action, of different nature and dignity, to direct us in the exercise of our active power.

From the constitution of every species of the inferior animals, and especially from the active principles which nature has given them, we easily perceive the manner of life for which nature intended them; and they uniformly act the part to which they are led by their constitution, without any reflection

upon it, or

intention of obeying its dictates. Man only, of the inhabitants of this world, is made capable of observing his own constitution, what kind of life it is made for, and of acting according to that intention, or contrary to it. He only is capable of yielding an intentional obedience to the dictates of his nature, or of rebelling against them.

In treating of the principles of action in man, it has been shown, that as his natural instincts and bodily appetites, are well adapted to the preservation of his natural life, and to the continuance of the species; so his natural desires, affections, and passions, when uncorrupted by vicious habits, and under the government of the leading principles of reason and conscience, are excellently fitted for the rational and social life. Every vicious action shows an excess, or defect, or wrong direction of some natural spring of action, and therefore may, very justly, be said to be unnatural. Every virtuous action agrees with the uncorrupted principles of human nature.

The Stoics defined virtue to be a life according to nature. Some of them, more accurately, a life according to the nature of man, in so far as it is superior to that of brutes. The life of a brute is according to the nature of the brute; but it is neither virtuous nor vicious. The life of a moral agent cannot be according to his nature, unless it be virtuous. That conscience, which is in every man's breast is the law of God written in his heart, which he cannot disobey without acting unnaturally, and being self-condemned.

The intention of nature, in the various active principles of man, in the desires of power, of knowledge, and of esteem, in the affection to children, to near relations, and to the communities to which we belong, in gratitude, in compassion, and even in resentment and emulation, is very obvious, and has been pointed out in treating of those principles. Nor is it less evident, that reason and conscience are given us to regulate the inferior principles, so that they may conspire, in a regular and consistent plan of life, in pursuit of some worthy end.

3dly, No man is born for himself only. Every man, therefore, ought to consider himself as a member of the common society of mankind, and of those subordinate societies to which he belongs, such as family, friends, neighbourhood, country, and to do as much good as he can, and as little hurt to the societies of which he is a part.

This axiom leads directly to the practice of every social virtue, and indirectly to the virtues of self-government, by which only we can be qualified for discharging the duty we owe to society.

4thly, In every case, we ought to act that part toward another which we would judge to be right in him to act toward us, if we

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