grave, though the example of its punishment there cannot ferve to deter the rest of mankind, who fee it not, who know it not, from being guilty of the like practices here. The juftice of God, however, we think, ftill requires, that he should hereafter avenge the injuries of the widow and the fatherless, who are here to often infulted with impunity.

That the Deity loves virtue and hates vice, as a voluptuous man loves riches and hates poverty, not for their own fakes, but for the effects which they tend to produce; that he loves the one, only because it promotes the happiness of society, which his benevolence prompts him to defire; and that he hates the other, only because it occafions the mifery of mankind, which the fame divine quality renders the object of his averfion; is not the doctrine of untaught nature, but of an artificial refinement of reason and philofophy. Our untaught, natural fentiments, all prompt us to believe, that as perfect virtue is fuppofed neceffarily to appear to the Deity, as it does to us, for its own fake, and without any further view, the natural and proper object of love and reward, fo muft vice, of hatred and punishment. That the gods neither resent nor hurt, was the general maxim of all the different fects of the ancient philofophy and if, by refenting, be understood, that violent and disorderly perturbation, which often diftracts and confounds the human breaft; or if, by hurting, be understood, the doing mischief wantonly, and without regard to propriety or juftice, fuch weakness is undoubtedly unworthy of the divine perfection. But if it be meant, that vice does not appear to the Deity to be, for its own fake, the object of abhorrence and averfion, and what, for its

own

own fake, it is fit and right should be punished, the truth of this maxim feems repugnant to fome very natural feelings. If we confult our natural fentiments, we are even apt to fear, left, before the holinefs of God, vice fhould appear to be more worthy of punishment than the weakness and imperfection of human virtue can ever seem to be of reward. Man, when about to appear before a Being of infinite perfection, can feel but little confidence in his own merit, or in the imperfect propriety of his own conduct. In the prefence of his fellow-creatures, he may even justly elevate himself, and may often have reason to think highly of his own character and conduct, compared to the ftill greater imperfection of theirs. But the cafe is quite different when about to appear before his infinite Creator. To fuch a Being, he fears, that his littleness and weakness can scarce ever appear the proper object, either of esteem or of reward. But he can eafily conceive, how the numberlefs violations of duty, of which he has been guilty, fhould render him the proper object of averfion and punishment; and he thinks he can fee no reason why the divine indignation fhould not be let loose without any restraint, upon so vile an infect, as he imagines that he himself muft appear to be. If he would ftill hope for happiness, he suspects that he cannot demand it from the justice, but that he must entreat it from the mercy of God. Repentance, forrow, humility, contrition at the thought of his past conduct, feem, upon this account, the fentiments which become him, and to be the only means which he has left for appeafing that wrath which, he knows, he has juftly provoked. He even diftrusts the efficacy of all these, and naturally fears, left the wifdom of God fhould not, like the

weakness

weakness of man, be prevailed upon to spare the crime by the most importunate lamentations of the criminal. Some other interceffion, fome other facrifice, fome other atonement, he imagines must be made for him, beyond what he himself is capable of making, before the purity of the divine juftice can be reconciled to his manifold offences. The doctrines of revelation coincide, in every refpect, with those original anticipations of nature; and as they teach us how little we can depend upon the imperfection of our own virtue, fo they fhow us, at the fame time, that the most powerful interceffion has been made, and that the most dreadful atonement has been paid for our manifold tranfgreffions and iniquities.

SEC

SECTION III.

Of the influence of fortune upon the fentiments of mankind, with regard to the merit or demerit of actions.

INTRODUCTIO N.

WHATEVER praise or blame can be due to

any action, must belong either, first, to the intention or affection of the heart, from which it proceeds; or, fecondly, to the external action or movement of the body, which this affection gives occafion to; or, laft, to all the good or bad confequences, which actually, and in fact, proceed from it. These three different things conftitute the whole nature and circumftances of the action, and must be the foundation of whatever quality can belong to it.

That the two last of these three circumftances cannot be the foundation of any praise or blame, is abundantly evident; nor has the contrary ever been afferted by any body. The external action or movement of the body is often the fame in the most innocent and in the most blamable actions. He who shoots a bird, and he who shoots a man, both of them

perform the fame external movement: each of them draws the tricker of a gun. The confequences which actually, and in fact, happen to proceed from any action, are, if poffible, ftill more indifferent either to praise or blame, than even the external movement of the body. As they depend, not upon the agent, but upon fortune, they cannot be the proper foundation for any fentiment, of which his character and conduct are the objects.

The only confequences for which he can be anfwerable, or by which he can deferve either approbation or disapprobation of any kind, are those which were fome way or other intended, or those which, at leaft, fhow fome agreeable or difagreeable quality in the intention of the heart, from which he acted. To the intention or affection of the heart, therefore, to the propriety or impropriety, to the beneficence or hurtfulness of the defign, all praife or blame, all approbation or difapprobation, of any kind, which can juftly be beftowed upon any action, muft ultimately belong.

When this maxim is thus proposed in abstract and general terms, there is no body who does not agree to it. Its felf-evident juftice is acknowledged by all the world, and there is not a diffenting voice among all mankind. Every body allows, that how different foever the accidental, the unintended and unforeseen confequences of different actions, yet, if the intentions or affections from which they arofe were, on the one hand, equally proper and equally beneficent, or, on the other, equally improper and equally malevolent, the merit or demerit of the actions is ftill the same, and the agent is equally the fuitable object either of gratitude or of refentment.

But