Ejus [Analogiæ] hæc vis est, ut id quod dubium est ad aliquid simile, de quo non quæritur, referat ut incerta certis probet.—QUINTIL. L. 1. C. 6.
IF the reader should meet here with any thing which he had not before attended to, it will not be in the observations upon the constitution and course of nature, these being all obvious; but in the application of them: in which, though there is nothing but what appears to me of some real weight, and therefore of great importance; yet he will observe several things, which will appear to him of very little, if he can think things to be of little importance, which are of any real weight at all, upon such a subject as religion. However, the proper force of the following Treatise lies in the whole general analogy considered together.
It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it, as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained, but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world. On the contrary, thus much, at least, will be here found, not taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable man, who will thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured, as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so clear a case, that there is nothing in it. There is, I think, strong evidence of its truth; but it is certain no one can, upon principles of reason, be satisfied of the contrary. And the practical consequence to be drawn from this is not attended to by every one who is concerned in it.
May, 1736.
DEAR SIR,
I TRUST you will excuse the liberty I have taken of prefixing
your name to the following sheets; the latter part of which, I am confident, will
not be thought undeserving of your approbation; and of the former part you will
commend the intention at least, if not the execution. In vindicating the character
of Bishop Butler from the aspersions thrown upon it since his death, I have but
discharged a common duty of humanity, which survivors owe to those who have deserved
well of mankind by their lives or writings, when they are past the power of appearing
in their own defence. And if what I have added, by way of opening the general design
of the Works of this great Prelate, be of use in exciting the younger class of Students
in our Universities to read, and so to read as to understand, the Two Volumes prepared
and published by the Author himself; I flatter myself I shall have done no inconsiderable
service to Morality and Religion. Your time and studies have been long successfully
devoted to the support of the same great cause: and in what you have lately given
to the world, both as an Author and an Editor, you have largely contributed to the
defence of our common Christianity, and of what was esteemed by One, who was perfectly
competent to judge, its best Establishment, the Church of England. In the present
publication I consider myself
Dear Sir.
Your very affectionate
and faithful Servant,
S. GLOUCESTER.
Dartmouth Street, Westminster,
12th May, 1786.
“When I consider how light a matter very often subjects the best established characters to the suspicions of posterity, posterity often as malignant to virtue as the age that saw it was envious of its glory; and how ready a remote age is to catch at a low revived slander, which the times that brought it forth saw despised and forgotten almost in its birth; I cannot but think it a matter that deserves attention.”—Letter to the Editor of the Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, &c., by Bishop Warburton. See his Works, vol. vii. p. 547.
THE Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham was printed
and published in the year 1751, by the learned Prelate whose name it bears; and,
together with the Sermons and Analogy of the same writer, both too well known to
need a more particular description, completes the collection of his Works. It has
long been considered as a matter of curiosity, on account of its scarceness; and
it is equally curious on other accounts—its subject, and the calumny to which it
gave occasion, of representing the Author as addicted to superstition, as
inclined to popery, and as dying in the communion of the Church of Rome.
The improved edition of the Biographia Britannica, published under the care
of Dr Kippis, having unavoidably brought this calumny again into notice, it may
not be unseasonable to offer a few reflections in this place, by way of obviating
any impressions that may hence arise to the disadvantage of so great a character
as that of the late Bishop Butler; referring those who desire a more particular
account of his life, to the third volume of the same entertaining work, printed
in 1784. art. BUTLER (Joseph).
I. The principal design of the Bishop in his Charge is, to exhort
his Clergy to “do their part towards reviving a practical sense of religion amongst
the people committed to their care;” and, as one way of effecting this, to
“instruct them in the Importance of External Religion,” or the usefulness of outward
observances in promoting inward piety. Now, from the compound
However, be the danger of superstition what it may, no one was
more sensible of that danger, or more in earnest in maintaining, that external acts
of themselves are nothing, and that moral holiness, as distinguished from bodily
observances of every kind, is that which constitutes the essence of religion, than
Bishop Butler. Not only the Charge itself, the whole intention of which is plainly
nothing more than to enforce the necessity of practical religion, the reality
as well as form, is a demonstration of this, but many passages besides to the same
purpose, selected from his other writings. Take the two following as specimens.
In his Analogy he observes thus: “Though mankind have, in all ages, been greatly
prone to place their religion in peculiar positive rites, by way of equivalent for
obedience to moral precepts; yet, without making any comparison at all between.
them, and consequently without determining which is to have the preference, the
nature of the thing abundantly shows all notions of that kind to be utterly subversive
of true religion: as they are, moreover, contrary to the whole tenor of Scripture;
and likewise to the most express particular declarations of it, that nothing can
render us accepted of God, without moral virtue.”
He who can think and write in such a manner, can never be said to mistake the nature of real religion: and he, who, after such proofs to the contrary, can persist in asserting of so discreet and learned a person, that he was addicted to superstition, must himself be much a stranger both to truth and charity.
And here it may be worth our while to observe, that the same excellent
Prelate, who by one set of men was suspected of superstition, on account
of his Charge, has by another been represented as leaning to the opposite extreme
of enthusiasm, on account of his two discourses On the Love of God.
But both opinions are equally without foundation. He was neither superstitious,
nor an enthusiast: his mind was much too strong, and his habits of thinking and
reasoning much too strict and severe, to suffer him to descend to the weaknesses
of either character. His piety was at once fervent and rational.
II. From superstition to Popery, the transition is easy:
no wonder then, that, in the progress of detraction, the simple imputation of the
former of these, with which the attack on the character of our Author was opened,
should be followed by the more aggravated imputation of the latter. Nothing, I think,
can fairly be gathered in support of such a suggestion from the Charge, in which
Popery is barely mentioned, and occasionally
III. One such after-act, however, has been alleged, which would effectually demolish all that we have urged in behalf of our Prelate, were it true, as is pretended, that he died in the communion of the Church of Rome. Had a story of this sort been invented and propagated by Papists, the wonder might have been less:
Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridæ.
But to the reproach of Protestantism, the fabrication of this
calumny, for such we shall find it, originated from among ourselves. It is pretty
remarkable, that a circumstance so extraordinary should never have been divulged
till the year 1767, fifteen years after the Bishop’s decease. At that time Dr Thomas
Secker was Archbishop of Canterbury; who of all others was the most likely to know
the truth or falsehood of the fact asserted, having been educated with our Author
in his early youth, and having lived in a constant habit of intimacy with him to
the very time of his death. The good Archbishop was not silent on this occasion:
with a virtuous indignation he stood forth to protect the posthumous character of
his friend; and in a public newspaper, under the signature of Misopseudes,
called upon his accuser to support what he had advanced, by whatever proofs he could.
No proof, however, nor any thing like a proof, appeared in reply; and every man
of sense and candour at that
When the first edition of this Preface was published, I had in
vain endeavoured to procure a sight of the papers, in which Bishop Butler was accused
of having died a Papist, and Archbishop Secker’s replies to them; though I well
remembered to have read both, when they first appeared in the public prints. But
a learned Professor ill the University of Oxford has furnished me with the whole
controversy in its original form; a brief history of which it may not be unacceptable
to offer here to the curious reader. The attack was opened in the year 1767, in an anonymous pamphlet,
entitled, ‘The Root of Protestant Errors examined;” in which the author asserted,
that, “by an anecdote lately given him, that same Prelate” (who at the bottom of
the page is called B—p of D—m) “is said to have died in the communion of a Church,
that makes much use of saints, saints’ days, and all the trumpery of saint worship.” When
this remarkable fact, now first divulged, came to be generally known, it occasioned,
as might be expected, no little alarm; and intelligence of it was no sooner conveyed
to Archbishop Secker, than in a short letter, signed Misopseudes, and printed
in the St James’s Chronicle of May 9, he called upon the writer to produce his authority
for publishing “so gross and scandalous a falsehood.” To this challenge an immediate
answer was returned by the author of the pamphlet, who, now assuming the name of
Phileleutheros, informed Misopseudes, through the channel of the same
paper, that “such anecdote had been given him; and that he was yet of opinion, that
there was nothing improbable in it; when it is considered that the same Prelate
put up the Popish insignia of the cross in his chapel, when at Bristol;
and in his last Episcopal Charge has squinted very much towards that superstition.” Here we find the accusation not only repeated, but supported by reasons, such as
they are, of which it seemed necessary that some notice should be taken: nor did
the Archbishop conceive it unbecoming his own dignity to stand up on this occasion,
as the vindicator of innocence against the calumniator of the helpless dead. Accordingly,
in a second letter in the same newspaper of May 23, and subscribed Misopseudes
as before, after reciting from Bishop Butler’s Sermon before the Lords the very
passage here printed in the Preface, and observing, that “there are, in the same
Sermon, declarations as strong as can be. made against temporal punishments for
heresy, schism, or even for idolatry;” His Grace expresses himself thus: “Now he
(Bishop Butler) was universally esteemed throughout his life, a man of strict piety
and honesty, as well as uncommon abilities. He gave all the proofs, public and private,
which his station led him to give, and they were decisive and daily, of his continuing
to the last a. sincere member of the Church of England. Nor had ever any of his
acquaintance, or most intimate friends, nor have they to this day, the least doubt
of it.” As to putting up a cross in his chapel, the Archbishop frankly owns, that
for himself he wishes he had not; and thinks that in so doing the Bishop did amiss.
But then he asks, “Call that be opposed, as any proof of Popery, to all the evidence
on the other side; or even to the single evidence of the above-mentioned Sermon?
Most of our churches have crosses upon them: are they therefore Popish churches?
The Lutherans have more than crosses in theirs: are the Lutherans therefore Papists?” And as to the Charge, no Papist, his Grace remarks, would have spoken as Bishop
Butler there does, of the observances peculiar to Roman Catholics, some of which
he expressly censures as wrong and superstitious, and others, as made subservient
to the purposes of superstition, and, on these accounts, abolished at the Reformation.
After the publication of this letter Phileleutheros replied in a short defence
of his own conduct, but without producing any thing new in confirmation of what
he had advanced. And here the controversy, so far as the two principals were concerned,
seems to have ended.. But the dispute was not suffered to die away quite so soon. For
in the same year. and in the same newspaper of July 21, another letter appeared;
in which the author not only contended that the cross in the Episcopal chapel at
Bristol, and the Charge to the Clergy of Durham in 1751, amount to full proof of
a strong attachment to the idolatrous communion of the Church of Rome, but, with
the reader’s leave, he would fain account for the Bishop’s “tendency this way.”
And this he attempted to do, “from the natural melancholy and gloominess of Dr Butler’s
disposition; from his great fondness for the lives of Romish saints, and their books
of mystic piety; from his drawing his notions of teaching men religion, not from
the New Testament, but from philosophical and political opinions of his own; and
above all, from his transition from a strict Dissenter amongst the Presbyterians
to a rigid Churchman, and his sudden and unexpected elevation to great wealth and
dignity in the Church.” The attack, thus renewed, excited the Archbishop’s attention
a second time, and drew from him a fresh answer, subscribed also Misopseudes,
in the St James’s Chronicle of August 4. In this letter, our excellent Metropolitan,
first of all obliquely hinting, at the unfairness of sitting in judgment on the
character of a man who had been dead fifteen years; and then reminding his correspondent,
that “full proof had been already published, that Bishop Butler abhorred Popery
as a vile corruption of Christianity, and that it might be proved, if needful, that
he held the Pope to be Antichrist;” (to which decisive testimonies of undoubted
aversion from the Romish Church, another is also added in the Postscript, his taking,
when promoted to the see of Durham, for his domestic Chaplain, Dr Nath. Forster,
who had published, not four years before, a Sermon, entitled, Popery destructive
of the Evidence of Christianity;) proceeds to observe, “that the natural melancholy
of the Bishop’s temper would rather have fixed him amongst his first friends, than
prompted him to the change he made: that he read books of all sorts, as well as
books of mystic piety, and knew how to pick the good that was in them out of the
bad: that his opinions were exposed without reserve in his Analogy and his Sermons,
and if the doctrine of either be Popish or unscriptural, the learned world hath
mistaken strangely in admiring both: that, instead of being a strict Dissenter,
he never was a communicant in any Dissenting assembly; on the contrary, that he
went occasionally, from his early years, to the established worship, and became
a constant conformist to it when he was barely of age, and entered himself, in 1714,
of Oriel College: that his elevation to great dignity in the Church, far from being
sudden and unexpected, was a gradual and natural rise, through a variety of preferments,
and a period of thirty-two years: that, as Bishop of Durham, he had very little
authority beyond his brethren, and in ecclesiastical matters, had none beyond them;
a larger income than most of them h3 had; but this he employed, not, as was insinuated,
in augmenting the pomp of worship in his cathedral, where indeed it is no greater
than in others, but for the purposes of clarity, and in the repairing of his houses.”
After these remarks, the letter closes with the following words: “Upon the
whole, few accusations, so entirely groundless, have been so pertinaciously, I
am unwilling to say maliciously, carried on, as the present: and surely it is
high time for the authors and abettors of it, in mere common prudence, to show
some regard, if not to truth, at least to shame.” It only remains to be mentioned, that the above letters of Archbishop
Secker had such an effect on a writer, who signed himself in the St. James’s Chronicle
of August 25, A Dissenting Minister, that he declared it as his opinion,
that “the author of the pamphlet, called, ‘The Root of Protestant Errors
examined,’ and his friends, were obliged in candour, in justice, and in honour
to retract their charge, unless they could establish it on much better grounds
than had hitherto appeared: and he expressed his “hopes, that it would be understood that the Dissenters
in general had no hand in the accusation, and that it had only been the act of two
or three mistaken men.” Another person also, “a foreigner by birth,” as he says
of himself, who had been long an admirer of Bishop Butler, and had perused with
great attention all that had been written on both sides in the present controversy,
confesses he had been “wonderfully pleased with observing, with what candour amid
temper, as well as clearness and solidity, he was vindicated from the aspersions
laid against him.” All the adversaries of our Prelate, however, had not the virtue
or sense to be thus convinced; some of whom still continued, under the signatures
of Old Martin, Latimer, An Impartial Protestant, Paulinus, Misonothos, to
repeat their confuted falsehoods in the public prints; as if the curse of calumniators
had fallen upon them, and their memory, by being long a traitor to truth, had taken
at last a severe revenge, and compelled them to credit their own lie. The first
of these gentlemen, Old Martin, who dates from Newcastle, May 29, from the
rancour and malignity with which his letter abounds, and from the particular virulence
he discovers towards the characters of Bishop Butler and his defender, I conjecture
to be no other than the very person who had already figured in this dispute, so
early as the year 1752; of whose work, entitled, “A Serious Inquiry into the Use
and Importance of External Religion,” the reader will find some account in the notes
subjoined to the Bishop’s Charge in the volume of Sermons.
Out of pure respect for the virtues of a man, whom I
In what follows I propose to give a short account of the Bishop’s moral and religious systems, as these are collected from his Works.
I. His way of treating the subject of morals is to be gathered from the volume of his Sermons, and particularly from the three first, and from the preface to that volume.
“There is,” as our Author with singular sagacity has observed,
“a much more exact correspondence between the natural and moral world, than we are
apt to take notice of.”
What the inward frame and constitution of man is, is a question of fact; to be determined, as other facts are, from experience, from our internal feelings and external senses, and from the testimony of others. Whether human nature, and the circumstances in which it is placed, might not have been ordered otherwise, is foreign to our inquiry, and none of our concern: our province is, taking both of these as they are, and viewing the connexion between them, from that connexion to discover if we can, what course of action is fitted to that nature and those circumstances. From contemplating the bodily senses, and the organs or instruments adapted to them, we learn that the eye was given to see with, the ear to hear with. In like manner, from considering our inward perceptions and the final causes of then, we collect that the feeling of shame, for instance, was given to prevent the doing of things shameful; compassion, to carry us to relieve others in distress; anger, to resist sudden violence offered to ourselves. if, continuing our inquiries in this way, it should at length appear, that the nature, the whole nature, of man leads him to and is fitted for that particular course of behaviour which we usually distinguish by the name of virtue, we are authorized to conclude, that virtue is the law we are born under, that it was so intended by the Author of our being; and we are bound by the most intimate of all obligations, a regard to our own highest interest and happiness, to conform to it in all situations and events.
Human nature is not simple and uniform, but made up of several
parts; and we can have no just idea of it as a system or constitution, unless we
take into our view the respects and relations which these parts have to each other.
As the body is not one member, but many; so our inward structure consists of various
instincts, appetites, and propensions. Thus far there is no difference
The view here given of the internal constitution of man, and of
the supremacy of conscience, agreeably to the conceptions of Bishop Butler, enables
us to comprehend the force of that expression, common to him and the ancient moralists,
that virtue consists in following nature. The meaning cannot be, that it
consists in acting agreeably to that propensity of our nature which happens to be
the strongest; or which propels us towards certain objects, without any regard to
the methods by which
“What conscience dictates to be done, Or warns me not to do, This teach me more than hell to shun, That more than heaven pursue.”
The reader will observe, that this way of treating the subject
of morals, by an appeal to facts, does not at all interfere with that other
way, adopted by Dr Samuel Clarke and others, which begins with inquiring into the
relations and fitnesses of things, but rather illustrates and confirms
it. That there are essential differences in the qualities of human actions, established
by nature, and that this natural difference of things, prior to and independent
of all will, creates a natural fitness in the agent to act agreeably
to it, seems as little to be denied, as that there. is the moral difference before
explained, from
Besides the general system of morality opened above, our Author
in his volume of Sermons has stated with accuracy the difference between self-love
and benevolence;
II. The religious system of Bishop Butler is chiefly to be collected from the treatise, entitled, “The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature.”
“All things are double one against another, and God hath made
nothing imperfect.“.“
This way of arguing from what is acknowledged to what is disputed,
from things known to other things that resemble them, from that part of the divine
establishment which is exposed to our view to that more important one which lies
beyond it, is on all hands confessed to be just. By this method Sir Isaac Newton
has unfolded the system of nature; by the same method Bishop Butler has explained
the system of grace; and thus, An use the words of a writer, whom I quote with pleasure,
“has formed and concluded a happy alliance between faith and philosophy.”
And although the argument from analogy be allowed to be imperfect,
and by no means sufficient to solve all difficulties respecting the government of
God, and the designs of his Providence with regard to mankind (a
After this account of the method of reasoning employed by our Author, let us now advert to his manner of applying it, first to the subject of Natural Religion, and secondly to that of Revealed.
1. The foundation of all our hopes and fears is a future life;
and with this the treatise begins. Neither the reason of the thing, nor the analogy
of nature, according to Bishop Butler, give ground for imagining, that the unknown
event, death, will be our destruction. The states in which we have formerly existed,
in the womb and in infancy, are not more different from each other than from that
of mature age in which we now exist: therefore, that we shall continue to exist
hereafter, in a state as different from the present as the present is from those
through which we have passed already, is a presumption favoured by the analogy of
nature. All that we know from reason concerning death, is the effects it has upon
animal bodies: and the frequent instances among men of the intellectual powers continuing
in high health and vigour, at the very time when a mortal disease is on the point
of putting an end to all the powers of sensation, induce us to hope that it may
have no effect at all on the human soul, not even so much as to suspend the exercise
of its faculties; though, if it have, the suspension of a power by no means implies
its extinction, as sleep or a swoon may convince us.
The probability of a future state once granted, an important
This supposition is confirmed from another circumstance, that
the natural government of God, under which we now live, is also moral; in which
rewards and punishments are the consequences of actions, considered as virtuous
and vicious. Not that every man is rewarded or punished here in exact proportion
to his desert; for the essential tendencies of virtue and vice, to produce happiness
and the contrary, are often hindered from taking effect from accidental causes.
However, there are plainly the rudiments and beginnings of a righteous administration
to be discerned in the constitution of nature: from whence we are led to expect,
that these accidental hindrances will one day be removed, and the rule of distributive
justice obtain completely in a more perfect state.
The moral government of God, thus established, implies in the
notion of it some sort of trial, or a moral possibility of acting wrong as well
as right, in those who are the subjects of it. And the doctrine of religion, that
the present life is in fact a state of probation for a future one, is rendered credible,
from its being analogous throughout to the general conduct of Providence towards
us with respect to this world; in which prudence is necessary to secure our temporal
interest, just as we are taught that virtue is necessary to secure our eternal interest;
and both are trusted to ourselves.
But the present life is not merely a state of probation, implying
in it difficulties and danger; it is also a state of discipline and improvement;
and that both in our temporal
Nor is the credibility here given, by the analogy of nature, to
the general doctrine of religion, destroyed or weakened by any notions concerning
necessity. Of itself it is a mere word, the sign of an abstract idea; and as much
requires an agent, that is, a necessary agent, in order to effect any thing, as
freedom requires a free agent. Admitting it to be speculatively true, if considered
as influencing practice, it is the same as false: for it is matter of experience,
that, with regard to our present interest, and as inhabitants of this world, we
are treated as if we were free; and therefore the analogy of nature leads us to
conclude, that, with regard to our future interest, and as designed for another
world, we shall be treated as free also. Nor does the opinion of necessity, supposing
it possible, at all affect either the general proof of religion, or its external
evidence.
Still objections may be made against the wisdom and goodness of
the divine government, to which analogy, which can only show the truth or credibility
of facts,
2. The chief difficulties concerning Natural Religion being now removed, our Author proceeds, in the next place, to that which is Revealed; and as an Introduction to an inquiry into the Credibility of Christianity, begins with the consideration of its Importance.
The importance of Christianity appears in two respects. First,
in its being a republication of Natural Religion, in its native simplicity, with
authority, and with circumstances of advantage; ascertaining in many instances of
moment, what before was only probable, and particularly confirming the doctrine
of a future state of rewards and punishments.
The presumptions against Revelation in general are, that it is
not discoverable by reason, that it is unlike to what is so discovered, and that
it was introduced and supported by miracles. But in a scheme so large as
The presumption against Revelation in general being dispatched,
objections against the Christian Revelation in particular, against the scheme of
it, as distinguished from objections against its evidence, are considered next.
Now supposing a revelation to be really given, it is highly probable beforehand,
that it must contain many things appearing to us liable to objections. The acknowledged
dispensation of nature is very different from what we should have expected: reasoning
then from analogy, the revealed dispensation, it is credible, would be also different.
Nor are we in any sort judges at what time, or in what degree, or manner, it is
fit or expedient for God to instruct us, in things confessedly of the greatest use,
either by natural reason, or by supernatural information. Thus, arguing on speculation
only, and without experience, it would seem very unlikely that so important a remedy
as that provided by Christianity, for the recovery of mankind from ruin, should
have been for so many ages withheld; and, when at last vouchsafed, should be imparted
to so few; and, after it has been imparted, should be attended with obscurity and
doubt. And just so we might have argued, before experience, concerning the remedies
provided in nature for bodily diseases, to which by nature we are exposed: for many
of these were unknown to mankind for a number of ages;
As to objections against the wisdom and goodness of Christianity, the same answer may be applied to them as was to the like objections against the constitution of nature. For here also, Christianity is a scheme or economy, composed of various parts, forming a whole; in which scheme means are used for the accomplishing of ends; and which is conducted by general laws, of all of which we know as little as we do of the constitution of nature. And the seeming want of wisdom or goodness in this system is to be ascribed to the same cause, as the like appearances of defects in the natural system; our inability to discern the whole scheme, and our ignorance of the relation of those parts which are discernible to others beyond our view.
The objections against Christianity as a matter of fact, and against
the wisdom and goodness of it, having been obviated together, the chief of them
are now to be considered distinctly. One of these, which is levelled against the
entire system itself, is of this sort: the restoration of mankind, represented in
Scripture as the great design of the Gospel, is described as requiring a long series
of means, and persons, and dispensations, before it can be brought to its completion;
whereas the whole ought to have been effected at once. Now every thing we see in
the course of nature shows the folly of this objection. For in the natural course
of Providence, ends are brought about by means, not operating immediately and at
once, but deliberately, and in a way of progression; one thing being subservient
to another, this to somewhat further. The change of seasons, the ripening
Another circumstance objected to in the Christian scheme is the
appointment of a Mediator, and the saving of the world through him. But the visible
government of God being actually administered in this way, or by the mediation and
instrumentality of others, there can be no general presumption against an appointment
of this kind, against his invisible government being exercised in the same manner.
We have seen already, that with regard to ourselves this visible government is carried
on by rewards and punishments; for happiness and misery are the consequences of
our own actions, considered as virtuous and vicious; and these consequences we are
enabled to foresee. It might have been imagined, before consulting experience, that
after we had rendered ourselves liable to misery by our own ill conduct, sorrow
for what was past, and behaving well for the future, would, alone and of themselves,
have exempted us from deserved punishment, and restored us to the divine favour.
But the fact is otherwise; and real reformation is often found to be of no avail,
so as to secure the criminal from poverty, sickness, infamy, and death, the never-failing
attendants on vice and extravagance, exceeding a certain degree. By the course of
nature then it appears, God does not always pardon a sinner on his repentance. Yet
there is provision made, even in nature, that the miseries, which men bring on themselves
by unlawful indulgences, may in many cases be mitigated, and in some removed; partly
by extraordinary exertions of the offender himself, but more especially and frequently
by the intervention of others, who voluntarily, and from motives of compassion,
submit to labour and sorrow, such as produce long and lasting inconveniences to
themselves, as the means of rescuing another from the wretched effects of former
imprudences.
Again, it hath been said, that if the Christian revelation were
true, it must have been universal, and could. not have been left upon doubtful evidence.
But God, in his natural providence, dispenses his gifts in great variety, not only
among creatures of the same species, itut to the same individuals also at different
times. Had the Christian revelation been universal at first, yet, from the diversity
of men’s abilities, both of mind and body, their various means of improvement, and
other external advantages, some persons must soon have been in a situation, with
respect to religious knowledge, much superior to that of others, as much perhaps
as they are at present: and all men will be equitably dealt with at last; and to
whom little is given, of him little will be required. Then as to the evidence for
religion being left doubtful, difficulties of this sort, like difficulties in practice,
afford scope and opportunity for a virtuous exercise of the understanding, and dispose
the mind to acquiesce and rest satisfied with any evidence that is real. In the
daily commerce of life, men are obliged to act upon great un certainties, with regard
to success in their temporal pursuits: and the case with regard to religion is parallel.
However, though religion be not intuitively true, the proofs of it which we have
are amply sufficient in reason to induce us to embrace it; and dissatisfaction with
those proofs may possibly be men’s own fault.
Nothing remains but to attend to the positive evidence there is
for the truth of Christianity. Now, besides its direct and fundamental proofs, which
are miracles and prophecies, there are many collateral circumstances, which may
be united into one view, and all together may be considered as making up one argument.
In this way oi treating the subject, the revelation, whether real or otherwise,
may be supposed to be wholly historical: the design of which appears to be, to give
an account of the condition of religion, and its professors, with a concise narration
of the political state of things, as far as religion is affected by it, during a
great length of time, near six
The view here given of the moral and religious systems
DR JOSEPH BUTLER, a Prelate of the most distinguished character
and abilities, was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in the year 1692. His father,
Mr Thomas Butler, who was a substantial and reputable shopkeeper in that town, observing
in his son Joseph
Dr Butler being thus brought back into the world, his merit and
his talents soon introduced him to particular notice, and paved the way for his
rising to those high dignities which he afterwards enjoyed. In 1736 he was appointed
Clerk of the Closet to Queen Caroline; and, in the same year, he presented to her
Majesty a copy of his excellent Treatise, entitled, “The Analogy of Religion, Natural
and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature.” His attendance upon his
Royal Mistress, by her especial command, was from seven to nine in the evening every
day: and though this particular relation to that excellent and learned Queen was
soon determined by her death, in 1737, yet he had been so effectually recommended
by her, as well as by the late Lord Chancellor Talbot, to his Majesty’s favour,
that in the next year he was raised to the highest order of the Church, by a nomination
to the bishopric of Bristol; to which see he was consecrated on the 3d of December
1738. King George II. not being satisfied with this proof of his regard to Dr Butler,
promoted him, in 1740, to the Deanery of St Paul’s, London, into which he was installed
on the 24th of May in that year. Finding the demands of this dignity to be incompatible
with his parish
By this promotion, our worthy Bishop was furnished
On the greatness of Bishop Butler’s character we need not enlarge;
for his profound knowledge, and the prodigious strength of his mind, are amply displayed
in his incomparable writings. His piety was of the most serious and fervent, and,
perhaps, somewhat of the ascetic kind. His benevolence was warm, generous, and diffusive.
Whilst he was Bishop of Bristol, he expended, in repairing and improving the episcopal
palace, four thousand pounds, which is said to have been more than the whole revenues
of the bishopric amounted to, during his continuance in that see. Besides his private
benefactions, he was a contributor to the infirmary at Bristol, and a subscriber
to three of the hospitals at London. He was likewise a principal promoter, though
not the first founder, of the infirmary at Newcastle, in Northumberland. In supporting
the hospitality and dignity of the rich and powerful diocese of Durham, he was desirous
of imitating the spirit of his patron, Bishop Talbot. In this spirit he set apart
three days every week for the reception and entertainment of the principal gentry
of the country. Nor were even the Clergy who had the poorest benefices neglected
by him. He not only occasionally invited them to dine with him, but condescended
to visit them at their respective parishes. By his will he left five hundred
THE following Epitaph, said to be written by Dr Nathanael Forster, is inscribed on a flat marble stone, in the cathedral church of Bristol, placed over the spot where the remains of Bishop Butler are deposited; and which, as it is now almost obliterated, it may be worth while here to preserve.
H. S.
Reverendus admodum in Christo Pater
JOSEPHUS BUTLER, LL.D.
Hujusce primo Diœceseos
Deinde Dunelmensis Episcopus.
Qualis quantusque Vir erat
Sua libentissime agnovit ætas:
Et si quid Præsuli aut Scriptori ad famam valant
Mens altissima,
Ingenii perspicacis et subacti Vis,
animusque pius, simplex, candidus, liberalis,
Mortui haud facile evanescet memoria.
Obiit Bathoniæ 16 Kalend. Julii,
A. D. 1752.
Annos natus 60.
PROBABLE evidence is essentially distinguished from demonstrative by this, that it admits of degrees; and of all variety of them, from the highest moral certainty, to the very lowest presumption. We cannot indeed say a thing is probably true upon one very slight presumption for it; because, as there may be probabilities on both sides of a question, there may be some against it; and though there be not, yet a slight presumption does not beget that degree of conviction, which is implied in saying a thing is probably true. But that the slightest possible presumption is of the nature of a probability, appears from hence; that such low presumption often repeated, will amount even to moral certainty. Thus a man’s having observed the ebb and flow of the tide to-day, affords some sort of presumption, though the lowest imaginable, that it may happen again to-morrow: but the observation of this event for so many days, and months, and ages together, as it has been observed by mankind, gives us a full assurance that it will.
That which chiefly constitutes Probability is expressed in the
word Likely, i. e. like some truth,
Probable evidence, in its very nature, affords but an imperfect kind of information; and is to be considered as relative only to beings of limited capacities. For nothing which is the possible object of knowledge, whether past, present, or future, can be probable to an infinite Intelligence; since it cannot but be discerned absolutely as it is in itself, certainly true, or certainly false. But to us, probability is the very guide of life.
From these things it follows, that in questions of difficulty,
or such as are thought so, where more satisfactory evidence cannot be had, or is
not seen; if the result of examination be, that there appears upon the whole, any
the lowest presumption on one side, and none on the other, ox a greater presumption
on one side, though in the lowest degree greater; this determines the question,
even in matters of speculation; and in matters of practice, will lay us under an
absolute and formal obligation, in point of prudence and of interest, to act upon
that presumption or low probability, though it be so low
It is not my design to inquire further into the nature, the foundation,
and measure of probability; or whence it proceeds that likeness should beget
that presumption, opinion, and full conviction, which the human mind is formed to
receive from it, and which it does necessarily produce in every one; or to guard
against the errors, to which reasoning from analogy is liable. This belongs to the
subject of Logic; and is a part of that subject which has not yet been thoroughly
considered. Indeed I shall not take upon me to say, how far the extent, compass,
and force, of analogical reasoning, can be reduced to general heads and rules; and
the whole be formed into a system. But though so little in this way has been attempted
by those who have treated of our intellectual powers, and the exercise of them;
this does not hinder but that we may be, as we unquestionably are, assured, that
analogy is of weight, in various degrees, towards determining our judgment and our
practice. Nor does it in any wise cease to be of weight in those cases, because
persons, either giver to dispute, or who require things to be stated with greater
exactness than our faculties appear to admit of in practical matters, may find other
cases in. which it is not easy to say, whether it be, or be
Hence, namely from analogical reasoning, Origen
Forming our notions of the constitution and government of the
world upon reasoning, without foundation for the principles which we assume, whether
from the attributes of God, or any thing else, is building a world upon hypothesis,
like Des Cartes. Forming our notions upon reasoning from principles which are certain,
but applied to cases to which we have no ground to apply them (like those who explain
the structure of the human body, and the nature of diseases and medicines from mere
mathematics without sufficient data,) is an error much akin to the former:
since what is assumed in order to make the
This method then of concluding and determining being practical, and what, if we will act at all, we cannot but act upon in the common pursuits of life; being evidently conclusive, in various degrees, proportionable to the degree and exactness of the whole analogy or likeness; and having so great authority for its introduction into the subject of religion, even revealed religion; my design is to apply it to that subject in general, both natural and revealed: taking for proved, that there is an intelligent Author of Nature, and natural Governor of the world. For as there is no presumption against this prior to the proof of it: so it has been often proved with accumulated evidence; from this argument of analogy and final causes; from abstract reasonings; from the most ancient tradition and testimony; and from the general consent of mankind. Nor does it appear, so far as I can find, to be denied by the generality of those who profess themselves dissatisfied with the evidence of religion.
As there are some, who, instead of thus attending to what is in
fact the constitution of Nature, form their notions of God’s government upon hypothesis:
so there are others, who indulge themselves in vain and idle speculations, how the
world might possibly have been framed otherwise than it is; and upon supposition
that things might, in imagining that they should, have been disposed and carried
on after a better model, than what appears in the present disposition and conduct
of them. Suppose now a person of such a turn of mind, to go on with his reveries,
till he had at length fixed upon some particular plan of Nature, as appearing to
him the best—One shall scarce be thought guilty of detraction against human understanding,
if one should say, even beforehand,
Now, without considering what is to be said in particular to the
several parts of this train of folly and extravagance; what has been above intimated,
is a full direct general answer to it, namely, that we may see beforehand that we
have not faculties for this kind of speculation. For though it be admitted that,
from the first principles of our nature, we unavoidably judge or determine some
ends to be absolutely in themselves preferable to others, and that the ends now
mentioned, or if they run up
Let us then, instead of that idle and not very innocent employment
of forming imaginary models of a world, and schemes of governing it, turn our thoughts
to what we experience to be the conduct of Nature with respect to intelligent creatures;
which may be resolved into general laws or rules of administration, in the same
way as many of the laws of Nature respecting inanimate matter may be collected from
experiments. And let us compare the known constitution and course of things with
what is said to be the moral system of Nature; the acknowledged dispensations of
Providence, or that government which we find ourselves under, with what religion
teaches us to believe and expect; and see whether they are not analogous and of
a piece. And upon such
The analogy here proposed to be considered is of pretty large extent, and consists of several parts; in some more, in others less exact. In some few instances perhaps it may amount to a real practical proof; in others not so. Yet in these it is a confirmation of what is proved otherwise. It will undeniably show, what too many want to have shown them, that the system of Religion, both natural and revealed, considered only as a system, and prior to the proof of it, is not a subject of ridicule, unless that of Nature be so too. And it will afford an answer to almost all objections against the system both of natural and revealed Religion; though not perhaps an answer in so great a degree, yet in a very considerable degree an answer to the objections against the evidence of it: for objections against a proof, and objections against what is said to be proved, the reader will observe are different things.
Now the divine government of the world, implied in the notion
of religion in general and of Christianity, contains in it; that mankind is appointed
to live in a future state;
STRANGE difficulties have been raised by some concerning personal identity, or the sameness of living agents, implied in the notion of our existing now and hereafter, or in any two successive moments; which whoever thinks it worth while, may see considered in the first Dissertation at the end of this Treatise. But without regard to any of them here, let us consider what the analogy of nature, and the several changes which we have undergone, and those which we know we may undergo without being destroyed, suggest, as to the effect which death may, or may not, have upon us; and whether it be not from thence probable, that we may survive this change, and exist in a future state of life and perception.
I. From our being born into the present world in the helpless
imperfect state of infancy, and having arrived from thence to mature age, we find
it to be a general law of nature in our own species, that the same creatures, the
same individuals, should exist in degrees of life and perception, with capacities
of action, of enjoyment and suffering, in one period of their being, greatly different
from those appointed them in another period of it. And in other creatures the same
law holds. For the difference of their capacities and states of life at their birth
(to go no higher) and in maturity; the change of worms into flies, and the vast
enlargement of their locomotive powers by such
II. We know we are endued with capacities of action, of happiness
and misery: for we are conscious of acting, of enjoying pleasure and suffering pain.
Now that we have these powers and capacities before death, is a presumption that
we shall retain them through and after death; indeed a probability of it abundantly
sufficient to act upon, unless there be some positive reason to think that death
is the destruction of those living powers: because there is in every case a probability,
that all things will continue as we experience they are, in all respects, except
those in which we have some reason to think they will be altered. This is that
kind
Now, though I think it must be acknowledged, that prior to the natural and moral proofs of a future life commonly insisted upon, there would arise a general confused suspicion, that in the great shock and alteration which we shall undergo by death, we, i. e. our living powers, might be wholly destroyed; yet even prior to those proofs, there is really no particular distinct ground or reason for this apprehension at all, so far as I can find. If there be, it must arise either from the reason of the thing, or from the analogy of nature.
But we cannot argue from the reason of the thing, that
death is the destruction of living agents, because we know not at all what death
is in itself; but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin,
and bones. And these effects do in. no wise appear to imply the destruction of a
living agent. And besides, as we are greatly in the dark, upon what the exercise
of our living powers depends, so we are wholly ignorant what the powers themselves
depend upon; the powers themselves as distinguished, not only from their actual
exercise, but also from the present capacity of exercising them; and as opposed
to their destruction: for sleep, or however a swoon, shows us, not only that these
powers exist when they are not exercised, as the passive power of motion does in
inanimate matter; but shows
And our knowing, that they were possessed of these powers, up to the very period to which we have faculties capable of tracing them, is itself a probability of their retaining them beyond it. And this is confirmed, and a sensible credibility is given to it, by observing the very great and astonishing changes which we have experienced; so great, that our existence in another state of life, of perception and of action, will be but according to a method of providential conduct, the like to which has been already exercised even with regard to ourselves; according to a course of nature, the like to which we have already gone through.
However, as one cannot but be greatly sensible, how difficult
it is to silence imagination enough to make the voice of reason even distinctly
heard in this case; as we are accustomed, from our youth up, to indulge that forward,
I. All presumption of death’s being the destruction of living
beings, must go upon supposition that they are compounded; and so, discerptible.
But since consciousness is a single and indivisible power, it should seem that the
subject in which it resides must be so too. For were the motion of any particle
of matter absolutely one and indivisible, so as that it should imply a contradiction
to suppose part of this motion to exist, and part not to exist, i. e. part
of this matter to move, and part to be at rest; then its power of motion would be
indivisible; and so also would the subject in which the power inheres, namely, the
particle of matter: for if this could be divided into two, one part might be moved
and the other at rest, which is contrary to the supposition. In like manner it has
been argued,
II. The simplicity and absolute oneness of a living agent cannot
indeed, from the nature of the thing, be properly proved by experimental observations.
But as these fall in with the supposition of its unity, so they plainly lead
us to conclude certainly, that our gross organized bodies, with which we
perceive the objects of sense, and with which we act, are no part of ourselves;
and therefore show us, that we have no reason to believe their destruction to be
ours: even without determining whether our living substances be material or immaterial.
For we see by experience, that men may lose their limbs, their organs of sense,
and even the greatest part of these bodies, and yet remain the same living agents.
And persons can trace up the existence of themselves to a time, when the bulk of
their bodies was extremely small, in comparison of what it is in mature age: and
we cannot but think, that they might then have lost a considerable part of that
small body, and yet have remained the same living agents; as they may now lose great
part of their present body, and remain so. And it is certain, that the bodies of
all animals are in a constant flux, from that never-ceasing attrition, which there
is in every part of them. Now things of this kind unavoidably teach us to distinguish,
between these living
First, That we have no way of determining by experience, what is the certain bulk of the living being each man calls himself: and yet, till it be determined that it is larger in bulk than the solid elementary particles of matter, which there is no ground to think any natural power can dissolve, there is no sort of reason to think death to be the dissolution of it, of the living being, even though it should not be absolutely indiscerptible.
Secondly, From our being so nearly related to and interested
in certain systems of matter, suppose our flesh and bones, and afterwards ceasing
to be at all related to them, the living agents ourselves remaining all this while
undestroyed notwithstanding such alienation; and consequently these systems of matter
not being ourselves: it follows further, that we have no ground to conclude any
other, suppose internal systems of matter, to be the living agents ourselves;
because we can have no ground to conclude this, but from our relation to and interest
in such other systems of matter: and therefore we can have no reason to conclude,
what befalls those systems of matter at death, to be the destruction of the living
agents. We have already several times over lost a great part or perhaps the whole
of our body, according to certain common established laws of nature; yet we remain
the same living agents: when we shall lose as great a part, or the whole, by another
common established law of nature, death; why may we not also remain the same? That
the alienation has been gradual in one case, and in the other will be more at once,
does not prove any thing to the contrary. We have passed undestroyed through those
many and great revolutions of matter, so peculiarly appropriated to us ourselves;
why should we imagine death will be so
Thirdly, If we consider our body somewhat more distinctly,
as made up of organs and instruments of perception and of motion, it will bring
us to the same conclusion, Thus the common optical experiments show, and even the
observation how sight is assisted by glasses shows, that we see with our eyes in
the same sense as we see with glasses. Nor is there any reason to believe, that
we see with them in any other sense; any other, I mean, which would lead us to think
the eye itself a percipient. The like is to be said of hearing and our feeling distant
solid matter by means of somewhat in our hand seems an instance of the like kind.
as to the subject we are considering. All these are instances of foreign matter,
or such as is no part of our body, being instrumental in preparing objects for,
and conveying them to, the perceiving power, in a manner similar or like to the
manner in which our organs of sense prepare and convey them. Both are in a like
way instruments of our receiving such ideas from external objects, as the Author
of nature appointed those
So also with regard to our power of moving, or directing motion
by will and choice; upon the destruction of a limb, this active power remains, as
it evidently seems, unlessened; so as that the living being, who has suffered this
loss, would be capable of moving as before, if it had another limb to move with.
It can walk by the help of an artificial leg; just as it can make use of a pole
or a lever, to reach towards itself and to move things, beyond the length and the
power of its natural arm; and this last it does in the same manner as it reaches
and moves, with its natural arm, things nearer and of less weight. Nor is there
so much as any appearance of our limbs being endued with a power of moving or directing
themselves; though they are adapted; like the several parts; of a machine, to be
the instruments
Thus a man determines, that he will look at such an object through a microscope; or being lame suppose, that he will walk to such a place with a staff a week hence. His eyes and his feet no more determine in these cases, than the microscope and the staff. Nor is there any ground to think they any more put the determination in practice; or that his eyes are the seers or his feet the movers, in any other sense than as the microscope and the staff are. Upon the whole then, our organs of sense and our limbs are certainly instruments, which the living persons ourselves make use of to perceive and move with: there is not any probability, that they are any more; nor consequently, that we have any other kind of relation to them, than what we have to any other foreign matter formed into instruments of perception and motion, suppose into a microscope or a staff (I say any other kind of relation, for I am not speaking of the degree of it); nor consequently is there any probability, that the alienation or dissolution of these instruments is the destruction of the perceiving and moving agent.
And thus our finding, that the dissolution of matter, in which living beings were most nearly interested, is not their dissolution; and that the destruction of several of the organs and instruments of perception and of motion belonging to them, is not their destruction; shows demonstratively, that there is no ground to think that the dissolution of any other matter, or destruction of any other organs and instruments, will be the dissolution or destruction of living agents, from the like kind of relation. And we have no reason to think we stand in any other kind of relation to any thing which we find dissolved by death.
But it is said these observations are equally applicable to brutes:
and it is thought an insuperable difficulty, that they should be immortal, and by
consequence capable of everlasting happiness. Now this manner of expression is both
invidious and weak: but the thing intended by
III. That as it is evident our present powers and capacities
of reason, memory, and affection, do not depend upon our gross body in the mariner
in which perception by our organs of sense does; so they do not appear to depend
upon it at all in any such manner, as to give
Human creatures exist at present in two states of life and perception,
greatly different from each other; each of which has its own peculiar laws and its
own peculiar enjoyments and sufferings. When any of our senses are affected or appetites
gratified with the objects of them, we may be said to exist or live in a state of
sensation. When none of our senses are affected or appetites gratified, and yet
we perceive, and reason, and act; we may be said to exist or live in a state of
reflection. Now it is by no means certain, that any thing which is dissolved by
death, is any way necessary to the living being in this its state of reflection,
after ideas are gained. For, though, from our present constitution and condition
of being, our external organs of sense are necessary for conveying in ideas to our
reflecting powers, as carriages, and levers, and scaffolds are in architecture:
yet when these ideas are brought in, we are capable of reflecting in the most intense
degree, and of enjoying the greatest pleasure, and feeling the greatest pain, by
means of that reflection, without any assistance from our senses; and without any
at all, which we know of, from that body. which will be dissolved by death. It does
not appear then, that the relation of this gross body to the reflecting being is,
in any degree, necessary to thinking; to our intellectual enjoyments or sufferings:
nor, consequently, that the dissolution or alienation of the former by death, will
be the destruction of those present powers, which render us capable of this state
of reflection. Further, there are instances of mortal diseases, which do not at
all affect our present intellectual powers; and this affords a presumption, that
those diseases will not destroy these present powers. Indeed, from the observations
made above,
It is obvious that this general observation may be carried on
further: and there appears so little connexion between our bodily powers of sensation,
and our present powers of reflection, that there is no reason to conclude, that
death, which destroys the former, does so much as suspend, the exercise of the latter,
or interrupt our continuing to exist in the like state of reflection which we do
now For suspension of reason, memory, and
Nay, for ought we know of ourselves, of our present life and of
death; death may immediately, in the natural course of things, put us into a higher
and more enlarged state of life, as our birth does;
These observations together may be sufficient to show, how little presumption there is, that death is the destruction of human creatures. However, there is the shadow of an analogy, which may lead us to imagine it is the supposed likeness which is observed between the decay of vegetables, and of living creatures. And this likeness is indeed sufficient to afford the poets very apt allusions to the flowers of the field, in their pictures of the frailty of our present life. But in reason, the analogy is so far from holding, that there appears no ground even for the comparison, as to the present question; because one of the two subjects compared is wholly void of that, which is the principal and chief thing in the other, the power of perception and of action; and which is the only thing we are inquiring about the continuance of. So that the destruction of a vegetable, is an event not similar or analogous to the destruction of a living agent.
But if, as was above intimated, leaving off the delusive custom of substituting imagination in the room of experience, we would confine ourselves to what we do know and understand; if we would argue only from that, and from that form our expectations; it would appear at first sight, that as no probability of living beings ever ceasing to be so, can be concluded from the reason of the thing; so none can be collected from the analogy of Nature; because we cannot trace any living beings beyond death. But as we are conscious that we are endued with capacities of perception and of action, and are living persons; what we are to go upon is, that we shall continue so, till we foresee some accident or event, which will endanger those capacities, or be likely to destroy us: which death does in no wise appear to be.
And thus, when we go out of this world, we may pass into new scenes,
and a new state of life and action, just as naturally as we came into the present.
And this
This credibility of a future life, which has been here insisted
upon, how little soever it may satisfy our curiosity,
THAT which makes the question concerning
a future fife to be of so great importance to us, is our capacity of happiness and
misery. And that which makes the consideration of it to be of so great importance
to us, is the supposition of our happiness and misery hereafter depending upon our
actions here. Without this indeed, curiosity could not but sometimes bring a subject,
in which we may be so highly interested, to our thoughts; especially upon the mortality
of others, or the near prospect of our own. But reasonable men would not take any
further thought about hereafter, than what should happen thus occasionally to rise
in their minds, if it were certain that our future interest no way depended upon
our present behaviour; whereas, on the contrary, if there be ground, either from
analogy or any thing else, to think it does; then there is reason also for the most
active thought and solicitude, to secure that interest; to behave so as that we
may escape that misery, land obtain that happiness, in another life, which we not
only suppose ourselves capable of, but which we apprehend also is
Now in the present state, all which we enjoy, and a great part of what we suffer, is put in our own power. For pleasure and pain are the consequences of our actions; and we are endued by the Author of our nature with capacities of foreseeing these consequences. We find by experience he does not so much as preserve our lives, exclusively of our own care and attention, to provide ourselves with, and to make use of, that sustenance, by which he has appointed our lives shall be preserved; and without which, he has appointed, they shall not be preserved at all. And in general we foresee, that the external things, which are the objects of our various passions, can neither be obtained nor enjoyed, without exerting ourselves in such and such manners: but by thus exerting ourselves, we obtain and enjoy these objects, in which our natural good consists; or by this means God gives us the possession and enjoyment of them. I know not, that we have any one kind or degree of enjoyment, hut by the means of our own actions. And by prudence and care, we may, for the most part, pass our days in tolerable ease and quiet: or, on the contrary, we may, by rashness, ungoverned passion, wilfulness, or even by negligence, make ourselves as miserable as ever we please. And many do please to make themselves extremely miserable, i. e. to do what they know beforehand will render them so. They follow those ways, the fruit of which they know, by instruction, example, experience, will be disgrace, and poverty, and sickness, and untimely death. This every one observes to be the general course of things; though it is to be allowed, we cannot find by experience, that all our sufferings are owing to our own follies.
Why the Author of Nature does riot give his creatures promiscuously
such and such perceptions, without regard to their behaviour; why he does not make
them happy without the instrumentality of their own actions,
“But all this is to be ascribed to the general course of nature.” True. This is the very thing which I am observing. It is to be ascribed to the general
course of nature: i. e. not surely to the words or ideas, course of nature;
but to him who appointed it, and put things into it: or to a course of operation,
from its uniformity or constancy, called natural;
“Is the pleasure then, naturally accompanying every particular gratification of passion, intended to put us upon gratifying ourselves in every such particular instance, and as a reward to us for so doing?” No certainly. Nor is it to be said, that our eyes were naturally intended to give us the sight of each particular object, to which they do or can extend; objects which are destructive of them, or which, for any other reason, it may become us to turn our eyes from. Yet there is no doubt, but that our eyes were intended for us to see with. So neither is there any doubt. but that the foreseen pleasures and pains belonging to the passions, were intended, in general, to induce mankind to act in such and such manners.
Now from this general observation, obvious to every one, that
God has given us to understand, he has appointed satisfaction and delight to be
the consequence of our acting in one manner, and pain and uneasiness of our acting
in another, and of our not acting at all; and that we find the consequences, which
we were beforehand informed of, uniformly to follow; we may learn, that we are at
present actually under his government in the strictest and most proper sense; in
such a sense, as that he rewards and punishes us for our actions An Author of nature
being supposed., it is not so much a deduction of reason, as a matter of experience,
that we are thus
Thus we find, that the true notion or conception of
And thus the whole analogy of Nature, the whole present course of things, most fully shows, that there is nothing incredible in the general doctrine of religion, that God will reward and punish men for their actions hereafter: nothing incredible, I mean, arising out of the notion of rewarding and punishing. For the whole course of nature is a present instance of his exercising that government over us, which implies in it rewarding and punishing.
But as divine punishment is what men chiefly object against, and are most unwilling to allow; it may be proper to mention some circumstances in the natural course of punishments at present, which are analogous to what religion teaches us concerning a future state of punishment; indeed so analogous, that as they add a further credibility to it, so they cannot but raise a most serious apprehension of it in those who will attend to them.
It has been now observed, that such and such miseries naturally
follow such and such actions of imprudence and wilfulness, as well as actions more
commonly and more distinctly considered as vicious; and that these consequences,
when they may be foreseen, are properly natural punishments annexed to such actions.
For the general thing here insisted upon, is, not that we see a great deal of misery
in the world, but a great deal which men bring upon themselves by their own behaviour,
which they might have foreseen and avoided. Now the circumstances of these natural
punishments, particularly deserving our attention, are such as these; That oftentimes
they follow, or are inflicted in consequence of, actions which procure many present
advantages, and are
These things are not what we call accidental, or to be met with
only now and then; but they are things of every day’s experience: they proceed from
general laws., very general ones, by which God governs the world, in the natural
course of his providence. And they are so analogous, to what Religion teaches us
concerning the future punishment of the wicked, so much of a piece with it, that
both would naturally be expressed in the very same words, and manner of description.
In the book of Proverbs,
Indeed when one has been recollecting the proper proofs of a future state of rewards and punishments, nothing methinks can give one so sensible an apprehension of the latter, or representation of it to the mind; as observing, that after the many disregarded checks, admonitions, and warnings, which people meet with in the ways of vice and folly and extravagance: warnings from their very nature; from the examples of others; from the lesser inconveniences which they bring upon themselves; from the instructions of wise and virtuous men: after these have been long despised, scorned, ridiculed: after the chief bad consequences, temporal consequences, of their follies, have been delayed for a great while; at length they break in irresistibly, like an armed force: repentance is too late to relieve, and can serve only to aggravate their distress, the case is become desperate: and poverty and sickness, remorse and anguish, infamy and death, the effects of their own doings, overwhelm them beyond possibility of remedy or escape. This is an account of what is in fact the general constitution of nature.
It is not in any sort meant, that, according to what appears at
present of the natural course of things, men are always uniformly punished in proportion
to their misbehaviour: but that there are very many instances of misbehaviour punished
in the several ways now mentioned, and very dreadful instances too; sufficient to
show what the laws of the universe may admit; and, if thoroughly considered, sufficient
fully to answer all objections against the credibility of a future state of punishments,
from any
Reflections of this kind are not without their terrors to serious persons, the most free from enthusiasm, and of the greatest strength of mind; but it is fit things be stated and considered as they really are. And there is, in the present age, a certain fearlessness, with regard to what may be hereafter under the government of God, which nothing but an universally acknowledged demonstration on the side of atheism can justify; and which makes it quite necessary, that men be reminded, and if possible made to feel, that there is no sort of ground for being thus presumptuous, even upon the most sceptical principles. For, may it not be said of any person upon his being born into the world, he may behave so, as to be of no service to it, but by being made an example of the woeful effects of vice and folly? That he may, as any one may, if he will, incur an infamous execution, from the hands of civil justice; or in some other course of extravagance shorten his days; or bring upon himself infamy and diseases worse than death? So that it had been better for him, even with regard to the present world, that he had never been born. And is there any pretence of reason, for people to think themselves secure, and talk as if they had certain proof, that, let them act as licentiously as they will, there can be nothing analogous to this, with regard to a future and more general interest, under the providence and government of the same God?
As the manifold appearances of design and of final causes, in
the constitution of the world, prove it to be the
But this alone does not appear at first sight to determine any thing certainly, concerning the moral character of the Author of Nature, considered in this relation of governor; does not ascertain his government to be moral, or prove that he is the righteous judge of the world. Moral government consists, not barely in rewarding and punishing men for their actions, which the most tyrannical person may do: but in rewarding the righteous, and punishing the wicked: in rendering to men according to their actions, considered as good or evil. And the perfection of moral government consists in doing this, with regard to all intelligent creatures, in an exact proportion to their personal merits or demerits.
Some men seem to think the only character of the Author of Nature
to be that of simple absolute benevolence. This, considered as a principle of action
and infinite in degree, is a disposition to produce the greatest possible happiness,
without regard to persons’ behavior, otherwise than as such regard would produce
higher degrees of it. And supposing this to be the only character of God, veracity
and justice in him would be nothing but benevolence conducted by wisdom. Now surely
this I ought not to be asserted, unless it can be proved; for we should speak with
cautious reverence upon such a subject And whether it can be proved or no, is not
the thing here to be inquired into; but whether in the constitution
But it is particularly to be observed, that the divine government,
which we experience ourselves under in the present state, taken alone, is allowed
not to be the perfection of moral government. And yet this by no means hinders,
but that there may be somewhat, be it more or less, truly moral in it. A righteous
government may plainly appear to be carried on to some degree: enough to give us
the apprehension that it shall be completed, or carried on to that degree of perfection
which religion teaches us it shall; but which cannot appear, till much more of the
divine administration be seen, than can in the present life. And the design of this
Chapter is to inquire how far this is the case: how far, over and above the moral
nature
Now one might mention here, what has been often urged with great
force, that, in general, less uneasiness and more satisfaction, are the natural
consequences
I. In whatever manner the notion of God’s moral government over
the world might be treated, if it did not appear, whether he were in a proper sense
our governor at all; yet when it is certain matter of experience, that he does manifest
himself to us under the character of a governor in the sense explained;
II. Ought it to be entirely passed over, that tranquillity,
III. From the natural course of things, vicious actions are, to a great degree, actually punished as mischievous to society; and besides punishment actually inflicted upon this account, there is also the fear and apprehension of it in those persons, whose crimes have rendered them obnoxious to it, in case of a discovery; this state of fear being itself often a very considerable punishment. The natural fear and apprehension of it too, which restrains from such crimes, is a declaration of nature against them. It is necessary to the very being of society, that vices, destructive of it. should be punished as being so; the vices of falsehoods injustice, cruelty: which punishment therefore is as natural as society; and so is an instance of a kind of moral government, naturally established, and actually taking place. And, since the certain natural course of things is the conduct of Providence or the government of God, though carried on by the instrumentality of men; the observation here made amounts to this, that mankind find themselves placed by him in such circumstances, as that they are unavoidably accountable for their behaviour, and are often punished, and sometimes rewarded under his government, in the view of their being mischievous, or eminently beneficial to society.
If it be objected that good actions and such as are beneficial
IV. In the natural course of things, virtue as such is
actually rewarded, and vice as such punished: which seems to afford an instance
or example, not only of government, but of moral government begun and established;
moral in the strictest sense; though not in that perfection of degree, which religion
teaches us to expect. In order to see this more clearly, we must distinguish between
actions themselves, and that quality ascribed to them, which we call virtuous or
vicious. The gratification itself of every natural passion, must be attended with
delight: and acquisitions of fortune, however made, are acquisitions of the means
or materials of enjoyment. An action then, by which any natural passion is gratified
or fortune acquired, procures delight or advantage; abstracted from all consideration
of the morality of such action. Consequently, the pleasure or advantage in this
case, is gained by the action itself, not by the morality, the virtuousness or viciousness
of it; though it be, perhaps, virtuous or vicious. Thus, to say such an action or
course of behaviour, procured such pleasure or advantage, or brought on such inconvenience
and pain, is quite a different thing from saying, that such good or bad effect was
owing to the virtue or vice of such action or behaviour. In one case, an action
abstracted from all moral consideration, produced its effect: in the other case,
And here, I think, ought to be mentioned, the fears of future
punishment, and peaceful hopes of a better life, in those who fully believe, or
have any serious apprehension of religion: because these hopes and fears are present
uneasiness and satisfaction to the mind; and cannot be got rid of by great part
of the world, even by men who have thought most thoroughly upon that subject of
religion.
In the next place comes in the consideration, that all honest
and good men are disposed to befriend honest good men as such, and to discountenance
the vicious as such, and do so in some degree; indeed in a considerable degree:
from which favour and discouragement cannot but arise considerable advantage and
inconvenience. And though the generality of the world have little regard to the
morality of their own actions, and may be supposed to have less to that of others,
when they themselves are not concerned; yet let any one be known to be a man of
virtue, some how or other he will be favoured and good offices will be done him,
from regard to his character, without remote views, occasionally, and in some low
degree, I think, by the generality of the world, as it happens to come in their
way. Public honours too and advantages are the natural consequences, are sometimes
at least the consequences in fact, of virtuous actions; of eminent justice, fidelity,
charity, love to our country, considered in the view of being virtuous. And sometimes
even death itself, often infamy and external inconveniences, are the public consequences
of vice as vice. For instance, the sense which mankind have of tyranny, injustice,
oppression, additional to the mere feeling or fear of misery, has doubtless been
instrumental in bringing about revolutions, which make a figure even in the history
of the world. For it is plain, men resent injuries as implying faultiness, and retaliate,
not merely under the notion of having received harm, but of having received wrong;
and they have this resentment in behalf of others, as well as of themselves. So
likewise even the generality are, in some degree, grateful and disposed to return
good offices, not merely because such a one has been the occasion of good to them,
but under the view, that such good offices implied kind intention and good desert
in the doer. To all this may be added two or three particular things, which many
persons will think frivolous; but to me nothing appears so, which at all comes in
towards determining a question of such importance,
Upon the whole then, besides the good and bad effects of virtue
and vice upon men’s own minds, the course of the world does, in some measure, turn
upon the approbation and disapprobation of them as such in others. The sense of
well and ill doing, the presages of conscience, the love of good characters and
dislike of bad ones, honour, shame, resentment, gratitude; all these, considered
in themselves, and in their effects, do afford manifest real instances of virtue
as such naturally favoured, and of vice as such discountenanced, more or less, in
the daily course of human life; in every age, in every relation, in every general
circumstance of it. That God has given us a moral nature,
If a more distinct inquiry be made, whence it arises, that virtue
as such is often rewarded, and vice as such is punished, and this rule never inverted:
it will be found to proceed, in part, immediately from the moral nature itself,
which God has given us; and also in part, from his having given us, together with
this nature, so great a power over each other’s happiness and misery. For, first,
it is certain, that peace and delight, in some degree and upon some occasions, is
the necessary and present effect of virtuous practice; an effect arising immediately
from that constitution of our nature. We are so made, that well-doing as such gives
us satisfaction, at least, in some instances; ill-doing as such, in none. And,
secondly, from our moral nature, joined with God’s having put our happiness
and misery in many respects in each other’s power, it cannot but be, that vice as
such, some kinds and instances of it at least, will be infamous, and men will be
disposed to punish it as in itself detestable; and the villain will by no means
be able always to avoid feeling that infamy, any more than he will be able to escape this
further punishment, which mankind will be disposed to inflict upon him, under the
notion of his deserving it. But there can be nothing on the side of vice, to answer
this; because there is nothing in the human mind contradictory, as the logicians
speak, to virtue. For virtue consists in a regard to what is right and reasonable,
as being so; in a regard to veracity, justice, charity, in themselves: and there
is surely no such thing, as a like natural regard to falsehood, injustice, cruelty.
If it be thought, that there are instances of an approbation of vice, as such, in
itself, and for its own sake (though it does not appear to me, that there is any
such thing at all; but supposing there be), it is evidently monstrous: as much so,
as the most acknowledged perversion of any passion whatever. Such instances of perversion
then being left out, as merely imaginary, or,
It is not pretended but that, in the natural course of things,
happiness and misery appear to be distributed by other rules, than only the personal
merit and demerit of characters. They may sometimes be distributed by way of mere
discipline. There may be the wisest and best reasons, why the world should be governed
by general laws, from whence such promiscuous distribution perhaps must follow;
and also why our happiness and misery should be put in each other’s power, in the
degree which they are. And these things, as in general they contribute to the rewarding
virtue and punishing vice, as such: so they often contribute also, not to the inversion
of this, which is impossible; but to the rendering persons prosperous, though wicked;
afflicted, though righteous; and, which is worse, to the rewarding some actions,
though vicious, and punishing other actions, though virtuous. But all this
cannot drown the voice of Nature in the conduct of Providence, plainly declaring
itself for virtue, by way of distinction from vice, and preference to it. For our
being so constituted as that virtue and vice are thus naturally favoured and discountenanced,
rewarded and punished, respectively as such, is an intuitive proof of the intent
of Nature, that it should be so; otherwise the constitution of our mind, from which
it thus immediately and directly proceeds, would be absurd. But it cannot be said,
because virtuous actions are sometimes punished, and vicious actions rewarded, that
Nature intended it. For, though this great disorder is brought about, as all
We have then a declaration, in some degree of present effect, from Him who is supreme in Nature, which side he is of, or what part he takes; a declaration for virtue, and against vice. So far therefore as a man is true to virtue, to veracity and justice, to equity and charity, and the right of the case, in whatever he is concerned; so far he is on the side of the divine administration, and co-operates with it: and from hence, to such a man, arises naturally a secret satisfaction and sense of security, and implicit hope of somewhat further. And,
V. This hope is confirmed by the necessary tendencies of virtue,
which, though not of present effect, yet are at present discernible in nature; and
so afford an instance of somewhat moral in the essential constitution of it. There
is, in the nature of things, a tendency in virtue and vice to produce the good and
bad effects now mentioned, in a greater degree than they do in fact produce them.
For instance; good and bad men would be much more rewarded and punished as such,
were it not, that justice is often artificially eluded, that characters are not
known, and many, who would thus favour virtue and discourage vice, are hindered
from doing so by accidental causes. These tendencies of virtue and vice are obvious
with regard to individuals. But it may require more particularly to be considered,
that power in a society, by being under the direction of virtue, naturally
increases, and has a necessary tendency to prevail over opposite power, not under
the direction of it; in like manner, as power, by being under the direction of reason,
increases, and has a tendency to prevail over brute force. There are several brute
creatures of equal, and several of superior strength, to that of men; and possibly
the sum of the whole strength of brutes may be greater than that of mankind; but
reason gives us the advantage and superiority over them; and thus man is the acknowledged
To obviate these difficulties, let us see more distinctly, how
the case stands with regard to reason; which is so readily acknowledged to have
this advantageous tendency. Suppose then two or three men, of the best and most
improved understanding, in a desolate open plain, attacked by ten times the number
of beasts of prey: would their reason secure them the victory in this unequal combat?
Power then, though joined with reason, and under its direction, cannot be expected
to prevail over opposite power, though merely brutal, unless the one bears some
proportion to the other. Again: put the imaginary case, that rational and irrational
creatures were of like external shape and manner: it is certain, before there were
opportunities for the first to distinguish each other, to separate from their adversaries,
and to form a union among themselves, they might be upon a level, or in several
respects upon great disadvantage; though united they might be vastly superior; since
union is of such efficacy, that ten men united, might be able to accomplish, what
ten thousand of the same natural strength and understanding wholly ununited, could
not. In this case then, brute force might more than maintain its ground against
reason, for want of union among the rational creatures. Or suppose a number of men
to land upon an island inhabited only by wild beasts; a number of men who, by the
regulations of civil government, the inventions of art, and the experience of some
years, could they be preserved so long, would be really sufficient to subdue the
wild beasts, and to preserve themselves in security from them: yet a conjuncture
of accidents might give such advantage to the irrational animals as that they might
at once overpower, and even extirpate, the whole species of rational ones. Length
of time then, proper scope and opportunities, for reason to exert itself, may be
absolutely necessary to its prevailing over
Now I say, virtue in a society has a like tendency to procure superiority and additional power: whether this power be considered as the means of security from opposite power, or of obtaining other advantages. And it has this tendency, by rendering public good, an object and end, to every member of the society; by putting every one upon consideration and diligence, recollection and self-government, both in order to see what is the most effectual method, and also in order to perform their proper part, for obtaining and preserving it; by uniting a society within itself, and so increasing its strength; and, which is particularly to be mentioned, uniting it by means of veracity and justice. For as these last are principal bonds of union, so benevolence or public spirit, undirected, unrestrained by them, is, nobody knows what.
And suppose the invisible world, and the invisible
But let us return to the earth our habitation; and we shall see
this happy tendency of virtue, by imagining an instance not so vast and remote:
by supposing a kingdom or society of men upon it, perfectly virtuous, for a succession
of many ages; to which, if you please, may be given a situation advantageous for
universal monarchy. In such a state, there would be no such thing as faction: but
men of the greatest capacity would of course, all along, have the chief direction
of affairs willingly yielded to them; and they would share it among themselves without
envy. Each of these would have the part assigned him, to which his genius was peculiarly
adapted: and others, who had not any distinguished genius, would be safe, and think
themselves very happy, by being under the protection and guidance of those who had.
Public determinations would really be the result of the united wisdom of the community:
and they would faithfully be executed, by the united strength of it. Some would
in a higher way contribute, but all would in some way contribute, to the public
prosperity: and in it, each would enjoy the fruits of his own virtue. And as injustice,
whether by fraud or force, would be unknown among themselves; so they would be sufficiently
secured from it in their neighbours. For cunning and false self-interest, confederacies
in injustice, ever slight, and accompanied with faction and intestine treachery;
these on one hand would be found mere childish folly and weakness, when set in opposition
against wisdom, public spirit, union inviolable, and fidelity on the other: allowing
both a sufficient length of years to try their force. Add the general influence,
which such a kingdom would have
Consider now the general system of religion; that the government
of the world is uniform, and one, and moral; that virtue and right shall finally
have the advantage, and prevail over fraud and lawless force, over the deceits as
well as the violence of wickedness, under the conduct of one supreme governor: and
from the observations above made, it will appear. that God has, by our reason, given
us to see a peculiar connexion in the several parts of this scheme, and a tendency
towards the completion of it,
But it may be objected, that notwithstanding all these natural effects and these natural tendencies of virtue; yet things may be now going on throughout the universe, and may go on hereafter, in the same mixed way as here at present upon earth: virtue sometimes prosperous, sometimes depressed; vice sometimes punished, sometimes successful. The answer to which is, that it is not the purpose of this chapter, nor of this treatise, properly to prove God’s perfect moral government over the world, or the truth of Religion; but to observe what there is in the constitution and course of nature, to confirm the proper proof of it, supposed to be known: and that the weight of the foregoing observations to this purpose may be thus distinctly proved. Pleasure and pain are indeed to a certain degree, say to a very high degree, distributed amongst us without any apparent regard to the merit or demerit of characters. And were there nothing else concerning this matter discernible in the constitution and course of nature; there would be no ground from the constitution and course of nature to hope or to fear, that men would be rewarded or punished hereafter according to their deserts: which, however, it is to be remarked, implies, that even then there would be no ground from appearances to think, that vice upon the whole would have the advantage, rather than that virtue would. And thus the proof of a future state of retribution would rest upon the usual known arguments for it: which are I think plainly unanswerable; and would be so, though there were no additional confirmation of them from the things above insisted on. But these things are a very strong confirmation of them. For,
First, They show that the Author of Nature is not indifferent
to virtue and vice. They amount to a declaration, from him, determinate and not
to be evaded,
Secondly, When, conformably to what Religion teaches us, God shall reward and punish virtue and vice as such, so as that every one shall, upon the whole, have his deserts; this distributive justice will not be a thing different in kind, but only in degree, from what we experience in his present government. It will be that in effect, toward which we now see a tendency. It will be no more than the completion of that moral government, the principles and beginning of which have been shown, beyond all dispute, discernible in the present constitution and course of nature. And from hence it follows,
Thirdly, That, as under the natural government of God, our experience of those kinds and degrees of happiness and misery, which we do experience at present, gives just ground to hope for, and to fear, higher degrees and other kinds of both in a future state, supposing a future state admitted: so under his moral government our experience, that virtue and vice are, in the manners above mentioned, actually rewarded and punished at present, in a certain degree, gives just ground to hope and to fear, that they may be rewarded and punished in a higher degree hereafter. It is acknowledged indeed that this alone is not sufficient ground to think, that they actually will be rewarded and punished in a higher degree, rather than in a lower: but then,
Lastly, There is sufficient ground to think so, from the
good and bad tendencies of virtue and vice. For these tendencies are essential,
and founded in the nature of things: whereas the hinderances to their becoming effect,
Upon the whole: there is a kind of moral government implied in
God’s natural government:
THE general doctrine of Religion, that
our present life is a state of probation for a future one, comprehends under it
several particular things, distinct from each other. But the first and most common
meaning of it seems to be, that our future interest is now depending, and depending
upon ourselves; that we have scope and opportunities here, for that good and bad
behaviour, which God will reward and punish hereafter; together with temptations
to one, as well as inducements of reason to the other. And this is, in a great measure,
the same with saying, that we are under the moral government of God, and to give
an account of our actions to him. For the notion of a future account and general
righteous judgment, implies some sort of temptations to what is wrong: otherwise
there would be no moral possibility of doing wrong, nor ground for judgment, or
discrimination. But there is this difference, that the word probation is
And as the moral government of God, which Religion teaches us,
implies, that we are in a state of trial with regard to a future world: so also
his natural government over us implies, that we are in a state of trial, in the
like sense, with regard to the present world. Natural government by rewards and
punishments, as much implies natural trial, as moral government does moral trial.
The natural government of God here meant
This will more distinctly appear to any one, who thinks it worth while, more distinctly, to consider, what it is which constitutes our trial in both capacities, and to observe, how mankind behave under it.
And that which constitutes this our trial, in both these capacities,
must be somewhat either in our external circumstances, or in our nature. For, on
the one hand, persons may be betrayed into wrong behaviour upon surprise, or overcome
upon any other very singular and extraordinary external occasions; who would, otherwise,
have preserved their character of prudence and of virtue: in which cases, every
one, in speaking of the wrong behaviour of these persons, would impute it to such
particular external circumstances. And on the other hand, men who have contracted
habits of vice and folly of any kind, or have some particular passions in excess,
will seek opportunities, and, as it were, go out of their way, to gratify themselves
in these respects, at the expense of their wisdom and their virtue; led to it, as
every one would say, not by external temptations, but by such habits and passions.
And the account of this last case is, that particular passions are no more coincident
with prudence, or that reasonable self-love, the end of which is our worldly interest,
than they are with the principle of virtue and religion; but often draw contrary
ways to one, as well as to the other: and so such particular passions are as much
temptations, to act imprudently with regard to our worldly interest, as to act viciously.
If, from consideration of this our like state of trial in both
capacities, we go on to observe farther, how mankind behave under it; we shall find
there are some, who have so little sense of it, that they scarce look beyond the
passing day: they are so taken up with present gratifications, as to have, in a
manner, no feeling of consequences, no regard to their future case or fortune in
this
Thus our difficulties and dangers, or our trials, in our temporal and our religious capacity, as they proceed from the same causes, and have the same effect upon men’s behaviour, are evidently analogous, and of the same kind.
It may be added, that as the difficulties and dangers of miscarrying
in our religious state of trial, are greatly increased, and one is ready to think,
in a manner wholly made, by the ill behaviour of others; by a wrong education,
wrong in a moral sense, sometimes positively vicious; by general bad example; by
the dishonest artifices which are got into business of all kinds; and, in very many
parts of the world, by religion’s being corrupted into superstitions, which indulge
men in their vices: so in like manner, the difficulties, of conducting ourselves
prudently in respect to our present interest, and our danger of being led aside
from pursuing it, are greatly increased, by a foolish education; and, after we come
to mature age, by the extravagance and carelessness of others, whom we have intercourse
with: and by mistaken notions, very generally prevalent, and taken up from common
opinion, concerning temporal happiness, and wherein it consists. And persons, by
their own negligence
We are an inferior part of the creation of God. There are natural
appearances of our being in a state of degradation.
But the thing here insisted upon is, that the state or trial,
which Religion teaches us we are in, is rendered credible, by its being throughout
uniform and of a piece with the general conduct of Providence towards us, in all
other respects within the compass of our knowledge.
These observations are an answer to the objections against the credibility of a state of trial, as implying temptations, and real danger of miscarrying with regard to our general interest, under the moral government of God: and they show, that, if we are at all to be considered in such a capacity, and as having such an interest; the general analogy of Providence must lead us to apprehend ourselves in danger of miscarrying, in different degrees, as to this interest, by our neglecting to act the proper part belonging to us in that capacity. For we have a present interest under the government of God, which we experience here upon earth. And this interest, as it is not forced upon us, so neither is it offered to our acceptance, but to our acquisition; in such sort, as that we are in danger of missing it, by means of temptations to neglect, or act contrary to it; and without attention and self-denial, must and do miss of it. It is then perfectly credible, that this may be our case, with respect to that chief and final good, which Religion proposes to us.
FROM the consideration of our being in
a probation-state, of so much difficulty and hazard, naturally arises the question,
how we came to be placed in it? But such a general inquiry as this would be found
involved in insuperable difficulties. For, though some of these difficulties would
be lessened by observing, that all wickedness is voluntary, as is implied in its
very notion; and that many of the miseries of life have apparent good,
Now the beginning of life, considered as an education for mature age in the present world, appears plainly, at first sight, analogous to this our trial for a future one: the former being in our temporal capacity, what the latter is in our religious capacity. But some observations common to both of them, and a more distinct consideration of each, will more distinctly show the extent and, force of the analogy between them; and the credibility, which arises from hence, as well as from the nature of the thing, that the present life was intended to be a state of discipline for a future one.
I. Every species of creatures is, we see, designed for a particular
way of life; to which, the nature, the capacities, temper, and qualifications of
each species, are as necessary, as their external circumstances. Both come
II. The constitution of human creatures, and indeed of all creatures
which come under our notice, is such, as that they are capable of naturally becoming
qualified for states of life, for which they were once wholly unqualified. In imagination
we may indeed conceive of creatures, as incapable of having any of their faculties
naturally enlarged, or as being unable naturally to acquire any new qualifications:
but the faculties of every species known to us are made for enlargement; for acquirements
of experience and habits. We find ourselves in particular endued with capacities,
not only of perceiving ideas, and of knowledge or perceiving truth, but also of
storing up our ideas and knowledge by memory. We are capable, not only of acting,
and of having different momentary impressions made upon us; but of getting a new
facility in any kind of action, and of settled alterations in our temper or character.
The power of the two last is
Thus, by accustoming ourselves to any course of action, we get an aptness to go on, a facility, readiness, and often pleasure, in it. The inclinations which rendered us averse to it grow weaker: the difficulties in it, not only the imaginary but the real ones, lessen: the reasons for it offer themselves of course to our thoughts upon all occasions: and the least glimpse of them is sufficient to make us go on, in a course of action, to which we have been accustomed. And practical principles appear to grow stronger, absolutely in themselves, by exercise: as well as relatively, with regard to contrary principles, which, by being accustomed to submit, do so habitually, and of course. And thus a new character, in several respects, may be formed; and many habitudes of life not given by nature, but which nature directs us to acquire.
III. Indeed we may be assured, that we should never have had these capacities of improving by experience, acquired knowledge, and habits, had they not been necessary, and intended to be made use of. And accordingly we find them so necessary, and so much intended. that without them we should be utterly incapable of that which was the end for which we were made, considered in our temporal capacity only: the employments and satisfactions of our mature state of life.
Nature does in nowise qualify us wholly, much less at once, for
this mature state of life. Even maturity of understanding, and bodily strength,
are not only arrived to gradually, but are also very much owing to the continued
exercise of our powers of body and mind from infancy. But if we suppose a person
brought into the world with both these in maturity, as far as this is conceivable;
he would plainly at first be as unqualified for the human life of mature age, as
an idiot. He would be in a manner distracted, with astonishment, and apprehension,
and curiosity, and suspense: nor can one guess, how long it would be, before he
would be familiarized to himself and the objects about him enough, even to set
But then, as nature has endued us with a power of supplying those
deficiencies, by acquired knowledge, experience, and habits: so likewise we are
placed in a condition, in infancy, childhood. and youth, fitted for it; fitted for
our acquiring those qualifications of all sorts, which we stand in need of in mature
age. Hence children, from their very birth, are daily growing acquainted with the
objects about them, with the scene in which they are placed, and to have a future
part; and learning somewhat or other, necessary to the performance of it. The subordinations,
to which they are accustomed in domestic life, teach them self-government in common
behaviour abroad, and prepare them for subjection and obedience to civil authority.
What passes before their eyes, and daily happens to them, gives them experience,
caution against treachery and deceit, together with numberless little rules of action
and conduct, which we could not live without; and which are learnt so insensibly
and so perfectly, as to be mistaken perhaps for instinct:
The former part of life, then, is to be considered as an important opportunity, which nature puts into our hands; and which, when lost is not to be recovered. And our being placed in a state of discipline throughout this life, for another world, is a providential disposition of things, exactly of the same kind, as our being placed in a state of discipline during childhood, for mature age. Our condition in both respects is uniform and of a-piece, and comprehended under one and the same general law of nature.
And if we were not able at all to discern, how or in what way
the present life could be our preparation for another; this would be no objection
against the credibility of its being so. For we do not discern, how food and sleep
contribute to the growth of the body; nor could have any thought that they would,
before we had experience. Nor do children at all think, on the one hand, that the
sports and exercises, to which they are so much
IV. Take in this consideration, and consequently, that the character of virtue and piety is a necessary qualification for the future state; and then we may distinctly see, how, and in what respects, the present life may be a preparation for it: since we want, and are capable of, improvement in that character, by moral and religious habits; and the present life is fit to be a state of discipline for such improvement: in like manner as we have already observed, how, and in what respects, infancy, childhood, and youth, are a necessary preparation, and a natural state of discipline, for mature age.
Nothing which we at present see would lead us to the thought of
a solitary unactive state hereafter: but, if we judge at all from the analogy of
nature, we must suppose, according to the Scripture account of it, that it will
be a community. And there is no shadow of any thing unreasonable in conceiving,
though there be no analogy for it, that this community will be, as the Scripture
represents it, under the more immediate, or, if such an expression may be used,
the more sensible government of God. Nor is our ignorance, what will be the employments
of this happy community, nor our consequent ignorance, what particular scope or
occasion there will be for the exercise of veracity, justice, and charity, amongst
the members of it with regard to each other; any proof, that there will be no sphere
of exercise for those virtues. Much less, if that were possible, is our ignorance
any proof, that there will be no occasion for that frame of
Now from what is above observed, concerning our natural power
of habits, it is easy to see, that we are capable of moral improvement by
discipline. And how greatly we want it, need not be proved to any one who
is acquainted with the great wickedness of mankind; or even with those imperfections,
which the best are conscious of. But it is not perhaps distinctly attended to by
every one, that the occasion which human creatures have for discipline, to improve
in them this character of virtue and piety, is to be traced up higher than to excess
in the passions, by indulgence and habits of vice. Mankind, and perhaps all finite
creatures, from the very constitution of their nature, before habits of virtue,
are deficient, and in danger of deviating from what is right; and therefore stand
in need of virtuous habits, for a security against this danger. For, together with
the general principle of moral understanding, we have in our inward frame various
affections towards particular external objects. These affections are naturally,
and of right, subject to the government of the moral principle, as to the occasions
upon which they may be gratified; as to the times, degrees, and manner, in which
the objects of them may be pursued: but then the principle of virtue can neither
excite them, nor prevent their being excited. On the contrary, they are naturally
felt, when the objects of them are present to the mind, not only before all consideration
whether they can be obtained by lawful means, but after it is found they cannot.
For the natural objects of affection continue so; the necessaries, conveniences,
and pleasures of life, remain naturally desirable; though they cannot be obtained
innocently: nay, though they cannot possibly be obtained at all. And when the objects
of any affection whatever cannot be obtained without unlawful means; but may be
obtained by them: such affection,
From these things we may observe, and it will further show this
our natural and original need of being improved by discipline, how it comes to pass,
that creatures made upright fall; and that those who preserve their uprightness,
by so doing, raise themselves to a more secure state of virtue. To say that the
former is accounted for by the nature of liberty, is to say no more, than that an
event’s actually happening is accounted for by a mere possibility of its happening.
But it seems distinctly conceivable from the very nature of particular affections
or propensions. For, suppose creatures intended for such a particular state of life,
for which such propensions were necessary: suppose them endued with such propensions,
together with moral understanding, as well including a practical sense of virtue
as a speculative perception of it; and that all these several principles, both natural
and moral, forming an inward constitution of mind, were in the most exact proportion
possible; i. e. in a proportion the most exactly adapted to their intended
state of life; such creatures would be made upright, or finitely perfect. Now particular
propensions, from their very nature, must be felt, the objects of them being present;
though they cannot be gratified at all, or not with the allowance of the moral principle.
But if they can be gratified without its allowance, or by contradicting it; then
they must be conceived to have some tendency, in how low a degree soever, yet some
tendency, to induce persons to such forbidden gratification. This tendency, in some
one particular propension, may be increased, by the greater frequency of occasions
naturally exciting it, than of occasions exciting others. The least voluntary indulgence
in forbidden circumstances, though but m thought, will increase this wrong tendency;
and may
But how much more strongly must this hold with respect to those who have corrupted their natures, are fallen from their original rectitude, and whose passions are become excessive by repeated violations of their inward constitution? Upright creatures may want to be improved: depraved creatures want to be renewed. Education and discipline, which may be in all degrees and sorts of gentleness and of severity, are expedient for those: but must be absolutely necessary for these. For these, discipline of the severer sort too, and in the higher degrees of it, must be necessary, in order to wear out vicious habits; to recover their primitive strength of self-government, which indulgence must have weakened; to repair, as well as raise into a habit, the moral principle, in order to their arriving at a secure state of virtuous happiness.
Now, whoever will consider the thing may clearly see, that the
present world is peculiarly fit to be a state of discipline for this purpose,
to such as will set themselves to mend and improve. For, the various temptations
with
This undoubtedly holds to a certain length: but how far it may
hold, I know not. Neither our intellectual powers, nor our bodily strength can be
improved beyond such a degree: and both may be over-wrought. Possibly there may
be somewhat analogous to this, with respect
Indeed the present state is so far from proving, in event, a discipline
of virtue to the generality of men, that, on the contrary, they seem to make it
a discipline of vice. And the viciousness of the world is, in different ways, the
great temptation which renders it a state of virtuous discipline, in the degree
it is, to good men. The whole end, and the whole occasion, of mankind’s being placed
in such a state as the present, is not pretended to be accounted for. That which
appears amidst the general corruption, is, that there are some persons, who, having
within them the principle of amendment and recovery, attend to and follow the notices
of virtue and religion, be they more clear or more obscure which are afforded them;
and that the present world is, not only an exercise of virtue in these persons,
but an exercise of it in ways and degrees, peculiarly apt to improve it: apt to
improve it, in some respects, even beyond what would be, by the exercise of it,
required in a perfectly virtuous society, or in a society of equally imperfect virtue
with themselves. But that the present world does not actually become a state of
moral discipline to many, even to the generality, i. e. that they do not
improve or grow better in it, cannot be urged as a proof, that it was not intended
for moral discipline, by any who at all observe the analogy of nature. For, of the
numerous seeds of vegetables and bodies of
Against this whole notion of moral discipline, it may be objected,
in another way; that so far as a course of behaviour, materially virtuous, proceeds
from hope and fear, so far it is only a discipline and strengthening of self-love.
But doing what God commands, because he commands it, is obedience, though it proceeds
from hope or fear. And a course of such obedience will form habits of it. And a
constant regard to veracity, justice, and charity. may form distinct habits of these
particular virtues; and will certainly form habits of self-government, and of denying
our inclinations, whenever veracity, justice, or charity requires it. Nor is there
any foundation for this great nicety, with which some affect to distinguish in this
case, in order to depreciate all Religion proceeding from hope or fear. For, veracity,
justice, and charity, regard to God’s authority, and to our own chief interest,
are not only all three coincident; but each of them is, in itself, a just and natural
motive or principle of action. And he who begins a good life from any one of them,
and perseveres in it, as he is already in some degree, so he cannot fail of becoming
more and more, of that character which is correspondent to the constitution of nature
as moral; and to the relation which God stands in to us as moral governor of it:
nor consequently can he fail of obtaining that happiness, which this constitution
These several observations, concerning the active principle of
virtue and obedience to God’s commands, are applicable to passive submission or
resignation to his will: which is another essential part of a right character, connected
with the former, and very much in our power to form ourselves to. It may be imagined,
that nothing but afflictions can give occasion for or require this virtue; that
it can have no respect to, nor be any way necessary to qualify for, a state of perfect
happiness: but it is not experience which can make us think thus. Prosperity itself,
whilst any thing supposed desirable is not ours, begets extravagant and unbounded
thoughts. Imagination is altogether as much a source of discontent, as any thing
in our external condition. It is indeed true, that there can be no scope for patience,
when sorrow shall be no more; but there may be need of a temper of mind, which shall
have been formed by patience. For, though self-love, considered merely as an active
principle leading us to pursue our chief interest, cannot but be uniformly coincident
with the principle of obedience to God’s commands, our interest being rightly understood;
because this obedience, and the pursuit of our own chief interest, must be in every
case one and the same thing: yet it may be questioned, whether self-love, considered
merely as the desire of our own interest or happiness, can, from its nature, be
thus absolutely and uniformly coincident with the will of God; any more than particular
affections can:
Upon the whole: such a character, and such qualifications, are
necessary for a mature state of life in the present world, as nature alone does
in no wise bestow; but has put it upon us, in great part, to acquire, in our progress
from one stage of life to another, from childhood to mature age; put it upon us
to acquire them, by giving us capacities of doing it, and by placing us, in the
beginning of life, in a condition fit for it. And this is a general analogy to our
condition in the present world, as in a state of moral discipline for another. It
is in vain then to object against the credibility of the present life’s being intended
for this purpose, that all the trouble and the danger unavoidably accompanying such
discipline, might have been saved us, by our being made at once the creatures and
the characters, which we were to be. For we experience, that what we were
to be, was to be the effect of what we would do: and that the general
conduct of nature is, not to save us trouble or danger, but to make us capable of
going through them, and to put it upon us to do so. Acquirememts of our own, experience
There is a third thing, which may seem implied in the present world’s being a state of probation; that it is a theatre of action, for the manifestation of persons’ characters, with respect to a future one: not, to be sure, to an all-knowing Being, but to his creation or part of it. This may, perhaps, be only a consequence of our being in a state of probation in the other senses. However, it is not impossible, that men’s showing and making manifest, what is in their heart, what their real character is, may have respect to a future life, in ways and manners which we are not acquainted with: particularly it may be a means, for the Author of Nature does not appear to do any thing without means, of their being disposed of suitably to their characters; and of its being known to the creation, by way of example, that they are thus disposed of. But not to enter upon any conjectural account of this; one may just mention, that the manifestation of persons’ characters contributes very much, in various ways, to the carrying on a great part of that general course of nature, respecting mankind, which comes under our observation at present. I shall only add, that probation, in both these senses, as well as in that treated of in the foregoing chapter, is implied in moral government; since by persons’ behaviour under it, their characters cannot but be manifested, and if they behave well, improved.
THROUGHOUT the foregoing Treatise it appears, that the condition of mankind, considered as inhabitants of this world only, and under the government of God which we experience, is greatly analogous to our condition, as designed for another world, or under that farther government, which Religion teaches us. If therefore any assert, as a Fatalist must, that the opinion of universal Necessity is reconcilable with the former; there immediately arises a question in the way of analogy, whether he must not also own it to be reconcilable with the latter, i. e. with the system of Religion itself, and the proof of it. The reader then will observe, that the question now before us is not absolute. Whether the opinion of Fate be reconcilable with Religion; but hypothetical, whether, upon supposition of its being reconcilable with the constitution of Nature, it be not reconcilable with Religion also: or, what pretence a Fatalist, not other persons, but a Fatalist, has to conclude from his opinion, that there can be no such thing as Religion. And as the puzzle and obscurity, which must unavoidably arise from arguing upon so absurd a supposition as that of universal Necessity, will, I fear, easily be seen; it will, I hope, as easily be excused.
But since it has been all along taken for granted, as a thing
proved, that there is an intelligent Author of Nature, or natural Governor of the
world; and since an objection may be made against the proof of this, from the opinion
of universal Necessity, as it may be supposed, that such Necessity will itself account
for the origin and preservation of all things: it is requisite, that this objection
be distinctly answered; or that it be shown, that a Fatality supposed consistent
with what we certainly experience, does not destroy the proof of an intelligent
Author and Governor of Nature; before we proceed to
Now, when it is said by a Fatalist, that the whole constitution
of Nature, and the actions of men, that every thing, and every mode and circumstance
of every thing, is necessary, and could not possibly have been otherwise; it is
to be observed, that this Necessity does not exclude deliberation, choice, preference,
and acting from certain principles, and to certain ends: because all this is matter
of undoubted experience, acknowledged by all, and what every man may, every moment,
be conscious of. And from hence it follows, that Necessity, alone and of itself,
is in no sort an account of the constitution of Nature, and how things came to
be and to continue as they are; but only an account of this circumstance
relating to their origin and continuance, that they could not have been otherwise,
than they are and have been. The assertion, that every thing is by Necessity of
Nature, is not an answer to the question; Whether the world came into being as it
is, by an intelligent Agent forming it thus, or not: but to quite another question;
Whether it came into being as it is, in that way and manner which we call necessarily,
or in that way and manner which we call freely. For suppose farther, that
one who was a Fatalist, and one who kept to his natural sense of things, and believed
himself a Free Agent, were disputing together, and vindicating their respective
opinions; and they should happen to instance in a house: they would agree that it
was built by an architect. Their difference concerning Necessity and Freedom would
occasion no difference of judgment concerning this; but only concerning another
matter; whether the architect built it necessarily or freely. Suppose then they
should proceed to inquire concerning the constitution of nature: in a lax way of
speaking, one of them might say, it was by Necessity; and the other, by Freedom:
but if they had any meaning to their words, as the latter must mean a Free Agent,
so the former must at length be reduced to mean an Agent, whether he would say one
or more, acting by Necessity: for abstract notions can do nothing. Indeed we ascribe
to God a necessary existence, uncaused by
From these things it follows; First, That when a Fatalist asserts, that every thing is by Necessity, he must mean, by an Agent acting necessarily; he must, I say, mean this, for I am very sensible he would not choose to mean it: and Secondly, That the Necessity, by which such an Agent is supposed to act, does not exclude intelligence and design. So that, were the system of Fatality admitted, it would just as much account for the formation of the world, as for the structure of a house, and no more. Necessity as much requires and supposes a Necessary Agent, as Freedom requires and supposes a Free Agent, to be the former of the world. And the appearances of design and of final causes in the constitution of nature as really prove this acting Agent to be an intelligent designer, or to act from choice; upon the scheme of Necessity, supposed possible, as upon that of Freedom.
It appearing thus, that the notion of Necessity does not destroy
the proof, that there is an intelligent Author of Nature and natural Governor of
the world; the present question, which the analogy before mentioned suggests,
Suppose then a Fatalist to educate any one, from his youth up,
in his own principles; that the child should reason upon them, and conclude, that
since he cannot possibly behave otherwise than he does, he is not a subject of blame
or commendation, nor can deserve to be rewarded or punished: imagine him to eradicate
the very perceptions of blame and commendation out of his mind, by means of this
system; to form his temper, and character, and behaviour to it; and from it to judge
of the treatment he was to expect, say, from reasonable men, upon his coming abroad
into the world: as the Fatalist judges from this system, what he is to expect from
the Author of Nature, and with regard to a future state. I cannot forbear stopping
here to ask, whether any one of common sense would think fit, that a child should
be put upon these speculations, and be left to apply them to practice. And a man
has little pretence to reason, who is not sensible, that we are all children in
speculations of this kinid. However, the child would doubtless be highly delighted
to find himself freed from the restraints of fear and shame, with which his play-fellows
were fettered and embarrassed; and highly conceited in his superior knowledge, so
far beyond his years. But conceit and vanity would be the least bad part of the
influence, which these principles must have, when thus reasoned and acted upon,
during the course of his education. He must either be allowed to go on and be the
plague of all about him, and himself too, even to his own destruction: or else correction
must be continually made use of, to supply the want of those natural perceptions
of blame and commendation, which we have supposed to be removed; and to give him
a practical impression, of what he had reasoned himself out of the belief of, that
he was
From these things together, the attentive reader will see it follows,
that if upon supposition of Freedom the evidence of Religion be conclusive, it remains
so, upon supposition of Necessity, because the notion of Necessity is not applicable
to practical subjects: i. e. with respect to them, is as if it were not true.
Nor does this contain any reflection upon reason, but only upon what is unreasonable.
For to pretend to act upon reason, in opposition to practical principles, which
the Author of our nature gave us to act upon; and to pretend to apply our reason
to subjects, with regard to which, our own short
But this is not all. For we find within ourselves a will, and
are conscious of a character. Now if this, in us, be reconcilable with Fate, it
is reconcilable with it, in the Author of Nature. And besides, natural government
and final causes imply a character and a will in the Governor and Designer;
But though it is most evident, that universal Necessity, if it
be reconcilable with any thing, is reconcilable with that character in the Author
of Nature, which is the foundation of Religion; “Yet, does it not plainly destroy
the proof, that he is of that character, and consequently
But as the doctrine of Liberty, though we experience its truth, may be perplexed with difficulties, which run up into the most abstruse of all speculations; and as the opinion of Necessity seems to be the very basis upon which infidelity grounds itself; it may be of some use to offer a more particular proof of the obligations of Religion, which may distinctly be shown not to be destroyed by this opinion.
The proof from final causes of an intelligent Author of Nature
is not affected by the opinion of Necessity; supposing Necessity a thing possible
in itself, and reconcilable with the constitution of things.
Now, I say, no objection from Necessity can lie against this general
proof of Religion. None against the proposition reasoned upon, that we have such
a moral faculty and discernment; because this is a mere matter of fact: a thing
of experience, that human kind is thus constituted: none against the conclusion;
because it is immediate and wholly from this fact. For the conclusion, that
But it is carefully to be observed, and ought to be recollected
after all proofs of virtue and religion, which are only general; that as speculative
reason may be neglected, prejudiced, and deceived, so also may our moral understanding
be impaired and perverted, and the dictates of it not impartially attended to. This
indeed proves nothing against the reality of our speculative or practical faculties
of perception; against their being intended by nature, to inform us in the theory
of things, and instruct us how we are to behave, and what we are to expect in consequence
of our behaviour. Yet our liableness, in the degree we are liable, to prejudice
and perversion, is a most serious admonition to us to be upon our guard, with respect
to what is of such consequence, as our determinations concerning virtue and religion;
and particularly not to take custom, and fashion, and slight notions of honour,
or imaginations of present ease, use, and convenience to mankind, for the only moral
rule.
The foregoing observations, drawn from the nature of
From the whole therefore it must follow, that a Necessity supposed possible, and reconcilable with the constitution of things, does in no sort prove that the Author of Nature will not, nor destroy the proof that he will, finally and upon the whole, in his eternal government, render his creatures happy or miserable, by some means or other, as they behave well or ill. Or, to express this conclusion in words conformable to the title of the Chapter, the analogy of nature shows us, that the opinion of Necessity, considered as practical, is false. And if Necessity, upon the supposition above mentioned, doth not destroy the proof of natural Religion, it evidently makes no alteration in the proof of revealed.
From these things likewise we may learn, in what sense to understand
that general assertion, that the opinion of Necessity is essentially destructive
of all religion. First, in a practical sense; that by this notion,
THOUGH it be, as it cannot but be, acknowledged,
that the analogy of nature gives a strong credibility to the general doctrine of
Religion, and to the several particular things contained in it, considered as so
many matters of fact; and likewise that it shows this credibility not to be destroyed
by any notions of Necessity: yet still, objections may be insisted upon, against
the wisdom, equity, and goodness of the divine government implied in the notion
of. Religion, and against the method by which this government is conducted; to which
objections analogy can be no direct answer. For the credibility, or the certain
truth, of a matter of fact, does not immediately prove any thing concerning the
wisdom or goodness of it: and analogy can do no more, immediately or directly, than
show such and such things to be true or credible, considered only as matters of
fact. But still, if, upon supposition of a moral constitution of nature and a moral
government over it, analogy suggests and makes it credible, that this government
must be a scheme, system, or constitution of government, as distinguished from a
number of single unconnected acts of distributive justice and goodness; and likewise,
that it must be a scheme, so imperfectly comprehended, and of
Now this, upon inquiry, will be found to be the case. For, First, Upon supposition that God exercises a moral government over the world, the analogy of his natural government suggests and makes it credible, that his moral government must be a scheme, quite beyond our comprehension: and this affords a general answer to all objections against the justice and goodness of it. And, Secondly, A more distinct observation of some particular things contained in God’s scheme of natural government, the like things being supposed, by analogy, to be contained in his moral government, will further show, how little weight is to be laid upon these objections.
I. Upon supposition that God exercises a moral government over
the world, the analogy of his natural government suggests and makes it credible,
that his moral government must be a scheme, quite beyond our comprehension; and
this affords a general answer to all objections against the justice and goodness
of it. It is most obvious, analogy renders it highly credible, that, upon supposition
of a moral government, it must be a scheme: for the world, and the whole natural
government of it, appears to be so: to be a scheme, system, or constitution, whose
parts correspond to each other, and to a whole; as really as any work of art, or
as any particular model of a civil constitution and government. In this great scheme
of the natural world, individuals have various peculiar relations to other individuals
of their own species. And whole species are, we find, variously related to other
species, upon this earth. Nor do we know, how much further these kinds of relations
may extend. And, as there is not any action or natural event, which we are acquainted
with, so single and unconnected, as not to have a respect to some other actions
and events; so possibly each of them, when it has not an immediate, may yet have
a remote, natural relation to other actions and events, much beyond the
This our ignorance, and the consequence here drawn from it, are
universally acknowledged upon other occasions; and though scarce denied, yet are
universally forgot, when persons come to argue against Religion. And it is not perhaps
easy, even for the most reasonable men, always to bear in mind the degree of our
ignorance, and make due allowances for it. Upon these accounts, it may not be useless
to go on a little further, in order to show more distinctly, how just an answer
our ignorance is, to objections against the scheme of Providence. Suppose then a
person boldly to assert, that the things complained of, the origin and continuance
of evil, might easily have been prevented by repeated interpositions;
II. And how little weight is to be laid upon such objections,
will further appear, by a more distinct observation of some particular things contained
in the natural
First, As in the scheme of the natural world, no ends appear to be accomplished without means: so we find that means very undesirable, often conduce to bring about ends in such a measure desirable, as greatly to overbalance the disagreeableness of the means. And in cases where such means are conducive to such ends, it is not reason, but experience, which shows us, that they are thus conducive. Experience also shows many means to be conducive and necessary to accomplish ends, which means, before experience, we should have thought, would have had even a contrary tendency. Now from these observations relating to the natural scheme of the world, the moral being supposed analogous to it, arises a great credibility, that the putting our misery in each other’s power to the degree it is, and making men liable to vice to the degree we are; and in general, that those things which are objected against the moral scheme of Providence, may be, upon the whole, friendly and assistant to virtue, and productive of an overbalance of happiness: i. e. the things objected against may be means, by which an overbalance of good will, in the end, be found produced. And from the same observations, it appears to be no presumption against this, that we do not, if indeed we do not, see those means to have any such tendency, or that they seem to us to have a contrary one. Thus those things, which we call irregularities, may not be so at all: because they may be means of accomplishing wise and good ends more considerable. And it may be added, as above, that they may also be the only means, by which these wise and good ends are capable of being accomplished.
After these observations it may be proper to add, in order to
obviate an absurd and wicked conclusion from any of them, that though the constitution
of our nature, from whence we are capable of vice and misery, may, as it undoubtedly
does, contribute to the perfection and happiness of the world; and though the actual
permission of evil may be beneficial to it: (i. e. it would have been more
mischievous, not that a wicked person had himself
Secondly, The natural government of the world is carried
on by general laws. For this there may be wise and good reasons: the wisest and
best, for ought we know to the contrary. And that there are such reasons, is suggested
to our thoughts by the analogy of nature: by our being made to experience good ends
to be accomplished, as indeed all the good which we enjoy is accomplished, by this
means, that the laws, by which the world is governed, are general. For we have scarce
any kind of enjoyments, but what we are, in some way or other, instrumental in procuring
ourselves, by acting in a manner which we foresee likely to procure them: now this
foresight could not be at all, were not the government of the world carried on by
general laws. And though, for ought we know to the contrary, every single case may
be, at length, found to have been provided for even by these: yet to prevent all
irregularities, or remedy them as they arise, by the wisest and best general laws,
may be impossible in the nature of things; as we see it is absolutely impossible
in civil government. But then we are ready to think, that, the constitution of nature
remaining as it is, and the course of things being permitted to go on, in other
respects, as it does, there might be interpositions to prevent irregularities; though
they could not have been prevented, or remedied by any general laws. And there would
indeed be reason to wish, which,
But it may be said, that “after all, these supposed impossibilities and relations are what we are unacquainted with; and we must judge of Religion, as of other things, by what we do know, and look upon the rest as nothing: or however, that the answers here given to what is objected against Religion, may equally be made use of to invalidate the proof of it; since their stress lies so very much upon our ignorance.” But,
First, Though total ignorance in any matter does indeed
equally destroy, or rather preclude, all proof concerning it, and objections against
it; yet partial ignorance does not. For we may in any degree be convinced, that
a person is of such a character, and consequently will pursue such ends; though
we are greatly ignorant, what is the proper way of acting, in order the most effectually
to obtain those ends: and in this case, objections against his manner of acting,
as seemingly not conducive to obtain them, might be answered by our ignorance; though
the proof that such ends were intended, might not at all be invalidated by it. Thus,
the proof of Religion is a proof of the moral character of God, and consequently
that his government is moral, and that every one upon the whole shall receive according
to his deserts; a proof that this is the designed end of his government. But we
are not competent judges, what is the proper way of acting, in order the most effectually
to accomplish this end.
Secondly, Suppose unknown impossibilities, and unknown
relations, might justly be urged to invalidate the proof of Religion, as well as
to answer objections against it: and that, in consequence of this, the proof of
it were doubtful. Yet still, let the assertion be despised, or let it be ridiculed,
it is undeniably true, that moral obligations would remain certain, though it were
not certain what would, upon the whole, be the consequences of observing or violating
them. For, these obligations arise immediately and necessarily from the judgment
of our own mind, unless perverted, which we cannot violate without being self-condemned.
And they would be certain too, from considerations of interest.
Thirdly, The answers above given to the objections against
Religion cannot equally be made use of to invalidate the proof of it. For, upon
suspicion that God exercises a moral government over the world, analogy does most
strongly lead us to conclude, that this moral government must be a scheme, or constitution,
beyond our comprehension. And a thousand particular analogies show us, that parts
of such a scheme, from their relation to other parts, may conduce to accomplish
ends, which we should have thought they had no tendency at all to accomplish: nay
ends, which before experience, we should have thought such parts were contradictory
to, and had a tendency to prevent. And therefore all these analogies show, that
the way of arguing made use of in objecting against Religion is delusive: because
they show it is not at all incredible, that, could we comprehend the whole, we should
find the permission of the disorders objected against to be consistent with justice
and goodness; and even to be instances of them. Now this is not applicable to the
proof of Religion, as it is to the objections against it;
Lastly, From the observation now made, it is easy to see,
that the answers above given to the objections against Providence, though, in a
general way of speaking, they may be said to be taken from our ignorance; yet are
by no means taken merely from that, but from somewhat which analogy shows us concerning
it. For analogy shows us positively, that our ignorance in the possibilities of
things, and the various relations in nature, renders us incompetent judges, and
leads us to false conclusions, in cases similar to this, in which we pretend to
judge and to object. So that the things above insisted
THE observations of the last Chapter lead
us to consider this little scene of human life, in which we are so busily engaged,
as having a reference, of some sort or other, to a much larger plan of things. Whether
we are, any way, related to the more distant parts of the boundless universe, into
which we are brought, is altogether uncertain. But it is evident, that the course
of things, which comes within our view, is connected with somewhat, past, present,
and future, beyond it.
These things, which it is to be remembered, are matters of fact,
ought, in all common sense, to awaken mankind; to induce them to consider in earnest
their condition, and what they have to do. It is absurd, absurd to the degree of
being ridiculous, if the subject were not of so serious a kind, for men to think
themselves secure in a vicious life; or even in that immoral thoughtlessness, which
far the greatest part of them are fallen into. And the credibility of Religion,
arising from experience and facts here considered, is fully sufficient, in reason,
to engage them to live in the general practice of all virtue and piety; under the
serious apprehension, though it should be mixed with some doubt,
SOME persons, upon pretence of the sufficiency of the light of nature, avowedly reject all revelation, as, in its very notion, incredible, and what must be fictitious. And indeed it is certain, no revelation would have been given, had the light of nature been sufficient in such a sense, as to render one not wanting and useless. But no man, in seriousness and simplicity of mind, can possibly think it so, who considers the state of Religion in the heathen world before revelation, and its present state in those places which have borrowed no light from it: particularly the doubtfulness of some of the greatest men, concerning things of the utmost importance, as well as the natural inattention and ignorance of mankind in general. It is impossible to say, who would have been able to have reasoned out that whole system, which we call natural Religion, in its genuine simplicity, clear of superstition: but there is certainly no ground to affirm that the generality could. If they could, there is no sort of probability that they would. Admitting there were, they would highly want a standing admonition to remind them of it, and inculcate it upon them.
And further still, were they as much disposed to attend to Religion,
as the better sort of men are; yet even upon this supposition, there would be various
occasions for supernatural instruction and assistance, and the greatest
There are other persons, not to be ranked with these, who seem
to be getting into a way of neglecting, and, as it were, overlooking revelation,
as of small importance, provided natural Religion be kept to. With little regard
either to the evidence of the former, or to the objections against it, and even
upon supposition of its truth; “the only design of it,” say they, “must be, to establish
a belief of the moral system of nature, and to enforce the practice of natural
piety and virtue. The belief and practice of these things were, perhaps, much promoted
by the first publication of Christianity: but whether they are believed and practised,
upon the evidence and motives of nature or of revelation, is no great matter.”
Now if God has given a revelation to mankind, and commanded those
things which are commanded in Christianity; it is evident, at first sight, that
it cannot in any wise be an indifferent matter, whether we obey or disobey those
commands: unless we are certainly assured,
But the importance of Christianity will more distinctly appear, by considering it more distinctly: First, as a republication, and external institution, of natural or essential Religion, adapted to the present circumstances of mankind, and intended to promote natural piety and virtue: and Secondly, as containing an account of a dispensation of things, not discoverable by reason, in consequence of which several distinct precepts are enjoined us. For though natural Religion is the foundation and principal part of Christianity, it is not in any sense the whole of it.
I. Christianity is a republication of natural Religion. It instructs mankind in the moral system of the world: that it is the work of an infinitely perfect Being, and tinder his government; that virtue is his law; and that he will finally judge mankind in righteousness, and render to all according to their works, in a future state. And, which is very material, it teaches natural Religion in its genuine simplicity; free from those superstitions, with which it was totally corrupted, and under which it was in a manner lost.
Revelation is, further, an authoritative publication of natural
Religion, and so affords the evidence of testimony for the truth of it. Indeed the
miracles and prophecies recorded in Scripture, were intended to prove a particular
dispensation of Providence, the redemption of the world by the Messiah: but this
does not hinder, but that they may also prove God’s general providence over the
world, as our moral Governor and Judge. And they evidently do prove it; because
this character of the Author of Nature, is necessarily connected with and implied
in that particular revealed dispensation of things: it is likewise continually taught
But it may possibly be disputed, how far miracles can prove natural Religion; and notable objections may be urged against this proof of it, considered as a matter of speculation: but considered as a practical thing, there can be none. For suppose a person to teach natural Religion to a nation, who had lived in total ignorance or forgetfulness of it; and to declare he was commissioned by God so to do: suppose him, in proof of his commission, to foretell things future, which no human foresight could have guessed at; to divide the sea with a word; feed great multitudes with bread from heaven; cure all manner of diseases; and raise the dead, even himself, to life; would not this give additional credibility to his teaching, a credibility beyond what that of a common man would have; and be an authoritative publication of the law of nature, i. e. a new proof of it? It would be a practical one, of the strongest kind, perhaps, which human creatures are capable of having given them. The Law of Moses then, and the Gospel of Christ, are authoritative publications of the religion of nature; they afford a proof of God’s general providence, as moral Governor of the world, as well as of his particular dispensations of providence towards sinful creatures, revealed in the Law and the Gospel. As they are the only evidence of the latter, so they are an additional evidence of the former.
To show this further, let us suppose a man of the greatest and
most improved capacity, who had never heard of revelation, convinced upon the whole,
notwithstanding the disorders of the world, that it was under the direction and
moral government of an infinitely perfect Being; but ready to question, whether
he were not got beyond the reach of his faculties: suppose him brought, by this
suspicion, into great danger of being carried away by the universal bad example
of almost every one around him, who appeared to have no sense, no practical sense
at least, of these things: and this, perhaps,
Nor must it by any means be omitted, for it is a thing of the utmost importance, that life and immortality are eminently brought to light by the Gospel. The great doctrines of a future state, the danger of a course of wickedness, and the efficacy of repentance, are not only confirmed in the Gospel, but are taught, especially the last is, with a degree of light, to which that of nature is but darkness.
Further: As Christianity served these ends and purposes, when
it was first published, by the miraculous publication itself; so it was intended
to serve the same purposes in future ages, by means of the settlement of a visible
church: of a society, distinguished from common ones, and from the rest of the world,
by peculiar religious institutions; by an instituted method of instruction, and
an instituted form of external Religion. Miraculous powers were given to the first
preachers of Christianity, in order to their introducing it into the world: a visible
church was established, in order to continue it, and carry it on successively throughout
all ages. Had Moses and the Prophets, Christ and his Apostles, only taught, and
by miracles proved. Religion to their contemporaries; the benefits of their instructions
would have reached but to a small part of mankind. Christianity must have been,
in a great degree, sunk and forgot in a very few ages. To prevent this, appears
to have been one reason why a visible church was instituted: to be, like a city
upon a hill, a standing memorial to the world of the duty which we owe our Maker:
to call men continually, both by example and instruction, to attend to it, and,
by the form of Religion, ever before their eyes, remind them of
The benefit arising from this supernatural assistance, which Christianity affords to natural Religion, is what some persons are very slow in apprehending. And yet it is a thing distinct in itself, and a very plain obvious one. For will any in good earnest really say, that the bulk of mankind in the heathen world were in as advantageous a situation with regard to natural Religion, as they are now amongst us: that it was laid before them, and enforced upon them, in a manner as distinct, and as much tending to influence their practice?
The objections against all this, from the perversion of Christianity,
and from the supposition of its having had but little good influence, however innocently
they may be proposed, yet cannot be insisted upon as conclusive, upon any principles,
but such as lead to downright Atheism; because the manifestation of the law of nature
by reason, which, upon all principles of Theism, must have been from God, has been
perverted and rendered ineffectual in the same manner. It may indeed, I think, truly
be said, that the good effects of Christianity have not been small; nor its supposed
ill effects, any effects at all of it, properly speaking. Perhaps, too, the things
themselves done have been aggravated; and if not, Christianity hath been often only
a pretence; and the same evils in the main would have been done upon some other
pretence. However, great and shocking as the corruptions and abuses of it have really
been, they cannot be insisted upon as arguments against it, upon principles of Theism.
For one cannot proceed one step in reasoning upon natural Religion, any more than
upon Christianity, without laying it down as a first principle, that the dispensations
of Providence are not to be judged of by their perversions, but by their genuine
tendencies: not by what they do actually seem to effect, but by what they would
effect if mankind did their part; that part which is justly put and left upon them.
It is altogether as much the language of one as of the other: He that is unjust,
let him be unjust still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
To return then: Christianity being a promulgation of the law of
nature; being moreover an authoritative promulgation of it; with new light, and
other circumstances of peculiar advantage, adapted to the wants of mankind;
II. Christianity is to be considered in a further view; as containing
an account of a dispensation of things, not at all discoverable by reason, in consequence
of which several distinct precepts are enjoined us. Christianity is not only an
external institution of natural Religion, and a new promulgation of God’s general
providence, as righteous Governor and Judge of the world; but it contains also a
revelation of a particular dispensation of Providence, carrying on by his Son and
Spirit, for the recovery and salvation of mankind, who are represented in Scripture
to be in a state of ruin. And in consequence of this revelation being made, we are
commanded to be baptized, not only in the name of the Father, but
also, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: and other obligations of duty, unknown
before, to the Son and the Holy Ghost, are revealed. Now the importance of these
duties may be judged of, by observing that they arise, not from positive command
merely, but also from
Let it be remembered, then, that Religion comes under the twofold
consideration of internal and external: for the latter is as real a part of Religion,
of true Religion, as the former. Now when Religion is considered under the first
notion, as an inward principle, to be exerted in such and such inward acts of the
mind and heart; the essence of natural Religion may be said to consist in religious
regards to God the Father Almighty: and the essence of revealed Religion,
as distinguished from natural, to consist in religious regards to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost. And the obligation we are under, of paying these religious
regards to each of these divine persons respectively, arises from the respective
relations which they each stand in to us. How these relations are made known, whether
by reason or revelation, makes no alteration in the case: because the duties arise
out of the relations themselves, not out of the manner in which we are informed
of them. The Son and Spirit have each his proper office in that great dispensation
of
If this account of the Christian Religion be just; those persons
who can speak lightly of it, as of little consequence, provided natural Religion
be kept to, plainly forget, that Christianity, even what is peculiarly so called,
as distinguished from natural Religion, has yet somewhat very important, even of
a moral nature. For the office of our Lord being made known, and the relation he
stands in to us, the obligation of religious regards to him is plainly moral, as
much as charity to mankind is; since this obligation arises, before external command,
immediately out of that his office and relation itself. Those persons appear to
forget, that revelation is to be considered, as informing us of somewhat new in
the state of mankind, and in the government of the
If therefore Christ be indeed the mediator between God and man,
i. e. if Christianity be true; if he be indeed our Lord, our Saviour, and
our God; no one can say, what may follow, not only the obstinate, but the careless
disregard to him, in those high relations. Nay no one can say, what may follow such
disregard, even in the way of natural consequence.
Again: If mankind are corrupted and depraved in their moral character,
and so are unfit for that state, which Christ is gone to prepare for his disciples;
and if the assistance of God’s Spirit be necessary to renew their nature, in the
degree requisite to their being qualified for that state; all which is implied in
the express, though figurative declaration, Except a man be born of the Spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God:
The conclusion from all this evidently is, that, Christianity being supposed either true or credible, it is unspeakable irreverence, and really the most presumptuous rashness, to treat it as a light matter. It can never justly be esteemed of little consequence, till it be positively supposed false. Nor do I know a higher and more important obligation which we are under, than that of examining most seriously into the evidence of it, supposing its credibility; and of embracing it, upon supposition of its truth.
The two following deductions may be proper to be added, in order to illustrate the foregoing observations, and to prevent their being mistaken.
First, Hence we may clearly see, where lies the distinction
between what is positive and what is moral in Religion. Moral precepts are
precepts, the reasons of which we see: positive precepts are precepts, the
reasons of which we do not see.
Now this being premised, suppose two standing precepts enjoined
by the same authority; that, in certain conjunctures, it is impossible to obey both;
that the former
And therefore, in a more practical, though more lax way of consideration, and taking the words, moral law and positive institutions, in the popular sense; I add, that the whole moral law is as much matter of revealed command, as positive institutions are: for the Scripture enjoins every moral virtue. In this respect then they are both upon a level. But the moral law is, moreover, written upon our hearts; interwoven into our very nature. And this is a plain intimation of the Author of it, which is to be preferred, when they interfere.
But there is not altogether so much necessity for the determination
of this question, as some persons seem to think. Nor are we left to reason alone
to determine it. For, First, Though mankind have, in all ages, been greatly
prone to place their religion in peculiar positive rites, by way of equivalent for
obedience to moral precepts; yet, without making any comparison at all between them,
and consequently without determining Which is to have the preference, the nature
of the thing abundantly shows all notions of that kind to be utterly subversive
of true Religion as they are, moreover, contrary to the whole general tenor of Scripture;
and likewise to the most express particular declarations of it, that nothing can
render us accepted of God, without moral virtue. Secondly, Upon the occasion
of mentioning together positive and moral duties, the Scripture
But, as it is one of the peculiar weaknesses of human nature, when, upon a comparison of two things, one is found to be of greater importance than the other, to consider this other as of scarce any importance at all: it is highly necessary that we remind ourselves, how great presumption it is, to make light of any institutions of divine appointment; that our obligations to obey all God’s commands whatever are absolute and indispensable; and that commands merely positive, admitted to be from him, lay us under a moral obligation to obey them: an obligation moral in the strictest and most proper sense.
To these things I cannot forbear adding, that the account now
given of Christianity most strongly shows and enforces upon us the obligation of
searching the Scriptures, in order to see, what the scheme of revelation really
is; instead of determining beforehand, from reason, what the scheme of it must be.
HAVING shown the importance of the Christian
revelation, and the obligations which we are under seriously to attend to it, upon
supposition of its truth, or its credibility: the next thing in order, is to consider
the supposed presumptions against revelation in general; which shall be the subject
of this Chapter: and the objections against the Christian in particular; which shall
be the subject of some following ones.
It is, I think, commonly supposed, that there is some peculiar presumption, from the analogy of nature, against the Christian scheme of things; at least against miracles; so as that stronger evidence is necessary to prove the truth and reality of them, than would be sufficient to convince us of other events, or matters of fact. Indeed the consideration of this supposed presumption cannot but be thought very insignificant, by many persons. Yet, as it belongs to the subject of this Treatise; so it may tend to open the mind, and remove some prejudices: however needless the consideration of it be, upon its own account.
I. I find no appearance of a presumption, from the analogy of
nature, against the general scheme of Christianity, that God created and invisibly
governs the world by Jesus Christ; and by him also will hereafter judge it in righteousness,
i. e. render to every one according to his works; and that good men are under
the secret
First, There is no presumption, from analogy, against the truth
of it, upon account of its not being discoverable by reason or experience. For suppose
one who never heard of revelation, of the most improved understanding, and acquainted
with our whole system of natural philosophy and natural religion; such a one could
not but be sensible, that it was but a very small part of the natural and moral
system of the universe, which he was acquainted with. He could not but be sensible,
that there must be innumerable things, in the dispensations of Providence past,
in the invisible government over the world at present carrying on, and in what is
to come; of which he was wholly ignorant,
The notion of a miracle, considered as a proof of a divine mission, has been stated with great exactness by divines; and is, I think, sufficiently understood by every one. There are also invisible miracles, the Incarnation of Christ, for instance, which, being secret, cannot be alleged as a proof of such a mission; but require themselves to be proved by visible miracles. Revelation itself too is miraculous; and miracles are the proof of it; and the supposed presumption against these shall presently be considered. All which I have been observing here is, that, whether we choose to call every thing in the dispensations of Providence, not discoverable without revelation, nor like the known course of things, miraculous; and whether the general Christian dispensation now mentioned is to be called so, or not; the foregoing observations seem certainly to show, that there is no presumption against it from the analogy of nature.
II. There is no presumption, from analogy,
against some operations, which we should now call miraculous; particularly none
against a revelation at the beginning of the world: nothing of such presumption
against it, as is supposed to be implied or expressed in the word, miraculous.
For a miracle, in its very notion, is relative to a course of nature; and implies
somewhat different from it, considered as being so. Now, either there was no course
of nature at the time which we are speaking of; or if there were, we are not acquainted
what the course
Or thus: When mankind was first placed in this state, there was a power exerted, totally different from the present course of nature. Now, whether this power, thus wholly different from the present course of nature, for we cannot properly apply to it the word miraculous; whether this power stopped immediately after it had made man, or went on, and exerted itself further in giving him a revelation, is a question of the same kind, as whether an ordinary power exerted itself in such a particular degree and manner, or not.
Or suppose the power exerted in the formation of the world be considered as miraculous, or rather, be called by that name; the case will not be different: since it must be acknowledged, that such a power was exerted. For supposing it acknowledged, that our Saviour spent some years in a course of working miracles: there is no more presumption, worth mentioning, against his having exerted this miraculous power, in a certain degree greater, than in a certain degree less; in one or two more instances, than in ore or two fewer; in this, than in another manner.
It is evident then, that there can be no peculiar presumption, from the analogy of nature, against supposing a revelation, when man was first placed upon earth.
Add, that there does not appear the least intimation in history or tradition,
that Religion was first reasoned out: but the whole of history and tradition makes
for the other side, that it came into the world by revelation. Indeed the state
of Religion in the first ages, of which we have any account, seems to suppose and
imply, that this was the original of it amongst mankind. And these reflections together,
without taking in the peculiar authority
III. But still it may be objected, that there is some peculiar presumption, from analogy, against miracles; particularly against revelation, after the settlement and during the continuance of a course of nature.
Now with regard to this supposed presumption, it is to be
observed in general, that before we can have ground for raising what can, with any
propriety, be called an argument from analogy, for or against revelation considered
as somewhat miraculous, we must be acquainted with a similar or parallel case. But
the history of some other world, seemingly in like circumstances with our own, is
no more than a parallel case: and therefore nor thing short of this can be so. Yet,
could we come at a presumptive proof, for or against a revelation, from being informed,
whether such world had one, or not; such a proof, being drawn from one single instance
only, must be infinitely precarious. More particularly: First of all;
There is a very strong presumption against common speculative truths, and
against the most ordinary facts, before the proof of them; which yet is overcome
by almost any proof. There is a presumption of millions to one, against the
story of Cæsar, or of any other man. For suppose a number of common facts so and
so circumstanced, of which one had no kind of proof, should happen to come into
one’s thoughts; every one would, without any possible doubt, conclude them to be
false. And the like may be said of a single common fact. And from hence it
appears, that the question of importance, as to the matter before us, is,
concerning the degree of the peculiar presumption supposed against miracles; not
whether there be any peculiar presumption at all against them. For, if there be
the presumption of millions to one, against the most common facts; what can a
small
Upon all this I conclude; that
there certainly is no such presumption against miracles, as to render them in any
wise incredible: that, on the contrary, our being able to discern reasons for them,
gives a positive credibility to the history of them, in cases where those reasons
hold: and that it is by no means certain, that there is any peculiar presumption
at all, from analogy, even in the lowest degree, against miracles, as distinguished
from other extraordinary phenomena: though it is not worth while to perplex the
reader with inquiries into the abstract nature of evidence, in order to determine
a question, which, without such inquiries, we see
BESIDES the objections against the
evidence for Christianity, many are alleged against the scheme of it; against
the whole manner in which it is put and left with the
world; as well as against several particular relations in Scripture: objections
drawn from the deficiencies of revelation: from things in it appearing to men foolishness;
As God governs the world and
instructs his creatures, according to certain laws or rules, in the known course
of nature; known by reason together with experience: so the Scripture informs us
of a scheme of divine Providence, additional to this. It relates, that God has,
by revelation, instructed men in things concerning his government, which they could
not otherwise have known; and reminded them of things, which they might otherwise
know; and attested the truth of the whole by miracles. Now if the natural and the
revealed dispensation of things are both from God, if they coincide with each other,
and together make up one scheme of Providence; our being incompetent judges of one,
must render it credible, that we may, be incompetent judges also of the other. Since,
upon experience, the acknowledged constitution and course of nature is found to
be greatly different from what, before experience, would have been expected; and
such as, men fancy, there lie great objections against: this renders it beforehand
highly credible, that they may find the revealed dispensation likewise, if they
judge of it as they do of the constitution of nature, very different from expectations
formed beforehand; and liable, in appearance, to great objections: objections against
the scheme itself, and against the degrees and manners of the miraculous interpositions,
by which it was attested and carried on. Thus, suppose a prince to govern his dominions
in the wisest manner possible, by common known laws; and that upon some exigencies
he should suspend these laws; and govern, in several instances, in a different manner;
if one of his subjects were not a competent judge beforehand, by what common rules
the government should or would be carried on; it could not be expected, that the
same person would be a competent judge, in what exigencies, or in what manner,
or to what degree, those laws commonly observed would be suspended or
These observations, relating to the whole of Christianity, are applicable to inspiration
in particular. As we are in no sort judges beforehand, by what laws or rules, in
what degree, or by what means, it were to have been expected, that God would naturally
instruct us; so upon supposition of his affording us light and instruction by revelation,
additional to what he has afforded us by reason and experience, we are in no sort
judges, by what methods, and in what proportion, it were to be expected that this
supernatural light and instruction would be afforded us. We know not beforehand,
what degree or kind of natural information it were to be expected God would afford
men, each by his own reason and experience: nor how far he would enable and effectually
dispose them to communicate it, whatever it should be, to each other; nor whether
the evidence of it would be certain, highly probable, or doubtful; nor whether it
would be given with equal clearness and conviction to all. Nor could we guess,
upon any good ground I mean, whether natural knowledge, or even the faculty itself,
by which we are capable of attaining it, reason, would be given us at once, or gradually.
In like manner, we are wholly ignorant, what degree of new knowledge, it were to
be expected God would give mankind by revelation, upon supposition of his affording
one: or how far, or in what way he would interpose miraculously, to qualify them,
to
But it may be said, “that a revelation in some of the above mentioned circumstances, one, for instance, which was not committed to writing, and thus secured against danger of corruption, would not have answered its purpose.” I ask, what purpose? It would not have answered all the purposes, which it has now answered, and in the same degree: but it would have answered others, or the same in different degrees. And which of these were the purposes of God, and best fell in with his general government, we could not at all have determined beforehand.
Now since it has been shown, that
we have no principles of reason, upon which to judge beforehand, how it were to
be expected revelation should have been left, or what was most suitable to the
divine plan of government, ill any of the forementioned respects; it must be
quite frivolous to object afterward as to any of them, against its being left in
one way, rather than another: for this would be to object against things, upon
account of their being different from expectations, which have been shown to be
without reason. And thus we see, that the only question concerning the truth of
Christianity is, whether it be a real revelation; not whether it be attended
with every circumstance which we should have looked for:
From the foregoing observations
too, it will follow, and those who will thoroughly examine into revelation will
find it worth remarking; that there are several ways or arguing, which, though just
with regard to other writings, are not applicable to Scripture: at least not to
the prophetic parts of it. We cannot argue, for instance, that this cannot be the
sense or intent of such a passage of Scripture; for, if it had, it would have been
expressed more plainly, or have been represented under a more apt figure or hieroglyphic:
yet we may justly argue thus, with respect to common books. And the reason of this difference
is very evident; that in Scripture we are not competent judges, as we are in
common books, how
“But is it not self-evident, that internal improbabilities
of all kinds weaken external probable proof?” Doubtless. But to what practical purpose
can this be alleged here, when it has been proved before,
For though from the observations above made it is manifest, that we are not in any
sort competent judges, what supernatural instruction were to have been expected;
and though it is self-evident, that the objections of an incompetent judgment must
be frivolous; yet it may be proper to go one step further, and observe; that if
men will be regardless of these things, and pretend to judge of the Scripture by
preconceived expectations; the analogy of nature shows beforehand, not only that
it is highly credible they may, but also probable that they will, imagine they have
strong objections against it, however really unexceptionable: for so, prior to experience,
they would think they had, against the circumstances, and degrees, and the whole
manner of that instruction, which is afforded by the ordinary course of nature.
Were the instruction which God affords to brute creatures by instincts and mere
propensions, and to mankind by these together with reason, matter of probable proof,
and not of certain observation; it would be rejected as incredible, in many instances
of it, only upon account of the means by which this instruction is given, the seeming
disproportions, the limitations, necessary conditions, and circumstances of it.
For instance: would it not have been thought highly improbable, that men should
have been so much more capable of discovering, even to certainty
By applying these general observations to a particular objection, it
will be more distinctly seen, how they are applicable to others of the like kind:
and indeed to almost all objections against Christianity, as distinguish
One might go on to
add, that there is a great resemblance between the light of nature and of revelation,
in several other respects. Practical Christianity, or that faith and behaviour which
renders a man a Christian, is a plain and obvious thing: like the common rules
of conduct, with respect to our ordinary Temporal affairs. The more distinct and
particular knowledge of those things, the study of which the Apostle calls going
on unto perfection,
It may be objected, that this
analogy fails in a material respect: for that natural knowledge is of little or
no consequence. But I have been speaking of the general instruction which nature
does or does not afford us.
But
it may be objected still further and more generally; “The Scripture represents
the world as in a state of ruin, and Christianity as an expedient to recover it,
to help in these respects where nature fails: in particular, to supply the deficiencies
of natural light. Is it credible then, that so many ages should have been let pass,
before a matter of such a sort, of so great and so general importance, was made
known to mankind; and then that it should be made known to so small a part of them?
Is it conceivable, that this supply should be so very deficient, should have the
like obscurity and doubtfulness, be liable to the like perversions, in short, lie
open to all the like objections, as the light of nature itself?
And now,
what is the just consequence from all these things? Not that reason is no judge
of what is offered to us as being of divine revelation. For this would be to infer
that we are unable to judge of any thing, because we are unable to judge of all
things. Reason can, and it ought to judge, not only of the meaning, but also of
the morality and the evidence of revelation. First, It is the province of reason
to judge of the morality of the Scripture; i. e. not whether it contains
things different from what we should have expected from a wise, just, and good
Being; for objections from hence have been now obviated: but whether it contains
things plainly contradictory to wisdom, justice, or goodness; to what the light
of nature teaches us of God. And I know nothing of this sort objected against
Scripture, excepting such objections
But the consequence of the foregoing observations is, that
the question upon which the truth of Christianity depends is scarce at all, what
objections there are against its scheme, since there are none against the morality
of it; but what objections there are against its evidence; or, what proof there
remains of it, after due allowances made for the objections against that proof:
because it has been shown, that the objections against Christianity, as distinguished
from objections against its evidence, are frivolous. For surely very little weight,
if any at all, is to be laid upon a way of arguing and objecting, which, when applied
to the general constitution of nature, experience shows not to be conclusive: and
such, I think, is the whole way of objecting treated of throughout this Chapter.
It is resolvable into principles, and goes upon suppositions, which mislead us to
think, that the Author of Nature would not act, as we experience he does; or would
act, in such and such cases, as we experience he does not in like cases. But the
unreasonableness of this way of objecting will appear yet more evidently from hence,
that the chief things thus objected against are justified, as shall be further shown,
But it is to be remembered, that, as frivolous as objections of the foregoing sort against revelation are, yet, when a supposed revelation is more consistent with itself, and has a more general and uniform tendency to promote virtue, than, all circumstances considered, could have been expected from enthusiasm and political views; this is a presumptive proof of its not proceeding from them, and so of its truth: because we are competent judges, what might have been expected from enthusiasm and political views.
IT hath been now
shown,
I. Christianity is a scheme,
quite beyond our comprehension. The moral government of God is exercised, by gradually
conducting things so in the course of his providence, that every one, at length
and upon the whole, shall receive according to his deserts; and neither fraud nor
violence, but truth and right, shall finally prevail. Christianity is a particular
scheme under this general plan of Providence, and a part of it, conducive to its
completion, with regard to mankind: consisting itself also of various parts, and
a mysterious economy, which has been carrying on from the time the world came into
its present wretched state, and is still carrying on, for its recovery, by a divine
person, the Messiah; who is to gather together in one the children of God, that
are scattered abroad,
II. It is obvious too, that in the Christian dispensation,
as much as in the natural scheme of things, means are made use of to accomplish
ends. And the observation of this furnishes us with the same answer, to objections
against the perfection of Christianity, as to objections of the like kind, against
the constitution of nature. It shows the credibility, that the things objected against,
how foolish
III. The credibility, that the Christian
dispensation may have been, all along, carried on by general laws,
Upon the whole, then, the appearance
of deficiencies and irregularities in nature is owing to its being a scheme but
in part made known, and of such a certain particular kind in other respects. Now
we see no more reason why the frame and course of nature should be such a scheme,
than why Christianity should. And that the former is such a scheme, renders it credible,
that the latter, upon supposition of its truth, may be so too. And as it is manifest,
that Christianity is a scheme revealed but in part, and a scheme in which means
are made use of to accomplish ends, like to that of nature: so the credibility,
that it may have been all along carried on by general laws, no less than the course
of nature, has been distinctly proved. And from all this it is beforehand credible
that there might, I think probable
The objections against Christianity, considered
as a matter of fact,
THERE is not, I think, any thing relating to Christianity, which has been more objected against, than the mediation of Christ, in some or other of its parts. Yet upon thorough consideration, there seems nothing less justly liable to it. For,
I. The whole analogy of nature removes all imagined presumption against the general
notion of a Mediator between God and man.
II. As we must suppose, that the world is under the proper moral government
of God, or in a state of religion, before we can enter into consideration of the
revealed doctrine concerning the redemption of it by Christ: so
Some good men may perhaps be offended with hearing it spoken of as a
supposable thing that future punishments of wickedness may be in the way of natural
consequence: as if this were taking the execution of justice out of the hands of
God, and giving it to nature. But they should remember, that when things come to
pass according to the course of nature, this does not hinder them from being his
doing, who is the God of nature: and that the Scripture ascribes those punishments
to divine justice, which are known to be natural; and which must be called so, when
distinguished from such as are miraculous. But after all, this supposition, or rather
this way of speaking, is here made use of only by way of illustration of the subject
before us.. For since it must
III. Upon this supposition, or even without it, we may observe somewhat, much to
the present purpose, in the constitution of nature or appointments of Providence.
the provision which is made, that all the bad natural consequences of men’s actions
should not always actually follow; or that such bad consequences, as, according
to the settled course of things, would inevitably have followed if not prevented,
should, in certain degrees, be prevented. We are apt presumptuously to imagine,
that the world might have been so constituted, as that there would not have been
any such thing as m;sery or evil. On the contrary we find the Author of Nature permits
it: but then he has provided reliefs, and in many cases perfect remedies for it,
after some pains and difficulties; reliefs and remedies even for that evil, which
is the fruit of our own misconduct; and which, in the course of nature, would have
continued, and ended in our destruction, but for such remedies. And this is an instance
both of severity and of indulgence, in the constitution of nature. Thus all the
bad consequences, now mentioned, of a man’s trifling upon a precipice, might be
prevented. And though all were not, yet some of them might, by proper interposition,
if not rejected: by another’s coming to the rash man’s relief, with his
own laying
hold on that relief, in such sort as the case required. Persons may do a great deal
themselves towards preventing the bad consequences of their follies: and more may
be done by themselves, together with the assistance of others their fellow creatures;
which assistance
Many, I am sensible, will wonder at
finding this made a question, or spoken of as in any degree doubtful. The generality
of mankind are so far from having that awful sense of things, which the present
state of vice and misery and darkness seems to make but reasonable, that they have
scarce any apprehension or thought at all about this matter, any way: and some serious
persons may have spoken unadvisedly concerning it. But let us observe, what we experience
to be, and what, from the very constitution of nature, cannot but be, the consequences
of irregular and disorderly behaviour: even of such rashness, wilfulness,
neglects, as we scarce call vicious. Now it is natural to apprehend, that the
bad consequences of irregularity will be greater, in proportion as the
irregularity is so. And there is no comparison between these irregularities, and
the greater instances of vice, or a dissolute profligate disregard to all
religion; if there be any thing at all in religion. For consider what
IV. There seems no probability, that any thing we could do would alone and
of itself prevent them: prevent their following, or being inflicted. But one would
think at least, it were impossible that the contrary should be thought certain.
For we are not acquainted with the whole of the case. We are not informed of all
the reasons, which render it fit that future punishments should be inflicted: and
therefore cannot know, whether any thing we could do would make such an alteration,
as to render it fit that they should be remitted. We do not know what the whole
natural or appointed consequences of vice are; nor in what way they would follow,
if not prevented: and therefore can in no sort say, whether we could do any thing
which would be sufficient to prevent them. Our ignorance being thus manifest, let
us recollect the analogy of Nature or Providence. For, though this may be but a
slight ground to raise a positive opinion upon, in this matter; yet it is sufficient
to answer a mere arbitrary assertion, without any kind of evidence, urged by way
of objection against a doctrine, the proof of which is not reason, but revelation.
Consider then: people ruin their fortunes by extravagance; they bring
And though we ought to reason with
all reverence, whenever we reason concerning the divine conduct: yet it may be added, that it is clearly contrary to all our notions of government, as well as to what
is, in fact, the general constitution of nature, to suppose, that doing well for
the future should, in all cases, prevent all the judicial bad consequences of having
done evil, or all the punishment annexed to disobedience. And we have manifestly
nothing from whence to determine, in what degree, and in what cases, reformation
would prevent this punishment, even supposing that it would in some. And though
the efficacy of repentance itself alone, to prevent what mankind had rendered themselves
Upon the whole then; had the laws, the general laws of God’s government been permitted to operate, without any interposition in our behalf, the future punishment, for ought we know to the contrary, or have any reason to think, must inevitably have followed, notwithstanding any thing we could have done to prevent it. Now,
V. In this darkness, or this light of nature, call it which
you please, revelation comes in; confirms every doubting fear, which could enter
into the heart of man, concerning the future unprevented consequence of wickedness;
supposes the world to be in a state of ruin (a supposition which seems the very
ground of the Christian dispensation, and which, if not provable by reason, yet
is in no wise contrary to it;) teaches us too, that the rules of divine government
are such, as not to admit of pardon immediately and directly upon repentance, or
by the sole efficacy of it: but then teaches at the same time, what nature might
justly have hoped, that the moral government of the universe was not so rigid, but
that there was room for an interposition, to avert the fatal consequences of vice;
which therefore, by this means, does admit of pardon. Revelation teaches us, that
the unknown laws of God’s more general government, no less than the particular laws
by which we experience he governs us at present, are compassionate,
If
any thing here said should appear, upon first thought, inconsistent with divine
goodness; a second, I am persuaded, will entirely remove that appearance. For were
we to suppose the constitution of things to be such, as that the whole creation
must have perished, had it not been for somewhat, which God had appointed should
be, in order to prevent that ruin: even this supposition would not be inconsistent,
in any degree, with the most absolutely perfect goodness. But still it may be thought,
that this whole manner of treating the subject before us supposes mankind to be
naturally in a very strange state. And truly so it does. But it is not Christianity
which has put us into this state. Whoever
VI. The particular manner in which
Christ interposed in the redemption of the world, or his office as Mediator, in
the largest sense, between God and man, is thus represented to us in the Scripture.
He is the light of the world;
These passages of Scripture seem to comprehend and express the chief parts of Christ’s office, as Mediator between God and man, so far, I mean, as the nature of this his office is revealed; and it is usually treated of by divines under three heads.
First, He was, by way of eminence,
the Prophet: that Prophet that should come into the world,
Secondly, He has a kingdom
which is not of this world. He founded a Church, to be to mankind a standing memorial
of religion, and invitation to it; which he promised to be with always even to the
end. He exercises an invisible government over it, himself, and by his Spirit: over
that part of it, which is militant here on earth, a government of discipline, for
the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying his body: till we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,
unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.
Against these parts of Christ’s office I find no objections, but what are fully obviated in the beginning of this Chapter.
Lastly, Christ offered himself
a propitiatory sacrifice, and made atonement for the sins of the world; which is
mentioned last, in regard to what is objected against it. Sacrifices of expiation
were commanded the Jews, and obtained amongst most other nations, from tradition,
whose original probably was revelation. And they were continually repeated, both
occasionally, and at the returns of stated times: and made up great part of the
external religion of mankind. But now once in the end of the world Christ appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
How and in what particular way it had this efficacy; there are not wanting persons who have endeavoured to explain: but I do not find that the Scripture has explained it. We seem to be very much in the dark concerning the manner in which the ancients understood atonement to be made, i. e. pardon to be obtained by sacrifices. And if the Scripture has, as surely it has, left this matter of the satisfaction of Christ mysterious, left somewhat in it unrevealed, all conjectures about it must be, if not evidently absurd, yet at least uncertain. Nor has any one reason to complain for want of further information, unless he can show his claim to it.
Some have endeavoured to explain the efficacy of what Christ has done and suffered for us, beyond what the Scripture has authorized: others, probably because they could not explain it, have been for taking it away, and confining his office as Redeemer of the world to his instruction, example, and government of the church. Whereas the doctrine of the Gospel appears to be, not only that he taught the efficacy of repentance, but rendered it of the efficacy of which it is, by what he did and suffered for us: that he obtained for us the benefit of having our repentance accepted unto eternal life: not only that he revealed to sinners, that they were in a capacity of salvation, and how they might obtain it; but moreover that he put them into this capacity of salvation, by what he did and suffered for them; put us into a capacity of escaping future punishment, and obtaining future happiness. And it is our wisdom thankfully to accept the benefit, by performing. the conditions, upon which it is offered, on our part, without disputing how it was procured on his. For,
VII. Since we neither know by
what means punishment in a future state would have followed wickedness in this:
nor in what manner it would have been inflicted, had it not been prevented; nor
all the reasons why its infliction would have been needful, nor the particular nature
of that state of happiness, which Christ is gone to prepare for his disciples: and
since we are ignorant
And there
is one objection made against the satisfaction of Christ, which looks to be of this
positive kind: that the doctrine of his being appointed to suffer for the sins of
the world, represents God as being indifferent whether he punished the innocent
or the guilty. Now from the foregoing observations we may see the extreme slightness
of all such objections; and (though it is most certain all who make them do not
see the consequence) that they conclude altogether as much against God’s whole original
constitution of nature, and the whole daily course of divine Providence in the government
of the world, i. e. against the whole scheme of Theism and the whole notion
of Religion, as against Christianity. For the world is a constitution or system,
whose parts have a mutual reference to each other: and there is a
It is indeed a matter of great patience to reasonable men, to find people
arguing in this manner: objecting against the credibility of such particular things
revealed in Scripture, that they do not see the necessity or expediency of them.
For though it is highly right, and the most pious exercise of our understanding,
to inquire with due reverence into the ends and reasons of God’s dispensation: yet
when those reasons are concealed, to argue from our ignorance, that such dispensations
cannot be from God, is infinitely absurd. The presumption of this kind of objections
seems almost lost in the folly of them. And the folly of them is yet greater, when
they are urged, as usually they are, against things in Christianity analogous or
like to those natural dispensations of Providence, which are matter of experience.
Lastly, That not
only the reason of the thing, but the whole analogy of nature, should teach us,
not to expect to have the like information concerning the divine conduct, as concerning
our own duty. God instructs us by experience (for it is not reason, but experience
which instructs us), what good or bad consequences will follow from our acting in
such and such manners: and by this he directs us how we are to behave ourselves.
But, though we are sufficiently instructed for the common purposes of life: yet
it is but an almost infinitely small part of natural providence, which we are at
all let into. The case is the same with regard to revelation, The doctrine of a
mediator between God and man, against which it is objected, that the expediency
of some things in it is not understood, relates only to what was done on God’s part
in the appointment, and on the Mediator’s in the execution of it. For what is required
of us, in consequence of this gracious dispensation, is another subject, in which
none can complain for want of information. The constitution of the world, and God’s
natural government over it, is all mystery, as much as the Christian dispensation.
Yet under the first he has given men all things pertaining to life; and under the
other all things pertaining unto godliness. And it may be added, that there is nothing
hard to be accounted for in any of the common precepts of Christianity: though if
there were, surely a divine command is abundantly sufficient to lay us under the
strongest obligations to obedience. But the fact is, that the reasons of all the Christian
precepts are evident. Positive institutions are manifestly necessary to keep up
and propagate religion
IT has been thought by some persons, that if the evidence of revelation appears doubtful, this itself turns into a positive argument against it: because it cannot be supposed, that, if it were true, it would be left to subsist upon doubtful evidence. And the objection against revelation from its not being universal is often insisted upon as of great weight.
Now the weakness of these opinions may be shown, by observing the suppositions on which they are founded: which are really such as these; that it cannot be thought God would have bestowed any favour at all upon us, unless in the degree, which, we think, he might, and which, we imagine, would be most to our particular advantage; and also that it cannot be thought he would bestow a favour upon any, unless he bestowed the same upon all; suppositions, which we find contradicted, not by a few instances in God’s natural government of the world, but by the general analogy of nature together.
Persons who speak of the evidence
of religion as doubtful, and of this supposed doubtfulness as a positive argument
against it, should be put upon considering, what that evidence indeed is, which
they act upon with regard to their temporal interests. For, it is not only extremely
difficult, but in many cases absolutely impossible, to balance pleasure and pain,
satisfaction and uneasiness, so as to be able to say on which side the overplus
is. There are the like difficulties and impossibilities in making the due
allowances for a change of
As neither the Jewish nor Christian
revelation have been universal; and as they have been afforded to a greater or less
part of the world, at different times; so likewise at different times, both revelations
have had different degrees of evidence. The Jews who lived during the succession
of prophets, that is, from Moses till after the Captivity, had higher evidence of
the truth of their religion, than those had, who lived in the interval between the
last mentioned period, and the coming of Christ. And the first Christians had higher
evidence of the miracles wrought in attestation of Christianity, than what we have
now. They had also a strong presumptive proof of the truth of it, perhaps of much
greater force, in way of argument, than many think, of which we have very little
remaining; I mean the presumptive proof of its truth, from the influence which it
had upon the lives of the generality of its professors. And we, or future ages,
may possibly have a proof of it, which they could not have, from the conformity
between the prophetic history, and the state of the world and of Christianity. And
further: if we were to suppose the evidence, which some have of religion, to amount
to little more than seeing that it may be true; but that they remain in great doubts
and uncertainties about both its evidence and its nature, and great perplexities
concerning the rule of life: others to have a full conviction of the truth of religion,
with a distinct knowledge of their duty; and others severally to have all the intermediate
degrees of religious light and evidence, which lie between these two—if we put the
case, that for the present, it was intended, revelation should be no more than a
small light, in the midst of a world greatly overspread, notwithstanding it, with
ignorance and darkness: that certain glimmerings of this light should extend, and
be directed, to remote distances, in such a manner as that those who really partook
of it should not discern
Nor is there
any thing shocking in all this, or which would seem to bear hard upon the moral
administration in nature, if we would really keep in mind, that every one shall
be dealt equitably with: instead of forgetting this, or explaining it away, after
it is acknowledged in words. All shadow of injustice, and indeed all harsh appearances,
in this various economy of Providence, would be lost; if we would keep in mind,
that every merciful allowance shall be made, and no more be required of any one,
than what might have been equitably expected of him, from the circumstances in which
he was placed; and not what might have been expected, had he been placed in other
circumstances: i. e. in Scripture language, that every man shall be accepted
according to what he had, not according to what he had not.
It is not unreasonable to suppose, that the same wise and good
principle, whatever it was, which disposed the Author of Nature to make
different kinds and orders of creatures, disposed him also to place creatures of
like kinds in different situations: and that the same principle which disposed
him to make creatures of different moral capacities, disposed him also to place
creatures of like moral capacities in different religious situations; and even
the same creatures, in different periods of their being. And the account or
reason of this is also most probably the account why the constitution of things
is such, as that creatures of moral natures or capacities, for a considerable
part of that duration in which they are living
What, in particular, is the account or reason of these things, we must be greatly in the dark, were it only that we know so very little even of our own case. Our present state may possibly be the consequence of somewhat past, which we are wholly ignorant of: as it has a reference to somewhat to come, of which we know scarce any more than is necessary for practice. A system or constitution, in its notion, implies variety; and so complicated a one as this world, very great variety. So that were revelation universal, yet, from men’s different capacities of understanding, from the different lengths of their lives, their different educations and other external circumstances, and from their difference of temper and bodily constitution; their religious situations would be widely different, and the disadvantage of some in comparison of others, perhaps, altogether as much as at present. And the true account, whatever it be, why mankind, or such a part of mankind, are placed in this condition of ignorance, must be supposed also the true account of our further ignorance, in not knowing the reasons why, or whence it is, that they are placed in this condition. But the following practical reflections may deserve the serious consideration of those persons, who think the circumstances of mankind or their own, in the forementioned respects, a ground of complaint.
First, The evidence of religion not appearing obvious, may constitute
one particular part of some men’s trial in the religious sense: as it gives scope,
for a. virtuous exercise, or vicious neglect of their understanding, in examining
or not examining into that evidence. There seems no possible reason to be given,
why we may not be in a state of moral probation, with regard to the exercise of
our understanding upon the subject of religion, as we are with regard to our behaviour
in common affairs. The former is as much a thing within our power and choice as
the latter. And I suppose it is to be laid down for certain, that the same character,
the same inward principle, which, after a man is convinced of the
Secondly,
It appears to be a thing as evident, though it is not so much attended to, that
if, upon consideration of religion, the evidence of it should seem to any persons
doubtful, in the highest supposable degree; even this doubtful evidence will, however,
put them into a general state of probation in the moral and religious sense. For,
suppose a man to be really in doubt, whether such a person had not done him the
greatest favour; or, whether his whole temporal interest did not depend upon that
person: no one, who had any sense of gratitude and of prudence, could possibly consider
himself in the same situation, with regard to such person, as if he had no such
doubt. In truth, it is as just to say, that certainty and doubt are the same; as
to say the situations now mentioned would leave a man as entirely at liberty in
point of gratitude or prudence, as he would be, were he certain he had received
no favour from such person,
It is to be observed further, that, from a character of understanding, or a situation of influence in the world, some persons have it in their power to do infinitely more harm or good, by setting an example of profaneness and avowed disregard to all religion, or, on the contrary, of a serious, though perhaps doubting, apprehension of its truth, and of a reverend regard to it under this doubtfulness; than they can do, by acting well or ill in all the common intercourses amongst mankind. And consequently they are most highly accountable for a behaviour, which, they may easily foresee, is of such importance, and in which there is most plainly a right and a wrong; even admitting the evidence of religion to be as doubtful as is pretended.
The ground of these observations, and that which renders them just and true, is,
that doubting necessarily implies some degree of evidence for that, of which we
doubt. For no person would be in doubt concerning the truth of a number of facts
so and so circumstanced, which should accidentally come into his thoughts, and of
which he had no evidence at all. And though in the case of an even chance, and where
consequently we were in doubt, we should in common language say, that we had no
evidence at all for either side; yet that situation of things, which renders it
an even chance and no more, that such an event will happen, renders this case equivalent
to all others, where there is such evidence on both sides of a question,
Thirdly, The difficulties in which the evidence of religion is involved,
which some complain of, is no more a just ground of complaint, than the external
circumstances of temptation, which others are placed in; or than difficulties in
the practice of it, after a full conviction of its truth. Temptations render our
state a more improving state of discipline,
Nor does there appear any absurdity in supposing, that the speculative difficulties,
in which the evidence of religion is involved, may make even the principal part
of some persons’ trial. For as the chief temptations of the generality of the world
are the ordinary motives to injustice or unrestrained pleasure; or to live in the
neglect of religion from that frame of mind, which renders many persons almost without
feeling as to any thing distant, or which is not the object of their senses: so
there are other persons without this shallowness of temper, persons of a deeper
sense as to what is invisible and future; who not only see, but have a general practical
feeling, that what is to come will be present, and that things are not less real
for their not being the objects of sense; and who, from their natural constitution
of body and of temper, and from their external condition, may have small temptations
to behave ill, small difficulty in behaving well, in the common course of life.
Now when these latter persons have a distinct full conviction of the truth of religion,
without any possible doubts or difficulties, the practice of it is to them unavoidable,
unless they will do a constant violence to their own minds; and religion is scarce
any more a discipline to them, than it is to creatures in a state of perfection.
Yet these persons may possibly stand in need of moral discipline and exercise in
a higher degree, than they would have by such an easy practice of religion. Or it
may be requisite, for reasons unknown to us, that they should give some further
manifestation
But as I have hitherto gone upon supposition, that men’s dissatisfaction with the evidence of religion is not owing to their neglects or prejudices; it must be added, on the other hand, in all common reason, and as what the truth of the case plainly requires should be added, that such dissatisfaction possibly may be owing to those, possibly may be men’s own fault. For,
If there are any persons, who never set themselves heartily
and. in earnest to be informed in religion; if there are any, who secretly wish
it may not prove true; and are less attentive to evidence than to difficulties,
and more to objections than to what is said in answer to them: these persons
will scarce be thought in a likely way of seeing the evidence of religion,
though it were most certainly true, and capable of being ever so fully proved.
If any accustom themselves to consider this subject usually in the way of mirth
and sport: if they attend to forms and representations, and inadequate manners of expression, instead of the real things intended by them:
(for signs often can be no more than inadequately
Further: The general proof of natural religion and of
But still perhaps it will be objected, that if a prince
or common master were to send directions to a servant, he would take care, that
they should always bear the certain marks, who they came from, and that their sense should be always plain: so as that there should be no possible doubt if he could
help it, concerning the authority or meaning of them. Now the proper answer to all
this kind of objections is, that, wherever the fallacy lies, it is even certain
we cannot argue thus with respect to Him, who is the governor of the world: and
particularly that he does not afford us such information, with respect to our temporal
affairs and interests, as experience abundantly shows. However, there is a full
answer to this objection,. from the very nature of religion. For, the reason why
a prince would give his directions in this plain manner is, that he absolutely desires
such an external action should be done, without concerning himself with the motive
or principle upon which it is done: i. e. he reg;ards only the external event,
or the thing’s being done; and not at all, properly speaking, the doing of it, or
the action. Whereas the whole of morality and religion, consisting merely in action
itself, there is no sort of parallel between the cases. But if the prince be supposed
to regard only the action; i. e. only to desire to exercise, or in any sense
prove, the understanding or loyalty of a servant; he would not always give his orders
in such a plain manner. It may be proper to add, that the will of God, respecting
morality and religion, may be considered either as absolute, or as only conditional.
If it be absolute, it can only be thus, that ae should act virtuously in such given
circumstances; not that we should be brought to act so, by his changing of our circumstances.
And if God’s will be thus absolute, then it is in our power, in the highest and
strictest sense, to do or to contradict his will; which is a most weighty consideration.
Or his will may be considered only as conditional, that if we act so and so, we
shall be rewarded; if otherwise, punished: of which conditional will of
Upon the whole:
that we are in a state of religion necessarily implies, that we are in a state of
probation: and the credibility of our being at all in such a state being admitted,
there seems no peculiar difficulty in supposing our probation to be, just as it
is, in those respects which are above objected against. There seems no pretence,
from the reason of the thing, to say, that the trial cannot equitably be any thing,
but whether persons will act suitably to certain information, or such as admits
no room for doubt; so as that there can be no danger of miscarriage, but either
from their not attending to what they certainly know, or from overbearing passion
hurrying them on to act contrary to it. For, since ignorance and doubt afford scope
for probation in all senses, as really as intuitive conviction or certainty; and
since the two former are to be put to the same account as difficulties in practice;
men’s moral probation may also be, whether they will take due care to inform themselves
by impartial consideration, and afterwards whether they will act as the case requires,
upon the evidence which they have, however doubtful. And this, we find by experience,
is frequently our probation,
Several of the observations here made may well seem strange, perhaps unintelligible, to many good men. But if the persons for whose sake they are made think so; persons who object as above, and throw off all regard to religion under pretence of want of evidence; I desire them to consider again, whether their thinking so be owing to any thing unintelligible in these observations, or to their own not having such a sense of religion and serious solicitude about it, as even their state of scepticism does in all reason require? It ought to be forced upon the reflection of these persons, that our nature and. condition necessarily require us, in the daily course of life, to act upon evidence much lower than what is commonly called probable: to guard, not only against what we fully believe will, but also against what we think it supposable may, happen; and to engage in pursuits when the probability is greatly against success, if it be credible, that possibly we may succeed in them.
THE presumptions against revelation, and objections against the general scheme of Christianity, and particular things relating to it, being removed; there remains to be considered, what positive evidence we have for the truth of it; chiefly in order to see, what the analogy of nature suggests with regard to that evidence, and the objections against it: or to see what is, and is allowed to be, the plain natural rule of judgment and of action, in our temporal concerns, in cases where we have the same kind of evidence, and the same kind of objections against it, that we have in the case before us.
Now in the evidence of Christianity
there seem to be several things of great weight, not reducible to the head, either
of miracles, or the completion of prophecy, in the common acceptation of the words.
But these two are
First, I shall make some observations upon the direct proof of Christianity from miracles and prophecy, and upon the objections alleged against it.
I. Now the following observations relating to the historical evidence of miracles wrought in attestation of Christianity appear to be of great weight.
1. The Old Testament affords
us the same historical evidence of the miracles of Moses and of the prophets, as
of the common civil history of Moses and the kings of Israel; or, as of the affairs
of the Jewish nation. And the Gospels and the Acts afford us the
same historical evidence of the miracles of Christ and the Apostles, as of the
common matters related in them. This indeed could not have been affirmed by any
reasonable man, if the authors of these books, like many other historians, had
appeared to make an entertaining manner of writing their aim; though they had
interspersed miracles in
Now the just consequence from all this, I think, is, that the Scripture-history in general is to be admitted as an authentic genuine history, till somewhat positive be alleged sufficient to invalidate it. But no man will deny the consequence to be, that it cannot be rejected, or thrown by as of no authority, till it can be proved to be of none; even though the evidence now mentioned for its authority were doubtful. This evidence may be confronted by historical evidence on the other side, if there be any: or general incredibility in the things related, or inconsistence in the general turn of the history, would prove it to be of no authority. But since, upon the face of the matter, upon a first and general view, the appearance is, that it is an authentic history; it cannot be determined to be fictitious without some proof that it is so. And the following observations in support of these, and coincident with them, will greatly confirm the historical evidence for the truth of Christianity.
2. The Epistles of
St Paul, from the nature of epistolary writing, and moreover from several of them
being written, not to particular persons, but to churches, carry in them evidences
of their being genuine, beyond what can be in a mere historical narrative, left
to the world at large. This evidence, joined with that which they have in common
with the rest of the New Testament, seems not to leave so much as any particular
pretence for denying their genuineness, considered as an ordinary matter of fact,
or of criticism: I say particular pretence, for denying it; because any single fact,
of such a kind and such antiquity, may have general doubts raised concerning it,
from the very nature of human affairs and human, testimony. There is also to be
mentioned a distinct and particular evidence of the genuineness of the epistle chiefly
referred to here, the first to the Corinthians; from the manner in which it is quoted
by Clemens Romanus, in an epistle of his own to that church.
In them the author declares, that he received the Gospel in general, and the institution
of the Communion is particular, not from the rest of the Apostles, or jointly together
with them, but alone, from Christ himself; whom he declares likewise, conformably
to the history in the Acts, that he saw after his ascension.
And he declares further, that he was endued with a power of working miracles, as
what was publicly known to those very people, speaks of frequent and great variety
of miraculous. gifts as then subsisting in those very churches, to which he was
waiting;
which he was reproving for several irregularities; and where he had personal opposers:
he mentions these gifts incidentally, in the most easy manner, and without effort;
by way of reproof to those who had them, for their indecent use of them; and by
way of depreciating them, in comparison of moral virtues: in short he speaks to
these churches, of these miraculous powers, in the manner, any one would speak to
another of a thing, which was as familiar and as much known in common to them both,
as any thing in the world.
3. It is an acknowledged historical fact, that
Christianity offered itself to the world, and demanded to be received, upon the
allegation, i. e. as unbelievers would speak, upon the pretence, of
miracles, publicly wrought to attest the truth of it, in such an age; and that
it was actually received by great numbers in that very age, and upon the
professed belief of the reality of these miracles. And Christianity, including
the dispensation of the Old Testament, seems distinguished by this from all
other religions. I mean, that this does not appear to be the case with regard to
any other; for surely it will not be supposed to lie upon any person, to prove
by positive
Upon the whole: as there is large historical evidence,
They allege, that numberless enthusiastic people, in different ages and countries, expose themselves to the same difficulties which the primitive Christians did; and are ready to give up their lives for the most idle follies imaginable. But it is not very clear, to what purpose this objection is brought. For every one, surely, in every case, must distinguish between opinions and facts. And though testimony is no proof of enthusiastic opinions, or of any opinions at all; yet it is allowed, in all other cases, to be a proof of facts. And a person’s laying down his life in attestation of facts or of opinions, is the strongest proof of his believing them. And if the Apostles and their contemporaries did believe the facts, in attestation of which they exposed themselves to sufferings and death; this their belief, or rather knowledge, must be a proof of those facts: for they were such as came under the observation of their senses. And though it is not of equal weight, yet it is of weight, that the martyrs of the next age, notwithstanding they were not eye-witnesses of those facts, as were the Apostles and their contemporaries, had, however, full opportunity to inform themselves, whether they were true or not, and gave equal proof of their believing them to be true.
But enthusiasm, it is said, greatly weakens the evidence of testimony
even for facts, in matters relating to religion: some seem to think it totally
and absolutely destroys the evidence of testimony upon this subject. And indeed
the powers of enthusiasm, and of diseases
It is intimated further, in a more refined way of observation,
that though it should be proved, that the Apostles and first Christians could not,
in some respects, be deceived themselves, and, in other respects, cannot be thought
to have intended to impose upon the world; yet it will not follow, that their general
testimony is to be believed, though truly handed down to us: because they might
still in part, i. e. in other respects, be deceived themselves, and in part
also designedly impose upon others; which, it is added, is a thing very credible,
from that mixture of real enthusiasm, and real knavery, to be met with in the same
characters. And, I must confess, I think the matter of fact contained in this observation
upon mankind is not to be denied; and that somewhat very much akin to it is often
supposed in Scripture as a very common case, and most severely reproved. But it
were to have been expected, that persons capable of applying this observation as
applied in the objection, might also frequently have met with the like mixed character,
in instances where religion was quite out of the case. The thing plainly is, that
mankind are naturally endued with reason, or a capacity of distinguishing between
truth and falsehood; and as naturally they are endued with veracity, or a regard
to truth in what they say: but from many occasions they are liable to be prejudiced
and biassed and deceived themselves, and capable of intending to deceive others,
in every degree: insomuch that, as we are all liable to be deceived by prejudice,
so likewise it seems to be not an uncommon thing, for persons, who, from their regard
to truth, would not invent a lie entirely without any foundation at all, to propagate
it with heightening circumstances, after it is once invented and set agoing. And
others, though they would not propagate a lie, yet, which is a lower
degree of falsehood, will let it pass without contradiction. But,
notwithstanding all this, human testimony
remains still a
It is objected further, that however it has happened, the fact is, that mankind have, in different ages, been strangely deluded with pretences to miracles and wonders. But it is by no means to be admitted, that they have been oftener, or are at all more liable to be deceived by these pretences, than by others.
It is added, that there is a very considerable degree of historical evidence for miracles, which are, on all hands, acknowledged to be fabulous. But suppose there were even the like historical evidence for these, to what there is for those alleged in proof of Christianity, which yet is in no wise allowed, but suppose this; the consequence would not be, that the evidence of the latter is not to be admitted. Nor is there a man in the world, who, in common cases, would conclude thus. For what would such a conclusion really amount to but this, that evidence, confuted by contrary evidence, or any way overbalanced, destroys the credibility of other evidence, neither confuted, nor overbalanced? To argue, that because there is, if there were, like evidence from testimony, for miracles acknowledged false, as for those in attestation of Christianity, therefore the evidence in the latter case is not to be credited; this is the same as to argue, that if two men of equally good reputation had given evidence in different cases no way connected, and one of them had been convicted of perjury, this confuted the testimony of the other.
Upon the whole then, the general observation, that human creatures are so liable
to be deceived, from enthusiasm in religion, and principles equivalent to enthusiasm
in common matters, and in both from negligence; and that they are so capable of
dishonestly endeavouring to deceive others; this does indeed weaken the evidence
of testimony in all cases, but does not destroy it in any. And these things will
appear, to different men, to weaken the evidence of testimony, in different degrees:
in degrees proportionable to the observations they have made, or the notions they
have any way taken up, concerning the weakness and negligence and dishonesty of
mankind;
And over against all these objections is to be set the importance of Christianity, as what must have engaged the attention of its first converts, so as to have rendered them less liable to be deceived from carelessness, than they would in common matters; and likewise the strong obligations to veracity, which their religion laid them under: so that the first and most obvious presumption is, that they could not be deceived themselves nor deceive others. And this presumption, in this degree, is peculiar to the testimony we have been considering.
In argument, assertions are
nothing in themselves, and have an air of positiveness which sometimes is not very
easy: yet they are necessary, and necessary to be repeated; in order to connect
a discourse, and distinctly to lay before the view of the reader, what is proposed
to be proved, and what is left as proved. Now the conclusion from the foregoing
observations is, I think, beyond all doubt, this: that unbelievers must be
forced to admit
II. As to the evidence for Christianity from prophecy, I shall only make some few general observations, which are suggested by the Analogy of Nature; i. e. by the acknowledged natural rules of judging in common matters, concerning evidence of a like kind to this from prophecy.
1.
The obscurity or unintelligibleness of one part of a prophecy does not, in any degree,
invalidate the proof of foresight, arising from the appearing completion of those
other parts, which are understood. For the case is evidently the same, as if those
parts, which are not understood, were lost, or not written at all, or written in
an unknown tongue. Whether this observation be commonly attended to or not, it is
so evident, that one can scarce bring oneself to set down an instance in common
matters, to exemplify it. However, suppose a writing, partly in cipher, and partly
in plain words at length; and that in the part one understood, there appeared mention
of several known facts; it would never come into any man’s thoughts to imagine,
that if he understood the whole, perhaps he might find, that those facts were not
in reality known by the writer. Indeed, both in this example and the thing intended
to be exemplified by it, our not understanding the whole (the whole, suppose, of
a sentence or a paragraph) might sometimes occasion a doubt, whether
For the same reason, though a man should be incapable, for want of learning, or opportunities of inquiry, or from not having turned his studies this way, even so mulch as to judge whether particular prophecies have been throughout completely fulfilled; yet he may see, in general, that they have been fulfilled to such a degree, as, upon very good ground, to be convinced of foresight more than human in such prophecies, and of such events being intended by them. For the same reason also, though, by means of the deficiencies in civil history, and the different accounts of historians, the most learned should not be able to make out to satisfaction, that such parts of the prophetic history have been minutely and throughout fulfilled; yet a very strong proof of foresight may arise, from that general completion of them, which is made out: as much proof of foresight, perhaps, as the giver of prophecy intended should ever be afforded by such parts of prophecy.
2. A long series of prophecy being applicable to such and such events, is itself a proof that it was intended of them: as the rules by which we naturally judge and determine, in common cases parallel to this, will show. This observation I make in answer to the common objection against the application of the prophecies, that, considering each of them distinctly by itself, it does not at all appear, that they were intended of those particular events, to which they are applied by Christians; and therefore it is to be supposed, that, if they meant any thing, they were intended of other events unknown to us, and not of these at all.
Now there are two kinds of writing, which bear a great resemblance to prophecy,
with respect to the matter before us: the mythological, and the satirical, where
the satire is, to a certain degree, concealed. And a man might be assured, that
he understood what an author intended by a fable or parable related without any
application or moral, merely from seeing it to be easily capable of such application,
and that such a moral might naturally be deduced from it. And he might be fully
3. That the showing even to a high probability, if that could be, that the prophets
thought of some other events, in such and such predictions, and not those at all
which Christians allege to be completions of those predictions; or that such and
such prophecies are capable of being applied to other events than those, to which
Christians apply them—that this would not confute or destroy the force of the argument
from prophecy, even with regard to those very instances. For, observe how
Hence may be seen, to how little purpose those persons busy themselves, who
endeavour to prove, that the prophetic history is applicable to events of the age
in which it was written, or of ages before it. Indeed to have proved this, before
there was any appearance of a further completion of it, might have answered some
purpose; for it might have prevented the expectation of any such further completion.
Thus could Porphyry have shown, that some principal parts of the book of Daniel
for instance, the seventh verse of the seventh chapter, which the Christians interpreted
of the latter ages, was applicable to events, which happened before or about the
age of Antiochus Epiphanes; this might have prevented them from expecting any further
completion of it. And, unless there was then, as I think there must have been, external
evidence concerning that book, more than is come down to us; such a discovery might
have been a stumbling-block in the way of Christianity itself: considering the authority
which our Saviour has given to the book of Daniel, and how much the general scheme
of Christianity presupposes the truth of it. But even this discovery, had there
been any such,
These observations are, I think, just; and the evidence referred to in them real: though there may be people who will not accept of such imperfect information from Scripture. Some too have not integrity and regard enough to truth, to attend to evidence, which keeps the mind in doubt, perhaps perplexity, and which is much of a different sort from what they expected. And it plainly requires a degree of modesty and fairness, beyond what every one has, for a man to say, not to the world, but to himself, that there is a real appearance of somewhat of great weight in this matter, though he is not able thoroughly to satisfy himself about it; but it shall have its influence upon him, in proportion to its appearing reality and weight. It is much more easy, and more falls in with the negligence, presumption, and wilfulness of the generality, to determine at once, with a decisive air, There is nothing in it. The prejudices arising from that absolute contempt and scorn, with which this evidence is treated in the world, I do not mention. For what indeed can be said to persons, who are weak enough in their understandings to think this any presumption against it, or, if they do not, are yet weak enough in their temper to be influenced by such prejudices, upon such a subject?
I shall now, Secondly, endeavour to give some account of the
general argument for the truth of Christianity, consisting both of the direct and
circumstantial evidence considered as making up one argument. Indeed to state
and examine this argument fully, would be a work much
This revelation, whether real or supposed, may be considered as wholly historical.
For prophecy is nothing but the history of events before they come to pass; doctrines
also are matters of fact; and precepts come under the same notion. And the general
design of Scripture, which contains in it this revelation, thus considered as historical,
may be said to be, to give us an account of the world, in this one single view,
as God’s world: by which it appears essentially distinguished from all other books,
so far as I have found, except such as are copied from it. It begins with an account
of God’s creation of the world, in order to ascertain, and distinguish from all
others, who is the object of our worship, by what he has done: in order to ascertain,
who he is, concerning whose providence, commands, promises, and threatenings, this
sacred book, all along, treats; the Maker and Proprietor of the world, he whose
creatures we are, the God of Nature: in order likewise to distinguish him from the
idols of the nations, which are either imaginary beings, i. e. no beings
at all; or else part of that creation, the historical relation of which is here
given. And St John, not improbably, with an eye to this Mosaic account of the creation,
begins his Gospel with an account of our Saviour’s pre-existence, and that
all things
were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made:
Upon this general view of the Scripture, I would
remark, how great a length of time the whole relation takes up, near six thousand
years of which are past; and how great a variety of things it treats of; the natural
and moral system or history of the world, including the time when it was formed,
all contained in the very first book, and evidently written in a rude and unlearned
age; and in subsequent books, the various common and prophetic history, and the
particular dispensation of Christianity. Now all this together gives the largest
scope for criticism; and for confutation of what is capable of being confuted,
either from reason, or from common history, or from any
Together
with the moral system of the world, the Old Testament contains a chronological account
of the beginning of it, and from thence, an unbroken genealogy of mankind for many
ages before common history begins; and carried on as much farther as to make up
a continued thread of history of the length of between three and four thousand years.
It contains an account of God’s making a covenant with a particular nation, that
they should be his people, and he would be their God, in a peculiar sense; of his
often interposing miraculously in their affairs; giving them the promise, and, long
after, the possession, of a particular country; assuring them oi the greatest national
prosperity in it, if they would worship him, in opposition to the idols which the
rest of the world worshipped, and obey his commands; and threatening them with unexampled
punishments if they disobeyed him, and fell into the general idolatry: insomuch
that this one nation should continue to be the observation and the wonder of all
the world. It declares particularly, that God would scatter them among all people,
Let us now suppose a person utterly ignorant of history, to have all this related to him out of the Scripture. Or suppose such a one, having the Scripture put into his hands, to remark these things in it, not knowing but that the whole, even its civil history, as well as the other parts of it, might be, from beginning to end, an entire invention; and to ask, What truth was in it, and whether the revelation here related was real, or a fiction And, instead of a direct answer, suppose him, all at once, to be told the following confessed facts; and then to unite them into one view.
Let him first be told, in how great a degree
the profession and establishment of natural religion, the belief that there is one
God to be worshipped, that virtue is his law, and that mankind shall be rewarded
and punished
Let such a person as we are speaking of be, in the next place, informed of the acknowledged
antiquity of the first parts of this book; and that its chronology, its account
of the time when the earth, and the several parts of it, were first peopled with
human creatures, is no way contradicted, but is really confirmed, by the natural
and civil history of the world, collected from common historians, from the state
of the earth, and from the late invention of arts and sciences. And as the Scripture
contains an unbroken thread of common and civil history, from the creation to the
captivity, for between three and four thousand years; let the person we are speaking of
Let it then be more particularly observed to this person, that it is an acknowledged matter of facts which is indeed implied in the foregoing observation, that there was such a nation as the Jews, of the greatest antiquity, whose government and general polity was founded on the law, here related to be given them by Moses as from heaven: that natural religion, though with rites additional yet no way contrary to it, was their established religion, which cannot be said of the Gentile world: and that their very being as a nation, depended upon their acknowledgment of one God, the God of the universe. For, suppose in their captivity in Babylon, they had gone over to the religion of their conquerors, there would have remained no bond of union, to keep them a distinct people. And whilst they were under their own kings, in their own country, a total apostasy from God would have been the dissolution of their whole government. They in such a sense nationally acknowledged and worshipped the Maker of heaven and earth, when the rest of the world were sunk in idolatry, as rendered them, in fact, the peculiar people of God. And this so remarkable an establishment and preservation of natural religion amongst them, seems to add some peculiar credibility to the historical evidence for the miracles of Moses and the Prophets: because these miracles are a full satisfactory account of this event, which plainly wants to be accounted for, and cannot otherwise.
Let this person,
supposed wholly ignorant of history,
The appearance of a standing miracle, in the Jews
And as several of these events seem, in some degree expressly,
to have verified the prophetic history already; so likewise they may be considered
further; as having a peculiar aspect towards the full completion of it; as affording
some presumption that the whole of it shall, one time or other, be fulfilled. Thus,
that the Jews have been so wonderfully preserved in their long and wide dispersion;
which is indeed the direct fulfilling of some prophecies, but is now mentioned only
as looking forward to somewhat yet to come: that natural religion came forth from
Judea, and spread, in the degree it has done over the world, before lost in idolatry;
which, together with some other things, have distinguished that very place, in
like manner as the people of it are distinguished. that this great change of religion
over the earth was
Indeed it requires a good degree of knowledge, and great calmness and consideration, to be able to judge thoroughly of the evidence for the truth of Christianity, from that part of the prophetic history which relates to the situation of the kingdoms of the world, and to the state of the church, from the establishment of Christianity to the present time. But it appears from a general view of it, to be very material. And those persons who have thoroughly examined it, and some of them were men of the coolest tempers, greatest capacities, and least liable to imputations of prejudice, insist upon it as determinately conclusive.
Suppose now a person quite ignorant of history, first to recollect the passages
above mentioned out of Scripture, without knowing but that the whole was a late
fiction, then to be informed of the correspondent facts now mentioned, and to unite
them all into one view: that the profession and establishment of natural religion
in the world is greatly owing, in different ways, to this book, and the supposed
revelation which it contains; that it is acknowledged to be of the earliest antiquity;
that its chronology and common history are entirely credible; that this ancient
nation, the Jews, of whom it chiefly treats, appear to have been, in fact, the
people of God in a distinguished sense; that, as there was a national expectation
amongst them, raised from the prophecies,
All these things, and the several particulars contained under them, require
to be distinctly and most thoroughly examined into; that the weight of each may
be judged of, upon such examination, and such conclusion drawn as results from their
united force. But this has not been, attempted here. I have gone no further than
to show, that the general imperfect view of them now given, the confessed historical
evidence for miracles, and the many obvious appearing completions of prophecy, together
with the collateral things
This general view of the evidence for Christianity, considered
as making one argument, may also serve to recommend to serious persons, to set down
every thing which they think may be of any real weight at all in proof of it, and
particularly the many seeming completions of prophecy: and they will find, that,
judging by the natural rules, by which we judge of probable evidence in common matters,
they amount to a much higher degree of proof, upon such a joint review. than could
be
It is obvious, how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For it is easy to show, in a short and lively manner, that such and such things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little weight in itself; but impossible to show, in like manner, the united force of the whole argument in one view.
However, lastly, as it has been made appear, that there is no presumption against a revelation as miraculous; that the general scheme of Christianity, and the principal parts of it, are conformable to the experienced constitution of things, and the whole perfectly credible: so the account now given of the positive evidence for it, shows, that this evidence is such, as, from the nature of it, cannot be destroyed, though it should be lessened.
IF every one would consider, with such attention as they are bound, even in point of morality, to consider, what they judge and give characters of; the occasion of this chapter would be, in some good measure at least, superseded. But since this is not to be expected; for some we find do not concern themselves to understand even what they write against: since this treatise, in common with most others, lies open to objections, which may appear very material to thoughtful men at first sight; and, besides that, seems peculiarly liable to the objections of such as can judge without thinking, and of such as can censure without judging; it may not be amiss to set down the chief of these objections which occur to me, and consider them to their hands. And they are such as these:
“That it is a poor thing to solve difficulties in revelation, by saying, that there are the same in natural religion; when what is wanting is to clear both of them of these their common, as well as other their respective, difficulties: but that it is a strange way indeed of convincing men of the obligations of religion, to show them, that they have as little reason for their worldly pursuits: and a strange way of vindicating the justice and goodness of the Author of Nature, and of removing the objections against both, to which the system of religion lies open, to show, that the like objections lie against natural providence; a way of answering objections against religion, without so much as pretending to make out, that the system of it, or the particular things in it objected against, are reasonable—especially, perhaps some may be inattentive enough to add, Must this be thought strange, when it is confessed that analogy is no answer to such objections: that when this sort of reasoning is carried to the utmost length it can be imagined capable of, it will yet leave the mind in a very unsatisfied state; and that it must be unaccountable ignorance of mankind, to imagine they will be prevailed with to forego their present interests and pleasures, from regard to religion, upon doubtful evidence.”
Now, as plausible as this way of talking may appear, that appearance will be found in a great measure owing to half views, which show but part of an object, yet show that indistinctly, and to undeterminate language. By these means weak men are often deceived by others, and ludicrous men, by themselves. And even those, who are serious and considerate, cannot always readily disentangle, and at once clearly see through the perplexities, in which subjects themselves are involved; and which are heightened by the deficiencies and the abuse of words. To this latter sort of persons, the following reply to each part of this objection severally, may be of some assistance; as it may also tend a little to stop and silence others.
First, The thing wanted, i. e. what
men require, is to have all difficulties cleared; And this is, or, at least for
any thing we know to the contrary, it may be, the same,
Further: since it is as unreasonable, as it is common, to urge objections
against revelation, which are of equal weight against natural religion; and those
who do this, if they are not confused themselves, deal unfairly with others, in
making it seem, that they are arguing only against revelation, or particular doctrines
of it, when in reality they are arguing against moral providence; it is a thing
of consequence to show, that such objections are as much levelled against natural
religion, as against revealed. And objections, which are equally applicable to both,
are properly speaking answered, by its being shown that they are so, provided the
former be admitted to be true. And without taking in the consideration how distinctly
this is admitted, it is plainly very material to observe, that as the things
objected against in natural religion are of the same kind with what is certain
matter of experience in the course of providence, and in the information which
God affords us concerning our temporal interest under his government; so the
objections against the system of Christianity, and the evidence of it, are of
the very same kind with those which are made against the system and evidence of
natural religion. However, the reader upon review may see, that most of
Secondly, Religion is a practical thing, and consists in such a determinate course of life, as being what, there is reason to think, is commanded by the Author of nature, and will, upon the whole, be our happiness under his government. Now if men can be convinced, that they have the like reason to believe this, as to believe that taking care of their temporal affairs will be to their advantage; such conviction cannot but be an argument to them for the practice of religion. And if there be really any reason for believing one of these, and endeavouring to preserve life, and secure ourselves the necessaries and conveniences of it; then there is reason also for believing the other, and endeavouring to secure the interest it proposes to us. And if the interest, which religion proposes to us, be infinitely greater than our whole temporal interest; then there must be proportionably greater reason for endeavouring to secure one, than the other; since, by the supposition, the probability of our securing one is equal to the probability of our securing the other. This seems plainly unanswerable; and has a tendency to influence fair minds, who consider what our condition really is, or upon what evidence we are naturally appointed to act; and who are disposed to acquiesce in the terms upon which we live, and attend to and follow that practical instruction, whatever it be, which is afforded us.
But the chief and proper force of the argument referred to in the objection, lies
in another place. For, it is said that the proof of religion is involved in such
inextricable difficulties, as to render it doubtful; and that it cannot be supposed,
that, if it were true, it would be left upon doubtful evidence. Here then, over
and above the force of each particular difficulty or objection, these difficulties
and objections taken together are turned into a positive argument against the truth
of religion; which
Thirdly, The design of this treatise
is not to vindicate the character of God, but to show the obligations of men: it
is not to justify his providence, but to show what belongs to us to do. These are
two subjects, and ought not to be confounded. And though they may at length run
up into each other, yet observations may immediately tend to make out the latter,
which do not appear, by any immediate connexion, to the purpose of the former;
which is less our concern, than many seem to think. For, first, it is not necessary
we should justify the dispensations of Providence against objections, any farther
than to show, that the things objected against may, for ought we know, be consistent
with justice and goodness. Suppose then, that there are things in the system of
this world, and plan of Providence relating to it, which taken alone would be unjust:
yet it has been shown unanswerably, that if we could take in the reference,
Fourthly, It is most readily acknowledged, that the foregoing
treatise is by no means satisfactory; very far indeed from it: but so would any
natural institution of life appear, if reduced into a system, together with its
evidence. Leaving religion out of the case, men are divided in their opinions, whether
our pleasures overbalance our pains: and whether it be, or be not, eligible to live
in this world. And were all such controversies settled, which perhaps, in speculation,
would be found involved in great difficulties; and were it determined upon the evidence
of reason, as nature has determined it to our hands, that life is to be preserved:
yet still, the rules which God has been pleased to afford us, for escaping the miseries
of it, and obtaining its satisfactions, the rules, for instance, of preserving health,
and recovering it when lost, are not only fallible and precarious, but
Fifthly, As to the objection concerning the influence
which this argument, or any part of it, may, or may not be expected to have upon
men; I observe, as above, that religion being intended for a trial and exercise
of the morality of every person’s character, who is a subject of it; and there being,
as I have shown, such evidence for it, as is sufficient, in reason, to influence
men to embrace it: to object, that it is not to be imagined mankind will be influenced
by such evidence, is nothing to the purpose of the foregoing treatise. For the purpose
of it is not to inquire, what sort of creatures mankind are; but what the light
and knowledge, which is afforded them, requires they should be: to show how, in
reason, they ought to behave; not how, in fact, they will behave. This depends upon
themselves, and is their own concern; the personal concern of each man in particular.
And how little regard the generality have to it, experience indeed does too fully
show. But religion, considered as a probation, has had its end upon all persons,
to whom it has been proposed with evidence sufficient in reason to influence their
practice: for by this means they have been put into a state of probation; let
them behave as they will in it. And thus, not only revelation, but reason also, teaches
us, that by the evidence of religion being laid before men, the designs of Providence
are carrying on, not only with regard to those who will, but likewise with regard
to those who will not, be influenced by it. However, lastly, the objection here
referred to, allows the things insisted upon in this treatise to be of some weight;
and if so, it may be hoped it will
And farther, I desire it may be considered,
with respect to the whole of the foregoing objections, that in this treatise I have
argued upon the principles of others,
Hence therefore may
be observed distinctly, what is the force of this treatise. It will be, to such
as are convinced of religion upon the proof arising out of the two last mentioned
principles, an additional proof and a confirmation of it: to such as do not admit
those principles, an original proof of it,
And thus, though some perhaps may seriously think, that analogy, as here urged, has too great stress laid upon it; and ridicule, unanswerable ridicule, may be applied, to show the argument from it in a disadvantageous light; yet there can be no question, but that it is a real one. For religion, both natural and revealed, implying in it numerous facts; analogy, being a confirmation of all facts to which it can be applied, as it is the only proof of most, cannot but be admitted by every one to be a material thing, and truly of weight on the side of religion, both natural and revealed: and it ought to be particularly regarded by such as profess to follow nature, and to be less satisfied with abstract reasonings.
WHATEVER account may be given of the
strange inattention and disregard, in some ages and countries, to a matter of
such importance as Religion; it would, before experience, be incredible, that
there should be the like disregard in those, who have had the moral system of
the world laid before them, as it is by Christianity, and
To these persons, and to
this state of opinion concerning religion, the foregoing treatise is adapted. For,
all the general objections against the moral system of nature having been obviated,
it is shown, that there is not any peculiar presumption at all against Christianity,
either considered as not discoverable by reason, or as unlike to what is so discovered;
nor any worth mentioning against it as miraculous, if any at all; none, certainly,
which can render it in the least incredible. It is shown, that, upon supposition
of a divine revelation, the analogy of nature renders it beforehand highly credible,
I think probable, that many things in it must appear liable to great objections;
and that we must be incompetent judges of it, to a great degree. This observation
is, I think, unquestionably true, and of the very utmost importance: but it is urged,
as I hope it will be understood, with great caution of not vilifying the faculty
of reason, which is the candle of the Lord within us;
The whole then of religion is throughout
credible: nor is there, I think, any thing relating to the revealed dispensation
of things, more different from the experienced constitution and course of nature,
than some parts of the constitution of nature are from other parts of it. And if
so, the only question which remains is, what positive evidence can be alleged for
the truth of Christianity. This too in general has been considered, and the objections
against it estimated. Deduct, therefore, what is to be deducted from that evidence,
upon account of any weight which may be thought to remain in these objections, after
what the analogy of nature has suggested in answer to them: and then consider, what
are the practical consequences from all this, upon the most sceptical principles
one can argue upon (for I am writing to persons who entertain these principles):
and upon such consideration it will be obvious, that immorality, as little excuse
as it admits of in itself, is greatly aggravated, in persons who have been made
acquainted with Christianity, whether they believe it or not: because the moral
system of nature, or natural religion, which Christianity lays before us, approves
itself, almost intuitively, to a reasonable mind, upon seeing it proposed. In the
next place, with regard to Christianity, it will be observed; that there is a middle
between a full satisfaction of the truth of it, and a satisfaction of the contrary.
The middle state of mind between these two consists in a serious apprehension, that
it may be true, joined with doubt whether it be so. And this, upon the best judgment
I am able to make, is as far towards speculative infidelity, as any sceptic can
at all be supposed to go, who has had true Christianity, with the proper evidences’
of it, laid before him, and has in any tolerable measure considered them. For I
would not be mistaken to comprehend all who have ever heard of it: because it
seems evident, that in many countries called Christian, neither
WHETHER we are to live in a future state, as it is the most important question which can possibly be asked, so it is the most intelligible one which can be expressed in language. Yet strange perplexities have been raised about the meaning of that identity or sameness of person, which is implied in the notion of our living now and hereafter, or in any two successive moments. And the solution of these difficulties hath been stranger than the difficulties themselves. For, personal identity has been explained so by some, as to render the inquiry concerning a future life of no consequence at all to us the persons who are making it. And though few men can be misled by such subtleties; yet it may be proper a little to consider them.
Now, when it is asked wherein personal
identity consists, the answer should be the same, as if it were asked wherein consists
similitude, or equality; that all attempts to define would but perplex it. Yet there
is no difficulty at all in ascertaining the idea. For as, upon two triangles being
compared or viewed together, there arises to the mind the idea of similitude; or
upon twice two and four, the idea of equality: so likewise, upon comparing the consciousness
of one’s self, or one’s own existence, in any two moments, there as immediately
arises to the mind the idea of personal identity. And as the two former comparisons
not only give us the ideas of similitude and equality; but also show us, that two
triangles are alike, and twice two and four are equal: so the latter comparison
not only gives us the idea of personal identity, but also shows us the identity
of ourselves in those two moments; the present, suppose, and that immediately past;
or the present, and that a month, a year, or twenty years past. Or in other words,
by reflecting upon that which is myself now, and that which was myself
But though consciousness of what is past does thus ascertain our personal identity to ourselves, yet to say, that it makes personal identity, or is necessary to our being the same persons, is to say, that a person has not existed a single moment, nor done one action, but what he can remember; indeed none but what he reflects upon. And one should really think it self-evident, that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in any other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes.
This wonderful mistake may possibly have arisen from hence; that to be endued with consciousness is inseparable from the idea of a person, or intelligent being. For, this might be expressed inaccurately thus, that consciousness makes personality: and from hence it might be concluded to make personal identity. But though present consciousness of what we at present do and feel is necessary to our being the persons we now are; yet present consciousness of past actions or feelings is not necessary to our being the same persons who performed those actions, or had those feelings.
The inquiry, what makes vegetables the same
in the common acceptation of the word, does not appear to have any relation to this
of personal identity: because, the word same, when applied to them and to person,
is not only applied to different subjects, but it is also used in different senses.
For when a man swears to the same tree, as having stood fifty years in the same
place, he means only the same as to all the purposes of property and uses of common
life, and not that the tree has been all that time the same in the strict philosophical
sense of the word. For he does not know, whether any one particle of the present
tree be the same with any one particle of the tree which stood in the same place
fifty years ago. And if they have not one common particle of matter, they cannot
be the same tree in the proper philosophic sense of the word same: it being evidently
a contradiction in terms, to say they are, when no part of
The
thing here considered, and demonstratively, as I think, determined, is proposed
by Mr Locke in these words, Whether it, i. e. the same self or person, be
the same identical substance? And he has suggested what is a much better answer
to the question, than that which he gives it in form. For he defines Person, a
thinking intelligent being, &c., and personal identity, the sameness of a rational
Being.
Mr Locke’s observations
upon this subject appear hasty: and he seems to profess himself dissatisfied with
suppositions, which he has made relating to it.
First, This notion is absolutely contradictory
to that certain conviction, which necessarily and every moment rises within us,
when we turn our thoughts upon ourselves, when we reflect upon what is past, and
look forward upon what is to come. All imagination of a daily change of that living
agent which each man calls himself, for another, or of any such change throughout
our whole present life, is entirely borne down by our natural sense of things. Nor
is it possible for a person in his wits to alter his conduct, with regard to his
health or affairs, from a suspicion, that, though he should live to-morrow, he should
not, however, be the same person he is to-day. And yet, if it be reasonable to act,
with respect to a future life, upon this notion, that personality is transient;
it is reasonable to act upon it, with respect to the present. Here then is a notion
equally applicable to religion and to our temporal concerns; and every one sees
Secondly, It is not an idea, or abstract notion, or quality, but a being only, which is capable of life and action, of happiness and misery. Now all beings confessedly continue the same, during the whole time of their existence. Consider then a living being now existing, and which has existed for any time alive: this living being must have done and suffered and enjoyed, what it has done and suffered and enjoyed formerly (this living being, I say, and not another), as really as it does and suffers and enjoys, what it does and suffers and enjoys this instant. All these successive actions, enjoyments, and sufferings, are actions, enjoyments, and sufferings, of the same living being. And they are so, prior to all consideration of its remembering or forgetting: since remembering or forgetting can make no alteration in the truth of past matter of fact. And suppose this being endued with limited powers of knowledge and memory, there is no more difficulty in conceiving it to have a power of knowing itself to be the same living being which it was some time ago, of remembering some of its actions, sufferings, and enjoyments, and forgetting others, than in conceiving it to know or remember or forget any thing else.
Thirdly, Every person is conscious, that he is now the
same person or self he was as far back as his remembrance reaches: since when any
one reflects upon a past action of his own, he is just as certain of the person
who did that action, namely, himself, the person who now reflects upon it, as he
is certain that the action was at all done. Nay, very often a person’s assurance
of an action having been done, of which he is absolutely assured, arises wholly
from the consciousness that he himself did it. And this he, person, or self, must
either be a substance, or the property of some substance. If he, if person, be
a substance; then consciousness that he is the same person is consciousness that
he is the same
But though we are thus certain, that we are the same agents, living beings, or substances, now, which we were as far back as our remembrance reaches; yet it is asked, whether we may not possibly be deceived in it? And this question may be asked at the end of any demonstration whatever: because it is a question concerning the truth of perception by memory. And he who can doubt, whether perception by memory can in this case be depended upon, may doubt also, whether perception by deduction and reasoning, which also include memory, or indeed whether intuitive perception can. Here then we can go no further. For it is ridiculous to attempt to prove the truth of those perceptions, whose truth we can no otherwise prove, than by other perceptions of exactly the same kind with them, and which there is just the same ground to suspect; or to attempt to prove the truth of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved, than by the use or means of those very suspected faculties themselves.
THAT which renders beings capable of moral government, is their having
a moral nature, and moral faculties of perception and of action. Brute creatures
are impressed and actuated by various instincts and propensions: so also are we.
But additional to this, we have a capacity of reflecting upon actions and characters,
and making them an object to our thought: and on doing this, we naturally and unavoidably
approve some actions, under the peculiar view of their being virtuous and of good
desert;
First, It ought to be observed, that the object of this faculty is
actions,
Secondly, Our sense or discernment of actions as
It may be observed further,
concerning our perception of good and of ill desert, that the former is very weak
with respect to common instances of virtue. One reason of which may be, that it
does not appear to a spectator, how far such instances of virtue proceed from a
virtuous principle, or in what degree this principle is prevalent: since a very
weak regard to virtue may be
Thirdly, Our perception of vice and ill desert arises from, and is the result of, a comparison of actions with the nature and capacities of the agent. For the mere neglect of doing what we ought to do, would, in many cases, be determined by all men to be in the highest degree vicious. And this determination must arise from such comparison, and be the result of it; because such neglect would not be vicious in creatures of other natures and capacities, as brutes. And it is the same also with respect to positive vices, or such as consist in doing what we ought not. For, every one has a different sense of harm done by an idiot, madman, or child, and by one of mature and common understanding; though the action of both, including the intention, which is part of the action, be the same: as it may be, since idiots and madmen, as well as children, are capable not only of doing mischief, but also of intending it. Now this difference must arise from somewhat discerned in the nature or capacities of one, which renders the action vicious; and the want of which, in the other, renders the same action innocent or less vicious: and this plainly supposes a comparison, whether reflected upon or not, between the action and capacities of the agent, previous to our determining an action to be vicious. And hence arises a proper application of the epithets, incongruous, unsuitable, disproportionate, unfit, to actions which our moral faculty determines to be vicious.
Fourthly, It deserves to be considered, whether men are
more at liberty, in point of morals, to make themselves
However, if any person be disposed to dispute the matter, I shall very willingly give him up the words Virtue and Vice, as not applicable to prudence and folly: but must beg leave to insist, that the faculty within us, which is the judge of actions, approves of prudent actions, and disapproves imprudent ones: I say prudent and imprudent actions as such, and considered distinctly from the happiness or misery which they occasion. And, by the way, this observation may help to determine what justness there is in that objection against religion, that it teaches us to be interested and selfish.
Fifthly, Without inquiring how far, and in what sense, virtue is resolvable
into benevolence, and vice into the want of it; it may be proper to observe, that
benevolence, and the want of it, singly considered, are in no sort the whole of
virtue and vice. For if this were the case, in the review of one’s own character,
or that of others, our moral understanding and moral sense would be indifferent
to every thing, but the degrees in which benevolence prevailed, and the degrees
in which it was wanting. That is, we should neither approve of benevolence to some
persons rather than to others, nor disapprove
Now if human creatures are endued with such a moral nature as
we have been explaining, or with a moral faculty, the natural object of which is
actions: moral government must consist in rendering them happy and unhappy, in rewarding
and punishing them, as they follow, neglect, or depart from, the moral rule of action
interwoven in their nature, or suggested and enforced by this moral faculty;
I am not sensible that
I have, in this fifth observation, contradicted what any author designed to assert.
But some of great and distinguished merit, have, I think, expressed themselves in
a manner, which may occasion some danger, to careless readers, of imagining the
whole of virtue to consist in singly aiming, according to the best of their judgment,
at promoting the happiness or mankind in the present state; and the whole of vice,
in doing what they foresee, or might foresee, is likely to produce an overbalance
of unhappiness in it: than which mistakes, none can be conceived more terrible.
For it is certain, that some of the most shocking instances of injustice, adultery,
murder, perjury, and even of persecution, may, in many supposable cases, not have
the appearance of being likely to produce an overbalance of misery in the present
state; perhaps sometimes may leave the contrary appearance. For this reflection
might easily be carried on, but I forbear.—The happiness of the world is the concern
of him who is the lord and the proprietor of it: nor do we know what we are about,
when we endeavour to promote the good of mankind in any ways, but those which he
has directed; that is
However, though veracity, as well as justice, is to be our rule of life; it must be added, otherwise a snare will be laid in the way of some plain men, that the use of common forms of speech, generally understood, cannot be falsehood; and, in general, that there can be no designed falsehood without designing to deceive. It must likewise be observed, that in numberless cases, a man may be under the strictest obligations to what he foresees will deceive, without his intending it. For it is impossible not to foresee, that the words and actions of men, in different ranks and employments, and of different educations, will perpetually be mistaken by each other: and it cannot but be so, whilst they will judge with the utmost carelessness, as they daily do, of what they are not, perhaps, enough informed to be competent judges of, even though they considered it with great attention.
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Isaiah
2:1-22 8:14-15 11:1-16 29:13-14 45:17 49:5 49:6 50:21 53:1-12 53:1-12 56:7 60:21
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Amos
Malachi
Matthew
6:23 9:13 11:19 11:25 12:7 12:7 13:11-12 20:28 22:38 26:28 28:18
Mark
John
1:1-51 1:3 3:5 3:16 3:16 3:19 3:35 4:18 5:22-23 5:22-23 5:44 6:14 8:12 11:51-52 11:52 14:2
Acts
Romans
1 Corinthians
1:25-27 1:28 2:14 5:7 5:19 6:19 6:20 11:23 12:8 13:1-2 13:8 14:1-40 15:8 15:25-28
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Hebrews
2:10 2:14 5:9 5:9 6:1 7:25 8:4-5 9:26 9:28 10:1 10:4-5 10:7 10:9 10:10
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
Revelation
5:9 5:12-13 10:7 11:17-18 14:4 20:6 22:11
Sirach
i ii iii iv v viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx xxi xxii xxiii xxiv xxv xxvi xxvii xxvii xxix xxx xxxi xxxii xxxiii xxxiv xxxv xxxvi xxxvii xxxviii xxxix xl xli xlii xliii xliv xlv xlvi xlvii xlviii xlix l li lii liii liv lv lvi 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312