world to come from that God whose will he obeyed here in this present world, by long and constant self-denial.

The same is evident also in social life. If there be a God, it is evident to reason, that this God, who is the common Father of all his creatures, did not make a whole society for the sake of one man, but every single man is rather made for the sake of society; and the interests of a society, are of superior importance to the interest of each single person. Therefore, in the view of God their common Father, who is wise and just, the preservation and happiness of a whole society of creatures which he has made, by their steady practice of social virtue, even though it be to the detriment of any single man, is to be preferred to the preservation and happiness of any single man, with the detriment or danger of a whole society. Now a whole society would be injured by any man's wilful neglect of social virtues: Therefore the will or law of God requires, that social virtue be practised by every man; and that oftentimes with the neglect of any single man's present interest, where they are inconsistent*. Now an obedience to this will of God is religion, And yet this God, who is a wise and righteous Governor of the universe, and is good to all his creatures, does not forbid the rational dictate of self-interest, that is self-preservation, or self-felicitation, to exert itself in a proper manner, but only gives it another turn or direction in particular cases: For even the light of nature and reason teaches us, that the righteous and almighty Governor may be expected to recompence present self-denial, performed in mere obedience to his will, with future life and felicity; for he can punish or reward after death, And thus our better life, and our ultimate felicity, are secured even by those acts of social virtue wherein we expose, or lose our present life or present happiness. This trust in thedivine recompence is religion.

And upon this view of things a starving or a drowning man, if he be never so much stronger than his neighbour, may deny himself of some present advantage or comfort, or may neglect to secure life itself, in order to keep the rule of justice, and to obey his Maker therein. Reason itself will dictate to him this selfdenial and steady virtue; for hereby he not only obeys his Maker's will, but he pursues his own best interest, and his highest happiness, even the favour of his Maker, and the reward of his

* It is not any part of my design here to adjust all the proportionable circumtances or oppositions of single and social interests; much less can I say, that the least interest of a society, is preferable to the greatest interest of a single person. All that I think necessary to be said here, is, that upon the supposition of a God, the interest of societies, cateris paribus, is of a superior importance to the interest of single persons, and carries in it a stronger obligation. But to adjust every single, possible case, may sometimes, afford considerable difficulties, though this general rule stands firm,

virtue, from the righteous Governor of the world. And he may look upon himself as most powerfully obliged to practise such social virtue and self-denial by the will and authority of that God who can and will reward him.

And thus the strict rule of social virtue, built on the reason and fitness of things, will not clash with the other rule of reason, which is also built on the fitness of things, viz. that a rational and sensible being should still pursue self-preservation and selffelicitation. The very supposition of a righteous God, who commands strict virtue, and will reward it in a future state, takes away the seeming contradiction that otherwise might lie between these two rules of reason, and reconciles them. It is the glory of religion to reconcile these contrarieties. Now let us survey the opposite case:

SECT. V.-These Contradictions Irreconcileable without an

Existent God.

Upon supposition that men spring up into being by fate or chance, and that there is no Almighty Creator, or righteous Governor, or Rewarder; then reason would dictate to us self-preservation, or, at least, self-felicitation in the present state, as our supreme obligation, and our supreme rule of action, notwithstanding all our remonstrances of single or social virtue; since there is no hope of any possible compensation in any future state for present acts of self-denial: And thus the strongest obligation would be turned on the side of preserving our present life, or at least our ease or happiness; nature and inclination, and self-love, would so determine it: and they appear also to have reason, and the fitness of things on their side. Thence it will appear, as to the practice of single or personal virtue, that Philedon has not sufficient obligation to tie himself to the rules of it under his violent appetites to sensuality, if there be no God: But self-felicitationwould direct and lead him to all manner of indulgence of pleasure, and to finish his own life and being when his pleasures ended. His reason would tell him that this was the fittest thing he could do; and I might prove it also mathematically: Thus,

Suppose Philedon spent his life according to the rules of virtue, with much fatigue, and watchfulness and self-denial, he might die quickly, and his being, and all hope of felicity are soon at an end, and that for ever. Or if he dragged on life thus painfully to old age, still, at his death, his being and hope of happiness are for ever gone. And what good hath his virtue done him? But, on the other hand, if he pursue pleasure with daily appetite and relish, and die in a few years time, he hath a much larger quantity of happiness than a short, or a long life of strict virtue, and constant laborious self-denial could give a man

of his temper: And after death his felicity would be equal to that of the most virtuous man, that is, non-existence, or eternal unconsciousness and indolence. So that if there be no God, then, upon the strictest reasoning from the fitness of things, Philedon would be obliged, by the principles of nature, to make himself happy in his own way.

It will follow also, that under such an atheistical state in the social life, the fitness of paying debts, of keeping contracts, of giving to every one their due, and the unfitness of robbing or murdering our neighbour, and of plundering, or of stealing a piece of bread by a starving man, or a plank of safety by a drowning man; in short, all social virtues among mankind, will be over-powered, and superseded in reason by this superior fitness ; that is the rule of self-preservation or self-felicitation. Reason itself dictates this to mankind, since there is no superior authority or law to oblige them to practice these social virtues, and none can reward this self-denying virtue after death.

Perhaps it will be said, that though there be no God; yet, in social life, the good of the many, or of a whole society, must be still preferred to the good of single persons; that this is a rule of reason, and ought to regulate the conduct even of a drowning or starving person; otherwise there will be a door opened for all manner of plunder and murder amongst men, and virtue will have no farther guard or security. I might safely grant all this terrible inference, viz. that murders and robberies will be allowed, and virtue will have no guard: This is, and will be the sad consequence if there be no God. But I would give some particular answers:

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I. In the first place then, though upon the supposition of an almighty Creator, who is the common Father of all his creatures, the good of a hundred or a thousand of these creatures, is to be preferred to the good of one, and it is his will that it should be so preferred; yet if men come into the world by chance, or by necessary fate, and had no relation to a God, nor any hope of hereafter, every man both would and ought to seek his own life and ultimate felicity, though hundreds or thousands perished. Self and nature, in each single man, have a much stronger, and more pungent sensibility of their own happiness or misery, than they can have of the misery or happiness of ten thousand others : And I think reason would dictate an obedience to this pungent sensibility, this principle of self-love, this natural rule of duty and practice. I answer secondly,-II. In cases which do not reach to life and death, or to such long pain and infelicity, which are worse than death, reason may dictate to us to deny our single selves many desirable things for the good of the society: But observe, that is not because the society itself has any sovereign right to this self-denial of ours; but because we ourselves may

afterwards want the help of this society: And we shall contradict our own best interest, and our felicity by our practice of rapine or falsehood, if we set the society against us. And therefore reason, perhaps, might dictate such self-denial to us in most of the common cases that would happen in human life, even if there were no God. I say therefore, where our lives or our ultimate happiness are not in danger, the good of the society, of which we ourselves are a part, and in whose welfare we expect our share of felicity, would oblige us by reason to observe the common rules of social virtue.

But in cases which relate to life and ultimate felicity, if there be no God to require of me any self-denying virtue here, nor to reward me hereafter, the superior rule of nature and reason is to save myself, and make myself happy, though ten thousand of my fellow-creatures suffer by it. What obligation can the welfare of the whole society lay upon me to do any thing for them, if I must perish? If I must lose all life, and being, and happiness, for ever, by the practice of social virtue, what is there in reason or nature can oblige me to practise it? Or who is there to reward my self-denying virtue? The secret consolation, or the public glory of a few dying moments, that I have lost my being and my happiness in service to the public, is but a poor and irrational recompence, if there be no God.

Let me add at last; wheresoever there are two different obligations which cross each other, the strongest obligation must be obeyed, and the other ceases. Though there are eternal differences between virtue and vice, and dry abstracted reason may require and seem to oblige us to the practice of virtue; yet since reason and nature, with its piercing sensibilities, join to dictate self-preservation or self-felicitation are we not first obliged to obey these dictates? Is not this obligation strongest? And should not nature and reason, when joined together, break through, or rather surmount and supersede all these abstracted moral notions and differences of vice and virtue, in favour of each man's own sensible happiness? And then I think the least inference we can make is, that man's obligation to these social virtues, especially in such sort of cases, can never be plainly proved and secured by reason, without the supposition of an existent God.

But if there be a God who governs the world, whose will and authority require the practice of virtue, and who will bestow upon those who practise it, an ultimate felicity, then the practice of social virtue is secured by the strongest obligations: And thus the moral obligation, which arises from the reason of things, and the divine or religious obligation, which arises from the will of God, together with the natural obligation, which springs from the pursuit of our own happiness, are all united to secure the practice of every virtue.

SECT. VI.-The Chief Difficulty of this Scheme of thoughts removed.

After a careful survey of what I have written on this subject, I can find but one difficulty of any importance attending it Perhaps some friend may rise up here and object, that the whole stress and weight of my argument against the sufficient" obligation to virtue, arising from the mere fitness of things," rests and turns upon this single point, the certainty of divine rewards, which alone can bring over the principle of self-love to the side of virtue. But is it absolutely certain, that God will reward every man's virtue? And if he does not, then it will be said, that according to my argument, even the known will and command of God, though joined with the fitness of things, will lay but an insufficient obligation upon us to practise virtue: For the will of God, which really and in truth should give the highest obligation to the rules of virtue, will be as much superseded and overpowered by this same principle of self-love and self-felicitation, as that which arises from the fitness of things: And thus, if God be not a rewarder of virtue, Philedon will be indulged in all manner of pleasant vices still; though the known will of God forbids him.

This objection, as plausible as it appears, I think may be answered these two ways:-I. The will of God in commanding virtue, and the will of God to reward it, ought never to be separated. The equity and goodness of God joined together, incline him to consult the happiness of his creatures, as well as his own honour, in the obligations which he lays upon them to virtue or piety. He has inseparably united our duty and our best interest : And, therefore, though the will of God, made known to man, is a just obligation on man to obey it; yet since God himself hath mingled so intense and supreme a desire of happiness in our composition, he will provide some satisfaction for it in the way of obedience or virtue. Since God has inwrought in our frame such active principles as hope and fear of gaining or losing this happiness, there is abundant reason, from the light of nature, to conclude, that he did not make all these supreme passions about happiness in vain; nor to obstruct our virtue, but to encourage and promote it; and consequently that he will be a rewarder, as well as a commander of it.

If St. Paul may be cited here, he is of the same mind ; Heb. xi. 6. He that cometh unto God, that is, with a holy resosolution to do his will, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. To live a life of obedience to God's will, and trust in his goodness, with the faith and hope of divine rewards, this is the general idea of the religion of man both before and since the fall, both natural and revealed; Do this, and thou shalt live: Repent, and your sins shall be blotted out: Believe, and obey the gospel, and thou shalt be saved.