Adultery may bring heirs, and good humour too, into many families, where they would otherwise have been wanting; and murder free the world from tyrants and oppressors. Luxury maintains its thousands, and vanity its ten thousands. Superstition and arbitrary power contribute to the grandeur of many nations, and the liberties of others are preserved by the perpetual contentions of avarice, knavery, selfishness and ambition: and thus the worst of vices and the worst of men are often compelled by Providence to serve the most beneficial purposes, contrary to their own malevolent tendencies and inclinations; and thus private vices become public benefits by the force only of accidental circumstances. But this impeaches not the truth of the criterion of virtue before mentioned, the only solid foundation on which any true system of ethics can be built, the only plain, simple, and uniform rule by which we can pass any judgment on our actions; but by this we may be enabled, not only to determine which are good, and which are evil, but almost mathematically to demonstrate the proportion of virtue or vice which belongs to each, by comparing them with the degrees of happiness or misery which they occasion. But though the production of happiness is the essence of virtue, it is by no means the end: the great end is the probation of mankind, or the giving them an opportunity of exalting or degrading themselves in another state by their behaviour in the present. And thus indeed it answers two most important purposes; those are, the conservation of our happiness, and the test of our obedience; for had not such a test seemed necessary to God's infinite wisdom, and productive of universal good, he would never have permitted the happiness of man, even in this life, to have depended on so precarious a tenure, as their mutual good behaviour to each other. For it is observable, that he who best knows our formation, has trusted no one thing of importance to our reason or virtue; he trusts only to our appetites for the support of the individual, and the continuance of our species; to our vanity, or compassion, for our bounty to others; and to our fears, for the preservation of ourselves; often to our vices for the support of government, and sometimes

to our follies for the preservation of our religion. But since some test of our obedience was necessary, nothing sure could have been commanded for that end so fit and proper, and at the same time so useful, as the practice of virtue; nothing have been so justly rewarded with happiness, as the production of happiness in conformity to the will of God. It is this conformity alone which adds merit to virtue, and constitutes the essential difference between morality and religion. Morality obliges men to live honestly and soberly, because such behaviour is most conducive to public happiness, and consequently to their own; religion, to pursue the same course, because conformable to the will of the creator. Morality induces them to embrace virtue from prudential considerations; religion, from those of gratitude and obedience. Morality, therefore, entirely abstracted from religion, can have nothing meritorious in it; it being but wisdom, prudence, or good economy, which, like health, beauty, or riches, are rather obligations conferred upon us by God, than merits in us towards him; for though we may be justly punished for injuring ourselves, we can claim no reward for self-preservation; as suicide deserves punishment and infamy, but a man deserves no reward or honours for not being guilty of it. This I take to be the meaning of all those passages in our scriptures in which works are represented to have no merit without faith; that is, not without believing in historical facts, in creeds, and articles, but without being done in pursuance of our belief in God, and in obedience to his commands.* And now having mention

What was that faith, which the author of the christian religion indispensably required in all his disciples? It could not be a literal and implicit belief of the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old Testament; and consequently of all the history, chronology, geography, and philosophy contained in them; because to these the Jews, who rejected it, adhered with the most superstitious exactness: it could not be the same kind of belief in the writings of the New Testament, because these in his life-time had no existence: much less could it consist in a blind assent to the numberless explanations of these books, and least of all in the belief of creeds, articles, and theological systems founded on such explanations, for all these were the productions of later ages

ed scriptute, I cannot omit observing, that the christian is the only religious or moral institution in the world that ever set in a right light these two material points, the essence and the end of virtue; that ever founded the one in the production of happiness, that is, in universal benevolence, or, in their language,* charity to all men; the other, in the probation of man, and his obedience to the creator. Sublime and magnificent as was the philosophy of the ancients, all their moral systems were deficient in these two important articles. They were all built on the sandy foundations of the innate beauty of virtue, or enthusiastic patriotism; and their great point in view was the contemptible reward of human glory; foundations which were by no means able to support the magnificent structures which they erected upon them; for the beauty of virtue, independent of its effects, is unmeaning nonsense: patriotism which injures mankind in general for the sake of a particular country, is but a more extended selfishness, and really criminal; and all human glory but a mean and ridiculous delusion.

It must therefore have been this, and this alone; a sincere belief in the divine authority of his mission, and a constant practice of all moral duties, from a sense of their being agreeable to his commands.

That is, the authors of the Bible.-EDITORS.

[To be continued, see page 201.]

REMARKS

On some passages in the preceding Enquiry into the nature and origin of Moral Evil.

ALTHOUGH Mr. Jenyns has, with great ingenuity and truth, dissected and exposed religious prejudices and errors, still, in our opinion, his peculiar situation as a member of the British parliament has, in some instances, caused him to depart from that candour and correctness, which a philosopher ought upon all occasions to observe. Whilst he reasons down superstition, he seems inclined to erect upon its ruins the more detestable scourge to the peace and happiness of man, hypocrisy. Philosophy, to be entirely pure, must be free from all prepossessions, and divested of every motive of self-interest. The distinction he makes between christianity and the religious systems of the ancients appears to us fanciful and unwarranted. In fact, it is the common cant of hypocrites, who neither take the trouble to investigate, or care, whether it be true or false. It is an insult to reason, which ignorance, covered with the cloak of piety, admires, and which learning, from sinister motives, encourages.

We feel no disposition to depreciate the morality of the New Testament, but we can see in it no new morality. Moral virtue must, as we conceive, have been the same in all ages, and productive of similar effects. It is undoubtedly a solecism in language to talk of "virtue independent of its effects," and we therefore presume that the ancients entertained no such idea.

How the merit of a virtuous action done under a conviction of its being in conformity to the will of God, as registered in a book, containing many monstrous absurdities, should exceed that of the same action performed under a consciousness of its being agreeable to the will of God, as imprinted upon the hearts of all mankind by the author of nature, we are unable to perceive. Neither do we

discern the merit of faith in things contrary to, or above the comprehension of, reason; or indeed that there is any merit in faith at all. When sufficient evidence of the truth of a proposition is exhibited to the mind, it assents of course, and if the evidence be insufficient, it consequently dissents; there cannot, therefore, be the least merit in faith, or demerit in the want of it. The attempt to erect this accommodating, passive principle, so convenient to hypocrites, and those whose interest it is to arrogate control over the consciences of men, into a virtue, has done infinite injury to the morals and happiness of mankind.

As to charity, although it is inculcated in some parts of the christian system, there are others which justify persecution. Taking the Old and New Testaments together, (and christians are bound to believe the whole,) every candid, unprejudiced mind must admit that it claims no particular excellence on the score of charity. Putting the text out of the question, and testing it by its effects, the surest means of proving the superiority of any religion, and in vain shall we look for that general practice of charity, and good will to all men, which its admirers pretend it is calculated to inspire. Passing over the vindictive and bloody massacres of the Jews, under pretext of reforming the religion of other nations, for which they impiously alleged in justification the commands of the God of mercies, and taking up the more mild and peaceable doctrine of the gospel, we shall find a want of charity even in the pretended order for its promulgation. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creaHe that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Mathew, xvi. 16. As no believer can do these things, no man, whatever his pretensions may be, can be a sincere believer in the truth of the gospel. Again, its professors are taught to believe that "there is no other name given under heaven, among men,