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; in opposition to those who, on the one hand, make the whole of virtue to consist in benevolence,* and to those who, on the other, assert that every particular affection and action is resolvable into self-love. In combating these opinions, he has shewn, I think unanswerably, that there are the same kind of indications in human nature, that we were made to promote the happiness of others, as that we were made to promote our own; that it is no just objection to this, that we have dispositions to do evil to others as well as good; for we have also dispositions to do evil as well as good to ourselves, to our own most important interests even in this life, for the sake of gratifying a present passion: that the thing to be lamented is, not that men have too great a regard to their own real good, but that they have not enough; that benevolence is not more at variance with, or unfriendly to, self-love, than any other particular affection is; and that by consulting the happiness of others a man is so far from lessening his own, that the very endeavour to do so, though , he should fail in the accomplishment, is a source of the highest satisfaction and peace of mind. He has also, in passing, animadverted on the philsopher of Malmsbury, who, in his book " Of Human Nature,” has advanced, as discoveries in moral science, that benevolence is only the love of power, and compassion the fear of future calamity to ourselves. And this our Author has done, not so much with the design of exposing the false reasoning of Mr Hobbes, but because on so perverse an account of human nature he has raised a system, subversive of all justice and honesty. I * See the 2d Dissertation “ On the Nature of Virtue.” See Ser. i. and xi. and the Preface to the Volume of Sermons, ܪ 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.”+ On this single observation of the son of Sirach, the whole fabric of our Prelate's defence of religion, in his Analogy, is raised. Instead of indulging to idle speculations, how the world might possibly have been better than it is ;,or, forgetful of the difference between hypothesis and fact, attempting to explain the divine economy with respect to intelligent creatures, from preconceived notions of his own; he first inquires what the constitution of nature, as made known to us in the way of experiment, actually is; and from this, now seen and acknowledged, he endeavours to form a judgment of that larger constitution, which religion discovers to us. If the dispensation of Providence we are . now under, considered as inhabitants of this world, and having a temporal interest to secure in it, be found, on examination, to be analogous to, and of a piece with that further dispensation, which relates to us as designed for another world, in which we have an eternal interest, depending on our behaviour here; if both may be traced up to the same general laws, and appear to be carried on according to the same plan of administration; the fair presumption is, that both proceed from one and the same Author. And if the principal parts objected to in this latter dispensation be similar to, and of the same kind with what we certainly experience under the former; the objections, being clearly inconclusive in one case, because contradicted by plain fact, must, in all reason, be allowed to be inconclusive also in the other. This way of arguing from what is acknowledged to what is disputed, from things known to other things + Eccles. xlii. 24. 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, to 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 degree of knowledge, which we are not furnished with faculties for attaining, at least in the present state); yet surely it is of importance to learn from its that the natural and moral world are intimately connected, and parts of one stupendous whole, or system; and that the chief objections which are brought against religion, may be urged with equal force against the constitution and course of nature, where they are certainly false in fact. And this information we may derive from the work before us; the proper design of which, it may be of use to observe, is not to prove the truth of religion, either natural or revealed, but to confirm that proof, already known, by considerations from analogy. 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 : + Mr Mainwaring's Dissertation, prefixed to his volume of Sermons. 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.t The probability of a future state once granted, an important question arises, How best to secure our interest in that state. We find from what passes daily before ' us, that the constitution of nature admits of misery as well as happiness; that both of these are the consequences of our own actions; and these consequences we are enabled to foresee. Therefore, that our happiness or misery in a future world may depend on our own actions also, and that rewards or punishments hereafter may follow our good or ill behaviour here, is but an appointment of the same sort with what we experience under the divine government, according to the regular course of nature. I 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 vir a / tuous 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 hinderançes 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. I 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 and religious capacity. Thus, childhood is a state of discipline for youth; youth for manhood; and that for old age. Strength of body, and maturity of understanding, are acquired by degrees; and neither of them withqut continual exercise and attention on our part, not only in the beginning of life, but through the whole course of it. So, again, with respect to our religious concerns, the present world is fitted to be, and to good men is in event, a state of discipline and improvement |