tude, love, refignation, dependence, obedience, worhip and praife, which, according to the measure of our finite capacities, ought to maintain fome proportion to the grandeur of the object whom we love, and the greatness of our obligation. The duties we owe to fociety of peculiar obligation, are filial or conjugal; but in general we owe to others, love, juftice, fincerity, fidelity, charity, "the love of our country, and univerfal benevolence. The duties refpecting ourselves are prudence, fortitude, the government of the appetites and paffions, humility and refignation; these constitute the temper of happiness, and are the elements of our perfection and felicity. The effence of all religion, fays an ingenious writer, is love to God and love to man +. Another judicious author fays, by natural religion we are to understand all those things, which intelligent beings, by the right exercise of their reasonable faculties, can difcover to be their duty, without a fuper-' natural revelation to direct them, and upon that discovery fo made, or capable of being made, which they are obliged to purfue, and practise in their feveral circumftances, offices or relations in life. Thus to love and reverence the Deity, to do juftice between man and man, between our neighbours and ourselves, and to be charitable and benevolent to all proper objects, are all of them branches of natural religion; which every man's reafon may difcover to him, and which the prefent conftitution of things requires from him, and neceffarily fubjects him to ‡. The law of nature, fays another ingenious gentleman, is the will of God, relating to human actions, grounded in the moral differences of things, and because discoverable by the light of nature, obligatory upon all mankind. It is called the law of nature, 1. Because of the manner of its promulgation, *Martin's Ethics. Wollafton's Religion of Nature, §.vi. N. 19. Rational Catechifm, p. 59. See alfo Fordyce's Philosophy. The eternal obligation of Natural Religion, p. 1, 2. 2 2 which which is by natural reafon; 2. Because of its fource or foundation, this law refulting from the refpective nature of Beings, and things: of Beings, as God and man, and of things or actions, as morally good or evil, and having different physical effects; 3. Because it is the law of God. Nature is but a fictitious* person, and all that is faid of the wisdom of her defigns, and operations of her power, or of her laws, is to be afcribed to him, who is the author of nature. The law or religion of nature is. fo called, fays the judicious Dr. Conybearet, either because it is founded in the reason and nature of things, or elfe because it is dif covered to us, in the ufe and exercife of those faculties which we enjoy. The religion of nature, as it is confidered in thefe different views, will import quite different things; in the former it fignifies a perfect collection of all thofe moral doctrines and precepts which have a foundation in the nature and reafon of things; but in the latter it is fuch a collection as may be difcovered by us, in the exercife of our proper faculties, according to the means and opportunities we enjoy. Dr. Clarke has been very clear and explicit in the difcuffion of this point; he fays there is a necessary and immutable difference of things, that conftitute an action morally fit or unfit; that fome actions are in themselves fit and reasonable, and incumbent on men to do, even feparate from the confideration of thofe rules; being the pofitive will or command of God, and abstracted from any views of private and perfonal advantage here, or reward hereafter; and vice verfat, he adds, page 6, That though these moral obligations are incumbent on all reasonable creatures, an *The Stoics often made ufe of the word Nature, as another name for God. Senec. de Benef. 47. Grove's Moral Phil. vol. II. P. 139. + Defence of revealed Religion, p. 11, &c. Dr. Samuel Clarke, on the unchangeable Obligations of natural Religion, p. 5. Bott's Morality founded on the Nature of Things. tecedent tecedent to any command, or in respect to the reward; yet that it is certain and neceffary that moral good and moral evil will be attended with reward or punishment; because the fame reafons which prove God himself to be neceffarily juft and good, and the rules of justice, equity and goodness, to be his unalterable will, law, and command, to all rational beings, prove alfo that he cannot but be pleafed with and approve fuch creatures as imitate and obey him, by obferving these rules, and be difpleafed with fuch as act contrary thereto; and confequently that he cannot, but fome way or other, make a fuitable difference in his dealings. with them, and manifeft his fupreme power and abfolute authority, in finally fupporting, maintaining and vindicating, effectually the honour of the divine laws, as becomes the righteous governor and, difpofer of all things; and as this does not appear visible in the administration of providence in this world, it follows, that there will be a state after this, wherein there will be an impartial retribution. That this is fo apparently founded on truth, that there have been almost in every age, even among the Heathens, fome wife and brave, and good men, who have by ftúdy and application made great discoveries in regard to these truths, and deduced fuitable inferences from them. Thus Cato wifely afferts, if there is a God, he muft delight in virtue, and those whom he delights in must be happy. Dr. Chandler fays †, there is as certain and immutable difference between moral good and evil, virtue and vice, as there is between darkness and light, bitter and fweet; a difference not accidental to, but founded on the things themselves; not merely the refult of the determination and arbitrary will of another, but which the very ideas of the things themselves Ibid. pages 8, 9. See our Account of Deism. + Dr. Samuel Chandler on the neceffary and immutable Difference between moral Good and Evil. Proteftant Syftem, p. 280. do do really and neceffarily include. In like manners piety to God, gratitude for benefits received, jufticè and charity, temperance and chastity, and the like virtues, are as effentially diftinct from, and do convey as oppofite and diftinct ideas to impiety, ingratitude, injuftice, uncharitablenefs, intemperance, luft and the like vices; that it is abfolutely poffible theycan form the fame ideas, or raise the fame fentiments or apprehenfions in our breast; and though men may difregard these intrinsic and neceffary differences in their practice, thro' the warmth of paffion, or the powerful influence of corrupt habits; yet they can never deftroy that difference, nor make the ideas of them to coincide, and become indivifibly the fame. P. 295, he adds, This difference between moral good and evil, and the fitneffes and unfitneffes which they neceffarily infer, is as eafily and certainly to be difcerned by mankind, as the difference between any natural or fenfible objects whatsoever; and as virtue is, in the confideration and idea of it, much more lovely and commendable than vice, fo the natural confequences with which they are almost constantly and infeparably connected, plainly fhew, which is most reasonable and fit in itself, and inforce the indifpenfible obligations of moral virtue*. And page 307, But befides this, furely there is a God that governs the world, who is not wholly inattentive to, and regardless of the moral ftate and character of his creatures; a God who, from the purity and rectitude of his nature, will ever look with the highest complacency on thofe who refemble him in his moral perfections; whilft thofe, whofe actions fhew them to be degenerated from the principles and rules of moral virtue, will be the objects of his difpleafure. These apprehenfions of moral virtue appear to be interwoven with the nature of man, and the importance of morality to the human life, and to its main and principal ends, fhews wifdom and defign in giving men * Chandler Ibid, p. 295. the the fenfe and knowledge of it fo univerfally. When a fpecies of intelligent beings are fent into the world with fentiments of morality, which are fo evidently conducive to their happiness, filling with a variety of rational pleasure, eminently useful to each other, and advancing their perfection and felicity in proportion to the practice of moral virtues, it fufficiently demonftrates they were not originally invented by politicians, and impofed upon credulous mankind as the dictates of nature. It is hence evident, that morality is a part of the human conftitution, and owes its fource to its author: not that we are neceffarily virtuous, as we are fenfible or intelligent; for the very notion of it imports freeagency or choice; but the true meaning is, that the mind of man is fo framed, as, when it attains the full exercise of its rational powers, to be neceffarily fenfible of moral obligations, and cannot willfully and premeditately act a contrary part, without doing violence to itself, which is all the neceffity which is confiftent with the nature of fuch a Being, and the nature of morality*. One important ufe which Dr. Chandler †, and many other judicious authors, draws from these premiffes is, that this difference of things, arifing out of their very natures, leads us to form juft conceptions of the perfections and attributes of God. For inftance, when we say, that God doth neceffarily exift, doth not this suppose a natural and fixed difference between necessary and precarious exiftence? In like manner, when we fay, that God is eternal, immenfe, intelligent, allpowerful, and the like; we mean, that God is not a temporary, limited, inconscious, impotent Being; and of confequence do fuppofe, that the diftinétions are not arbitrary, but as neceffary and eternal as the Being of God himself. In like manner, with refpect to God's * Abernethy's Sermons on the Being of God, proved from Human Intelligence and Morality. System, p. 36, 37, 38. + Chandler's Immutable Difference. Syftem, p. 286. moral |