preme his highest praise, when we ascribe to him the perfection of rectitude? Is it equally honouring him, to ascribe to him the moft perfect happiness? If it be, then EPICURUS's gods are equal to the true*. It is equally adorable to lie on a cloud, and quaff nectar, without giving the leaft attention to the affairs of the world, as to act the wife and righteous Governor, the rewarder of virtue, and punisher of vice throughout the universe of moral agents. It is as good to fuffer universal tyranny to prevail over oppreffed innocence, as to render to every one according to his works. THE Common theory, therefore, which reprefents the Divine fcheme, in creating moral agents, to have been merely, to communicate the greateft heppiness, as if communicating the greatest happiness were the most important object, and as if there were no other poffible means of communicating great happiness; this manner of representing the Divine fcheme in creating moral agents, is too narrow, and misleads into difficulties avoidable by a more just explanation of it, as will, I truft, by and by appear. THERE is no neceflity, in the prefent deduction, for making it a question, Whether the greatest happiness is the natural confequence of the greatest virtue ? Whether this be granted, or denied, the neceffity of the Creator's *Omnis enim per fe divom natura neceffe ef LUCRET. Creator's propofing to replenish his universe with moral agents will remain the fame, as arifing from the Divine nature, which, being moral, rendered it impoffible, that the Creator fhould not propofe to produce moral agents, with the fingle and ultimate view of their becoming like to himself in that which is his greatest glory, viz. moral rectitude. Yet no one can, I think, have any doubt, concerning the neceffary connexion, in the nature of things, between virtue and happiness. But this we have at present no concern with. All I would urge is, That the Creator, being himself a moral agent, and his moral character being his fupreme excellence, he could not but propose to create moral Agents, as fuch, exclufive of the confequences refpecting their happinefs. Becaufe, whatever their happiness fhould eventually prove to be, their merit muft, if they behaved well, come to be great; and if they should even have partly failed of happiness (which yet could not happen) they might attain what is more important, viz. moral rectitude of difpofition. To say, that any scheme muft of courfe have appeared to the Creator the beft, which produced the greatest happiness, merely because it produced the greatest happiness, would be faying, That the fupreme Being looks on happiness as of greater confequence than rectitude. But this is fo far from being a right state of the cafe, that it is certain, every good man (the goodness of men, is, God knows, moderate enough) would choose rather to be more virtuous, and lefs happy, than more happy, and lefs virtuous, (a man is, in fact, more or lefs virtuous, according as he more or lefs fincerely loves virtue for its own fake) much more would an an gel choose in the same manner *; and most of all would. He, whose rectitude is abfolutely perfect, choose rather to see his universe filled with fupremely virtuous, though lefs happy beings, than with fuperlatively happy, but. lefs virtuous beings, were this poffible. To alledge, therefore, that the Author of existence intended his highest creatures moral agents, mèrely with a view to their attaining the greatest happiness, which is the univerfal doctrine of writers on the subject; is not this faying, That he, who fees all things as they are, con. fiders immutable and eternal rectitude, the prime excellence of any being, created or uncreated, as valuable, not for its own fake, but in confideration merely of its being the tallest ladder to climb to the most exalted. heighth of happiness †? HAD * Methinks I hear (auditis? an me ludit amabilis error?) One of those celeftials pouring forth the following rapture: "O glorious, immutable, and ever amiable rectitude! prime 66 ornament of every rational nature; fupreme ornament "of the Supreme! take thou poffeffion of this foul. Dif"fufe thy excellence through every faculty. Let thy un"created beam brighten my nature, and beautify it with "the original beauty of the Divinity; that in my lower fphere, I may refemble the all-perfect nature in that chiefly, which is the chief of the divine perfections. Let "the measure of my felicity, in my prefent, or whatever "future ftates of existence may await me, prove more deficient, or more abundant: but let my virtue be with"out alloy and without limit; let it never know change, or defection, but go on improving and increafing to "eternity." CRITO MINOR. If the reader is defirous of fettling on a fure foundation his notions of the nature, effence, and fupreme im portance HAD the communication of happiness been the Creator's ultimate object, I fee not, but that he could, and certainly would, have excluded all evil and diforder, both moral and natural, from his univerfe. And here, precifely, it is, if I mistake not, that the antient difficulty, and universal error, concerning the origin of evil, enters. Reafoners on the subject, imagining nothing neceffary for the Author of the universe to attend to, but the be ftowing of happiness on his creatures, wonder how it comes to pafs, that fo much promifcuous mifery prevails in the world. They tenaciously maintain the notion,. that beings are formed moral agents, merely with a view to their attaining the greatest happiness. Yet they find, that freedom, indifpenfably neceffary to moral agency, is the foundation of great irregularity and confequent mifery. Then they go to work to unrealife this. mifery, and bewilder themselves in accounting, in a false G 6 and portance of moral rectitude, and of feeing its immutabi lity, and independence on what fome writers love to call a moral fense (though they might as well talk of an arithmetical, or chemical fenfe) demonftrated, let thým: carefully perufe A Review of the chief Difficulties in Morals, &c. by the Rev. RICHARD PRICE; printed for A. Millar, in the Strand: In which he will find as much clofe reasoning, as ever has been put into the fame room by any writer, not excepting Mr. LOCKE himself; and when the reader has edified himself by the book, let him go,. and build up his own morals on as fure a foundation. Left it should be alledged, that CRITO is capable of flattery, I will add, that, if this author fhould write twenty books, each of them as much fuperior to his Review, as that is to the general run of books, they will not be worth a fhilling, if compared with the value of his own. pure and exemplary life.. and inconfiftent way, for what is fully explicable on right principles. Had happiness alone, and as ultimate, been the object, it was easy to exclude evil. But the cafe is very different, when, not happiness, as ultimate, but virtue, as ultimate, is the object. Moral agency is not neceffary, nor indeed any agency, to happiness. It is indifpenfably neceffary to improvement in virtue. All that is abfolutely neceffary to happiness, or to misery, is fenfibility. The highest degrees of fenfibility, exclufive of every thing elfe, render the being capable of the higheft happiness, or the moft exquifite mifery. For, in fuffering pain, or enjoying pleasure, the mind is totally paffive. IF the communication of happiness had been the Creator's only object, the fhortest way to that end would have been, to have beftowed it freely, and feparately, not by way of retribution, nor focially; which has eventually rendered the happinefs of fome individuals, who have come within our knowledge, precarious, and even abortive, in confequence of its depending on their own behaviour, and in part on their connexions with fel-low creatures. If the fingle point had been to bestow the greatest happinefs, the Author of exiftence would have at once exerted that command, which he undoubtedly has over all minds, by which he can, at his pleafure, ravish and transport them in a manner, and to. degrees, by us, and all finite minds, inconceivable. THE whole that is neceffary to happiness is, a confcious being's feeling or enjoying what, by his peculiar make (which is merely arbitrary, while morality is immutable and eternal) is fitted to give him pleasure. Mere confcioufness is, therefore, all that is neceffary to give a be ing |