ing a capacity of happiness. We do accordingly receive fome of our most transporting enjoyments from causes altogether unconnected with morality; as the whole of what is comprehended under the general head of the pleasures of the imagination.

Ir is true, that we do enjoy a ftill more fublime and exquifite pleasure, in reflecting on our own good behaviour. The mens fibi confcia recti is the most elegant feast we can feed on. But yet the pleasure is not the chief thing in virtue. No truly good man does a good action, merely with the selfish view to his receiving, from the reflexion on it, an exquifite pleasure. He does good because it is right to do good. He does not shoot at the prize; but at the mark. It is with the pleasure arifing from reflexion on our having behaved well, as it is with that which we receive from the approbation of the wife and good around us. We enjoy a high fatisfaction in seeing our behaviour approved by judges of behaviour.. But whence does this fatisfaction arife? Not from the approbation of others merely. For, the ingenuous mind, which is conscious, that, in a particular inftance, the approbation is undeferved, fo far from receiving any. fatisfaction, is hurt by it. The whole pleasure, which an honeft mind receives from the public applause, arises merely from its seeing the judgment of others confirm its an. He, who pursues fame for its own fake, and he, who does good (if any such there be) only with a view to the pleasure he expects to enjoy from it, are both gone erroneous from that which conftitutes true merit.

MORAL rectitude, and happiness, are totally different things. There may be great virtue, where there is little happiness, as when a good man is racked with the gout,

gout, or stone; and great happiness, no way connected with virtue, as in the poffeffion of any beloved. object whatever.

THERE can, therefore, I think, be no doubt, but Omnipotence could, phyfically speaking, have filled his univerfe with beings inexpreffibly happy; and yet fuch a production would not have been worthy of its Author. If happiness confifts merely in the fenfation (I do not mean through the mediation of a body only) of what is delightful, Omnipotence could have given to any living being, whether endowed with a capacity for moral agency or not, any poffible degree of fenfibility, and all poffible variety of gratifications. Yet fuch natures, so far from being of the great and noble rank, and of the importance in the univerfe, which angels are, and men (if Scripture be true) may come to. be; would comparatively be at beft but elegant epicures. But moral agency is indifpenfably neceffary to the very poffibility of the creature's becoming amiable and va-luable, filling an illuftrious and important ftation, and being one of the prime ornaments of the universe. If therefore the Creator intended a production, which fhould exhibit a great and general difplay of himself, and especially of his fupereminent attribute of rectitude, he could not avoid admitting the poffibility of evil's en-tering into his world (though the malleft quantity of it is in every view thoroughly odious to himself) if any free agent should prove wicked enough to introduce it. As omnipotent, he can prevent any thing difpleafing to himfelf; for his power is equal to the annihilation of the universe. As a moral Governor, he cannot prevent his creatures from doing evil, if they be obftinately

bent

bent upon it; for, they may reject all moral motives to goodness, and determents from evil. They muft, if intended for moral agents, have power to do evil; because they must have power to do good; and for this. latter, greater power is requifite, than for the former.. To fay, God has not used all proper moral means for deterring his free creatures from vice, would be blafphemy.

LET us therefore conclude, that the Author of existence could not, being what he is, have proposed to himself an univerfe, without chiefly intending moral agents capable of rectitude, merely on account of the value and importance of fuch beings; whatever fhould prove the confequence, as to the happiness of thofe moral agents; though it was at the fame time, certain, that great happiness would prove the refult. Moral agents neceffarily requiring freedom to choose good or evil, they might, notwithstanding any preventive means,. which could be used, come to deviate into vice.

No one will argue, I imagine, that the Creator ought to have prevented the poffibility of the entrance of moral evil into his univerfe by refolving not to give. exiftence. This would be alledging, that he ought (with reverence I fpeak) to have prevented the entrance of fo great a beauty into his univerfe, as is, and has been, and will be exhibited by multitudes of highly virtuous characters, merely for the fake of preventing the attendant blemish of vice and felf-fought deftruction introduced by a few wretched individuals. Yet, what prince establishing a new kingdom, or fettlement, would hefitate about peopling his new dominion, merely be

6

caufe

cause he forefaw, that in a rich and populous ftate, it was to be expected, that, in spite of all the laws, and all the regulations, which could be framed by himself, or by all the legiflators on earth, and all the angels in Heaven, many irregularities would arise; which irregularities it were on all accounts to be wished might be prevented, but cannot without putting all the subjects in confinement ; which is inconfiftent with the very idea of government.

I HAD Occafion, in the former volume, page 196, to mention a difficulty connected with the fubject of this paragraph, and which I find, I have not folved to the full fatisfaction of fome readers. I must therefore beg leave to retouch it. The difficulty is, to account why the fupreme Governor, who has a perfect præscience of the future conduct of his moral creatures, has not prevented thofe individuals from coming into exiftence, which, he forefaw, would tranfgrefs the eternal rules of rectitude, and bring vice and confequent mifery into his world. The clearing up of this difficulty depends on this fingle confideration, that there muft always be fuppofed a new and different præfcience for every new number of moral agents. Suppose what you will to be forefeen of the conduct of one thousand millions. The fame præfcience concerning the individuals, who remain, will not answer, when a million are deducted. Nor will the deducting of any particular fett of individuals affure the prevention of vice among those who remain. So that it was an impoflibility to prevent misbehaviour by the mere contrivance of preventing any particular fett of individuals from coming into existence. It was, for inftance, forefeen, that NERO would prove a tyrant. Does it follow, that if NERO had not existed, there

had

had not been as many tyrants on the imperial throne of Rome, as we know there were. Suppofe the line of Roman Emperors had not been JULIUS, AUGUSTUS, TIBERIUS, &e. but a fett of different names and men, is it certain, that they must have all been TRAJANS and TITUS's? We take it for granted, that, if those very individuals, who in the integral number of mankind, have proved the offenders, had been left out, there would have been no offenders. But nothing can be more groundless, than this affumption. For, in the diminished number, it is certain, that other individuals would have fallen into thofe ftations, circumftances, and temptations, which would have been left empty by the deduction of thofe, who were deducted. So that the refult, after all poffible deductions, muft ever have been, as I have ftated it, Vol. I. p. 197. That there could have been no affignable large number of free agents, of whom it could have been with certainty foreseen, that none of them would have deviated.

THERE is, therefore, no difficulty in accounting, how moral evil, really, and as far as it goes purely and without mixture, hurtful and mischievous, has made its way into the univerfe. Moral agents were made on purpose to be moral, that is free. They have deviated, and might, and probably would have deviated, lefs or more, in whatever circumftances they had been placed, excepting only the circumftances of abfolute privation of freedom, in which it is a contradiction to suppose them placed. But it must be owned, there is a feeming difficulty in accounting, how a fett of once wife, holy, and happy angels fhould come to deviate into fuch atrocious guilt, as that which fcripture charges on the grand Enemy, and his rebellious party.

Yet,