exift in the breaft of an individual, or extend its healing wings over a bleeding world, it must be by the fubverfion of this principle, and by the prevalence of that religion which teaches us to love God fupremely, ourselves fubordinately, and our fellowcreatures as ourselves.

To furnish a standard of morality, fome of our adversaries have had recourfe to the Laws of the State; avowing them to be the rule or measure of virtue. Mr. Hobbes inaintained that The civil lave was the fole foundation of right and wrong, and that religion had no obligation but as enjoined by the magiftrate and Lord Bolingbroke often writes in a strain nearly fimilar, difowning any other fanction or penalty by which obedience to the law of nature is enforced, than thofe which are provided by the laws of the land.*

But this rule is defective, abfurd, contradictory, and fubverfive of all true morality. First, It is grofsly defective. This is juftly represented by a prophet of their own. "It is a narrow notion of innocence,

fays Seneca, to measure a man's goodness only by "the law. Of how much larger extent is the rule "of duty, or of good offices, than that of legal " right? How many things are there which piety, "humanity, liberality, juftice, and fidelity require, "which yet are not within the compafs of the pub"lic ftatutes ?" Secondly, It is abfurd: for if the public ftatutes be the only ftandard of right and wrong, legiflators in framing them could be under no law; nor is it poffible that in any instance they

Works, Vol V. p. 90.

† Leland's Advantage and Neceffity of Revelation,

Vol. II. Pt. II. Ch. III, p. 4

should have enacted injuftice. Thirdly, It is contradictory. Human laws, we all know, require different, and oppofite things in different nations; and in the fame nation at different times. If this principle be right, it is right for deifts to be perfecuted for their opinions at one period, and to perfecute others for theirs at another.

Finally, It is fubverfive of all true morality. “ The

civil laws, as Dr. Leland has obferved, take no "cognizance of fecret crimes, and provide no pun"ishment for internal bad difpofitions, or corrupt "affections. A man may be safely as wicked as he

pleases, on this principle, provided he can ma"nage fo as to escape punishment from the laws of "his country, which very bad men, and those that << are guilty of great vices easily may, and frequent"ly do evade."

Rouffeau has recourfe to feelings as his ftandard. "I have only to confult myself, he fays, concern❝ing what I ought to do. All that I feel to be

right is right. Whatever I feel to be wrong is 66 wrong. All the morality of our actions lies in "the judgment we ourfelves form of them." By this rule his conduct through life appears to have been directed, as we fhall hereafter perceive.

But that on which our opponents infift the most, and with the greateft fhew of argument, is the lar and light of nature. This is their profeffed rule on almost all occafions; and its praises they are continually founding. I have no defire to depreciate the light of nature, or to difparage its value as a rule. On the contrary, I confider it as occupying an important place in the divine government. Whatever

* Emilius, Vol. I. pp. 166-168.

may be faid of the light poffeffed by the heathen as being derived from revelation, I feel no difficulty in acknowledging, that the grand law which they are under is that of nature. Revelation itself appears to me fo to reprefent it; holding it up as the rule by which they fhall be judged, and declaring its dictates to be so clear as to leave them with, out excufe.* Nature and Scripture appear to me to be as much in harmony as Mofes and Chrift; both are celebrated in the fame Pfalm.t

By the light of nature, however, I do not mean thofe ideas which heathens have actually entertained, many of which have been darkness; but thofe which were prefented to them by the works of creation, and which they might have poffeffed had they been defirous of retaining God in their knowledge. And by the dictates of nature, with regard to right and wrong, I understand those things which appear to the mind of a perfon fincerely difpofed to understand and practise his duty, to be natural, fit, or reafonable. There is doubtlefs an eternal difference between right and wrong; and this difference, in a vaft variety of inftances, is manifeft to every man who fincerely and impartially confiders it. So manifest have the power and Godhead of the Creator been rendered in every age, that no perfon of an upright difpofition could, through mere mistake, fall into idolatry or. impiety; and every one who has continued in thefe abominations is without excufe. The defire alfo which every human being feels of having juftice done to him from all other perfons muft render it fufficiently manifeft to his judgment that he ought to do the fame to them; and where

* Rom. ii. 12-16. i. 20.

† Pf. xix.

in he acts otherwise, his confcience, unless it be feared as with a hot iron, must accuse him.

But does it follow from hence that Revelation is unneceffary. I trow not. It is one thing for nature to afford fo much light, in matters of right and wrong, as to leave the finner without excufe; and another to afford him any well-grounded hope of forgiveness, or to answer his difficulties concerning the account which fomething within him fays he muft hereafter give of his prefent conduct.

Farther, It is one thing to leave finners without excuse in fin, and another thing to recover them from it. That the light of nature is infufficient for the latter, is demonftrated by melancholy fact. Inftead of returning to God and virtue, those nations which have poffeffed the highest degrees of it have gone farther and farther into immorality. There is not a fingle example of a people, of their own accord, returning to the acknowledgment of the true God, or extricating themselves from the most irrational fpecies of idolatry, or defifting from the most odious kinds of vice. Those nations where science diffused a more than ordinary luftre, were as fuperftitious, and as wicked as the most barbarous; and in many inftances exceeded them. It was, I doubt not, from a close observation of the different efficacy of nature and fcripture, that the writer of the Nineteenth Pfalm (a Pfalm which Mr. Paine pretends to admire) after having given a just tribute of praise to the former, affirmed of the latter, The Law of Jehovah is perfect converting the foul.

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Again, It is one thing for that which is natural, fit, or reasonable, in matters of duty, to approve itfelf to a mind fincerely difpofed to underfland and practise it, and another to approve itself to a mind

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