an extraordinary commerce and peculiar intimacy with the supreme Being; and to fancy all the thoughts or visions, which present themselves in consequence of their devotional contemplation and admiration, to be special dictates from heaven to their minds. It is true, good and just sentiments which are thus excited in the mind, as they are in that respect peculiarly the effects of religious acts, they may, in that sense, be said more especially to be from GOD; but they are not from him in any other way, than as they are the natural fruits of such contemplation and devotion according to the natural frame of our mind: and one cannot be too cautious in guarding against the perswasion of any special communication with the Deity, which pride is so apt, if it is once suffered to enter into the mind, or in the least indulged, to nourish to great extravagance; because in proportion as any other guide is set up in the mind besides reason and moral conscience, in proportion will those our natural guides be abandoned and forsaken by us in favour of that imagined superior one: and thus the<214> whole coherence of the human moral texture will be greatly endangered.
The genuine effects of true well moderated devotion, are submission to providence, and activity in doing good.
But perhaps there is not so much reason to caution against excesses, into which pious and devout affection may be misguided, as to recommend strongly the pleasure and profitableness to virtue, of devotion rightly governed. And then certainly it is so when we take frequent pleasure in contemplating the divine perfections; and such contemplation produces, on the one hand, chearful submission to the divine pleasure with respect to all things independent of us, or absolutely external to us, and out of our power, from the perswasion that the divine providence does all for the best in the whole. And when, on the other hand, the contemplation and love of the Deity excite us to action, or to seek with delightful attention and care, opportunities of exerting our benevolence, and of doing all the good we can; from a perswasion that it is only active benevolence which can liken or approve us to that infinitely perfect Being, whose happiness consists in communicating his goodness as extensively as Omnipotence can.
Conclusion.
Thus we see, we are made for religion as well as for virtue; and that indeed in our nature, religion and virtue are one and the same thing: it is the same natural disposition of the mind, employed contemplatively in admiring and loving supreme virtue; and actively in imitating that model; or in endeavouring to become more and more conformable to it. And as this is the idea which reason gives us of religion and virtue, so it is the idea christianity gives of it. The sum of religion and virtue according to that doctrine, is to love GOD, and to love our neighbour; and according to that doctrine these two good dispositions are inseparable: They must go together. He who thinketh he loveth God, and loveth not his neighbour, deceiveth himself, for God is love.79<215>
A brief review of the human nature, and its powers and dispositions, and their laws.
Having thus considered the chief laws and principles, powers and properties in the human nature relative to our bodily or moral frame, to our sensitive part or our connexion with a material world, relative to knowledge, to virtue, to interest, and to society: I think we may conclude, that human nature is well constituted, and makes an excellent species which well deserves its place in the rising scale of life and perfection: a species of being which shews an Author of perfect wisdom and goodness.
Now that all the principal phenomena relating to human nature and mankind, are accountable by reducing them to good principles from which they must result, will appear by casting our eye upon the following Table of effects, for these seem to be the principal phenomena belonging to us as men; and they are all reducible to the laws that have been already found either to be necessary, or fitly chosen and established.
A table of the phenomena, good and bad belonging to human nature, or resulting from its contexture.
Phenomena belonging to the general law of power.
GOODS.
Having a sphere of power and activity. Liberty and dominion; and so being capable of praise, virtue and good desert: Having great knowledge and proportioned power in consequence of culture or care to improve ourselves.
EVILS.
Want of power through ignorance and neglect of culture, blindness, impotence, slavery, consciousness of acting ill; remorse, shame, a desart and uncultivated, or a corrupt and diseased mind.<216>
1. To the laws of knowledge.
GOODS.
Science, prudence, philosophy, arts, good sense, good taste, a refined imagination, an extensive understanding; knowledge of the beauty, order and wisdom of nature, and skill in imitating it by various arts.
EVILS.
Ignorance, error, prejudices, narrow views, dull or slow imagination, corrupt fancy, false taste; caprice and fantastical pursuits.
2. To the laws of the sensible world and our union with it.
GOODS.
Sensitive pleasures of various sorts; contemplation of nature or natural knowledge, pleasures of imagination, social intercourse about moral ideas, sensitive appetites to be governed.
EVILS.
Sensitive pains, subjection to the laws of matter and motion, false imaginations and pains arising from them. Unruly excessive sensual appetites and passions; uneasy sensations annexed to moral or intellectual desires, as well as to sensitive ones.
3. To the laws of association of ideas and habits.
GOODS.
Habitual knowledge, memory and acquaintance with nature, perfection in science, in arts, in every faculty, good taste, invention, advancement toward moral perfection, inward liberty, self-command, free agency.
EVILS.
Wrong associations, fantastic imaginations, bad habits, unimproved faculties, inward slavery, indolence and impotence.
4. To the laws of our moral sense, reason and moral conduct.
GOODS.
Reason, a moral sense, beauty, harmony, and consistency of manners, conscious virtue, or a sense of merit, greatness of mind, fortitude, magnanimity.
EVILS.
Depraved taste, remorse and self-condemnation, irregular self-tormenting, self-disapproving affections, lowness of mind, pusillanimity.<217>
5. To the laws of interest and happiness, or of private and public good.
GOODS.
Generous affections, well governed private affections, social ones, their pleasant effects and happy con sequences, the pursuit of private and public good, or virtue and interest the same.
EVILS.
Ungenerous, unsocial selfish affections, disorderly desires, and their un-happy effects and influences; private and public ill, or vice and misery the same.
6. To the laws of society, our social make and our mutual dependence.
GOODS.
Social
