to facts is sufficient to evince, that by many political institutions the rights of nature have been grieviously sacrificed; and that if those rights had been sufficiently regarded, many of these vicious institutions would never have been exhibited in the world.

It appears worth while at the conclusion of this chapter to remark, that a person when he speaks of 'Nature," should know distinctly what he means. The word carries with it a sort of indeterminate authority; and he who uses it amiss, may connect that authority with rules or actions which are little entitled to it. There are few senses in which the word is used, that do not refer, however obscurely, to God; and it is for that reason that the notion of authority is connected with the word. "The very name of nature implies, that it must owe its birth to some prior agent, or, to speak properly, signifies in itself nothing."* Yet, unmeaning as the term is, it is one of which many persons are very fond;-whether it be that their notions are really indistinct, or that some purposes are answered by referring to the obscurity of nature rather than to God. "Nature has decorated the earth with beauty and magnificence,"—"Nature has furnished us with joints and limbs,"-are phrases sufficiently unmeaning; and yet I know not that they are likely to do any other harm than to give currency to the common fiction. But when it is said, that "Nature teaches us to adhere to truth,"-"Nature condemns us for dishonesty or deceit,' Men are taught by nature that they are responsible beings,"—there is considerable danger that we have both fallacious and injurious notions of the authority which thus teaches or condemns us. Upon this subject it were well to take the advice of Boyle: "Nature," he says, "is sometimes, indeed. * Milton: Christian Doct. p. 14.

commonly, taken for a kind of semi-deity. In this sense it is best not to use it at all.'* It is dangerous to induce confusion into our ideas respecting our relationship with God.

A law of nature is a very imposing phrase; and it might be supposed, from the language of some persons, that nature was an independent legislatress, who had sat and framed laws for the government of mankind. Nature is nothing; yet it would seem that men do sometimes practically imagine, that a'law of nature' possesses proper and independent authority; and it may be suspected that with some the notion is so palpable and strong, that they set up the authority of "the law of nature" without reference to the will of God, or perhaps in opposition to it. Even if notions like these float in the mind only with vapory indistinctness, a correspondent indistinctness of moral notions is likely to ensue. Every man should make to himself the rule, never to employ the word Nature when he speaks of ultimate moral authority. A law possesses no authority; the authority rests only in the legislator: and as nature makes no laws, a law of nature involves no obligation but that which is imposed by the Divine will.

CHAPTER III.

UTILITY.

Obligations resulting from Expediency-Limits to
these obligations.

THAT in estimating our duties in life we ought to pay regard to what is useful and beneficial to what is

* Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notions of Nature.

likely to promote the welfare of ourselves and of others -can need little argument to prove. Yet, if it were required, it may be easily shown that this regard to utility is recommended or enforced in the expression of the Divine will. That will requires the exercise of pure and universal benevolence;-which benevolence is exercised in consulting the interests, the welfare, and the happiness of mankind. The dictates of utility, therefore, are frequently no other than the dictates of benevolence.

Or, if we derive the obligations of utility from considerations connected with our reason, they do not appear much less distinct. To say that to consult utility is right, is almost the same as to say, it is right to exercise our understandings. The daily and hourly use of reason is to discover what is fit to be done; that is, what is useful and expedient; and since it is manifest that the Creator, in endowing us with the faculty, designed that we should exercise it, it is obvious that in this view also a reference to expediency is consistent with the Divine will.

When (higher laws being silent) a man judges that of two alternatives one is dictated by greater utility, that dictate constitutes an obligation upon him to prefer it. I should not hold a landowner innocent, who knowingly persisted in adopting a bad mode of raising corn; nor should I hold the person innocent who opposed an improvement in shipbuilding, or who obstructed the formation of a turnpike road that would benefit the public. These are questions, not of prudence merely, but of morals also.

Obligations resulting from utility possess great extent of application to political affairs. There are, indeed, some public concerns in which the moral law, antecedently, decides nothing. Whether a duty shall be imposed, or a charter granted, or a treaty signed,

are questions which are perhaps to be determined by expediency alone but when a public man is of the judgment that any given measure will tend to the general good, he is immoral if he opposes that measure. The immorality may indeed be made out by a somewhat different process:-such a man violates those duties of benevolence which religion imposes: he probably disregards, too, his sense of obligation; for if he be of the judgment that a given measure will tend to the general good, conscience will scarcely be silent in whispering that he ought not to oppose it.

It is sufficiently evident, upon the principles which have hitherto been advanced, that considerations of utility are only so far obligatory as they are in accordance with the moral law. Pursuing, however, the method which has been adopted in the last two chapters, it may be observed, that this subserviency of utility to the Divine will, appears to be required by the written revelation. That habitual preference of futurity to the present time, which Scripture exhibits, indicates that our interests here should be held in subordination to our interests hereafter: and as these higher interests are to be consulted by the means which revelation prescribes, it is manifest that those means are to be pursued, whatever we may suppose to be their effects upon the present welfare of ourselves or of other men. "If in this life only we have hope in God, then are we of all men most miserable." It certainly is not, in the usual sense of the word, expedient to be most miserable. And why did they thus sacrifice expediency? Because the communicated will of God required that course of life by which human interests were apparently sacrificed. It will be perceived that these considerations result from the truth, (too little regarded in talking of "Expediency" and "General Benevolence") that utility, as it respects mankind, cannot be properly consulted

without taking into account our interests in futurity. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' is a maxim of which all would approve if we had no concerns with another life. That which might be very expedient if death were annihilation, may be very inexpedient now.

"If ye say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey the voice of the Lord your God, saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war;" nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell; it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye feared, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, where of ye were afraid, shall follow close after you there in Egypt: and there ye shall die."*"We will burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and pour out drink-offerings unto her; for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, and by the famine."Therefore, "I will watch over them for evil, and not for good." These reasoners argued upon the principle of making expediency the paramount law; and it may be greatly doubted whether those who argue upon that principle now, have better foundation for their reasoning than those of old. Here was the prospect of advantage founded, as they thought, upon experience. One course of action had led (so they reasoned) to war and famine, and another to plenty, and health, and general well-being: yet still our Universal Lawgiver required them to disregard all these conclusions of expediency, and simply to conform to His will.

After all, the general experience is, that what is most expedient with respect to another world, is most expedient with respect to the present. There may be cases, and there have been, in which the Divine will Jer. xlii. † Jer. xliv.

*