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SPECIAL PUBLIC EVILS.

[Part VI,

renouncing the character of a rational creature; but tastes andrelishes are not to be prescribed,

A motive in which the reason of man shall acquiesce, enforcingthe practice of virtue at all times and seasons, enters into thevery essence of moral obligation. Modern infidelity supplies nosuch motives ; it is, therefore, essentially and infallibly, a systemof enervation, turpitude, and vice. This chasm in the construc-tion of morals, can only be supplied by the firm belief of a re-warding and avenging Deity, who binds duty and happiness,though they may seem distant, in an indissoluble chain ; withoutwhich, whatever usurps the name of virtue is not a principle,but a feeling ; not a determinate rule, but a fluctuating expedient,varying with the tastes of individuals, and changing with thescenes of life.

Nor is this the only way in which infidelity subverts the foun-dation of morals. All reasoning on morals presupposes a dis-tinction between inclinations and duties, affections and rules.The former prompt, the latter prescribe. The former supplymotives to action ; the latter regulate and control it. Hence itis evident, if virtue have any just claim to authority, it must beunder the latter of these notions ; that is, under the character ofa law. It is under this notion, in fact, that its dominion has everbeen acknowledged to be paramount and supreme. Without theintervention of a superior will, it is impossible there should beany moral laws, except in the lax metaphorical sense in which wespeak of the laws of matter and motion.

Two consequences, the most disastrous to society, will inevit-ably follow the general prevalence of this system ; 1. the fre-quent perpetration of great crimes, 2. the total absence of greatvirtues.

1. In those conjunctures which tempt avarice or inflameambition, when a crime flatters with the prospect of impunity,and the certainty of immense advantage, what is to restrain anatheist from its commission ? To say that remorse will deterhim is absurd ; for remorse, as distinguished from pity, is thesole offspring of religious belief, the extinction of which is thegreat purpose of the infidel philosophy.