never so good, yet if the Cause of the disposition or act be not our virtue, there is nothing virtuous or praiseworthy in it;

of that cause in perpetual retrogradation, and move from one difficulty to another into endless absurdity. The predisposing cause of vice, therefore, is passive power, which in itself is not vicious, or morally evil. But how moral evil came to exist, and what is its true origin, will be more conveniently considered in a subsequent part of this work.

16. As the essence of the virtue and vice of dispositions and acts lies not in their cause, so neither does it lie in their effects: that is, dispositions and acts are not to be denominated virtuous or vicious on account of their effects or consequences, such as their being productive of happiness or misery. For as the properties of any thing must be different from those of its cause, however similar, so must those properties differ from their effects. The immediate effect of virtue isnot happiness to the individual, for instance, but-that the agent is approvable, or praiseworthy. But were the essence of virtue to consist in its tendency to ultimate happiness," as some have affirmed, immediate approbation and praise could not be safely given to any individual act or disposition, as its relation to ultimate happiness could not be ascertained but by the final event. If the essence of the virtue or vice were not in the act or disposition, but to be denominated from its effects, many other absurdities would follow. For instance,

17. On that supposition, the supreme excellence of Jehovah would not be approvable and praiseworthy on its own account, or its intrinsic excellency, but only because of its effects and consequences. On that principle, to hate God would be nothing bad, it would have no intrinsic demerit; or to love God would be nothing good, nothing in itself praiseworthy, were it not for consequences. Which is not only absurd, but blasphemous also and shocking.

18. That sentiment is evidently founded on the supposition that every thing, property, quality and event, is the fruit of divine will; and therefore that every thing must be equally good in itself, though relatively good or bad to the individual: even as matter and motion, and their laws, are equally good in themselves, but not relatively so to the individuals who suffer from them. But this is a great mistake, as it confounds things totally distinct in their nature, such as positive and negative causes, natural necessity and moral certainty. Decret ve positions and their consequences are one ground of certainty; negative causes and their consequences are another; therefore, from the certainty of result in the divine view we cannot rightly infer that all results are decreed. Decretive positions comprehend neither negative causes, nor the nature of things. For an intelligent being to love God, is agreeable to the nature of things; it is what ought to be independent of any decretive position or legal demand in reference to the case. In like manner, for an intelligent being to hate God, is a voluntary contradiction to the nature of things-or the essence of eternal truth, which is above all will, or is not founded in will-as well as to constituted law. Again,

19. To deny the "intrinsic merit and demerit of voluntary actions independent on their consequences," as some do, is to deny the nature of things; and this is nothing less than an attempt to divide eternal unity, to give the lie direct to essential truth, and to convert the first uncaused essence into contradictory contingencies. The nature of things is nothing else, radically, but the nature of God, which is essential truth as well as essential goodness. Decretive positions, or an arbitrary constitution of these things by divine will, therefore can no more alter the intrinsic merit or demerit of actions, affections, habits, or characters, than divine will can alter the character of essential truth, or choose real contradictions. More

over,

20. Ultimate happiness is the effect or consequence of virtue as a reward. Now to make the merit or excellence of virtue to depend on ultimate happiness, while happiness is the reward of virtue, is most inconsistent; it is to reward for nothing rewardable. If virtue be not of intrinsic worth, it must be a mere moral nothing as to rewardableness, and therefore ultimate happiness would be a reward for a mere moral nothing; that is, happiness would be no reward, which is contradictory.

BELSHAM'S Elements, p. 309,

and, on the contrary, if the will, in its inclinations or acts, be never so bad, yet, unless it arises from something that is our vice or fault, there is nothing vicious or blameworthy in it. Hence their grand objection and pretended demonstration, or self-evidence, against any virtue or commendableness, or vice and blame-worthiness, of those habits or acts of the will, which are not from some virtuous or vicious determination of the will itself.

Now, if this matter be well considered, it will appear to be altogether a mistake, yea, a gross absurdity; and that it is most certain, that if there be any such thing as a virtuous or vicious disposition, or volition of mind, the virtuousness or viciousness of them consists not in the Origin or Cause of these things, but in the Nature of them.

If the Essence of virtuousness or commendableness, and of viciousness or fault, does not lie in the Nature of the dispositions or acts of mind, which are said to be our virtue or our fault, but in their Cause, then it is certain it lies no where at all. Thus, for instance, if the vice of a vicious act of will, lies not in the Nature of the act, but the Cause; so that its being of a bad Nature will not make it at all our fault, unless it arises from some faulty determination of ours as its Cause, or something in us that is our fault; then, for the same reason, neither can the viciousness of that Cause lie in the Nature of the thing itself, but in its Cause: that evil determination of ours is not our fault, merely because it is of a bad Nature, unless it arises from some Cause in us that is our fault. And when we are come to this higher Cause, still the reason of the thing holds good; though this Cause be of a bad Nature, yet we are not at all to blame on that account, unless it arises from something faulty in us. Nor yet can blameworthiness lie in the Nature of this Cause, but in the Cause of that. And thus we must drive faultiness back from step to step, from a lower Cause to a higher, in infinitum: and that is thoroughly to banish it from the

ous.

21. As to vice, its consequence is punishment. If indeed this consequence were the mere effect of arbitrary positions, or sovereign appointment; if it were the plan of God first to cause the existence of vice, and then to punish the subject of it, as what the good of the whole required, there would be great plausibility in the sentiment we oppose. But the assumption itself is fundamentally erroneIt confounds hypothetical antecedents, as the whole of decretive plans may be termed, with that eternal truth which connects them with their consequences. To suppose the hatred of God, for instance, to have no intrinsic demerit in it, or that it is bad only as dependent on its consequences; is the same as to say, it is agrecable to the nature of things, conformable to eternal truth, that God should be hated, and therefore that he must approve of it-only to the agent it is attended with bad consequences. That is, on the supposition, God has appointed misery as the consequent, for doing nothing that is in itself bad; yea for doing what is perfectly innocent, agreeable to the nature of things, conformable to eternal truth, and acceptable to God, as every thing which he appoints must be. Whether such a sentiment be nearest a-kin to 66 profound philosophy,” or to something else, let the competent reader judge.—W.

world, and to allow it no possibility of existence any where in the universality of things. On these principles, vice, or moral evil, cannot consist in any thing that is an effect; because fault does not consist in the Nature of things, but in their Cause; as well as because effects are necessary, being unavoidably connected with their Cause: therefore the Cause only is to blame. And so it follows, that faultiness can lie only in that Cause which is a Cause only, and no effect of any thing. Nor yet can it lie in this; for then it must lie in the Nature of the thing itself; not in its being from any determination of ours, nor any thing faulty in us which is the Cause, nor indeed from any Cause at all; for, by the supposition, it is no effect, and has no Cause. And thus, he that will maintain it is not the Nature of habits or acts of will that makes them virtuous or faulty, but the Cause, must immediately run himself out of his own assertion; and in maintaining it, will insensibly contradict and deny it.

This is certain, that if effects are vicious and faulty, not from their Nature or from any thing inherent in them, but because they are from a bad Cause, it must be on account o the badness of the Cause: a bad effect in the will must be bad, because the Cause is bad, or of an evil Nature, or has badness as a quality inherent in it: and a good effect in the will must be good, by reason of the goodness of the Cause, or its being of a good Kind and Nature. And if this be what is meant, the very supposition of fault and praise lying not in the Nature of the thing, but the Cause, contradicts itself, and does at least resolve the Essence of virtue and vice into the Nature of things, and supposes it originally to consist in that.-And if a caviller has a mind to run from the absurdity, by saying, "No, the fault of the thing, which is the Cause, lies not in this that the Cause itself is of an evil Nature, but that the Cause is evil in that sense, that it is from another bad Cause." Still the absurdity will follow him; for, if so, then the Cause before charged is at once acquitted, and all the blame must be laid to the higher Cause, and must consist in that being evil, or of an evil Nature. So now, we are come again to lay the blame of the thing blameworthy to the Nature of the thing, and not to the Cause. And if any is so foolish as to go higher still, and ascend from step to step, till he is come to that which is the first Cause concerned in the whole affair, and will say, all the blame lies in that; then at last he must be forced to own, that the faultiness of the thing, which he supposes alone blameworthy, lies wholly in the Nature of the thing, and not in the Original or Cause of it; for the supposition is, that it has no Original, it is determined by no act of ours, is caused by nothing faulty in us, being absolutely without any Cause.

And so the race is at an end, but the evader is taken in his flight.

It is agreeable to the natural notions of mankind, that moral evil, with its desert of dislike and abhorrence, and all its other ill deservings, consists in a certain deformity in the Nature of certain dispositions of the heart, and acts of the will; and not in the deformity of something else, diverse from the very thing itself, which deserves abhorrence, supposed to be the Cause of it. Which would be absurd, because that would be to suppose a thing that is innocent and not evil, is truly evil and faulty, because another thing is evil. It implies a contradiction for it would be to suppose the very thing which is morally evil and blameworthy, is innocent and not blameworthy; but that something else, which is its Cause, is only to blame. To say, that vice does not consist in the thing which is vicious, but in its Cause, is the same as to say, that vice does not consist in vice, but in that which produces it. It is true a Cause may be to blame, for being the Cause of vice: it may be wickedness in the Cause that it produces wickedness. But it would imply a contradiction to suppose that these two are the same individual wickedness. wicked act of the Cause in producing wickedness, is one wickedness; and the wickedness produced, if there be any produced, is another. And therefore the wickedness of the latter does not lie in the former, but is distinct from it; and the wickedness of both lies in the evil Nature of the things which are wicked.

The

The thing which makes sin hateful, is that by which it deserves punishment; which is but the expression of hatred.And that which renders virtue lovely, is that on account of which it is fit to receive praise and reward; which are but the expressions of esteem and love. But that which makes vice hateful, is its hateful Nature; and that which renders virtue lovely, is its amiable Nature. It is a certain beauty or deformity that are inherent in that good or evil will, which is the soul of virtue and vice (and not in the occasion of it) which is their worthiness of esteem or disesteem, praise or dispraise, according to the common sense of mankind. If the Cause or occasion of the rise of an hateful disposition or act of will, be also hateful; suppose another antecedent evil will; that is entirely another sin, and deserves punishment by itself, under a distinct consideration. There is worthiness of dispraise in the Nature of an evil volition, and not wholly in some fore going act, which is its Cause; otherwise the evil volition, which is the effect, is no moral evil, any more than sickness, or some other natural calamity, which arises from a Cause morally evil.

Thus, for instance, ingratitude is hateful and worthy of dispraise, according to common sense; not because something as bad, or worse than ingratitude, was the Cause that produced it, but because it is hateful in itself, by its own inherent deformity. So the love of virtue is amiable and worthy of praise, not merely because something else went before this love of virtue in our minds, which caused it to take place there--for instance our own choice; we chose to love virtue, and, by some method or other, wrought ourselves into the love of it but because of the amiableness and condescendency of such a disposition and inclination of heart. If that was the case, that we did choose to love virtue, and so produced that love in ourselves, this choice itself could be no otherwise amiable or praiseworthy, than as love to virtue, or some other amiable inclination, was exercised and implied in it. If that choice was amiable at all, it must be so on account of some amiable quality in the Nature of the choice. If we choose to love virtue, not in love to virtue, or any thing that was good, and exercised no sort of good disposition in the choice, the choice itself was not virtuous, nor worthy of any praise, according to common sense, because the choice was not of a good Nature.

It may not be improper here to take notice of something said by an author, that has lately made a mighty noise in America. "A necessary holiness (says he*) is no holiness.— Adam could not be originally created in righteousness and true holiness, because he must choose to be righteous, before he could be righteous. And therefore he must exist, he must be created, yea, he must exercise thought and reflection, before he was righteous." There is much more to the same effect. (p. 437, 438, 439, 440.) If these things are so, it will certainly follow, that the first choosing to be righteous is no righteous choice; there is no righteousness or holiness in it; because no choosing to be righteous goes before it. For he plainly speaks of choosing to be righteous, as what must go before righteousness; and that which follows the choice, being the effect of the choice, cannot be righteousness or holiness: for an effect is a thing necessary, and cannot prevent the influence or efficacy of its Cause: and therefore is unavoidably dependent upon the Cause: and he says a necessary holiness is no holiness. So that neither can a choice of righteousness be righteousness or holiness, nor can any thing that is consequent on that choice, and the effect of it, be righteousness or holiness; nor can any thing that is without choice, be righteousness or holiness. So that by his scheme, all righteousness and holiness is at once shut out of the world, and no

VOL. II.

Scrip. Doc. of Original Sin. p. 180, 3d. Edit.
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