virtue; nothing could have been so justly rewarded with happiness, as
the production of happiness, in conformity to the will of God. It is
this conformity, alone, which adds merit to virtue, and constitutes the
essential difference between morality and religion. Morality obliges men
to live honestly and soberly, because such behaviour is most conducive
to public happiness, and, consequently, to their own; religion, to
pursue the same course, because conformable to the will of their
creator. Morality induces them to embrace virtue, from prudential
considerations; religion, from those of gratitude and obedience.
Morality, therefore, entirely abstracted from religion, can have nothing
meritorious in it; it being but wisdom, prudence, or good economy,
which, like health, beauty, or riches, are rather obligations conferred
upon us by God, than merits in us towards him; for, though we may be
justly punished for injuring ourselves, we can claim no reward for
self-preservation; as suicide deserves punishment and infamy, but a man
deserves no reward or honours for not being guilty of it. This I take to
be the meaning of all those passages in our scriptures, in which works
are represented to have no merit without faith; that is, not without
believing in historical facts, in creeds, and articles, but, without
being done in pursuance of our belief in God, and in obedience to his
commands. And now, having mentioned scripture, I cannot omit observing,
that the christian is the only religious or moral institution in the
world, that ever set, in a right light, these two material points, the
essence and the end of virtue, that ever founded the one in the
production of happiness, that is, in universal benevolence, or, in their
language, charity to all men; the other, in the probation of man, and
his obedience to his creator. Sublime and magnificent as was the
philosophy of the ancients, all their moral systems were deficient in
these two important articles. They were all built on the sandy
foundations of the innate beauty of virtue, or enthusiastic patriotism;