in parricide and incest, and all those melancholy and tragic catastrophies which present the most dismal and hideous picture of our race. The monarchs of Assyria passed the greater part of their lives in voluptuousness and debauchery. The proud Semiramis, notwithstanding all the commendations passed upon her heroism, led her subjects a career of unrestricted voluptuousness and debauchery. The most brilliant ages of Babylon were most distinguished for dissolutenesss, and even the greatest refinement in debauchery.— Gorged with riches, they tasked their ingenuity in the invention of all that could delight the senses, and alternately excite and gratify the basest passions. Here was that memorable temple in which every female was obliged by law, once in her life to prostitute herself to a stranger, for the purpose of augmenting the public revenue. As a general fact, debauchery was not only allowed by the ancient pagans, but approved by their religion. Even as cultivated a mind as that of Cicero, regarded it as no crime. Horace represents Cato as commending the young men who frequent the public houses of pollution, because they did nothing worse.* If such were the morals of the "Virtute esto, inquit sententia, Dia Catonis Huc juvenes, equum est descendere non alienas Permolere uxores," Sat, lib. I. S. 2. v. 32, purest state of Rome, and of Cato, the severest censor of public manners, what must have been the most impure? I will tell you what they were. The emperor Nero drove through the streets of his capital with his naked mistress; and the emperor Commodus first dishonoured, and then murdered his own sister. "If these things were done in the green tree, what were done in the dry." Vice always descends from rulers to subjects. If such were the morals of emperors, what must have been the morals of the common people? And what but such a depravation of morals is to be expected, where reason, blinded by appetite, is the only guide; where conscience has no firm mooring, and the only impulse is the fitful breath of passion? How could the doctrines of paganism excite to moral virtue? It is perfectly obvious from the character of their gods, and from their hopes of a voluptuous paradise, that the whole system of the pagan world had not the least tendency to produce and cherish virtuous emotions. And how much better are the moral principles of modern infidels? Lord Bolingbroke resolves all morality into self love. And so does Volney. Hobbes maintains that the sole foundation of right and wrong is the civil law. Rousseau says, "All the morality of our actions lies in the judgment we ourselves form of them." Lord Shaftesbury declares that "all the obligations to be virtuous arise from the advantages of virtue, and the disadvantages of vice." Hume affirms, that "moral, intellectual, and corporeal virtues are nearly of the same kind." Have such moral principles ever reformed the world? Did they reform their authors? Where will such principles lead, if carried out into practice? What are their fruits? What is there in an enlightened conscience that responds to their pretensions? And are there not some systems of ethical philosophy which are not found either among pagans, or infidels that are far below the spirit of the Bible? What is the morality, the foundation of which is simply what is useful and expedient; the standard of which is the spirit and maxims of this world; and the motives of which are purely mercenary and selfish? Can that be called morality, which recognizes no immutable distinction between what is right and what is wrong; which has no reference to the obligations of the divine law; and is concerned only with our own interests? Can that be called morality which asks, not what is right, but what is profitable? which enquires not for duty, but for interest, for the opinions of men, for the spirit of the age? Such a morality is most certainly radically defective. It is the morality of the world, not of the Bible. It is a mere external morality. It has no thorough lodgment, no permanent abode in the hidden chambers of the soul. It is a superficial observIt is what all morality must be, separated from the truth of the Scriptures:-a body without ance. a soul—a whited sepulchre-splendid only in sepulchral magnificence. The morality of the Bible is well and intelligibly defined. Its foundation, its standard, its motives are distinctly set before us, and ought not to be misunderstood. Why then is any being in the universe under obligations to be morally virtuous? Why is the Divine Being bound to be holy, unless because holiness is right, and he is capable of per ceiving it to be so? And why are intelligent creatures bound to be morally virtuous, unless because they are so made as to be able to perceive, and feel under obligation to approve and practise moral virtue? "Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy." If the Divine Being were malevo lent, or selfish, would that circumstance bind us to be so too? The moral excellence of the divine character is a good and sufficient reason why men should be morally excellent. God requires them to be holy, because he is holy. The character that is right in God, is right in creatures. It is in its own nature just what it ought to be. The Deity would not be satisfied with himself without possessing such a character; nor would virtuous and holy minds be satisfied with him, if he were not thus perfectly amiable and excellent. God is love; God is truth; God is rectitude; God is mercy; God is justice. There is a wide and im mutable difference between such a character and the opposite. The former is right, and the latter is wrong. Nothing can reconcile them. There is not, nor can there be any gradual approximation of them to one another. They are perfect opposites, and so will always remain. It would not be right for God to possess any other character than that which he does possess; and no considerations of profit and loss, no considerations of the probable tendency of any other character, can ever induce him to change, or modify it; nor were it possible to do so, except for the worse. The foundation of moral obligation therefore lies in the immutable difference between what is right and what is wrong, and in the capacity of intelligent beings to perceive that difference. I say in the capacity to perceive that difference; for in a fallen creature especially, that difference may not always be perceived, while the obligation to perceive it remains unimpared. When we look at our own natures, and the natures of our fellow men; when we contemplate the relations we sus tain to them and they sustain to us; unless our minds are blinded by wickedness, we cannot help perceiving that all the moral virtues are right. They grow out of our mutual relations, and not to practise them is wrong. And on this basis the Scriptures place our obligations to moral virtue. It has been often asserted that utility is the foundation of moral obligation. Utility to whom? To me? Then indeed is the securing of my own advantage the great end. And what sort of moral virtue is this? Utility to the universe? Then |
