LECTURE III.

NATURAL GOVERNMENT BY REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

In the last lecture our attention was mainly directed to the analogies to be found in the course of nature, which show us that the teaching of religion as to a future life has presumptions in its favour,-that, as a matter of fact, a future life is credible and probable. According to Butler, a thing may be said to be probable when analogy is such as to beget a presumption, opinion, or full conviction. of the truth of the matter, according to the effect produced on the mind of the individual by whom it has been considered. This effect, be it remembered, may range between the lowest presumption and the highest moral certainty. The nature and proper use of the argument from analogy was illustrated in the chapter read on the last evening -15th chap. 1 Cor.—in which the objection to the credibility of the resurrection of the body is repelled by the analogy of the grain of corn dying and quickening; and from what we find recorded in John's Gospel, 12th chap. 24th verse, we may conclude that this analogy had been used by our Lord Himself. Analogy having been thus employed to show that it is at least not incredible as a fact, the doctrine of the Resurrection is established by the positive teaching of the Scripture; and it is put beyond doubt by the historical reality of the resurrection of our Lord from the dead. That a future

NATURAL GOVERNMENT BY REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS.

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life is credible has been shown by what has been observed in the order and course of nature and may be there traced to general laws. There is the law of change; this is manifested in the successive stages of existence, from that of the fœtus in the womb, to the maturity and the close of the present life of man; it is seen in the transmutations of other creatures, throughout each of which the living principle continues; also in the changes which our bodies undergo gradually, as well as by the mutilations which frequently take place, without interrupting the progress or impairing the mental or moral energy of the rational being. There is next, the law of continuance, the presumption in favour of the course of things going on as heretofore, unless we can find cause sufficient to believe that there shall be an interruption or alteration. This shifts the burden of proof on those who affirm that the soul expires with the body at the time of its dissolution. Such persons make use of assertions which are not consistent with experience, or assumptions which are merely speculative and inadmissible, and therefore valueless. There is, further, the law of adaptation, which leads us to consider the presumption in favour of a future life that arises on looking at the discrepancy between man's present condition and present capacities, and viewing this in the light of the arrangements in the course of nature by which every being and every part of being seems to have been wisely and beneficently fitted to its place and condition. By these and other analogies in the course of nature, the credibility of a future life has been shown, its probability has been legitimately deduced; but the blessed hope of immortality and the promise of eternal life are certified to us under the seal of the Spirit, and by the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour.

I may

here observe that in the concluding chapter of the first part of the treatise there is a good summary

of the

gene

ral argument which has been expanded in the first chapter. This is followed up by moral considerations, by which the argument is made the more complete. [You will find this summary running from page 137 to 140, of the Oxford Edition.] The probability of the antecedent supposition that there is a future life having been thus shown, he proceeds in the second chapter to consider the question as to the future life, as a state of happiness or misery, and the happiness or misery as by God's appointment connected with and dependent on our actions in this present life. We are to live hereafter. We are so constituted as to be capable of happiness or of misery. What can we collect from the course of Providence, from the facts and realities of the system under which we now find ourselves? What can we make out as to the general laws by which our happiness and our misery are, by God's appointment, connected with our voluntary actions and our course of conduct? This is a question of solemn interest. This inquiry, be it observed, is simply and plainly one of fact, of matters open to common observation, and to be tested by daily experience. We find ourselves capable of happiness and of misery, of pleasure and of pain; that happiness or misery, pleasure or pain, are connected with certain actions, with certain courses of conduct, and that we are conscious that we have capacities of foreseeing the happiness or the misery, the pleasure or the pain, as the natural-that is to say, the settled or appointed-consequences of such actions or conduct. You will bear in mind the important definition of that word "natural," which is given in the twenty-third paragraph of the first chapter, where Butler says, "the only "distinct meaning of that word (natural) is stated, fixed, or "settled;" and why? he goes on to say, "since what is natural as much requires and pre-supposes an intelligent agent "to render it so, i. e. to effect it continually, or at stated

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"times; as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect "it for once”—therefore the pleasure or the pain we are capable of foreseeing is the natural, that is, the settled or appointed consequence of our actions or conduct.

The preservation of our lives is made to depend on the use of the appointed means, which we must, therefore, provide; the enjoyment of external things which are the objects of our passions, depends more or less upon our own exertions; our pleasures depend altogether, our miseries, in a great part, upon ourselves; for, generally speaking, a tolerable ease and quiet result from prudence and care, whilst, on the other hand, we may do what we must know will sooner or later make us unhappy, bring poverty, sickness, disgrace, and even untimely death. This we find to be generally true, and enough appears to warrant the conclusion that the general method of the Divine administration in this present life is by forewarning us, giving us capacities to foresee, with more or less clearness, that, if we act so and so, we shall have such enjoyments, if so and so, such sufferings, and giving us these enjoyments and making us feel these sufferings as the natural (i. e., the appointed) consequences of our actions. This is the reality of our present condition as a matter of fact, attested by our observation and experience. Why it should be so, is a speculative question, and in the third paragraph of this chapter Butler suggests, in the modest spirit of a true Christian philosopher, more than enough to show why this question ought not to be further pressed. "Why the Author of Nature does not give his "creatures promiscuously such and such perceptions without "regard to their behaviour: why he does not make them happy "without the instrumentality of their own actions, and prevent "their bringing any sufferings upon themselves, is another "matter." He shews from the matters, which I have already alluded to, that generally speaking, our happiness or our pain

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is connected with our conduct, and not only that, but that we can see beforehand what the consequences of that conduct may be; that is, by a course of prudence and care we may avoid evil consequences and enjoy tolerable ease and quiet, or we may do those things which we know will bring down upon us many injurious results. But it is then asked "why has God made us so ?" Saint Paul, you may remember, gives a summary answer to such a question when he asks-' Hath not the potter power over the vessel ?' and in the same spirit Butler suggests, perhaps there may be some impossibilities in the nature of things which we are unacquainted with. Or less happiness, it may be, would, upon the whole, be produced by such a method of conduct, than is by the present. Or perhaps Divine goodness may not be a bare single disposition to produce happiness, but a disposition to make the good, the faithful, the honest man happy"-he is cautious, you observe, and goes no farther than suggesting that "perhaps"—' Perhaps an infinitely perfect Mind may be pleased, with seeing his creatures behave suitably to the nature which he has given them; perhaps an infinitely perfect Mind may be pleased with this moral piety of moral agents in and for itself; as well as upon account of its being essentially conducive to the happiness of his creation. Or the whole end for which God made and thus governs the world, may be utterly beyond the reach of our faculties." It is then true that the general method of the Divine adminstration is as he has stated it; he deals with the matter of fact—this is so, he says, and we cannot get rid of it-we have nothing to do with why the fact is so but to act upon it as undeniably true.

It may be said (as he observes) that all these results are to be ascribed "to the general course of nature." This he admits—indeed insists upon, as the strength of his own argument from analogy. For, what is properly meant by the course