264 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



the workings of our other faculties. Now, what 

 shall we say of such a judiciary principle, thus 

 introduced among our motives to action ? Shall 

 we conceive that while the other springs of action 

 are balanced against each other by our Creator, 

 this, the most pervading and universal regulator, 

 was no part of the original scheme? That 

 while the love of animal pleasures, of power, of 

 fame, the regard for friends, the pleasure of 

 bestowing pleasure, were infused into man as 

 influences by which his course of life was to 

 be carried on, and his capacities and powers 

 developed and exercised ; this reverence for a 

 moral law, this acknowledgment of the obliga- 

 tion of duty, a feeling which is everywhere found, 

 and which may become a powerful, a predominat- 

 ing motive of action, was given for no purpose, 

 and belongs not to the design ? Such an opinion 

 would be much as if we should acknowledge the 

 skill and contrivance manifested in the other 

 parts of a ship, but should refuse to recognize the 

 rudder as exhibiting any evidence of a purpose. 

 Without the reverence which the opinion of right 

 inspires, and the scourge of general disapproba- 

 tion inflicted on that which is accounted wicked, 

 society could scarcely go on ; and certainly the 

 feelings and thoughts and characters of men 

 could not be what they are. Those impulses of 

 nature which involve no acknowledgment of 

 responsibility, and the play and struggle of in- 



