e nature of all human virtue and vice
contrived, that their rewards and punishments are woven, as it were, in
their very essence; their immediate effects give us a foretaste of their
future, and their fruits, in the present life, are the proper samples of
what they must unavoidably produce in another. We have reason given us
to distinguish these consequences, and regulate our conduct; and, lest
that should neglect its post, conscience also is appointed, as an
instinctive kind of monitor, perpetually to remind us both of our
interest and our duty."

"Si sic omnia dixisset!" To this account of the essence of vice and
virtue, it is only necessary to add, that the consequences of human
actions being sometimes uncertain, and sometimes remote, it is not
possible, in many cases, for most men, nor in all cases, for any man, to
determine what actions will ultimately produce happiness, and,
therefore, it was proper that revelation should lay down a rule to be
followed, invariably, in opposition to appearances, and, in every change
of circumstances, by which we may be certain to promote the general
felicity, and be set free from the dangerous temptation of _doing evil
that good may come_. Because it may easily happen, and, in effect, will
happen, very frequently, that our own private happiness may be promoted
by an act injurious to others, when yet no man can be obliged, by
nature, to prefer, ultimately, the happiness of others to his own;
therefore, to the instructions of infinite wisdom, it was necessary that
infinite power should add penal sanctions. That every man, to whom those
instructions shall be imparted, may know, that he can never, ultimately,
injure himself by benefiting others, or, ultimately, by injuring others
benefit himself; but that, however the lot of the good and bad may be
huddled together in the seeming confusion of our present state, the time
shall undoubtedly come, when the most virtuous will be most happy.

I am sorry, that the remaining part of this letter is not equal to the
first. The author has, indeed, engaged in a disquisition, in which we
need not wonder if he fails, in the solution of questions on which
philosophers have employed their abilities from the earliest times,

"And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."

He denies, that man was created _perfect_, because the system requires
subordination, and because the power of losing his perfection, of
"rendering himself wicked and miserable, is