nd the next, and on the other hand the present and
future consequences of sin, surely reason itself will teach them to be
wise. He is never the mere moralist. His Christian faith is ever present
to his mind, raising and purifying his standard of what is good, and
placing in an infinitely clearer light than could otherwise be possible
the sanctions of a life to come. Nor does he speak with an uncertain
tone when he touches on any of its most distinctive doctrines. Never
either in word or thought does he consciously disparage or undervalue
them. Notwithstanding all that Leslie and others could urge against him,
he was a sincere, and, in all essential points, an orthodox believer in
the tenets of revealed religion. But he dwelt upon them insufficiently.
He regarded them too much as mysteries of faith, established on good
evidence, to be firmly held and reverently honoured; above all, not to
be lightly argued about in tones of controversy. He never fully realised
what a treasury they supply of motives to Christian conduct, and of
material for sublime and ennobling thought; above all, that religion
never has a missionary and converting power when they are not
prominently brought forward.

Throughout the eighteenth century the prudential considerations against
which Shaftesbury and a few others protested weighed like an incubus
both upon religion and on morals. 'Oh Happiness! our being's end and
aim,'[285] was the seldom failing refrain, echoed in sermons and essays,
in theological treatises and ethical studies. And though the idea of
happiness varies in endless degrees from the highest to the meanest, yet
even the highest conception of it cannot be substituted for that of
goodness without great detriment to the religion or philosophy which has
thus unduly exalted it. When Tillotson, or Berkeley,[286] or Bishop
Butler, or William Law, as well as Chubb[287] and Tindal,[288] spoke of
happiness as the highest end, they meant something very different from
'the sleek and sordid epicurism, in which religion and a good conscience
have their place among the means by which life is to be made more
comfortable.'[289] William Law's definition of happiness as 'the
satisfaction of all means, capacities, and necessities, the order and
harmony of his being; in other words, the right state of a man,'[290]
has not much in common with the motives of expedience urged by Bentham
and Paley, utilitarian systems, truly spoken of as 'of the earth,
ea