A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland
us to prove his Being, which we can discover, only from the Effects of his Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, in Forming and Governing the World. If you take away these, you may as well call him by the empty Names of Chance, or Fate, or Nature, or any Thing else, as well as God: Nor could the Acknowledgment of such a God influence our Conduct, any more than the Gods of Epicurus did his.
Future Rewards, and Punishments, prov’d.
§III. Now every Wise, Good, and Powerful Governor, must be a Law-Giver; for, without Laws, there is no Government: Such a Law-Giver must therefore have promulg’d his Laws, which God has done by Reason only, to those, to whom he has not afforded Revelation; and they can oblige no farther, than they have been promulg’d. Such a Law-Giver must also have fenc’d his Laws, with the Sanction of sufficient Rewards and Punishments, otherwise his Laws were in vain; but a wise Being does nothing in vain. Right Reason, from Experience, pronounces, “That the Rewards, and Punishments, naturally connected with the Observance, or Non-Observance, of the Laws of Nature, are not a sufficient Sanction.” Human Wisdom has, therefore, every where guarded such of the Laws of Nature as could properly fall within their Cognizance, with the additional Sanction of positive Rewards, and Punishments; which, however, tho’ they pretty well support Civil Society, are by no Means a sufficient Fence to the Law of Nature, and that upon several Accounts, 1. Many of the Laws of Nature are of such a Kind, as not properly to fall within the Design of human Laws, such as those, which enjoyn Gratitude, Veracity, in many Cases, Temperance, Liberality, Courtesy, &c. 2. Other Crimes, of which human Laws can take Notice, are sometimes committed so secretly, as to escape the Knowledge of those, who should put the Laws in Execution. 3. Others, sometimes, escape unpunish’d, for want of a sufficient Power to enforce the Laws; the Crimes of some being of such a Kind, as, in their own Nature, tend to enable the Criminal to trample upon the Power of the Laws, as the unjust Acquisition of Arbitrary Power. 4. Human Wisdom cannot proportion Punishments to Crimes, because that depends upon such a through Knowledge, both of Things and Circumstances, as none but God has; the Pillory, being a far greater Punishment to some, than the Gallows is to others. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the supreme Law-Giver, and Governor of the World, as he would effectually Vindicate the Honour of his Laws, and promote the publick Happiness, to let no Crime pass unpunish’d; but that a superadded Punishment should await Criminals after this Life, of what Kind soever these Punishments may be; whether such as are naturally Connected with evil Habits, and the evil Company of the Wicked, with one another, or by the farther Addition of Punishments positively inflicted, as the Nature of the Case and of Things requires. All Crimes fall properly within his Cognizance; no Privacy excludes him; no Power can resist him; no Prejudice can byass him; and he, and he only, knows how to proportion Punishments to the Crimes, and to the Nature of the Sufferer, and to what the greatest Good of the Whole requires, which seems to be the Measure of the Intensenes sand Duration of Punishments.
If it be objected, “That future Rewards and Punishments, superadded to those of this Life, are not sufficient, if by the Word [Sufficient] be meant, what fully prevents the Transgression of the Law, in all the Members of the Society. But that if by [Sufficient] be meant, that which renders the Observance of the Law more eligible, than the Breach, to a well-inform’d Mind; the natural Consequences of Action, without any future Rewards, or Punishments, superadded, are, in this Sense, Sufficient.” I answer, “That, according to this Reasoning, all civil Sanctions, superadded to those of Nature, would be unnecessary, Minds well-inform’d not needing such Motives, and wicked Men, not being restrain’d by these Sanctions superadded to those of Nature; yet we see, that Civil Laws and Sanctions, are of great Use, notwithstanding the Appearance of this Reasoning to the contrary, many being mov’d by both Sanctions, that would not be mov’d by one only, as also others by the treble Sanction of natural Rewards and Punishments, positive Rewards and Punishments, inflicted by Men, and by the superadded Rewards and Punishments of another Life, who would not be influenc’d by the former Two.”
Without such a State of future Rewards and Punishments, no End can be assign’d, why such a Maker and Governor of the World should have placed us here, such as we are. Upon that Supposition, the Shortness and Uncertainty of human Life is unaccountable, and our Reason is often a disadvantage; the Bulk of Mankind losing Life, before they come to the full and true Exercise of their Reason; and when we do, to what purpose is this Mind possess’d of it, and of so many exalted and capacious Faculties, but, “like the Soul of a Swine,” (as our Author well observes,) “instead of Salt to preserve the Body from Putrefaction”;2 which, without that Reason, and those Faculties, it might support much longer than it does; several Brutes, without them, living longer than Man, and many Vegetables, without even a Sensitive Soul, much more without a Rational One, longer than either. Could such a Creator and Governor of the World, have given us Reason and Reflexion, with unbounded Prospects and Desires, with respect to Futurity and Eternity, with Anxieties and Doubts from thence arising innumerable, at the End of a short Farce to shut up the Scene in Death? A Farce, where the Wicked often thrive by their Vice, and the Good suffer, even on account of their Virtue. And Wisdom, united with Goodness, would rather have so ordered it, that we should neither have fear’d to die, nor desir’d to live beyond the Time appointed by Nature, as it is with the Beasts of the Field, often the Happier of the Two, if that were the Case, neither knowing, nor caring, whence they come, or whither they go. The many and grievous Calamities, (beyond what the Brutes are subject to,) lengthen’d out by the Memory of what is past, and the Fears of what is to come, can fairly be accounted for, if this Life be a State of Probation, and there be a Retribution afterwards, otherwise not, under the Conduct of a Wise and Good Governor of the World, and he would have made us satisfy’d with, and acquiesce under, our present Lot, whatever it were, like the Brute Creation, who when they suffer, do not redouble the Force of it by Reflexion; and if we were like them in the one Circumstance, why not in the other so? Why were we so made, that the Remembrance of certain past Actions creates in us Grief, Fear, and Horror, from which neither the Tyrant, nor the Polititian, can free himself, if our Maker had not design’d us for accountable Creatures, in giving us such an Idea of Guilt, and Punishment, even for the most secret Crimes?
But I would not be mis-understood here, as if I thought, “That human Affairs were so disorderly, as not clearly to shew plain Marks of a governing Providence.” To say, “That the present moral Appearances are all regular and good,” is false. But, “That there is no moral Order visible in the Constitution of Nature,” is equally false. The Truth seems this, “Moral Order is prevalent in Nature; Virtue is constituted, at present, the supreme Happiness, and the Virtuous generally have the happiest Share of Life.” The few Disorders, which are exceptions to this general Proposition, are probably left to us as Evidences, or Arguments, for a future State. This Argument has been finely touch’d upon by Lord Shaftsbury, in his Rhapsody, thus. “If Virtue be to it-self no small Reward, and Vice, in a great Measure, its own Punishment, we have a solid Ground to go upon. The plain Foundations of a distributive Justice, and due Order in this World, may lead us to conceive a further Building. We apprehend a larger Scheme, and easily resolve ourselves, why Things were not compleated in this State; but their Accomplishments reserv’d rather to some further Period. For, had the Good and Virtuous of Mankind been wholly prosperous in this Life; had Goodness never met with Opposition, nor Merit ever lain under a Cloud; where had been the Trial, Victory, or Crown of Virtue? Where had the Virtues had their Theater, or whence their Names? Where had been Temperance, or Self-denial? Where Patience, Meekness, Magnanimity? Whence have these their Being? What Merit, except from Hardship? What Virtue without a Conflict, and the Encounter of such Enemies as arise both within, and from abroad?
“But as many as are the Difficulties which Virtue has to encounter in this World, her Force is yet superior. Expos’d as she is here, she is not however abandon’d, or left miserable. She has enough to raise her above Pity, tho’ not above our Wishes: And as happy as we see her here, we have room for further Hopes in her behalf. Her present Portion