Note 15 — Quest. III.
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He who has created all things, with all their relations, and who is the universal Sovereign, has a right to the allegiance of his rational creatures, and they are under obligation to obey his laws, because it is his will that they should do so. He has connected our interest with our duty, as a motive to obedience, and because he is good; but if we should substitute utility for his authority, and conform to his laws, merely because they are advantageous, we rebel against our Sovereign, and renounce his authority, that we may pursue our own advantage. Virtue is amiable for its intrinsic rectitude. If we choose to practice it merely because beautiful, we please ourselves; and though the excellency of virtue is intended as a motive, and it is well for the man who is charmed by it, yet, if this be the only inducement, he has lost sight of the Divine authority, and his virtue is no obedience to the laws of God. If the obligation of virtue be founded solely on its utility, or beauty, we are at liberty to forego our advantage, or pleasure without guilt, and remorse of conscience will be unaccountable. It is also fit and proper, that we should practice virtue, but this is no more to be substituted for the Divine authority, than the other motives of advantage or pleasure. If it be objected, that the fitness of moral good is eternal, and a rule even to Deity, and so may be deemed a foundation of the obligation of human virtue. It is conceded that the fitness of virtue is eternal, for God is eternal, and has been always holy, and just; in the same manner also the beauty of virtue is eternal; but to suppose these to have existed anterior to thought and action, and to be independent of an eternally and immutably holy God is to indulge the mind in speculations, which, to say the least of them, are groundless. We may as well assign a cause to eternal existence, as to eternal holiness. When the Creator formed the Universe of intelligent creatures, he gave them, with their existence, the various relations and circumstances which sprang up with them: and their obligations with respect to him and his works originated at the same time, and from the same source; which could be no other than the Divine pleasure; and the positive express appointments, which have been since super-added, rest upon the same basis, the will of God.
That we might discern his will and conform to it, he has set before us his own character, which in all things is good. He has given us reason, or active intellectual powers capable of pursuing the truth, and discovering his character, as a rule of our conduct. And because reason is matured by slow degrees, and the advantages for its improvement are unequal, he has given us a sense susceptible of the impressions of good and evil, by which we can distinguish between moral good and evil almost as easily, as by our natural senses we discern the differences between light and darkness, sweetness and bitterness; and thus has he rendered the judgment upon our own actions almost always unavoidable. The light of nature has been confirmed by express revelation; and because the law of nature identifies itself with the written law of God, the obligation of both rests upon the same foundation, the Sovereign will.