Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The…

ANOTHER reason, why the things which have been mentioned, are mistaken for true virtue, is, that there is indeed a true negative moral goodness in them. By a negative moral goodness, I mean the negation or absence of true moral evil. They have this negative moral goodness, because a being without them would be an evidence of a much greater moral evil. Thus, the exercise of natural conscience in such and such degrees, wherein appears such a measure of an awakening or sensibility of conscience, tho' it be not of the nature of real positive virtue or true moral goodness, yet has a negative moral goodness; because in the present state of things, it is an evidence of the absence of that higher degree of wickedness, which causes great insensibility or stupidity of conscience. For sin, as was observed, is not only against a spiritual and divine sense of virtue, but is also against the dictates of that moral sense which is in natural conscience. No wonder, that this sense being long opposed and often conquered, grows weaker. All sin has its source from selfishness, or from self-love, not subordinate to regard to Being in general. And natural conscience chiefly consists in a sense of desert, or the natural agreement between sin and misery. But if self were indeed all, and so more considerable than all the world besides, there would be no ill desert in his regarding himself above all, and making all ⟨p. 181⟩other interests give place to private interest.—And no wonder that men by long acting from the selfish principle, and by being habituated to treat themselves as if they were all, increase in pride, and come as it were naturally to look on themselves as all, and so to lose entirely the sense of ill desert in their making all other interests give place to their own.—And no wonder that men by often repeating acts of sin, without punishment, or any visible appearance of approaching punishment, have less and less sense of the connection of sin with punishment. That sense which an awakened conscience has of the desert of sin, consists chiefly in a sense of its desert of resentment of the Deity, the fountain and head of universal existence. But no wonder that by a long continued worldly and sensual life, men more and more lose all sense of the Deity, who is a spiritual and invisible Being.

ANOTHER reason, why the things which have been mentioned, are mistaken for true virtue, is, that there is indeed a true negative moral goodness in them. By a negative moral goodness, I mean the negation or absence of true moral evil. They have this negative moral goodness, because a being without them would be an evidence of a much greater moral evil. Thus, the exercise of natural conscience in such and such degrees, wherein appears such a measure of an awakening or sensibility of conscience, tho' it be not of the nature of real positive virtue or true moral goodness, yet has a negative moral goodness; because in the present state of things, it is an evidence of the absence of that higher degree of wickedness, which causes great insensibility or stupidity of conscience. For sin, as was observed, is not only against a spiritual and divine sense of virtue, but is also against the dictates of that moral sense which is in natural conscience. No wonder, that this sense being long opposed and often conquered, grows weaker. All sin has its source from selfishness, or from self-love, not subordinate to regard to Being in general. And natural conscience chiefly consists in a sense of desert, or the natural agreement between sin and misery. But if self were indeed all, and so more considerable than all the world besides, there would be no ill desert in his regarding himself above all, and making all