[51] [That man consists of parts, is evident; and the use of each part, and of the whole man, is open to investigation. In examining any part we learn what it is, and what it is to do: e.g. the eye, the hand, the heart. So of mental faculties; memory is to preserve ideas, shame to deter us from things shameful, compassion to induce us to relieve distress. In observing our whole make, we may see an ultimate design,—viz.: not particular animal gratifications, but intellectual and moral improvement, and happiness by that means. If this be our end, it is our duty. To disregard it, must bring punishment; for shame, anguish, remorse, are by the laws of mind, the sequences of sin.See Law’s Notes on King’s Origin of Evil.]
[52] [It is almost amazing that philosophy, because it discovers the laws of matter, should be placed in antagonism with the Bible which reveals a superintending Providence. The Bible itself teaches this very result of philosophy,—viz.: that the world is governed by general laws. See Prov. viii. 29: Job. xxxviii. 12, 24, 31, 33: Ps. cxix. 90, 91: Jer. xxxi. 35, and xxxiii. 25.]
[55] The general consideration of a future state of punishment, most evidently belongs to the subject of natural religion. But if any of these reflections should be thought to relate more peculiarly to this doctrine, as taught in Scripture, the reader is desired to observe, that Gentile writers, both moralists and poets, speak of the future punishment of the wicked, both as to the duration and degree of it, in a like manner of expression and of description, as the Scripture does. So that all which can positively be asserted to be matter of mere revelation, with regard to this doctrine, seems to be, that the great distinction between the righteous and the wicked, shall be made at the end of this world; that each shall then receive according to his deserts. Reason did, as it well might, conclude that it should, finally and upon the whole, be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked: but it could not be determined upon any principles of reason, whether human creatures might not have been appointed to pass through other states of life and being, before that distributive justice should finally and effectually take place. Revelation teaches us, that the next state of things after the present is appointed for the execution of this justice; that it shall be no longer delayed; but the mystery of God, the great mystery of his suffering vice and confusion to prevail, shall then be finished; and he will take to him his great power and will reign, by rendering to every one according to his works.
[56] [Our language furnishes no finer specimens of the argument analogical. Butler here seizes the very points, which are most plausible and most insisted on, as showing the harshness and unreasonableness of Christianity; and overthrows them at a stroke by simply directing attention to the same things, in the universally observed course of nature.]
[58] See chaps. [iv.] and [vi.]
[59] [This chapter, more than any other, carries the force of positive argument. If in this world, we have proofs that God is a moral governor, then in order to evince that we shall be under moral government hereafter, we have only to supply an intermediate consideration,—viz.: that God, as such, must be unchangeable. The argument, as just remarked, assumes a substantive form, because admitted facts, as to this world, exhibiting the very principles on which God’s government goes at present, compel us not only to suppose that the principles of God will remain, but to believe so.]