The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. George Turnbull

and revenge a boiling, scorching fever? The little pleasure they afford when their end is accomplished, what else is it but a short-lived relaxation from the most tormenting pain, which is quickly followed by remorse and just fears? And malice, or Misanthropy, is it not misery; universal and constant bitterness of mind? It is an invenomed heart always throwing out its poison, and yet never relieved from the cruel, inward rackings<165> of its exhaustless gall and discontent. Now virtue, or well regulated affections, save from all those miseries of body and mind, which vice pulls upon us inevitably, in consequence of the frame of our minds, and the connexions of things, that the mind may fly from every tendency towards the immoral state: that it may guard against vice as its greatest enemy, as well as debaser, and run to virtue as its health and peace, its preserver, upholder and comforter, as well as its exalter and ennobler.

      What pain does temperance bring along with it? What disturbance did ever goodness and generosity produce within the breast? Or what mischievous consequence, can we say any of the virtues hath naturally and necessarily attached to it? Do regularity, good humour, and sweetness of temper, and generous affection, incapacitate for the pleasures of sense? Do they not rather double them? And what signifies it to be surrounded with all the best means of pleasure, if the mind is uneasy, or galled and fretted by evil consciousness, or by turbulent peevish appetites and passions. If it be dissatisfied with itself, and keenly set upon something without its reach. And what is there with in our power, or absolutely dependent on ourselves, besides the regulation of our passions and appetites, and their happy effects within ourselves? It is the joys of virtue only which nothing can take from us. The happiness of the sensualist is as independent upon him as the wind or the tide. For do not riches make to themselves wings and fly away?⁶¹ whereas a good conscience abideth for ever. Does virtue either bring diseases upon the body, or introduce uneasiness into the mind? Does it render us hateful to others, or deprive us of their esteem, trust and confidence? Does it not, on the contrary, command respect, and excite love, and trustful reliance, self-approbation, and the gladsome sense of merited affection. Must not the vicious man put on the<166> mask, the semblance of virtue, in order not to be marked out for a common enemy; and to gain his selfish, base ends? Dare he declare his inward thoughts to others? Or can he approve of them to himself? Can we be said to be fitted for luxury, debauches and voluptuousness, since the gratifications of sense, when they exceed the bounds which reason prescribes, produce uneasiness, consume the body, and are not more opposite to the exercises of reason and understanding, or even to the pleasures which imagination, when it is well formed and refined yields, so far superior to those of mere sense; than it is to a continued flow of agreeable bodily sensations? Are not a very great share of the very worst distempers and pains with which the body is sometimes so violently tormented, justly attributed to excessive sensual indulgences? Whence else come broken constitutions? Whence else comes rottenness, corruption and insensibility so early upon those who live in riot and wantonness? whilst the sober, the industrious and temperate, are generally healthful and easy, and truly venerable in their old age. The old age in which a well spent life naturally terminates, is full of satisfaction, fit for council, and highly honourable.^a

      II. Virtue is the only support under calamities, but vice adds to every torture. By accidental calamities, I mean all such, as arising either from the laws of matter and motion, or from our social connexions, are inevitable by prudence and virtue. A disease may be entailed by a father on a son. Virtue often suffers in society through the vices of others; and distempers or losses which flow from the constitution of the air, and other material causes which work uniformly and invariably, must<167> happen alike to all men, good and bad: but under such distresses, virtue can alleviate pain, and bear up the mind. It hath many cordials to relieve and strengthen the soul; but whither can the vicious fly for ease and comfort in such cases? since he dares not look within his own breast, without being yet more exquisitely tormented; nor can he have any satisfaction from the sense of merited esteem and love, but must consider every one of his fellow creatures at best as his despisers: and since spurning and fretting but augments his suffering. A man may sustain bodily infirmities, but a wounded spirit who can bear?⁶² The horrors of a guilty mind are truly insupportable. On the contrary, wherever the virtuous man is able to turn his thoughts, every object, whether within or without him, affords him pleasant matter of reflexion; and his being able to withhold himself from complaining and fretting is itself a very comfortable consciousness of becoming strength of mind, or manly patience. But which is more, wisdom and virtue are able not seldom to extract goods out of such evils, and to convert them into blessings. In distresses that leave room for thought, the virtuous make reflexions which are of great use to the temper: this all the good, who have been afflicted, know; nor can it be doubted by any, seeing even the vicious are often brought by distress to a just sense of things; and come forth out of the furnace of affliction purified from much dross and corruption: made fitter for the offices of society, better friends and neighbours, more prudent, regular and virtuous in their conduct, and consequently much happier.

      III. In fine, the pleasures of virtue never fade or become insipid: who was ever weary of acts of generosity, friendship and goodness? or who was ever disturbed by the consciousness of order, and worth,<168> and of merit, with all good and wise beings? Whence proceed dissatisfaction, fickleness of appetite, and nauseating amidst the greatest affluence of outward enjoyments, but from selfishness and sensuality, from seeking pleasure where it is not placed by nature, and cannot therefore be found; from endeavouring to derive more satisfaction from external objects than they are capable to afford; and from overstraining our bodily senses, while in the mean time the exercises of reason and social affection are quite discarded, and have no place in our pursuits and employments? Ambition of doing good may not have means equal to its generous desires, or may be disappointed; but the inward sense of good intention, sufficiently rewards all its scheming, all its activity. But selfishness is tormented with continual disappointments, and by the want of means equal to its insatiability; and if it reflects upon itself, is yet more so by the inward consciousness of its worthless, base, sordid demands. It has been often justly observed, that with regard to the pleasures of the body and the mind, the virtuous man, or he who is acquainted with the exercises of reason and virtue, is the properest judge to make a decision as to the preference; since none can say the pleasures of sense are less satisfactory to him, and he alone hath fully experimented the other. But we may appeal even to the vicious, the most sensual and selfish, whether their joys are durable, and do not commonly terminate in disgust and discontent? or whether, if at any time they have felt the workings of the good affections excited in them, and they have indulged them for a little, these were not the happiest moments they ever enjoyed; the only moments which they take delight to call to mind and reflect upon. No man is so corrupt, so lost to all sense of humanity, as not to have, on some occasions, felt so much of the pleasure attending virtuous affections, as to be able to<169> judge of the happiness the habitually good must enjoy; how pure, how constant and unchanging it must be: and he who is thoroughly acquainted with the pleasures of knowledge, of the contemplation of order and beauty, and above all of benevolence, places his happiness so entirely in them, that he can desire no reward, but better opportunities of exercising and improving virtue. The only longings of his soul are after more knowledge, larger views of nature, and better occasions of exercising friendship, goodness, and social love. What other happiness, wholly distinct from this, can be offered to him which he would look upon as a recompence? Would he prefer larger draughts of merely sensual joy to an improved mind, and more entensive insight into the beauty, order, wisdom and goodness in nature? Or would he imagine himself bettered for all his generous, benign, social, public-spirited endeavours, by any change of circumstances, into ease and softness, in which he should never again feel those amiable, transporting workings of a good mind, which are now his supreme delight? Virtue alone can be its own reward: There can be nothing in nature superior to virtue, either in worth and excellence, or in pleasure and satisfaction, but higher and more enlarged virtue; and therefore to suppose it recompensed by any other enjoyments, of whatever kind,^a is to suppose it rewarded by being sunk into a merely animal state, consisting of no higher gratifications than those of sense, without the exercises of reason and generous affection. For all other enjoyments are necessarily as much inferior to virtue, as merely animal or vegetative life is to reason and intelligence.<170>

      In whatever light therefore we consider virtue, it is man’s highest