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Chapter VII.

Ssince the inducements which we have been discussing are altogether impotent as a barrier to temptation, and influential only in peculiar states of mind, how happens it (we may be asked) that their dominion in human affairs should be apparently so extensive? The cause of this seeming contrariety, which merely arises from a misconception regarding the actual motives of mankind, I shall now endeavour to unfold.

It has already been shown that the God of natural religion is uniformly conceived as delighting in the contemplation of his own superiority and in the receipt of human obedience—that is, in the debasement, the privations, and the misery of mankind. Now each man has a strong temptation to elude any payment,³ in his own person, of these unpleasant burthens; but he has no temptation whatever to avert from others the necessity of paying them. On the contrary, a powerful interest inclines him to exert himself in strictly exacting from every other man the requisite quota. For the Deity, pleased with human obedience, will of course be pleased with those faithful allies who aid him in obtaining it, and will in consideration of this assistance be more indulgent towards themselves. Each man, therefore, anxious for the lighter and more profitable service, will take part with God, and will volunteer his efforts to enforce upon all page 54 other men that line of conduct most agreeable to the divine Being. This spontaneous zeal in extorting payment from his brother debtors will dispose the creditor to remit or to alleviate his own debt.

But each individual will also be perfectly conscious that these temptations are equally active in the bosom of his neighbours. They also are upon the watch to recommend themselves to God by avenging his insulted name, and obviating any interruptions to the leisure and satisfaction of Omnipotence. They readily bring forward their terrestrial reinforcements—abuse, hatred, and injury, against any individual who forswears his allegiance to the unseen sovereign—eulogy and veneration towards him who renders it with more than ordinary strictness. Each man is thus placed under the surveillance of the rest. A strong public antipathy is pointed against impious conduct; the decided approbation of the popular voice is secured in favour of religious acts. The praise or blame of his earthly companions, will thus become the real actuating motive to religious observances on the part of each individual. By an opposite conduct it is not merely the divine denunciations that he provokes, but also the hostility of innumerable crusaders, who long to expiate their own debts by implacable warfare against the recusant.

But although thus in fact determined to a pious behaviour by the esteem and censure of his fellows, he will have the highest interest in disguising this actual motive, and in pretending to be influenced only by genuine veneration for the being whom he worships. A religions act, if performed from any other than a religious feeling, loses its character of exclusive reference to the Deity, and of course ceases to be agreeable to him. But if God is no longer satisfied with this semi-voluntary performance of the service required, neither will the neighbourhood, who take up arms in God's favour, be satisfied with it. No individual, therefore, will be able to steer clear of the public enmity, unless he not only renders these pious acts of homage, but also succeeds in convincing others that he is actuated in rendering them entirely by the fear of God. The popular sanction, therefore, not only enforces the delivery of the homage; It also compels the deliverer to carry all the marks of being influenced page 55 solely by religious inducements, and to pretend that he would act precisely in the same manner, whatever might be the sentiments of his neighbours.

The same pretence too will be encouraged by other considerations. When a man is once compelled by some extraneous motive to go through the service, it will be his interest to claim all that merit in the eyes of God which a spontaneous performance of it would have insured. He will, therefore, assume all the exterior mien of a voluntary subjection to the invisible Being, and will endeavour to deceive himself into a belief that this is his genuine motive. In this self-imposition he will most commonly succeed, and his account of his own conduct, originally insincere, will in time be converted into unconscious and unintentional error.

We can now interpret this seeming contrariety between the natural impotence and the alleged apparent dominion, of religious inducements. For the real fact is, that they enlist in their service the irresistible arm of public opinion—and that too in a manner which secures to themselves all the credit of swaying mankind, while the actually determining motive is by general consent suppressed and kept out of view.

Religion is thus enabled to apply, for the encouragement and discouragement of those acts which fall within her sphere, the very same engines as morality. Moral conduct springs from the mutual wants and interests of mankind. It is each man's interest that his neighbour should be virtuous; hence each man knows, that the public opinion will approve his conduct, if virtuous—reprobate it, if vicious. Religious acts, indeed, no man has any motive to approve from any benefit conferred by the actual performance of them; or, to disapprove the opposite behaviour from any injury referable to it. But every man has something to gain by being active in enforcing upon others the performance of these acts—inasmuch as this is a co-operation with the views of God, which may have the effect of partially discharging, or at least of lightening, his own obligations. The same encouragements and prohibition, therefore, which mankind apply to virtue and to vice, they will be led to annex, though from a totally opposite motive, to pious or impious behaviour.

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When the public opinion has once occasioned, as it cannot fail to do, a tolerably extensive diffusion of religious practices throughout the community, the censures directed against any small remainder of nonconformists will be embittered by the concurrent action of envy. I feel myself constrained to be rigidly exact in the renewal of my pious offerings: Shall my neighbour, who eludes all share in the burthen and will not deduct a moment from his favourite pursuits for similar purposes, be treated with the same courtesy and respect as myself, who expend so much self-denial in order to ensure it? Is not the labourer worthy of his hire? Being myself a scrupulous renderer of these services, it becomes my interest, even with my fellow-countrymen, to swell the merit of performing them, and the criminality of neglect, to the highest possible pitch, in order to create a proportionate distribution of their esteem. The more deeply I can impress this conviction upon mankind, the greater will be their veneration for me. All these principles conspire to sharpen my acrimony against my nonconforming neighbour, and render me doubly dissatisfied with that state of respite and impunity in which Omnipotence still permits him to live. In this condition of mind, nothing can be more gratifying than the self-assumed task of executing the divine wrath upon his predestined head.