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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 35

Section I.—Natural Religion Furnishes no Directive Rule Whatever

Section I.—Natural Religion Furnishes no Directive Rule Whatever.

It is obvious at first sight, that natural religion communicates to mankind no rule of guidance. This is the leading defect which revelation is stated to supply, by providing an authentic enumeration of those acts to which future pains and pleasures are annexed. Independent of revelation, it cannot be pretended that there exists any standard to which the believer in a posthumous existence can apply for relief and admonition. The whole prospect is wrapt in impenetrable gloom, nor is there a streak of light to distinguish the one true path of future happiness from the infinite possibilities of error with which it is surrounded.

Nor is the absence of any authoritative collection of rules, by which the believer might adjust his steps in all circumstances, however difficult, the only defect to be remarked. Experience imparts no information upon the subject. That watchful scout, who on all other occasions spies out the snares and terrors of the march, and points out the path of comparative safety, here altogether deserts us. We search in vain for any witness who may enlighten this deplorable ignorance. The distribution of these pains and pleasures is completely unseen, nor does either the gainer or loser ever return to testify the mode of dispensing them. We cannot therefore pretend even to conjecture whether there is any general rule observed in awarding page 17 them; or if there be a rule, what are its dictates. It is impossible to divine what behaviour is visited with severity, what conduct leads to pleasurable results, during a state in which there is not a glimmering of light to guide us.

The natural religionist therefore is not only destitute of any previous official warning, by a compliance with which he may ensure safety or favour: he has not even the means of consulting those decisions according to which the pleasures and pains are actually awarded to actions already committed. Not only is there no statute law extant, distinguishing, with that strict precision which should characterize the legislator as he ought to be, the path of happiness from that of misery: even the imperfect light of common law is here extinguished—even that record of decisions is forbidden from whence we might at least borrow some shadowy and occasional surmises, and learn to steer clear of the more excruciating lots of pain. The darkness is desperate and unfathomable; and as truth and rectitude can be but a single track amidst an infinity of divergent errors, the chances in favour of a wrong line of conduct are perfectly incalculable. Yet a false step, if once committed, is altogether without hope or remedy. For when the posthumous sufferings are inflicted, the hour of application and profit is irrevocably past, and the sufferer enjoys not even the melancholy consolation which he might derive from the hope of preventing any future repetition of the same torture.

It seems, therefore, almost unaccountable, that natural religion, how rich soever its promises, how terrible soever its threats, should exercise the least influence upon human conduct, since the conditions of its awards are altogether veiled from our sight. Why does the prospect of other pains affect our conduct? Because experience teaches us the actions to which they are specially attached. Until we acquire this knowledge, our behaviour cannot possibly be actuated by the anticipations which they create. How then can natural religion, shrouded as it is in such matchless obscurity, prove an exception to these infallible principles, and impel mankind without specifying a single benefit derivable from one course of action rather than another?

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Since however it unquestionably does exercise some influence upon human conduct, this must be effected by providing inducements for some extraneous directive rule. I shall proceed to examine the nature of the precepts which it thus adopts and enforces, since there are none peculiarly suggested by itself.