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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 35

[introduction]

The Expectations of posthumous Pain and Pleasure, which Natural Religion holds out, considered as conditional, and as exercising Influence upon human Conduct.

IT is in this mode that such expectations are commonly regarded as most beneficial to mankind. The anticipation of posthumous pleasure and pain, conditional upon the page 16 actions of the believer, is affirmed to imprint upon individual conduct a bias favourable to the public happiness. I shall now proceed to investigate the validity of this plea, which has hitherto been seldom challenged.

If natural religion contributes to human happiness, by means of the influence which it exercises on the conduct of men, such a result can be brought about only in one of these ways: Either it must provide a directive rule, communicating the knowledge of the right path—or it must furnish a sanction or inducement for the observance of some directive rule, supposed to be known from other sources. Unless it thus either admonishes or impels, it cannot possibly affect in any way the course of human nature.