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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 August 2010
SECT. I.—GENERAL REMARKS ON THE RELATION OF THE PHYSICAL TO THE MORAL PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
Two truths, regarding man's moral nature, stand out as among the most certain of all that are revealed by the consciousness— the one, that there is an essential distinction between good and evil; and the other, that the moral is higher in its very nature than the physical. Place before the mind two actions—the one morally good, and the other morally evil; the one, let us suppose, a truthful declaration, uttered by a person tempted to equivocate; and the other, a falsehood deliberately uttered: the mind in judging of them at once and authoritatively proclaims that there is a difference. Again, place before the mind a moral good and a physical good—say, the furtherance of a nation's virtue on the one hand, and the production of some beautiful piece of art on the other, and the mind is prepared to decide that the former is immeasurably the higher.
Assuming, then, that there is a moral good, and that the moral is higher than the physical, let us now look at the connexion between them. That there is such a connexion, we hold to be one of the most firmly established of the truths which relate to the government of God. The God who hath established both, hath established a relation between them.
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