72. Preference of vice to virtue a manifest wrong judgment.
I shall not now enlarge any further on the wrong
judgments and neglect of what is in their power, whereby men mislead themselves. This would make a volume,
and is not my business. But whatever false notions, or shameful neglect of what is in their power, may put men
out of their way to happiness, and distract them, as we see, into so different courses of life, this yet is certain, that
morality, established upon its true foundations, cannot but determine the choice in any one that will but consider:
and he that will not be so far a rational creature as to reflect seriously upon infinite happiness and misery, must
needs condemn himself as not making that use of his understanding he should. The rewards and punishments of
another life, which the Almighty has established, as the enforcements of his law, are of weight enough to
determine the choice, against whatever pleasure or pain this life can show, when the eternal state is considered but
in its bare possibility, which nobody can make any doubt of. He that will allow exquisite and endless happiness to
be but the possible consequence of a good life here, and the contrary state the possible reward of a bad one, must
own himself to judge very much amiss if he does not conclude,--That a virtuous life, with the certain expectation
of everlasting bliss, which may come, is to be preferred to a vicious one, with the fear of that dreadful state of
misery, which it is very possible may overtake the guilty; or, at best, the terrible uncertain hope of annihilation.
This is evidently so, though the virtuous life here had nothing but pain, and the vicious continual pleasure: which
yet is, for the most part, quite otherwise, and wicked men have not much the odds to brag of, even in their present
possession; nay, all things rightly considered, have, I think, even the worse part here. But when infinite happiness
is put into one scale, against infinite misery in the other; if the worst that comes to the pious man, if he mistakes,
be the best that the wicked can attain to, if he be in the right, who can without madness run the venture? Who in
his wits would choose to come within a possibility of infinite misery; which if he miss, there is yet nothing to be
got by that hazard? Whereas, on the other side, the sober man ventures nothing against infinite happiness to be
got, if his expectation comes not to pass. If the good man be in the right, he is eternally happy; if he mistakes, he's
not miserable, he feels nothing. On the other side, if the wicked man be in the right, he is not happy; if he
mistakes, he is infinitely miserable. Must it not be a most manifest wrong judgment that does not presently see to
which side, in this case, the preference is to be given? I have forborne to mention anything of the certainty or
probability of a future state, designing here to show the wrong judgment that any one must allow he makes, upon
his own principles, laid how he pleases, who prefers the short pleasures of a vicious life upon any consideration,
whilst he knows, and cannot but be certain, that a future life is at least possible.
