JB/015/205/001

Click Here To Edit

63

To what is the necessary inefficiency of the Religious Sanction to be attributed?
for if its power be what as it is represented to it ought to be the
most influential of instruments, inasmuch as infinite is greater than
finite – & the pains & pleasures it proposes are intense & lacking beyond all others permanent
for the and let it be said once for all that it is not intended here to supersede their its authority, – but
merely to supply the its auxiliaries would which may add to its beneficial influence.
The religious enjoyments & sufferings of a future life being inaccessible
to experience – whether our own or that of others – no man having
hitherto reported for the information of his fellows what had happened
to him beyond the grave – & no man having hitherto learned it for
himself – those enjoyments & sufferings represent nothing which our
experience has shown to be either pleasurable or painful. Being remote as
to distance – uncertain & unimmediate as to their contingency on any great particular action –
undefined as to their character – & invisible in their operation – & not immediately
consequent upon it is not to be wondered at that they so often lose their
power in the presence of adjacent, – certain – palpable actions influences.
Events placed so far beyond the limits of life & knowledge are not, it
must be admitted, susceptible of being brought into the mind with
the vividness of that which is propinquous. As in receding from The loftiest & sublimest things objects
however substantial they gradually diminish till they are lost in the mist of receding increasing distance.
So the tremendous hopes & fears with which it is the province of
religion to agitate us fail in their influence & become obscured in the
remoteness of eternity.

The religious sanction would be greatly strengthened by
the belief in a particular providence, – a belief sanctioned often asserted
& insisted on – but which appears to operate little even upon those
who proclaim it. Did the sanction exist – were there the constant
interference of the divine being to punish or reward appropriately acts of vice or
virtue – it is clear that all human Legislation would be supererogatory
& intrusive – pernicious on all occasions where not useless – useless
on all occasions where not pernicious. The belief in a particular
providence would make the religious sanction present, – but no
one has sufficient confidence in the belief to deliver society
over to its solitary influences.

Identifier: | JB/015/205/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 15.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	015	Main Headings	deontology
Folio number	205	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	linking material	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f63
Penner	sir john bowring	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[prince of wales feathers]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	5421
Box Contents