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Take the common run of men, even the best-educated
and best-behaved, men who possess the
esteem of those who know them. Attend to
the motives the to which they refer their conduct.
observe of what class they are. are they
of that which belongs to the Religious Sanction?
never. Nothing they more scrupulously
avoid: as if ashamed to acknowlege themselves
influenced by a sanction complicated
with a set of precepts, the observance of which,
as commonly understood, is calculated to make
a man [at once] uncomfortable to himself,
and incommodious to society. So su
So sure as a man is seen to profess an
extraordinary attachment to that those consideration
of that cast in preference to those of the moral
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so sure is he to become an object of men's
ridicule, or of their disgust or of their suspicions.
What else should be
We see how scrupulously men avoid in general
to attribute their conduct to motives of the religious
kind. What else then should be the reason?
that motives of this kind are more mercenary
than those of the other? That cannot be:
for they are still more remote from sense:
from above which as motives so rise the highest, they are
in common aestimation accounted the purer.
Twas a sort of discovery, of Addison's and appeared so new
as even to be paradoxical to in the eyes of ordinary
readers, when Addison he observed that Religion
was the highest [instance of] Self-love
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A man, who makes a parade of the influence
that Religious considerations have over
him
What is it that gets a man the character
of a Hypocrite? his making a parade
of the influence that Religious considerations
have over him
Of what class do men from the catalogue are they who are commonly put upon
of the list of Hypocrites? int The Religionists. Out Are of
Moralists? never scarce ever
Consult the Dramatists, those him who of all others
to whom it is necessary to understand & fall into
the train of notions current among mankind. the springs that set mankind in motion
He has a Hero to dress up: he puts him in
a trying situation: assailed by sollicited by strong passions
to quit the line of [imagined] duty and
triumphant over them. What motives does considerations what
motives, what reasons sentiments are put into his mouth
to account for his resistance. A text of
Scripture? no. but an explosion of morality.
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What principles does he expoliate upon?
Religious ones? no. they would not be endured.
Principles to use the common distinction
not of conscience but of honour: principles
referring not the religious but the moral
Sanction: the fear or hope of what might may be done by to
done to him hereafter.
Errors & Distraction of Religionists For want of an intelligible standard whereby to
judge measure the moral quality morality+ + moral quality of an action, distracted
with uncertainties, starting at shadows.
Out of horror of an evil which they fancy, running
themselves and plunging others into an evil
which they feel
What should be would an audience say to the hero of a play
justifying measuring his conduct all along by texts of Scripture?
They would turn from him with contempt
as undesignedly ridiculous, or with aversion
as & hypocritical, or with disgust, as out of na-
PUNISHMENT. Sanction Religious. Disadvantages Inefficacy of. [BR][ ][ ] Proofs from observation
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