He who has created all things, with all their relations, and who is the universal Sovereign, has a right to the allegiance of his rational creatures, and they are under obligation to obey his laws, because it is his will that they should do so. He has connected our _interest_ with our duty, as a motive to obedience, and because he is good; but if we should substitute utility for his authority, and conform to his laws, merely because they are advantageous, we rebel against our Sovereign, and renounce his authority, that we may pursue our own advantage. Virtue is amiable for its intrinsic rectitude. If we choose to practice it merely because _beautiful_, we please ourselves; and though the excellency of virtue is intended as a motive, and it is well for the man who is charmed by it, yet, if this be the only inducement, he has lost sight of the Divine authority, and his virtue is no obedience to the laws of God. If the obligation of virtue be founded solely on its utility, or beauty, we are at liberty to forego our advantage, or pleasure without guilt, and remorse of conscience will be unaccountable. It is also _fit and proper_, that we should practice virtue, but this is no more to be substituted for the Divine authority, than the other motives of advantage or pleasure. If it be objected, that the fitness of moral good is eternal, and a rule even to Deity, and so may be deemed a foundation of the obligation of human virtue. It is conceded that the fitness of virtue is eternal, for God is eternal, and has been always holy, and just; in the same manner also the beauty of virtue is eternal; but to suppose these to have existed anterior to thought and action, and to be independent of an eternally and immutably holy God is to indulge the mind in speculations, which, to say the least of them, are groundless. We may as well assign a cause to eternal existence, as to eternal holiness. When the Creator formed the Universe of intelligent creatures, he gave them, with their existence, the various relations and circumstances which sprang up with them: and their obligations with respect to him and his works originated at the same time, and from the same source; which could be no other than the Divine pleasure; and the positive express appointments, which have been since super-added, rest upon the same basis, the will of God.