--A like tendency has virtue to produce superiority. · By making the good of society, the object of every member of it. · By making every one industrious in his own sphere. · By uniting all in one bond of veracity and justice. 3.) If the part of God’s government which we see, and the part we do not see, make up one scheme, then we see a _tendency_ in virtue to superiority. 4.) But to _produce_ that superiority there must be --A force proportioned to the obstacles. --Sufficient lapse of time. --A fair field of trial; such as extent of time, adequate occasions, and opportunities for the virtuous to unite. 5.) These things are denied to virtue in this life, so that its tendencies, though real, are _hindered_. 6.) But it may have all requisite advantages hereafter. --Eternity will be lasting enough. --Good men will unite; as they cannot do now, scattered over the earth, and ignorant of one another. --Other orders of virtuous beings will join; for the very nature of virtue is a bond of union. 7.) The tendency of such an order of things, so far as seen by vicious beings in any part of the universe, would be to the amendment of all who were capable of it, and their recovery to virtue. 8.) All this goes to show that the hinderances to virtue are contingent, and that its beneficial tendencies are God’s declarations in its favor. 9.) If the preceding considerations are thought to be too speculative, we may easily come to the same result by reflecting on the supremacy which any earthly nation would attain, by entire virtue for many ages. REMARKS. Consider now the general system of religion. The government of the world is one; it is moral; virtue shall in the end prevail over wickedness; and to see the importance and fitness of such an arrangement we have only to consider what would be the state of things, if vice had these advantages, or virtue the contrary. _Objec._ Why may not things be now going on in other worlds, and continue always to go on in this world, in the same mixed and disordered state as at present? _Ans._ We are not proving that God’s moral government is _perfect_, or the truth of religion, but only seeing what there is in the course of nature, to confirm it, supposing it to be known. Were there nothing to judge by, but the present distribution of pleasure and pain, we should have no ground to conclude that hereafter we should be rewarded or punished exactly according to our deserts. But even then there would be no indication that vice is better than virtue. Still the preceding observations _confirm_ the doctrine of future retribution; for, 1.) They show that the Author of nature is not indifferent to virtue and vice.