[75] [It is easy to see that the occasional disadvantages of virtue, are no less conducive to moral excellence, than its being generally advantageous. In view of its general advantages, we are virtuous with a proper and commanded view to our instinctive desire for happiness. In face of its disadvantages, we cultivate virtue for its own sake.] [76] [The common remark, “virtue brings its own reward,” is true only with qualifications. The apostles, as to _this_ life, were the most miserable of men: (1 Cor. xv. 9.) Virtue does not _always_ bring earthly rewards. The grand support of the good is drawn from considerations of that future state which the infidel denies. Observe, 1. We cannot suppose that God would so construct man, as that his principal comfort and reward for virtue, is a delusion. 2. Very good persons are often beset with painful doubts and fears, as to their future safety. Would God allow such doubts, if the expectation of future happiness were the _only_ reward of virtue? 3. This reward, at best, is private; but for the encouragement of virtue, it must have _obvious_ triumphs. On the other hand, bad men grow callous to the rebukes of conscience, so that great sinners suffer less from remorse than small ones, and what is worse, owe their tranquillity to their guilt. Again, he who kills a good man, wholly _deprives_ him of his only reward, if this life alone gives it. And the villain who kills himself, escapes his only punishment. Virtuous persons, in the strong language of ROBERT HALL,[A] would be “the _only_ persons who are wholly disappointed of their object; the only persons who (by a fatal and irreparable mistake), expecting an imaginary happiness in an imaginary world, lose their only opportunity of enjoying those present pleasures, of which others avail themselves; dooming themselves to grasp at shadows, while they neglect the substance, and harassed with a perpetual struggle against their natural propensities and passions, and all in vain!” [A] Sermon on the Vanity of Man.] [77] [Because, so soon as any community, or collection of persons, conclude a man to be wholly vicious in his course, and without any restraint of conscience, he is at once shorn of his influence, and will soon be stripped of all power of mischief. On the other hand, we see the might of virtue unarmed with power, in Luther, in Roger Williams, in Wm. Penn, and innumerable other instances.] [78] Isa. lx. 21. [79] P. 109. [80] P. 110, &c. [81] P. 111, &c. [82] P. 118, &c. [83] See this proof drawn out briefly, ch. vi.