Because it may easily happen, and, in effect, will
happen, very frequently, that our own private happiness may be promoted
by an act injurious to others, when yet no man can be obliged, by
nature, to prefer, ultimately, the happiness of others to his own;
therefore, to the instructions of infinite wisdom, it was necessary that
infinite power should add penal sanctions. That every man, to whom those
instructions shall be imparted, may know, that he can never, ultimately,
injure himself by benefiting others, or, ultimately, by injuring others
benefit himself; but that, however the lot of the good and bad may be
huddled together in the seeming confusion of our present state, the time
shall undoubtedly come, when the most virtuous will be most happy.
I am sorry, that the remaining part of this letter is not equal to the
first. The author has, indeed, engaged in a disquisition, in which we
need not wonder if he fails, in the solution of questions on which
philosophers have employed their abilities from the earliest times,
"And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost."
He denies, that man was created _perfect_, because the system requires
subordination, and because the power of losing his perfection, of
"rendering himself wicked and miserable, is the highest imperfection
imaginable.
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