deserve esteem and commendation from any body.
Those three systems, that which places virtue in propriety, that which places it in prudence, and that which makes it consist in benevolence, are the principal accounts which have been given of the nature of virtue. To one or other of them, all the other descrip|tions of virtue, how different soever they may appear, are easily reducible.
That system which places virtue in obe|dience to the will of the deity, may be counted either among those which make it consist in prudence, or among those which make it consist in propriety. When it is asked, why we ought to obey the will of the deity, this question, which would be im|pious and absurd in the highest degree, if asked from any doubt that we ought to obey him, can admit but of two different an|swers. It must either be said that we ought to obey the will of the deity because he is a being of infinite power, who will re|ward us eternally if we do so and punish us eternally if we do otherwise: Or it must be said, that independent of any regard to our own happiness, or to rewards and pu|nishments
