PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

68 Tht Neces:rilJ of Gener&/ Rules;
CHAPTER
,rII.
rJ.nE NECESSITY OF GENERAL RULES.
You cannot permit nne action and forbid
another, without ~hewing a difference between them.
Consequently, the same sort of" action must be gener ...
ally permitted or generally forbit3den. \Vhere,
therefore, the general permi~:,ion of them would be
pernicious, it becomes necessary to lay down and support
the rJ.le which g~enerally forbids them.
Thus; to return once more to the case of the assas.
sin. The assassin knocked the rich villain on the head,
because he thought him better out of the way than
in it. If you allow this ex~use in t he present instance,
you ·mnst allow it to all, who act in the same
manner, and frum the same motive; that is, you
must allow every man to kill anyone he meets, whom
he thinks noxious or useless; which, in the event,
would be to commit every man's life and safety to
the !'pleen, fury, and fanaticism of his l1eighbour-a
disposition of affairs which would soon fill the world
with misery and confusion; and ere long put an
I
end to human society, if not to the human species. .
I
The necessity of -general Inle-L_ID_hummJ g9y~mmenu
is ~ apparent: but whether the same necessity
( subsist in 6 the divine economy, in that di~tribution of
I rewards and punishments, t.o which a moralist looks
! forward, may be doubted. ~
I answer, that general rules are necessary to every
moral government; and by moral government I
,nean any dispensation, whose object is to influence
the conduct of reasonable creature':'.
For if, of two actions perfectly similar, one be punished,
and the other be rewarded or forgiven, which
is the consequence of re.ic-cting gr~neral rules, the ~ ubjects
of such a dispensation would no longer know,