01.07.05 - Section 5

Section V. The foregoing treatise may be deemed inconsistent with gratitude to God.

“Such reflections,” it has been urged, “afford as little ground for gratitude as for submission. Why do we feel grateful to God for those favours which are conferred on us by the agency of our fellow-men, except on the principle that they are instruments in his hand, who, without ’offering the least violence to their wills, or taking away the liberty or contingency of second causes,’ hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, and upon them, whatsoever himself pleaseth? On any other ground, they would be worthy of the principal, and He of the secondary praise.”(156) True, if men are “ only instruments in his hand,” we should give him all the praise; but we should never feel grateful to our earthly friends and benefactors. As we should not, on this hypothesis, be grateful for the greatest benefits conferred on us by our fellow-men; so, in the language of Hartley, and Belsham, and Diderot, we should never resent, nor censure, the greatest injuries committed by the greatest criminals. But on our principles, while we have infinite ground for gratitude to God, we also have some little room for gratitude to our fellow-men.