tinuance of punishment, a thousand years for inftance, he will not, in fact, be influenced by the expectation of any fuffering at all, even that of eternal and infinite fuffering. For, in reality, if the fear of the former do not affect him, and ftop his career of vice, it must be owning to his not allowing himself time to think and reflect upon the subject. For no man who really thinks and believes, can be guilty of fuch extreme folly, as to purchase a momentary gratification at so difproportioned a price; and if a man do not think about the matter, but will follow his appetites and paffions without any reflection, all difference, in the inten fity or duration of punishment, is wholly loft him.

upon

In fact, we see that the bulk of profesfing chriftians, who, if they were afked, would acknowledge their belief of the eternity of hell torments, are by no means effectually deterred from vice by their belief of it. Rather, the vastness of the thing creates a kind of fecret incredulity.

They

They have a notion that the thing may not, in reality, take place; and, thinking of no medium, they fecretly flatter themfelves with the hope of meeting with no punishment at all, and confequently indulge the vain hope of going to heaven, with a state of mind exceedingly unfit for it, rather than suffer a punishment fo vaftly difproportioned to the degree of their guilt. Whereas, if they had been taught to expect only a juft and adequate punishment, for all their offences here; and efpecially fuch as was neceffary to their purification and happiness, their minds might have acquiefed in it, they might have believed it firmly and practically, and fuch a belief might really have influenced their conduct.

But laftly, it is perhaps more agreeable to the analogy of nature and (this guide only I am now following) to expect, that, as the greater part of natural productions never arrive at their proper maturity, but perish long before they have

attained

1

attained to it, fo the bulk of mankind, who never attain to any high degrees of wifdom or virtue, fhould finally perish also, and be entirely blotted out of the creation, as unworthy to continue in it; while the few who are wife and virtuous, like full ripe fruits, are referved for future ufe. And there is something fo dreadful in the idea of annihilation, as will, perhaps, affect the mind of fome perfons more than the fear of future torments, with continuance of life, and confequently with fecret hope.

are,

in a

These fpeculations, it must be owned, a great meafure, random and vague, but they are the beft, as it appears to me, that we can form to ourselves by the light of nature. What revelation teaches us concerning fo difficult but important a fubject, we fhall fee in its proper place.

Such are the conclufions which nature teaches or rather which the afferts to concerning the nature, and perfections of

God,

God, the rule of human duty, and the future expectations of mankind. I fay affents to, because, if we examine the actual state of this kind of knowledge, in any part of the world, not enlightened by revelation, we fhall find their ideas of God, of virtue, and of a future ftate, to have been very lame and imperfect, as will be fhewn more particularly when we confider, in the next part of this course, the want and the evidence of DIVINE REVELATION.

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