vour of a future life, is the promiscuous and unequal diftribution of good and evil in this world, in a general, indeed, but by no means an exact proportion to the degrees of moral worth; which feems to be inconfiftent with the perfect goodness and rectitude of God, as our moral governor. If, together with his attributes of infinite wisdom and power, he be also a lover of virtue, may it not be expected, it is faid, that he will reward it more completely than is generally done in this world, efpecially in the cafe of a man facrificing his life to his integrity, when he evidently cuts himfelf off from all profpect of any reward, except in a future state. It is acknowledged, that in this life we find all the perfection we could wish, confidering it as a state of trial and discipline in which to form virtuous characters, but in order to complete the fcheme, it feems to require another ftate, to which it may be fubfervient, and in which the characters that are formed here, may have a suitable employment and reward.

-2. There

2. There is in the human faculties a capacity for endless improvement, in a conftant advance from fenfual to intellectual pleafures, and these growing more complex and refined ad infinitum, provided it was not checked by that change in our conftitution, which is at prefent produced by our approach to old age. Our comprehenfion of mind, likewise, increases with the experience of every day; whereby we are capable of enjoying more of the paft and of the future together with the prefent, without limits, and whereby our happiness is capable of growing continually more ftable and more exalted. In comparison of what we are evidently capable of, our prefent being is but the infancy of man. Here we acquire no more than the rudiments of knowledge and happiness. And can it be confiftent with the wifdom of God, to leave his workmanship fo unfinished, as it must be, if a final ftop be put to all our improvements

at death?

It is true, that we have no faculties but what have fome proper exercife in this life,

and there is a kind of redundancy in all the powers of nature. It is the best provifion against a deficiency. Brute creatures too have faculties fimilar to ours, fince they differ from us in degree more than in kind. But then the difference is fo great, especially with refpet to fome men and fome brutes, and man is fo evidently the moft diftinguished of all the creatures of God upon the face of the earth, that there feems to be foundation enough for our expecting a preference in this respect. Or, if the brute creation fhould be interefted in a future life, we fhall certainly have more reason to rejoice in it, than to be offended at it; and many of them feem to have more pain than pleasure in this.

We fee, indeed, that many things never actually arrive at what we call their perfect ftate. For example, few feeds ever become plants, and few plants live to bear fruit; but still some of each species come to maturity, and are whatever their nature is capable of being. Allowing, therefore, that, agreeably to this analogy, very few of man

kind fhould arrive at the

proper perfection

of their natures, we might imagine that, at leaft, fome would; and therefore that the wife and the virtuous, if none else, might hope to furvive that wreck which would overwhelm the common mafs of their species.

It must be acknowledged that, confidering only what we know of the constitution of the body and the mind of man, we see no reafon to expect that we shall survive death. The faculties and operations of the mind evidently depend upon the state of the body, and particularly that of the brain. To all appearance, they grow, decay, and perish together. But if the goodness, the wif dom, and the rectitude of the divine being require it, he can easily revive both, or continue the fame consciousness (which is, in fact, ourselves) in fome other way.

If we had known nothing of a child but its condition in the womb, we should have pronounced, that its fudden tranfition into a ftate fo different from it as that which it comes into after birth, would be certain

VOL. I.

L

death

death to it, though, now that we are acquainted with both the states, and can compare them together, we fee that the one is preparatory to the other. Equally unfit are we, in this life, to pronounce concerning the real nature of what we call death; and when we actually come to live again, we may fee an evident, and even a natural connection betwixt this life and the future, and may then understand the ufe of death, as a paffage from the one to the other; just as we now fee the neceffity of the birth of a child, in order to its tranfition to our prefent mode of existence.

Admitting that death is an intire ceffation of thought, fimilar to a ftate of perfecily found fleep, or a ftupor, yet, if the purposes of God's providence and moral government require it, he can make us to awake from this fleep at any diftance of time; and then the interval, let it have been ever fo long, will appear as nothing to us.

I cannot fay that I lay much stress upon the arguments which fome have drawn either