ear against the melting voice of a fellow-creature proftrate at his feet. And the terror neceffary to be kept up among the blinded votaries, renders cruelty a proper inftrument of religious flavery. The dumb executioners trip him of his rags. The rack is prepared. The ropes are extended. The wheels are driven round. The bloody whip and hiffing pincers tear the quivering flesh from the bones. The pullies raife him to the roof. The finews crack. The joints are torn afunder. The pavement fwims in blood. The hardened minister of infernal cruelty fits unmoved. His heart has long been fteeled against compaffion. He liftens to the groans, he views the ftrong convulfive pangs, when Nature fhrinks, and ftruggles, and agonifing pain rages in every pore. He counts the heart-rending thricks of a fellowcreature in torment, and enjoys his anguifh with the calmness of one who views a philofophical experiment! The wretched victim expires before him. He feels no movement, but of vexation at being deprived of his prey, before he had fufficiently glutted his hellifh fury. He rifes. No thunder roars. No lightning blafts him. He goes on to fill up the meafure of his wickednefs. He lives out his days in eale and luxury. He goes down to the grave gorged with the blood of the innocent; nor does the earth cat up again his curfed carcafe.

Can any one think fuch fcenes would be fuffered to be acted in a world, at the head of which fits enthroned in fupreme majefty a Being of infinite goodness and perfect juftice, who has only to give his word, and fuch monfters would be in an inftant driven by his thunder to the centre; can any one think that fuch proceedings would be fuffered to pafs unpunifhed, if there was not a life to come, a day appointed for rewarding every man according to his works?

Some have thought, that part of the arguments for the immortality of the human foul, being applicable to inferior natures, might be faid to prove too much, and therefore to prove nothing. For that the unequal allotment of happiness and mifery among brute creatures feems to require, that thofe who have fuffered unjustly

in

in this ftate, fhould have fuch fufferings compenfated to them in fome future exiftence.

This difficulty is eafily got over, if we confider, first, that the fufferings of the inferior creation are, fo to fpeak, only momentary; whereas fore-boding fears and cutting reflections increafe human miferies a thoufandfold; which greatly abates the neceffity of a future exiftence to make up for what they may have fuffered here. Befides, juftice does not require, that any fpecies of creatures be wholly exempted from fuffering; but only, that, upon the whole, all creatures have it in their power to be gainers by their exiftence, that is, that they have in their power a greater fhare of happinefs than mifery. If any one thinks it most probable, that all creatures, once introduced into exiftence, are to be continued in being, till they deferve, by perverse wickedness, to be annihilated; and that, as material fubftances, which feem to us to perish, are only diffipated into fmall invisible parts, fo the fpirits of all living creatures, at death, are only removed into another ftate; if any one, I fay, thinks he fees reafon to believe the immortality, in a fucceffion of ftates, of all living creatures, I do not fee that my fubject obliges me to confute fuch an opinion.

Though the diftinguifhing character of man is reafon, it is evident, that reafon does not in general prevail in the prefent ftate; but on the contrary, vice, and folly, and madness, feem to be most of what this world was made for, if it be the whole of man. And furely, fuch an economy is not worthy to be afcribed to an infinitely wife Creator. Is it a defign worthy of infinite Goodnefs to produce into being a fpecies to be continued for feveral thousand years, to harrafs and maffacre one another, and then to fink again into the earth, and fatten it with their carcafes? The Creator can never be fuppofed to have produced beings on purpofe for fuffering, and to be lofers by their exiftence, without any fault of their own. Upon this foot, the brute creatures would have eminently the advantage of our species. But it is very improbable, that the beneficent Author of nature has taken more care, and

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and made a better provifion for the inferior creatures than for us. And ftill more unlikely, that he has given the advantage upon the whole to the moft worthless part of our fpecies, and expofed the beft of mankind to unavoidable dift refs and hardship, as is confpicuoufly the cafe in innumerable inftances in this world. For in the cafe of tyranny and perfecution, it is evident, that all that the good man has to fupport him under his cruel fufferings, is the teftimony of his confcience; the perfuafion of the Divine approbation; and the hope of a future recoupence of honour and happiness for the pain and fhame he has fuffered here. But to fay there is no future ftate of retribution, is to fay, That He, who placed confcience in the human breast, did fo for 'the fole purpose of making the best of men the moft unhappy; that He, who moft loves, and best knows the fincere and upright, will fhew no favour to the fincere and upright, but the contrary; and confequently, that virtue is fomething worfe than an empty name, being a real and fubftantial misfortune to its most faithful votary. To fay the truth, were the prefent ftate the whole of the human exiftence, it is evident, that to give up life for the caufe of religion, fo far from being virtue, the highest pitch of virtue, would be directly vicious; because it would be throwing away our exiftence for an abfolute nothing. Annihilate the reality of a future ftate, and Chriftianity is a delufion; confequently not to be fuffered for.

There is, there must be, hereafter a ftate, in which the prefent irregularities fhall be rectified, and defects fupplied; in which vice and folly fhall univerfally, by eftablished laws of the Divine economy, fink to disgrace and punishment, and wifdom and virtue of course rife univerfally triumphant, and prevail throughout the univerfe. For it cannot be but that what is fuitable to the character of the univerfal Governor, fhould have the advantage, upon the whole, in a world, of which he is the abfolute and irrefiftible Lord, and that what oppofes perfect rectitude armed with Omnipotence, muft fooner or later be crushed before him. For he does in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, whatever

whatever feems to him good, and none can ftay his

hand.

The virtuous and pious foul has, above all, fuch evidence for its own immortality, as it cannot doubt. Purified from every fordid defire, purged from every dreg of earth, and become wholly fpiritual and angelic, whofe profpects are large, whofe views fublime, and and whofe difpofition godlike; fuch a foul already feels her own immortality. Whilft in the body, fhe is fenfible of her own independence upon the body, and fuperiority to it. While chained to flesh, and imprisoned in clay, the feels within herfelf celeftial vigour, declaring her nobler origin. Attracted by the Divine influence, which in degenerate fpirits is clogged and overpowered by fenfual appetite and fordid paffion, the raifes her defires to that better world, for which the was formed. She pants for liberty; fhe breathes after that state of heavenly light and real life, which fuits her noble powers and elevated difpofition; fhe fpreads her impatient wing; fhe plumes herfelf for flight; fhe darts her angelic eye as it were athwart eternity; her vaft imagination already grafps futurity; fhe leaves behind, in thought, this lefening fpeck of matter, and all its vanities; the hangs upon the verge of time,, and only waits the powerful call, which fpoke her into being, to feize the future world, the glories of the refurrection, to leave thofe lower regions, and expatiate at large thro' boundlefs fpace, to view the immentity of Nature, and to foar with choirs of feraphim, to prefent herfelf before the eternal throne.

SECT. IV:

Reafonableness and Neceffity of the Connection between the. Behaviour of moral Agents and their Happiness. Dijcipline the only means for bringing moral Agents volun◄ tarily to purfue Virtue.

HAV

AVING already feen, that it was neceffary to the very idea of a perfect fyftem, that there thould be a proper fubordination, a fcale, rifing by easy and juft degrees, of the various ranks of creatures; it is evi

dent, that there must have been fuch a creature as man, that is, a fpecies to fill the place which he poffeffes. And it is plain, that as his place is immediately above the brute, and below the angelic nature, he could not poffibly have been formed otherwife than he is. He could not be fuperior to the animal rank, without having powers and faculties fuperior to theirs. It is that which gives him his fuperiority over them. Nor could he have been inferior to the angelic order of beings, without falling fhort of their powers and faculties. It is the very thing which places him beneath them. Man, or whatever creature fhould have been made to fill up the chafin between the angelic and the animal natures, must have been exactly what we find our fpecies actually is. For without fuch a rank as man, the moral fyftem could not have been perfect, confequently could not have been at all: for it is impoffible that an absolutely perfect Author fhould produce an imperfect work. So that there is no room left to complain, that by creating man in fuch a ftation, it was neceffary he fhould be endowed with nobler powers and faculties than the brutes, he comes to be put in a more elevated and more precarious flate. It is true, that very few of the brutes are likely to fall fhort of the happiness deftined for them, having, as already obferved, but few chances of miffing of it, and being more effectually confined to the track appointed them, than it was proper fuch a creature as man fhould be. But is not the immenfe fuperiority of happiness to which a human mind may, with proper attention, rife, a very great over-balance for all the difadvantages our fpecies labour under, were there a thoufand for one? Would any man, who had his choice before-hand, whether he would be of the human or the brute fpecies, deliberately choose the latter, in which he knew it was impoffible he fhould ever attain any confiderable degree of perfection and happiness, rather than the former, in which he was fure, if he was not wanting to himself, he might rife to greatnefs and felicity inconceivable? Would any ra tional creature make this abfurd choice merely upon the confideration, that if he was of a fpecies endowed