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continued scene of probation. We appear to be fent into it with no other view, but to fhew how we can behave, under all that variety of difficult and distressful circumstances into which, by one means or other, we are continually thrown. Yet our behaviour paffes totally unregarded. We perform our parts, but the judge who has tried us forgets to perform his. Our trial is finished, and no confequences follow; no fentence is pronounced ; we are neither rewarded for having acted well, nor punished for having acted ill.

We conceive ourselves to be the fubjects of an Almighty governor, who has given us a fyftem of laws for our direction. Yet he appears to be perfectly indifferent whether we obferve thofe laws or not. His friends and his enemies fare frequently alike. Nay, the former are often punished with the heaviest afflictions, and the latter rewarded with every earthly enjoyment.

There has, in fine, been, from the first ages of the world down to this moment, an almost univerfal agreement and confent of all mankind in the belief or apprehenfion of a future state of existence; and yet this turns out to

be

be nothing more than a delufive imagination, though impressed fo deeply by nature itself on every human breast.

What now can be imagined more strange and inexplicable; more abfurd and inconfiftent; more replete with diforder, confufion, and misery; more unworthy the wisdom, the justice, the goodness of the Supreme Being, than the frame of man, and the conftitution of the world, according to the reprefentation here given of them?

But when, on the other hand, you extend your view beyond the limits of this life, and take in the confideration of another, what an alteration does this instantly make in the ap pearance of every thing within and without us? The mist that before refted on the face of the earth vanishes away, and discovers a scene of the utmost order, beauty, harmony, and regularity. The moment our relation to another world is known, all perplexity is cleared up, and all inconfiftencies are reconciled.

We then find ourselves compofed of two parts, a material body and an immaterial foul; and the seemingly incompatible properties of matter and spirit, instead of being intermixed L 4

and

and incorporated together in one substance, have each their diftinct province affigned them in our compound frame, and refide in separate fubftances suited to their refpective natures. But though different from each other, they are closely united together. By this union we are allied both to the visible and invifible, the material and the spiritual world, and stand as it were on the confines of each. And when the body reverts to earth, the foul betakes itself to that world of immortal spirits to which it belongs.

Thofe extraordinary faculties and powers of the human mind, which feem far beyond what the uses of this fhort life require, become highly proper and fuitable to a being that is defigned for eternity, and are nothing more than what is neceffary to prepare it for that heavenly country which is its proper home, and is to be its everlasting abode. There they will have full room to open and expand themselves, and to display a degree of vigour and activity not to be attained in the prefent life. There they will go on improving: to all eternity, and acquire that ftate of perfection to which they are always tending, but have not time in this world to arrive at.

When

When once it is certain that we are to give an account of ourselves hereafter, there is then a plain reafon why we are free agents; why a rule is given us to walk by; why we have a power of deviating from, or conforming to it; why, in fhort, we undergo a previous examination at the bar of our confciences before we appear at the tribunal of our great judge.

Our earnest thirft of fame, of happiness, of immortality, will, on the fuppofition of a future existence, ferve fome better purpose than to disappoint and diftrefs us. They are all natural defires, with objects that correfpond to them; and will each of them meet with that gratification in another life, which they in vain look for in this.

Nay, even that unequal diftribution of good and evil, at which we are so apt to repine, and thofe heavy afflictions that fometimes prefs fo hard upon the best of men, are all capable of an eafy folution, the moment we take a future life into the account. This world is then only part of a system. It was never intended for a state of retribuțion, but of probation. Here we are only

tried; it is hereafter we are to be rewarded, or punished. The evils we meet with, confifidered in this light, affume a very different afpect. They are wife, and even benevolent provifions, to put our virtues to the proof; to produce in us that temper, and those difpofitions, which are neceffary preparations for immortal glory.

Thus does the fuppofition of a future state clear up every difficulty, and disperse the darkness that otherwife hangs over this part of God's creation. With this light of immortality held up before us, we can find our way through the obfcureft parts of God's moral government, and give a fatisfactory account of his dealings with mankind. It is therefore a moft convincing proof of the reality of a future ftate, that it answers fo many excellent purposes, and feems fo indifpenfably neceffary to give harmony and regularity to the defigns of the Almighty in the formation of this globe, and its inhabitants, and to be the finishing and winding up of one uniform and confiftent plan of divine conduct. For, as in the material world, when we find that the principle of gravita

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