and among the inhabitants of the earth, whatever feems to him good, and none can stay 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 spiritual and angelic; whose prospects are large, whofe views fublime, and whose 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 impris foned in clay, fhe feels within herself celestial vi, gor, declaring her nobler origin. Attracted by the Divine influence, which in degenerate fpirits is clogged and overpowered by sensual appetite and fordid paffion, fhe raises her defires to that better world, for which fhe was formed. pants for liberty; fhe breathes after that ftate of heavenly light and real life, which fuits her noble powers, and elevated difpofition; fhe fpreads her impatient wing ;fhe plumes herself for flight; fhe darts her angelic eye as it were athwart eternity; her vaft imagination already grafps futu rity; fhe leaves behind, in thought, this leffening fpeck of matter, and all its vanities; fhe hangs upon the verge of time, and only waits the powerful call, which spoke her into being, to feize the future world, the glories of the refurrection, to leave thefe lower regions, and expatiate at large

She

large through boundless space, to view the im menfity of nature, and to foar with choirs of feraphim, to present herself before the eternal throne.

SE C T. IV.

Reafonableness and Neceffity of the Connexion between the Behaviour of moral Agents and their Happinefs. Difcipline the only means for bringing moral Agents voluntarity to pursue Virtue.

AVING already feen, that it was necef

HA

fary to the very idea of a perfect system, that there fhould be a proper fubordination, a fcale, rifing by easy and juft degrees, of the various ranks of creatures; it it evident, 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 chafm between the angelic and the animal natures, must have been

exactly

exactly what we find our species actually is. For without such a rank as man, the moral system could not have been perfect, confequently could not have been at all: for it is impossible, that an abfolutely perfect Author fhould produce an imperfect work. So that there is no room left to complain, that by creating man in fuch a station 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 ftate. It it true, that very few of the brutes are likely to fall fhort of the happiness destined for them, having, as already observed, but few chances of miffing of it, and being more effectually confined to the track appointed them, than it was proper such a creature as man should be. But is not the immenfe fuperiority of happiness to which a human mind may, with proper attention, rise, a very great over-balance for all the disadvantages our fpecies labours under, were there a thousand 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 should 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 greatness and felicity inconceivable ? Would any rational crea¬ ture make this abfurd choice merely upon the confideration, that if he was of a species endowed

with liberty, it was poffible he might be fo foolish as to neglect his own intereft, and with open eyes run into ruin and mifery? What no reafonable being would choose, let not prefumptuous man blame his Maker for not putting in his choice. If man is what he ought to be, and is placed where he ought to be, what has he to do, but to think of filling his ftation with fuch propriety as is neceffary for a reasonable being to study, who is defirous of attaining his own perfection and happiness in the only way in which they are attainable?a

And

If the perfect concurrence of reasonable beings, as well as others, with the Divine scheme, was neceffary to the very notion of a regular univerfal system, with an univerfal Governor at the head of it; it was to be expected, that the final happiness of such beings as should study to conform themselves habitually in difpofition and practice to the Divine scheme, should by the positive ordination of the Ruler of the world be clofely connected with their character and behaviour. if it be impoffible to conceive a plan of universal oeconomy laid by an univerfal and perfect mind, that should not be fuitable to his own neceffary nature and character, but founded in mere arbitrary will; it is likewife impoffible to conceive a fyftem in which the habitual conformity of reafonable beings to the grand scheme of the univerfal Governor fhould not naturally, and as it were of itself, produce happiness. The Divine

scheme

*

fcheme of government is founded, not in arbi trary will; but in the eternal and unchangeable rectitude of the Divine nature. And therefore it was as much an impoffibility that it should be contrary to what it is, or that conformity to it fhould finally produce any thing but happiness, or irregularity any thing but mifery ; as that the Divine nature, which is neceffarily what it is, fhould have been otherwife. So that, till the time comes, when universal regularity fhall have the fame natural tendency to promote order, per+ fection, and happiness, as universal conformity to the scheme of the univerfe; when the Divine will comes to be directly contrary to all the motal perfections of his nature, till impoffibilities become poffible, and direct contradictions the fame; till the time comes, when all these fhall happen, there can be no chance for the happinefs of any reasoning being, who does not study to conform his difpofition and practice to the ge neral scheme of the Ruler of the world.

Let daring impious man hear this and tremble. That there is a rectitude in conduct, which is independent upon any connected happiness, seems fo evident, that one would wonder how fome wri ters have perfuaded themselves, and laboured to perfuade others, That the only good, or rectitude of an action, is its tendency to produce happiness. After what I have faid to fhew the natural, as well as judicial connexion between virtue and happiness, I must declare, that to me it appears

evident,