Part I. of God. THEOLOGY. Being and mentation, we thould be in a great measure deprived of the attributes prefent reward of virtue; and therefore this affociating principle contributes much to our happiness. But the benevolence of a Being, who feems as it were thus anxious to furnish us with both fenfual and intellectual enjoyments, and who has made our duty our greateft pleafure, cannot be quefioned; and therefore we muft infer, that the Author of Nature wifhes the happiness of the whole fenfible and intelligent creation. Objections, To fuch reafoning as this in fupport of the Divine BeSome of them nevolence many objections have been made. .༢༠ appear at firft fight plaufible, and are apt to ftagger the ; It has been afked, Why, if the Author of Nature be a be. nevolent Being, are we neceffarily fubject to pain, difeafes, and death? The scientific phyfiologift replies, Because from thefe evils Omnipotence itfelf could not in our prefent ftate Answered. exempt us, but by a conftant feries of miracles. He who admits miracles, knows likewife that mankind were origi. nally in a state in which they were not fabject to death and that they fell under its dominion through the fault of their common progenitors. But the fall and refloration of man is the great fubject of revealed religion; and at present we are difcuffing the queftion like philofophers who have no other data on which to proceed than the phenomena of nature. Now we know, that as all matter is divifible, every fyftem compofed of it muft neceffarily be liable to decay and diffolution; and our material fyftem would decay and be diffolved long before it could serve the purposes of nature, were there not methods contrived with admirable wifdom for repairing the wafte occafioned by perpetual friction. The body is furnished with different fluids, which continual ły circulate through it in proper channels, and leave in their way what is neceffary to repair the folids. These again are fupplied by food ab extra; and to the whole proceffes of digeftion, circulation, and nutrition, the air we breathe is ab. folutely neceffary. (See PHYSIOLOGY, Se&t. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). But as the air is a very heterogeneous fluid, and fubject to violent and fudden changes, it is obvious that thefe changes muft affect the blood, and by confequence the whole frame of the human body. We fee the air indeed in procefs of time confume even marble itfelf;. and therefore cannot wonder, that as it is in one ftate the parent of health, it fhould in another be the fource of difeafe to fuch creatures as man and other terrestrial animals. Nor could these confequences be avoided without introducing others much more deplorable. The world is governed by general laws, without which there could be among men neither arts nor fciences; and tho' laws different from thofe by which the fyftem is at prefent governed might perhaps have been eftablished, there is not the smallest reaton to imagine that they could on the whole have been better, or attended with fewer inconveniencies. As long as we have material and folid bodies capable of motion, liable to refittance from other folid bodics, fup. ported by food, fubject to the agency of the air, and divitible, they must neceffarily be liable to pain, difeafe, corruption, and death, and that too by the very influence of thofe laws which preferve the order and harmony of the univerfe. T'hus gravitation is a general law fo good and fo neceflary, that were it for a moment fufpended, the world would instantly fall to pieces; and yet by means of this law the man that any of God. 427 muft inevitably be crushed to death upon whom a tower Being and fhall chance to tumble. Again, the attraction of cohesion attributes is a general law, without which it does not appear corporeal fyftem could poffibly exift: it is by this law too, or a modification of it, that the glands and lacteals of the human body extract from the blood such particles as are neceffary to nourish the folids; and yet it is by means of the very fame modification of the very fame law that a man is liable to be poifoned. How are these effects to be pre vented? Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires, For Charters' head referve the hanging wall? 32 the dread of death But though the human body could not have been pre-Sicknefs, ferved from dangers and diffolution but by introducing evils pain, and greater on the whole than thofe to which it is now liable, why, it has fometimes been asked, is every disorder to which ferve good it is fubject attended with ficknefs or with pain? and why purpofes. is fuch a horror of death implanted in our breafts, feeing that by the laws of nature death is inevitable? We answer, That fickness, pain, and the dread of death, ferve the very beft purpofes. Could a man be put to death, or have his Felt we no uneafinefs in a fever, we limbs broken without feeling pain, the human race had long ago been extinct. fhould be infenfible of the disease, and die before we fufpect. ed our health to be impaired. The horror which generally accompanies our reflections on death tends to make us more careful of life, and prevents us from quitting this world rafhly when our affairs profper not according to our fond wishes. It is likewife an indication that our exiftence does not terminate in this world; for our dread is feldom excited by the profpect of the pain which we may fuffer when dying, but by our anxiety concerning what we may be doomed to fuffer or enjoy in the next stage of our existence; and this anxiety tends more perhaps than any thing else to make us live while we are here in tuch a manner as to enfure our happiness hereafter. Thus from every view that we can take of the works and laws of God, and even from confidering the objections which have fometimes been made to them, we are compelled to acknowledge the benevolence of their Author. We muft not, however, fuppofe the Divine benevolence to be a fond and All human affections and paffions originate in our weak affection like that which is called benevolence among men. dependence and wants; and it has been doubted whether to whom existence is effential cannot be dependent; he who The divine any of them be at firft difinterested (fee PASSION): but he is the Author of every thing can feel no want. benevolence therefore must be wholly difinterefted, and of courfe free from thofe partialities originating in felf-love, which are alloys in the moft fublime of human virtues. 3 Hz benevolent man on earth, though he wishes the happiness of The molt every attributes of God. 33 lence coin fanctions reverence in our minds the felf-exiftent Being to whom they Duties and belong. This is indeed not only a duty, but a duty of of natural which no man who contemplates these perfections, and bereligion. lieves them to be real, can poffibly avoid the performance. He who thinks irreverently of the Author of nature, can 36 never have confidered feriously the power, the wisdom, and Reverence and grati the goodnefs, difplayed in his works; for whoever has a titude due tolerable notion of thefe mult be convinced, that he who to God. performed them has no imperfection; that his power can accomplish every thing, which involves not a contradiction; that his knowledge is intuitive, and free trom the poflibility of error; and that his goodness extends to all without parti ality and without any alloy of felfifh defen. This convic tion muft make every man on whofe mind it is impreffed ready to proftrate himself in the duft before the Author of his being; who, though infinitely exalted above him, is the fource of all his enjoyments, conftantly watches over him with paternal care, and protects him from numberless dangers. The fenfe of fo many benefits must excite in his mind a fentiment of the livelieft gratitude to him from whom they are received, and an ardent with for their conti Being and every fellow-creature, has ftill, from the ties of blood, the endearments of friendship, or, perhaps from a regard to his own intereft, fome particular favourites whom, on a competition with others, he would certainly prefer. But the The divine equal Lord of all can have no particular favourites. His benevo- benevolence is therefore coincident with juftice; or, to fpeak edent with more properly, that which is called divine juftice, is only bejultice. nevolence exerting itself in a particular manner for the propagation of general felicity. When God preferibes laws for regulating the conduct of his intelligent creatures, it is not because he can reap any benefit from their obedience to thofe laws, but becaufe fuch obedience is neceffary to their own happiness; and when he punithes the tranfgreffor, it is not because in his nature there is any difpofition to which the profpect of fuch punishment can afford gratification, but because in the government of free agents punishment is neceffary to reform the criminal, and to intimidate others from committing the like crimes. But on this fubject we need not dwell. It has been fhewn elfewhere (METAPHYSICS, 312.), that all the moral attributes of God, his HOLINESS, JUSTICE, MERCY, and TRUTH, fhould be conceived as the fame divine BENEVOLENCE, acting in different ways according to different exigencies, but always for the fame fublime end-the propagation of the utmost poffible happi 34 God incompre henfible, nefs. The fubftance or effence of this self-existent, all-powerful, infinitely wile, and perfectly good Being, is to us wholly in comprehenfible. That it is not matter, is fhewn by the procefs of argumentation by which we have proved it to exift; but what it is we know not, and it would be impious prefumption to inquire. It is fufficient for all the purpofes of religion to know that God is fome how or other prefent to every part of his works; that exiftence and every poffible perfection is effential to him; and that he wishes the happiness of all his creatures. From these truths we might proceed to prove and illuftrate the perpetual fuperintendance of his providence, both general and particular, over every the minuteft part of the univerfe: but that fubject has been difcuffed in a feparate article; to which, therefore, we refer the reader. (See PROVIDENCE). We fhall only obferve at prefent, that the manner in which animals are propagated affords as complete a proof of the conftant fuperintendance of divine power and wifdom, as it does of the immediate exertion of these faculties in the formation of the parent pair of each species. For were this bufinefs of propagation carried on by necessary and mechanical laws, it is obvious, that in every age there would be generated, in each fpecies of animals, the very fame proportion of males to females that there was in the age preceding. On the other ftantly pre-hand, did generation depend upon fortuitous mechanism, it is not conceivable but that, fince the beginning of the world, or, according to this hypothefis, during the courfe of eterni ty, feveral fpecies of animals fhould in fome age have generated nothing but males, and others nothing but females; and that of course many fpecies would have been long fince extinct. As neither of these cafes has ever happened, the prefervation of the various fpecies of animals, by keeping up conftantly in the world a due, though not always the fame, proportion between the fexes of male and female, is a complete proof of the fuperintendance of divine providence, and of that faying of the apoftle, that it is " in God we live, move, and have our being." 35 But con fent to his works. nuance. 37 be formed. Whilft filent gratitude and devotion thus glow in the of whom breaft of the contemplative man, he will be careful not too pofitive form even a mental image of that all-perfect Being to whom dea houd they are directed. He knows that God is not material; that he exifts in a manner altogether incomprehenfible; that to frame an image of him would be to affign limits to what is infinite; and that to attempt to form a politive conception of him would be impiously to compare himself with his Maker. 38 The man who has any tolerable notion of the perfec- How he tions of the Supreme Being will never fpeak lightly of him, ought to or make use of his name at all but on great and folemn be ipokea of; and occafions. He knows that the terms of all languages are' inadequate and improper, when applied directly to him who has no equal, and to whom nothing can be compared; and therefore he will employ thefe terms with caution. When he fpeaks of his mercy and compaffion, he will not confider them as feelings wringing the heart like the mercy and compaffion experienced by man, but as rays of pure and difinterested benevolence. When he thinks of the ftupendous fyftem of nature, and hears it, perhaps, faid that God formed it for his own glory, he will reflect that God is fo infinitely exalt ed above all his creatures, and fo perfect in himself, that he can neither take pleasure in their applause, as great men do in the applaufes of their fellow-creatures, nor receive any acceffion of any kind from the exiftence of ten thoufand worlds. The immenfe fabric of nature therefore only difplays the glory or perfections of its Author to us and to other creatures who have not faculties to comprehend him in himself. him. 39 When the contemplative man talks of ferving God, he What is does not dream that his fervices can increase the divine feli-meant by city; but means only that it is his duty to obey the divine ferving laws. Even the pronoun He, when it refers to God, cannot be of the fame import as when it refers to man; and by the philofophical divine it will feldom be used but with a mental allufion to this obvious diftin&tion. As the man who duly venerates the Author of his being will not speak of him on trivial occafions, fo will he be ftill further from calling upon him to witnefs impertinences and faltehood, (fee OATH). He will never mention his SECT. II. Of the Duties and Sanctions of Natural name but with a paufe, that he may have time to reflect in Religion. FROM the fhort and very inadequate view that we have taken of the divine perfections, it is evidently our duty to filence on his numberless perfections, and on the immense diitance between himself and the Being of whom he is speaking. The flighteft reflection will convince him that the world with all that it contains depends every moment upon 40 Divine wo fhip a Duties and upon that God who formed it; and this conviction will ty. Whether That an untaught favage would be prompted by infline to addrefs the Supreme Being in fuch terms as this, we are fo far from thinking, that to us it appears not probable that fuch a favage, in a ftate of folitude, would be led by inftinet to fuppofe the existence of that Being. But as foon as the being and attributes of God were, by whatever means, made known unto man, every fentiment expreffed in this prayer muft neceffarily have been generated in his mind; for not to be fenfible that we derive our existence and all our en joyments from God, is in effect to deny his being or his providence; and not to feel a wish that he would give us what we want, is to deny either his goodness or his power. The worship of God therefore is a natural duty refulting from the contemplation of his attributes and a fenfe of our own dependence. But the reafoning which has led us to this conclufion respects only private devotion; for it is a or not is queftion of much greater difficulty, and far enough from public wor-being yet determined, whether public worthip be a duty of hip a du- that religion which can with any propriety be termed na ty of na- tural. Mr Wollafton indeed pofitively affirms that it is, tural religion? and endeavours to prove his pofition by the following argu 42 fur it, *ments. "A man (fays he) may be confidered as a member of Arguments fome fociety; and as fuck he ought to worship God if he has the opportunity of doing it, if there be proper prayers ufed publicly which he may refort to, and if his health, &c. permit, Or the fociety may be confidered as one body, that has common interefts and concerns, and as fuch is obliged to worship the Deity, and offer one prayer. Befides, there are many who know not of themselves how to pray; perhaps cannot fo much as read. Thefe must be taken as they are; and confequently fome time and place appointed where they may of natural have fuitable prayers read to them, and be guided in their Duties and 43 Thefe are in themselves just observations, and would come with great force and propriety from the tongue or pen of a Chriftian preacher, who is taught by revelation that the Mafter whom he ferves has commanded his followers "not to forfake the affembling of themselves together," and has promised, "that if two of them fhall agree on earth as touching any thing that they fhall af, it shall be done for them of his Father who is in heaven." As urged by fuch a man and on fuch grounds, they would ferve to fhow the fitness of the divine command, and to point out the benefits which a religious obedience to it might give us reason to expect. But the author is here profeffing to treat of natural religion, and to ftate the duties which refult from the mere relation which fubfifts between man as a creature and God as his creator and conftant preferver. Now, though we readily admit the benefits of public worship as experienced under the Chriftian difpenfation, we do not perceive any thing in this reafoning which could lead a pious theift to expect the fame benefit previous to all experience. When the author thought of national forms and establishments of religion, he cer- Borrowed tainly loft fight of his proper subject, and, as fuch writers from reve are too apt to do, comprehended under the religion of na.lation. ture what belongs only to that which is revealed. Natural religion, in the proper fenfe of the words, adunits of no particular forms, and of no legal establishment. Private devotion is obviously one of its duties, because fentiments of adoration, confeffion, fupplication, and thanksgiving, neceffarily fpring up in the breast of every man who has juft notions of God and of himself: but it is not fo obvious that fuch notions would induce any body of men to meet at flated times for the purpose of expreffing their devotional fentiments in public. Mankind are indeed focial beings, and naturally communicate their fentiments to each other; but we cannot conceive what fhould at firft have led them to think that public worship at ftated times would be acceptable to the felf-exiftent Author of the univerfe. In cafe of a famine, or any other calamity in which the whole tribe was equally involved, they might speak of it to each other, inquire into its caufe, and in the extremity of their diftrefs join perhaps in one fervent petition, that God would remove it. In the fame manner they might be prompted to pour forth occasional' ejaculations of public gratitude for public mercies; but it does not follow from thefe incidental occurrences that they would be led to inftitute times and places and forms of national worship, as if they believed the omnifcient Deity more ready to hear them in public than in private. That the appointment of fach times and forms and places is beneficial to fociety, experience teaches us; and therefore it is the duty, and has been the practice, of the fupreme ma ziftrate in every age and in every civilized country to provide for the maintenance of the national worship. But this practice has taken its rife, not from the deductions of reafon, but either from direct revelation, as among the Jews and Chriftians; or from tradition, which had its origin in fome early revelation, as among the more enlightened Pagans of ancient and modern times. We hope that none of our readers will be fo unjust as to fuppofe that by this difquifition we mean, in any degree, to. call! chatural region. 44 Duries and call in question the fitnefs or the duty of public worship. Landios This is fo far from our intention, that we firmly believe with Mr Wollafton, that what piety remains among us is to be attributed in a great meature to the practice of frequenting the church on Sundays; and that it is the neglect of Its great this particular duty which has rendered the prefent generatefulness. tion of men lefs pious, lefs humble, and more prone to fac*tion, than their fathers were, who made it a point every Lord's day to unite with fome congregation of Chriftians m the public worship of their Creator and Redeemer. But whilft we are convinced of the importance and neceffity of - this too much neglected duty, and could wish to imprefs - our conviction upon the minds of all our readers, we do not apprehend that we leffen its dignity, or detract from the weight of almoft univeral practice, by endeavouring to derive that practice from its true fource, which appears to us to be not human reafon, but divine revelation. 45 The prac tice of virtue a duty of na tural religion. 46 But whatever doubts may be entertained with respect to the origin of public worship, there can be none as to the foundation of moral virtue. Reason clearly perceives it to be the will of our Maker, that every individual of the human race should treat every other individual as, in fimilar circumftances, he could-juttly expect to be treated himfelf. It is thus only that the greatett fum of human happiness can be -produced (fee MORAL PHILOSOPHY, n° 17. and 135.); for were all men temperate, fober, juft in their dealings, faithful to their promises, and charitable to the poor, &c. it is obvious that no miferies would be felt upon earth, but the few which, by the laws of corporeal nature, unavoidably result from the union of our minds with fyftems of matter. But it has been already fhown, that the defign of God in forming fentient beings was to communicate to them fome portion, -or rather fome refemblance, of that felicity which is effential -to himself; and therefore every action which in its natural tendency co-operates with this defign muft be agreeable to him, as every action of a contrary tendency must be difagreeable. From this reafoning it follows undeniably, that we are obliged not only to be juft and beneficent to one another, but alfo to abftain from all unneceffary cruelty to inferior Cruelty to animals. That we have a right to tame cattle, and employ the inferior them for the purposes of agriculture and other arts where animals a ftrength is required, is a potition which we believe has never been controverted. But if it is the intention of God to communicate, in different degrees according to their different ranks, a portion of happinefs to all his creatures endowed with fenfe, it is obvious that we fin againft him when we fubject even the horse or the afs to greater labour than he is able to perform; and this fin is aggravated when from avarice we give not the animal a fufficient quantity of food to fupport him under the exertions which we compel him to make. That it is our duty to defend ourselves and our property from the ravages of beafts of prey, and that we may even exterminate fuch beafts from the country in which we live, are truths which cannot be questioned; but it has been the opinion of men, eminent for wisdom and learning, that we have no right to kill an ox or a fheep for food, but in confequence of the divine permiffion to Noah recorded in the ninth chapter of the book of Genefis. Whether this opinion be well or ill founded we fhall not pofitively determine, though the arguments upon which it is made to reft are of fuch a nature as the fafhionable reatoners of the prefent day would perhaps find it no eafy talk to anfwer; but it cannot admit of a doubt, that, in killing fuch animals, we are, in duty to their Creator and ours, bound to put them to the leaft poffible pain. If this be granted, and we do not fee how it can be denied by any man convinced of the benevolence of the Deity, it is ftill more evident that we Duties and act contrary to the divine will when, for our mere amufe. function f natural ment, we torture and put to death fuch animals as are conreligion. 1 feffedly not injurious to ourfelves, or to any thing upon which the comforts of life are known to depend. We are indeed far from being convinced with the poet, that infects and reptiles "in mortal fufferance feel as when a giant dies," (fee PLEASURE and PHYSIOLOGY, Sect. viii.); but their feelings on that occafion are certainly fuch, as that, when we wantonly inflict them, we thwart, as far as in our power, the benevolent purpose of the Creator in giving them life and fenfe. Let it be obferved too, that the man who practises needlefs cruelty to the brute creation is training up his mind for exereifing cruelty towards his fellow-creatures, to his flaves if he have any, and to his fervants; and by a very quick progrefs to all who may be placed beneath him in the fcale of fociety. Such are the plain duties of natural religion; and if they were univerfally practifed, it is felf-evident that they would be productive of the greatest happinefs which mankind could enjoy in this world, and that piety and virtue would be their own reward. They are however far from being univerfally practifed; and the confequence is, that men are frequently raised to affluence and power by vice, and fometimes funk into poverty by a rigid adherence to the rules of virtue. 47 of a future This being the cafe, there can be no question of greater importance, while there are few more difficult to be anfwered, than "What are the fanctions by which natural religion enforces obedience to her own laws ?" It is not to be luppofed that the great body of mankind fhould, without the profpect of an ample reward, practife virtue in those inftances Natural in which fuch practice would be obviously attended with religion des injury to themselves; nor does it appear reasonable in any fective in man to forego prefent enjoyment, without the well-grounded its evidence hope of thereby fecuring to himself a greater or more per-state. manent enjoyment in reverfion. Natural religion therefore, as a fyftem of doctrines influencing the conduct, is exceedingly defective, unless it affords fufficient evidence, intelligible to every ordinary capacity, of the immortality of the foul, or at leaft of a future state of rewards and punishments. That it does afford this evidence, is ftrenuously maintained by fome deilts, and by many philofophers of a different defcription, who, though they profefs Chriftianity, feem to have fome unaccountable dread of being deceived by their bibles in every doctrine which cannot be propped by the additional buttress of philosophical reasoning. state, 48 One great argument made ufe of to prove that the im--The gene mortality of the foul is among the doctrines of natural reli-ral expec gion, is the univerfal belief of all ages and nations that mentation of a continue to live in fome other ftate after death has feparated future their fouls from their bodies. "Quod fi omnium confenfus nature vox eft omnefque, qui abiqui funt, confentiunt effe aliquid, quod ad eos pertineat, qui vita cefferint: nobis quoque idem exiftimandum eft: et fi, quorum aut ingenio, aut virtute animus excellit, eos arbitramur, quia natura optima funt, cernere naturæ vim maxime: verifimile eft, cum optimus quifque maxime pofteritati ferviat, effe aliquid, cujus is poft mortem fenfum fit, habiturus. Sed ut deos effe natura opinamur, qualefque fint, ratione cognofcimus, fic permanere animos arbitramur confenfu nationum omnium *." That this is a good argument for the truth of the doc- Tufc. Quch. trine, through whatever channel men may have received it, 16. we readily acknowledge; but it appears not to us to be any proof of that doctrine's being the deduction of human rea- Not the foning. The popular belief of Paganifm, both ancient and offspring of modern, is fo fantastic and abfurd, that it could never have lature. been * Cizer. lib. i. § 15 49 Duties and been rationally inferred from what nature teaches of God Lanctions, and the foul. In the Elyfium of the Greek and Roman of natural religion. poets, departed fpirits were vifible to mortal eyes; and muft therefore have been clothed with fome material vehicle of fufficient density to reflect the rays of light, though not to refift the human touch. In the mythology of the northern nations, as deceased heroes are reprefented as eating and drinking, they could not be confidered as entirely divefted of matter; and in every popular creed of idolatry, future rewards were fuppofed to be conferred, not for private virtue, but for public violence, upon heroes and conquerors and the deftroyers of nations. Surely no admirer of what is now called natural religion will pretend that these are part of its doctrines; they are evidently the remains of fome primeval tradition obfcured and corrupted in its long progrefs through ages and nations. 50 a future ftate. Opinions The philofophers of Greece and Rome, defpifing the poof the philofophers pular mythology of their refpective countries, employed relpecting much time and great talents in difquifitions concerning the human foul and the probability of a future ftate; and if the genuine conclufions of natural religion on this fubject are anywhere to be found, one would naturally look for them in the writings of those men whofe genius and virtues did honour to human nature. Yet it is a fact which cannot be controverted, that the philofophers held fuch notions concerning the fubftance of the foul and its ftate after death as could afford no rational fupport to fuffering virtue, (fee METAPHYSICS, Part III. chap. 4). Socrates is indeed an exception. Confining himfelf to the fludy of ethies, and delpiting those metaphyfical fubtilties with which fo many others had bewildered themselves, that excellent perfon inferred by the common moral arguments (fee MORAL PHILOSOPHY, no 232-246), that the reality of a future ftate of rewards and punishments is in the highest degree probable. He was not, however, at all times abfolutely convinced of this important truth; for a little before his death he faid to fome who were about him, "I am now about to leave this world, and ye are ftill to continue in it; which of Plato in us have the better part allotted us, God only knows *." Apolog. Sec. And again, at the end of his most admired discourse concern. ing the immortality of the foul, delivered at a time when he must have been ferious, he said to his friends who came to pay their laft vifit, "I would have you to know that I have great hopes that I am now going into the company of good men; yet I would not be too peremptory and confiPlato in dent concerning it §." Pbad. 66 Next to Socrates, Cicero was perhaps the most respectable of all the philofophers of antiquity; and he feems to have ftudied this great queftion with uncommon care: yet what were his conclufions? After retailing the opinions of various fages of Greece, and fhowing that fome held the foul to be the heart; others, the blood in the heart; fome, the brain; others, the breath; one, that it was harmony; another, that it was number; one, that it was nothing at all; and another, that it was a certain quintessence without a name, but which might properly be called he gravely adds, "Harum fen. tentiarum quæ vera fit, Deus aliquis viderit: quæ verifimil. lima, magna queftio eft §." He then proceeds to give his own opinion; which, as we have shown elfewhere, was, that b. 1.59, the foul is part of God. Tufe. 10,11, To us who know by other evidence that the foul is immortal, and that there will be a future ftate in which all the obliquities of the prefent fhall be made ftraight, the argument drawn from the moral attributes of God, and the unequal diftribution of the good things of this life, appears to have the force of demonftration. Yet none of us will furely pretend to fay that his powers of reafoning are greater Without tion we doubted No one, we hope, will fufpect us of an impious attempt should to weaken the evidence of a future ftate, God forbid! The have expectation of that ftate is the only support of virtue and like them. religion; and we think the arguments which we have stated Ibid. elfewhere, and referred to on the prefent occafion, make the reality of it fo highly probable, that, though there were no other evidence, he would act a very foolish part who should confine his attention wholly to the prefent life. But we do not apprehend that we can injure the caufe either of virtue or of religion, by confeffing, that those arguments which left doubts in the minds of Socrates and Cicero appear not to us to have the force of complete demonftration of that life and immortality which our Saviour brought to light through, the gospel. 52 no means Were the cafe, however, otherwife; were the arguments Natural re which the light of nature affords for the immortality of the ligion has human foul as abfolutely convincing as any geometrical de of certainmonftration-natural religion would ftill be defective; be-ly reconcaufe it points out no method by which such as have offend-ciling the ed God may be certainly reflored to his favour, and to the Deity to hopes of happiness which by their fin they had loft. The finners. he who knows whereof we are made would show himself placable to finners, and that he would find fome way to be reconciled, might perhaps be reasonably inferred from the confideration of his benevolence difplayed in his works. But when we come to inquire more particularly how we are to be reconciled, and whether a propitiation will be re.quired, nature ftops fhort, and expects with impatience the aid of fome particular revelation. That God will receive. returning finners, and accept of repentance inftead of perfect. obedience, cannot be certainly known by thofe to whom he has not declared that he will. For though repentance be the most probable, and indeed the only means of reconciliation which nature fuggefts; yet whether he, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, will not require fomething further before he reftore finners to the privileges which they have forfeited, mere human reafon has no way of discovering. From nature therefore arifes no fufficient comfort to finners, but anxious and endless folicitude about the means of appeafing the Deity. Hence thofe divers ways of facrifi-. cing, and thofe numberlefs fuperftitions which overspread the heathen world, but which were fo little fatisfactory to the, wifer part of mankind, that, even in thofe days of darkness, the philofophers frequently declared that, in their opinion, thofe rites and oblations could avail nothing towards appeafing the wrath of an offended God, or making their prayers acceptable to him. Hence Socrates and one of his dif ciples are reprefented by Plato as expecting a perfon divine- In Aloibily commiffioned to inform them whether facrifices be ac-ades. ceptable to the Deity, and as refolving to offer no more till that perfon's arrival, which they piously hoped might be at no great diftance. 53 This darkness of the pagan world, which the beft of men Thefe who lived under it fo pathetically deplored, is to us who doubts relive under the funfhine of the golpel happily removed by moved by the various revelations contained in the fcriptures of the Old the Scrip and New Teftaments. Thefe taken together, and in the order in which they were given, exhibit fuch a display of providence, such a system of doctrines, and fuch precepts of 5 practical. tures. |