ings on purpose for suffering, and to be losers by their existence, without any fault of their own. Upon this footing, 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 made a better provision for the inferior creatures than for us. And still more unlikely, that he has given the advantage upon the whole to the most worthless part of our species, and exposed the best of mankind to unavoidable distress and hardship, as is conspicuously the case in innumerable instances in this world. For in the case of tyranny and persecution, it is evident, that all that the good man has to support him under his cruel sufferings, is the testimony of his conscience; the persuasion of the Divine approbation; and the hope of a future recompence of honour and happiness for the pain and shame he has suffered here. But to say there is no future state of retribution, is to say, That He, who placed conscience in the human breast, did so for the sole purpose of making the best of men the most unhappy; that He, who most loves, and best knows the sincere and upright, will show no favor to the sincere and upright, but the contrary; and consequently, that virtue is something worse than an empty name, being a real and substantial misfortune to its most faithful votary. To say the truth, were the present state the whole of the human existence, it is evident, that to give up life for the cause of religion, so far from being virtue, the highest pitch of virtue, would be directly vicious; because it would be throwing away our existence for an absolute nothing. Annihilate the reality of a future state, and christianity is a delusion; consequently not to be suffered for.

There is, there must be, hereafter a state, in which the present irregularities shall be rectified, and defects supplied; in which vice and folly shall universally, by established laws of the Divine economy, sink to disgrace and punishment, and wisdom and virtue of course, rise universally triumphant, and prevail throughout the universe. For it cannot be but that what is suitable to the character of the universal Governor, should have the advantage, upon the whole, in a world, of which he is the absolute and irresistible Lord, and that what opposes perfect rectitude armed with Omnipotence, must sooner or later be

crushed before him.

For he does in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, whatever seems to him good, and none can stay his hand.

The virtuous and pious soul has, above all, such evi. dence for its own immortality, as it cannot doubt. Purified from every sordid desire, purged from every dreg of earth, and become wholly spiritual and angelic, whose prospects are large, whose views sublime, and whose dis. position godlike; such a soul already feels her own immor. tality. Whilst in the body, she is sensible of her own independence upon the body, and superiority to it. While chained to flesh, and imprisoned in clay, she feels within herself celestial vigour, declaring her noble origin. Attracted by the Divine influence, which in degenerate spirits is clogged and overpowered by sensual appetite and sordid passion, she raises her desires to that better world, for which she was formed. She pants for liberty; she breathes after that state of heavenly light and real life, which suits her noble powers and elevated disposition; she spreads her impatient wing; she plumes herself for flight; she darts her angelic eye, as it were, athwart eternity; her vast imagination already grasps futurity: she leaves behind, in thought, this lessening speck of matter, and all its vanities; she hangs upon the verge of time, and only waits the powerful call, which spoke her into being, to seize the future world, the glories of the resurrection, to leave those lower regions, and expatiate at large through boundless space, to view the immensity of Nature, and to soar with choirs of seraphim, to present herself before the eternal throne.

SECTION IV.

Reasonbleness and Necessity of the Connexion between the Behaviour of moral Agents and their Happiness. Discipline the only means for bringing moral Agents voluntarily to pursue Virtue.

HAVING already seen, that it was necessary to the very idea of a perfect system, that there should be a proper subordination, a scale, rising by easy and just degrees, of the various ranks of creatures; it is evident, that there

must have been such a creature as man, that is, a species to fill the place which he posseses. And it is plain, that as his place is immediately above the brute, and below the angelic nature, he could not possibly have been formed otherwise than he is. He could not be superior to the animal rank, without having powers and faculties superior to theirs. It is that which gives him his superiority over them. Nor could he have been inferior to the angelic order of beings, without falling short of their powers and faculties. It is the very thing which places him beneath them. Man, or whatever creature should have been made to fill up the chasm between the angelic and the animal natures, must have been exactly what we find our species actually is. For without such a rank as man, the moral system could not have been perfect, consequently could not have been at all: for it is impossible that an absolutely perfect author should produce an imperfect work. So that there is no room left to complain, that by creating man in such a station, it was necessary he should be endowed with nobler powers and faculties than the brutes, he comes to be put in a more elevated and more precarious state. It is true that very few of the brutes are likely to fall short of the happiness destined for them, having, as already observed, but few chances of missing 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 immense superiority of happiness to which a human mind may, with proper attention, rise, a very great overbalance for all the disadvantages our species labour 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 species, deliberately choose the latter, in which he knew it was impossible he should ever attain any considerable degree of perfection and happiness, rather than the former, in which he was sure, if he was not wanting to himself he might rise to greatness and felicity inconceivable? Would any rational creature make this absurd choice merely upon the consideration, that if he was of a species endowed with liberty, it was possible he might be so foolish as to neglect his own interest, and with open eyes run into ruin and misery? What no reasonable being would choose, let not presumptuous 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 station with such propriety as is necessary for a reasonable being to study, who is desirous of attaining his own perfection and happiness in the only way in which they are attainable?

If the perfect concurrence of reasonable beings, as well as others, with the Divine scheme, was necessary to the very notion of a regular universal system, with an universal 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 disposition and practice to the Divine scheme, should by the positive ordination of the Ruler of the world be closely connected with their character and behaviour. And if it be impossible to conceive a plan of universal economy laid by an universal and perfect mind, that should not be suitable to his own necessary nature and character, but founded in mere arbitrary will; it is likewise impossible to conceive a system in which the habitual conformity of reasonable beings to the grand scheme of the Universal Governor should not naturally, and as it were of itself, produce happiness. The Divine scheme of government is founded, not in arbitrary will; but in the eternal and unchangeable rectitude of the Divine Nature. And therefore it was as much an impossibility that it should be contrary to what it is, or that conformity to it should finally produce any thing but happiness, or irregularity any thing but misery; as that the Divine Nature, which is necessarily what it is, should have been otherwise. So that, till the time comes, when universal regularity shall have the same natural tendency to promote order, perfection, and happiness, as universal conformity to the scheme of the universe; when the Divine Will comes to be directly contrary to all the moral perfections of his nature, till impossibilities become possible, and direct contradictions the same; till the time comes, when all these shall happen, there can be no chance for the happiness of any reasoning being, who does not study to conform his disposition and practice to the general scheme of the Ruler of the world.

Let daring impious man hear this and tremble.

That there is a rectitude in conduct, which is indepen

dent upon connected happiness, seems so evident, that one would wonder how some writers have persuaded themselves, and laboured to persuade others, That the only good, or rectitude of an action, is its tendency to produce happiness. After what I have said to show the natural, as well as judicial connexion between virtue and happiness, I must declare, that to me it appears evident, That rectitude is prior to, and independent upon, all tendency to produce happiness. To prove this very briefly, let it be proposed to a person, that he have his choice to perform some noble action, such as delivering his country, by one or two methods, the former of which shall oblige him to make use of a piece of dissimulation, which shall hurt no creature, but if he chooses the latter, he may save his country without the least deviation from truth. Ought a man of integrity to hesitate one moment which of the two methods he would choose? And does not the preference of the latter to the former, the consequences of both being the same, show plainly a rectitude in mere veracity, independent of its producing happiness? Again, were a traveller to see some strange sight, which never had been, or could be seen, by any other, would it not evidently be better that he gave an account of it on his return, exactly in every circumstance as it really was, than that he should in the smallest circumstance deviate from truth; though such deviation should have no kind of effect upon any person in the world? Farther, is it not certain, beyond all possibility of doubt, that the Supreme Being acts always from the greatest and best motives, and according to the wisest and most perfect rules, at the same time that his happiness is, has been, and will be, necessarily at all moments, from eternity to eternity, the same, unchangeable, and absolutely perfect. Is the whole rectitude of created beings the pursuit of happiness? And is there no foundation for Divine rectitude? Is it not rectitude in a prince, or a father, to wish the happiness of his people, or children, without regard to his own happiness? Is not benevolence the more truly commendable for its being disinterested? Whereas, upon the scheme of placing the whole of rectitude in pursuing the greatest happiness, it ought to be quire the reverse. Ought not a good man to do what is right, rather than the contrary, if he were sure, that himself