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ture, are rather fitted to serve the neceffities of a vile body, than to minister to his understanding; and, from the little spot to which he is chained, he can frame but wandering gueffes concerning the innumerable worlds of light that encompass him, which, though in themselves of a prodigious bigness, do but just glimmer in the remote spaces of the heavens; and when with a great deal of time and pains, he hath labored a little way up the steep afcent of truth, and beholds with pity the groveling multitude beneath, in a moment his foot flides, and he tumbles down headlong into the grave.

Thinking on this, I am obliged to believe, in juftice to the Creator of the world, that there is another state when man shall be better fituated for contemplation, or rather have it in his power to remove from object to object, and from world to world; and be accommodated with senses, and other helps, for making the quickest and most amazing discoveries. How does fuch a genius as Sir Ifaac Newton, from amidst the darkness that involves human understanding, break forth, and appear like one of another species! The yast machine we inhabit, lies open to him, he seems not unacquainted with the general laws that govern it; and while with the transport of a philosopher he beholds and admires the glorious work, he is capable of paying at once a more devout and more rational homage to his Maker. But alas! how narrow is the profpect even of fuch a mind? and how obscure to the compass that is taken in by the ken of an angel; or of a foul but newly escaped from its imprisonment

in the body! For my part, I freely indulge my foul in the confidence of its future grandeur; it pleases me to think that I, who know so small a por tion of the works of the Creator, and with flow and painful steps creep up and down on the furface of this globe, fhall ere long fhoot away with the swiftness of imagination, trace out the hidden fprings of nature's operation, be able to keep pace with the heavenly bodies in the rapidity of their career, be a spectator of the long chain of events in the natural and moral worlds, visit the several apartments of the creation, know how they are furnished and how inhabited, comprehend the order, and measure the magnitudes and distances of those orbs, which to us seem disposed without any regular defign, and fet all in the fame circle; obferve the dependence of the parts of each fyftem, and, if our minds are big enough to grafp the theory of the several systems upon one another, from whence refults the harmony of the universe. In eternity a great deal may be done of this kind, I find it of ufe to cherish this generous ambition; for befides the fecret refreshment it diffuses through my foul, it engages me in an endeavour to improve my faculties, as well as to exercise them conformably to the rank I now hold among reafonable beings, and the hope I have of being once advanced to a more exalted ftation.

The other, and that the ultimate end of man, is the enjoyment of God, beyond which he cannot form a wifh. Dim at beft are the conceptions we have of the fupreme Being, who, as it were, keeps

his creatures in fufpenfem neither discovering, nor hiding himself; by which mtans the libertine hath a handle to difpute his existence, while the most are content to speak him fair, but in their hearts prefer every trifling fatisfaction to the favor of their Maker, and ridicule the good man for the fingularity of his choice. Will there not a time come, when a Free-thinker shall fee his impious schemes overturned, and be made a convert to the truths he hates; when deluded mortals fhall be convinced of the folly of their purfuits, and the few wife who followed the guidance of heaven, and, fcorning the blandishments of fenfe and the fordid bribery of the world, aspired to a celestial abode, shall stand poffeffed of their utmost wish in the vifion of the Creator? Here the mind heaves a thought now and then towards him, and hath fome tranfient glances of his prefence: When in the inftant it thinks itself to have the fafteft hold, the object eludes its expectations, and it falls back tired and baffled to the ground. Doubtlefs there is fome more perfect way of converfing with heavenly beings. Are not spirits capable of mutual intelligence, unless immerfed in bodies, or by their intervention? Muft fuperior natures depend on inferior for the main privilege of fociable beings, that of converfing, with, and knowing each other? What would they have done, had matter never been created? I suppose, not have lived in eternal folitude. As incorporeal substances are of a nobler order, fo, be fure, their manner of intercourfe is answerably more expedite and intimate. This

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method of communication we call intellectual vi-
fion, as fomewhat analogous to the fense of seeing,
which is the medium of our acquaintance with
this visible world. And in fome fuch way can God
make himself the object of immediate intuition to
the blessed; and as he can, it is not improbable
that he will, always condescending, in the circum-
ftances of doing it, to the weaknefs and propor-
tion of finite minds. His works but faintly re-
flect the image of his perfections, it is a fecond-
hand knowledge: To have a juft idea of him, it
may be neceffary that we fee him as he is. But
what is that? It is fomething that never entered
into the heart of man to conceive; yet, what we
can easily conceive, will be a fountain of unspeak-
able, of everlasting rapture.
All created glories
will fade and die away in his presence. Perhaps it
will be my happiness to compare the world with
the fair exemplar of it in the divine mind; perhaps
to view the original plan of thofe wife defigns that
have been executing in a long fucceffion of ages.
Thus employed in finding out his works, and con-
templating their author, how fhall I fall proftrate and
adoring, my body fwallowed up in the immenfity of
matter, my mind in the infinitude of his perfections

In compaffion to those gloomy mortals, who by their unbelief are rendered incapable of feeling thofe impreffions of joy and hope, which the celebration of the glorious Eafter festival naturally leaves on the mind of a Chriftian, I fhall endeavour to evince, that there are grounds to expect a future ftate, without fuppofing in the reader any

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faith at all, not even the belief of a Deity. Let the most steadfast unbeliever open his eyes, and take a furvey of the fenfible world, and then fay if there be not a connexion and adjustment, an exact and constant order difcoverable in all the parts of it. Whatever be the cause, the thing itself is evident to all our faculties. Look into the animal fyftem, the paffions, fenfes, and locomotive powers; is not the like contrivance and propriety obfervable in these too? Are they not fitted to certain ends, and are they not by nature directed to proper objects?

Is it poffible then that the smallest bodies fhould, by a management fuperior to the wit of man, be difpofed in the moft excellent: manner agreeable to their respective natures; and yet the fpirits or fouls of men be neglected, or managed by fuch tules as fall fhort of man's understanding? Shall every other paffion be rightly placed by nature, and fhall that appetite of immortality natural to all mankind be alone mifplaced, or defigned to be fruftrated? Shall the induftrious application of the inferior animal powers in the meaneft vocations be answered by the ends we propofe, and fhall not the generous efforts of a virtuous mind be rewarded? In a word, fhall the corporeal world be all order and harmony, the intellectual difcord and confufion? He, who is bigot enough to be lieve these things, muft bid adieu to that natural rule of reafoning from analogy; must run counter to that maxim of common fenfe, 66 That men ought to form their judgment of things unexperienced from what they have experienced."

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