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If any thing looks like a recompence of calamitous virtue on this fide the grave, it is either an affurance that thereby we obtain the favor and protection of Heaven, and fhall, whatever befals us in this, in another life meet with a juft return; or else that applause and reputation, which is thought to attend virtuous actions. The former of thefe, our Free-thinkers, out of their fingular wifdom and benevolence to mankind, endeavour to erafe from the minds of men. The latter can never be juftly diftributed in this life, where fo many ill actions are reputable, and so many good actions disesteemed or misinterpreted; where fubtle hypocrify is placed in the most engaging light, and modest virtue lies concealed; where the heart and the foul are hid from the eyes of men, and the eyes of men are dimmed and vitiated. Plato's fenfe in relation to this point is contained in his Gorgias, where he introduces Socrates speaking after this manner.

"It was in the reign of Saturn provided by a law, which the gods have fince continued down to this time, That they who have lived virtuously and piously upon earth, fhould after death enjoy a life full of happiness, in certain islands appointed for the habitation of the blessed: but that fuch as had lived wickedly fhould go into the receptacle of damned fouls, named Tartarus, there to fuffer the punishments they deserved. But in all the reign of Saturn, and in the beginning of the reign of Jove, living judges were appointed, by whom each perfon was judged in his lifetime, in the fame day on which he was to die. The confequence of

which was, that they often paffed wrong judgements. Pluto, therefore, who prefided in Tartarus, and the guardians of the bleffed islands, finding that, on the other fide, many unfit perfons were fent to their respective dominions, complained to Jove, who promised to redress the evil. He added, the reafon of these unjuft proceedings is that men are judged in the body. Hence may conceal the blemishes and imperfections of their minds by beauty, birth and riches: not to men tion, that at the time of trial, there are crowds of witnesses to atteft their having lived well. Thefe things mislead the judges, who being themselves also of the number of the living are furrounded each with his body, as with a veil thrown over his mind. For the future, therefore, it is my intention that men do not come on their trial till after death, when they fhall' appear before the judge, difrobed of all their corporeal ornaments. The judge himself too fhall be a pure unveiled spirit, beholding the very foul, the naked foul, of the party before him. With this view, I have already conftituted my fons, Minos and Rhadamanthus, judges, who are natives of Afia; and acus, a native of Europe. These after death, fhall hold their court in a certain meadow, from which there are two roads, leading the one to Tartarus, the other to the islands of the bleffed."

From this, as from numberless other paffages of his writings, may be seen Plato's opinion of a future ftate. A thing therefore in regard to us fo comfortable, in itself so just and excellent, a thing

fo agreeable to the analogy of nature, and fo univerfally credited by all orders and ranks of mên, of all nations and ages, what is it that should move a few men to reject? Surely there must be fome thing of prejudice in the cafe. I appeal to the fecret thoughts of a Freethinker, if he does not argue within himself after this manner: The fenfes and faculties I enjoy at present are visibly designed to repair, or preserve the body from the injuries it is liable to in its present circumftances. But in an eternal state, where no decays are to be repaired, no outward injuries to be fenced against, where there are no flesh and bones, nerves or bloodveffels, there will certainly be none of the fenfes. And that there fhould be a ftate of life without the fenfes is inconceivable.

But as this manner of reasoning proceeds from a poverty of imagination, and narrowness of foul in those who use it, I fhall endeavour to remedy thofe defects, and open their views, by laying before them a cafe which, being naturally poffible, may perhaps reconcile them to the belief of what is fupernaturally revealed.

Let us fuppofe a man blind and deaf from his birth, who being grown to man's eftate, is by the dead palfy, or by fome other cafe, deprived of his feeling, tafting, and fmelling; and at the fame time has the impediment of his hearing removed, and the film taken away from his eyes: what the five senses are to us, that the touch, tafte, and smell were to him. And any other ways of perception of a more refined and extenfive nature were to

him as inconceivable, as to us thofe are, which will one day be adapted to perceive thofe things which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." And it would be just as reasonable in him tơ conclude, that the lofs of those three fenfes could not poffibly be succeeded by any new inlets of perception; as in a modern Free-thinker to imagine there can be no state of life and perception without the fenfes he enjoys at prefent. Let us further suppose the fame perfon's eyes, at their first opening, to be struck with a great variety of the moft gay and pleasing objects, and his ears with a melodious concert of vocal and inftrumental mufic: behold him amazed, ravished, tranfported; and you have some distant representation, fome faint and glimmering idea of the ecstatic state of the foul in that article in which the emerges from this fepulchre of flesh into life and immortality..

There are no speculations which please me more than those upon infinitude and eternity. I have already confidered that part of eternity which is paft, and wish to give my thoughts upon that which is to come.

This view of eternity will afford infinitely greater pleasure than the former, fince we have every one of us a concern in that which is to come: whereas a fpeculation on that which is paft is rather 'curious than useful.

Befides, we can eafily conceive it poffible for fuc'ceffive duration never to have an end; though I have obferved, that eternity which never had a beginning is altogether incomprehenfible; that is,

we can conceive an eternal duration which may be, though we cannot an eternal duration which hath been; or, if I may use the philofophical terms, we may apprehend a potential though not an actual eternity.

This notion of a future eternity, which is natural to the mind of man, is an unanswerable argument that he is a being defigned for it: efpecially if we confider that he is capable of being virtuous or vicious here; that he hath faculties improvable to all eternity; and by a proper or wrong employment ofthem, may be happy or miserable throughout that infinite duration. Our idea indeed of this eternity is not of an adequate or fixed na ture, but is perpetually growing and enlarging itfelf toward the object, which is too big for human comprehenfion. As we are not in the beginning of existence, fo fhall we always appear to ourselves as if we were for ever entering upon it. After a million or two of centuries, fome confiderable things already paft, may flip out of our memory: which, if it be not ftrengthened in a wonderful manner, may poffibly forget that ever there was a fun or planets. And yet notwithstanding the long race that we fhall then have run, we fhall ftill imagine ourselves juft ftarting from the goal, and find no proportion between that space which we know had a beginning, and what we are fure will never have an end.

Here follows a tranflation of the fpeech of Cato on this occafion, which for conciseness, purity, and elegance of phrafe cannot be fufficiently admired."

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