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of rule; in proportion as it prevails, it will difquiet our minds; it has nothing commendable in itself, nor will it anfwer any valuable purpofe in life.

HOLLAND,

CHAP. II.

I

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FIND myself exifting upon a little fpot, furrounded every way by an immenfe unknown expanfion. Where am I? What fort of place do I inhabit? Is it exactly accommodated, in every inftance, to my convenience? Is there no excess of cold, none of heat, to offend me? Am I never annoyed by animals, either of my own kind, or a different? Is every thing fubfervient to me, as though I had ordered all myself?-No-nothing like it-the fartheft from it poffible.-The world appears not then originally made for the private convenience of me alone?-It does not. But is it not poffible fo to accommodate it, by my own particular industry ?—If to accommodate man and beaft, Heaven and earth; if this be beyond me, 'tis not poffible-What confequence then follows? Or can there be any other than this-If I feek an intereft of my own, detached from that of others; I feek an intereft which is chimerical, and can never have existence.

How then mußt I determine? have I no intereft at all? -If I have not, I am a fool for staying here. 'Tis a fmoky houfe, and the fooner out of it the better.—But why no intereft?-Can I be contented with none, but one separate and detached ?-Is a focial interest joined with others fuch an abfurdity, as not to be admitted? The bee, the beaver, and the tribes of herding animals, are enough to convince me, that the thing is, fomewhere at leaft, poffible. How then am I affured, that 'tis not equally true of man?-Admit it; and what follows?-If fo, then Honour and Justice are my intereft-then the whole train of Moral

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Virtues are my intereft; without fome portion of which not even thieves can maintain fociety.

Bur farther fill-I ftop not here-I pursue this focial intereft, as far as I can trace my feveral relations. I pafs from my own stock, my own neighbourhood, my own nation, to the whole race of mankind, as difperfed throughout the earth.-Am I not related to them all, by tlie mutual aids of commerce; by the general intercourfe of arts and letters; by that common nature, of which we all participate Again-I must have food and clothing-Without a proper genial warmth, I inftantly perifh-Am I not related, in this view, to the very earth itself? To the diftant fun, from whose beans I derive vigour? To that ftupendous courfe and order of the infinite hoft of Heaven, by which the times and feafons ever uniformly pass on?Were this order once confounded, I could not probably furvive a moment; fo abfolutely do I depend on this common general welfare.

WHAT then have I to do, but to enlarge Virtue into Piety? Not only honour and juftice, and what I owe to man, is my intereft; but gratitude alfo, acquiefcence, refignation, adoration, and all I owe to this great polity, and its greater Governor, our common Parent.

BUT if all these moral and divine habits be my intereft, I need not furely feek for a better. I have an intereft compatible with the fpot on which I live-I have an in, tereft which may exift, without altering the plan of Providence, without mending or marring the general: order of events.—I can bear whatever happens with manlike mage nanimity; can be contented, and fully happy in the good which I poffefs; and can pafs through this turbid, this fickle, fleeting period, without. bewailings, or envyings, er murmurings, or complaints.

HARRIS.

CHAP. III.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

ALL men purfue Good; and would be happy, if they

knew how; not happy for minutes, and miferable for hours; but happy, if poffible, through every part of their existence. Either therefore there is a good of this steady durable kind, or there is none. If none, then all good must be tranfient and uncertain: and if fo, an object of lowest value, which can little deserve either our attention or inquiry. But if there be a better good, fuch a good as we are feeking; like every other thing, it must be derived from fome cause, and that caufe must be either external, internal, or mixed, in as much as, except thefe three, there is no other poffible. Now a fteady, durable good cannot be derived from an external caufe, by reafon all derived from externals muft fluctuate, as they fluctuate. By the fame rule; not from a mixture of the two; because the part which is external will. proportionally deftroy its effence. What then remains but the cause internal; the very cause which we have fuppofed, when we place the Sovereign Good in Mind-in Rectitude of Conduct? HARRIS.

CHAP. IV.

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

AMONG other excellent arguments for the immortality of the foul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progrefs of the foul to its perfection, without a poffibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have, written on this fubject, though it feems to me to carry a great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the foul,

which is capable of fuch

immenfe perfections, and of receiving new improvements

to all eternity, fhall fall away into nothing almost as foon as it is created! Are fuch abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pafs; in a few years he has all the endowments he is capa ble, of, and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the fame thing he is at prefent. Were a human foul thus at a ftand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of farther enlargement, I could imagine it might fall away infenfibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progrefs of improvement, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having juft looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few difcoveries of his infinite goodnefs, wifdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries?

MAN, confidered in his present state, feems only fent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a fucceffor, and immediately quits his poft to make room for him.

He does not feem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to confider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their bufinefs in a fhort life. The filk worm, after having fpun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But in this life, man can never take in his full measure of knowledge; nor has he time to fubdue his paffions, eftablifh his foul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the ftage. Would an infinitely wife Being make fuch glorious creatures for fo mean a purpose? can he delight in the duction of fuch abortive intelligences, fuch fhort-lived reafonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gratified? How éan we find that wisdom which fhines through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as

pro

only

only a nursery for the next, and believing that the feveral generations of rational creatures, which rise up and difappear in fuch quick fucceffion, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be tranfplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may fpread and flourish to all eternity?

THERE is not, in my opinion, a more pleafing and triumphant confideration in religion, than this of the perpetual progrefs which the foul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the foul as going on from ftrength to ftrength, to confider that fhe is to fhine for ever with new acceffions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that fhe will be ftill adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it fomething wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a profpect pleafing to God himself, to fee his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him by greater degrees of refemblance.

METHINKS this fingle confideration, of the procefs of a finite spirit to perfection, will be fufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in fuperior. That cherub, which now appears as a God to a human foul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human foul fhall be as perfect as he himself now is: :nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection, as much as fhe now falls fhort of it. It is true, the higher nature ftill advances, and by that means preferves. his distance and fuperiority in thé fcale of being; but he knows, that how high foever the ftation is of which he stands poffeffed at prefent, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and shine forth in the fame degree of glory.

WITH what aftonishment and veneration may we look into our fouls, where there are fuch hidden ftores of virtue and knowledge, fuch inexhaufted fources of perfection!

We

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