could not, in this fituation, die with any reasonable profpect of living again. The conftitution of man very much refembles that of other animals. They have the fame fenfes of body, and the fame faculties of mind, differing from us only in degree; man being more intelligent than they, and therefore capable of greater refinement in his paffions and affections, and having greater comprehenfion of mind, so as to take into his view more of the past, and of the future, together with the prefent, than they can. This, however, amounts to no difference in kind; and the difference that we fee among other animals in these respects, is as great as that which subsists between us and the highest of them; the oyster, for example, and the elephant. Confequently, it would be natural to conclude that one fate awaits us all, the fuperior kinds of animals as well as the inferior, and man as well as them all. When we die, we are equally subject to corruption, and a total diffolution of the parts of which we confift, without any appearance of their ever being re-affembled, and re-arranged as they they were before, or of any other Being, in a new form, resulting from them. Death is a great veil, which no man can draw afide, and beyond which all is darkness. But were it poffible, by the force of any reasoning, to discover the probability of a future state (and few perfons will pretend that they can, by the light of nature, arrive at certainty with refpect to it) the reasons, whatever they were, that made so great an event probable to one, might give no fatif"faction to another. Befides, the magnitude of the question is fuch, and the intereft we have in the folution of it is fo great, that nothing but the ftrongest and cleareft evidence could give general fatisfaction with respect to it. Nothing less than a positive affurance from our Maker himself could answer this purpose. And this (which if any thing could be faid to require it, did fo) revelation informs us. has been given, and in such a manner as must give entire fatisfaction to every unprejudiced mind, life and immortality being fully brought to light by the gospel, as I hope to evince in the prosecution of this discourse. It could not be expected that the Divine Being fhould give this affurance to every individual of the human race. It would be fufficient if it was given to fome, to be communicated, with proper evidence of the fact, to others; and unless the communication was made to every perfon, this is all that could be done in the cafe. For this truth is of fuch a nature as to be incapable of strict, or mathematical, demonftration, such as that of twice two making four, but only of fuch proof as hiftorical facts are capable of. But the evidence of a future ftate fhould not be undervalued on that account; because there are no kinds of truth of which we have a more firm perfuafion than of those of the hiftorical kind; as for example, that fuch a perfon as Julius Cæfar once lived at Rome, and that there exifts at present such a city as Conftantinople. What propofitions do we believe more firmly than we do thefe? Now if our faith in a future life can be fhewn to be as well founded as thefe are, it is quite fufficient for the purpose; because it will be a faith that men will not fcruple to act upon. They would then live as as expectants of immortality, and would do nothing that should imply a doubt of a future state. That is, they would lead virtuous lives, which is the end of all religion. In what manner God was pleafed to impart to mankind the first information concerning a future life we are not now acquainted, as we have no account of it in the writings of Mofes, or in any other writings now extant. But we see the effect of it in the Jews, who to this day are all firm believers in it; and, with a few exceptions, appear always to have believed in it. We may, therefore, prefume that, in fome period of time paft, mankind, or at least the ancestors of that nation, had fatisfactory evidence of the Divine Being having given them this affurance. Because it is an idea that we cannot well fuppofe would ever have occurred to men themselves. That there may be fomething in man that continues to exift, notwithstanding the change that takes place in him at death, may be imagined. But, upon that principle, man could not properly be faid to die at all. He He only continues to exift in fome other form or manner. But that man fhould really die, and after continuing in a state of death, come to life again at a future period, that is, that there should be a proper refurreclion of the dead, which is the faith of the Jews and Chriftians (being, I must now prefume, the clear doctrine of both the Old and the New Teftament) I will venture to fay muft ever have appeared in the highest degree improbable, and therefore incredible. Nothing but the exprefs affurance of the great Being who made men could have fatisfied them that he would revive them thofe circumftances. The original record of the communication of this most important truth having been loft, it pleafed the Divine Being to renew it by Jefus Chrift, the founder of our religion; who not only afferted the doctrine, as from God, and confirmed it by miracles, or fuch works as no man could have done if God had not been with him; but who himfelf actually died and rofe again, as a proof of the reality of the thing. And this feems to have been all the evidence X |