That must be the natural end of a being,a to the pursuit of which his powers are fitted, and<223> the pursuit of which is his soundest, his pleasantest state. But so are we made with regard to moral perfection; the pursuit of it therefore is our natural, our healthful, our sound or happy, as well as perfect state. So that if the preceeding account of man be true, we may justly conclude, “That tho’ the Author of nature, who hath filled his creation with all possible degrees of beauty, perfection and happiness, hath made a species of beings lower than angels; yet man, who is this species, is crowned by him with glory and honour, and invested with a very large and noble sphere of power and dominion.”80 If the preceeding account of man be true, we are made for progress in virtue. And as any machine must be made for what it is made, tho’ it cannot last forever, or whether it last but one day or a thousand years; so man must be made for what he is made, whether he is to last but threescore years, or forever. But having now found for what end man is made while he exists, let us enquire what reason can determine<224> with any probability concerning his duration; or whether there is not good ground to believe that he is made immortal, and consequently for eternal progress, in proportion to his care to improve his moral faculties. Which is the point proposed to be proved by this enquiry.
But before we proceed, it is proper to oppose to the preceeding account of man, such a state of mankind as it is reasonable to suppose must have been the product of a malignant Creator, who had no sense of, nor regard for virtue, or the good and perfection of moral beings.
But before we proceed to that, in order, by a kind of contrast, to give further light to the preceeding reasonings concerning man, let us endeavour to imagine to ourselves an idea of what the workmanship of a malicious creator must have been; in consequence of his malign disposition; for certainly we shall find that human nature must have been the very reverse of what it now is, had it been formed by a malicious Creator, or with vicious and ungenerous intention. “Would we allow room, (says an excellent author) to our invention to conceive what sort of mechanism, what constitution of senses or affections a malicious, powerful being must have formed, we should soon see how few evidences there are for any such apprehensions of the Author of this world. Our mechanism, as far as ever we have yet discovered,<225> is wholly contrived for good, no cruel device, no art or contrivance to produce evil, no such mark or scope seems even to be aimed at: But how easy had it been to have even contrived some necessary engines of misery without any advantage, some member of no use, but to be matter of torment: Senses incapable of bearing surrounding objects without pain, eyes pierced with the light, a pallat offended with the fruits of the earth; a skin as tender as the coats of the eye, and yet some more furious pain forcing us to bear these torments: Human society might have been made as the company of enemies, and yet a perpetual more violent fear might have forced us to bear it. Malice, rancour, distrust might have been our natural temper: our honour and self-approbation might have depended upon injuries, and the torments of others have been made our delight, which yet we could not have enjoyed through perpetual fear. Many such contrivances we may easily conceive, whereby an evil mind could have gratified his malice by our misery; but how unlike are they all to the structure and design of the mechanism of this world, to the mechanism and structure of our minds in particular?”a
If we pursue this thought a little further, we shall immediately perceive, that a malignant Author would have made our frame and constitution quite the reverse of what it is. All our senses would have been made so many avenues to pain alone, and inevitably such. Every increase of our understanding would have been tormentful: and we would have been made dependent one upon another, not for our good, but merely for our suffering and torture. Every pain would have been much keener and intenser, and the effects of laws which would have produced very little if any good. Laws would not have been made general for the greater good, but in order to bring about greater misery in the<226> sum of things, and no pleasure would have been intended but for a decoyer and seducer into pain.
In fine, let us run over in our minds all the laws of our frame which have been mentioned, and we shall plainly see that had we been contrived by a malicious Author for evil, not one of them would have taken place, but on the contrary their opposites: knowledge would have been equally necessary and painful; equally difficult and tormenting, and yet indispensably necessary; we would not have been allured to it by the pleasure of truth, nor fitted for it by a sense of order and a complacency in analogies and general laws. And it would have been impossible for us ever to have attained to facility, readiness and perfection in arts, sciences, or practices by frequent acts; but repeated exercises would have been lost labour, and our toil would always have been to begin again. Instead of a moral sense, we would have had an immoral one; or we would have approved good affections, and yet have suffered by them, and not virtue but vice would have been private interest, that so men might not be otherwise the same kind, than as they were impelled and fitted by their passions and powers more particularly to work one another’s misery. No form of society would have tended to produce perfection and happiness; or no other combinations and confederacies would have been possible, but those that result in disorder, ruin and misery. All nature would have filled us with horror and dread; we would not only have hated one another, but have hated ourselves and our being; and yet we should not have been able to put an end to it.
Our frame and constitution is therefore an infringible argument of the wisdom, benevolence, and excellent moral disposition of the Author of our nature, and of the generous administration that prevails over all his works. We are indeed the image of an all perfect Creator; since tho’ there be no reason to think that we hold the highest rank in the<227> scale of created intelligence, yet we are endowed with very noble powers, and are placed in an excellent situation for their improvement to a very high pitch of perfection and happiness. And thus, “are crowned with glory and honour, tho’ we be lower than the angels.”
Let us now enquire what judgment ought to be formed concerning death:
The phenomenon fairly stated.
It now remains to enquire what may be fairly and justly concluded from human nature, and the present constitution of things concerning death or the dissolution of our bodily frame? In order to determine which question, we need only state the phenomenon in a true light. And thus it stands. “We are by nature excellently equipped and furnished for attaining to a very considerable degree of moral perfection, or of knowledge and virtue by the due culture of our natural endowments; and are placed in a very proper situation for that effect, even by having relation to, and communion with the sensible world by means of our bodies: but our bodies are made liable to dissolution: they are not made to endure for ever; but must wear out, and may be destroyed while they are yet sound and vigorous, by different kinds of violence, in consequence of their structure and subjection to the laws of matter and motion.” This is the truth of the case. What judgment then is it reasonable to form of this phenomenon, or of this state and tendency of things with regard to mankind?
Futurity is wisely hid from us.
Futuritya is wisely hid from us; it is not fit that infants should know whether they are to live to<228> old age and foresee the fortunes of their lives: In general, it is not fit for us to know such good or bad accidents as are to happen us in consequence of the laws of the sensible world, or our social connexions which are in the nature of things unavoidable.
Prudens futuri temporis exitum,
Caliginosa nocte premit Deus. 81
Or as our own Poet has it,
Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib’d, their present state,
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know,
Or who could suffer being here below?
Oh! blindness to the future! kindly giv’n,