THE arguments advanced in the foregoing discourse, are, I conceive, sufficient to show, that, as far as we are able to comprehend the nature of the human soul, we have reason to conclude it is a distinct and an immaterial substance, and of course capable of surviving the dissolution of the body. But these, as I have already observed, are far from being the only or the most decisive proofs of a future existence. There are other still plainer and more satisfactory evidences of that important truth, discoverable even by the light of nature, which I shall now proceed to open and lay

I. Consider, in the first place, the many excellent faculties of the human soul; the imagination, memory, reason, judgment, will; the vast variety and rapidity of its operations; the power it has of receiving

such a multitude of ideas from external objects; of depositing them in the storehouse of the memory for many years; of drawing them out again for use whenever it thinks fit; of comparing, arranging, combining, and diversifying them in such an infinite number of ways; of reflecting, meditating, and reasoning upon them; of comprehending such a prodigious number of different arts and sciences; of creating the exquisite beauties and refined delights of music, painting, and poetry; of carrying on, through a long train of dependent propositions, the most abstruse and intricate speculations; of extracting, from a few plain, self-evident axioms, a demonstration of the most sublime and astonishing truths; of penetrating into every part of the material, the vegetable, the animal, the intellectual world; of conceiving and executing so many wise and beneficial designs; of turning its

eye inward upon itself; of observing and regulating its own movements; of refining, purifying, and exalting its affections; of bringing itself, by a proper course of discipline and self-government, to bear with patience the acutest pains and the heaviest afflictions; to face with intrepidity the greatest dangers; to restrain its strongest passions; to resist the most inviting temptations; to exert, upon occasion, the most heroic fortitude; to renounce, for the sake of conscience and of duty, all that this world has to give; to abstract itself from all earthly enjoyments; to live as it were out of the body; to carry its views and hopes to the remotest futurity, and raise itself to the contemplation and the love of divine and spiritual things. Consider, now, whether it be probable, that a being possessed of such astonishing powers as these, should be designed for this life only; should be sent so richly furnished into the world merely to live a few years in anxiety and misery, and then to perish for ever? Is it credible, is it possible, that the mighty soul of a Newton should share exactly the same. fate with the vilest insect that crawls upon the ground; that, after having laid open the

mysteries of nature, and pushed its discoveries almost to the very boundaries of the universe, it should on a sudden have all its lights at once extinguished, and sink into everlasting darkness and insensibility? To what purpose all this waste and profusion of talents, if their operation is to be limited to this short period of existence? Why are we made so like immortal beings, if mortality is to be our lot? What need was there, that this little vessel of ours should be fitted out and provided with stores sufficient to carry it through the vast ocean of eternity, if, at the same time, its voyage was meant to be confined within the narrow straits of the present life? Instinct would have served for this purpose as well as reason; would have conducted us through the world with as much safety, and with less pain, than all our boasted intellectual endowments.

II. Another presumption in favour of a future state, is the perpetual progress of the soul towards perfection, and its endless capacity of further improvements and larger acquisitions. This argument has been set in so strong and beautiful a light, by one of our

own.

finest writers*, that it is hardly possible to do justice to it in any other words than his "A brute," says he, " arrives at a point of perfection, which he can never pass. In a few years, he has all the endowments he is capable of, and were he to live ten thousand more he would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments; were her faculties full blown and incapable of further enlargement; I could imagine she might fall away insensibly, and then drop at once into a state of annihilation. But who can believe that a thinking being, which is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, must perish at her first setting out, and be stopped short in the very beginning of her inquiries? Death overtakes her, while there is yet an unbounded prospect of knowledge open to her view, whilst the conquest over her passions is still incomplete, and much is still wanted of that perfect standard of virtue, which she is always aiming at, but can never reach. Would an infinitely wise Being create