our happiness hereafter? Why should we fuppofe that our hearing and feeing will not be gratified with thofe objects which are moit agreeable to them, and which they cannot meet with in these lower regions ⚫ of nature; objects, which neither eye hath feen, nor ear. heard, nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive? "I knew a man in Chrift. (says St. Paul speaking of himfelf) above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, L cannot tell, or whether out of the body, I cannot tell :. "God knoweth) fuch a one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew fuch a man, (whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth) how that he was caught up into paradife, and heard unSpeakable words, which it is not poffible for a man to utter. By this is meant that what he heard was fo infinitely different from any thing which he had heard in this world, that it was impoffible to exprefs • it in fuch words as might convey a notion of it to his hearers.

It is very natural for us to take delight in inquiries concerning any foreign country, where we are fome time or other to make our abode; and as we all hope to be admitted into this glorious place, "it is both a laudable and ufeful curiofity, to get what informations we can of it,, while we make ufe of revelation for our guide. When thefe everlafting "doors fhall be opened to us, we may be fure that the "pleasures and beauties of this place will infinitely tranfcend our prefent hopes and expectations, and that the glorious appearance of the throne of God" will rife infinitely beyond whatever we are able to • conceive of it. We might here entertain ourselves with many other fpeculations on this fubject, from "thofe feveral hints which we find of it in the holy Scriptures; as whether there may not be different manfions and apartments of glory, to beings of dif "ferent natures; whether as they excel one another in perfection, they are not admitted nearer to the throne of the Almighty, and enjoy greater manifestations of his prefence; whether there are not folemn

".

6.

times and occafions, when all the multitude of heaven celebrate the prefence of their Maker in more extraordinary forms of praife and adoration; as Adam, though he had continued in a ftate of innocence, would, in the opinion of our divines, have kept holy the Sabbath-day, in a more particular manner than any other of the feven. Thefe, and the like fpeculations, we may very innocently indulge, fo long as we make use of them to infpire us with a defire of becoming inhabitants of this delightful place.

I have in this, and in two foregoing letters, treated on the most serious fubject that can employ the mind of man, the omniprefence of the Deity; a fubject which, if poffible, fhould never depart from our meditations. We have confidered the divine Being, • as he inhabits infinitude, as he dwells among his. • works, as he is present to the mind of man, and as he difcovers himself in a more glorious manner among the regions of the bleft. Such a confideration fhould be kept awake in us at all times, and in all places, and poffefs our minds with a perpetual awe and reverence. It should be intervoven • with all our thoughts and perceptions, and become one with the confcioufnefs of our own being. It is not to be reflected on in the coldness of philofophy, but ought to fink us into the lowest proftration before him, who is fo aftonishingly great, wonderful, • and holy.'

The prefent life to be confidered only as it may conduce to the happiness of a future one. [Spect. No. 575.]

A

LEWD young fellow feeing fellow feeing an aged hermit go. by him barefoot, Father, fays he, you are in a very miferable condition if there is not another world. True, Jon, faid the hermit; but what is thy condition if there is? Man is a creature defigned for two different

ftates

ftates of being, or rather, for two different lives. His firft life is fhort and tranfient: his fecond permanent and lafting. The question we are all concerned in is this, in which of those two lives is our chief interest to make ourselves happy? or, in other words, whether we should endeavour to fecure to ourselves the pleasures and gratifications of a life which is uncertain and precarious, and at its utmoft length of a very inconfiderable duration; or to secure to ourselves the pleafures of a life that is fixed and fettled, and will never end? Every man, upon the first hearing of this queftion, knows very well which fide of it he ought to close with. But however right we are in theory, it is plain that in practice we adhere to the wrong fide of the question. We make provifions for this life as though it were never to have an end, and for the other life as though it were never to have a beginning.

Should a fpirit of fuperior rank, who is a ftranger to human nature, accidentally alight upon the earth, and take a furvey of its inhabitants; what would his notions of us be? Would not he think that we are a fpecies of beings made for quite different ends and purpofes than what we really are? Muft not he imagine that we were placed in this world to get riches and honours? Would not he think that it was our duty to toil after wealth, and ftation, and title? Nay, would not he believe we were forbidden poverty, by threats of eternal punishment, and enjoined to purfue our pleasures under pain of damnation? He would certainly imagine that we were influenced by a scheme of duties quite oppofite to thefe which are indeed prefcribed to us. And truly, according to fuch an imagination, he must conclude that we are a fpecies of the moft obedient creatures in the universe; that we are conftant to our duty; and that we keep a fteady eye on the end for which we were fent hither.

But how great would be his aftonishment, when he learnt that we were beings not designed to exist in this world above threefcore and ten years; and that the greatest part of this bufy fpecies fall fhort even of

that

that age? How would he be loft in horror and admiration, when he should know that this fet of creatures, who lay out all their endeavours for this life, which fcarcely deferves the name of exiftence, when, I say, he fhould know that this fet of creatures are to exist to all eternity in another life, for which they make no preparations? Nothing can be a greater difgrace to reafon than that men, who are perfuaded of these two different ftates of being, fhould be perpetually employed in providing for a life of threefcore and ten years, and neglecting to make provifion for that, which, after many myriads of years, will be ftill new, and ftill beginning; efpecially when we confider that our endeavours for making ourselves great, or rich, or honourable, or whatever elfe we place our happiness in, may, after all, prove unfuccessful; whereas, if we conftantly and fincerely endeavour to make ourfelves happy in the other life, we are fure that our endeavours will fucceed, and that we shall not be difappointed of our hope.

The following question is started by one of the fchoolmen. Suppofing the whole body of the earth were a great ball or mafs of the fineft fand, and that a fingle grain or particle of this fand fhould be annihilated every thoufand years. Suppofing then that you had it in your choice to be happy all the while this prodigious mafs of fand was confuming by this flow method till there was not a grain of it left, on condition you were to be miferable for ever after; or fuppofing that you might be happy for ever after, on condition you might be miferable till the whole mass of fand were thus annihilated at the rate of one fand in á thousand years: which of these two cafes would you make your choice?

It must be confeffed in this cafe, fo many thoufands of years are to the imagination as a kind of eternity, tho' in reality they do not bear fo great a proportion to that duration which is to follow them, as an unit does to the greateft number which you can put together in figures, or as one of those fands to the fuppofed.

heap.

heap. Reason therefore tells us, without any manner of hefitation, which would be the better part in this choice. However, as I have before intimated, our reafon might in fuch a cafe be fo overfet by the imagination as to difpofe fome perfons to fink under the confideration of the great length of the first part of this duration, and of the great diftance of that fecond duration, which is to fucceed it. The mind, I fay, might give itself up to that happiness which is at hand, confidering that it is fo very near, and that it would laft fo very long. But when the choice we actually have before us, is this, whether we will chufe to be happy for the space of only threefcore and ten, nay, perhaps, of only twenty or ten years, I might fay of only a day or an hour, and miferable to all eternity; or on the contrary, miferable for this fhort term of years, and happy for a whole eternity; what words are fufficient to exprefs that folly and want of confideration which in fuch a cafe makes a wrong choice ?

I here put the cafe even at the worst, by fuppofing (what feldom happens) that a courfe of virtue makes us miferable in this life: but if we fuppofe (as it generally happens) that virtue will make us more happy even in this life than a contrary courfe of vice; how can we fufficiently admire the ftupidity or madnefs of those perfons who are capable of making fo abfurd a choice?

Every wife man, therefore, will confider this life only as it may conduce to the happiness of the other, and chearfully facrifice the pleafures of a few years to thofe of an eternity.

On the Immortality of the Soul.

I

[Spect. No. 111.]

Was yesterday walking alone in one of my friend's woods, and loft myfelf in it very agreeably, as I was running over in my mind the feveral arguments that establish this great point, which is the bafis of

morality,