Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

CHAP. III.

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

ALL men pursue Good; and would be happy, if they knew how; not happy for minutes, and miserable for hours; but happy, if possible, 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 transient and uncertain: and if so, an object of lowest value, which can little deserve either our attention or inquiry. But if there be a better good, such a good as we are seeking; like every other thing it must be derived from some cause, and that cause must be either external, internal, or mixed, in as much as, except these three, there is no other possible. Now a steady, durable good cannot be derived from an external cause, by reason all derived from externals must fluctuate, as they fluctuate. By the same rule, not from a mixture of the two; because the part which is external will proportionally destroy it's essence. What then remains but the cause internal; the very cause which we have supposed, 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 soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to it's perfection without a possibility of ever arriv ing at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have written on this subject, though it seems to me to carry a great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created! Are such

abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection, that 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, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of farther enlargement, I could imagine she might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progress of improveme and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of her Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries?

[ocr errors]

Man, considered in his present state, seems only sent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him.

He does not seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their business in a short life. The silkworm, after having spun 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 subdue his passions, establish his soul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage. Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligencies, such shortlived reasonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be gratified? How can we find that wisdom, which shines through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next; and believing, that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick succession, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterward to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity?

There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant consideration in religion, than this of the perpetual pro

gress which the soul makes toward the perfection of it's nature without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the Soul as going on from strength to strength; to consider, that she is to shine for ever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition, which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a prospect pleasing to God himself, to see his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him by greater degrees of resemblance.

Methinks this single consideration of the progress of a finite spirit to perfection will be sufficient, to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in superior. That cherub, which now appears as a God to a human soul, knows very well, that the period will come about in eternity, when the human soul shall be as perfect as he himself now is: nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfec tion, as much as she now falls short of it. It is true, the higher nature still advances, and by that means preserves his dis tance and superiority in the scale of being; but he knows, that, how high soever the station is of which he stands possessed at present, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and shine forth in the same degree of glory.

With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhausted sources of perfection! We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory, that will be always in reserve for him. The soul, considered in relation to it's Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines, that may draw nearer to another for all eternity without a possibility of touching it and can there be a thought so transporting, as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to Him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of happiness? SPECTATOR.

CHAP. V.

ON THE BEING OF A GOD.

RETIRE;-The world shut out;-Thy thoughts call

home :

Imagination's airy wing repress ;-.

Lock up thy senses;-Let no passions stir ;-
Wake all to Reason let her reign alone;
Then, in thy soul's deep silence, and the depth
Of Nature's silence, midnight, thus inquire:

What am I? and from whence? I nothing know,
But that I am; and, since I am, conclude
Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought still had been: Eternal there must be.-
But what eternal ?-Why not human race?
And Adam's ancestors without an end?—
That's hard to be conceiv'd; since ev'ry link
Of that long-chain'd succession is so frail:
Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rise;
I'm still quite out at sea; nor see the shore.
Whence earth, and these bright orbs?-Eternal too?
Grant matter was eternal: still these orbs

Would want some other Father-much design
Is seen in all their motions, all their makes.
Design implies intelligence, and art

That can't be from themselves-or man; that art,
Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?
And nothing greater, yet allow'd than man.-
Who motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot through vast masses of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? Then each atom,
Asserting it's indisputable right

To dance, would form a universe of dust.

Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms,
And boundless flights, from shapeless and repos'd?
Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,

Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In mathematics? Has it fram'd such laws,
Which, but to guess, a Newton made immortal
If art, to form ; and counsel, to conduct;
And that with greater far, than human skill,
Reside not in each block;a GODHEAD reigns:-
And, if a GOD there is, that God how great!

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« ZurückWeiter »