-tify his readers against the threatenings of eternal punishment.

Nations, indeed, whose pursuits or faculties are but little superior to those of the brute creation, who are influenced merely by the impulse of sense, cannot be supposed to form any other ideas of the happiness of a future state, than such as result from sensual gratification. This is il

lustrated by the opinions of the American Indians, and of the inhabitants lately discovered in the islands in the South Seas, as well as the uncultivated tribes of antiquity. The belief of a future state of happiness is universal; but, noţ so decidedly that of a future state of punishEven the most barbarous nations have

their heaven; but many have no idea of hell. Savages, who have no settled abode, and who live independent of every connection, except what is prompted by the mere instincts of nature, can have very little idea of moral obligation; and not being attached to any civil community, they never think of assigning a place of torment for the punishment of crimes committed against it. But, wherever we discover the rudiments of civil society, we find the belief of a state of future punishment has been introduced, which becomes more generally understood, in proportion

4

as

as the knowledge of moral and civil duty is extended and established. The cacodæmons, furies, mali genii, &c. of the ancients, were but the Christian notion of a Devil; and Pluto, the god of hell, and governor of infernal spirits, is nearly the same with the scriptural Satan, the prince of darkness.*

In the infancy of philosophy, it is difficult for the human mind to form any distinct idea of the existence of an immaterial being. The northern nations, without being acquainted with the Palingenesia, (Pythagoras non μετεμψύχωσιν sed παλινVeveria esse dicit, hoc est redire, sed post tempus,) cloathed their departed spirits with bodies not subject to decay; and they were singular in the opinion, that the soul left all unhappiness behind it, when it took its flight from this world. This pleasing prospect, which a future state presented to our ancestors, rendered, by its contrast, the present life very miserable in their eyes. They wept over the birth of their children, as entering into a scene of misfortunes; and they accompanied their dead with joy to the grave, as having changed a state of unhappiness for one of perfect felicity. "Peculiarly fortunate, perhaps, in their error", says an elegant

• Dr. Nicholson.

writer,

writer, if the opinion deserves so harsh a name, they converted into means of joy what other systems of religion have rendered sad and me-lancholy and thus they became independent of fortune in her worst extreme.*

The popular doctrine of a Providence, and consequently of a future state of rewards and punishments, was so universally received in the ancient world, that we cannot find any civilized country, where it was not a part of the national belief. The most ancient Greek poets, as Musæus, Orpheus, Homer, Hesiod, &c. who have given systems of mythology and religion, on the popular creed of such nations, always reckon the doctrine of a future state as a fundamental ar-’ ticle and all succeeding writers have borne testimony to the same belief. In the works of every ancient historian and philosopher, this is manifest. But, Plutarch, as one of the best acquainted, shall speak for the rest. "Examine the face of the globe, and you may find cities unfortified, unlettered, without a regular magistrate, or appropriated habitation; without possessions, property, or the use of money; and unskilled in allthe magnificent and polite arts of life: but, a city without a God, or the practice of religion; without

• Macpherson.

1

without the use of vows, oaths, oracles, and sacrifices to procure good; or of deprecatory rites to avert evil, no man can, or ever will find." No wise or learned people, at these periods, but looked upon the believing and teaching the doctrine of a future state to be of use to civil society. They founded their several systems on it, convinced of the truth, that no religion could be sustained without it.*

This

Moses, indeed, although he seems to have understood that the soul was a portion of the Divinity, does not any where formally establish the dogma of the immortality of the soul. has led to the supposition, that it was during the Babylonish captivity the Jews acquired the idea of future rewards and punishments, as taught by Zoroaster to the Persians; otherwise, why should Moses have kept his people in ignorance of it? And hence it has been asserted, that our European religions have greatly been infected by Platonic reveries, which are nothing more than obscure notions, and unintelligible metaphysics, gleaned from Chaldean, Assyrian, and Egyptian priests. For in fact, it is asked, if philosophy consists in a knowledge of nature, can we in any manner allow the philosophy of Plato

Divine Legation.

to

to merit that name, which does nothing but lead the mind astray from the visible to the intellectual world, where nothing is found but chimeras, spirits, intelligences, incorporeal substances, invisible powers, angels, devils, mysterious virtues, supernatural effects, divine illuminations, innate ideas ?*

That the Jews were not all ignorant of the doctrine of a future state, is clear and evident. How else are we to understand what they tell us of Job? "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after, my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me." The only objection I know against the expounding these words of Job to denote the true and proper resurrection of the body, after its death and dissolution, is the general persuasion, that the doctrine of the resurrection was not then known to the world. The Sadducees, it is true, believed the extinction of the soul at death. Hence, likewise, the modern revival of this opinion, though maintained under the softer name of its sleep,