least easy part to him, is such only by his own fault ;it would be to reward him, I say, not for doing well, but for doing no worse; at best for not being so bad as his neighbours.

CHAP. VI.

On Future Punishment, as deducible by the inferences of Reason, from the necessary character of an all-perfect Governor of free and intelligent Beings.

GOD'S

moral government, which is imperfect here, must be made perfect hereafter; and this must be effected either by the awarding of punishment, or reward, or both. We have seen how much absurdity attends the notion of future reward, and therefore it is by future punishment that to man, (unless he have been redeemed from the curse necessarily pronounced against sin, by an all-merciful governor, who has an universe to keep in order) the inequality of condition which prevailed in this world, must be done away with; and all men (for all are sinners) be punished in degrees exactly proportioned to their ill-desert. I have before declared our inability to draw from God's government of us, or from the light of nature, a perfect guide to moral and religious

F

us with any adequate notions, of an all-perfect ru ruler consistent enough to wish for the disposal of creatures whom he has made) so it is through the tures alone, ultimately, that we can certainly decid is morally and religiously wrong.

God has not made man but to answer some end, must be the Creator's will that that end should be ans He has given us life, and of that life he will ha disposal. Man puts a period to his existence, and doing, flies audaciously in the face of his Maker's tions. He kills his neighbour, and incurs a cri the same nature, and for the same reason. By exc sensual indulgences, he saps his constitution, and away that corporeal frame which his Maker gave hi apply to some good end. By such conduct, he grad commits a crime, which the more impatient self-mur effects at once. By tempting allurements, and sedu promises, we lead others to give into destru excesses, and we commit by degrees an offence w the murderer perpetrates in a moment, and often some excuse from extreme provocation. In all t cases, and all possible varieties of them, we run cou to God's will; we either rob him suddenly or gradu of instruments which he made but to use, and with wh he has not yet done; or else we render them unfit his use. In this view of the matter, excessive and miscuous sexual intercourse is obviously criminal; by such indulgence, we devote to beastly uses, what plainly intended but for the perpetuation of our race; make impure that, on whose purity depends its pro performance of its office; we render corrupt, the sources of life from which God intended that a healt offspring should be deduced; we present God with s

tended an individual of one sex, not to possess more than an individual of the other; he, therefore, who retains for his own particular enjoyment, more than one of the other sex, frustrates the very evident intention of his Maker; he monopolizes more than his share of the general blessing.

Thus then man, if he have learned to think of his God as a consistent being, can, by arguments which have almost the force of demonstration, prove that he may and does make himself the fit subject of future punishment. When once he has attained as much light as this on the subject (and not to get it, if it be within his reach, is sin) then suicide, murder, voluptuousness, and so forth, are in him acts which must entail upon him some future punishment. All actions which he can make out to interfere with the designs of God, must have this consequence to him.

But after all, his crime consists in doing something which, according to the best light within his reach, he believes to be what God disapproves, and as to do this is equally possible to all mankind, therefore to all mankind, it is equally possible to become the fit, and necessary subjects of future punishment. Acknow

ledge God to be all-pure, all-wise, all-just, consistent, and merciful, and it may readily be proved that all men who have disobeyed his known, or supposed will, have made themselves the fit subjects of punishment to come. It is asked, may not the punishment due to man's offences, be imposed on him in this world?" I have before endeavoured to shew that it does not befal him in this world; that some sinners run away from the possibility; and that those who act a less audacious part, far from wiping out their offences, are, or may be, if their pride prevent them not, continually adding something to their stock of enjoyment; that good pre

ponderates in their lives. that all sinful men (i. e. all mankind) have subjected themselves to some future punishment.

The inference then is this,.

If we expiate our sins here in any degree, we expiate them most especially by enduring the stings of conscience, compared with which, all our other sufferings are light. But so far is conscience from punishing with any equality of severity, that we often see great sinners little moved by its reproaches, when less ones are made miserable by them. The effects of conscience for the same offence are different in different minds. Offences that would embitter the lives of a Johnson or a Cowper, are light to "a Borgia or a Catiline."

But moreover, the stings of conscience often become less painful in the same breast, in proportion as its dictates are oftener violated. Conscience becomes, at least in a comparative degree, callous, and operates with less powers in proportion as greater is needed; the punishment becomes less as it is more deserved. And so little do the reproaches of conscience owe their sting to the dread of present evil, that goaded by them, men have sometimes courted punishment from their fellows, and delivered themselves up to it, when their crimes, long since committed, were almost forgotten, and all danger of present retribution seemed to be past.

Again so far are the external circumstances in which men are placed from bearing any common and just proportion to their deserts, that we continually see the best unprosperous, and the wicked successful in whatever they undertake.·

There is then a future settling of accompts, and if all men being free agents, be also sinners, to all (unless some power have redeemed them from the forfeit, by satisfying the necessary, indefeasible claims of a consistent, merciful, impartial, order-loving governor of the universe) to all, I say, shall some future punishment accrue.

Is cruelty imputed to God, for, that having made us what we are, he should make the consequences of sin

cy of God, that less apparent severity would be more extensive cruelty.

What was at first, a "bare power" in man, is become by our own fault a strong propensity. We attribute much more cruelty to the Almighty, (as an acute writer has said) by supposing that he made us exactly what we are, the necessary heirs of suffering, than by supposing that he made us pure, and has allowed a change in our moral and physical natures to be the consequence of a first disobedience.

God it is said, does as it were throw temptation in our way. Are we sure that the corruption which we have effected in ourselves, does not make that a temptation. which, if we had preserved our original purity, would have been no temptation at all?

"God has thrown temptation in our way, will he punish us for yielding to it?" This has a plausible

sound, but what is the real state of the case? God has placed much good within our reach, and has forbidden us to enjoy none of it. He has indeed prescribed the terms on which we must enjoy it, and the modes in which it is to be enjoyed. But the terms prescribed, are so far from being hard and cruel, that they are those very conditions which make the good things of this world, the most generally obtainable, and the most secure when obtained. And as to the modes prescribed, so little are they unkind, that they are absolutely those by which we can carry any pleasure to its greatest height, that is, both give it its greatest possible zest, and longest possible continuance. Who thinks of comparing the pleasure which the voluptuous Asiatic draws from the heartless embraces of a whole Harem, with that which an European husband derives from the affection of a fond, and faithful wife?

Who thinks that the indolent glutton enjoys his