bounded regions of truth that lie before it, and of appreciating the perfections of the Sovereign of the universe-a soul fired with ardent desires after knowledge, panting after new discoveries of truth and of the Grandeur of the Divinity, unsatisfied with all its past attainments, and contemplating a boundless unexplored prospect before it—should be cast off from existence, and sink into eternal annihilation, at the moment when its capacities were just beginning te expand, when its desires were most ardent, and when the scenes of immensity and eternity were just opening to its view? If such a supposition could be admitted, man would be the most inexplicable phenomenon in the universe; his existence an unfathomable mystery; and there could be no conceivable mode of reconciling his condition and destination with the wisdom, the rectitude, and the benevolence of his Creator.* SECTION IV. On the perpetual progress of the mind towards perfection. As a supplement to the preceding argument, it may be stated, that the soul of man appears to be capable of making a perpetual progress towards intellectual and moral perfection, and of enjoying felicity in every stage of its career, without the possibility of ever arriving at a boundary to its excursions. In the present state we perceive no limits to the excursions of the intellect, but those which arise from its connexion with an unwieldy corporeal frame, which is chained down, *Such considerations, as those which I have now adduced, seem to have made a powerful impression upon the minds of the philosophers of antiquity. "When I consider," says Cicero, "the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future; when I behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries thence arising; I believe, and am firmly persuaded, that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot be mortal." Cicero de Senectute. Cap. 21. And if this argument appeared strong even in Cicero's time, it has received a vast accession of strength from the numerous arts, sciences, inventions, and discoveries, which are peculiar to the age in which we live. as it were, to a mere point, in the immensity of creation. Up to the latest period of its connexion with time, it is capable of acquiring new accessions of knowledge, higher attainments in virtue, and more ardent desires after moral perfection; and the infinity of the Creator, and the im. mensity of that universe over which he presides, present a field in which it may for ever expatiate, and an assemblage of objects on which its powers may be incessantly exercised, without the most distant prospect of ever arriving at a boundary to interrupt its intellectual career. As I cannot illustrate this topic in more beautiful and forcible language than has been already done by a celebrated Essayist, I shall take the liberty of quoting his words." How can it enter into the thoughts of man," says this elegant writer, "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 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, 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 further enlargements, I could imagine it 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 improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of the Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom and power, must perish in her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries? "A 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 : Heir urges on his predecessor heir, 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 silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not 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 intelligences, such short-lived 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 a nursery for the next? and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick successions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards 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 progress which the soul makes towards the perfection of its 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 cherubim, 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 perfection as much as she now falls short of it. It is true the higher nature still advances, and by that means preserves his distance and superiority in the scale of being; but he knows 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 own 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 with its 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!"* SECTION V. On the unlimited range of view which is opened to the human faculties throughout the immensity of space and of duration. The unlimited range of view which is opened to the human imagination throughout the immensity of space and of duration, and the knowledge we are capable of acquiring respecting the distant regions of the universe, are strong presumptions and evidences of the eternal destination of man. If the universe consisted solely of the globe on which we dwell, with its appendages, and were the spaces with which it is surrounded nothing more than an immense void, it would not appear surprising were the existence of man to terminate in the tomb. After having traversed this earthly ball for eighty or a hundred years, and surveyed all the varieties on its surface; after having experienced many of the physical and moral evils connected with its * Spectator, vol. 2. present constitution, and felt that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit," and that no higher prospect, and no further scope for the exercise of his faculties were presented to view; he would be ready to exclaim with Job, “I loathe it, I would not live alway; let me alone, for my days are vanity my soul chooseth strangling and death, rather than my life." To run the same tiresome round of giddy pleasures, and to gaze perpetually on the same unvaried objects, from one century to another, without the hope of future enjoyment, would afford no gratification commensurate with the desires and capacities of the human mind. Its powers would languish, its energies would be destroyed, its progress to perfection would be for ever interrupted, and it would roam in vain amidst the surrounding void in quest of objects to stimulate its activity. 66 But, beyond the precincts of this earthly scene, a wide and unbounded prospect lies before us ;" and the increas ing light of modern science has enabled us to penetrate into its distant regions, and to contemplate some of its sublime and glorious objects. Within the limits of the solar system of which our world forms a part, there have been discovered twenty-nine planetary bodies, which contain a mass of matter more than two thousand five hundred times greater than the earth, besides the numerous comets, which are traversing the planetary regions in all directions, and the immense globe of the Sun, which is like a universe in itself, and which is five hundred times larger than the earth and all the planets and comets taken together. These bodies differ from each other in their magnitude, distances and motions, and in the scenery with which their surfaces are diversified; and some of them are encircled with objects the most splendid and sublime. They appear to be furnished with every thing requisite for the accommodation of intellectual beings,-are capable of containing a population many thousands of times greater than that of our world, and are doubtless replenished with myriads of rational inhabitants. Within the limits of this system the soul of man would find full scope for the exertion of all its powers, capacities and activities, during a series of ages. Our views of the universe, however, are not confined |