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there no excess of cold, none of heat, to offend me ? Am I never annoyed by animals, either of my own kind, or a different? Is every thing fubfervient to me, as though I had order'd all myself ?-No-nothing like it-the fartheft from it poffible.—The world appears not then originally made for the private convenience of me alone ?-It does not.But is it not poffible fo to accommodate it, by my own particular industry?—If to accommodate man and beast, heaven and earth; if this be beyond me, 'tis not poffible-What confequence then follows? Or can there be any other than this-If I feek an intereft of my own, detached from that of others; I feek an intereft which is chimerical, and can never have existence.

'Tis a

How then muft I determine? Have I no intereft at all? -If I have not, I am a fool for staying here. fmoaky houfe, and the fooner out of it the better.-But why no intereft ?-Can I be contented with none, but one separate and detached?-Is a focial intereft joined with others such an abfurdity, as not to be admitted? The bee, the beaver, and the tribes of herding animals, are enough to convince me, that the thing is, fomewhere at leaft, poffible. How then am I affured, that 'tis not equally true of man ?—Admit it; and what follows-Iffo, then Honour and Juftice are my intereft-then the whole train of Moral Virtues are my intereft; without fome portion of which, not even thieves can maintain society.

BUT farther ftill-I ftop not here-I pursue this focial intereft, as far as I can trace my feveral relations. I pafs from my own ftock, my own neighbourhood, my own nation, to the whole race of mankind, as difperfed throughout the earth-Am I not related to them all, by the mutual aids of commerce: by the general intercourse of arts and H letters;

letters by that common nature, of which we all participate!Again-I must have food and clothing-Without a proper genial warmth, linftantly perish-Am I not related, in this view, to the very earth itfelf? To the diftant fun from whose beams I derive vigour? To that stupendous course and order of the infinite host of heaven, by which the times and feafons ever uniformly pass on ?-Were this order once confounded, I could not probably survive a moment; fo abfolutely do I depend on this common general welfare.

WHAT then have I to do, but to enlarge Virtue into Piety? Not only honour and Juftice, and what I owe to man, is my intereft; but gratitude alfo, acquiefcence, refignation, adoration, and all I owe to this great polity, and its greater Governor, our common Parent.

BUT if all these moral and divine habits be my interest, I need not furely feek for a better. I have an intereft com

patible with the spot on which I live-I have an interest which may exift, without altering the plan of Providence ; without mending or marring the general order of events.I can bear whatever happens with manlike magnanimity; can be contented, and fully happy in the good which I poffefs; and can pass through this turbid, this fickle, fleeting period, without bewailings, or envyings, or murmurings, or complaints.

CHA P. III.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

HARRIS.

ALL men purfue Good, and would be happy, if they

knew how; not happy for minutes, and miferable for

hours; but happy, if poffible, through every part of their

existence.

existence. Either therefore there is a good of this fteady durable kind, or there is none. If none, then all good muft be tranfient and uncertain; and if so, an object of lowest value, which can little deferve either our attention or inquiry. But if there be a better good, fuch a good as we are feeking; like every other thing, it must be derived from fome cause; and that cause must be either external, internal, or mixed, in as much as except thefe three, there is no other poffible. Now a fteady, durable good, cannot be derived from an external caufe, by reason all derived from externals must fluctuate, as they fluctuate. By the fame rule, not from a mixture of the two; because the part which is external will proportionally deftroy its effence. What then remains but the caufe internal; the very caufe which we have supposed, when we place the Sovereign Good in Mind -in Rectitude of Conduct?

С НА Р.

IV.

HARRIS.

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

A

MONG other excellent arguments for the immortality

of the Soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progrefs of the foul to its perfection, without a poffibility of ever arriving at it; which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have written on this fubject, though it seems to me to carry a great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of man that the foul, which is capable of fuch immenfe perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, fhall fall into nothing almost as foon as it is created! Are fuch

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abilities made for no purpofe? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pafs; in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of; and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the fame thing he is at present. Were a human foul thus at a ftand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of farther enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away infenfibly, and drop at once into a ftate of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progrefs of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its - Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite gondness, wisdom and power, muft perish at her firft fetting out, and in the very beginning of her inquiries?

MAN, confidered in his prefent ftate, feems only fent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a fucceffor, and immediately quits his poft to make room for him,

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He does not seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to confider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their bu finefs in a fhort life. The filk-worm, after having fpun her task, lays her and dies. But in this life man can never take in his full measure of knowledge; nor has he time to fubdue his paffions, establish his foul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the ftage. Would an infinitely wife Being make fuch glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of fuch abortive intelligences, fuch fhort lived reafonable 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 feveral generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in fuch quick fucceffions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be tranfplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity?

THERE is not, in my opinion, a more pleafing and triumphant confideration in religion, than this of the perpetual progrefs which the foul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the foul as going on from strength to strength, to confider that she is to shine for ever with new acceffions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it fomething wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a profpect pleafing to God himself, to fee his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him, by greater degrees of refemblance.

METHINKS this fingle confideration, of the progrefs of at finite spirit to perfection, will be fufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in fuperior. That cherubim, which now appears as a God to a human foul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human foul shall be as perfect as he himself now is nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection, as much as fhe now falls fhort of it. It is true, the higher nature still advances, and by that means preferves his distance and fuperiority, in the scale of being; but he knows that, how high foever the station is of which he ftands pof

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