fenfible and apparent in most things, should in any one thing intend to vex and torment his Creatures. Two fuch oppofite Characters cannot posfibly confift in the one perfect Being. That then which we call natural Evil, must be Good, and moft Good.

It may be reasonably asked here, How can this be? Good and Evil, Pleasure and Pain are fenfible things, and we are not to be reafon'd out of our Senfe and Feeling. This must be allowed: But it must be allowed also, that most of our Pleasures, if not all, do arife out of Pain, and are caused by it; Appetite and Gratification, Labour and Reft, are but Succeffions of Pain and Pleafure; and the Pleafure is generally proportioned to the Pain that introduces it, fo that if those things which we call Evils, are introductory to and promotive of our Happiness, they must be Good.

But

But it may be here further asked; What Happiness can a Life of Poverty or Sickness, of Slavery or continued Suffering introduce or promote, when we fee it terminates in Death and Infenfibility? Where is the Amends for the Evil, where the only confequent Good is a Release from it and all other Perception?

Was this the Cafe, the Objection would be unanfwerable. But this is impoffible. I say it is impoffible, that the Divine Being, whom we all know to be fo wife, and powerful, and benevolent in fo many Inftances, fhould be unjust, or cruel, or defective in any one; or permit his Creatures to endure fo much Evil, as many have and do endure, and thofe often the best and most worthy of their Kind, without any Recompence. This fingle Confideration yields us fufficient Evidence of a future State, had we no other. We fee so much Wisdom and

Design, so much Contrivance and Harmony in this World, that we must be affured that the great and good Author of it, cannot poffibly fuffer fo great a Disorder as this, viz. that the best of Men fhould meet with the worst Fate; the greatest Diforder that we can poffibly conceive to pass unrectified. And feeing there is no Poffibility of fuch Regulation, but in a future State of Existence, fuch a State must infallibly fucceed.

If then we confider our felves as Heirs of God, and joint Heirs with Chrift, Heirs of Immortality and Glory; this Light diffipates all Darknefs and Gloominess; all Contrarieties are reconciled; and we see nothing but Order and Harmony, Joy and Chearfulness.

The Relation of Immortality, which we ftand in to our Creator, is fo great a Relation, that our prefent Thoughts cannot take it in, or

com

comprehend it. For ever to exist; for ever to improve and enlarge our Faculties; to pass through new States of untried Being, new Scenes of Knowledge, new Regions of Pleafure; to be contracting new Friendships; advancing from one Clafs to another; and this for ever, without End, in an infinite Series! How great a Relation I fay, is this, for fuch Creatures, as we are, to be placed in, who fet out in being most helpless and most ig

norant !

If there is any kind of Behaviour either in Thought, Word, or Deed, which can retard or fet us back in this eternal Progress; that will for ever clog our Faculties, and fully our Glory; and caft us back at a great Distance behind others in this Race, which is for ever running and to be run: Are we treated unkindly when we are required to deny our felves in those InAtances? Upon the Love of God and K 4

our

our Neighbour, hang all the Law and the Prophets; These are the two great Duties which take in all Cases, and comprehend every Particular of natural and revealed Religion, all the Rules by which we are to conduct our Happiness. And how can we but love God, when we confider his Nature, and that which he has given us; or our Neighbour, to whom he has given the fame Nature, and whose Happiness is as dear to him as ours; and both must be carried on in common Concert, or both be destroyed. Why are we afraid to truft our Happiness with our Reafon? Why do we fetter up, and countermand Thought, and fly to Darkness for Pleasure? Is there not fome kind of Consciousness in every fuch Act, that we are not true to our felves? for if we are; why. has not Thought its full Scope and Exercife? Why should we fear to deny our felves, when we are told that, un

lefs