CHAP. II.

VIRTUE OUR HIGHEST INTEREST:

I FIND myself existing upon a little spot, sur 1ounded every way by an immense unknown expansion. Where am 1-What sort of place do I inhabit? Is it exactly accommodated in every instance, to my convenience? Is there no excess of cold, none of heat, to cffend me? Am I never annoyed by animals, either of my own kind, or a different? Is every thing subservient to me, aș though I had ordered all myself? No-nothing like it the farthest from it possible.The world appears then not originally made for the private convenience of me alone -It does not.-But is it not possible so to accon modate it, by my own parti cular industry?If to accommodate man and beast, heaven and earth; if this be beyond me, 'tis not possible-What consequence then follows? Or can there be any other than this-If I seek an interest of my own, detached from that of others; I seck an interest which is chimerical, and can never have existence.

How then must I determine? Have I no interest at all!If I have not, I am a fool for staying here. "Tis a sn oky house, and the sooner out of it, the better -But why no interest? Can I be contented aith none, but one separate and detached?Is a SCC interest joined with others, such an absurdity, as not to be acmitted? The bee, the beaver, and the tribes of herding animals, are enough to convince me, that the thing is somewhat at least possible. How then am 1 assured, that it is not equally true of man?

Acmit it; and what follows? If so, then Honour and Justice are my interest-then the whole train of Moral Virtues are my interest; without some portion of which,.not even thicves can maintain society.

But

But farther still-I stop not here-I pursue this social interest, as far as I can trace my several relations. I pass from my own stock, my own neighbourhood, my own nation, to the whole race of mankind, as dispersed throughout the earth.-Am I not related to them all, by the mutual aids of commerce; by the general intercourse of arts and letters; by that common nature, of which we all participate? Again I must have food and clothing-Without a proper genial warmth I instantly perish-Am I not related, in this view, to the very earth itself? To the distant sun, from whose beams I derive vi gour? To that stupendous course and order of the infinite host of heaven, by which the times and sea. sons ever uniformly pass on ?-Were this order once confounded, I could not probably survive a monent; so absolutely do I depend on this common general

welfare.

What then have I to do, but to enlarge Virtue into Piety? Not only honour and justice, and what I owe to man, are my interest; but gratitude also, acquiescence resignation, adoration, and all I owe to this great polity, and its greater Governor our com. mon Parent.

But if all these moral and divine habits be my interest, I need not surely seek for a better. I have an interest compatible with the spot on which I live -I have an interest which may exist, 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' possess and can pass through this turb.d, this fick.e, fleeting period, without bewailings, or envyings, or murmurings, or complaints.

HARRIS.

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CHAP. III

THE SAME SUBJECT.

ALL men pursue Good, and would be happy, if

they knew how not happy for minutes, and miserable for hours; but happy, if possible, through every part of their existence. Either therefore there is a good of this steady durable kind, or there is none. If none, then all good must be transient and uncertain; and if so, an object of lowest value, which can little deserve either our attention or ins quiry. But if there be a better good, such a good as we are seeking; like every other thing, it must be derived from some cause; and that cause must be either external, internal or mixed, in as much as, except these three, there is no other possible. Now a steady, durable good, cannot be derived from an external cause, by reason all derived from externals must fluctuate as they fluctuate. By the same rule, not from a mixture of the two; because the part which is external will proportionally destroy its essence. What then remains but the cause internal ; the very cause which we have supposed, when we place the Sovereign Good in Mind-in Rectitude of Conduct!

ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

AMONG other excellent arguments for the Immortality of the Soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection vithout a possibility 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

subject

subject, though it seems to me to carry a great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of a man, that the soul, which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improve. ments 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 that he can never pass : in a few years be 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 faither enlargement, I could imagine she 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 improvement, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of her Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting cut, and in the very beginning of her enquiries?

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.

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 shortlife. The silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But in this life man can never take in his full measure of knowledge; nor has he 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 the 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 only as a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick succession, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterward 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 toward 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 re semblance.

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 con. tempt in superior. That cherub, 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 he 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 that, 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 souls, where there are such hidden

stores