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abilities made or no purpose? 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. Pofe Were a human foul thr and 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 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 juft looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few difcoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom and power, must perish at her first 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 post to make room for him.

He does not feem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not furprising to confider, in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their bufinefs in a fhort life. The filk-worm, after having fpun 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 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 fo mean a purpose ? Can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligences, fuch short-lived reafonable beings? Would he give us talents that are not to be exerted? Capacities that are never to be gra ified? How can we find that wisdom which shines through all his works,

in the formation of man, without lookin this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rife up and disappear in fuch quick fucceffions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and to be tranfplanted into a more friendly climate, wher they may fpread and flourish to all eternity.

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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 ftrength to ftrength, to confider that she is to fhine for ever with new acceffions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that fhe will be ftill 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 prospect 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 a finite fpirit 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 fhall 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 diftance and fuperiority in the scale of being; but he knows that, how high foever the station is of which he ftands pof

feffed

feffed at prefent, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and fhine forth in the fame degree of glory.

WITH what aftonishment and veneration may we look into our fouls, where there are fuch hidden ftores of virtue and knowledge, fuch inexhausted sources of perfection! We know not yet what we fhall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in referve for him. The foul, confidered in relation to its Creator, is like one of thofe mathematical lines that may draw nearer to another for all eternity, without a poffibility of touching it and can there be a thought fo transporting, as to confider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to Him, who is not only the standard of perfection, but of happiness! SPECTATOR.

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Lock up thy fenfes; Let no paffion ftir ;-
Wake all to Reafon ;- Let her reign alone ;-
Then, in thy Soul's deep filence, and the depth
Of Nature's filence, midnight, thus inquire:

WHAT am I? and from whence?—I nothing know, But that I am; and, fince I am, conclude

Something eternal: had there e'er been nought,
Nought ftill had been: Eternal there must be. -
But what eternal? Why not human race?
And ADAM's ancestors without an end?
That's hard to be conceiv'd; fince ev'ry link

Of

Of that long-chain'd fucceffion is fo frail;

Can every part depend, and not the whole?
Yet grant it true; new difficulties rife;

I'm ftill quite out at fea; nor see the shore.

Whence earth, and these bright orbs ?-Eternal too?—
Grant matter was eternal; still these orbs

Would want fome other Father ;-Much defign
Is feen in all their motions, all their makes;
Defign implies intelligence, and art:

That can't be from themselves-or man; that art
Man scarce can comprehend, could man bestow?
And nothing greater, yet allow'd, than man.—
Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain,
Shot thro' vaft maffes of enormous weight?
Who bid brute matter's reftive lump affume
Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly?
Has matter innate motion? Then each atom,
Afferting its indifputable right

To dance, would form an universe of duft:
Has matter none? Then whence these glorious forms,
And boundless flights, from fhapelefs, and repos'd?
Has matter more than motion? Has it thought,
Judgment, and genius? Is it deeply learn'd
In Mathematics? Has it fram'd fuch laws,
Which, but to guess, a NEWTON made immortal?—
If art, to form; and counsel, to conduct;
And that with greater far, than human skill,
Refides not in each block ;—a GODHEAD reigns.-
And, if a GOD there is, that GOD how great!

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BOOK V.

ORATIONS AND HARANGUES.

С НА Р. I.

JUNIUS BRUTUS OVER THE DEAD BODY OF LUCRETIA.

ES, noble lady, I fwear by this blood, which was once

YE

fo pure, and which nothing but royal villainy could have polluted, that I will purfue Lucius Tarquinius the proud, his wicked wife, and their children, with fire and fword: nor will I ever fuffer any of that family, or of any other whatsoever, to be King in Rome. Ye Gods, I call you to witness this my oath!-There, Romans, turn your eyes to that fad spectacle-the daughter of Lucretius, Collatinus's wife-she died by her own hand. See there a noble lady, whom the luft of a Tarquin reduced to the neceffity of being her own executioner, to atteft her innocence. Hofpitably entertained by her as a kinsman of her husband's, Sextus, the perfidious gueft, became her brutal ravisher. The chafte, the generous Lucretia could not furvive the infult. Glorious

woman!

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