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simple doctrine of the old patriarchal philosophy, of which the later metempsychosis was an easy corruption.

Agreeably to the preceding view of the subject, we find, in fact, the inferior animals possessed of powers perfectly adapted to their present condition. Man alone possesses powers which are far exalted above it, and serve no purpose of mere animal utility and comfort. His mind has a larger range, and is incapable of being satisfied with the enjoyments of earth. In some this greater capacity manifests itself only in the restless and insatiable pursuit of earthly pleasures, but still it manifests itself by its very insatiability. The minds of those degraded men still feel that all which they have enjoyed is not enough. There is an impatient grasping after more, until pleasure palls like bitterness, and the fullness of satiety comes on, which is rather, by a sort of paradox, the fullness of emptiness,-when the mind has tried every pleasure, exhausted every sensual enjoyment, and finds all unsatisfactory, all vanity and emptiness. And then comes the listlessness of despair, or the renewed variety of changeable pursuits, till changes have lost their novelty, and the mind, hungry and unsatisfied, plunges again deeper and deeper into sensuality, that reason and feeling may be stifled. In all this, there is no appearance of that adaptation of man's faculties and capacities to his present con

dition, which we observe in other animals.

Still

less can we find that perfect adaptation in the enlarged and ennobling attainments of more virtuous minds. These rise above the world and its concerns, and qualify their possessors for higher and more exquisite enjoyments than any that earth affords. To what purpose is it that we are capable of unfolding the laws of nature? Why are we formed with minds which can range in thought through the immensity of space, and the boundless ages of eternity,-which can rise in imagination to the throne of the Almighty, and form a partial idea of his glorious perfections? Whence are those desires after futurity which the virtuous in every age, and of every religion, have manifested? or whence those dreadful apprehensions of future punishment which haunt the wicked? Why can our minds conceive so high a happiness, if it is never to be ours, or so tremendous a misery, if we need not apprehend it? These are things for which, if the soul die with the body, no reason can be assigned. On that supposition the elevated powers of man would seem intended only to make him discontented with his lot, by enabling him to picture out a happier; and his high capacities of enjoyment, only to render him dissatisfied with the pleasures to which earth confines him. But, if the soul be immortal, the design of the Creator in giving us these powers is obvious. They are destined to

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fit us for enjoying the transcendent glories of that state into which the good shall hereafter be admitted, and for conceiving and adoring that Being, in whose more immediate presence eternity shall be spent.

This argument receives a strong corroboration from the foundation which is laid in the principles of our constitution for a progressive and unlimited improvement. In all the inferior animals, there is a point beyond which their sagacity cannot be carried. But in man, the knowledge which is already attained, only opens and facilitates the way for farther acquisitions. Even when the body is tast falling to decay, the mind is sometimes found to remain unimpaired in its energies, and uninterrupted in its improvement. In the last moments of this earthly career, a gleam of intelligence and satisfaction often lights the countenance of the dying man, sufficient to show, that, though in some degree influenced by the diseases of the body, the mind yet retains its vigour, and only waits its separation from the corporeal frame as the time when it shall be delivered from that painful influence, which mars its present progress, and prevents its free enjoyment. We cannot suppose that a being thus fitted for endless improvement should be destined by its infinitely wise and good Creator to live but a few perishable years.

These arguments, which are of themselves conclusive, receive a great accession of force from the

true notion of providence. For, as was observed in treating of the subject, the dispensations of God in the government of his rational creatures, are not to be interpreted as declaring his absolute and final estimate of different men, but as the moral training best adapted to them in a probationary state. But, for the right understanding of this, I rather recommend the humble and careful observation of providence by the reader himself, than choose to enlarge on a subject which has been already ably treated by several excellent writers.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY.

IN speaking of the immortality of the soul, it has been too much the practice of some philosophers to underrate the importance of the body in the constitution of man. We are told that the body is but a prison house, from which the emancipated soul goes forth to the enlarged enjoyment and exercise of all its faculties. "We have reason to believe," says Dr. Reid, "that when we put off these bodies and all the organs belonging to them, our perceptive powers shall rather be improved than destroyed or impaired." - "We ought not therefore to conclude, that such bodily organs are in their own nature necessary to perception; but rather, that, by the will of God, our power of perceiving external objects is limited and circumscribed by our organs of sense; so that we perceive objects in a certain manner, and in certain circumstances, and in no other." The ancient

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