future state of being, as may be sufficient to excite expectation, to encourage hope, and to alarm our fears. But here they stop. They descend not into detail. They profess not to gratify the eager but vain and useless curiosity of man.

This limited and brief instruction is not that which human wisdom would have suggested. For wherever poetry, or philosophy, have touched upon the doctrine of a future life, they have invariably detailed too much, and have mingled extravagant fables with interesting truths. But that a genuine revelation from heaven should limit itself to a few plain and important facts which are contained in the Christian scriptures, is a fact, which to a reflecting mind, will appear altogether worthy of divine wisdom. For it is probable that the analogy between the present and the future life is so faint, that the human faculties cannot distinctly conceive, nor can human language express many particulars beyond those which are actually made known. And that the first teachers of the Christian

doctrine should have limited themselves to this modest account of a future state of being, cannot reasonably be attributed to any extraordinary share of natural sagacity in them, to which indeed they make no pretensions, but can only be ascribed to their writing upon this subject from the teaching of the holy spirit.

Nevertheless, the fact being once established that man is to live hereafter, it will be almost impossible for a serious and contemplative mind, convinced of this solemn truth, to abstain from all speculation concerning the nature of that future state of existence, and of the condition and employment, the pleasures and the pains, of immortality. And while such speculations are founded upon the analogy of nature, and the hints, however obscure, of divine revelation, and while they are conducted with a due degree of modesty and diffidence, they may be not only innocent, but useful ; and may tend to impress the mind, to interest the heart, and to influence the practice.

If we can draw any conclusion with

regard to the nature of a future state of being, from the appearances of the present life, it is this, that the life to come must bear a certain degree of analogy to the present life, which is universally allowed to be a state of previous discipline and preparation for it. The virtuous principles and affections which are sown, and cultivated, and spring up here, will, when transplanted to a more genial clime, grow and bloom, and bring forth fruit to perfection.

The man that dies will rise again. Now all that we know of the man, of the rational, sentient, accountable being, is the connected system of habits, principles, affections, and intellectual feelings. These must be renewed, or the identity of the man is lost. If these are changed, the man who rises is another being, and not the selfsame conscious, intelligent agent, that descended into the tomb. But if these affections have no proper means of gratification, they must be sources of misery even to the virtuous. The future life therefore must be in certain respects analogous to the present; other

wise the most virtuous might be the most unhappy. We may therefore safely conclude, that such representations of future blessedness as make it to consist wholly in a certain mystical union with God, and solitary contemplation of the divine excellences, or in absolute rest and inactivity, are to the last degree improbable, and utterly inconsistent with the feelings and the constitution of human nature. Happiness consists in activity. And as far as we can form a judgment of what is future from what is present, if the future life be not a state of constant benevolent exertion, it cannot, to beings constituted as men are, be a state of felicity.

If any one circumstance concerning the future state of existence be more clearly and distinctly deducible from the phenomena of the human mind than another, it is, that, to the righteous at least, it will be a social state.

The virtuous will be fixed in a state of unalloyed happiness. We must therefore conclude that every source of suffering,

corporeal or mental, will be absent. We cannot then ascribe to the righteous in a future life any of those affections or habits, which would be productive either of guilt or pain.

The grosser pleasures of sense will be discarded. The tendency of the discipline of the present life is to spiritualize the affections. And the inferior powers, having been subservient to the introduction of intellectual and moral principles and habits, will have answered their end, and there will be no further occasion for them. The superstructure having been raised, the scaffolding may be taken down.

But the intellectual and social, the moral and religious affections will remain the same. They implicate no weakness, imperfection, nor guilt. They constitute the active principles of man in the present life; and they are sources of the purest and most permanent happiness. If the same man be raised to life, the same affections must belong to him. And if he is intended for happiness, these affections must be supplied with corresponding gratifications.