Secondly, if the mind of any man be fo hardened, as that he will not be influenced by the expectation of a very long continuance of punishment, a thousand years for inftance, he will not, in fact, be influenced by the expectation of any fuffering at all, even that of eternal and infinite fuffering. For, in reality, if the fear of the former do not affect him, and stop his career of vice, it must be owing to his not allowing himself time to think and reflect upon the subject. For no man who really thinks and believes, can be guilty of fuch extreme folly, as to purchase a momentary gratification at so disproportioned a price; and if a man do not think about the matter, but will follow his appetites and paffions without any reflection, all difference, in the intensity or duration of punishment, is wholly loft upon him. In fact, we see that the bulk of profeffing christians, who, if they were asked, would acknowledge their belief of the eternity of hell torments, are by no means effectually deterred from vice by their belief of it. Rather, the vaftnefs of the thing creates a kind of fecret incredulity. They have a notion that the thing may not, in reality, take place; and, thinking of no medium, they fecretly flatter themselves with the hope of meeting with no punishment at all, and confequently indulge the vain hope of going to heaven with a state of mind exceedingly unfit for it, rather than suffer a punish a punishment fo vastly disproportioned to the degree of their guilt. Whereas, if they had been taught to expect only a just and adequate punishment for all their offences here; and especially fuch as was neceffary to their purification and happiness, their minds might have acquiefced in it, they might have believed it firmly and practically, and such a belief might really have influenced their conduct. But laftly, it is perhaps more agreeable to the analogy of nature and (this guide only I am now following) to expect, that, as the greater part of natural productions never arrive at their proper maturity, but perish long before they have attained to it, fo the bulk of mankind, who never attain to any high degrees of wisdom or virtue, fhould finally perish also, and be intirely blotted out of the creation, as unworthy to continue in it; while the few who are wife and virtuous, like full ripe fruits, are referved for future ufe. And there is fomething fo dreadful in the idea of annibilation, as will, perhaps, affect the mind of fome perfons more than the fear of future torments, with continuance of life, and confequently with fecret hope. Thefe fpeculations, it must be owned, are, in a great measure, random and vague, but they are the beft, as it appears to me, that we can form to ourselves by the light of nature. What revelation teaches teaches us concerning fo difficult but important a subject, we shall see in its proper place. Such are the conclufions which nature teaches, or rather which the affents to, concerning the nature, and perfections of God, the rule of human duty, and the future expectations of mankind. I fay affents to, because, if we examine the actual state of this kind of knowledge, in any part of the world, not enlightened by revelation, we fhall find their ideas of God, of virtue, and of a future ftate, to have been very lame and imperfect, as will be fhewn more particularly when we confider, in the next part of this courfe, the want and the evidence of DIVINE REVELATION. |