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    ance till it has produced its full effect in dissolution , carries the sentiment of separation from the present life to its full extent , and most effectually tends to break off all inordinate attachment to its objects , while it leaves no foundation for our future hopes , but

    those which proceed from the contemplation of the divine attributes and intentions , as manifested by the intellectual and moral tendendencies of our mind , which the

    very decline of our powers is so efficacious in promoting ^ more especially when joined with the due admixture of those salutary hopes * I cannot help thinking , that a

    state of profound sleep furnishes us with a stronger analogy to that of death , than seems to have been generally admitted * In both cases the action of the mind is

    suspended , it neither thinks nor perceives > and may be justly said to be alike in a state of non-existence * Both these events moreover appear to be essential in their respective degrees * to dispel those enthusias

    tic influences , which are the con - sequence of long continued men tal exertion , and the latter may be considered as intended to remedy , by its more powerful operation , those imperfections which the former had proved insufficient to

    remove . As sleep suspends the exercise of those secondary causes , on which activity in the present state depends : so death effects the removal of those secondary causes themselves , which in the course of life must have

    contracted that peculiar bias , which appears in their operations . Death considered as a total extinction of the whole man , and leaving the restoration of his being to the sole « &ergy pf the D © ity * may be said

    to draw a definite line beween the Creator and his works . The con * templation of these two events , considered as complete in their nature , must have the greatest efficacy in removing that propensity to the idolization of intermediate causes , which constitutes

    the leading defect of the mind , and in centering its dependence and its leading affections upon that Being , who is the primary source of all existence , and con *

    sequently the only proper object of them . The imperfections of the mind are moreover so intimately blended with its very structure , that it seems impossible for them

    to be so entirely removed by any other means as by its being completely taken to pieces , and reproduced with such alterations and in such circumstances , as may

    bo best adapted to its introduction to a new and improved sphere of being . It is probable also that its powers may be renewed with peculiar advantage at some future period , when circumstances most favorable to their further improvement may be presented . Their

    reproduction by the immediate energy of the Creator , cannot but powerfully operate in the farther promotion of piety , and if it happen to the whole human race at the same epoch , it cannot moreover but be productive of the most enlivening exercise and general diffusion of the social affections .

    As these influences will have the most powerful effects at the very moment of the renewal of our being , when it may be reasonably conceived to be most peculu

    any susceptible of impressions ^ they can scarcely fail of imparting a permanent stamp to the character , or of co-operating in pro ^

    Untitled Article

    On the Mot * l Evidence ft Influence of the Material Doctrine . 48 T

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1810, page 487, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2409/page/15/