On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    ducing its adaptation to its new and improved sphere of action . There are surely sufficient proofs , from the general excellence and harmony of 'the creation , of the divine attributes , to render it

    probable , that the improvement and perfection of the human mind , the most excellent and improvable of God ' s works here below ^ is his design in its production , rather than to defeat his own apparent purposes in its deterioration and and destruction . Now as the

    hope of a future life has the best influence in regulating our affections with respect to the present state , so the contrary persuasion has a direct tendency to produce the opposite effects . The belief of the final extinction of man in

    death , puts the mind upon the eager pursuit of all those gratifications which are of most speedy and easy attainment . That is , it tends to promote all those subordinate appetites and passions of our nature , which are so liable

    to obtain an undue ascendancy . There is . in that case , an evident disparity between the powers of the mind and the field of action to which it is confined , and it

    therefore seeks that gratification in excess , which can only be obtained in the more wide diffusion

    of its pursuits . It is thrown off from that just poise of its several powers and affections on which its excellence and happiness depend , and which evidently appears to constitute the proper condition of

    its being . If , therefore , the prospect of death separated from the hope of a future revival , tend to pervert the ends even of our pre * gent existence ^ while in union with that hope , it is admirably promotive of those ends * and

    Untitled Article

    moreover tin essential preparative for that improved state of bein <* a rational foundation is . surely afforded for the inference , from the very circumstances attendant on mortality , that such a state is in , deed our ultimate destination .

    The confidence with which it has been maintained , that there are no analogies in the course of nature tending to confirm the doctrine of a future life , appears to have arisen , in a considerable

    degree , from not sufficientl y adverting to the distinction which must necessarily subsist between the ordinary and extraordinary dispensations of Providence . A proper resurrection from the dead is

    manifestly inconsistent , both in its nature and objects , with a regular and well ordered course of nature The occasional occurrence of such instances would leave us in the

    most perplexing uncertainty , with respect to the connection of causes and consequences . And were death in every instance immediately succeeded by a resurrection , it would in a great degree prevent the moral influences of the

    contemplation of these events , and probably also of the " events themselves ; our faith would advance to a sta , te of absolute certainty , and a future life would be almost

    the same in that , and perhaps every other respect , with that of the uniform continuance of the present existence . We should in that case view it

    as no other than a natural event , and it would consequently have by no means an equal tendency to enhance our piety ; indeed the iconfidence which it would inspire might even be productive of an opposite train of 8 entjn * en $ s , All , therefore , that we reasonably can

    Untitled Article

    488 On tie Moral Evidence 8 f Influence of the Material Doctriiie .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1810, page 488, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2409/page/16/