a

strange, and not to have been expected, (ch. iii.;) a dispensation of Providence, which is a scheme or system of things (ch. iv.) carried on by the mediation of a Divine person, the Messiah, in order to the recovery of the world, (ch. v.) yet not revealed to all men, nor proved with the strongest possible evidence to all those to whom it is revealed; but only to such a part of mankind, and with such particular evidence as the wisdom of God thought fit, (ch. vi. vii.). The design, then, of the following Treatise will be to show, that the several parts principally objected against in this moral and Christian dispensation, including its scheme, its publication, and the proof which God hath afforded us of its truth ; that the particular parts principally objected against in this whole dispensation, are analogous to what is experienced in the constitution and course of Nature, or Providence ; that the chief objections themselves, which are alleged against the former, are no other than what may be alleged with like justness against the latter, where they are found in fact to be inconclusive; and that this argument, from analogy, is in general unanswerable, and undoubtedly of weight on the side of religion, (ch. viii.) notwithstanding the objections which may seem to lie against it, and the real ground which there may be for difference of opinion, as to the particular degree of weight which is to be laid upon it. This is a general account of what may be looked for in the following Treatise. And I shall begin it with that which is the foundation of all our hopes and of all our fears—all our hopes and fears, which are of any consideration-I mean, a Future Life.

THE

ANALOGY OF RELIGION

TO THE

CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE.

PART I.

OF NATURAL RELIGION.

CHAP. I.

OF A FUTURE LIFE.

STBANGE difficulties have been raised by some concerning personal identity, or the sameness of living agents, implied in the notion of our existing now and hereafter, or in any two successive moments; which whoever thinks it worth while, may see considered in the first Dissertation at the end of this Treatise. But, without regard to any of them here, let us consider what the analogy of Nature, and the several changes which we have undergone, and those which we know we may undergo without being destroyed, suggest, as to the effect which death may, or may not, have upon us; and whether it be not from thence probable, that we may survive this change, and exist in a future state of life and perception.

1. From our being burn into the present world in the helpless imperfect state of infancy, and having arrived from thence to mature age, we find it to be a general law of nature in our own species, that the same creatures, the same individuals, should exist in degrees of life and perception, with capacities of action, of enjoyment, and suffering, in one period of their being, greatly different from those appointed them in another period of it. And in other creatures the same law holds. For the difference of their capacities and states of life at their birth (to go no higher) and in maturity; the change of worms into Aies, and the vast enlargement of their locomotive powers by such change ; and birds and insects bursting the shell, their habitation, and by this means entering into a new world, furnished with new accommodations for them, and finding a new sphere of action assigned them ;—these are instances of this general law of nature. Thus, all the various and wonderful transformations of animals are to be taken into consideration here. But the states of life in which we ourselves existed formerly, in the womb and in our infancy, are almost as different from our present, in mature age, as it is possible to conceive any two states or degrees of life can be. Therefore, that we are to exist hereafter in a state as different (suppose) from our present, as this is from our former, is but according to the analogy of nature ; according to a natural order, or appointment, of the very same kind with what we have already experienced

II. We know we are endued with capacities of action, of happiness, and misery ; for we are conscious of acting, of enjoying pleasure, and suffering pain. Now, that we have these powers and capacities before death, is a presumption that we shall retain them through and after death ; indeed, a probability of it abundantly sufficient to act upon, unless there be some positive reason to think that death is the destruction of those living powers ; because there is in every case a probability, that all things will continue as we experience they are, in all respects, except those in which we have some reason to think they will be altered. This is that kind* of presumption, or probability, from analogy, expressed in the very word continuance, which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow, as it has done so far as our experience or knowledge of history can carry us back. Nay, it seems our only reason for believing, that any one substance now existing, will continue to exist a moment longer ; the self-existent substance only excepted. Thus, if men were assured that the unknown event, death, was not the destruction of our faculties of perception and of action, there would be no apprehension that any other power or event, unconnected with this of death, would destroy these faculties just at the instant of each creature's death ; and therefore no doubt but that they

• I say kind of presumption or probability; for I do not mean to affirm, that there is the same degree of conviction that our liv powers will continue after death, as there is, that our substances will.

а

would remain after it: which shows the high probability that our living powers will continue after death, unless there be some ground to think that death is their destruction.

For, if it would be in a manner certain that we should survive death, provided it were certain that death would not be our destruction, it must be highly probable we shall survive it, if there be no ground to think death will be our destruction.

Now, though I think it must be acknowledged, that prior to the natural and moral proofs of a future life commonly insisted upon, there would arise a general confused suspicion, that in the great shock and alteration which we shall undergo by death, we, i. e. our living powers, might be wholly destroyed; yet even prior to those proofs, there is really no particular distinct ground, or reason, for this apprehension at all, so far as I can find. If there be, it must arise either from the reason of the thing, or from the analogy of nature.

But we cannot argue from the reason of the thing, that death is the destruction of living agents, because we know not at all what death is in itself ; but only some of its effects, such as the dissolution of flesh, skin, and bones : And these effects do in nowise appear to imply the destruction of a living agent. And, besides, as we are greatly in the dark upon what the exercise of our living powers depends, so we are wholly ignorant what the powers themselves depend upon ; the powers themselves, as distinguished, not only from their actual exercise, but also from the present capacity of exercising them; and as opposed to their destruction : for sleep, or, however, a swoon, shews us not only that these powers exist when they are not exercised, as the passive power of motion does in inanimate matter ; but shews also that they exist, when there is no present capacity of exercising them; or that the capacities of exercising them for the present, as well as the actual exercise of them, may be suspended, and yet the powers themselves remain undestroyed. Since, then, we know not at all upon what the existence of our

• Destruction of living powers, is a manner of expression unavoidably ambi. guous ; and may signify either the destruction of a living being, so as that the same living being shall be incapable of ever perceiving or acting again at all; or the destruction of those means and instruments by which it is capable of its present state of perception and of action. It is here used in the former sense. Wheti it is used in the latter, the epithet present is added. The loss of a man's eye is a destruction of living powers in the latter sense. But we have no reason to think the destruction of living powers, in the former sense, to be possible. We have no more reason to think a being, endued with living powers, ever loses them during its whole existence, than to believe that a stone ever acquires them.

living powers depends, this shews further, there can no probability be collected from the reason of the thing, that death will be their destruction ; because their existence may depend upon somewhat in no degree affected by death ; upon somewhat quite out of the reach of this king of terrors. So that there is nothing more certain than that the reason of the thing shows us no connexion between death and the destruction of living agents. Nor can we find any thing throughout the whole analogy of nature, to afford us even the slightest presumption, that animals ever lose their living powers ; much less, if it were possible, that they lose them by death ; for we have no faculties wherewith to trace any beyond or through it, so as to see what becomes of them. This event removes them from our view. It destroys the sensible proof, which we had before their death, of their being possessed of living powers, but does not appear to afford the least reason to believe, that they are then, or by that event, deprived of them.

And our knowing, that they were possessed of these powers, up to the very period to which we have faculties capable of tracing them, is itself a probability of their retaining them beyond it. And this is confirmed, and a sensible credibility is given to it, by observing the very great and astonishing changes which we have experienced ; so great, that our existence in another state of life, of perception and of action, will be but according to a method of providential conduct, the like to which has been already exercised, even with regard to ourselves ; according to a course of nature, the like to which we have already gone through.

However, as one cannot but be greatly sensible, how difficult it is to silence imagination enough to make the voice of reason even distinctly heard in this case ; as we are accustomed from our youth up, to indulge that forward delusive faculty, ever obtruding beyond its sphere ; of some assistance, indeed, to apprehension, but the author of all error : as we plainly lose ourselves in gross and crude conceptions of things, taking for granted that we are acquainted with what indeed we are wholly ignorant of; it may be proper to consider the imaginary presumptions, that death will be our destruction, arising from these kinds of early and lasting prejudices ; and to shew how little they can really amount to, even though we cannot wholly divest ourselves of them. And,

I. All presumption of death's being the destruction of living beings, must go upon supposition that they are compounded,