and action, just as naturally as we came into the present. And this new state may naturally be a social one. And the advantages of it, advantages of every kind, may naturally be bestowed, according to some fixed general laws of wisdom, upon every one in proportion to the degrees of his virtue. And though the advantages of that future natural state should not be bestowed, as these of the present in some measure are, by the will of the society, but entirely by his more immediate action, upon whom the whole frame of nature depends; yet this distribution may be just as natural as their being distributed here by the instrumentality of men. And indeed, though one were to allow any confused undetermined sense, which people please to put upon the word natural, it would be a shortness of thought scarce crédible, to imagine, that no system or course of things can be so, but only what we see at present, especially whilst the probability of a future life, or the natural immortality of the soul, is admitted upon the evidence of reason; because this is really both admitting and denying at once, a state of being different from the present to be natural. But the only distinct meaning of that word is, stated, fixed, or settled; since what is natural, as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i. e. to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural

or miraculous does to effect it for once. And from hene it must follow, that persons' notions of what is natural will be enlarged in proportion to their greater knowledge of the works of God, and the dispensations of his Providence. Nor is there any absurdity in supposing, that there may be beings in the universe, whose capacities, and knowledge, and views, may be so extensive, as that the whole Christian dispensation may to them appear natural, i. e. analogous or conformable to God's dealings with other parts of his creation; as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us. For there seems scarce any other possible sense to be put upon the word, but that only in which it is here used, similar, stated, or uniform.

This credibility of a future life, which has been here insisted upon, how little soever it may satisfy our curiosity, seems to answer all the purposes of religion, in like manner as a demonstrative proof would. Indeed a proof, even a demonstrative one, of a future life, would not be a proof of religion. For, that we are to live hereafter, is just as reconcileable with the scheme of atheism, and as well to be accounted for by it, as that we are now alive is, and therefore nothing can be more absurd than to argue from that scheme, that there can be no future state.

But as religion implies a future state, any presumption against such a state is a presump

tion against religion. And the foregoing observations remove all presumptions of that sort, and prove, to a very considerable degree of probability, one fundamental doctrine of religion, which, if believed, would greatly open and dispose the mind seriously to attend to the general evidence of the whole.

CHAPTER XII.

BULL.

DR. GEORGE BULL was promoted to the See of St. David's in 1705. He may justly be considered one of the bulwarks of our Church. Though well acquainted with most parts of useful learning, he chiefly cultivated divinity, to which he had solemnly dedicated his studies from the moment he threw off certain youthful follies, a considerable time before he was ordained priest, which yet was at the early of twenty-one. The object of two of his sermons is to prove "That the soul of man subsists after death, in a place of abode provided by God for it, till the resurrection."

age

From Acts i. 25. he draws these two observations, which he discusses with great learning and irresistible clearness of argument:

Observation I. The soul of man subsists after death, and when it is dislodged from the body, hath a place of abode provided by God for it, till the resurrection of the body again.

Observation II. The soul of every man, presently after death, hath its proper place and state allotted by God, of happiness or misery, according as the man hath been good or bad in his past life.

Of these propositions I shall discourse in their order, and the first of them will be as much as I shall be well able to dispatch within the compass of time at present allotted me. The soul of man subsists after death, &c. And this proposition I shall manage so, as to prove it chiefly by testimonies of the Holy Scripture, supposing that I am to deal with men that acknowledge it's divine authority, (as having been many a time sufficiently proved to them) and only question, whether any such doctrine be clearly delivered in it. Of which sort are many professed Christians, who believe a resurrection and a life to come, and yet deny the distinct subsistence of the soul after the death of the body; and whilst the body remains in the state of death, that the soul dies, and is extinguished with the body; and consequently that the resurrection, which we Christians profess to believe in our creed, is of the whole man both soul and body. Out of the abundance of texts of Scripture that refute this error, I shall make choice of some few, that do it most clearly and expressly.

And first, even in the Old Testament we have a full testimony given to this truth, that the soul