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    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

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    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

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    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.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2409/page/16/