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    - Mr . Belsham , in one of his published Sermons , has some curious , and , in many respects , very interesting speculations on the notion of a local heaven . This idea he decries altogether , and ridicules the supposition that there is any particular place appointed either for the rewards or the punishments of a future stale . According to him , heaven ( and by parity of

    reasoning , the same must be true of hell ) is not a place , but a state ; it has no reference to any particular situation or locality , but depends entirely on the character and dispositions of the mind itself . It is evident that upon these our happiness or misery is even now more dependent than upon any outward circumstances ; and as the faculties of the understanding in the course of our renewed education in another life acquire a greater developement , and our pleasures and pains become in consequence more dependent on

    recollected ideas and less upon sensations , it is reasonable to presume , that the same thing will take place to a still greater extent hereafter . With respect to the happiness of a future state more especially , there seems no reason to doubt that it will consist in a great measure in the possession of enlarged powers of mind , in increased capacities for knowledge , in the cultivation and exercise of the dispositions of benevolence and piety ; all which essential requisites must evidently exist in the mind itself , and have nothing- to do

    with one situation more than with another . In the same manner , the punishment of the wicked will consist in the debasement of their natures , in their unfitness for the higher pleasures of the soul , at the same time that they have lost their capability of receiving any others ; in the miseries produced by ignorance and prejudice , by sensual and selfish desires , as inordinate and craving as ever , but beyond the reach of their accustomed gratifications ; in revenge , envy , remorse , and the whole tribe of bad and unruly passions .

    These in like manner have nothing to do with any particular place , and would equally make the sinner miserable , let his external circumstances be what they might . The mind , some one has said , is its own place ; and hence the very same situation and outward impressions which are the means of happiness to one , may be the instrument of misery to another . To the pure all things are pure ; the truly pious and well-principled mind will

    obtain from almost any situation the sources of happiness—the opportunities of useful and improving occupation , the motives for grateful reliance on a wise and gracious Disposer . The sinner , on the contrary , though he should be admitted into the society of heaven , would derive no happiness from it , because he is not fit for it ; he has not cultivated those dispositions , nor has he either taste or capacity for those employments from which its happiness is

    to arise . From all this it is inferred , that the notion of there being some particular place , called heaven , assigned as the peculiar and exclusive residence of the blessed , and another place , called hell , which is to be the dismal prisonhouse of the reprobate , is a mere vulgar prejudice , without any real foundation either in philosophy or revelation . I cannot say that the premises here appear to me to warrant the conclusion , which in fact we have no ground eitqer to affirm or deny in the absence of all direct evidence . The reality of future rewards and punishments is in no way affected either by the one or the other , and therefore the conjecture is in itself of no practical importance . Unfortunately , however , it is particularly liable to be misunderstoo d

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    ON THE LOCALITY OF A FUTURE STATE .

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    ( -452 )

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1828, page 452, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2562/page/20/