then, in the economy of this life, and have no visible necessary reference to that which is to come. If the only purpose of reason were to take the place of instinct, in guiding us to the proper mode of satisfying our bodily wants, then, indeed, we might expect that curiosity would be limited to those things which immediately affect our temporal well-being. But if a moral end is superadded, if self-improvement is desirable for its own sake and in any stage of being, then there is an obvious utility in rendering our curiosity boundless, so that the efforts and investigations to which it leads may tend to the unceasing, the indefinite, development of our faculties.* To what other purposes in God's providence this insatiable thirst for knowledge may be subservient, we do not know; it is enough for us to see that it is useful here, that it enlarges the sphere of our enjoyments, sustains our activity, and dignifies our life. Surely we are not driven to the supposition of another, an untried, state of existence, in order to find any benevolent purpose, or any useful result, in causing man to thirst after knowledge as for hidden treasure. *"If the present state is to be the whole of our being," argues Dr. Crombie, "why are not our conceptions confined to the sphere to which our existence is limited? Why are we capable, in imagination and in hope, of rising beyond that sphere? Why have we a notion of eternity? The brutes have no such conception. Why is it given to man?" Surely this argument proves too much. We can form a conception of infinite power, just as well as of endless duration; but this does not prove that we are to be, not only immortal, but omnipotent. In fact, our vague longings after indefinitely higher attributes than those which we now possess, are checked by the obvious consideration, that advancement in morals depends upon ourselves alone; that it is our own fault, if we stop short of a perfect compliance with the law of right; and that infinite wisdom and power are incompatible with the existence of moral weakness and imperfection. If we take this reflection along with us, we shall see that these lofty, and even irrational, desires, though they were never to be gratified, still answer a useful purpose, as they stimulate our activity and strengthen our virtuous resolutions. Some disappointment, some vain endeavors, are needed to teach us humility and the duty of self-examination. Here, as elsewhere, we perceive that the great end of life is moral discipline and self-improvement. The goodness of God needs no vindication from the doctrine of immortality. I need not dwell long upon the only remaining branch of the moral argument, the discordance between our moral judgments and feelings, and the course of human affairs, -as much of what was necessary to be said upon this point has been anticipated. I do not believe that the moral government of this world stands in need of an apology, or that we must imagine another world in which its errors may be corrected and its imperfections supplied. Do not let us make the same mistake as the Mahometans, and believe in the immortality of the soul, only because we crave a sensual paradise, and cannot find one here below. You say, that the course of human affairs often does not coincide with your ideas of absolute right; that is, the good often seem unhappy, and the wicked triumphant. To remedy these evils, you would create an Elysium in which there should be no temptation, no suffering, where there would be no call for benevolence, no opportunity for selfsacrifice, — and where, consequently, virtue would be a mere abstract conception, never a reality. If such a state be preferable to the one in which we live, why were we not placed in it from the beginning? why not admitted at once to the joys of heaven, without carrying thither any stains from earth? By applying the doctrine of a future life only as a solution of the problem respecting the origin of evil, we do not destroy the dif ficulty; we only push it a little further off. And, without this doctrine, the presence of apparent evil in this life will not seem inexplicable to those who can see the whole force of our Saviour's allusion to the righteousness which hath its reward, or who can penetrate the meaning of his solemn declaration, They shall not say, Lo here! or Lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you." 66 The doctrine of Revelation respecting a future life. I do not fear lest these observations should seem opposed even to that belief in the immortality of the soul which is founded wholly upon Revelation. It is certainly conceivable, that the same scheme of government, which is begun here, should be continued hereafter, when, though its essential features remain unchanged, its excellence shall be more apparent. We can conceive that the two periods of human existence should stand related to each other as childhood to mature age, the former being a preparation for the latter, and still so justly and benevolently constituted in itself, that, if existence did not extend beyond it, it would yet mirror to our eyes the perfections of the Infinite One. The commands of conscience, though of absolute obligation, are too frequently so weak as to lose their supremacy over the passions. Nothing could tend so effectually to increase their hold upon our attention, and to strengthen their influence, as the assured belief that the consequences of obeying or neglecting them will extend, and will be recognized by us, through an endless futurity The din and tumult of earthly passions, the force of earthly appetites, which now obscure or drown their utterance, through infinite ages, will be hushed or will have passed away; and as we have formed ourselves here by respecting or contemning their authority, so shall we continue for ever. The incalculable value of a Revelation which should fully establish this great truth, cannot be more impressively set forth than in the few words with which Paley closes his view of the importance of Christianity. "Had Jesus Christ delivered no other declaration than the following,- The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation,' — he had pronounced a message of inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and attested; a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries. It is idle to say, that a future state had been discovered already; it had been discovered as the Copernican system was ; - it was one guess among many. He alone discovers who proves; and no man can prove this point, but the preacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from God." CHAPTER X. THE RELATION OF NATURAL TO REVEALED RELIGION. Summary of the last chapter. The object of the last chapter was to show, that the doctrine of a future life, and, for yet stronger reasons, that of the absolute immortality of the soul, cannot be made out from the light of nature alone, or by the unassisted intellect of man. Questions of fact come within the range of human investigation only when they relate to the present or the past; the future is for us a sealed book, except so far as we can determine what may be, from what has been, or can know directly that what always has been, always must be. We believe that fire will burn the flesh, and thus cause pain, because we have observed that it has done so; but the fact that man has lived, only establishes a presumption that he will continue to live as he has done, that is, in this stage of existence, subject to our powers of observation. When this existence is interrupted by death, and he is wholly removed from our sight and observation, we have no antecedent fact on which to found even a presumption that he continues to live, though in a different state of being; for, apart from revelation, we have never known the grave to give up its dead, we have had no experience of this other state of being. We perceive, then, that a future life is possible, but we have no natural grounds for believing that it is either probable or improbable. --- I remarked, therefore, that the doctrine of a future life stands on the same basis with the opinion, that the other planets of our system are inhabited by beings like ourselves; it is a mere conjecture, which never has been, and never can be, either proved or disproved. It lies beyond the sphere of human knowledge; there is no evidence of it in nature, and the only -- proof of which it is susceptible must be supernatural. If we pass to a particular examination of the several analogies and presumptions which have been offered, from the light of nature, in favor of either of these opinions, we shall find either that they prove too much, or that they are wholly vague and unsatisfactory, answering rather as topics of declamation than as scientific grounds of belief. Thus, the analogy between birth and death affords just as conclusive evidence of the immortality of the whole animate creation as of that of man; since all members, both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, have equally undergone transformations, or passed from one stage of being to another and quite a different one. The argument from the essential unity of our personal being, and from the fact that death is dissolution, not annihilation, proves the preëxistence, quite as strongly as the future existence, of the soul, affords not even a presumption that mind is any more immortal than the ultimate particles of matter, and, in fact, proves nothing in regard to either, unless we make the perfectly baseless assumption, that every absolute unit is essentially indestructible and ingenerable. The general desire for immortality, on which so much stress has been laid, I attempted to show, from an examination of the opinions of the ancients upon the subject, was rather a love of this life and a desire for its prolongation, than any natural wish for a state of retribution and endless existence beyond the grave. To assume, as is often done, that another life is necessary in order to make up for the imperfections, and redress the injustice, which are apparent here, is to assert that the Deity does not govern this world in righteousness, and therefore to afford very insecure grounds for the hope that he has provided another, which he will administer on different principles. That our curiosity is insatiable, and our aspirations after knowledge are so large, that, in comparison with them, the ordinary business of this life seems vexatious, and the sphere of our present existence contemptible, is a fact of immense importance for the moral education of man, and thus answers so useful a purpose here, that it affords no clear indication of what is to be hereafter. |