which it produces, and for every disorder it prevents. And, more particularly, were I confidering a doctrine which commands us to do good without the least oftentation, to do good works, rather than Splendid works'; if this doctrine require also that the left hand fhould not know what the right hand doeththen I should clearly fee the impoffibility of calculating all the benefit which may have accrued to fociety from the promulgation and the practice of fuch a doctrine.

CHAP. VIII.

ANOTHER GENERAL DIFFICULTY:— THAT THE PROOFS OF CHRISTIANITY ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY WITHIN THE COMPASS OF ALL MEN'S UNDERSTAND

I

ING.

ANSWER.

SUMMARY OF

THE AUTHOR'S REASONING ON MI-
RACLES AND TESTIMONY.

FIND another difficulty to encounter:

A doctrine which was to be preached to all nations of the earth; a doctrine which was to give to the whole race of mankind a full affurance of immortality; a doctrine which was an emanation from eternal wisdom itself;-ought not such a doctrine to have rested on proofs which men of all times and all places should have understood with equal facility and ought not the poffibility of scepticism to have been carefully precluded? And yet, what an extenfive knowledge is requifite, to collect, to understand, and to give

a proper

a proper value to these proofs ! how deep, laborious, and intricate the enquiry! how few the perfons capable of fuch a continued application! what uncommon parts, fagacity, and difcernment, are abfolutely neceffary to compare the proofs, to estimate the degree of probability which each of them poffeffes, to judge of the fum of probabilities taken together, to weigh the proofs against objections, to ascertain the force of the objections relatively to each kind of proof, to folve thefe objections, and from the whole to deduce fuch conclufions as appear to approach nearest to certainty! Was a doctrine which required so many extraordinary qualifications of the mind and of the heart, fuch profound knowledge, and 'fo much inquiry; was fuch a doctrine well adapted to every individual? was it calculated to give them reasonable affurances of an happiness to come? could it remove their doubts, ftrengthen and encrease the hopes of reafon, and bring life and immortality to light?

I am fully fenfible of this difficulty, and do not wish to fhrink from it. I fee it in all

its force; yet do not think it infurmountable. Let us then analyse it carefully.

By the force of evidence (b) I have been compelled to acknowledge, that man cannot, by the light of his own reafon, attain to the affurance of a future state. It was therefore by extraordinary means alone that he could arrive at this certainty. I can, without difficulty, conceive that the acquifition of new faculties, or perhaps only a great improvement of his present faculties, might have placed this future ftate within the compass of his intuitive knowledge, and might have admitted him in fome manner to contemplate it, as he does his prefent ftate. I further conceive, that an internal revelation, or external miracles, might afford to man this certainty, so necessary to his happiness, and thus compenfate for the imperfection of his actual faculties. But, the acquifition of new faculties, or even a great increase of perfection in the actual faculties of man, would have made him a very different being from that

(h) Chap. iii. Part xvi. of the Phil. Paling.

which is known to us by the name of man; and, as all the parts of our world have relation both to each other and to the whole fyftem, it is very evident, that if man, the chief being of our planet, had been changed, he would no longer have borne his proper natural relation with the planet where he was destined to pass the first moments of his duration. A more piercing fight, a far more delicate touch, &c. muft have expofed him to continual inconvenience.

It would have been requifite alío, to have altered the economy of the planet, to have placed it in a proper relation with the new of man.

œconomy

The difficulty, therefore, confidered in this point of view, amounts to this--Why has not God made a different earth? And this leads to another question-Wherefore has not God created a different univerfe? for the earth is in connection with the universe, juft as man is with the earth. The universe is the whole of all created beings. This whole is fyftematic and harmonious; there is not a fingle part, which bears not a rela